Clear the List | Monthly Language Learning Strategies Update | December 2021
The holidays are here! How are you spending your last month of the year?
It’s time for a new analysis of my language goals as a part of Clear the List, but also a new Quest as a part of Language Conqueror!
And this month… it’s all about meditation, which is an incredibly effective tool for both improving your language studies and habit-stacking with your language studies!
I share different techniques for using meditation as a language learning tool and so much more. So if you’re looking to take your language learning to the next level, this month is for you.
What is Language Conqueror? It’s a course I work on with a monthly Quest focused on passion-driven learning. You can learn more, get a feel for my teaching style, and download our free PDF here: Get the Free PDF
And if that’s not enough, you can also get a feel for my teaching style with Snack-Sized Language!
Snack-Sized Language is a free podcast where we teach you snack-sized language lessons. So far we have episodes teaching general language learning tips, Japanese, French, Mandarin and Korean. Plus, we recently added Russian, Spanish, and German. Not to mention, more languages are coming soon!
You can subscribe to the podcast on your preferred podcast platform.
And if you enjoy Snack-Sized language, we would absolutely love it if you left us a review!
And now, on to #clearthelist …
Wondering what #clearthelist is? Let me clear it up for you (see what I did there?). #CleartheList is a linkup where we share our monthly goals, and by we, I mean myself, and you!
We’d absolutely love for you to be a part of our community. You can join us by adding a link to your own goal post in the comments below.
So let’s get started, sharing our goals and motivating one another to #clearthelist!
Please feel free to tag your posts or photos with either #clearthelist on your favorite social media channels!
Last Month’s Highlights on Instagram
Last Month’s Goals
Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // I’m still working at creating more consistency with this. Now that the kids are school-aged it’s a little more difficult to fit in.
Maintain my vocabulary learning streak + maintain my Duolingo learning streak. // I’ve done this with Drops, Memrise, and Duolingo.
Keep working through my YouTube Queue. // Same as last month — I have been working on this, but it is still impossible to catch up. At the end of last month, I had 2,000 videos queued up, and between what I’ve watched and what I’ve added, that’s still about where I’m at this month.
Keep reading Game of Thrones in Russian. // Yes, I’m still making steady progress here.
Keep reading Eye of the World in Hungarian. // Same as above.
Start getting into course book study again. // This really is the most challenging thing for me to work into my schedule, so I didn’t manage this during this month.
This Month’s Goals
Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // As usual, I’d like to continue to incorporate this more and more until we’re an OPOL household. It’s fallen off slightly, so it’s something I want to bring back.
Maintain my vocabulary learning streak. // This has been a great way to rebuild my language routine, so it’s staying on the list indefinitely! I share my stats over on Instagram in my stories nearly every day, so if you’re ever curious where I’m at, you can check out my stories. I was learning Persian, Hungarian, Croatian, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese and have gone on to add Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Keep working through my YouTube Queue. // As always, there’s a lot I need to get through. I hope to continue working at this in order to make consistent progress.
Keep reading Game of Thrones in Russian. // Same as usual.
Keep reading Eye of the World in Hungarian. // Same as usual.
Continue getting into course book study again. // This. hopefully, will finally be the month!
Resources I Used This Month
A quick recap of the materials I am using.
What I Am Using to Learn Chinese:
- LingQ – my favorite tool
- iTalki Lessons – I have weekly Chinese lessons
- Memrise
- Drops
What I’m Using to Brush Up/Improve My French:
What I am Using to Learn Russian:
What I am Using to Learn Persian:
What I’m Using to Learn Japanese:
- Genki I
- Drops – they just added hundreds of new culture-specific words for Japanese!
- iTalki Lessons
- Pimsleur
- Memrise
- Duolingo
What I’m Using to Learn Croatian:
- Colloquial Croatian
- iTalki Lessons
- LingQ – they added Croatian, woot woot!
- Drops
- Memrise
What I’m Using to Learn Hungarian:
- Colloquial Hungarian
- iTalki Lessons
- Drops
- LingQ – they added Hungarian, too!
- Memrise
What I’m Using to Learn Korean:
What I’m Using to Learn Spanish:
What I’m Using to Learn Portuguese:
Not Currently doing any study for: German, Hindi, Norwegian, Hebrew, Italian
What I’m Using for Little Linguist
- Lots of books
- Day-to-day interaction
- italki Lessons
- Duolingo ABC
- Droplets
- Movies in Chinese
- Gus on the Go Chinese
Resources That Aren’t Language Specific
- Fluent in 3 Months Challenge
- Todoist (to keep all my language lessons and to-do’s organized)
- Notion – my new favorite app for taking notes (I just set up a template for the way I use Notion to take notes if you’re interested in duplicating it for yourself)
The Biggest Lesson I Am Taking Away from This Month
Personally, this month has been one of the most challenging months of my life. There is a lot going on and consistency/discipline has helped me maintain my studies through the month. I’ve been able to fall back on my discipline and count on it to help me keep my studies up through this last month.
Because of my background in music, I’ve always known the power of discipline, but this month has truly allowed me to see it in practice.
Don’t forget that I would love to hear all about your goals for this month!
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