Clear the List | Monthly Language Learning Strategies Update | October
The fall season is upon us. We’re digging into Halloween movies and are all decorated. There’s nothing like a little Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown or The Nightmare Before Christmas. And let’s not forget about Young Frankenstein!
I’m still immersed in my Persian language project. I lost my Memrise streak (gah!) but I am spending time with the language every day. Let’s dive in!
The Language Hacking Podcast
The Language Hacking Podcast over at Fluent in 3 Months where I’m co-hosting with Fi3M founder, Benny Lewis is still going strong! We release a new episode every week and we’re up to 13 episodes.
Some of our guests have been: Idahosa Ness, Olly Richards, and Scott Young.
If you give the podcast a listen, or if you already have been listening, we’d love your reviews!
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. // Still working on this. We watch movies every day in Chinese, read a book each night, and have other contact with the language. You can read more about my strategies for sharing the language with my kids here.
Maintain my vocabulary learning streak. // I kept my streak for about half my languages. But I lost it for Persian, Hungarian, and Japanese.
Keep working through my YouTube Queue. // I got through more than 100 videos this month. Maybe more than that. I had nearly 2,000 and am down to about 1,800. So even with the videos I’ve added each week, I have still watched quite a few.
Fluent in 3 Months Challenge // I completed my daily study commitment for Persian every day this month!
Keep reading Game of Thrones in Russian. // I wasn’t able to get to this one. This month, I didn’t particularly have a lot of time to read.
Study Stranger Things in Hungarian. // Same as above.
Finish my Persian Script Hacking book. // Almost done, but I’m starting my Teach Yourself Complete Persian anyway.
Get to lesson 15 of Pimsleur Persian II. // Almost there!
Maintain my weekly lessons in each language. // Yes! I was even able to resume lessons with my Japanese teacher who I hadn’t been able to connect with because our schedules didn’t align.
Have an awesome birthday with family. // I did! We enjoyed dinner together.
Women in Language // The event was amazing. We had attendees join us from all over the world and the talks were so inspiring.
This Month’s Goals
Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // I’d like to continue to incorporate this more and more until we’re an OPOL household. It’s close with Little Linguist, but we still have some time before we’re there with my oldest.
Maintain my vocabulary learning streak. // I have a trip this month which means functioning in another time zone. In the past, this has thrown me off, but hopefully I’ll make it through this time around.
Keep working through my YouTube Queue. // I’d like to continue to whittle this down since I have more than 1,000 videos in my queue. Getting there slowly but surely.
Fluent in 3 Months Challenge // This month my Persian challenge ends and I will hopefully have a 15-minute conversation in Persian. *Fingers crossed.*
Keep reading Game of Thrones in Russian. // Again, more like resume reading Game of Thrones in Russian.
Study Stranger Things in Hungarian. // Same as above.
Complete the first four chapters in Teach Yourself Complete Persian. // One chapter per week!
Finish Pimsleur Persian II. // I want to finish this one up.
Maintain my weekly lessons in each language. // It’s been great getting to keep all my languages active.
Have an awesome Halloween with the kids. // We’ll be celebrating my nephews birthday and the kids are excited to don their costumes.
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:
- LingQ
- Listening to French radio/podcasts/music
- Des Racines et des Ailes
What I am Using to Learn Russian:
What I am Using to Learn Persian:
What I am Using to Learn Hebrew:
What I am Using to Learn Korean:
- LingQ
- Drops – they just added several hundred new culture-specific words for Korean and I’m so excited about the new content!
- iTalki Lessons
- Pimsleur
What I am Using to Learn Spanish:
What I am Using to Learn Italian:
What I’m Using to Learn Japanese:
- Drops – they just added hundreds of new culture-specific words for Japanese!
- iTalki Lessons
- Pimsleur
What I’m Using to Learn Croatian:
- iTalki Lessons
- LingQ – they added Croatian, woot woot!
- Drops
What I’m Using to Learn Hungarian:
- iTalki Lessons
- Drops
- LingQ – they added Hungarian, too!
Not Currently doing any study for: German, Hindi
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
The Biggest Lesson I Am Taking Away from This Month
This month, I’ve really realized how important knowing what motivates me is. In the past, I had a vague awareness of it mattering, but now I have more certainty. But my realization of its importance came from somewhere other than language…
You see, I don’t like working out. But recently, I started doing some private training with my Fluent in 3 Months fellow team member, Caitlin. Before she started coaching me, we did an introduction call. I filled out a survey before the call and one of the questions was about what motivated me.
I wrote my answer. I needed someone who would give me a hard time, even tease me, when they suspected I wasn’t giving my best. And I needed stats, even points.
And when she and I chatted about it, I realized just how much having those two things mattered to me.
It was the reason I’ve been showing up to karate for a year and a half now. My Master gives me a hard time and we have stats on our workouts from our heart rate monitors that show on the board during class. It was the reason I’ve been studying more consistently–because I want to maintain my streaks. It’s also the reason I’m in the best, healthiest shape of my life–because I log all my workouts, body measurements, and calories.
Having these things keeps me motivated and helps me succeed. If I have these things in the areas of my life I need them, I can get where I want to go.
Don’t forget that I would love to hear all about your goals for this month! Please join us by adding your post to the linkup below!
Clear The List Linkup Rules:
1. Share your goal post whether it includes your aspirations for the month or year. Submissions unrelated to the theme or links to your homepage will be deleted. Leave them in the comments below!
2. Link back to this post.
3. Follow the hosts: Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages and Shannon from Eurolinguiste.
4. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Please visit the site of the person who linked up immediately before you and leave them an encouraging comment! By hosting this linkup, we’re hoping to create a positive community where we can all share our goals. If you do not do this, you will be removed from the linkup.
5. Share on social media using #ClearTheList
What's Your Reaction?
