I'm just popping in because I want to feel accountable to my language learning journey!
I am a native English speaker who started learning Spanish last November and I was really enjoying it, but I was learning by myself and I felt like I really wanted some type of interpersonal interaction to go along with it. I just totally fell off studying at some point and didn't get back to it until this week.
I was expecting to feel afraid of speaking it with someone (and I am, to a certain degree!) but I actually mostly felt like I was hungry for it, even though I am an extreme beginner. I love practicing saying the words, it feels so exciting to me and I want to find the right rhythm, the right emphasis.
I'm committing to get back into learning. I recently moved cities and I want to make it part of my routine. I'm trying to start small, just doing Babbel reviews or watching Easy Spanish videos for about five minutes a day to simply get in the habit, and then I'll start growing my studies. I am working on making some sort of study plan for myself.
I think the Babbel Live courses look so cool and I just watched Robin's videos on them, but I have to get a feel for my living costs in my new city first. They seem like the perfect format for what I want - lots of feedback, practice, small groups. I get really nervous thinking about them but also really excited.
Can anyone relate to restarting their studies? :) What worked for you, and how is it going now?
I too started learning Spanish again. I've set a goal to learn as much as I can in the next three months. I'm using the method by Language Lords on Youtube. It is really time-consuming but worth the time. Only within 20 days of doing it consistently, I'm seeing results ad I'm so happy to see the improvement. I also use the app Speeko and Audio lessons from Language Transfer app. I also have been watching the videos of Spanish with Paul on Youtube. Plus I've also started reading a novel in Spanish for the first time. have to use google translate a lot of the time, but one page every day had drastically enhanced not only my vocabulary but also made me familiar with conjugations and grammar. And of course, now have started to journal in Spanish as well. Which is a game changer to be honest. Best of wishes for your learning .
Another Spanish learner here. Sometimes I take small breaks if I'm just not feeling it. This year I decided to just focus on reading, DuoLingo, and a textbook. After my must recent weeklong slump, I decided to swap Duo and the textbook for writing a post twice a week. Sometimes the tools / methods you're using just stop getting you excited to learn.
@Kalsoom, Thank you for sharing your experience and also all of those great resources! I'll check them out. Congratulations on starting to read a novel - I like doing just one page a day and being thorough about it. Sometimes I try to do too much at once and skip the details.
@Tanya, I really like the idea of just switching methods depending on your mood. I think sometimes I am too hard on myself about doing one thing and seeing it through. I want to show my commitment to myself but maybe I need to reassess what that could look like. Thank you for sharing!