How to start learning a language

           Learning a language (or 3) is very tough. When you first start out you are very motivated and feel like you can put in a thousand hours a day if you can. Soon however, you begin to get less and less motivated and it is at that time that people start to get dejected and give up. This is especially true when you are studying on your own and not in a class setting or if you don't have someone to practice with. So what can you do to stop yourself from getting to this point in your studies? I've done a bit of research and watched a lot of YouTube videos so you don't have too. 😁

*Set Goals:

1. Think about WHY you want to study this language. Write out your reasons and then summarize them onto one page and put it somewhere you can look at it when you need motivation or a reminder of why you are doing this. 
2. Have one overall goal that you want to work towards. This could be anything from taking a test like TOPIK or the HSK to writing a letter in your target language to someone you admire like an idol, actor, writer, political or even a friend.
3. Start breaking that main goal into smaller goals, and put down realistic time limits on these smaller goals. To achieve this you need to do a little research into your target language and take into account how much you can realistically spend working on your studies each day. For example, when I first started learning Korean I found out that you can learn their alphabet in two hours so I set myself the goal of learning it in one week. I could only spend half an hour per day studying uninterrupted so I paced myself: 4 days to learn the alphabet and 3 days for review/mastery. And if I for some reason couldn't study on one of the four days I had time to make it up. 

These are my goals for learning Korean.

*Be gentle with yourself: 

          It is important to realize that there will be times when life gets in the way or you'll be just not motivated enough to do anything. During those times be gentle with yourself. Realize that what was not finished this month can be finished next month and if motivation was your problem look back at your goals and why you wanted to do this in the first place. 

*Don't compare yourself to others: 

          One of the biggest mistakes we make is to compare our progress to others. Some people learn faster while others take their time neither one if better than the other. You could be better at grammar and vocabulary while they are better at speaking or vice versa. If you catch yourself comparing yourself with others just tell yourself to stop. It does no one any favors. 

I hope this helps you a little with your language learning journey.