My language studies are ticking along nicely but my speaking ability has hit a bit of a plateau. I can manage daily interactions like ordering in a restaurant or buying tickets. I can have a conversation with a native speaker, but it is not easy. Some days I have a ‘good Russian’ day, but more often I have a ‘not very good Russian day’. I remember going through the same phase in Vietnamese.
The problem: To be honest other than simple transactions like shopping and arranging appointments, I don’t actually speak Russian very often. At work, some colleagues speak to me in Russian but my work-related vocabulary is limited so I have the habit of replying in English. And due to my busy autumn, I’d been slacking on language exchanges.
This means that when I speak, I can’t always remember the words I want to use and I make lots of mistakes. I’m sure you know this feeling!
The goal: Improve my fluency by having conversations in Russian for 30-60 minutes, 4 times a week for the whole of December
Happy new lunar year of the rooster. I hope it’s a great one for you personally, professionally and in your language learning life too.
Speaking of, I’m well overdue an update here, aren’t I?
Read on for a recap of my language learning in 2016, what study habits and techniques I’m still using and what’s new as I’ve been maintaining my Vietnamese and learning a new language in the past 12 months.
In other news, I’ve started a teaching blog where I reflect and share about teaching English. If you’re a teacher, it might be your cup of tea.
Without further ado, let’s get down to my review of 2016 in language learning.
Maintaining my Vietnamese
I have not been actively learning Vietnamese in 2016. I have been maintaining with less time and enthusiasm than in 2013 but still, Vietnamese will always be part of my life in some way.
I’ve maintained contact with friends on facebook and instagram and well as read things that appear in my news feed in those two places. I also still have V-Pop on my playlist.
In real life I’ve only had one full conversation in Vietnamese since leaving Vietnam. 🙁 But on the plus side I was still able to speak it easily and with most of the fluency I used to have.
Learning a new language
In January I started learning my new language ahead of my move to the Balkans. I started with free videos on Youtube and learning simple words and phrases. I had a few lessons on italki* both before and after I arrived to help me get to grips with the basics.
However I was sorely missing the structure a course provides. Since April I’ve been taking language classes again – two lessons a week of 90 minutes. This has been crucial to my learning.
That all just covers ‘input’ though. What have I been doing to actually practice and work on my speaking and writing?
Living in the country where you speak the language lets you practice the basics for survival like food and transport phrases quite easily. In the city it can be hard to get much speaking practice beyond that as many people speak or are learning English and want to practice on you!
IGLC – chó (dog)
Unsurprisingly I’ve been using Instagram to practice. I participated in Instagram Language Challenge (IGLC) once or twice but the themes don’t always fit in with my learning. I’ve just discovered Instagram Language Diary Challenge which suits me far better. You might remember I used to keep a sentence-long diary in Korean. Now I’m doing the same thing on instagram instead of on paper. I’ve had a few corrections, but not as many as I’d like. However, I’ve been able to read some of my old posts and correct them myself!
Besides that, I have one friend I speak to and message in the language, but other than that I’ve turned to HelloTalk to get more practice. I tried it before when learning Korean but never really got into it.
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Although that sounds like a lot, in reality I average about 10-15 minutes a day on private study. Some days that’s 3 minutes reviewing flashcards in Anki. Other times it’s 30 minutes creating flashcards and adding audio, or messaging a friend while watching TV.
I still have a long way to go and I’m starting to feel like my routine isn’t getting me where I want to be fast enough. I went to a language exchange event for the first time last week and I think that’s something I’m going to be pursuing in 2017.
Over to you: How was your language learning in the year of the monkey? What are your plans for the year of the rooster?
Do you like my notepad? It’s pretty. So nice that I haven’t used it yet, even though I bought it months ago. Mostly because I don’t know what to write on the first page. It should be special for a special notepad, right…
Wait, what has this got to do with language learning?
Well, the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten out of the habit of daily learning. I’m still doing flashcards (almost) every day but that’s only going to help my maintain my level. I haven’t been learning anything new, even with a pretty notebook by my side..
A new start
So I bought a new one.
It’s also fairly cute, but it only cost 3000 VND (about $0.14). So cheap that I can use it as a rough notebook. A place to jot down vocab I’ve just learnt or words I want to look up later. Or to draft some writing before putting it online to get corrected. Notes and scribbles are OK because it’s only a rough book.
Still, I didn’t know what to write on the first page. So I started on the last page.
What to write
While I’ve given you suggestions for writing topics before, I find that once I get started writing in Vietnamese one paragraph usually turns into a page. Who has time for that? On the other hand, my Korean level is so low that it would take ages to sit down and write any of those things.
So keeping it simple, I’m trying to write one sentence a day in Korean and get back to posting a new Vietnamese word to Instagram. But to keep it realistic, I’m aiming for 5 sentences per week and 3 vocabulary photos. If I aim for 7 I will most likely fail, and I don’t want to fail.
A little secret…I started the Korean sentences already. I’ve managed 8 out of 12 days so far and for many of those I actually wrote more than one line.
Except I have another secret. Even with my ‘rough’ notepad I’ve been… …writing on scrap paper first. I do this all the time. I have notebooks and textbooks stuffed with scrap paper. Yay for the environment (recycling), not so yay for being organised.
But who cares? I’m doing something again. It might be small, it might be a bit silly to write things out multiple times but it’s something. And it’s re-creating a habit.
And Vietnamese?
Tomorrow is also a new month, so a chance to get back on track with the Instagram Language Challenge too. Maybe I’ll post a picture tomorrow, maybe I’ll start on Thursday. But I’ll do something.
How to resume your language learning
Thảo ơi, I don’t want to write or share new words. What other easy things can I do?
Practice an answer to a simple question (like Anh/Em/Chị là người nước nào?) over and over again. Repeat your answer 10 or 20 times until you can do it without thinking. Then try again later. And again tomorrow.
Grab a book or online article and simply highlight the words you don’t know. You can look them up now. Or later. Or tomorrow. Or next week. But highlight them now.
Make an outline for something you want to write. Choose a topic and think about your key points. Even if you have to use English to take notes. Again you can look words up later. Just jot down a plan now.
Stopped learning? Just do something. Anything
If even the smallest task is a struggle, look here for advice on taking tiny baby steps towards building a habit.
Over to you: Have you stopped learning? What do you do to get yourself out of a rut?
PS. I’ve been meaning to write this for a while. Or post one of the countless other articles I need to finish editing first. So I’m breaking the habit – I’m posting. Doing something. (Notice a pattern?)
As you may have guessed from the fact I left Vietnam a while ago combined with last week’s post, I’m currently brushing up on my French after seven(!) years of neglect.
What does this mean for my Vietnamese? Well, I’m taking a step back from active study and just maintaining my current Vietnamese level. I don’t want to lose any momentum during this study break, because it is just a break, so every day I’m practising some Vietnamese in some way, shape or form.
But what exactly does that look like?
Skyping with friends
On average 5-6 days a week (total 8-10 hours)
This is the best thing as it keeps me using Vietnamese. However, I’ve noticed I’m already slower at recalling vocab so I’ve had to boost my activity in other areas too. Eventually I want to find new people to practice with as I’m aware that my friends are used to the way I speak.
Revising vocab with Anki
On average 2-4 days a week (total 20 mins)
I’m not adding new cards but simply keeping up with the vocab I learnt in (2 of) my classes. I keep forgetting to review more often, but I’m mostly up-to-date so around 5 mins every few days is more than enough.
Reading short articles
On average 1-2 days a week (total 30-45 mins)
How much time I spend on this mostly depends on how often new articles appear on my favourite sites or if friends share something interesting on facebook. I usually try to read these intensively but less so now I’m reading a lot of French. Of course, I do read a few emails too.
Watching Quà Tặng Cuộc Sống
On average 1 day a week (total 15 mins)
I love these short animations and don’t watch them as often as I should! A lot of the time I can understand them fairly well, but sometimes they go over my head. I watch these for pleasure, without doing any language work.
Writing
On average 2-3 days a week (total 30mins-1 hour)
Again this includes emails, which I am trying to be less lazy with as I usually don’t write the tones and accents because it’s quicker that way. If I have something interesting to write about, or if I’m not writing loads in French, I’ll write something, get it corrected on lang-8 and go through the corrections.
What that looks like
Amazingly it seems that I practice all four skills most weeks! Admittedly sometimes I’ll go a couple of weeks without watching something or intensively reading something. I should probably spend more time on decent input, but at least I’m still getting practice.
In total I spend about 10 hours a week, on average, maintaining my Vietnamese. Mostly through Skype chats which are so easy to keep up with as they’re enjoyable! Even during my busiest weeks this summer, I managed at least 4 hours a week chatting on Skype.
Over to you: How do you maintain a language you’re not actively studying?
…writing on scrap paper first. I do this all the time. I have notebooks and textbooks stuffed with scrap paper. Yay for the environment (recycling), not so yay for being organised.
