Your Study Routine

Now that we’ve discussed what to do with your time, we turn to the when and where of your learning: your routine. There are 5 key points we will cover:

Spend as much time with the language as possible
Immersion
Integrate learning into your life
Staying motivated
Habit

Spend as much time with the language as possible

Languages require a certain number of hours to achieve a high level, and you cannot cheat your way out of this requirement. This brings us to one of the most important principles:

Principle: Spend as much time as you can with your language
The key factor determining how fast you learn your language is time. If you want to improve quickly, aim to spend as much time as possible learning. The more the better. It is far more important than having the perfect technique or using the perfect resource.

To help build your time with the language, it is important to study every day. Ideally, commit to study at least an hour per day. Beyond an amount that interferes with maintaining a healthy lifestyle, there is no maximum—the more time you can commit each day, the faster you will progress.

There are a lot of ways to increase the time you spend with the language without proportionally increasing the burden on you.

Immersion

Immersion is a term you will see thrown about frequently in online language learning circles. Immersion describes the process of immersing yourself in the language, allowing it to surround you constantly throughout your daily life. A common misconception is that effective immersion requires moving to the country where a language is spoken. Many who have done so will attest to how easy it is to instead become immersed in your own bubble of your native language, especially if you don’t adjust your online life and/or find yourself socialising with fellow foreigners. Conversely, there are lots of ways to immerse yourself in your target language in your hometown, just as members of any immigrant community can remain immersed in their language while living in your country.

Good language learning technique incorporates various methods of surrounding yourself with the language in addition to your normal study time. This is a great way of utilising the above principle, Spend as much time as you can with your language, without the burden of effortful study.

Think of learning language as something that becomes a part of your life rather than something to set time for like a school subject. This enables you to spend far more time with the language than you otherwise would have.

Here are some ways you can immerse yourself:

Use media (TV, podcasts, YouTube, etc) in your target language when normally you would do it in your native language
Try to find a friend or group of friends that speak your target language
Join groups or attend events frequented by people from the community of the language you are learning
Change the language of the devices you use and websites you visit frequently
Once you are good enough, try to think in your target language

Integrate learning into your life

A big advantage of the modern world is you can easily take your study materials and content with you wherever you go. To do some extra learning, you can use the small bits of downtime throughout your day, such as on the bus, in a queue, or walking between classes. Short intervals add up, and finding a few minutes multiple times throughout the day can add up to the equivalent of a full lesson. Here are a few ideas:

Get a penpal on a chat app such those listed in the table of language exchange resources; use any downtime to read and send messages
Use digital flashcards on your phone
Use a beginner course that has a smartphone app
Listen to podcasts while cooking, cleaning, walking, or during any activity where you don’t have to carefully focus
Carry a book with you

When to spend your time

I recommend you build a routine. To do this, have a set time each day you devote to study at a desk without any pauses or distractions. It helps if a block deals with a single resource, such as an article, course lesson, workbook chapter, or podcast episode. Any immersion activities you do are valuable, but should be considered additional to this study block.

It also helps to intersperse your learning throughout the day. As long as you are doing a block of at least 20 minutes, then the rest of your learning can be done any time. Similarly, try to study consistently every day rather than doing it all at the end of the week.

Staying motivated

Ask anybody who has spent enormous amounts of time mastering a skill, and they will frequently tell you they did it because they were highly motivated, often out of inherent love of the thing they are doing. If you want to maximise your chances of success, you will need to keep your motivation high.

Principle: Keep up your motivation
Staying motivated is key to learning your language. Pay attention to your motivation and focus on doing activities you know keep you motivated and interested.

Motivation helps you study more frequently, study longer, and reduces the chances you will give up, while becoming unmotivated can lead to stagnation as you find it difficult to sit and study for the required length of time. Here are some ideas to help you keep your motivation high:

Use resources you enjoy—Try different methods and choose one that you enjoy the most. This will take the edge off the study process.
Use content you find interesting—There’s lots of interesting content out there. You will find yourself enjoying learning your language a lot more when you find content you enjoy for its own sake.
Work towards your goals—Striving towards your goals, making progress, and successfully engaging with those parts of the language can be a motivating experience. It can be helpful to keep your goals around you. For example, hanging around with speakers of the language you are learning.
Refresh—If you feel yourself stagnating, try changing your routine by studying at a different time, studying in a different place, doing exercises you wouldn’t usually do, or using content you don’t usually use.
Maintain a growth mindset—We’ll cover this next.

Growth mindset

A growth mindset is the belief that you are capable of improving. Conversely, a fixed mindset assumes your talents and intelligence are static givens. Don’t let your beliefs about your own ability place limits on what you can achieve. Believing that you lack certain talents or will never reach a certain level will make it so. While talent provides a nice boost, anybody who got good at anything got there through thousands of hours of practice that you don’t see. The same is true for you; progress will take time and practice, so don’t let your mindset hold you back.

Habit

We are creatures of habit. Try to build a habit of studying at a regular time each day. The best time for many people is first thing in the morning, while you are still fresh and probably don’t have anything else scheduled. With a good habit, your automatic process should be to begin studying without you having to think about it. If you have to ask yourself “should I study or should I do something else?”, it takes mental effort to force yourself to study that will wear you down over time. Instead, your default should be this time is dedicated to study. If you want to use that time for something else, you need to find valid and specific reason.

It helps a lot if your interaction with the language is consistent. Try not to take long breaks from learning. Do at least a little bit every day. Too tired? Just do five minutes. Those five minutes now stop you breaking the cycle, keeping you in the habit of doing something every day and keeping the language active in your mind.

Another key to maintaining your habit and routine is discipline. Discipline is not an inherent trait, but a set of habits and mental tools that help one start projects and stay on-task. Not every day will you find it easy to keep your habit. If this is you, you may need to find ways to force yourself to at least begin studying. Try promising yourself to simply start with the intention of only doing five minutes. Usually you will find it easier to continue once you have already started.

Moving forward

You are now in a good position to start studying. All you need to do is begin searching for resources, choose something you think works best, then begin with whatever mix of the key activities works for you.

From here we will be looking at how to learn more effectively. We’ll start with input, then move on to grammar, vocabulary, flashcards, speaking, and finally pronunciation. If you have time, I recommend you continue to read after this chapter.