How to learn a language by yourself

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Sample Weekly Study Plan:
 
**Monday: Vocabulary and Grammar**
- Morning: 30 minutes on vocabulary using flashcards (Anki/Quizlet)
- Evening: 30-1 hour on grammar exercises from a textbook. Dump them into anki. Use active recall and spaced repetition.
 
**Tuesday: Listening and Speaking**
- Morning: 20 minutes listening to a podcast in the target language. This is super easy. Another one I recommend is just listening to podcasts every night while, say, doing the dishes.
- Evening: 30-1h practicing speaking with a language exchange partner
 
**Wednesday: Reading and Writing**
- Morning: 20 minutes reading a short article or book chapter. Note any grammatical concepts you don’t understand. Dump words into Anki (or similar).
- Evening: 30 minutes writing a journal entry in the target language. Try to use what you were working on in the morning, engaging in spaced, active recall.
 
**Thursday: Immersion and Media**
- Evening: 1 hour watching a TV show or movie in the target language. Lazy. Easy. Fun.
 
**Friday: Review and Practice**
- Morning: 30 minutes reviewing vocabulary and grammar from the week. Add anything you haven’t added to your spaced repetition flash cards, that you think you should.
- Evening: 30 minutes practicing speaking or doing interactive exercises online.
 
**Saturday: Cultural Exploration**
- Afternoon: 1 hour exploring cultural aspects through cooking, music, or virtual tours. You can do a lot of this on Youtube or Wikipedia.
 
**Sunday: Rest and Reflect**
- Reflect on the week’s progress and adjust goals or methods if necessary

#languagelearning #italki #fluency #languages #languageskills

[PerwinkleWinkly]

Honestly, my motivation to learn languages is the process of learning itself. Getting from point A to B and starting to understand things you previously couldn't is just a magical feeling that never gets old!

[DerekUK]

Everytime I look at this channel I get the much needed reminder that I am completely half assing my attempts at learning a language.

[paulwalther]

Language notebook. A written record of everything you tried to remember but forgot. 😂

[ultraprincesskenny]

Every single time I've tried flashcards, I got burnt out and dropped what I was learning. They're not for me. I'm saying this in case anyone else sees this and has a similar struggle. What I started doing instead is just interacting with media in the target language, and when I see a word I can't remember or don't recognize I look it up, try to create a mnemonic, and sometimes make the flashcard.

[momhouser]

Was watching Hotel Del Luna (호텔 델루나) on Netflix with subtitles, and I suddenly felt the urge to be able to *hear* the words being spoken instead of just a string of incomprehensible sounds. 3 years later and I can understand maybe 10% of dialog on a good day (more often less), but I'm stretching my old brain and making slow slow progress while loving every minute.

One of my first words was: 고양이, cat, kitty...which a little girl called the ghost tiger. I got the joke!!

[craigbernthal]

I just enjoy learning languages. I also practice the piano. I'm 72, relatively free of the need to do things for any special reason, and American news these days is so depressing, I can't take much of that. I've got time, dude. so why not?

[charleslee]

The advice I would add when looking for resources. First check if the University of Texas at Austin has produced a free, open source beginner's textbook with video, audio and interactive grammar and vocab exercises, because it is likely that they have!
The UT languages department is legit and the university is intriguingly not interested in making money. They make great resources and then put it online for free.

The first two semesters of Persian (the UT Persian program is one of the best in the world) is entirely available for free online on their website.

I teach college-level French and use their French materials for my beginners classes. Students get free access to materials and it's good quality. (I do not work for UT, just blown away by their magnanimity).

[allisonguthrie]

Trying to learn a critically endangered indigenous language (from my own nation, Métis/Michif), with limited resources and incompletely documented/recorded. It’s really hard. Hard to keep up motivation when it feels futile. But trying to keep putting in the hours despite being a busy and overworked grad student by day. My goal is fluency, eventually, but with opportunities for immersion limited, that might not happen in my lifetime. More feasible goal is to learn enough of the fundamental language foundations to raise kids who grow up knowing those brutally complicated conjugation tables instinctively/naturally by being raised with it instead of having to memorize them, who could go on to learn more and speak it if they choose to.

[SimpleTitle]

I want to learn/am learning Basque to be able to speak with my fiance. She's from the basque country but since moving away she virtually never speaks it. I learned a lot last June, challenging myself to learn as much as I could in 4 weeks (since she came at the end of the month) to surprise her. How I found this channel, actually. Since then, because life and illness, I hadn't been able to sit down and study without getting headaches. But I haven't lost sight of my goal. I want her to never lose that part of home, no matter how far away she travels.

The surprise worked, btw, and she was very happy :)

[mynamejefffffff]

i have been learning mandarin chinese by myself ever since i was 15 (i'm 20 now) and i swear by (mostly) everything you said!
i wanted to be able to understand native material depicting real life converations asap, since i like many chinese celebrities. i used hsk 2.0 as a guide but since i have adhd it's hard for me to turn the words into flashcards and actually review them, so i instead looked for example sentences and tried coming up with scenarios in which you could use that word.
like i said, i like chinese celebrities, so i also looked up words i didnt know that showed up often in songs or cdramas
i began my reading journey with fanfiction (lol) but soon moved on to books and (mainly) online news outlets
i did not practice speaking !! it was the pandemic and i was too awkward to meet natives online and too broke to get lessons. my town doesn't have a big immigrant community, but i was able to meet a family that moved here from taiwan and i could actually communicate with them, to my surprise

overall what i think is most important is tailoring these guidelines to your needs and *likes*, because you won't stick to something you find boring

[genevaconventionsviolator]

I've been learning japanese by myself for a number of years now, and have put a lot of this advice to work. All I have to say is I would probably be a way better speaker if I knew about and implemented the pieces of advice I didn't know about LOL

[c.y.i.didnt.change.my.handle]

I want to be able to ring up a customer in Spanish. Like, it’s a black coffee. I shouldn’t need to get someone else to understand that…..but also I’m not going to be in this job forever. No idea what my motivation will be when i have a desk job (where a native speaker will just be so much of a better choice than me) but i definitely want to keep learning.

[hijackbyejack]

I would be interested in a video that goes into depth about how you structure your anki cards and how you use it.

[JemRochelle]

I'm learning Modern Standard Arabic with Duolingo, and I have been keeping a journal of everything I learn. It's literally the only way I can remember anything 😂

[bryan]

There is another resource not mentioned that is excellent for speaking and listening comprehension: conversation groups that you can find on Meetup, in community centers, etc. They are either free or very low cost. Often native speakers show up. I participate in 4 or 5 French conversation groups that meet once a week. You get everything: feedback, practice in the real presence of someone, and, as a bonus, you can make friends who share your interest. I find this the most helpful and enjoyable thing I do. It’s also good prep before traveling to a francophone country. Even Québec.😉

[karamia]

Motivation…. My son in law is a wonderful guy from Punjab and wants my grandkids to speak Punjabi as a second language. It will help if I learn Punjabi so that I can assist to reinforce that learning. Would also love to be able to converse in Punjabi with my son-in-law’s mum . 😊

[gorcrow]

What a cunning linguist you are!
Fascinating.
I've been teaching myself Russian, poorly, for the past 6 or so years.
I think I finally have the alphabet down! :D

[Bgmutza]

Several years ago, I returned from my first visit to Paris and swore that I would speak French when I returned. After 4 years of grinding Duo and watching lots of YT videos, I returned to France and spoke nothing but French for the entire trip. But I was burnt out when I returned and quit for at least a year.

Now, I’m back at it with a new goal. My wife and I want to buy a small home in rural France in 3 years and I want to be able to converse and understand spoken French much better. I know I need far more speaking and learning practice than the owl can give, so I took the leap to sign up for italki. The next leap of faith will be to step out and risk practicing and feeling foolish with a native speaker. So, that’s my motivation: not feel like a complete idiot and unable to communicate with my neighbors in France!

[sovietbear]

My wife and I are learning Spanish because we plan on retiring to a Spanish0speaking country in 10 years. We're being somewhat leisurely about it because we have time, but we have a lot of Spanish-speakers in the area so we can practice as we go.

[MathAdam]

I’m working on Latin. I’d like to be able to read it for understanding. I also use it for prayers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that people are actually learning to communicate in it.