I found a simple system to learn a language

After starting to work from home, I found that I wasn't doing as much Spanish as when I could commute and listen to hours every day. I decided to find a simple way to get myself back on track. This is the story of what happened.

👇Want to get better at any language in just 4 minutes a week?

📚Learn a language through the power of stories:

Some of the links above are affiliate links. I receive support at no additional cost to you 🙏😊

[philipdavis]

I've certainly found that when I've committed myself to doing X hours of a language on a day that I want to do it immediately - its actually quite mentally freeing when you've quickly chalked off a key task for the day. I knock off two tasks with one stone - my iPad is 'Japanese only', and on a morning I do one hour on my exercise bike with the iPad and Japanese. Its feels really good to have two things (fitness and language) done before starting work.

[InquirywithHelena]

I’ve recently come back to learning French and reached for low hanging fruit for the first month – I went on Duolingo and allowed it to push me to do a session in the morning and in the evening and that was great because I only did it for a month, and then because I was bored witless by the endless repetition of the same material I quit Duolingo but I now have a French language learning habit. So it now feels natural to study some grammar and read my French novel every day.

[Speechbound]

Fantastic insights on language learning! 📚 I love the idea of habit stacking and tracking your progress. It's so true that making time for language can transform your experience. Excited to implement some of these strategies in my own journey! Thanks for sharing!

[tiagofonseca]

My only problem is wanting to do too much. Trying to balance a 9 to 5 work, training to compete, learn a language, spend time with friends and family… Sometimes I even have to choose between all of that and eating dinner😅

[LanguageMaus]

Nice video! I will also switch to working from home and this is spot on

[TheCompleteGuitarist]

Hmmm conversation. As a native English speaker I didn't really have a lot of conversations in my life. Just the average amount, maybe less as I am quite introverted, and I actually converse quite well in Spanish already anyway. I teach in Spanish too. But that's not where one builds rich vocabulary of words or an ability to express oneself deeply.

[jeffreybarker]

The Power of Habit is the best non-fiction book I’ve ever read—great add! Its lessons work for everything. Mine is tagged and highlighted to death.

Glad to see you’re course correcting, Matt. Understanding the habit loop is like giving yourself the tools to hack your life (except the hack works).

Here’s to hoping people hear what you’re saying and work it out for themselves. Too bad there’s no real hack for language learning.

Cheers, Matt! Great production value as usual.

[dg]

Great video! Way off topic, but I love the Feng Shui paint color in your study room/office. Happen to know the brand and color? It's a nice cream/off white. At the start of a bedroom remodel and suffer through a lot of PTSD and medical malpractice stress. This looks calming. Thank you!

[davidalger]

So listening to the language for 2 hours 5x a week helped? Not studying but consuming.

[raysouth]

I like to clock my hours spent on Spanish. I use Dreaming Spanish which was great right at the start when I knew nothing. I’m at 90 hours now and have hit a wall. The beginner videos are now too easy and boring as hell. The intermediate stuff, at least the videos I want to watch, are just a little too difficult. This comprehensible input method has a lot of appeal but it’s difficult in the early stages. I don’t really know what to do now. I even briefly considered flashcards to try to boost my vocabulary 😮. I got over that.

[jonathangoldthorpe]

What Spanish podcasts do you recommend

[sonjah.]

Some good ideas, nice video, but for me, the title doesn't really reflect what it is about.

[scottrussell]

Can you train your dog in Spanish? 🐶
(I'm not kidding; try it! Your dog won't mind)

[wyverntheterrible]

This is a very inefficient way of acquiring language. Reading, listening... All passive. Have you considered actually working on it? Practising? Building vocab lists, drilling them? Do that one hour a day for 66 days, it will benefit you more than 6 months of your current routine.