Six tips for keeping going with your language learning (and an update on my Basque)

You may be several months – or years – into learning a language and it still feels like you’re a long way from fluency.  You may even be wondering whether you’re making any progress at all.  If so, welcome to the club!

I’ve been learning Basque two and a half years now.  In the last few months, there’s been a real feeling of progress, but it’s still slow and I was trudging in the wilderness for months and months and months (and months).   You’re probably not a Basque learner (if you are, do let me know!).  Basque may be a minority interest, the challenge of the longer haul in language learning is not.

I this post, I want to share six tips which, as you’ll see, have – to the extent that I’ve managed to follow them – been helping me to keep going with Basque long after the initial excitement of the new project had passed.  They can help you with your target language too.

Tip one: be accountable

It’s actually ten months since I last blogged about Basque, when I wrote about completing the fifth, three-month online language learning programme that is the Add1Challenge.  It was only when I started going through my diary in preparation for this current post that I realised I had also gone on to do the eighth Add1Challenge; another three months of regular study, which followed straight on after +1C5.

In earlier posts on learning Basque, I’ve already explained how the Add1Challenge works (my fullest review is here).  Accountability is a central plank.  You commit yourself to study your language – whatever it is – for a certain length of time for a certain number of days a week.  You have to report back to all the other participants.  People are also grouped in teams which compete against each other to stay true to their promises.

I don’t think such accountability tracking on its own will stop you giving up (quite a few people do drop out of the Challenge), but it can provide an extra nudge.  There were certainly days when I got started at my study only because “I had to”.

The challenge continued until 29th August and I completed it successfully, achieving my allocated time (30 mins) five days a week, as I’d promised:

Days 1 to 30: 22 days studied, 8 break days
Days 31 to 60: 24 days studied, 6 break days
Days 61 to 90: 21 days studies, 9 break days
Overall: 67 days studied, 23 break days

Studied: 74% of the days (just over the 71% threshold – five days in every seven – I needed to succeed).

While it’s informative, supportive and fun to take part in a group effort like the Challenge, you can create such accountability yourself by working with a language coach or simply keeping a spreadsheet and asking a friend to check in on you (as I discussed in my post on logging your language learning).

As you build “form” and have more and more “yays” in your accountability sheet, the less you want to break your own record.

Tip two: have a routine

That I’d forgotten about a major Basque commitment like Add1Challenge 8 tells you two things:

First, I’ve got a really bad memory 🙁

Second, my Basque learning has been reduced to something of an unremarkable routine and sharing that – encouraging you to do the same – is the point of this post 🙂

Establishing a routine is, with accountability, central to the Add1Challenge and it should be a foundation stone of your success as well.   Commit yourself to spending a set amount of time each week on your language.  Set a specific time in your daily schedule as well (for example first thing in the morning, if that’s the only time you can get before family or work start to take over).

What was I doing? In some ways, this was my least energetic Add1Challenge, and I was reduced to studying my textbooks and listening to the radio a lot of the time (both activities which I have continued since the end of +1C8).

A core component should also be speaking regularly (online or in person) but during +1C8 I’m afraid I only managed a handful of speaking sessions.

Part of the problem was a lot of work travel which kept disrupting that precious routine.

Before the Challenge I had an intense period at work, culminating in a week delivering training to fellow lawyers in Singapore.   I was preparing round the clock, jet lagged and out and about in such free time as I had, discovering the city-state.   I got out of the habit of scheduling informal Skype tutor Irantzu and they proved difficult to reestablish later.  Then, a week into the Challenge, I was in Hong Kong, delivering more training.

With hindsight, I could have planned in advance to schedule speaking sessions despite the change of time zones.  I knew that I’d be able to get internet access in my hotels and the office.  However, there was a lot on and I’m afraid I didn’t do it.

There’s a lot to be said for staying put when you’re trying to make serious progress with a language.  Do you travel a lot as a matter of course with work?  If so, how are you dealing with the added disruption?

In the six months since I finished the eighth Add1Challenge, I’ve continued to try to study Basque regularly, at least three or four times a week (with at least two speaking sessions – three would be better).  You can see my completed study and practice in the log below.

I am very clear why I’m learning Basque (it’s desire, rather than need) but there’s no pressing timetable to my Basque learning, I am not saying I must achieve x by date y.  Without a routine, this language could easily fall by the wayside.

Tip three: have a “portfolio” of language partners/tutors

Besides the distractions of travel, a shortage of language partners made Add1Challenge 8 less than optimal for me.

By the start of the Challenge Beñat, one of the mainstays of my earlier Basque Challenges, had returned to the Basque Country and did not have time to continue as an informal tutor.

Irantzu was also travelling quite a lot in the summer so that, when I got back from my own travels, we could only fit in a single half hour session at the end of July and two in early August.

As part of Add1Challenge “accountability”, I posted day zero, 30 and 60 day three-minute videos on the H2GF youtube channel, just me speaking to camera.  The aim at the end of the Add1Challenge is to record a fifteen minute conversation with a native speaker.  Luckily for me, Irantzu was back home just in time for my final conversation.

Things took a turn for the better in early September, for two reasons.

One: I “discovered” Joseba, the only Basque teacher on the online language teaching and learning exchange italki, a service that I highly recommend.

The same week, I started having advanced German lessons with another italki teacher, Daniela.  Working with teachers through italki has become such a major part of my language learning in the last six months that it’s hard to believe it’s such a recent development for me.

Two: I found out a scheme organised though the website mintzanet.net to put Basque learners in contact with fluent speakers.  You fill in a brief profile (age, sex etc) and they match you up with somebody with whom you can then have conversations on Skype.  This is not a language exchange: the fluent speakers offer their time for free!

I’ve been paired with Oriol.   We’ve only had four half-hour sessions in the first six months (partly because I have not pushed it, given that Oriol is giving his time) but I would certainly like to continue these occasional online meetings.  Not only is it good to get used to a range of different voices in my target language.  Oriol is also an interesting person: a Catalan who has learned Basque very well and also the first airport fireman I’ve got to know, in any language.

By now, my Basque speaking practice has settled into a more-or-less stable two half-hour sessions a week with Joseba, supplemented (ideally) by a weekly session with Irantzu where possible and occasional Skype conversations with Oriol.  You can see the gory detail in my log, below.

I will keep my eyes open for new potential teachers and practice partners for the future.  People have busy schedules and move on.  Make sure you’re not dependent on just one or two people for your crucial speaking practice!

Tip four: less can be more

For the last nine months or so, my Basque habit could easily have been derailed by my travel for work and pleasure, a shortage of conversation partners, and my main focus on German and Russian.

That I completed the eighth Add1Challenge and have carried on with my Basque in the last six months since then is thanks, in part, to the reduced time commitment I started with at the beginning of the Challenge.

In my first two Challenges, I’d been signed up for an hour a day, five times a week.

For +1C8, I dropped to 30 minutes, five times a week.

This proved to be a very smart move.  Less really can be more.  It’s better to keep going at a more modest pace than to give up!

Using shorter study “slots” really works for me.  I use the “Pomodoro technique” (simply setting a timer at the beginning of each thirty minute slot and keeping my head down until it beeped thirty minutes later).

It’s less of a big deal to get started when you know you’ll have a break after thirty minutes.

You know you have limited time, so your motivation to keep focussed and resist distractions feels greater.

Before you know it, you’re in “flow” and it’s actually rather annoying when the buzzer goes at the end and it’s time for a break before resuming, or time to move on to other tasks.

Tip five: work out whether and how classes can work for you (for me, the icing, not the cake)

After a long summer break, my weekly 90 minute “off-line” Basque class recommenced in late September.  Ever the model student, I was, erm, absent for the first three sessions 🙁  I did have a “good” excuse, though.  I was in the USA visiting old friends in Chicago and then at the Polyglot Conference in New York. Later on in the term, I missed more classes as I prepared for my advanced German exam and travelled to Berlin to sit it. How lucky I was with travel last year!

Overall, I only made class six times out of ten in the autumn term.  In the spring term my attendance was again not been perfect: I attended 8 sessions and missed three.  My father had an operation and I had to miss a class to look after him.  On two occasions, I simply felt too exhausted from my daily commute and grind to attend.

With such a chequered attendance record, why do I keep up with the classes?

After all, many leading language learners don’t “rate” group classes at all and I accept that they have a downside: the average pace of the class can hobble you (whether slowing you down or leaving you behind), you have less “contact” time with the teacher.

I’m clear that self-study and one-to-one work is the main engine of progress for me.

That said,  the class provides additional, secondary benefits which I do value.

It provides continuity, which can be more stable than work with online partners.

It’s a contrast to my solitary work with the books and one-on-one work and gives me some variety in materials, additional explanations of the same point, activities and context.

My own mistakes and those of other members of the group reinforce my learning.

It gives me the chance to practise the language with a wider range of people and exposure to the accent of another native speaker, the teacher.

From a narrow learning point of view, it’s one of the threads that makes the rope stronger, just not one of the thicker ones.

More broadly, it provides ready-made community in my task and has helped me to develop a social life in the language.

Tip six: build a social life in your language

I first met Basques through my friends in the Welsh language movement, three years before I started learning Basque.

The other opportunity to get to know people and build something of an “organic” social life through the language has come thanks to the London Basque Society.  It’s the Society which runs the classes.  It also puts on social events several times a year and my first experience was of a Basque traditional music event (which turned into a party and rock gig) in the evening.  That was a couple of years before I somehow found myself learning the language.

There are several meals a year, often attended by thirty or forty people, with people from all three classes (beginners, intermediate (that’s us) and advanced (awe!)) welcome.  There are also occasional concerts, literary readings or events linked to the Basque calendar, such as the “korrika” mass relay race held in the Basque country every two years to raise money for Basque cultural activities.

Several times a year, there is also a lunch specifically to bring learners and native speakers together called the “Mintzapraktika”.

I’m not able to attend as many of the events as I’d like, but I attend as many as I can.

Just by virtue of attending a class for two plus years, you start to get to know people.  One thing leads to another….a leaving meal for one of the teachers….a surprise birthday party for one of the class members…  You find yourself being WhatsApped the details and changes to the meeting place or time in Basque, whether you’re ready for it or not.

By definition, you can’t force the development of an organic social life in your target language.  It takes time.  You can, though, put yourself very much “in harm’s way” by throwing yourself into a community of learners and teacher and by starting to do things through the medium of your new language that you’d enjoy doing anyway, so that it becomes about something other than the language itself.

My Basque log: the last six months in figures…. 

My Basque learning has been playing second fiddle to my advanced language projects (German and Russian), just as your language learning may well not be your number one priority in your life perhaps due to the demands of work and family.

There’s nothing wrong with a modest time commitment, but it does make efficient learning all the more important.

You need not only a routine, but a routine of active engagement with your language, study, generating speech or written composition.  I manage this quite often, though sometimes I find myself sliding into passive reading and listening, because it’s easier.   Hmmmm……moving swiftly on to the numbers!

Since the end of the Eighth Add1Challenge, my time investment has been quite modest, on average around six or seven hours a month.  The jump in March is due to my new, early morning routine, which I can say more about another time.

My study since the end of the Add1Challenge 8 (last August) tends still to be in the 30 min slots that I got used to then, but spread rather unevenly through the week.  People often say that a little often is better than periods of binge activity.  My equivalent daily average would be about 20 minutes a day.

Here’s my log in full since the end of the Eighth Add1Challenge :

September: Lessons with Joseba: 3 Lessons with Irantzu: 2 Session with Oriol: 2 Self study sessions: 30 mins x 4 90 min classes attended: 0 Total hours: 7  Notional mins/day: 14	October: Lessons with Joseba: 5 Lessons with Irantzu: 0 Session with Oriol: 1 Self study sessions: 30 mins none. 90 min classes attended: 1 Total hours: 4.5    Notional mins/day: 8
November: Lessons with Joseba: 2 Lessons with Irantzu: 0 Session with Oriol: 0 Self study sessions: 30 mins x 2 90 min classes attended: 3 Total hours: 6.5  Notional mins/day:13	December 2015: Lessons with Joseba: 6 Lessons with Irantzu: 1 Session with Oriol: 0 Self study sessions: 30 mins x 6. 90 min classes attended: 2 Total hours: 10 Notional hours/day:19
January 2016: Lessons with Joseba: 9 Lessons with Irantzu: 2 Session with Oriol: 0 Self study sessions: 30 mins x 1 90 min classes attended: 1 Total hours: 6 Notional mins/day: 11	February 2016: Lessons with Joseba: 5 Lessons with Irantzu: 1 Session with Oriol: 1 Self study sessions: 30 mins x 3 90 min classes attended: 1 Total hours: 7 Notional mins/day: 14
March 2016: Lessons with Joseba: 6 Lessons with Irantzu: 2 Session with Oriol: 0 Self study sessions: 30 mins x 19 90 min classes attended:3 Total hours: 18 Notional mins/day: 34

I estimate that my total time investment so far is about 250 hours of self-study and another 80+ hours of group study in class.  What has all this investment brought me?

A great deal of interest and enjoyment of the process.

That’s good because the here and now, as the philosophers sometimes tell us, is all there is.

It’s also good because my objective achievements are still up and down.

There’s no doubt I’ve made real progress in my conversational abilities since I took the Add1Challenge4 and 5.  I can have real (pretty basic) conversations, though I still have blanks or forget some of the core vocabulary, which is very frustrating.  I can often guess enough of what my conversation partners are saying to keep an exchange going.  Some Skype lessons seem to flow and I end feeling I could conquer the world.  After others, I feel down and discouraged.

My vocabulary is gradually widening and I have covered many structures in the language, though I have still not mastered all of the conditional and potential forms.  I’ve still not studied the imperative or subjunctive verb forms at all.

I can understand quite a few of the Basque tweets in my Twitter feed and I can often get the (very broad) gist of what’s said on radio and feel I’m picking more and more detail out.

It’s difficult to say, but I would estimate my level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages at a very solid A2, the higher of the two “basic user” levels (about 1+ on the ILR scale used in the United States).

I haven’t actually been back to the Basque country since I started learning.  That’s going to be the big test of my practical abilities.   I want to get as far as I can before that point comes, which I expect to be later this year.  I have exciting plans for Project Basque for the late summer and autumn.  It’ll become, for three months, my number one language priority.  Watch this space!

Slow cooking, but cooking all the same

In the meantime, I’ll keep things cooking slowly on the “back burner”.

This post has been all about how you combine your language study with real life for the long term.  Thanks to a routine (upheld by accountability, advanced booking of lessons and logging), my group class and a bit of a social life, I’m still in the game.

I hope these tips will help to keep you in play with your language learning too.

As the old proverb goes, it doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you don’t stop!