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How to learn a language when you don’t know where to start:

General Plan:

Weeks 1 and 2: Purpose:

Learn the fundamentals sentence construction

Learn how to spell and count

Start building a phrase stockpile with basic greetings

The Alphabet

Numbers 1 - 100

Subject Pronouns

Common Greetings

Conjugate the Two Most Important Verbs: to be and to have

Basic Definite and Indefinite Articles

Weeks 3 and 4: Purpose:

Learn essential vocabulary for the day-to-day

Start conjugating regular verbs

Days of the Week and Months of the Year

How to tell the time

How to talk about the weather

Family Vocabulary

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 5 and 6: Purpose:

Warm up with the last of the day-to-day vocabulary

Add more complex types of sentences to your grammar

Colours

House vocabulary

How to ask questions

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Forming negatives

Weeks 7 and 8: Purpose:

Learn how to navigate basic situations in a region of your target language country

Finish memorising regular conjugation rules

Food Vocabulary and Ordering at Restaurants

Money and Shopping Phrases

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 9 and 10: Purpose:

Start constructing descriptive and more complex sentences

Adjectives

Reflective verbs

Places vocabulary

Weeks 11 and 12: Purpose:

Add more complex descriptions to your sentences with adverbs

Wrap up vocabulary essentials

Adverbs

Parts of the body and medical vocabulary

Tips for Learning a Foreign Language:

Learning Vocabulary:

What vocabulary should I be learning?

There are hundreds of thousands of words in every language, and the large majority of them won’t be immediately relevant to you when you’re starting out.Typically, the most frequent 3000 words make up 90% of the language that a native speaker uses on any given day. Instead try to learn the most useful words in a language, and then expand outwards from there according to your needs and interests.

Choose the words you want/need to learn.

Relate them to what you already know.

Review them until they’ve reached your long-term memory.

Record them so learning is never lost.

Use them in meaningful human conversation and communication.

How should I record the vocabulary?

Learners need to see and/or hear a new word of phrase 6 to 17 times before they really know a piece of vocabulary.

Keep a careful record of new vocabulary.

Record the vocabulary in a way that is helpful to you and will ensure that you will practice the vocabulary, e.g. flashcards.

Vocabulary should be organised so that words are easier to find, e.g. alphabetically or according to topic.

Ideally when noting vocabulary you should write down not only the meaning, but the grammatical class, and example in a sentence, and where needed information about structure.

How should I practice using the vocabulary?

Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check - Use this method for learning and remembering vocabulary. This method is really good for learning spellings.

Make flashcards. Write the vocabulary on the front with the definition and examples on the back.

Draw mind maps or make visual representations of the new vocabulary groups.

Stick labels or post it notes on corresponding objects, e.g when learning kitchen vocabulary you could label items in your house.

How often should I be practising vocabulary?

A valuable technique is ‘the principle of expanding rehearsal’. This means reviewing vocabulary shortly after first learning them then at increasingly longer intervals.

Ideally, words should be reviewed:

5-10 minutes later

24 hours later

One week later

1-2 months later

6 months later

Knowing a vocabulary item well enough to use it productively means knowing:

Its written and spoken forms (spelling and pronunciation).

Its grammatical category and other grammatical information

Related words and word families, e.g. adjective, adverb, verb, noun.

Common collocations (Words that often come before or after it).

Receptive Skills: Listening and Reading

Reading is probably one of the most effective ways of building vocabulary knowledge.

Listening is also important because it occupies a big chunk of the time we spend communicating.

Tips for reading in a foreign language:

Start basic and small.  Children’s books are great practice for beginners. Don’t try to dive into a novel or newspaper too early, since it can be discouraging and time consuming if you have to look up every other word.

Read things you’ve already read in your native language. The fact that you at least know the gist of the story will help you to pick up context clues, learn new vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

Read books with their accompanying audio books. Reading a book while listening to the accompanying audio will improve your “ear training”. It will also help you to learn the pronunciation of words.

Tips for listening in a foreign language:

Watch films in your target language.

Read a book while also listening along to the audio book version.

Listen to the radio in your target language.

Watch videos online in your target language.

Activities to do to show that you’ve understood what you’ve been listening to:

Try drawing a picture of what was said.

Ask yourself some questions about it and try to answer them.

Provide a summary of what was said.

Suggest what might come next in the “story.”

Translate what was said into another language.

“Talk back” to the speaker to engage in imaginary conversation.

Productive Skills: Speaking and Writing

Tips for speaking in a foreign language:

If you can, try to speak the language every day either out loud to yourself or chat to another native speaker whether it is a colleague, a friend, a tutor or a language exchange partner. 

Write a list of topics and think about what you could say about each one. First you could write out your thoughts and then read them out loud. Look up the words you don’t know. You could also come up with questions at the end to ask someone else.

A really good way to improve your own speaking is to listen to how native speakers talk and imitate their accent, their rhythm of speech and tone of voice. Watch how their lips move and pay attention to the stressed sounds. You could watch interviews on YouTube or online news websites and pause every so often to copy what you have just heard. You could even sing along to songs sung in the target language.

Walk around the house and describe what you say. Say what you like or dislike about the room or the furniture or the decor. Talk about what you want to change.This gets you to practise every day vocabulary.

Tips for writing in a foreign language:

Practice writing in your target language. Keep it simple to start with. Beginner vocabulary and grammar concepts are generally very descriptive and concrete.

Practice writing by hand. Here are some things you can write out by hand:

Diary entries

Shopping lists

Reminders

What could I write about?

Write about your day, an interesting event, how you’re feeling, or what you’re thinking.

Make up a conversation between two people. 

Write a letter to a friend, yourself, or a celebrity. You don’t need to send it; just writing it will be helpful.

Translate a text you’ve written in your native language into your foreign language.

Write a review or a book you’ve recently read or a film you’ve recently watched.

Write Facebook statuses, Tweets or Tumblr posts (whether you post them or not will be up to you).

Write a short story or poem.

Writing is one of the hardest things to do well as a non-native speaker of a language, because there’s no room to hide. 

There are lots of ways to improve your writing ability, but they can be essentially boiled down to three key components:

Read a lot

Write a lot

Get your writing corrected

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a gentle reminder that you’re still young and there’s still plenty of time to figure things out, become who u want to be and create a comfortable life for yourself

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Literally do your work as soon as you know it exists. If you get homework, do it during your free or when you get home or on the train if you really want to, on the day you get it. Just got set an assignment? Get the draft done that weekend. It doesn’t have to be amazing and absolutely ready to send in, it just needs to exist. Just got sent an email? Reply when you see it. If you’re not sure how to response to it, write Dear (), leave a gap and then write Regards () and keep that in your drafts. Set a reminder on your computer or write the reminder on a sticky note that you’ve got that sitting in your drafts and you need to send it off in the next 24 hours. Need to clean your room? Don’t spend time thinking or planning how you’re going to clean it or how you’re going to change up the space in the process, just pick stuff up and put it where it should be until everything’s in order. Done. Seriously dude, when a task arises as an issue, tackle it as soon as you realise it exists. Remember, it doesn’t need to be amazing it just needs to be done. So, when the due date of the task creeps closer, you can go back, work with what you have and make it the quality you want it to be. 

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group project? get this!!! ☘️☘

Revision History Analytics! wow!

i don’t know how to express how incredibly useful this add-on is.

basically, it displays stats like how many words you’ve written and deleted compared to the other people in your group in shared documents.

 i know that many people do not like grooup projects (me, myself and i included), and part of it lies in not knowing how much the other parts contribute vs. how much i contribute. the other week i was looking for a tool, any tool, which would show just this (i.e. user activity/user productivity) in google document, and i found this tool called “Revision History Analytics”. my wishes came true!

 now, i do not know what struggles other people face out there but i write this in hopes of helping at least someone out there! i might also be the last one to use this lol. good luck writin’n’ stuff ☘️

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🌟 so! i've been tracking the last three months and it has honestly been an incredible experience! this was just what i needed all my life. i've started tracking my study habits too, and that really opened up my eyes. these sheets are from @emmastudies ! thank you!!! 🌟 if anyone might be wondering: i started using one color for each week, and i used promarkers and copics because the wide brush on those fit the squares neatly.

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STUDY HACK

PRETEND YOU’RE IN YOUR FAVORITE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE AND YOU ARE DOING IMPORTANT IMPORTANT  I M P O R T A N T  WORK TO SAVE THOSE YOU LOVE AND THAT UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE . 

REALLY GETS YA MOTIVATED FRENS.

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You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.

Carl Jung (via purplebuddhaquotes)

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weekly planner is saving my weeks! and speaking of weeks, there's just a few left until christmas break!!! currently reading "chaos" by James Gleick, definitely check it out.

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modern disney princess study moods

snow white

apple and cinnamon tea, having the cleanest of clean studying spaces, instrumental covers of pop songs, needs to study on her own for important things but loves organising study groups, makes mind maps and diagrams for all her subjects, studies first thing in the morning as the sun rises, always gets a full night of sleep.

cinderella

likes dressing up even for the most basic of social work study sessions, never without a full pencil case and oversized mug of darjeeling tea, lives on her own away from her step-relatives and loves being able to study in peace, doesn’t do study groups but organises collaborative Google docs and always helps others who don’t get the material (she gets the nickname ‘fairy godmother’ as a result), can’t wait to become a social worker.

aurora

sleeps in late but is ready to go almost immediately, never without a full mug of vanilla coffee, everything is coordinated pink and blue, loves studying out in nature with her notes, listens to lo-fi music and romantic songs from the 1950s to help her relax, has the prettiest studyblr out there for a english literature student, audits fashion classes in her spare time, sketches out dresses when listening to her lectures.

ariel

mulls over what she needs to revise and study in the shower every morning, dreams of life after college, even though she loves her marine biology course, spends time at the marina any chance she gets, sneaks on her father’s yacht to study with the smell and spray of the sea around her, breaks up chunks of studying with swimming in the college pool, has a part time job at the pool to help support her studies.

belle

always overruns her study sessions with exploring new concepts and materials that aren’t on the syllabus but fascinate her anyway, studies with pastries from the local bakery and brings them to study groups, loves studying in coffee shops and cafes, practically lives in the library, never without her glasses, always about the extra credit, is planning on her masters and doctorate in mechanical engineering.

jasmine

needs google calendar to keep on track on everything, has the fanciest stationery, immaculate handwriting, studies with her cat on her feet, drinks only sweet turkish coffee, uses pomodoro technique but with keeping up with the kardashians, takes extra semester courses alongside her business management course.

pocahontas

super motivated environmental sciences student, spends a lot of time studying with the geography and geology students too, uses her studies as a way to advocate for environmental change, herbal tea all the way, covers entire tables in the library with her maps and research, leads live study sessions on facebook live, uses recycled paper notebooks only.

mulan

listens to lectures on her phone while she works out, uses her morning run to work out difficult concepts in her head, drinks only green tea when she studies, but chugs red bull when it hits midnight, uses the library late at night with noise cancelling headphones, listens to power ballads and motivational jams.

tiana

the hardest working student you’ll ever meet, balances work and school really well, takes breaks on her waitressing and barista jobs, dark roast coffee and beignets as study rewards, can survive on three hours sleep, listens to ambient beats and nineties pop to focus, starts internship applications two months early, takes time off when exams are over to just sleep and watch netflix, dreams up ideas for restaurant dishes when she should be rewriting her notes, queen of time management.

rapunzel

notes tend to be speckled with paint, sketches as she listens to psychology lectures, motivating as all heck, listens to guitar music when she studies, likes lemonade to drink alongside her study, hoards books about subjects she’d like to study, her bullet journals feature prominently on her instagram, has highlighters for everything, documents her entire studying process on snapchat.

merida

listens to heavy metal and rock music, never without her massive headphones, uses archery as an analogy for everything in her classes, studies for sports science on her rooftop when things get too loud at home, happier when she’s out in the woods studying, red bull and coffee as study aids, hates studying but does really well in exams.

anna

has no formal organisation method for her notes, super colourful highlighters everywhere, always hits snooze, hot chocolate with cinnamon all year round, amazing at energising people in study groups, queen of the study whatsapp group for their theatre and performance class, has nothing but broadway musicals on her study playlist.

elsa

doesn’t do study groups, but will occasionally study with anna if she needs it, likes her cold press coffee and frozen lattes, uses pastel highlighters exclusively, reads the textbooks from cover to cover and not just the assigned readings, leads the curve for her history and environmental chemistry course, has debussy and saint-saens as her soundtrack for studying.

moana

studies in the early morning, copies everything from her international history and politics classes, loves to revisit her notes in the sunshine or at the beach whenever possible, doesn’t do caffeine but drinks a lot of orange juice and water, volunteers for opportunities with the aged and children any chance she gets, has aims to be a community organisor.

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a list of untradtional study tips

buy new/pretty stationery; i love buying new pens and notebooks so much that i’ll easily get through re-writing notes i had been putting off

create a few study playlists; since instrumental/classical music helps improve brain functioning, have a selection of ones you like, but also add in the odd soft lyrical song. take a break every time a song with lyrics comes on and work during the instrumentals. it should be in a 5:1 ratio (instrumental:lyrical) that way you will work for 20-30 minutes with a 5 min break 

make your study space smell good; light a candle, or a smell that you enjoy, try to use the same scent every time to trigger memory recollection. mint and vanilla are my favs!

write down how much time you spend studying for a test and then the grade you got; then you can figure out how time you really need to spend to get a good grade. this will help you use your time more effectively

read over your notes before you sleep; this allows for neuron to be killed and myelin pathways to be made! which means learning and understanding, yay!

get done up; you don’t always need to study in comfy clothes, putting on makeup and a nice outfit can put you into a ‘let’s get shit done’ mood

make you notes pretty; it’s more visually interesting to study and can me more fun to write and make, which helps you learn while you write them!

i really hope this can help some of you and that you enjoy these tips! don’t be afraid to ask me any questions!

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announcing your plans puts pressure on you to uphold an image, keep them undercover and protected until they are semi or completely fulfilled, this also upholds your inner motivation to prove only to yourself that you can complete what you want to achieve

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top 5 videos that make me want to study

hey guys, on my instagram i asked if people wanted to see videos that motivate me studying, pushing my limits, and most important help me stop procrastinating. so here is my top 5 videos, hope you like them!

video number one: The ABCs of SUCCESS - Amazing Motivational Video for Students, Studying & Success in Life

video number two: Grey’s Anatomy, Cristina Yang: “Be unstoppable.”

video number three: Legally Blonde - I’ll show you how valuable Elle Woods can be!

video number four: Michaela Pratt | That’s My Girl (How To Get Away With Murder)

video number five: From FAILING STUDENT to ROCKET SCIENTIST - The Motivational Video that Will Change Your Life

bonus video: Rory’s system to study her finals (Gilmore Girls)

My social media: Instagram / Youtube 

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study snack! i was always deeply amazed by the medieval castle on the small milk chocolate bars, ever since i was little. 🍫🏰 don't forget to eat your rewarding & re-energizing study snacks!

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● seize time opportunities. If I have 15 minutes until your next class, I sit down and do homework in the hallway. If I have a long commute, I’ll do flashcards. This works because you most likely won’t have anything else to do anyways, so it’s easier to get your work done.

● start something. When I get a lab report assignment, the first thing I do is pull up the directions and at least start the cover page and pull up some research links. It takes 5 minutes but it gets the ball rolling and makes it more likely that you’ll finish what you started.

● auto-mode. When I procrastinating, it’s usually because I’m too busy thinking about what I’m going to do. Instead, I like to pretend I’m in “auto-mode” and just get started as fast as I can. auto-mode means shutting out distracting thoughts or pleas to watch one more funny cat video and forcing your hands to open your textbook. Works every time.

● personally, creating time schedules don’t work for me because if I fall out of time, the whole schedule falls apart and I usually give up. Instead I use time games. I’ll tell myself something like “work as hard as you can until 11:00 sharp and if you finish, you can have a break”. This is great for developing self discipline because it’s in the moment so you can be more realistic and flexible.

● i don’t like writing down earlier due dates in my planner because it’s confusing so instead, it’s good to have some sort of mental rule. for example, my mental rule is to finish everything at least two days before the due date. following through with that will keep you on track.

● do a little bit every day. If you have a big project, chip at it within a week rather than stressing out 2 days before it’s due. the same goes for studying for an exam. if you review lecture notes and attend office hours after class + work on flashcards throughout the week, then do a final review at the end, you’ll be well prepared and won’t need to cram. It’s a good habit and you won’t get stressed. Two birds with one stone.

● use mornings too. I’m not really an early bird, but using mornings to get some work / chores done is great because it gives you a productive start to the day, which makes you feel proud of yourself for knocking out half of your tasks in the a.m. 

a. Lay out your lecture notes / worksheets on the table the night before and open your work tabs on your computer so they’ll be the first thing you see when you turn on your computer.

b. Put your computer far away from your work space and go to sleep.

c. When you wake up, the first thing that you’ll see is your ‘paper’ work, so get it done first. then start on your ‘screen’ work (you’ll be less likely to get distracted if you do your ‘paper’ work first). when you open your laptop the first thing you’ll see are the work tabs you opened the night before. Your job is to go on auto-mode and get started.

Good luck with self-discipline. You’ll do great. - hana from thoughtscholar

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haven't had any willpower whatsoever today. idle and passive. that has to change. hm. i will build a study persona for myself 🎼