Find time to learn a language when you are busy

I hear it a lot, as an excuse not to learn languages, that the person simply doesn’t have time for it. I have a method that helps even busy people to find time to learn a language.

By the end of the article, I want you to feel less anxious about having to spend a lot of time to practice and feel more empowered and confident that you can learn a language even with little time on your hands.

I advise everyone to create a list of 10 activities that they could start doing in the target language. There are also activities and chores that don’t require your full attention, so you can easily practice while getting the thing done. For example: You could sing under the shower (it improves your pronunciation), talk to your pets (improves conversational skills) or cook a recipe in the target language. Daily commute is also a great time to practice. You can describe people on the street, name things you see, learn new words or play with language learning applications. As you can see, these things don’t require extra time as you can do them while doing things that you normally do every day.

Write down your normal daily routine and things you like to do to relax. See what you can start doing in English or what are activities where you have to wait a lot, or that you don’t have to focus on and create your own list:

Here is an example list to help:

1. Talking while taking a shower.
2. Acting as a ‘cooking show host’ when cooking.
3. Learning words at red lights when driving using a sticky note on the windshield.
4. Writing a diary in the target language.
5. Playing with language learning apps on the phone when on public transport or waiting.
6. Working out at home using Youtube videos in the target language.
7. Practicing pronunciation by repeating Youtube videos of basic conversation/sentences told by native speakers while cleaning.
8. Writing shopping lists in the target language, and name items that are in the grocery store that I’ve already learned how to say.
9. Talking to my pet in the target language.
10. Watching movies in the target language and summarize the story afterward.

Create your list by looking at your daily schedule.

I’m so excited to see what you guys come up with!

Zsófi

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