How to Stay Committed to Learning a Language

It isn't uncommon for people to start learning a language, only to suddenly give up within a few months. So, we asked our tutors here at Justlearn how to stay committed to learning a language. They came up with a good few answers.

Choose a language that you are interested in

You may be surprised to know this, but there are a lot of people that select a language simply because it sort-of looks fun or, perhaps, it makes them seem intelligent if they learn a language that is on the brink of dying. Honestly, if you are looking into how to stay committed to learning a language, then it is vital that you select a language that genuinely interests you. You are going to be spending a lot of your life interacting with it, after all.

Choose a language that you will use

It is better to choose a language that you will genuinely use in your day-to-day life. For example, as brilliant as Swedish is, you probably won't have much of a need to use it unless you are in Sweden. Spanish and Mandarin may be better. Although, of course, don't just choose a language because it is widely spoken. You still need to have some sort of interest in the language.

Keep practice sessions short

A lot of the people that give up learning languages tend to have burned themselves out. Do not fall into the same trap. It is important that you are practicing your language for no more than an hour per day. You should try and split those practice sections up into a variety of different types of learning. This way, you will become less-bored and less-likely to wear yourself out.

If you find that you have reached a hurdle in your language learning, then talk to your Justlearn tutor. They will be able to help you jump over that hurdle and, hopefully, make learning fun again for you. 

Practice the language with native speakers

We find that one of the best ways to really improve in a language and offer a bit of encouragement is to regularly speak to native speakers in your target language. A lot of people stop learning languages because they do not feel as if they are making any progress. By talking directly to native speakers you will, hopefully, be able to demonstrate to yourself that you really are making progress...and good progress at that!

Learn about the culture surrounding the language 

To inject a bit of fun into the learning process, you may want to start educating yourself about the culture surrounding your target language. You get bonus points if you learn about it while using the target language! If you do this, it makes the language seem more real and really start to come alive. This means that you are going to have a whole lot more fun with it!

If you can, you may even want to visit a country where the language is widely spoken and immerse yourself in that culture.