In my presentation I will talk about how I stopped some decade-old language learning activities and switched to new ones in a year full of changes.
Less travelling, less direct interaction with people… For many of us these changes have affected the motivational background for language learning. At least that’s what happened to me, but rather than forcing myself to do things as before, I preferred to stop learning completely and rethink everything from scratch. I even “banned myself” from learning and created an “inspirational vacuum” to get new ideas.
And the ideas have appeared quickly. One example: these days I have been splitting podcasts of Ukrainian into 30-40 second chunks, I have downloaded them to my mobile and listened to each of them tens or hundreds of times while shopping, driving, doing housework. Short chunks, simple sentences, slowed down speech rate, automatic repetition, easy-to-reach icon on my phone. Everything is done for accessible, regular background tasking. The goal is “not to learn”, not to make efforts, just to listen without particular concentration. I don’t consider it „learning”, there are no goals set, no pressure to achieve something, and in this context I don’t even mind if these sentences are played the whole day. The result: in one week, “without learning” I have reactivated vocabulary and regained the courage to speak in Ukrainian.
This and other examples will illustrate how I am getting through a period of change by switching from traditional methods to new ones without losing the daily contact with languages. The way to regain my motivation and the new ideas can hopefully inspire other language learners facing similar challenges.
Andras is an enthusiastic language learner, speaking 20 languages at various levels. They are mainly European languages, including some rare ones, like Lithuanian, Albanian and Georgian. When he is at work, he manages teams and optimizes supply chain processes using 4-5 languages on a daily basis.
As a regular participant in the polyglot meetings, Andras loves to share his experience with the language learning community. In his learning process he mainly focuses on how to reach intermediate speaking skills without the help of any language partner, tutor or teacher.
This video was recorded at the Polyglot Gathering Online 2021 ([ Ссылка ]).
