📝 Returning To Language Learning
It’s been quite some time since I've been consistent with language learning. Most of my learning has been the French I use and hear at work.
In the spring I felt feeling apathetic and decided to pause everything. It’s only been in the past week or so that I’ve slowly come back to dedicated language study.
Since I’ve been gone, my language learning has been immersion through the conversations I have with coworkers or parents.
This past weekend, I had my first conversation lesson in months. My tutor was happy to see me back and it was like no time had passed. The lesson was supposed to be a week earlier but I realized that a 7 am lesson on a Saturday morning probably wasn’t a good idea despite me being a morning person.
In my usual fashion of choosing a topic last minute, I said I wanted to talk about stress. My tutor found a video for us to talk about. The video was about anxiety. It only took a few seconds for me to feel the positive feelings I have when I’m doing something related to the languages I’m learning.
We spoke about the video during our session and why I had been gone. To my surprise, she told me I had improved since our last session.
Without the consistent language study I was doing every week, I thought I would’ve lost all my progress. Hearing that there was improvement was unexpected.
My language learning has been sparse. I did a French/Japanese language exchange in late summer. A week ago, I started reading one of the books I bought during my visit to Montréal. I played AC:NH for the first time in ages and learned some phrases related to the fall season.
While it would be nice to get back into tracking everything I do, I like the casual approach to language learning. All in all, I'm glad to be doing the things I enjoy again.
How has your language learning journey been going these past few months?
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I had a similar experience! When I learned my first language, I was all in all the time. I prioritized learning over everything and any moment away from it felt like I was wasting my time. I see now that I felt that way because I didn't trust I could ever learn a language. I felt like I had to constantly make progress to remind myself I was able to do it. But when I started learning my second language, I knew I could learn. That doubt and anxiety were gone. I hit periods of my life where languages could not be my focus. And I let myself let go of them. In part, I worried I would loose my skills or find it harder to progress, but in the time I took for myself, not only did I heal the wounds that were distracting me from learning, I also had time to allow my knowledge to settle in and become part of my memory rather than something I was scrambling to recite or recall.
I learned French for a bit under a French culture school. That was many years ago. I'd dabble in Duolingo every now and then, but I only resumed serious French studies (with books, podcasts, Duolingo, and other apps) just this year. I'm able to pick things up better or understand things more in terms of sentence structure, but sometimes things get really complicated and I forget the rules. I always remind myself to take it slow and to break down what I don't understand and keep practicing until I remember.