@Olly - “I think we should be setting goals on a regular basis, and building the habits that will help us reach those goals…”
Agreed. I’ve been jotting everything I do (materials used, time spent etc) in a new language log for this year (I wasn’t consistent last year). My short-term goals:
Farsi - finish learning script; continue Assimil & PersianPod lessons.
Japanese - learn to write 2,200 Kanji
My strategy:
Read loads. Keep it simple enough that it’s not a struggle. Listen when you are relaxed. Let it flow through your mind.
Lingq new words but don’t struggle to learn them.
Finally an interesting thread! As usual, I have set no resolutions like “read X books” because I have always been bad at sticking to my goals.
I hope I will read more than last year in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese while trying to achieve one book in Polish and maybe one in Romanian. I will try to buy some Catalan books too.
Any suggestions on how to overcome this “goal-related lazyness”?
I rarely set real goals of this sort. Mostly it is because the vast majority of things I think about, I forget instantly, the vast majority of things I write down, I lose intstantly, and the vast majority of things I write down and manage to keep, I never read. I also don’t know what my interests will be in a few days, let alone in a few months. I may be motivated to learn a bit of Russian right now, but in a month, I may want to do a bit of Chinese.
The only goal I have for this year is to improve my German since this is the only one I know I will be consistently motivated to do.
“I may be motivated to learn a bit of Russian right now, but in a month, I may want to do a bit of Chinese.”
I must learn to fight this “syndrome” because in the last 10-12 years I have studied many languages without devoting enough effort to almost any of them and now I can barely write a few sentences in them. So I want to learn how to stay motivated and reach a good level in Russian and Catalan by the end of the year.
You’re right of course. I think to get into a language quickly, it does take concentration for several months.
Michele, I agree with Kimojima that there can be strength and support in a community of language learners to keep one motivated! You can share your language goals with us and we will root you on :))
Oh, and have you tried using a monthly or weekly planner to record your current and pending goals? A planner is a great way to track and keep your goals organized in small increments.
Thanks for your kind answers, Kimo and Yvette!
I have always found it very easy to get demotivated. I’ve tried to set goals, record things, etc., but have always failed or got tired of keeping track of my progress.
I used to have a LingQ friend who tried helping me, but then he got tired of it because I was not receptive enough…
Well, I hope I’ll improve my time management in 2014 (not to mention that I should find an occupation and would like to travel more, enhance my blog, overcome my “YouTube syndrome”, and more…).
About goals… I find it really really odd that you can’t set your own progress goals on LingQ…
Of course I can set goals on LingQ in terms of “reading X words” but I think that’s not the best way for me to rate my progress.
Another language goal has sort of happened to me:
I’ve been getting really interested in knitting and spinning over 2013, and have noticed that there are a lot of very interesting free materials available in the Scandinavian languages. Lots of lovely jumper patterns in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, which haven’t been translated into English. And I thought, how hard would it be to learn enough to read / translate a knitting pattern? These are very similar languages after all. And the vocabulary, while specialised, would be fairly limited.
And then there are some really lovely patterns in Icelandic and Finnish…I wonder how good Google translate or other online dictionaries are for these Northern languages.
You should find Danish, Swedish and Norwegian quite easy to read as a native English speaker. Finnish is a non-Indo-European language, so it has nothing in common with the other Nordic languages and you won’t understand anything without studying it.
Ah Michele! Happy New Year to you!
You may well know the answer to my next question…
Can we still use an unused language slot to learn unsupported languages? I’m thinking of Danish here. I’m not using my Esperanto slot. How do I tell the dictionary lookups to look for Danish words, not Esperanto words? And will I add lots of unhelpful translations for Esperanto learners?
I know this used to be a good way to study unsupported languages, but LingQ has changed a bit since I last thought about doing it.
Happy new Year, everybody! Feliz ano novo pra todo mundo!
Well, my goals are:
reach 2000 known words in Chinese
reach 1500 known words in German
not very ambitious, since I am currently overloaded with other studies.
Let the game begin!
Happy New Year to you, Helen!
Yes, as far as I know, nothing changed in using slots for different languages than the official ones. I am still waiting for the official announcement of the new beta language policy. It looks like it will be possible to have languages added, although they would remain hidden until the minimum requirements are met.
Of course, your English translations of Danish words would appear in the Esperanto slot, but I think there aren’t many Esperanto words with the same spelling as Danish words. And you would need to have a separate window with a Danish-English dictionary.
So, depending on how much you want to learn Danish, you may start now with the Esperanto slot or wait (hopefully not too long) until the new policy is implemented.
Why don’t you study Swedish or Norwegian, instead (as you mentioned them, too)? Swedish is officially supported and has a decent amount of content. The Norwegian library is (or used to be) quite poor but at least you’d have the dictionary window on LingQ.
Helen, go for it! Are you snooping around in my planner? hahaha There is knitting on my list too! I’m going to take out my all-things-knitting-bag and get busy working on tiny scarves for my two Chihuahuas this winter 
Nothing fancy as jumpers. But what a way to challenge yourself by setting out to learn new languages to fulfill your desire to knit. That is really cool!
Oh, Michele, don’t give up! Please read 20 Iconic Quotes On Failure That Will Inspire You To Succeed | mindbodygreen
Glad you like it, Jolanda 
@skyblueteapot (Helen) & Imani - knitting?!! Haven’t done any in the past few years… knitted/crocheted a lot of my babies’ and kids’ clothes, though.
“Knit one, hajimemashite, yarn forward, yoroshiku onegaishimasu, knit one, slip three, sayonara, pass over slipped stitches…”