how to stay motivated? I am currently studying a non-native to me language using lingq and pimsluer and a tutor or youtube but less of the tutor and youtube lately. Before this I was using YouTube and tutor heavy and spending hundreds of dollars on a tutor who was mainly teaching me grammar. I won’t tell how much learning grammar first has played a role in my journey to becoming fluent. As of now I study quite a large portion of my free time , which accumulates to hours of the day sometimes. I read , I listen , and I repeat, as well as use flash cards. I go to YouTube to listen to peoples advice about learning language and today I discovered this forum. I do have a question though , how do I stay motivated. Last couple days I have been slowing down in certain ways. I stopped using pimsluer as much and I find myself drifting back to some of my other interest and stalling from continuing my new language study. How do I finish strong and get over this hump towards fluency?
@ifoundanewapp
Pimsleur and the like can help you get started but they do very little to keep you motivated or to help you reach a good level after some time. You need to start using compelling content as researcher Steve Krashen would say. Get used to reading and/or listening to interesting material everyday. Move gradually to more demanding content as you get better, eventually tackling content made for natives. Not only would this keep you motivated but it’s the only way to reach an advanced level. Textbooks will only take you so far.
Most of us here use Lingq precisely because it makes this process easier but the main thing is that you find the way to get exposed to such compelling content. Besides Lingq, you can try graded readers, podcasts and so on. Get something that you find interesting, that is realistic and that makes sense for your current level.
Hey okay thank you! you gave me some pretty sensible and eye opening advice. Your right pimsluer don’t really have any built in motivation sections or what not , it’s most just content for learning. This is the first language that I am learning to the level I am aside from my native language. Also to add to that it is one of the biggest challenges I have endeared to complete. you spoke about a way to stay motivated but I have another related question. How important is it to you to be motivated to get to a level of fluency? Meaning do you think someone can do it without being properly motivated through?
No, I don’t think you can. It’s a long journey and motivation is one of the key factors to get you through the whole process. Of course, there are different sources of motivation (you may get a higher salary if your language skills improve, you may get better grades or get to communicate with someone special and so on) but interest in the content is one of the most consistent, most scalable and easiest one to achieve, plus, as I said, motivation is not its only advantage, it also provides you with more realistic and rich input, as compared to artificial and isolated content, which is indispensable if you want to become fluent in your target language
Hi - I hope I’m not too late to this thread for my comments to be useful to you. I found your story so interesting because I lived in Denmark as a teenager, but I’m American and a native English speaker. I have a degree in English, several years (37?) of professional writing and editing experience. I currently have begun working as a translator (French to English). So I spend time thinking about questions such as yours.
As others here have mentioned, the trick is to be interested in the subject matter (if not the specific language). In other words, find something you really want to know or learn, but for which Swedish is the only available option. The motivation to learn will carry you through the language aquisition. Find music with lyrics in Swedish, books that can only be read in Swedish, films in Swedish, etc. The key is that you must be passionate about learning the material, regardless of language. Perhaps there is a hobby you can learn all in Swedish. Again, you must be passionate about the subject matter of the task, and pretend Swedish is the only option to acquire it.
Two other comments: I was always taught in Denmark (formally, in class) that Danish and Norwegian are very similar, but Swedish is different enough that it can’t be automatically understood by a Dane or Norwegian. I find this to be true. I cannot understand spoken Swedish, even while I can pick out some words in text. I can, as a mediocre Danish-speaker, fully understand Norwegian. In fact, when I was living in Denmark, I used to carry on conversations regularly with a woman I liked. One day I commented to someone that the woman’s accent was interesting and I would like to know where she came from. The answer I received was, “Dear, she is speaking to you in Norwegian!” I had no idea. I just thought it was Danish with a strange accent! This is how close Danish and Norwegian really are. But again, Swedish is altogether different.
One other point: I am fluent in French (truly!) and I frequently find that French speakers, while telling me I speak excellent French, will switch to English as soon as I speak. I have come to believe, after many, many years of travel in France, that this happens for two reasons: 1) Although my French accent is good, it is not perfect, and they hear the American accent; they switch to be polite and make it easier for ME, not realizing I can handle the French. 2) They are excited to meet an American English speaker and want to try out/practice their English. In both of these cases, I simply stick to French and allow them to communicate in English and all is fine. In fact, through my 20 years of marriage to a French person, we had many conversations where he spoke in English and I spoke in French. We just didn’t worry about it or analyze.