Language101.com

How Use Your Current Habits to Help You Start Your Language Study Habit

One big problem for me when I first started studying a language was remembering to study.  Since there wasn’t anyone making me study, it was easy to do other things and never get around to studying.  Pretty soon the day was over.

One solution is to use a habit that you have to help you start your new habit.  It’s usually a good idea try to do your new habit (language study) before your very old habit (in my case e-mail).

Do You New Habit Before Your Old One

I have had very good luck with studying a language before I look at e-mail.

If you have a strong habit of looking at e-mail every day, we can help you use that habit to study a language.  We suggest that you start by signing up for our free e-mail reminders.  We suggest only signing up for two reminders per week.

Wrap Your New Habit With Positive Emotions

When you write your subject line, choose something that will make you feel good.  For example, “Study French for trip to Paris!” will probably make you feel a lot better than just “Study French”.

When you write your message to yourself, we also suggest something like, “Imagine how much more fun you will have on your trip to Paris if you can speak French.”

If you have someone that you love whom you want to speak  to in French, write something like, “Learn French to talk with Babette.”

The better it makes you feel, the better it will work.

This is also a good place to put a link to a web site. For example if you want to study French on our site, put a link to https://language101.com/french/.

6 Comments
  • Avatar
    susan

    I would like to learn Japanese and Korean

     
    Reply
    • Avatar
      thomas

      Susan –

      We are working on Japanese currently! If you need to learn either of these languages before Language101.com can get them released I’d highly recommend checking out Pimsleur:

      http://www.pimsleur.com/

      Thomas

       
      Reply
  • Avatar
    Simone

    Would you consider putting together a Netherlands Dutch course? I would like to learn Dutch so I can speak to my cousins there in their own language instead of relying on the few that speak English.

    Simone.

     
    Reply
    • Avatar
      thomas

      Simone –

      Thanks for expressing your desire to learn Dutch. At this time Language101.com is focused on completing Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. If you need to learn Dutch before we can get it developed please check out the Pimsleur method as it works very well also:

      http://www.pimsleur.com/Learn-Dutch

      Thomas

       
      Reply
  • Avatar
    Durga

    Really, REALLY wish you had a Hindi course… It is major and economically important enough to warrant offering.

    Also 3 other Indian languages which would be good eventually (after Hindi) would be Gujarati, Marathi, and Punjabi. These don’t cover the South Indian languages at all but foreigners living & working in Southern states usually have no problem getting around with English since it is so common there. In the North, however, you really need Hindi as a base and if you want to live or work in India most good opportunities require a 2nd or 3rd Indian language to be one of those I listed.

     
    Reply
    • Avatar
      thomas

      Durga –

      Thanks for the great information. Language101.com does intend to develop Indian languages once we have our current projects finished. Your input on which dialects to focus on is very much appreciated.

      Thomas

       
      Reply
Leave a Comment

I want to learn

Login
X
Forgot your Password?
Remember Me