S5E65: When do you feel your best in your language learning?

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Friday and welcome to the last episode of season five of The Language Confidence Project, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway. And today, as we go into the season break, I wanted to offer one last piece of advice to help you on your language journey. And that is, take notice of what you’re doing when you feel your best in your language learning.

Take notice of all of it. What you’re doing. How it makes you feel. What parts of your whole personality it’s feeding or showcasing. What it’s letting you express. Pay attention to what you can get lost in.

When something makes you feel amazing in your learning, pay attention to it.

Ask questions. Is it the activity, or the people, or is it the environment? How much sleep did you have the previous night? How did your morning go beforehand or what do you have to look forward to for the rest of the day after this? What’s bringing that feeling of joy or focus or wellness today?

It’s not like seeing behind the scenes of your favourite magic tricks. Being curious about it and understanding why it works won’t take the magic away. It’ll just mean you can add more of it into your journey.

There are no extra prizes for learning your language the hard way, language learners, whatever the hard way means for you. The best way to learn a language is by combining as many of the things, the tasks, the people and the tools as possible that make you feel purposeful, feel happy, feel at ease. The best language learning strategy is just to create a bubble for yourself where language learning is something you want to do and you are in an environment that you and your nervous system are happy to be in. So look for those moments of happiness, always. They’re telling you something.

I will be back on Monday, 29th April for more language courage. And until then, I will be live streaming on Instagram and YouTube with more doses of language courage so come and tune in, either live or on the replays afterwards, and leave a comment or share or subscribe! This stuff is really scary for me, and I am relying on your support more than ever to help me to spread the word and help the world to make language learning kinder, more creative and more sustainable.

Have a wonderful weekend, have a wonderful break, and I’ll see you back here on April 29th or on Instagram or YouTube next week.