S6E21: Do you want to live the language life you’re designing?

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Monday and welcome to 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 just a reminder, the Language Confidence Project is now on YouTube too, with daily videos of encouragement to help you make language learning more creative, compassionate and meaningful! So please support me by subscribing, the link is in the shownotes, by liking my videos and if you do happen to stop by, I would love if you could leave a comment. It makes such a huge difference in helping more people to find my work, and it helps me to spread more language courage to the people who need it.

And today, I just wanted to ask you a really important question as we kick off this week, which is, do you want to live the language life you’re designing?  

Because, whether you’re learning this language for the love of it, or because it’s useful, or a necessity that circumstance threw your way, I really want to remind you that you do have choices. You might not have a choice to learn the language, but you do have so many options as to how you do it. And they can range from everything from how you memorise and revise vocabulary, to what language inputs you use, you know the things you watch and listen to, to how you approach your assignments, how you talk to yourself, what your study space looks like, how you divide your time, and how you tell yourself you’ve done a good job.

Remember, you aren’t just setting up a language learning routine. You’re choosing what your life is going to be like for however long you’re learning this language.

So do you like it? Does it fit who you are? 

And if not, how can you make this week just a little bit different? It doesn’t need to be a drastic overhaul of everything, Just… how can you make this week one step closer to fitting who you are?

And it might be that you know the answer straight away. It might be that you need to spend some time asking questions first… of yourself, of the language learning community, to help you figure it out. But language learners, you deserve to feel comfortable in your own life, even when you are doing uncomfortable things. You want your language journey to feel like yours. It’s the way you get the best out of yourself, and the best out of your language, too.

Good luck, have a wonderful day, and I will see you tomorrow.