#study smart

Happy Saturday, everyone! Today I would like to talk about an inevitable part of language learning that I’m 99% sure everyone hits eventually—the dreaded slump! Maybe you’ve hit that intermediate plateau and feel like you just aren’t improving no matter what you do. Maybe you’ve been stressed out and have had no time to study and, when you find you do have free time, you can’t really get back into the language stuff. Or maybe you just find that brand-new-language excitement is wearing off. Whatever the reason, slumps are too real, and getting stuck in one can turn into a de-motivational cycle in which you take time off from studying, you feel like you’re getting worse and there’s no real recourse so you take more time off… and so on.

But! There are ways to get yourself out of that hole. Of course, everyone has their own different methods, but these are my own recommendations.

Don’t compare your progress with others

I think one of the most damaging things you can do is compare your progress with other people. This goes for the good times as well as the bad times. Learning a language is a very individual process, and the standard against which your progress is judged should never be other people. If you put yourself into a competition mindset, in slump periods you will almost inevitably start feeling like you’re falling farther and farther behind in a race that nobody else even knew they were participating in. Don’t be too harsh comparing yourself to your past progress, either. You may forget a few things in your time off, but if you learned it in the past, it will be easier for you to pick it up again.

Start up slowly

After being in a slump for a while, you might feel like you need to go into studying overdrive to make up for the lost time. If you do so, you’re pretty likely to burn yourself out and end up back at square one. Get back into learning slowly, using the most enjoyable aspects as stepping stones to work back up to where you want to be. For example, when I get back into Mandarin and Japanese after down periods (which are way too frequent >.>), I always start but hopping back on my favorite language exchange apps and sites and chatting with native speakers. I get to use what I learned, and it’s not as heavy as jumping straight into textbooks and grammar study. Feeling that enjoyment from talking with others in the languages I’m learning makes me want to get back into the actual studying.

Set realistic goals

This might be one of the most important parts of not only getting out of a slump, but also language learning in general. When we really want something, we tend to make a lot of vague, nebulous goals that let us feel like we’re headed toward big things, but that are ultimately not fine-tuned enough to really give us good direction. If your goals are too broad or lofty, it will be hard to know if you’re on the right track, and it will be easy to get off-track. Instead of simply saying “I want to get TOPIK 5 by X date,” set smaller goals that outline what exactly you will do to reach that goal: Goals to complete units A-D in Y textbook within Z number of weeks, goals to do at least a certain number of minutes of vocabulary practice per week, and so on. If you have smaller goals, you will be able to hit them with more frequency and get that good feeling of satisfaction that your brain will then want more and more of.

Remember that you NEED the time off sometimes!

People are not machines! Over the last month, honestly felt a bit guilty for not posting at all as much, but I recognized that I needed the time away from languages and my website and blog. I had a ton of major life changes going on within a short period of time, and even though I wanted to get back into my study routine, I knew it would be best for be to focus on the more immediate, pressing issues with full concentration and then get back into studying as time freed up. Never feel guilty for taking time away. Your physical and mental well-being are important, and those should take priority over any extracurricular stuff, language learning included.

Happy and healthy studying (or break time), everyone!