How to Keep Motivated When Learning A Language

Learning a language is a huge task and it is something that will take a lot of work over a long period of time. It is something you really have to commit to and you will need a lot of motivation to stay with it, you really need a good reason to attempt this.

Since it is such a difficult task, it is easy to start losing your motivation, which is not ideal and can often lead to you giving up.

I really don’t want this happen, so I will go through some ways you can keep yourself motivated when learning a language. It really is one of the best things you can do, so it is worth trying to make sure you keep going. 

Have Goals

As I’ve already said, learning a language is a huge task and one of the best ways to handle anything large is to break it down into small pieces. You can do this by setting goals, which will make sure you have something to aim at and focus on.

A language is so large that without goals you are really going to get nowhere. Having some sort of structure and goals will at least keep things more systematic and you can see what you need to do and where you need to go.

Narrowing your focus like this can really help you keep your motivation and will always give you something to push towards.

(You can read more about – How To Set A Successful Language Goal)

Do Things You Enjoy In The Language

If you think back to school, ask yourself what subjects you did the worst in …was the ones you enjoyed the least?

Maybe you could argue that you didn’t enjoy them because you where bad at them, but I would say it was the other way round. These classes where boring, so you switched off and then didn’t learn anything and struggled.

Just think about the classes that had the best teachers, it didn’t matter what the subject was, the teacher made it interesting.

You need to do the same with your language learning. You need to focus on areas that you find interesting and enjoy. You will remain motivated for longer and much more focused on your studies if you are enjoying yourself.

Mix It Up

Another way to make sure you are always enjoying your studies is to mix it up and try different things.

This can be really as simple as trying a different textbook or app. You could maybe try a class, rather than learning yourself.

Little changes like this will keep things feeling new and can stop you getting bored, so hopefully you do not loose motivation as quickly as you are sort in that “this feels new” stage after changing things up.

Make Friends In Your Language

Making friends in your new language is one of the best ways to keep your motivation. When you find someone you like and enjoy speaking to, you will keep pushing to study the language so you can keep talking to them.

Even if your only study is just talking to your new friends, this is still much more beneficial than doing nothing.

The power of friendship can really give you enough motivation to keep learning your new language to a high level.   

Make Learning A Part Of Your Life

As language learning is such a long term activity, you really need to make it a part of your life if you want to be successful.

You need to make it a daily habit and just part of your everyday routine. The more it becomes a part of your life, the better.  Slowly change things you do in your life, to include the new language. Maybe you like to read before bed, well now, you have to only do this in your new language.

If you don’t do this it can very easily get pushed to the side and quickly forgotten about, which is the last thing you want to happen.

You don’t really need motivation when it is part of your life; it’s just the way things are, so this is a very effective method to make sure you don’t give up. 

(You can read more about – The Importance Of Making Your New Language Apart Of Your Daily Life)

Take A Step Backwards

If you feel like you are losing motivation and want to give up, just stop for a second and take a step back.

Go back and study some of the things you first studied. You will see how easily you can smash through this material now, it’s almost like you are fluent.

Yes, it’s only simple stuff, but it still shows you have made progress. When you first started this material would have been a struggle, now it’s not. Allow that to give you confidence to keep pushing forward.

The material you are struggling with now will soon be something you can look back on and find easy. You just have to keep going and seeing that you have made progress so far will hopefully give you the motivation to do exactly that.

Work Out What Is Distracting You

Sometimes you may feel like you motivation is slipping due to something else.

We all live busy lives and trying to squeeze language learning on top can be difficult. You might find something in your life is distracting you, or just overwhelming you, which in turn is affecting your study.

This is usually going to be things like being too tired or stressed or just generally distracted by something else, like noise, which is stopping you from focusing on your studies.

If you can identify the problem, then you can try and remove it somehow. This should then allow you to get back to being able to focus on your language. 

Rest Yourself

One of the biggest problems you can face in language learning is burn out. This is when you over do things for a long period of time and basically make yourself exhausted.

This is how most people’s motivation gets drained. I notice this myself when I am stressed. I try and push though, but eventually I get burnt out and want to give up on my language. 

The only way around this is to take a break and rest properly. You need to allow your brain time to process everything for a while and just relax and recuperate.

You will find that if you rest, get some fresh air, good food and real sleep you will be fine in a few days. Then that feeling of looking forward to studying and the excitement around it will return.

Then you can get back to it and pick up where you left off.  

Visit The Country

Okay so this is a little dramatic, but if you really want to pump your motivations levels up, go and visit the country that speaks your language.

I know we can’t all do this, but if you can get somewhere that speaks your target language it is going to inspire you massively. Seeing and hearing the language everywhere you go is so exciting and can really make you want to get to grips with it.

Try This At Home

If you can’t visit the country, then you can try and do a version of this at home. Find a new series, movie, book or even a friend that gets you fired up to keep learning the languages and make you get excited about it again.

You could even try to cook some meals from the country, or enjoy some other aspect of the culture. It sounds silly, but little things like this can get you very inspired and motivated to keep learning.

Have Pure Discipline

While I have said that motivation is important, there will be a few of us out there who don’t need motivation, we can operate with discipline alone.

Not everyone is going to be able to do it this way, and that’s okay, but if you feel like have good discipline, then you need to apply this to your language learning.

It really rather simple, just make a plan and do it.

No matter how you feel just stick to the plan and do what you need to. Do the lessons you have set out and do the immersion you have planned. Just try and focus and do what you have set out to do.

It doesn’t matter if you want to do it or not, you just do it, that’s the discipline. If stick with this, you will see results.

Basically just grind it out. Focus on the process, not the end result and you will get there. If you force yourself to study every day, you will see results. Its sill not easy, but really that’s all you need to do.  

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can find some ways to keep yourself motivated and keep yourself moving forward in your language journey.

Learning a language is tough and its long, so long as you know that going in to it, you can prepare yourself for the battle.

Just stick with it and the results will come. Trust the process, it does work. 

(Read more about – Why Does it Feel Like I’m Getting Worse At My Target Language?)