So, about a month ago, I decided to alter my language learning schedule by giving myself one language per day to focus on, culminating to a total of 7 languages I would be studying at once. In theory, it was a great idea; I could keep up with languages I had a good base in and make progress in ones I didn’t. But as I mentioned in my last post, the idea, of course, felt like it had its limitations and simply might not work. I can confidently say that no, it did not go as planned, but it’s okay and that was the point of this little experiment.

My first issue was that the set languages didn’t give me the freedom to enjoy what I wanted at a given moment. Some days I wanted to focus on a different language than planned, maybe I wanted to listen to the Encanto soundtrack in Polish on repeat when I should have been practicing my Arabic writing. While having a little more willpower could have prevented this, I didn’t want to have to use willpower when that hobby was there so I can relax and enjoy. (Which speaking of, some of the Polish translations are hilarious. The guy in “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” who says Bruno prophesied he would get fat, and he did, says “jestem jak słoń” or that he is like an elephant now.)

The next issue was timing. In theory, practicing Spanish once a week heavily could probably help me keep my skills up, not necessarily well, but enough. Yet, with a language like Tagalog that I just started, the once a week thing was not enough to build up skill. As of right now I think all I could really do is introduce myself in the language, which is not very much for a “month” of practice, but makes sense for 4 short sessions going over the material. 

Lastly, and consider this, our brains can handle studying more than one thing in one day. Shocking, right? If I have the drive and energy on a day, why not get more practice in? Why limit myself while I have the drive? Some days, both due to my schedule and how I am physically feeling, I simply don’t want to expend any more energy, and that’s okay. 

I now am trying to find a way to restructure things. With grad school eating up nearly all of my time, I can’t prioritize my hobbies like I did before. I am just going to have to find ways of incorporating it into my daily routines better, and hopefully as I get acclimated to this new academic journey things will fall into place. I might also see if I can audit a language class next semester so I have a teacher and curriculum pushing me along. Well, I’ll update soon if I figure anything else out.

Happy reading,
-Beppa