How to Get a Return on Your Language Learning Investment
hey everyone welcome to the monthly
review the monthly show on language
learning
where you discover new learning
strategies motivational tips study tools
and resources
by the way all the lessons and bonuses
you’re about to see can be downloaded
for free on our website
so click the link in the description
right now to sign up for your free
lifetime account okay today’s topic is
how to get a return on your language
learning
language learning is an investment but
what if you’re learning but not seeing
any returns or results and do you even
know if you’re getting any results at
all
in this episode you’ll discover one why
language learners fail to see results
and why they fail
two why you need to track your language
learning sessions and three how to track
your results
[Music]
but first here are this month’s new
lessons and resources be sure to
download these now before we take them
down in a few days first the going to
the airport conversation cheat sheet
with this new cheat sheet you’ll learn
words and phrases like here’s my
passport boarding pass and much more
download it for free on the inside
second these slang words and phrases pdf
ebook do you know any slang in your
target language if not download this
free ebook and master all the must-know
slang across 10 chapters
third 30 romance and love related words
and phrases you’ll learn words and
phrases like date flirt and breakup with
this quick vocab bonus
fourth can you talk about halloween in
your target language with this quick one
minute lesson you’ll learn must-know
halloween words like vampire trick or
treat and more
to get your free resources click the
link in the description below right now
they’re yours to keep forever okay let’s
jump into today’s topic
how to get a return on your language
learning investment
part 1 one of the biggest reasons why
people fail
the first big reason people fail with
language learning is because they set
big vague goals like i want to be fluent
the problem with these goals is you
don’t know how you’ll ever go from where
you are now to achieving fluency it’s
too vague of a goal
but the second big reason is lack of
time people fail with language learning
because they don’t put in the time and
language learning is a function of time
the more you put in the better you get
you can also think of learning a
language like a gym you get out which
you put in
if you buy a dumbbell and do nothing
nothing happens it can do great things
for you but it won’t work for you until
you pick it up and curl it a few times
if you put in one hour a day you get
results if you put in 10 minutes a day
you get results but if you put in zero
you get zero results and you can’t learn
a language that way
so here’s a question for you
how much time do you put into your
language learning on a daily basis leave
a comment
if you start putting in consistent time
you can also start expecting a return on
your time and this brings us to the
second part
part two why you need to track your
language learning sessions
in the first part we talked about just
putting in enough time that’s the first
important step to take but where should
you put in your time for example you can
put in 10 minutes and use an app to do
translation exercises you can put in 10
minutes and read a textbook or review a
word list for 10 minutes
in all these examples you can put in an
equal amount of time but the results you
get will be different
and that’s because different methods
give you different results and benefits
using an app may help you remember a few
words reading a textbook can boost your
vocabulary grammar and reading skills
and reviewing a word list will just help
you with the words
so the second lesson is you need to know
what kind of results you get you need to
measure the return on your time so that
you can be confident that you’re making
progress
in the case of our audio and video
lessons three or four lessons will help
you understand and speak roughly one
minute of conversation as well as learn
all words and grammar rules inside this
is the return on our lessons how is this
possible the dialogue tracks are about
20 seconds and so three lessons that’s
three conversations at 20 seconds a
piece which is 60 seconds or one minute
of conversation so if you know the three
lessons get you to one minute of
conversation you can know what results
to expect if you do 20 lessons you’re in
about 5 minutes of conversation 40
lessons that’s around 10 minutes or so
of conversation that’s the power of
measuring the results if you track your
results you know what to expect in the
future and you can hit your language
learning goals
so how can you start measuring your
return let’s jump into the third part
part 3 how to track your results and hit
goals
if you’re able to consistently put in
time towards learning and maintaining
your routine then it’s time to start
tracking your time and effort
why
at the basic level language learning is
simply putting in the time you don’t
need a high iq you don’t need to be
talented at languages you don’t need the
best possible app you just need time the
more time you put in the more results
you get out and aside from setting
unrealistic goals the other reason why
people fail at languages is they just
don’t put in the time so how can you
track your results
let’s look at two ways an easy way and
an advanced way of tracking your time
and results
let’s start with the easy way first
simply track the time you put in so if
you do a 10 minute audio lesson today
and then spend five minutes with flash
cards note this as 15 minutes for the
day and write down what you did then do
the same thing tomorrow that’s it the
goal here is to track the time and your
effort you’ll want to track it and
actually have measurable proof of your
work and also so you can review what
you’ve been doing and see your progress
so if one day you realize you don’t know
enough words or maybe you don’t speak as
much as you’d like you can look at your
notes and review your work if you see
that you’ve been just watching video
lessons you can spot the problem which
is you’ve done no actual vocab study or
speaking practice and now you can start
doing it problem solved you’re on your
way to fluency
another way you can track your time and
effort is with the dashboard on our site
so if you visit the dashboard you can
see the lessons you’ve completed the
number of flashcards reviewed and hours
studied this is the second tactic and
it’s an advanced one because not only do
you need to track your time you also
need to track your results which is a
bit trickier
so how can you do that with our
conversational audio lessons check the
length of the dialog track if the dialog
track is about 20 seconds then that’s
the amount of conversation you can
expect to master by the way these tracks
are anywhere from 10 to 40 seconds long
now if you’re studying words with
flashcards take note of how many words
you already know so if you studied for
five minutes and can easily remember 7
out of 10 words then that’s your return
if you know this you know what to expect
when you learn new words you can expect
to remember about 7 out of 10 with a 5
minute drill
another thing you can do is boost that
number to 10 out of 10. next if you’re
practicing your listening skills try to
gauge how much you understand if you
understood about 20 of a 3-minute
conversational lesson then that’s your
return for now
again by knowing this you can now start
asking questions like what can i do to
understand fifty percent of this
conversation will doubling my time
double my results as well will i
understand forty percent will reviewing
this lesson for a few minutes a day
every day work better than trying to
memorize it all now
so then you put these questions to the
test and try them out and because you
know your return you can see if it
really works
so thank you for watching this episode
of monthly review
next time we’ll talk about
how to boost your motivation and learn
more by adding others to the mix
if you enjoyed these tips hit the like
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time bye