How To Get Out Of Your Language Learning Rut

It’s a familiar situation for many language learners. 

Maybe you learned a language at school that slowly ebbed out of your mind. Maybe you’ve picked up a language as an adult and found yourself stranded on a language plateau – feeling uninspired and unmotivated to move forward. However you arrive at a language rut, understand that it’s a place that most language learners have been at some point in their journeys.

In this post, we’ll look at 4 ways to kickstart your progress back into language.

How Deep Is Your Language Learning Rut?

First things, first. Where are you with your target language? This is a difficult question for most language learners to answer at the best of times, so let’s look at a different way of putting this.

Mark yourself on the scale below and tot up your answers:

I feel confident listening to my target language

Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Agree	Strongly Agree
O	O	O	O

When I listen in my target language, I understand most of what is being said

Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Agree	Strongly Agree
O	O	O	O

I am able to speak in my target language

Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Agree	Strongly Agree
O	O	O	O

I am able to clearly express myself in my target language

Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Agree	Strongly Agree
O	O	O	O

I am able to read in my target language

Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Agree	Strongly Agree
O	O	O	O

When I read in my target language, I understand it without having to look up many of the words

Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Agree	Strongly Agree
O	O	O	O

Have a look at your answers. Which box do they tend to fall in?

If you’re between ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘disagree’, chances are you’re feeling a bit rusty in your language and you’re not sure where’s best to jump back in.

If your answers are teetering more between ‘agree’ and ‘disagree’, then whilst you have some areas you know need work, there are also some areas that you already feel comfortable in.

If your answers tend to be around ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’ then it might mean whilst you have a competent grasp of your language, you may be feeling demotivated and uninspired. 

 

Write Your List Of True Statements

Now, make a list of positive statements about how you feel about your current language learning ability.

Part of the reason why you might be in the language rut is that you feel like you’re in the dark. You can’t necessarily quantify how much you know and don’t know and therefore you equally can’t quantify how much you need to learn.

Writing yourself a list of true statements will help you clarify areas in which you currently feel uncomfortable. It will also help you set realistic goals for yourself.

Here is an example list of true statements a language learner might have:

1. I know most of the basic words in my target language, but I have some gaps in my vocabulary
2. When I read in my target language, I have to stop a lot and look up words in the dictionary
3. I can listen to my target language, but a lot of the words are lost on me
4. I like watching movies in my target language, but I always need my native language subtitles on
5. I am able to speak to myself in my target language, but I get panicked in conversations with others… etc

It doesn’t have to be a long list, but be clear with yourself on what you feel you currently can and can’t do.

Once you have a clearer picture on where you are, you will have a much better jumping off point to get to where you need to be.

 

How to Kick Start Your Language Revival

There are some tried and tested (and very simple) ways in which you can kickstart your language revival:

1) Start making language fun again

Remember how it felt when you started off learning a new language? You learned some new words, maybe you learned some new phrases. You went from a position of ‘zero competence’ to ‘more competent’ quickly.

When you start off with a new language, you are starting from the point of nothing. Whatever you build on top of this is more than what you had before.

The problems arise when you have built yourself the structure. Maybe you’ve made it out of words, maybe some sentences, maybe only some sounds. But now that structure looks too small, too tired.

You need to get back into the honeymoon period of language learning and start making it fun again.

You can make it fun in a number of ways. Try learning how to sing a song in that language. Something as simple as picking up the lyrics and singing along to it will get you back into the rhythm of your target language.

You can also look for a Netflix show that’s native to your target language, or even one that’s dubbed. A lot of shows that Netflix creates themselves come preloaded with multiple languages. Just pop on captions if you’re not that confident and re-immerse yourself in the language by listening.

2) Find yourself a language partner

Albeit, easier said than done. A lot of people have trouble finding someone that speaks their target language and is able to practice with them. But you can think outside of the box here slightly, here are 2 ways you could do this without leaving the comfort of your home:

Join a language forum

Reddit has a million and one different subreddits, and there’s surely going to be one for your target language. Join the forum and start actively participating, even if for now that just means reading what everyone else is asking.

A lot of people find language buddies through Reddit, and some even do a language exchange (you swap your native language for theirs) so it’s worth a look.

Join a Facebook Group

Have a quick look on Facebook and see if there is a community group for people learning your target language. This is what I did for French, and now I’m in a group chat with natives and learners alike. We cover basic vocabulary and it gets me in the habit of using my language every day, which is great!

3) Set yourself bitesize goals

The problem with goals is that we tend to set them too high. ‘Goals’ as a term is pretty abstract, right? You’re asking yourself what do I want to achieve.

Setting a vague goal like “Get better at French” isn’t helpful. It’s too big and scary and you’ve not given yourself any of the tools to achieve that goal.

The trick is to change your thought pattern slightly, and ask instead what can I actually action this week.

A goal like “watch one episode of ‘Orange Is The New Black’ in French this week” is actionable and achievable. Especially as you probably have time for at least one episode of something every week (obviously it doesn’t have to be OITNB).

4) Shake up your routine

As with most ruts, they tend to come from repetition. If you’ve been following the same routine with your language learning for a while, chances are it’s beginning to feel stale.

Why not try:

• Narrating your morning routine to yourself in your target language
• Waking up 15 minutes early each day and watching a news video from a country that speaks your target language
• Follow music on Spotify from your target language
• Rapping in your target language
• Writing a short story in your target language

Put down your language tools and shake it up with something you’ve never tried before. Make sure you do something slightly different every day, too.

Have you ever gotten yourself out of a language rut? Tell us how in the comments!