| Hey everyone, welcome to the Monthly Review! |
| The monthly show on language learning. |
| Where you discover new learning strategies, motivational tips, new study tools, and discover new resources. |
| By the way, all the free lessons and bonuses you’re about to see can be downloaded on our website. |
| Click the link in the description right now in to sign up for your free lifetime account. |
| Okay, today’s topic is: |
| 21 Ways to Break Your Routine and Master a Language. |
| You’re going to learn: |
| One: The Importance of Taking a Break |
| Two: How to Break Your Language Learning Routine |
| And Three: 21 Ways to Break Your Learning Routine. |
| If you’ve ever felt like you’re not making any learning progress or are in a rut, then this is for you. It’s time to break your routine. You’ll find out how in just a second. |
| But first, listen up. Here are this month’s new lessons and resources. |
| First — The How to Count to 1 Billion PDF eBook |
| Maybe you can already count to 10 in your target language. But, with this new ebook, you go all the way up to 1 billion. Download it for free right now. |
| Second — Do you know the 40 most common verbs? |
| With this new Useful Verbs PDF cheat sheet, you’ll master the 40 most common verbs that all beginners should know. |
| Third — Do you know the 12 habits of highly effective language learners? |
| You’ll find out what smart learners do differently, AND you’ll learn how to talk about habits with expressions like “don’t procrastinate,” in your target language. |
| Fourth - Must Know Money Phrases |
| Can you talk about money? This 1-minute lesson will teach you phrases like: “I’m broke,” “Time is money,” and “I want to be rich” |
| To get these free resources, |
| click the link in the description below right now. |
| Ok, let’s jump into today’s topic: |
| 21 Ways to Break Your Routine and Master a Language |
| So, have you ever felt like you were in a language learning rut? You have a routine going, you’re studying, but you’re not really pushing the needle on your progress. |
| So, what should you do? Let’s jump into the first part. |
| Part One: The Importance of Taking a Break. |
| Before you quit learning languages completely, you should just take a day or two off. Why? Well, there’s a good reason why many cultures rest for one or two days out of the week. That’s why we go on vacation; why we take days off. We need time to recharge our batteries. Because language learning is work. It’s non-stop dedication to one of MANY goals you have in your life, right? You have other things in mind. Bills. Relationships. Work. School. Vacations. |
| So, first, if you feel like you’re in a rut, take a break for a day or 2, do something else, and let your brain rest. The next step? Break your current language learning routine. |
| Part 2: How to Break Your Language Learning Routine |
| What do I mean by that? I mean: Do something completely different with your language learning. Do something you enjoy. |
| And there are 2 ways you can break your routine. |
| The first way is to do something new within the specific skill you’re working on. For example, if you like reading and want to continue reading, change the resource. Put down the textbook and try a comic. Or, choose from our extensive list of reading practice books on the website. The second way is to change up your studies completely. If you’re focusing on grammar, stop that and switch over to something else, like improving your listening skills with audio lessons or podcasts. |
| The point here is, you break a routine you’re tired of, and you do something else. Something you enjoy. BUT, you’re still learning the language. |
| The result is that you don’t burn out, you have something NEW to look forward to, AND you’re still taking action on your language goal. |
| Right now you might be thinking: Ok, I want to break my routine, but what else can i do? |
| Let’s get into the 3rd part: 21 Ways to Break Your Learning Routine. |
| The key here is to do something new and fun. Or at least, something that is easy enough that you’re not overwhelmed. And for that, you need some new resources and study tools. So, here are 21 examples. Of course, if you have more ideas, leave a comment. These are just suggestions and you need to find out what works for you. |
| Okay, if you’re focusing on vocabulary: |
| Set small goals. Learn just 5 words a day. That’s it. |
| Sign up for our free word of the day emails. You learn 1 new word a day, every day. |
| Learn words and phrases with our Free Vocabulary Lists. These cover all kinds of topics: seasons, holidays and common phrases. |
| Use spaced repetition flashcards to drill words. |
| If you’re listening to music or watching a show or a YouTube video, make it a goal to write down 5 words you don’t know. |
| For grammar: |
| Listen to our audio lessons. With every lesson conversation, you’ll learn the grammar rules for the lines used in the conversation. It’s a lot easier to hear grammar in action than to read about the rule. |
| Look up example sentences using that specific grammar rule. Again, it’s better to learn from multiple examples and see the rules in action. |
| Get a grammar workbook and drill through the problems. |
| For speaking: |
| Try and talk to yourself. Say what you’re doing out loud. |
| Read out loud. You can do this with any reading resource, including our lessons. |
| Shadow what you hear. If you’ve heard this tactic before, there’s a good reason why you’re hearing about it again: because it works, and if you’re not doing it, you’re missing out. |
| For Listening: |
| This is the easiest skill to practice. Just watch a YouTube lesson. You can also look up songs and tv show clips. |
| Listen to our audio lessons on the site. |
| Immerse yourself. Download our dialogue tracks that give you just the conversation in the language, and play them on repeat. |
| For writing: |
| Make it a goal to write 1 or 2 sentences about your day. |
| Or, simply copy out text from elsewhere. Whether from our lesson or a social media post you saw. |
| Another thing you can do is write down all the new words you learned today. |
| Finally, for reading, it’s a bit tough to find an easier, more fun routine but try these! |
| Read along as you listen to the audio. You’ll need a resource that gives you text and audio. The audio will make it easier for you to follow along. You can easily do this with our audio lessons. |
| Try kids books or comics in your target language. A lot of Japanese learners read manga to supplement their learning. |
| Try our extensive reading practice books. These are easy 1-line-a-page books that are designed to get you reading fast. |
| Or, find a book about a topic you’re interested in. Another thing you can do is find a book you’ve read before in your native language, and try reading it in your target language. |
| Again, the point is, if you feel that you’re in a language learning rut, the best way to break out is to take a break, and then do something new. Something easier. Something that’s fun. Now, what’s fun is really up to you as a person. You just learned a whole bunch of ways to learn but, if you have more approaches, please leave a comment. These are just suggestions and you need to find out what works for you. |
| All right everyone, in the last monthly review, we asked you to submit a video or audio file of yourself speaking the language -- introducing yourself or talking about your country in the language. |
| So, thank you to all of you that sent in submissions! You’ve all received a Premium PLUS subscription as a reward. |
| Now let’s take a look at some of the videos! |
| (Alisha plays English videos here and adds own commentary and reactions) |
| (Note: select and gather the media files in one location that you can access from the studio iPad before the shoot.) |
| So, thank you for watching this episode of Monthly Review |
| Next time, we’ll talk about: |
| A Brutally Honest Way to Improve Your Language Skills |
| If you enjoyed these tips, hit the “like” button, share it with anyone who's trying to learn a language, and subscribe to our channel. We release new videos every week! |
| And, if you’re ready to finally learn language the fast, fun and easy way and start speaking from your very first lesson, get our complete learning program. Sign up for your free lifetime account right now. Click the link in the description. |
| See you next time! Bye! |
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