l'appel du vide

Hey everyone! These are the skills I used to learn German in about two weeks! It takes a lot of work obviously but it’s so worth it. 💕⚡️

1. Use a language program like Memrise or Duolingo. I think that programs like these are super helpful for getting acquainted with the language you want to learn and for understanding basic grammar. I mostly use them as a break from the other work that I do but they are definitely good practice.

2. Make a list of the top 1,000 most common words and work on memorizing them in chunks. I worked on memorizing about 50-100 words a day. It sounds like a lot but many of the words are different verb tenses of the same word so it ends up being less work that you expect. Also, from using Memrise and Duolingo, a lot of the words were already familiar to me. I wrote a list of the words for the day each morning and during my breaks from school work I would quiz myself on them.

3. Watch lots of Youtube videos to study grammar and tenses. The internet is your friend when it comes to learning a new language so take advantage of the resources! I would google everything that confused me and watch videos on it until I felt like I really had a grasp. Doing this ensures that you have a strong foundation to learn new vocabulary.

4. Translate music from your main language into your target language and vice versa. This is a fun way that I would practice verb conjugations and my vocabulary recollection. Any word that I hadn’t learned already, I would look up and be able to add it to my vocab list. Also, this is really fun practice and the rhythm made it easier to remember what I was learning.

5. Keep a post-it note to write down any questions you have or things that you don’t understand. This way, you can remember to look up what was confusing you instead of forgetting what you don’t know. By keeping track of what I understood well and what I needed to continue practicing, I was more organized in my practice and spent my time better.

in these tough times, it’s good to keep our spirits up and our to-do lists full

this week’s to-do list:

finish editing a fandom video and post

make a plan on learning new languages (turns out this one is harder than i thought)

prepare my tutoring session

stay safe, beautiful people!