If you love what you do, does it come easy?
In ordinary life, maybe yes, but in terms of language learning, I would argue.
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I’ve met people who couldn’t stand French and still passed the exam. On the other hand, picking up a textbook might give you butterflies of excitement every time. That doesn’t mean you’ll master the material instantly or effortlessly.
Success is achieved first of all
- those who sit on weekends doing homework instead of hanging out with friends or relaxing with family.
- Who on YouTube watches not only videos with stand-up comedians and travel bloggers, but also videos on studying.
- Who fills up kilograms of common notebooks with new vocabulary.
- Someone who meets with a teacher several times a week and devotes hours every day to self-study.
- Who listens and watches gigabytes of absolutely uninteresting audio and video about politics, economics and ecology, because these are the topics that appear on the exam.
- Who are constantly looking for some rare materials and the opportunity to communicate with a native speaker.
And all this over the course of several months, or even years...
You can, of course, find pleasure in such a routine. But in general, the process is not so pleasant and romantic. The butterflies in your stomach usually go away pretty quickly.
And that's okay. This happens even to true language fans. At such moments, we return to that very rigid motive - to our goal, which sat us at our desk. If it is there, and if you keep it focused, a crisis can always be survived. Remember this.
If the motivation is initially weak and rests on “I just really like this language,” the process may end in two months, even if it began out of great love. C’est la vie.
Read other useful articles:
How to stay motivated and keep learning a language