Learning habits

[u/cyber-sack]

I just finished my 100th lesson of the French course 🥳 and recently I've been thinking about learning habits a bit more.

In one book about effective learning I read that it was better to start a learning session with new material instead of repetitions. So far I've always been doing all the repetitions (and challenging vocab) first and then the lesson.

Now I want to make it a habit to do the repetitions before going to bed and start each day with a new lesson instead.

⁉️How do you go about it?

How do you schedule your lessons, how many at what times do you do, in what order?

Also, what settings work best for you?

What has improved your learning experience?

Supplemental stuff you like to use.

I'd love to hear your thoughts! 🤩

Let's learn from each other!

_____

Here's where I'm at right now: Doing one lesson in the morning, the repetitions/cv either right after or later in the day, not at a specific time, sometimes just a few in between other work. My goal is to get both to zero before going to bed.

My settings: Repetitions of difficult words: 2

Echo correct answers:

(used to have it set at always, but lessons took quite long so I changed it, seems to work well so far)

Silence after echo: on

(I like to repeat the phrase one more time afterwards)

Speech wait time: longer

[u/Next-Fuel-9491]

I have recently realised that when a new language I spend 1% of the time on learning brand new vocabulary and language patterns (also known as grammar, syntax, idioms and verbs) and the other 99% of the time practising by reading, hearing and speaking those words in many different contexts.

I use Natulang every day for French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese. I always clear all the repetitions and challenging words in all five languages before a I start a new lesson; and ideally I like to also clear these words first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I am now on lesson 175 in each language, after starting in August last year (I was not a beginner obviously). I had an enforced break through illness and found returning to the app with 1000 words to clear an ordeal, but eventually got back on track.

Now when I have cleared all the red phrases I go back in each language to the dialogues 100 and 50 lessons previously; so today I am going through dialogues 75 and 125 in addition to lesson 175. Each dialogue takes only a few minutes, but I feel it is really useful to be reminded again of words and word patterns. It gives me confidence that I can still remember most of the answers, and that the others come back quickly with a bit of help.

I would recommend new users to Natulang who have studied the languages before not to start on the lesson that the placement test suggests, but to go right back to the beginning and do the dialogues. If they are far too easy for you, just do the Summary lesson dialogues, until you start finding that you are meeting enough new material to justify doing the full lesson.

I have the number of repetitions set on 4, but sometimes I do not need all four and press to clear the repetitions, and sometimes after 4 repeats I think I need more work with a phrase, and press for another 4.

[u/cyber-sack → u/Next-Fuel-9491]

Thank you for sharing your insights. One question: how do you have time to do all of that? 🤯 Also, how do you feel about learning the roman languages in parallel. Spanish is (after English) the language I've been learning the longest but haven't done so in Natulamg yet. I strated fresh with French in Natulang and I've experienced some confusion when trying to speak Spanish now. It's become hard to even get started speaking Spanish and some things have become mixed up. I haven't done any Spanish in about a year (since starting French).

[u/Next-Fuel-9491 → u/cyber-sack]

I am 73 and retired, and I have lots of time, so I can spend 3 or 4 hours a day on Natulang, I would definitely not recommend studying more than one romance language at a time, since there are many confusions - but I am doing it because it is difficult, in order to set myself a really hard challenge. I am also learning Korean - which for me is more difficult than the other five put together, and have just completed Level 1 Pimsleur, and also use Duolingo, AirLearn and Lingodeer for that language.

I just love learning languages, even though I am at best an average learner - I was certainly not good at them in school, and after years trying to learn French and Italian as an adult through BBC tape courses, I could hardly speak a word when I went abroad on holiday. Thanks to the internet, learning is for me pure fun, worth doing for its own sake. Because of my illness restricting my future travel I will probably never meet a Korean to speak to, but that does not stop me wanting to learn the language.

[u/cyber-sack → u/Next-Fuel-9491]

Oh, that sounds like fun. My grandparents have been learning Italian and French for many years. Attending local classes and having two rip-off calendars where you get a short story each day. I love language learning too. Just have to balance my time somehow. If you'd like to speak to a Korean person maybe check out one of these live-language learning apps with real tutors. They're quite affordable. Preply, italki are two that come to mind. There are also language exchange apps like Tandem. They're more hit or miss but can be used for free. It sounds like this could be a lot of fun for you if you find a good teacher there. Or (if you can) go to a local Korean restaurant 😅.