Phase 2: Build routines
Good job! You know everything for your journey.
Now we need to build routines. Why? Because you don’t have to put energy into making decisions. Whenever you have 20 minutes available, you just automatically practice phrases or listening.
In general, if you’ve practiced 14 days in a row, you’ll likely have been successful.
Here are three tips about routines, based on the book Atomic Habits by James Clear:
- Habit-stacking: Combine a habit you already have with practicing. Like a daily coffee, sitting in the metro, or walking your dog.
- Habit-replacing: Decide that you want to replace bad habits with a good habit. Annoyed by the amount of news you read, or time on Instagram, or playing online games? Next time you feel the urge, open Lingophant instead. It’s way better for your brain anyways.
- Smallest effort: Make it your goal to do one session per day, no matter how long. It’s better to do 5 minutes every day than 2 hours once a week. And make sure you don’t miss two days in a row.
Try to implement these practices. After this phrase you’re half-way through towards having enjoyable conversations.
Week 4: the Chicken (click to expand)
Be Social
You know the methods. Now it’s about doing it!
By now, you should’ve booked five lessons. If you didn’t yet, do it as soon as possible. Here is the link to book:
And here is the link to send to your teacher about how to use the app: https://lingophant.com/for-teachers/
Nothing needs to be perfect. Chatting in another language should be an enjoyable activity. It is just about remember the new words you needed. The more mistakes the more you will learn.
How to never have an awkward silence:
- Know your interests that you want vocabulary for.
- Think of situations, so you can ask to role-play through them.
- Find out common interests with your teacher.
Use simple language, make mistakes, and ask for phrase recordings. Your goal is getting at least 30 new phrases from each lesson.
What you need to do to complete this week:
✅ Practice all your phrases. Try to keep those available to 0. How far are you from that?
✅ Go to your note with the link to listening material 2x this week and spend 30 minutes with the material. Review old Listening videos as well.
✅ Have another lesson, and schedule the next ones already. We’re building routines.
If anything is unclear, please do not hesitate to contact us through whatever platform you like. You can also answer to our emails. We really want to help you succeed and also learn where you’re stuck so we can make things clearer.
Thanks and good luck !
Week 5: the Opossum
Act smarter, not harder
This is a reminder that you’re not wasting time. You’re actually saving time.
30-40 minutes per day is not a lot of time. Take it as seriously as a traditional language course where you sit three evenings per week.
Remember traveling to class? Remember the sitting and having to listen? Remember the 400-500€ you’d have to pay?
Well you don’t have those with us.
But you should take it equally seriously.
Just because we have minimized the time and do only three activities doesn’t mean you can take it lightly.
Be an opossum and act smarter. And you’ll get to the fun part of speaking very soon.
Reviewing old Listening-Reading content
Vitor in this older video makes a good case for why and how to review content. Remember the note that you can open on phone and computer? Well, here’s why reviewing content is actually quite rewarding:
What you need to do to complete this week:
✅ Spend 2x 30 minutes on listening-reading practice, only reviewing old videos.
✅ Have a lesson and try to get at least 30 new phrases from your teacher.
✅ And as always, practice those phrases daily. Keep those routines running
Have a clever week dear fellow language learner!
Week 6: the Kitten
Be cute, be fierce
Cats learn from imitation mainly (here’s a ridiculously long article about how cats learn, which I sent to my uncle who absolutely loves cats and I think he read all of it!).
You can also learn from imitation. Of sounds. With our “pronunciation training” feature. Somehow, we can recognise differences in sound. But we cannot yet point at the exact difference.
We need to learn to hear new sounds. And no, AI cannot help here. YOU need to hear the difference.
Talking about cute and fierce,
Be fierce this week so that in 12 weeks you can sound cute in your own personal way:
✅ Have your fourth lesson and get around 30 recordings
✅ Build a routine of daily practicing of phrases in the app.
✅ Do at least 30 minutes of Listening-Reading, either review old content or listen to new content.
Do this and you’ve finished phase two. Congratulations! Now comes the phase of pushing through. Three more weeks of continuing this, and then you can start harvest the sweet fruits you have been growing.
Somehow the full effect kicks in after 9 weeks. And it will have been worth your time.