A recent article in the Economist.com Johnson:What is a foreign language worth?responded to a podcast on freakonomics.com titled: "Is Learning a Foreign Language Really Worth It? A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast".
Freakonomics
We find the Freakonomics.com Podcast fascinating: It describes experiments relating the knowledge of a foreign language to its effect on risk taking and decision making; an analysis by an MIT professor about how much knowing a foreign language can boost future earnings. (Spoiler alert: For English speaking countries, it turns out, not much.)
But the non-economic benefits seem to trump the economic ones: Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University, puts it most succinctly:
“If people are going to get some basic career benefit out of it, or it enriches their personal life, then foreign language study is great. But if it’s a language that doesn’t really help their career, they’re not going to use it, and they’re not happy when they’re there, I really don’t see the point, it seems cruel to me."
The Economist
No surprise, The Economist.com expands on the economic benefit, using lifetime earnings and compound interest.
The picture looks better especially, for German and French, and a cited study estimates that the lack of foreign language proficiency in Britain costs the British economy about $80 billion or 3.5% of GDP, each year.
Nevertheless even the Economist concludes that "...it isn’t hard to think of school subjects that provide less return—economically, anyway—than a foreign language. What is the return on investment for history, literature or art?
Of course schools are intended to do more than create little GDP-producing machines. (And there are also great non-economic benefits to learning a foreign language.)..."
The Take-Away
If you are an adult interested in learning or improving a foreign language, you are likely to have very specific needs or reasons: You have selected your language to help your career, enrich your personal life, communicate with a foreign friend or partner, prepare for a trip to a foreign country, etc.
While some of the research and findings are interesting and fascinating – let's not forget either the benefits for executive functions and memory – your need and reasons will be very personal and unique and so should be your choice of the language learning method/vehicle/system: books, CDs, online or classroom courses, personal tutor, an immersion course in the foreign country.
The choices are only limited by your pocket book, and the time and effort you are able/willing to commit. Because one thing is certain: You CAN learn to speak a second (foreign) language fluently - after all, you learned to speak your first one as well!
Getting started is often the hardest part. It's easy to find reasons to wait until tomorrow.
Here are five suggestions on how you can stop procrastinating and get going.
1. Lighten up Your Inner Voice
Have you been circling around French, for example, but just kept thinking that the pronunciation or the verb forms are too hard to learn as an adult? It's time to change that inner voice and replace it with a go-do-it attitude.
- See learning French as an exciting challenge. - Trust your ability to proceed step-by-step. - Keep in mind that "doing it" is the journey. - Remember all the benefits for your brain.
2. Use Easy Course Material As a Start
Different methods work for different people. But - you've got to work with something that's easy enough and which grabs you. Try things out until you like one that you'll stick with.
- A ready-made course can be an effective and convenient way to get the basics. - Remember, no single course can "make you fluent." - A do-it-yourself course plan (using a variety of materials) can be fun but takes time. - Either way, commit to doing something daily. - Make your language learning a habit - the language will be yours for life.
3. Set Up a Kickstart For The Next Day
Getting started on your daily language practice can be a struggle in itself. When you've finished a lesson, try setting up an activity for starting the next one. By anticipating in some concrete way what you'll do next time, you'll make it easier to get started again. For example:
- Write a short list of words you want to review. - Send yourself an article you want to read. - Download a Podcast lesson you want to use. - Schedule a time to do it.
4. Start Speaking Right From The Beginning
It's scary to hear yourself talking in a foreign language, but the sooner you get used to it, the faster you'll become fluent. The key to oral practice is to say things as often as you can - aloud.
- Do a lot of "Listen and Repeat" - aloud. - Speak to yourself in your new language, aloud whenever you're alone. - Record yourself; and if you can, play back what you recorded. - Find a native speaker to talk to, a friend or an exchange partner.
5. Use Social Media For Early Reading and Writing
Twitter, Facebook, Google+ all provide a feed of foreign language texts that you can tap into for short periods at various times during the day.
- Add online newspapers to your social media account, and catch a quick read whenever you can. - Add educational sites. They will often post a daily word or phrase, or a humorous quip. - Join language learning groups and post comments and questions in the foreign language.
Deciding to learn new skills - such as learning to write, understand, speak, read a foreign language - is a challenging and exciting adventure. You'll not only embark on new experiences, you'll also learn a lot about yourself: your resilience, your openness to meeting new people, your inventiveness, etc.
Set yourself a goal, of let's say 3 or 6 months, and then reward yourself.
We're often asked why we believe that learning with our GamesforLanguage stories is particularly effective. There are 5 simple reasons:
1. Relevant Vocabulary helps you remember
When you start out learning a new language, every word is new and you need to remember it. You remember a new word or phrase more easily when it relates to items, activities, feelings, etc. that you know or use yourself frequently.
Many language courses ask you to memorize lists of words, many of which you may rarely hear or say.
Our travel story uses real-life vocabulary, words, phrases, and sentences that you are likely to encounter when you travel, meet people, and interact socially with them. For example, for our young traveler, practicing his foreign language begins in the airplane as he flies to Europe.
2. Interactive Games engage multiple senses and speak to the whole brain
Video games are non-linear, they use color, sound, and movement.You can hear, see, say, and type words and phrases and do so in various combinations of the four skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking).
Games get you to identify and imitate foreign sounds, find the correct foreign or native word, translate English phrases and sentences, spell words and phrases. All of this makes learning more effective.
3.The Story Context helps you recall phrases and sentences
Rather than trying to translate each word from English into the foreign language, you'll learn phrases and sentences in the context of a story. You'll not only remember them, but you'll be able to use them without even thinking. Here's an example:
Suppose someone asks you what you would like to drink, let's say in French. Rather than trying to find the translation for “I would like a ...”, you'll remember the phrase “j'aimerais un/une...” which you practiced, and you can apply it without even thinking about the first person subjunctive form of “to like.”
Also, to both train your ear and memorize expressions, you can download the conversations as MP3 audio files or listen to the Podcasts. Learners who like a hard copy can download the PFR file of each lesson's vocabulary.
4. Games and Memory drills are fun
There's no way around memorizing vocabulary. For vocabulary acquisition, an inverted cone is a good analogy: You start with only a few words, but as you listen, read, write, and speak more and more of the story, the number of words you'll learn and remember will increase dramatically.
Various memory and recall games make - what could be a onerous exercise - into a fun practice, with scores that let you know when you are perfect.
5. You want to find out “the rest of the story”
Our travel story has a young man traveling to several cities where he meets with relatives and friends. Rather than using unconnected and often unrelated dialogues and topics to introduce new vocabulary, each scene of our travel story builds on the previous one.
The 16 new words of Scene 1 will grow to over 100 new words by Scene 6 and to over 700 by Scene 36. As a user completes one Scene she or he wonders what the next one will bring, and the story sequel adds more motivation to continue to the next Scene.
Practicing and improving a new language can be challenging, even for motivated learners. But with regular, ideally daily practice, learners will progress rapidly. We believe that combining games with a story – the German 2 course uses a 72 lesson mystery story sequel of the German 1 course, which we'll replicate for the other languages – we are making language learning fun, interesting, and effective.
Bio: Ulrike Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. She is a lifelong language learner, growing up in Austria, the Netherlands, and Canada. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact.
In an earlier blog post Heidelberg & Mark Twain, I speculated why Mark Twain had liked the name “Heidelberg,” the city where he stayed with his family for several months in 1878.
This topic had offered itself, as our German 1 traveler during his visit to Heidelberg learns the English translation of the city's name and its relevance to Mark Twain.
Twain's love-hate relationship with The Awful German Language, published as an Appendix to his “A Tramp Abroad,” makes for amusing reading for anyone grappling with the German language – and is especially hilarious to a native German speaker as he looks at German though Twain's eyes!
A Few of His Observations
"Declining a noun" may be the crabgrass on the lawn of many who are learning German. Twain uses “rain” as an example and has some funny explanations for when “der Regen” (nominative) changes to “den Regen” (accusative), “dem Regen” (dative), or “des Regens” (genitive).
If you add adjectives, it gets even worse and Twain is at his satirical best when he notes:
“When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. It is as bad as Latin." He says, for instance:
Singular
Nominative -- Mein guter Freund, my good friend. Genitive -- Meines guten Freundes, of my good friend. Dative -- Meinem guten Freund, to my good friend. Accusative -- Meinen guten Freund, my good friend.
PLURAL
Nominative -- Meine guten Freunde, my good friends. Genitive -- Meiner guten Freunde, of my good friends. Dative -- Meinen guten Freunden, to my good friends. Accusative -- Meine guten Freunde, my good friends
"Now let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those variations, and see how soon he will be elected.”
Twain also notes, correctly, that “the same sound, SIE, means YOU, and it means SHE, and it means HER, and it means IT, and it means THEY, and it means THEM.”
Ah, yes, the only way to discover the right meaning is to understand the context in which they are used.
There are a lot more funny and perceptive passages about the German way to create word-monsters, assign genders, separate verbs, etc. (Note also that there are some spelling and grammar changes that have occurred since 1876 e.g. to let, lease, hire is now spelled “vermieten” - not “vermiethen.”)
If you are learning German, his essay - as well as his 4th of July speech at the Banquet of the Anglo-American Club of Students - might amuse you.
And perhaps it also encourages you to keep practicing. Even though German has its tricky moments, it definitely can be learned!
You Want to Learn German Fast and Playfully?
With our German 1 and 2 courses you'll learn practice German for FREE - with stories of a young man traveling through Germany and - its sequel - solving a "Blüten"-mystery in Berlin.
"The Story" and easy games will let you forget that you are actually learning German!
Bio: Peter Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. He is a lifelong language learner, growing up in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact or below.
A recent article (January 12, 2014) in the Boston Globe, “The Breaking point for New Year's resolution,” reported some bad news and some good news.
“CAUSE FOR PESSIMISM: A survey suggests that nearly half of people ultimately give up on their resolutions; and nearly half (43%) of those who quit do so by the two week mark.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM: 76% of people who keep their resolutions through February 1 keep going.”
We know that most adults learn a foreign language only when they need to or have a personal reason to do so.
Therefore, it's not surprising that learning a new language is not one of the Globe's Top 10 Resolutions for 2014. (However, it could be part of #3: Improve Financial Conditions, #8: Improve Family Relationships, #9: Travel More, or #10: Become Better Educated.)
This blog post completes our December '13 and January '14 series of ways to stay motivated when learning a new language, all three based on the Zenhabits.net blog “The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal,” and its “20 Ways to Sustain Motivation When You Are Struggling.”
Here are the last five (5) more ways to get you at least to February 1.
5 Practical Motivation Tips
1. Get a coach or take a class – Studying just by yourself can be hard, and for some, a class environment with both peer pressure and peer support will be the way to go. For others, a coach or tutor not only provides added motivation, but also accelerates the learning progress. While learning with a tutor can run into money, you might know a friend who will provide coaching or counseling for free.
2. Never skip two days in a row - This rule takes into account our natural tendency to miss days now and then. We are not perfect. Obviously, a skipped day here and there happens to all of us. But if you avoid skipping extra days, you'll quickly notice how much faster you progress, which in turn, encourages you to go on. (To get you started: At GamesforLanguage, learning is FREE.)
3. Use visualization – Visualize what it would mean for you to know the language you are learning. Think about a successful business meeting, a conversation with a foreign friend, chatting with locals in a foreign city – whatever the reason was that motivated you to learn a new language in the first place. Imagine that you can understand and speak it. Now here’s the next key: do it every day. For at least a few minutes each day. This is the only way to keep that motivation going over a long period of time.
4. Be aware of your urges to quit, and overcome them – With self-teaching language programs, it's mostly about finding excuses not to take out the book, not to listen to the audio, not to open the app/language program on you ipad or laptop. Zenhabits notes and recommends: "We all have urges to stop, but they are mostly unconscious. ... A good exercise is to go through the day with a little piece of paper and put a tally mark for each time you get an urge.”
Then have a plan for when those urges hit, and plan for it beforehand, and write down your plan, because once those urges hit, you will not feel like coming up with a plan. Your plan may include tricks for re-starting your enthusiasm, fun things to do (see below), or a visualization of the goal that matters to you.
5. Find pleasure again - No one can stick to something for long if they find it unpleasant, and are only rewarded after months of toil. Learning a new language can be a grind unless you can make it fun and interesting: Find a course you can truly enjoy, and once you have mastered some basics, find easy reading materials, stories, newspaper articles that really interest you, watch foreign movies, etc.
Maybe learning a new foreign language is one of your resolutions for 2014. If so, then you may find one or two of these “ways to stay motivated when you are struggling” helpful.
And, if you find some other ways, please let us and our readers know: Keeping motivated is certainly one of the key elements for successfully learning a new foreign language as an adult.
A New Year is often the time when we make a fresh start and set new goals. If learning a new language is one of your goals for 2014, then preparing for the potential struggles ahead may help you achieve this goal - and maybe others as well. (And even, when the path to reach the top is obvious, staying motivated is key...)
In January 2013, I read on Zenhabits.net the blog post “The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal,” and applied its “8 Ways to Motivate Yourself From the Beginning” to our blog post 8 Zenhabits for Language Learning.
I also really liked Zenhabit's “20 Ways to Sustain Motivation When You Are Struggling” and, in a recent blog post, adapted the first eight ways to language learning.
Seven More Ways to Motivate Yourself
(Sentences in quotes are taken directly from the just mentioned Zenhabit blog.)
1. Find like-minded friends. Online communities for the language you are learning are great avenues to connect with like-minded learners. Even better, if you can find a partner with whom you can practice. My wife and I - we both want to improve our Spanish - have made it a habit of reviewing some Spanish vocabulary and grammar every day at the end of lunch.
2. Build on your successes."Every little step along the way is a success — celebrate the fact that you even started! " That's why we believe that a game-based approach to language learning is so effective: Games let you experience your successes though scores, points, medals, etc. Start with just a few words, phrases, sentences a day. The next day, recalling what you learned the day before will feel good, and you can slowly increase your progress and feelings of success. "Celebrate every little milestone. Then take that successful feeling and build on it, with another baby step."
3. Just get through the low points. It's easy to lose motivation, especially when some of the grammar points make no sense at the beginning and none of the words or phrases seem to want to stick. But hang in there. "Just stick it out and wait for that motivation to come back. In the meantime, read about your goal, ask for help, and do some of the other things listed here until your motivation comes back."
4. Get help. "It’s hard to accomplish something alone." But there are plenty of resources out there today, both free and for-pay online language programs, CDs/DVDs, classes, tutors, and online communities or forums you can join.
5. Chart your progress. Many online language programs indeed help you chart your progress with scores, number of words learned, goals to be reached, etc. You can add your own progress chart of hours/days studied: "This can be as simple as marking an X on your calendar, or creating a simple spreadsheet."
6. Reward yourself often. As you are celebrating your successes (see above) you should also reward yourself for achieving certain milestones. "It helps to write down appropriate rewards for each step, so that you can look forward to those rewards." These could be watching a foreign movie after having completed a portion of the course, downloading some great foreign songs iTunes, buying a CD, or foreign audio book. Or you could go for the ultimate reward: When you have achieved your overall language goal, plan a trip to the foreign country to practice your new language.
7. Go for mini-goals. Language courses typically are organized by lessons and levels. Set yourself some achievable mini-goals of 5 or 10 minutes a day, every other day. You don't have to do a full lesson every time. Just get into the habit with mini-goals, especially at the beginning. Once you feel good about achieving those, you can always set yourself more challenging ones.
Clearly, many of the ways to stay motivated are connected and support each other. There is no single “trick” to keep you motivated at all times. There are just many little ways that - when done together - will nudge you to reach your language goal.
In January 2013, I read on Zenhabits.net an article, “The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal,” and applied its “8 Ways to Motivate Yourself From the Beginning” to our blog 8 Zenhabits for Language Learning.
I had also planned to apply its “20 Ways to Sustain Motivation When You Are Struggling” to language learning and, finally, here are the first 7 ways: (Sentences in quotes are taken directly from the article above.)
1. Hold yourself back – It's often easy to race through the first few lessons of a new language course, in our case, maybe to see how the games work, maybe to find out how much you already know, or maybe just because its fun to score points. All of that is fine, but if you are really serious about learning – HOLD BACK. Your brain can't absorb more than +/- 20 new words a day. So rather than pushing on, look forward to the next lesson tomorrow. "Keep the energy reined in, harness it, so that you can ride it even further."
2. Just start – There are days when you just don't feel like practicing. But, "instead of thinking about how hard it is, and how long it will take, tell yourself that you just have to start." Take your language book, tablet, laptop, or power up your PC or Mac, and just start. "After that it all flows naturally."
3. Stay accountable – Committing yourself publicly on an online forum, to friends, to your spouse or partner, or even to the language program you chose, is a good way to help you stay motivated. After all, you would not want to let them know that you gave up! (We, at GamesforLanguage are currently experimenting with this accountable aspect by letting motivated users play and learn for free as long as they practice regularly. If they don't, they'll have to pay to continue.)
4. Squash negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones – Language learners may indeed tell themselves: I'll never get those French sounds. Or: Those Spanish tenses are much too hard. Or: Those German cases are impossible.
We totally agree with Zenhabits: "It’s important to start monitoring your thoughts, and to recognize negative self-talk. Just spend a few days becoming aware of every negative thought. Then, after a few days, try squashing those negative thoughts like a bug, and then replacing them with a corresponding positive thought. Squash, 'This is too hard!' and replace it with, 'I can do this! If that wimp Leo can do it, so can I!' It sounds corny, but it works. Really."
5. Think about the benefits – You most likely had your own very good reason for learning a foreign language in the first place: family or friends, work or travel, study or research, etc. Whatever it is, imagine the benefits you'll derive from being able to understand, discuss, negotiate, or simply communicate in a foreign language. Keep your original reasons for learning and the benefits in mind and they will surely energize you.
6. Get excited again – Why do you suddenly have second thoughts? Because learning is harder than you anticipated? What thoughts got you excited in the first place? Was it the prospect of traveling abroad? Taking a job in another country? Whatever it was, try to recreate that wonderful feeling of excitement. It'll get you going again.
7. Read about it – Struggling with and having second thoughts about learning a new language is an experience shared by many. But today you can easily find blogs and articles by those who have struggled through but who got there in the end. Reading stories about others who made an effort to learn a language and have succeeded in becoming fluent may just be what you need to get your motivation back. If they can do it so can you!
So keep the picture above in mind: When struggling up a mountain, the view will get better and better and the feeling of having reached your goal will stay with you for a long time - not dissimilar to the feeling you'll experience when you begin to understand, read, write and participate in a conversation in your new language...
Reading about the death of Nelson Mandela reminded me how during my earlier career as a management consultant I had studied “The Mont Fleur Scenarios” as one of the very interesting case histories of scenario planning.
The question that was asked in the early nineties, after Mandela had been released from prison, was: What will South Africa be like in the year 2002? You can read about that planning effort in the link above.
But how does it apply to learning a new language?
Learning a language certainly doesn't involve a planning effort that includes many constituencies. It involves mainly YOU. And you are the one to decide which learning path you want to take.
You could take the “Icarus” path, start fast and try to learn rapidly, just to crash and give up, too often the fate of many adult language learners. But there is another scenario:
The Flight of the Flamingos
In the Mont Fleur Scenario, "The Flight of the Flamingos" tried to evoke their slow, gradual take-off. Your language learning scenario should be similar. A "Flamingo" path takes your time constraints and other commitments into account, but still allows you to review and practice regularly, ideally daily.
Practicing 15 -20 minutes daily will be more effective than spending 1-2 hours once a week. Daily practice will move the new words and phrases from your short-term to your long-term memory. And over time and with a good language practice plan, you will progress.
You get the point. There's no need to dwell on other possible scenarios (as in the Mont Fleur case). Remembering “The Flight of the Flamingos” will let you hold the image and remind you that with a realistic and sustainable practice path you indeed can learn a new language!
[Updated: March 9, 2020] We had all kinds of fun ideas marketing our site when in 2011, we first started our GamesforLanguage program. In 2014, we decided to make our page free-to-use for everyone. In any case, for us the site has been a great way to learn and practice languages and to engage with other language enthusiasts.]
[December 2013]: You registered on our site some time ago. You may have purchased/subscribed. Or you just tried one of our languages, but for whatever reason decided not to subscribe and continue.
And if you didn't subscribe, you may have felt that our course was:
• too easy or too challenging for you, or you just didn't like it, • or you don't have any interest and/or time to learn another language now, • or you just thought you shouldn't pay to learn a new language as there are free online courses available.
There is not much we can do about (1) and (2) above, but if you fall into category (3), or are a current or past subscriber, we'd like to hear your opinion about our CRAZY NEW IDEA:
The Crazy new Idea of a FREE Deal:
We continue with our FREE lessons for those who register and will be happy about any subscriptions. However, those who score more than 500 points by the end of Scene 2 will be able to continue with a FREE unlimited but conditional subscription.
What does “unlimited” mean?
Unlimited means that there is no time limit to your subscription. You can replay any Games and Scenes as many times as you'd like. You can progress at your own pace until you complete your course. In fact, any current subscription would also become unlimited, as long as the condition below is maintained.
What does “conditional” mean?
We want you to play and learn. But we also know that you'll learn a new language only with regular practice. Your free (or paid) subscription will stay active as long as you play at least 4 times per week (Monday-Sunday).
If you skip this schedule more than twice, you'll see the screen on your right and you'll then have to subscribe (or your current subscription will expire as scheduled) in order to continue with your course. Learning is FREE – you'll only be paying, if you are NOTpracticing!
What might be the effects?
If you are a really motivated learner who likes our game/story-based approach you'll want to continue for free until you have completed the course. Even if you skip days and lose the free access, you may want to subscribe and continue. (Or, you may indeed just stop using our course.)
Why are we doing this?
• We are a young, closely held company, and are less interested in revenues than in attracting motivated learners. • We hope that our “Learn & Play/Skip & Pay” model can keep learners motivated: We want you to learn for FREE and only pay, if you are NOT learning and practicing! • We want to test whether “avoiding to pay” is as good a motivator as paying up front.
What do you think?
Before we test our “crazy new idea” we want to ask our past/current subscribers and our registered users:
• Would your learning behavior have been/be different? • Would such a “deal” interest you? • Would it motivate you to learn? • What are aspects of the “deal” we should consider (vacation, illness, other, etc.) • Is this too crazy or unrealistic an idea?
We'd love to hear from you. What are your thoughts?
If you want to get better at something, you have to practice. That goes for sports, yoga, singing, playing an instrument, etc. It also holds true for becoming fluent and proficient in a foreign language.
I belong to an online group of polyglots. The enthusiasm and talent of most of the members is high and I find this very inspiring. Many of us are fluent in several languages and are shooting for several more.
It's a great goal to have, but even talented polyglots need to practice in order to learn and get better.
Practice takes time, which is a limited resource. So it's a good idea to have a plan to make your learning most effective. Some, but not all of the seven “ingredients” below are typically provided by traditional classes, online or self-teaching courses, CDs, books, etc.
You can greatly enhance and accelerate your learning, if you include them in your own, personal Foreign Language Practice Plan. Generally speaking, these three (3) basic ingredients belong to "practicing" a skill:
- doing something regularly - doing something with focus - doing something with the goal to improve over time
And then there's the whole question of how practicing can be both fun and effective. Here are my 7 ways which I've been using for my fifth and sixth languages:
1. Practice in Small Chunks
Devote some of your time to practicing your new language in small chunks (also called "chunking").
Take individual words, phrases, idioms, set expressions, and go over them with focus and intensity. Do them multiple times and use different ways to practice: listen & repeat, see & say, listen & write, say & record, listen with eyes shut, etc.
2. Practice All 4 Language Skills
It will come in handy to know all four skills - reading, listening, speaking, and writing.
If you connect with others on the internet, you'll be using all four skills. And, interestingly enough, with time the individual skills will begin to boost and strengthen each other. [See also our blog post: How the 4 Language skills boost each other]
3. Practice at Different Levels
Vary the level of difficulty. What you learn with easy texts is different from what you learn with texts that are highly challenging.
So, for example, alternate between reading a simple text and puzzling out a tough grammar structure. Or, listen to a basic audio after practicing speaking and recording yourself. Changing around is also a way to keep things interesting.
4. Engage Your Senses
The more senses you can involve when you're acquiring a language, the more effective you'll be.
Listen to the audio of a story or song, watch a movie or YouTube clip, read aloud or record yourself, write things out by using the motion of writing or typing, play interactive games on touch screens, etc.
5. Always Think of the Context
Why the context? Because in communication words take on different meanings in different contexts.
Even when you practice your small chunks, you should have the context in mind. For example, is it a formal or a casual situation? Is the tone serious or humorous? Does the word have another meaning that doesn't fit the context? To communicate effectively, you need to practice with more than simple word lists.
6. Practice often and regularly
We may not all have the time and opportunity for long daily practice sessions.
But, if you can set aside some 10-15 minutes for language practice every day, you'll progress faster than committing the same 60-90 minutes every week. The reason may be that daily practice helps move foreign words and phrases from short-term to long-term memory.
7. Reward Yourself
Practice takes discipline and isn't always fun.
You need to keep your focus, challenge yourself, as well as tolerate a certain amount of boredom. Rewarding yourself after a good practice might just help you stay motivated.
For some people, a gamified program works nicely. Others may want to give themselves points that add up for a special treat. For those with a serious goal in mind, the ultimate reward could be a trip to the country where you can experience the language and culture first hand.
The seven practices described above overlap in many ways, similar to what a physical exercise plan may do to the muscles in your body. Keeping them in mind as you develop your personal Language Practice Plan will help you select your practice materials.
In fact, just as you may use various exercise equipment and activity - weights, machines, running, etc., you should experiment and try out different practice materials - books, audios, online programs, CDs, or traditional courses, apps, etc. For the best results, you need to tailor your Personal Practice Plan to your own needs and goals.
A recent article in the Economist.com Johnson:What is a foreign language worth? responded to a podcast on freakonomics.com titled: "Is Learning a Foreign Language Really Worth It? A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast".
Getting started is often the hardest part. It's easy to find reasons to wait until tomorrow. 
A New Year is often the time when we make a fresh start and set new goals. If learning a new language is one of your goals for 2014, then preparing for the potential struggles ahead may help you achieve this goal - and maybe others as well. (And even, when the path to reach the top is obvious, staying motivated is key...)
Reading about the death of Nelson Mandela reminded me how during my earlier career as a management consultant I had studied “
language 