Angie Lee
How do you squeeze in time to learn a new language?

Hi! I've been using Italki for about a month now, I think.

It's a great site, but the only problem I have is, I can't find time to go on the site too long. I always have to study for school, etc.

What ways do you learn a language? And how long do you spend time on the language per day/week?

 

I go to school at around six in the morning and come back at about five pm, which sucks lol.

So it's really hard for me to learn a new language with this crazy school schedule. Plus I feel bad for not replying to some of the people I've been talking to on here.

 

Jun 25, 2015 3:24 PM
Comments · 5
2

As a fellow University Student, some of the ways I used to increase my Japanese study time (Although I wouldn't recommend all these methods):


- Ditch school, study Japanese.
- Pay the minimal attention to lectures, study Japanese.
- Work out how to get the minimum grade, so I would have less school work.
- Changed major so that I would study more Japanese.
- Took easier classes so that my school weightload was lighter.
- Used Anki in between classes. (Anki is a vocab building app that you can get on your phone)

 

So far I've failed 1/12 courses I took doing this, but in the end if was worth it.

 

Some of the ways I used to study the language:
- Textbooks (Genki Series, Kanzen Master Series, A Dictionary of ... Japanese Grammar Series)
- Japanese native materials (Manga, Anime, Drama, Movies, Music, Youtube Videos, Podcasts)
- Websites (News articles, Web Articles, imabi.net, vocab and grammar lists like tanos.co.uk)
- Talking to imaginary objects, 床ちゃん = my floor (my wife), 明かりちゃん = my lamp (床ちゃん's friend), 窓さん = my window (my best mate), 穴ちゃん = my hole that I have in my room (who I'm having an affair with), 想像猫 = my imaginary cat. If there was something that I wanted to say to my imaginary friends, I would search it up on the internet and learn from that.
- Vocab building softwares (Anki)

June 25, 2015

I always add my partners so i could talk to then every now and then.

Anyway,I wouldn't miss the conversations.

June 27, 2015

Split into two, italki's character count.

 

When I started out I would study as much as I could, literally 10am-10pm with only having breaks to eat, dump and shower. I burnt out several times from lack of motivation, no reasons to continue learning and just general angriness when I couldn't understand vocab/grammar even with explanations in English. Well because I studied so much, by a certain point, I had no other hobbies to turn to, so I would eventually continue studying. Now I study just as much, as much as I can. On school days maybe five hours, on weekends and holidays eight to ten hours.

 

You could try replying to people in your breaks, or adding people on other social media.

June 25, 2015

The really useful sections of italki are answers and notebooks. If you avoid the forums and random chats, you can surely fit 20' in your schedule for this website.

 

June 25, 2015

You should concentrate you on the things, that important for you (school etc.) If you want to learn new language, you must to know, if you have any time.

Italki is a social media site. This and others sites steal much time. If you have much time, par example, on holidays, you can use it all time. But if you have "work" on you real life, you still concentrate on it.

June 25, 2015