Every year we wait for December just to write the same resolution “learn a new language”, but it always stays on paper. However, you should not wait for a specific date to start, any time is a good time to try to meet new resolutions and challenges! Also, the satisfaction of being able to communicate easily in another language is a great reward, especially to grow and advance professionally. Thanks to new technologies and social networks we can turn this task into a very practical and fun challenge. A very original and innovative challenge is the 30-day challenge to learn a language. Have you heard of it?

What is the 30-day challenge?

The 30-day challenge to learn a language comes from the scientific study that shows that in this period of time our brain is able to adapt and create new habits. This can be applied to any aspect of our life that we want to improve: in this case, learning a new language.

The only thing you need to meet this challenge is motivation, perseverance and watching some videos. Today we´ll share with you MosaLingua’s proposal, where one of their teachers named Abe took the challenge and learned Spanish following these 3 planning steps:

1. Define your main objective

First of all, you must be honest about your level of language skills and then set a specific goal based on your needs.

This is important because, if you are just starting out in the language and you want to work on your fluency, you can set a goal that after 30 days you will be able to have a very basic conversation in your target language.

2. Tell everyone!

The second thing is to make it public, this will make you feel accountable for meeting the challenge. You can do this by posting it on your social networks, or by telling your family and friends. You can also propose to have a conversation in your target language with an expert teacher after 30 days.

If you go for a conversation with a teacher, you will know what points you need to work on. In addition, this will motivate you to look for people to do language exchanges with in order to gain some self-confidence.

3. Create your own study plan

The third thing to do is to plan ahead what you are going to study. Prepare a study plan that contains a different activity to complete each week, but don’t make it tedious so that you don’t get bored. On the contrary, you can make it very dynamic in order to motivate you more.

If your personal challenge is to improve your speaking fluency, learning vocabulary will play an important role. In Abbe’s case, she set out to learn five new vocabulary cards every day and review these words during the first week. Abbe created her own list of words that she felt she would need to carry on a basic conversation. This is a good technique to help you reach your goal.

By being clear about what you want to achieve you can concentrate on working towards it. During this challenge focus on learning the most important vocabulary as well as the grammar rules you will need to reach your final goal.

A good way to motivate yourself is not to do this challenge alone. You can propose some friends to study together with you, and even at the end of the 30 days you could throw a theme party where you only speak the language you have chosen to study.

Learning another language on TikTok and YouTube
To learn languages, any medium is valid. With the development of technology, social networks and multimedia have become a popular tool, not only for young people and children, but also for adults.

By searching YouTube you can find channels like SuperHolly’s, who is a native of the United States, but speaks Spanish very well, so she creates videos of both English and Spanish classes.

A very interesting challenge to learn a language in a week is the one proposed by Loca Lingüista, a Russian YouTuber who is a language teacher.

Tatiana, as is her real name, in 2017 made a video called “Learn languages in a week” where she challenges herself to learn basic Portuguese in one week and reach an intermediate level in two weeks.

While she explains that this challenge can be applied to other languages, the steps she proposes must be followed very well in order to achieve learning the basics.

TikTok is the new social network that keeps us practically glued to our cell phones, but it’s not all about entertainment; it could also help us learn new languages! There are several Tiktokers that take advantage of the platform to teach their followers new words in other languages, such as:

@fresajapomex

This is the account of a girl with Japanese ancestry, she usually uploads content giving Japanese lessons, but also shows some cultural aspects and curiosities about the Asian country.

@letsspeakenglish

This account belongs to Robbie V, a Spanish teacher who usually uses his mantra “A little bit of useful everyday English” before introducing common phrases used in the language.

His short videos are usually in English and Spanish to explain both vocabulary, expressions and pronunciations.

@soo_ji_ni

Sujin Kim is a Korean girl who speaks Spanish very well, so she creates short videos to teach Spanish speakers some Korean phrases and words.

As you can see, you just need a little bit of encouragement to meet this challenge and get to speak a new language quite well. You now have a lot of tools that will make your learning more fun. Remember that learning a language will not only be a personal skill, but also a job skill.

Are you up for the challenge?