Feedback is an essential part of learning any language. With feedback, you gain a sense of direction, more quickly pinpoint areas you need to work on, and get acknowledgement for when you’re going in the right direction. These are all important ways to not only give your learning motivation a boost, but to progress in your studies faster.
There are a few different ways to get feedback on your language skills, but the one that I find most effective is studying with a tutor. Why?
Because a tutor will not only be able to point out my strengths and weaknesses, but offer me ways to build the areas that I’m weak in. They can also answer my questions about the language that I’m learning. When I want to know a rule or why the language does what it does, they have the training and background to answer my questions.
* Is this the first post in this series that you’re reading? Follow this link to learn more about my Hungarian language challenge.
Once I’ve had a few weeks with the language, I like to schedule a lesson with a professional language tutor on iTalki. That way, I can get feedback on my progress, context for the language I’m learning, and have the chance to interact in the language.
It can be intimidating to try to figure out an entirely new language on your own, and that’s why I like to work with someone who can tell me (honestly) how I’m doing.
When I’m ready to take lessons, I try out several teachers. I look for someone who:
Each of these are things I take into consideration when selecting a tutor I’ll work with long-term. You can get an idea of how my lessons go in this milestone’s update video.
During my first lesson, my tutor and I worked through introductions and greetings. It was perfect because I learned to phrase things differently than what I had worked out on my own, had the chance to learn a bit about grammar, and I was also able to practice my self-introduction with someone new.
Between Milestone 3 and Milestone 4, I had to take a break from Hungarian because of a conference I attended in Shanghai. I had to focus on other languages to prepare for the trip and wasn’t able to study Hungarian alongside them.
At this stage, I was somewhere between 250-275 words in Drops.
Life happens. And sometimes it means that you need to put your language learning on hold. When this happens, it can be difficult to get back into the swing of things. It’s hard to pick up a habit like studying after taking a break from it.
Here are a couple of tricks that I use to restart my language studies when I take time off:
What about you? Are you taking lessons for your new language? I’d love to hear about how you get the most out of your lessons in the comments below!
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"Love my fun language learning and practice with daily Drops sessions, and monthly Challenges to participate in, and quiz mode to test contextual learning - brilliant! So much thought, consideration and inclusivity has gone into the design and function of this app, I can't praise it highly enough."
"Great little learning app! I've learned at least 5-10 new words in Spanish in my first 5 minutes. Easy to pick up and thorough."
"Great language learning app! It helps you get daily words done in a short amount of time. I would highly recommend using drops to learn whatever language you want to learn."
"What an amazing app! I’ve tried several apps for language learning and I cannot recommend Drops enough. I don’t know how a short Drops session can teach me as much as 1 hour+ of focused use of other apps, it’s like magic."
"Amazing language learning tool. Excellent app for increasing vocabulary in your foreign language of choice. Useful for beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners. The repetition of the words makes them much easier to remember, and without the hassle of making your own flash cards. I have used Drops for two years now and have seen great results."
"Very engaging way of learning Yoruba in a stimulating way. Will be using to learn myself and to teach my child!"
"Less than a week in but using this alone with the popular one babbel working on German. When using just one app I got bored, babbel is not as fun. So using both at once actually let's my adhd do its thing but I still focused since I can switch easily between both apps and work in different areas. Also I like the quick little sessions makes me feel like I actually did something."
"So engaging. I speak Spanish well, but often forget words in conversation that I know I should know. This game is fun and quickly brings back vocabulary I may have put in the back of my brain after not using it for awhile. Case in point: I spent 11 years in construction, then went back to teaching in English and/or Spanish depending on the teacher/student"
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"I have been desperate to find an app that really helps me learn Japanese and this is the best by far"
"I like that you can switch between different subjects and topics constantly and it’s really easy to learn a lot of vocabulary very quickly! This works perfect for me because I can learn a lot of words but then practice sentence structure with my grandmother whose from Croatia"
"Fantastic app great opportunity to learn languages on your spare time. Drops makes it easy to learn and retain words to formulate sentences."
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"This app us the best and how I am doing Learning Ukraine is Helping me alot tnx"
"Definitely recommend! I'm using this to learn mandarin 10/10"
"Fun and interactive. Great for repetition!"
"Very engaging way of learning Yoruba in a stimulating way. Will be using to learn myself and to teach my child!"
"Amazing language learning tool. Excellent app for increasing vocabulary in your foreign language of choice. Useful for beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners. The repetition of the words makes them much easier to remember, and without the hassle of making your own flash cards. I have used Drops for two years now and have seen great results."
"Great little learning app! I've learned at least 5-10 new words in Spanish in my first 5 minutes. Easy to pick up and thorough."
"I have been desperate to find an app that really helps me learn Japanese and this is the best by far"
"I like that you can switch between different subjects and topics constantly and it’s really easy to learn a lot of vocabulary very quickly! This works perfect for me because I can learn a lot of words but then practice sentence structure with my grandmother whose from Croatia"
"Fantastic app great opportunity to learn languages on your spare time. Drops makes it easy to learn and retain words to formulate sentences."
"What an amazing app! I’ve tried several apps for language learning and I cannot recommend Drops enough. I don’t know how a short Drops session can teach me as much as 1 hour+ of focused use of other apps, it’s like magic."
"Love my fun language learning and practice with daily Drops sessions, and monthly Challenges to participate in, and quiz mode to test contextual learning - brilliant! So much thought, consideration and inclusivity has gone into the design and function of this app, I can't praise it highly enough."
"Definitely recommend! I'm using this to learn mandarin 10/10"
"This app us the best and how I am doing Learning Ukraine is Helping me alot tnx"
