To learn a language you need time. That is the key issue majority of people face.

It is easier when you’re young and go to school: you’re not bounded with a job, a family and kids, but the older you get the more difficult it becomes to dedicate yourself to language learning. Self tested.

How to find time?

I was also bothered with this matter.

I worked irregular hours: 14-16 hours per day.

To implement foreign language learning routine into it took me some effort and change of life style.

Here are conclusions that I made:

During a day we always have time when we are waiting for something, doing something unimportant that requires automatic work rather than brain muscles to be involved.

When I arrived to Turkey for the first time, my first Turkish friend, had exams and said that she would resume her Chinese language learning only after the exams.

“What do you do in the bus, when you go to university and from university? “ I asked.

“Nothing. Usually listen to the radio or music. “

“Listen to a Chinese podcast “ I recommended.

In most urban places of the world to commute to work takes minimum one hour, to commute from work to home takes the same. What do we have now?

Two hours of spare time which u can entirely dedicate to self learning. Two hours a day is nearly the effective hours taught at any language academy.

Now what you can do if you are in: the bus: read, listen and write if you’re in a convenient position.

a car: if you’re a driver, then listen and repeat what’s said. It’s quite difficult because the road requires concentration on the road itself, but having a background podcast instead of music can bring the results even in short if you do it on a regular basis.

street on the go: you can listen, you can repeat what you listen to and you can translate orally what you listen to , cause nobody cares if you talk or not, and usually people think that you talk with somebody over the phone.

Lunch hour is another interesting resource of time: I quit going out with my colleagues, and substituted it with going to:

1. Chinese canteen nearby, where I usually got acquainted with Chinese and mingled with them in Chinese;
2. Students canteen in the vicinity, where I usually ran into Turks, Arabs and Persian students who came to study to Ukraine;
3. Simple local canteen where I could calmly have my lunch, listen to a podcast, watch some movie in language I learned and chat with my friends in the messenger — they had free Wi-Fi

Also right after I finished my meal I had a short walk, again listening to something or practising an oral translation.

Think of your lunch, how do you spend it?

Actually I should have started the chapter with the words of how to begin the morning, but everyone begins it in his own way, so I may only give you a couple advices, feel free to apply them as you feel comfortable.

Instead of morning music on the radio I would recommend to listen to podcasts in the language you learn or radio shows streaming in target language. While washing the dishes I would do the same thing. You may listen and you may repeat what you listen to.

In the evening you may try to apply the following:

1. While watching you favorite movies or series, try to translate orally into your target language;
2. Find the series or movies you like in your target language and watch them;
3. Read a book interesting to you in a target language;
4. Translate orally the book you read in English into your target language;
5. Take a textbook and do exercises with it instead of the points mentioned above.

That was all about a usual workday that any of us has.

Now let’s see what else we can do when we have a weekend:

1. Go shopping: standing in the queue and browsing in supermarket are two great resources of your spare time. You can listen to a podcast or an audio course while you’re browsing, and you can read, listen, and chat with your foreign friends via web applications while you’re drying in the queue.
2. Ethnic events: you can find the website or page in the social networks of the embassy, which language you learn, sign up for the updates and be informed about interesting cultural events to be held at your location. So if any of these things are going to be held then plan your weekend schedule upfront: it would be a useful opportunity to talk with native and also a good time to have with your friends and family. As an example, not a long time ago, I received an update from one of the exhibition centers, that it was going to hold the exhibition, called “Windows to Indonesia “. I gladly visited it, and was so much inspired by the new culture that I was bent on learning the language, and got acquainted with lots of native speakers residing in Ukraine.
3. Ethnic canteens: this is another good place to visit on a weekend in order to find native speakers and to interact with them. Also it’s interesting to learn about nutrition traditions of the country the language of which you learn.
4. Speaking clubs: in Ukraine we have foreign languages speaking clubs where native speakers and local people get together and discuss various topics. First part of it is in Ukrainian the second part of it is in the target language. In Ukraine these clubs are free, everybody volonteers.
5. Close people: if you have children, try to learn a target language with them, it would be helpful and useful both to your children and to you. The same thing maybe applied to your spouse, girlfriend or even parents. This only is the good thing provided your close people share your passion for languages and are interested in it too. Believe me communication even with a non -native can make wonders, even it’s only on weekend.
6. Standard sacrifice, as I named it: you come home or any other place comfortable for you and dedicate it entirely to language learning. It may apply to any day of the week work day or weekend.

Now, what I want you to do is to make your usual daily and weekend schedule, find spaces with spare time or time when you are not busy with important work and analyse how you may implement foreign language learning into the schedule.

As an example, I will give my schedule, so that you could see and make it on your own.

Here it is:

Waking up 6.30

6.35 Calethenics and listening to the foreign radio, podcast or audio course.

6.55. Shower procedures

7.30. Breakfast and listening again or watching TV in the target language.

8.00 Leaving for work.

8.15. Coming to the bus station. Practicing audio course or listening to the podcast on the go.

8.20. Comuting from the bus station to the metro station. Reading a textbook or a book, typing written exercises in my smartphone, chatting with my friends who are the native speakers of a target language I learn via messagenger, listening to podcasts or audio courses.

8.45 Comuting by subway to the subway station in the vicinity of my work. Reading a textbook or a book, typing exercises in my smartphone, writing responses to the letters of my native speaker friends and saving my responses to evernote.

9.10. Comuting from the subway to my work place. Listening to an audio course or a podcast or an audio book. 9.30 to 13.00 Work.

13.00 to 14.00 Lunch hour. Things I do: listening to podcast during the meal, exercising an audio course while on the go.

14.00 to 18.30 Work.

18.35. Comuting to subway. Listening to podcast or audio course on the go.

18.50 Comuting from subway to bus station: reading or writing.

19. 15. Comuting from metro bus station to home bus station: reading, writing or listening.

19.45 Comuting from bus station to home: listening.

20.00 Cooking, having dinner and washing dishes: listening to the radio or watching TV in the target language. 21.00 Spare time dedicated to various activities, at the moment learning JavaScript: listening to the radio.

22.00 Shower.

22.30 Going to bed.

Now let’s count time I spend per day to learn a language.

3.50 hours of passive work, where I learn while doing some other things.

2.55 hours of active work, where I can fully concentrate on my studies.

Approximately 7 hours in total.

Now imagine if you utilize the time for learning only one language, how long it will take you to?

If you are going to count hours, this may sound a lot, but if you count by days, this amount will be really short.

Even linguistics students don’t study that much. But, even if you don’t have the amount of time I have, you would easily be able to find at least one hour per day to practice a language.

As it takes a weekend, it would be much easier to find time.

Now I would highly recommend you to track your day and define the time when you can learn a foreign language.