Immersing Yourself In Langauge: A Guide For The Time & Sleep Deprived

Three ways to immerse yourself in a language without losing yourself in the process

If (like me) you are prone to wildly ambitious and entirely idealistic goals, then at some point you have promised to learn a new langauge.

And if (like me) you are sitting amidst the chaos of a six week old baby and distant memories of these wildly ambitious goals, you’re definitely laughing at your own idealism — that time when you had, well, time. And sleep!

Learn a new language? I can barely string a sentence together in English. Every adult conversation I have is now an out of body experience — I’m only aware of 3% of the words coming out of my mouth and the remaning 97% is a subconscious hope I didn’t just order a Christmas eggnog instead of an iced coffee in May.

And as though learning one language isn’t enough (in my case it’s brushing up on Russian — welcome news from my very Russian family), I’m also keenly returning to learning a few coding languages. As both Russian and Javascript are demanding languages to master, my challenge is to (1) not break my brain and (2) not raise a feral child in the process.

Whilst this may certainly not be your set of circumstances, I venture to wage that time constraints, rather than a lack of will, prevent you from finally conquering the language of your choice!

Whatever your set of circumstances may be, and regardless of whether you are learning Japanese or Javascript, here are a few methods I have adopted along the way:

№1 → Find a community! Find a community! Find a community!

I cannot stress enough the importance of a language community. Take the time to research a community either in your physical world or online world. Engaging with a language community is crucial not only because it immerses you in the syntax and reality of the language (unlike a textbook or audio lessons), but it also develops an esprit de corps type of camaraderie.

When you surround yourself with others who are committed to learning, in a positive and encouraging manner, it’s incredible how quickly you become accountable. In my experience, on Twitter, I’ve become quite fond of the #100DaysOfCode (Alexander Kallaway) community alongside that of freeCodeCamp (Quincy Larson), Women Who Code, Code Newbie, and numerous others. In fact, being part of these communities inspired me to write an article on how they can foster a more loving and kind approach to the process. Some of you may be part of the #100DaysOfEnglish challenge and, if you have not done so yet, I encourage you to get involved with the Twitter campaign.

Also, particularly with an online community, your engagement depends entirely on you; if your circumstances dictate that you immerse yourself on certain days of the week or for certain hours each day, then great! There is an inherent flexibility here. You get out what you put in.

Reflection Point: Which language communities might you join? How would you engage with this community?

№2 → Time Block

It seems rather silly to encourage time blocking when it seems that there is no time available for scheduling the blocking much less blocking it.

With a newborn latched on to me for literally most of the day, I find time blocking to be the most challenging yet the most impactful for planning my immersion. For me, this means consciously planning out my activities whilst little Zevi sleeps or is having cuddles with his Dad; and whilst I don’t always know when he will take a nap, I do know that he will nap. This also means taking the first available quiet moment to brain dump all the tasks I’d like to complete that day or within the week.

Hence, following organisational guru David Allen’s advice and using Todoist to combat new Mum brain, I’ve (1) identified the activities I aim to pursue each day and (2) organised them based on how long the activities should take. When Zevi falls asleep, I work my way through my tasks from least time consuming to the most. Whilst these activities are scattering throughout the day, I nevertheless give my undivided attention to them once I’ve reached that particular activity — no multitasking nonsense. As such, when I’m with Zevi, my full attention is on him and not on the squillions of things I’d like to accomplish.

Emerging from the cocoon of new Mummy-hood, I’ve allotted time each day for (1) writing (2) coding and (3) Russian; each day is different and my methods of engagement vary, but the time spent and focus given does not.

It’s also crucial to be realistic when time blocking. It’s laughable to think that I could schedule anything at a certain time. Rather, I focus on the length of time an activity will take and work it around my days with Zevi.

Reflection Point: How can you effectively time block at least one daily activity to engage with your language learning? Depending on your circumstances, would this mean time blocking based on length of activities or time of day?

№3 → A Non Negotiable Mentality

Once you’ve found a community and effectively managed to time block language learning activities, a shift in mentality is necessary.

It’s rather easy to sign up for a MeetUp to engage in the local language community or create a beautifully color coordinated schedule that time blocks the blazes out of your day. The process of preparing to engage is sometimes a welcome distraction from the actual engagement — and I say this from years of experience. It’s so much more fun to create the schedule (with colours and fancy stickers) than actually stick to it.

In the endeavour to learn a language, the only thing that separates successful you from current you is mentality. It is identifying the non-negotiables. For example, deciding that you will attend three MeetUp groups per week and spend one hour per day focusing on one language activity. And that’s the key — focus. No phones, no Netflix bingeing, no multi-tasking, no distractions. Instead, at least for that hour, fully attentive to the language at hand. It means committing to the activity and telling everyone or everything else to bugger off, that you are prioritising the activity up and until the rapture or armageddon or local killer zombies attack.

This will take communication and planning ahead of time, to ensure that you are creating an environment that fosters an appropriate level of focus; and it is crucial.

Reflection Point: What non-negotiables can you identify to help you immerse in the language of your choice?

Having lofty ambitions to learn a language is fantastic. Whilst we cannot all travel to the country of origin for a six month immersion experience, or attend a coding camp, we can follow these three steps to make the goal a bit more realistic.