90 Day Turkish challenge - Days 8-14 - Know Why you are learning your language!

Hello dear Reader.

In this article I will combine days 8 - 14, Because of a lack of Time, I deeply apologize for that. But I did nothing realy special in those days except listening and reading. Due to this I want to change my 3 month challenge towards weekly reports. I am doing this because I have to write my exams in two months so I will not be able to write dayli texts.

Today I want to talk about knowing your goals, know why you learn a language.
There are many people out there learning language. All of my friends had to learn either Spanish or English or French or Latin in school, I chose Latin. And some of them speak the languages really well. Some of them are even perfectly fluent there. But why is that the case?
Why are there some language learners out there who speak two, three, four or even more languages fluently or at a very high level like B2 or C1?



The answer is quiet simple. All those people know why they are learning a language. They have a certain goal in their mind. And this causes multiple things.

First of all, it will help you staying motivated.  If you see your goal clearly (For example beeing able to have a flirt with a girl in Turkish language or to order a coffee in Rome), you have something to work for. It could also be a good mark in the next French class test. That is similar to playing an instrument or like doing sports. If you want to reach a goal, It is definetly more easy to reach it than if you have not set yourself one.

So what goals are good to start with?

Often people say: "I want to speak "choose a language" fluently within a year. That might be a goal, but not a good one, because it is far, far away from you.

You need to choose goals that can be easy achieved. For example: "I want to have a 10 Minutes-conversation with a friend in the target language after learning it for four weeks.". It is easy to achieve that goal and it has also got another huge advantage.

Goals motivate you!

When you reach your goal and you are happy with the outcome, you will become even more motivated. You are going to want to achieve more goals.

I give you an example: "My goal was to go to the local market and order my food in turkish." So I learned with material dealing with this topic and in the second week I went there and ordered it in Turkish. Well.. it did not work, but the fact that I went there and started speaking was great to me!

Another goal I set for myself is having a smalltalk with turkish people.

But attention! Do not set difficult goals and do not set yourself under pressure. If you can not reach your goals in a certain time, plan in a few days or weeks more. Sometimes you might discalculate with the time or with the goals. This is completely fine! Language learning is about fun and not about stressing yourself.

"Language is the means of getting an idea from my brain into yours without surgery."       - Mark Amidon

Coming back to my Challenge-progress in the last few days. I mostly did listening and reading. I decoded a text in my textbook and I feel comfortable enough right now to go on with that with new texts. I still do not use lyrics of songs, but I think that will be the case soon. In the last days I tried to get a little overview of the Turkish language and I set myself goals I want to achieve.

Thank you for reading,
set yourself goals!
Best regards,
Alex.