Surviving the "Dip" - 5 Rules

Here's a thought for you - 5 Rules for Surviving the Language Learning Dip.

1) Have clear goals & write them down - When you hit the tough times, if you don't know why you are working so hard, you will be more likely to quit. Have a goal(s) written down in your study area so you can refer to it daily. Make it exciting and challenging - mine is, "Learn enough Spanish over the next year so I can go there to live for a month or two." Always helps if there's a reward in it for you.

2) When you get bored, shake things up - Vocabulary drills can be mind-numbing. Although I do practice vocab, I don't do it daily. But if you're getting bored, change things up - find a foreign language paper online, and try reading a sentence. Look up the words you don't know. Flip on an foreign language internet radio station - try writing an email to someone in Spanish (you don't even need to send it).

3) Stay focused, practice daily - Think of it the same way you would think about exercising - if you don't work at it daily, you won't get in shape. Make time for it each day.

4) Challenge/reward yourself regularly - Nothing is more motivating than taking a risk (such as speaking to a native) and being rewarded with a positive reaction ("Your accent is great!"). More traditional rewards are good too - you might also set a short-term goal (learn how to conjugate verbs...) and then buy yourself that iPhone you've been waiting to buy...

5) Work within a community - This may be the most important thing of all - seek out people who are also trying to learn, people you can talk to. That way, you'll have extra motivation to learn, and support during the rough times.