Clear the List | Monthly Language Learning Strategies Update | April 2021

It’s April and we’re now entering the second quarter of the year. A lot of exciting things have happened this month, and now, I’m turning my focus to Russian.

And, as it has for the first few months of 2021, a new month not only means a new look at my language goals as a part of Clear the List, but also a new Quest as a part of Language Conqueror!

And this month… it’s all about learning with dramas, tv, and movies! I recently wrote a post to share my experience learning with tv, so I’m very excited to hear all about how Caitlin uses dramas to learn languages since she’s the host for this month!

What is Language Conqueror? It’s a course I work on together with my friend Caitlin Sacasas of 5 Minute Japanese. And each month, we highlight a new topic to help you learn a new language through passion-driven learning. In the month of March, we’re all about dramas. You can learn more, get a feel for our teaching style, and download our free PDF here: Get the Free PDF

And if that’s not enough, you can also get a feel for our teaching style with Snack-Sized Language!

Snack-Sized Language is a free podcast where we teach you snack-sized language lessons. So far we have episodes teaching general language learning tips, Japanese, French, Mandarin and Korean.

Here’s a snippet:

You can subscribe to the podcast on your preferred podcast platform.

Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Listen on Google Podcasts

And if you enjoy Snack-Sized language, we would absolutely love it if you left us a review!

And now, on to #clearthelist …

Wondering what #clearthelist is? Let me clear it up for you (see what I did there?). #CleartheList is a linkup where we share our monthly goals, and by we, I mean myself, and Lindsay of Lindsay Does Languages.

We’d absolutely love for you to a part of our community. You can join us by adding a link to your own goal post in the comments below.

So let’s get started, sharing our goals and motivating one another to #clearthelist!

Please feel free to tag your posts or photos with either #clearthelist on your favorite social media channels!

Last Month’s Highlights on Instagram

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Last Month’s Goals

Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // We’ve been working a lot on adjectives this month and I’m slowly working new words into his vocabulary each day.

Maintain my vocabulary learning streak. // I had a couple of misses this month with a few of my languages, but for the most part, I’ve kept this up. I have a 301 day streak for Croatian and 190 for Persian!

Keep working through my YouTube Queue.  // I’ve been keeping this up and am making good progress! But, this month, I added a lot more videos than I was able to watch. As an update on my progress, from the 1,517 videos last month, I’m up to 1,738 in my queue.

Keep reading Game of Thrones in Russian. // Yes, I’ve picked this back up, particularly now that Russian is once again my focus.

Learn Norwegian with Drops // I finished 90 Days with Drops with Norwegian! I’m not sure what my plan is with Norwegian going forward, but I enjoyed spending three months learning loads of Norwegian words.

Get through at least three chapters in each course book I’m working on. // I again didn’t do this last month, so I’d love to get back to it this month. These are still: Teach Yourself Complete Persian, Genki I for Japanese, Colloquial Russian, Colloquial Croatian, and Colloquial Hungarian.

Maintain my weekly lessons in each language. // I was able to do this, but due to some personal stuff going on (see my Instagram photo above), I took a couple weeks off. But I have lessons scheduled to start again this month.

This Month’s Goals

Continue filling the gaps in my Mandarin vocabulary I’ve noticed since Little Linguist’s arrival. // As usual, I’d like to continue to incorporate this more and more until we’re an OPOL household.

Maintain my vocabulary learning streak. // This has been a great way to rebuild my language routine, so it’s staying on the list indefinitely! I share my stats over on Instagram in my stories nearly every day, so if you’re ever curious where I’m at, you can check out my stories.

Keep working through my YouTube Queue.  // There’s still a lot here I need to get through, and there’s just so much good learning content.

Keep reading Game of Thrones in Russian. // My tutor and I have a plan to do this weekly now that I’m resuming lessons.

Get through at least three chapters in each course book I’m working on. // I will do this in April! These are still: Teach Yourself Complete Persian, Genki I for Japanese, Colloquial Russian, Colloquial Croatian, and Colloquial Hungarian.

Maintain my weekly lessons in each language. // It makes sure I’m using all my languages each week and helps me a ton with accountability.

Resources I Used This Month

A quick recap of the materials I am using.

What I Am Using to Learn Chinese:

LingQ – my favorite tooliTalki Lessons – I have weekly Chinese lessonsMemrise  Drops

What I’m Using to Brush Up/Improve My French:

LingQListening to French radio/podcasts/music

What I am Using to Learn Russian:

Colloquial RussianLingQiTalki LessonsDropsPimsleur

What I am Using to Learn Persian:

LingQPreply LessonsDropsPimsleurTeach Yourself Complete Persian

What I am Using to Learn Spanish:

LingQ

What I am Using to Learn Italian:

LingQ

What I’m Using to Learn Japanese:

Genki IDrops – they just added hundreds of new culture-specific words for Japanese!iTalki LessonsPimsleur

What I’m Using to Learn Croatian:

Colloquial CroatianiTalki LessonsLingQ – they added Croatian, woot woot!Drops

What I’m Using to Learn Hungarian:

Colloquial HungarianiTalki LessonsDropsLingQ – they added Hungarian, too!

Not Currently doing any study for: German, Hindi, Norwegian, Hebrew, Korean

What I’m Using for Little Linguist

Lots of booksDay-to-day interactionitalki LessonsDuolingo ABCDropletsMovies in ChineseGus on the Go Chinese

Resources That Aren’t Language Specific

Fluent in 3 Months ChallengeTodoist (to keep all my language lessons and to-do’s organized)Notion – my new favorite app for taking notes (I just set up a template for the way I use Notion to take notes if you’re interested in duplicating it for yourself)The Biggest Lesson I Am Taking Away from This Month

This month isn’t so much a takeaway, but a request for help!

My Persian teacher, whom I loved, let me know she was offered an incredible opportunity to take a position abroad so she won’t be teaching Persian online any more. I’d like to continue studying the language, so if you have any recommendations for tutors, please let me know in the comments!

Don’t forget that I would love to hear all about your goals for this month! Please join us by adding your post to the linkup below! 

Clear The List Linkup Rules:

1. Share your goal post whether it includes your aspirations for the month or year. Submissions unrelated to the theme or links to your homepage will be deleted.

2. Link back to this post. You can use our button if you wish.

3. Follow the hosts: Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages and Shannon from Eurolinguiste.

4. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Please visit the site of the person who linked up immediately before you and leave them an encouraging comment! By hosting this linkup, we’re hoping to create a positive community where we can all share our goals. If you do not do this, you will be removed from the linkup.

5. Share on social media using #ClearTheList

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