In my previous post, I outlined a new set of language goals. In this post, I’ll outline my plan to reach them.
My plan was to spend 30 hours on French, Telugu, and Hindi, and 15 hours each studying Bengali and Punjabi. That totals 120 hours of studying by the end of the year.
To be on-track for that goal, I should plan on spending 2 – 3 hours a week towards these goals. I’ll target 3.5 hours / week to budget time for mixed weeks.
Here are some ideas of things I can study – hopefully these provide some inspiration for your own language learning goals:
All languages
- Do flash card reviews on Anki
- Attend an in-person language meet-up
- Do language classes via iTalki
- Meet up with people in New York to practice the language
- Use Langcorrect or journaly to get my journals corrected by a native speaker
French
- Read L’Odeur du Cafe, a French booked I picked up in Montréal. Highlight, but don’t look up, words I don’t understand. After each chapter, add 5 – 10 of the words that most significantly impeded understanding
- Read one of the free articles on Lequipe.fr (a French sports website) and add unknown words to Anki
Telugu
- Read one of the four children’s books I got from India
- Read Krishnamurthi’s a Grammar of Modern Telugu and publish my notes on them
Hindi/Urdu
- Use Aamozish to learn the Urdu script
- Use another internet resource to learn the Hindi script
- Find 5 – 10 words in my Hindi/Urdu phrasebook that would be useful, add them to an Anki deck
- Practice aspirated vs un-aspirated consonants (still something I struggle with!)
Punjabi
- Learn the Gurumukhi Punjabi script
- Learn the Shahmukhi Punjabi script
Bengali
- Look at the pronunciation guide for Bengali, and figure out which sounds don’t exist in English or another language that I speak
- Find good resources for Bangla (they are surprisingly hard to find!)