How to find the time to learn English

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, we are the 3 English Experts. I'm Rebecca. I'm Dave. I'm Birgit. And welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. Hello, hi. The topic of today is how to find the time to learn a language. And that's always a problem for a lot of people, how to fit in this little but very important thing. Rebecca, let's start with you. What's your experience? And what can you tell our listeners, what you really want to advise them to do? Yeah, I know, I wrote a blog post a few years ago. And it was called, What can I learn in 10 minutes a day? And it's actually my most popular blog post. So it shows how it is a big question that so many people ask when they start learning a language. Their biggest fear is, you know, it's really is that how am I going to fit it in? And can I do it in 10 minutes a day? So I actually did an experiment for this blog post. And I learned Japanese for 10 minutes every single day. I think it was 30 days. I can't quite remember. Unfortunately, I did three things. I also did guitar and yoga. So I ended up doing 30 minutes a day, which kind of defeated the object. But I think my outcome from that experiment was, it is a good thing. But it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right thing for everybody. And I think this is always the case in language learning, you really have to find what works for you. I think when someone says this is the best way to do it. So I don't like to say to people, this is the best way to do something because I think, you know, that's very prescribed. And the positives about 10 minutes a day was that even if I missed a day, I'd still done maybe four days where I'd done 10 minutes and that's 40 minutes. And 40 minutes is better than no minutes. And I always say that to my clients, slow progress is better than no progress. You know, it's even if it's only 10 minutes and they go, but what I can't, I'm not going to achieve anything in 10 minutes. But you can actually do quite a lot in 10 minutes. And I also found that when I did sit down for 10 minutes, sometimes I actually did 20 minutes or 30 minutes because I kind of got into it. Other times it really was 10 minutes. I'm sitting on the tram and I just did 10 minutes, but there were other times where it was a bit longer. So in the end over the week, I thought it was actually quite a good system. So, I mean, using apps, for example, I use an app on the tram. So Dave's our app guy. What would your advice be from sort of, you know, learning on the go, let's say when you've only got 10 minutes to learn on the go? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you mentioned apps. There's Duolingo. That's a very good one for different languages. Of course, there's one for English as well. I actually practice that with Spanish. So I do stuff with Duolingo in Spanish. It was actually really cool, but it's a little bit limited to how they've organized it. If you want something more personal, I would recommend, for example, Quizlet, because there you can set up your own list of vocab and you can also get vocab out of the systems, out of what other people have stored in there. You can look up topic areas. Maybe you want to know the, for example, I don't know, the family words for different family members in different languages. Also, obviously in English, you can look them up and then use those that other people have prepared for yourself. You can copy them. A natural fact in the show notes, we can put down some ways. If you've got a free account with Quizlet, then you could copy this set of vocab into your own Quizlet account. And then you've got the vocab for yourself in your own Quizlet account. And the best thing is you're if you're on the tram, if you're on the go, you can actually download the app for your mobile. So you can do that on the tram or anytime you've got stood in a queue, waiting for something. Perfect. Yeah. I love Duolingo. I think, like you say, it's limited. It's not the best thing. Quizlet is more personal. You can put your own vocab in and I like both actually. But I think my other experience with the 10 minutes a day was don't do the same thing every day. So when I say 10 minutes a day, I don't mean do every single day 10 minutes Duolingo. I think mixing and matching is quite important. So have a different activity. Birgit, do you have any other points on that? Yes, I absolutely agree. I mean, I use Duolingo too on my Dutch learning. And the thing is, you have to stay motivated and experience fun doing it. And I completely agree with Rebecca saying, and I tell my learners, it's better, yes, do something like 10 minutes a day, because some people only today, somebody told me, oh, how much should I input into the learning? Would be one hour, would that be enough a day? And I was like, wow. I mean, if you do that, you get a certificate from me, because nobody really can do that. I have no one who really invests like an hour a day. That's not realistic. And I believe stay realistic, have fun and enjoy. And what I have just started recently with learners, if there's a very complicated construction, I mean, I'm a grammar with a focus on grammar. If there was like if clause conditional three, I would have done if I had known. I tell them now, please repeat that phrase until the rest of the day, several times, repeat, repeat. And I wake up in the morning next day and it stays. So it's all a lot about repeating repetition and finding the time as that's our subject today, staying motivated, developing fun, setting yourself a goal and telling yourself now this is going to be a priority. Yeah, we talked about priorities, didn't we, Rebecca? You know, I just find it funny when I say to them, you know, it needs to go on your priorities and they go, but I have a family and a job. And I think I'm not asking you to, like, prioritize it over your family or over your job. You know, when priority doesn't mean it has to be top priority, because, of course, we all have other priorities. There must be some things that you're doing now that maybe are not priority. So for me, for example, social media, how much time do I waste flicking through social media? And it's just waste. A lot of it is wasted time. I annoy myself by doing that. So it's those moments where I see, like, this is a red decision. This is not a good decision. Something positive, whether it's sports or whatever, or it's language learning. Trashy TV. Is it better to sit and learn some Japanese vocabulary or watch 90 Days to the Altar? I think it's better to do some Japanese. And I'm not saying that everybody sits watching trashy TV. I'm not that I sit watching hours of trashy TV. But sometimes you find yourself and you're tired and you're just sitting there and thinking, this is what I would say is prioritizing. It's like taking out the rubbish stuff that you don't really, it's not helping you. You know, it's not like prioritizing over the important stuff in your life. It's the bits that are not that. What about the word awareness here? You become aware that it matters to you now, for example, when we're talking about English and English is necessary for a lot of people. So make it part of your life. I mean, that's not even asking for 10 minutes, but just awareness. Be aware. English, you can find easily everywhere, can't you? Absolutely. Notice things. And Dave, you had a point about TV, I think, about like watching, you know, I'm talking about my trashy TV that I watch. Well, yeah, I mean, people are moving away now, I think, more into YouTube as well. And if you're going to watch something, maybe watch something you're interested in, but in English. So obviously on YouTube, there's channels of all different kinds of topics, whether you're interested in gardening, whether you're interested in music, whether you're interested in fashion or whatever, or the news or something like this. Of course, you could watch it in German, but why not try and watch it in English? And again, there's some little tricks and tips that you can do with YouTube. For example, I don't know if you know that, of course, you can put on the subtitles. So there are subtitles in English or even change the language into German. There's another thing where you can actually slow down, for example. That's brilliant. I love that. Yeah. I've used that for Spanish and I found that really, really helpful. Yeah, that's a brilliant tip. You just have to be a little bit careful, but it doesn't go too slow. And then it just distorts it a little bit. Well, actually, you know, you do talk about watching television, you guys, British guys living in Germany. I'm interested. Do you watch German or English television? I have no idea. That's a good question. When I first came to Germany a long time ago, we actually didn't have cable. We didn't even have cable. So we literally had the three channels, the four channels in Germany. We were always watching Hessen TV. I was very informed about Hessen, but we just literally didn't have anything else. There was no Netflix, there was no streaming. You know, the only thing you could do was go to the English cinema or watch a DVD. So we watched loads of German TV because there was just no other option. And I have to say, I really think it made a massive difference to my German learning process. And it just became normal because there was no other option. And so we just switch on the news. It was like, well, this is all we've got. So this is what we're going to do. Obviously, like Dave said, there's so many opportunities now. Maybe it's just because we were forced into doing it. We didn't have a choice, but we still watch it in German. So we still watch the news in German. I do click sometimes to BBC or CNN. But generally, when I get up in the morning, we watch German news because it's just that it's normal. But a film you would watch in English then, obviously? If it's an American or British film, I would watch it in original because it's just weird to watch it dubbed. It just doesn't make sense to me. But if it was a German film, I would watch it in German. But yeah, yeah, I think that's I mean, you have to just look at the other countries around in Europe. And if you watch if you look at the Scandinavians, their English is out of this world. And why is it that? Because everything is either subtitled or actually put into English. Even the Norwegians, I believe, can get BBC, for example. So they watch the normal British TV. So again, I think for Germany, even though times are moving on, there's not just TV, there's YouTube, there's everything else is streaming. There's no excuse nowadays not to watch something in English. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. And you don't have to do it all the time, but maybe just do something a little bit in English. One episode or something, especially if you've seen it before, you know what's going to happen. And then it's then more the second time or the third time watching it in English to get the English, isn't it? But that's like a disadvantage for Germany, because the Northern States, Netherlands, they all get it from the state on the side. And all the Germans need to sort of bloody hell put some effort in, spare some 10 minutes a day. But you see, that's about awareness. I really feel English should be part of people's lives much more. So yeah, make time for it. I think you're right. I think even though it's like all you have to do is flick one switch, making that decision to say, right, I'm going to watch this series now in English. It's still that decision, whereas if it's done for you and it's just there, you know what I mean? The decision has been taken away. But no, I think it's common knowledge that a lot of these Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, where they listen to a lot of stuff in English is one of the reasons they have very, very good English skills. It's a pity they don't do that in Germany. I think, like you say, just build it into people's lives more. Yeah. So the downside is, guys, we probably wouldn't have a job. That's true. Maybe, you're right. I think actually, yeah, I don't think you can work as an English trainer in the Netherlands. I just don't think there's a market because there's just no market. That's true, actually. That's true. Good point. Okay. Yeah. Do we have now come to a conclusion today? How to find time, actually? I mean, if somebody was saying, oh, I haven't got time, I haven't got time to learn English. I think, you know, like we said, 10 minutes a day is a good start and something is better than nothing. I think that would be my point. My advice would be do something different every day. Don't learn the same. You know, there is this false fluency thing where if you learn the same 10 words every day, your brain gets lazy. And so you don't really learn. So I would do one day, do Duolingo one day, watch a 10 minute YouTube video one day, listen to a podcast, you know, mix things up. Yeah. And this being realistic, like your client within 60 minutes a day. Nice idea. But be kind to yourself. I think the other point is to be kind to yourself. No one's perfect. No one has a great day every day. No one's always going to do what they plan to do. And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't matter. Just do it tomorrow. You know, get up the next day. And like I said, slow progress. Language learning is not a sprint. It is a marathon. Oh, that's the phrase of the day today. Phrase for the day. Close up. What did you say? It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. It's a marathon. Language learning is not a sprint. It's a marathon. Yeah. So take your time. I agree. I agree. But it shouldn't be a burden. Exactly. It shouldn't be this, like a horrible marathon. You should enjoy it. And I agree with you, Rebecca, exactly what you said earlier on that you start for 10 minutes. And if you've got the time, just you get into the flow, right? Talk about the flow. Yeah, absolutely. And there will be days where it works and days where you think, no, I really only have 10 minutes or I don't have any minutes. But 40, 50 minutes a week is better than no minutes. I think people get into this all or nothing. It's a bit like dieting. You know, you have a day and then you eat a pizza and you go, oh no, what have I done? Bad conscience. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like this, I've got to do 60 minutes a day. And it's just, again, be kind, be nice to yourself, be realistic. Don't pressurize yourself too much. No, no. I must, I must. No, you must not. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's something to talk about. We must not, we must, that's a grammatical thing we can talk about in one of the next episodes. I must, I don't have to. I've actually got one other tip, ladies. And listening on the go, I mean, we haven't really touched on that, I guess. I mean, for example, audible books, maybe if you're going for a walk or if you're in the gym, yeah. Listen to a podcast, listen to our podcast. Of course. That is a fantastic idea. That's a fantastic idea. Or a book, listen to a book. It can be science fiction, it can be a novel, it can be factual. But since I discovered audible, of course it's from Amazon, I shouldn't really shout that too loud. But since I discovered that, I mean, it's just amazing to read a book that way. I also said don't add it on, add it in, you know. Yeah, while you're doing something else. You know, if you're in the car anyway, listen to that. If you're going to listen to something anyway, listen to a podcast. If you're going to watch TV anyway, don't watch 90 Days at the Altar, watch something useful. Well, I like that. Add it in. I've never used that before. That's good. Don't add it on. Don't add it on, add it in. That's another phrase for the day. Thank you very much. Because I'm still learning after 30 years with English. We're all still learning. But you don't learn so many new German words, I believe. Oh, I do. I do. I do. It's amazing, actually, even after so many years. You know, like I said, I watch the news every day. And now and again, these words pop up and you think, what? Well, in one of our next episodes, we have to talk about the Met Eagle. But we won't we won't tell people now what that's about, but we will talk about the Met Eagle. Oh, I've got to have my dinner. You're putting me off now. We're talking about the Met Eagle. There's always new words to learn. And that is our topic for next time, right? Dave, I think, isn't it? Yeah. I wanted to look into vocabulary, helping you to decide what's the right stuff, how you can learn it, tricks and tips and all that. So, yeah, join us in the next one. Super. Yeah, I will be there. I will be there, too. We're all there. OK. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Have a good one. Bye. Thank you so much for clicking play today. If you have any comments, questions or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to drop us a mail at info at 3englishexperts.de. Have a wonderful day and see you next time.