Lesson Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome to the Monthly Review!
The monthly show on language learning.
Where you discover new learning strategies, motivational tips, study tools, and resources.
By the way, all the lessons and bonuses you’re about to see can be downloaded for free on our website.
So, click the link in the description right now to sign up for your free lifetime account.
Okay, today’s topic is:
How to Get a Return on Your Language Learning Investment
Language learning is an investment. But what if you’re learning…but not seeing any returns or results? And do you even know if you’re getting any results at all? In this episode, you’ll discover
One: Why Language Learners Fail to See Results… And Why They Fail
Two: Why You Need to Track Your Language Learning Sessions
And Three: How to Track Your Results
But first, here are this month’s new lessons and resources. Be sure to download these now before we take them down in a few days.
First — The “Going to the Airport” Conversation Cheatsheet
With this new cheatsheet, you’ll learn words and phrases like... “Here’s my passport,” “boarding pass,” and much more. Download it for free on the inside.
Second —The Slang Words &Phrases PDF eBook
Do you know any slang in your target language? If not, download this free eBook... and master all the must-know slang across 10 chapters.
Third - 30 Romance &Love Related Words &Phrases
You’ll learn words and phrases like ”date,” ”flirt,” and ”break up” with this quick vocab bonus.
Fourth — Can you talk about Halloween in your target language?
With this quick 1-minute lesson, you’ll learn must-know Halloween words like “vampire,” “trick or treat,” and more.
To get your free resources, click the link in the description below right now. They’re yours to keep forever. Ok, let’s jump in to today’s topic:
How to Get a Return on Your Language Learning Investment
Part 1: One of the Biggest Reasons Why People Fail
The first big reason people fail with language learning is because they set big, vague goals like “I wanna be fluent.” The problem with these goals is, you don’t know how you’ll ever go from where you are now… to achieving fluency. It’s too vague of a goal.
But, the second big reason is lack of time. People fail with language learning because they don’t put in the time. And language learning is a function of time. The more you put in, the better you get. You can also think of learning a language like a gym — you get out what you put in. If you buy a dumbbell and do nothing, nothing happens. It can do great things for you...
...but it won’t work for you UNTIL you pick it up and curl it a few times.
If you put in 1 hour a day, you get results.
If you put in 10 minutes a day, you get results.
But, if you put in 0, you get 0 results…. And you can’t learn a language that way.
So here’s a question for you? How much time do you put into your language learning on a daily basis? Leave a comment.
If you start putting in consistent time, you can also start expecting a return on your time. And this brings us to the 2nd part.
Part 2: Why You Need to Track Your Language Learning Sessions
In the first part, we talked about “just putting in enough time.” That’s the first important step to take.
But where should you put in your time?
For example, you can put in 10 minutes and use an app to do translation exercises...
...you can put in 10 minutes and read a textbook...
...or review a word list for 10 minutes.
In all these examples, you can put in an equal amount of time..but the results you get will be different.
And that’s because different methods give you different results and benefits. Using an app may help you remember a few words. Reading a textbook can boost your vocabulary, grammar, and reading skills. And reviewing a word list will… just help you with the words.
So, the second lesson is - you need to know what kind of results you get. You need to measure the return on your time… so that you can be confident that you’re making progress.
In the case of our Audio and Video lessons, 3 or 4 lessons will help you understand and speak roughly 1 minute of conversation… as well as learn all words and grammar rules inside. This is the return on our lessons. How is this possible?
The dialog tracks are about 20 seconds...
And so 3 lessons, that’s 3 conversations at 20 seconds apiece, which is 60 seconds or one minute of conversation.
So, if you know that 3 lessons get you to...
1 minute of conversation…you can know what results to expect. If you do 20 lessons, you’re at about 5 minutes of conversation. 40 lessons, that’s around 10 minutes or so of conversation. That’s the power of measuring the results.
If you track your results, you know what to expect in the future, and you can hit your language learning goals.
So, how can you start measuring your return?
Let’s jump in to the third part.
Part 3: How to Track Your Results and Hit Goals
If you’re able to consistently put in time towards learning and maintain your routine, then it's time to start tracking your time and effort.
Why? At the basic level, language learning is simply... putting in the time. You don’t need a high IQ. You don’t need to be talented at languages. You don’t need the best possible app. You just need time. The more time you put in, the more results you get out.
And aside from setting unrealistic goals...
The other reason why people fail at languages is… they just don’t put in the time. So, how can you track your results?
Let's look at 2 ways - an easy way and an advanced way of tracking your time and results.
Let’s start with the easy way first— simply track the time you put in. So, if you do a 10 minute audio lesson today, and then spend 5 minutes with Flashcards, note this as 15 minutes for the day, and write down what you did. Then do the same thing tomorrow. That’s it.
The goal here is to track the time and your effort. You’ll want to track it and actually have measurable proof of your work. And also, so you can review what you’ve been doing...and see your progress.
So, if one day... you realize you don't know enough words...
...or maybe you don’t speak as much as you’d like... You can look at your notes and review your work. If you see that you’ve been just watching video lessons, you can spot the problem, which is... you’ve done no actual vocab study or speaking practice. And now you can start doing it. Problem solved. You’re on your way to fluency.
Another way you can track your time and effort is.... with the Dashboard on our site.
So, if you visit the Dashboard, you can see the lessons you’ve completed… the number of flashcards reviewed... and hours studied. This is the second tactic, and it’s an advanced one because not only do you need to track your time, you also need to track your results, which is a bit trickier.
So, how can you do that?
With our conversational audio lessons, check the length of the dialog track.
If the dialog track is about 20 seconds, then that’s the amount of conversation you can expect to master. By the way, these tracks are anywhere from 10 to 40 seconds long.
Now, if you’re studying words with flashcards...
...take note of how many words you already know. So, if you studied for 5 minutes...
..and can easily remember 7 out of 10 words, then that’s your return. If you know this, you know what to expect when you learn new words.
You can expect to remember about 7 out of 10 with a 5-minute drill.
Another thing you can do is... boost that number to 10 out of 10.
Next, if you’re practicing your listening skills,
...try to gauge how much you understand.
If you understood about 20% of a 3-minute conversational lesson, then that’s your return for now.
Again, by knowing this… you can now start asking questions like… What can I do to understand 50% of this conversation? Will doubling my time double my results as well? Will I understand 40%? Will reviewing this lesson for a few minutes a day, every day, work better than trying to memorize it all now?
So, then, you put these questions to the test and try them out. And because you know your return… you can see if it really works!
So, thank you for watching this episode of Monthly Review
Next time, we’ll talk about...
How to Boost Your Motivation &Learn More... by Adding Others to the Mix
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See you next time! Bye!

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