For Anyone Losing Motivation in Language Learning | Daily Language Diary 006 

I think “trust the process” is the best thing I’ve heard about learning my first language. It’s easy to question if I will ever actually get there, so this is nice to think about.

The biggest mistake you can make as a beginner is content hopping. What's that? It's going from one song to the next, or, going from one article to the next without understanding most of what you've heard or read. A better idea is to revise the same piece of content for a week till you understand it completely and then move on to the next piece of content.

This came at a decent time. I'm learning Japanese, but I'm also trying to work on building my writing career. Heck, I'm seriously considering wring some of my stories in Japanese for practice, though I'm not sure where I would start.

Yes, Robin, I’d love to hear about your early struggles.

I’m trying to learn Japanese and at multiple times I have lost all motivation

@Everbody else here If any of you are doubting yourself about learning what ever your learning whether its a language or anything else , PLEASE dont listen to the haters . I have a person in my life that tears me down about Spanish. Ive had this person tell me that Spanish is stupid and a waste of time, and that I should just stop. She says Im investing to much time into something that wont benifit me . But she is wrong ! Languages are my passion , key word (MY) passion. I think when a person finds a passion or art that they can exel at , they should follow it with all their might. -Alex

After immersion into your channel, every time I drink coffe it's reminds me about you

You are such a caring individual. And as an expat myself and it appears that you are half cast too as am I, I am really happy for your success.

There was a quote by James Clear that went something like, "you don't rise to the standards, you fall to the level of your habits." I think it really illustrates that it should be a grandiose movement to push the limit, but rather a slow and steady increase of the baseline of what you do. So the slow and steady does win the race lol. There was also another quote for self reflection that went like "whatever your current results are, your current systems are perfectly designed to achieve those results." It really helps to put a spotlight on what might need to change in our learning or our other habits . Great video again Robin!

I was the world's worst in Hebrew school and I still acieved my parents'goal ---me singing in Hebrew the part of the Bible we were supposed to listen to on that daynear my 13th birthday. Later French came easier, ages 13 to 19. Now i'm old with a lousy memory but I'm learning Russian.

Hi, really love this channel, it is a motivation everytime. I have been learning Japanese for 3 years now, albeit very slowly. I started with a textbook, and found it really difficult to keep motivated, so I changed my method a few times and found a strategy I like. But now I am at a stage where I just feel that nothing I do is working and my knowledge is so varied I find myself knowing parts of intermediate and parts of beginner while not feeling comfortable with anything. Has anyone else had such a feeling? Kind of lost in the woods looking for the right path if you know my meaning.

When I lose motivation, I find that I'm usually trying too hard or expecting too much from myself. My number one rule for language learning is to create one simple minimum goal for every single day and tell myself that that is my only expectation. That way, it is easy to meet my goal on a daily basis and feel satisfied with my work, and the motivation that I gain from completing my goal usually leads to some extra studying. The key is to make it simple and straight-forward, so I never find myself procrastinating or worse, dreading my daily studies. Hope this helps :)

it must be epic being able to speak and understand several languages

Love the new series and love when you get excited about small things 🤗

I no longer have a goal for the language I wanted to learn. So I am going to re evaluate and set goals again. It's amazing to see that I went from a level of absolute zero to nearly being able to step my speaking and listening to intermediate. Reading and writing needs so much work still.

Stepping back is a good phrase Robin. I often take a breather. I think that people want to be good too early, they set themselves impossible targets. It's a very long marathon. They should stop occasionally and look back to see the hill they have climbed, that will give the bounce back into their step.

I say every new day the language is going to be a little bit easier. So today is the hardest it will ever be, tomorrow will be a tiny bit better etc. Over time this once foreign language, is going to get easier and easier until its almost as easy as your native language.

This video it's just at the right place at the right time for me! Thank you!!!

I so needed to hear this! About 1.5 months ago I started learning Ukrainian and I just hit a huge hit of loss of motivation. 🙌🏻 trust the process.

heloww guyss , i'm a portuguese speaker and i'm fifteen years old , right now i found this video for motivate me cause i lost my motivation , but as this dude did say DONT GIVE UP ! i'm gonna change my method of learning to another and keep strugle ( sorry if some word is wrong)

I would luv to hear more about 15 year old Robin McPherson… the kid who struggled with language learning. I would luv to see that video about the torment, the boredom, and then climb out of the rut and the remedy to overcome and succeed in language learning. The analogies that await such an epic story to be told. I can’t wait to see the tips for those fellow 15 year olds need right now to not make those same mistakes. Thank, in advance, for your experience well shared.

I just want to say how well your idea of a language tracker works! It is helping me get more done and keeping me aware of where I am headed. I am using multicolored however. This keeps the tracker bright and cheerful.

I’m so happy I found your channel. I love the advice here and I’ve saved several of your other videos to watch soon. Thank you and keep up the great work!

I’ve been learning French on and off for the last 5 months, I am currently low intermediate able to converse with people but I do make lots of mistakes. I’ve been demotivated for almost 2 weeks now and haven’t done anything. How can I get going again?

Thank you this motivated me even more to continue my Japanese self study.and when I’m done imma learn Russian and Hebrew arigato

I’m doing french rn and really loved this video

I think Babbel helped me the most to help solidify my knowledge of verbs. I wish I had the online community/resources that are available now when I was 15 ( I’m 25 ) also doing fun things can help boost your motivation. Examples that helped me; find a tandem partner on tandem, play video games in Spanish, find Spanish speaking RU-vid channels you’re interested in, watch cartoons in Spanish, follow Spanish speaking celebrities on social media, make a playlist in Spanish ( look up translations to connect with the music more ) These are the things have helped me stay motivated for the last 7 years of learning and I hope they help some of you as well.

Today I had a break down in my class.. Half a year ago I moved to another country and started to learn their native language.. All went well till one day when my boss started to ask constantly when I am gonna speak fluently which is impossible and I understand that but that doesn't change the fact that I feel overwhelmed and isolated from nativespeakers.. I have only my teacher to talk to in this language and she is very understanding but I don't want to lose motivation to learn because of people that think it is a month thing to learn a new language...

I have polish friends after 3 years of learning it and praying to keep on

What Robin says about the payoffs is so true. I'm from Québec and my native language is French, I learned English when I was about 18 and that ended up landing me a pretty good job as a translator, then, I learned Spanish and I now live in Mexico and I'm married to a beautiful Latina. I'm not even mentioning all the traveling and partying in Spanish that would have sucked if I didn't undertake to learn the language. Cheers.

I've been studying Mandarin Chinese for a bit more than a year. Initially, I wanted to be able to read simple things within 2 years. Not setting the bar too high greatly helped. While I didn't feel like giving up, at times I wondered how I would be able to keep on going, feeling I wouldn't be able to do so. It's a kind of discouragement and it's also a loss of patience. Although it's not a loss of motivation, it can lead to it. If you remember that studying will work anyway, that taking a step will bring you closer to your goal, that studying even a little and even when we don't notice improvements is better than not studying at all, you will keep on going. You might not need as much motivation as you think to keep on going if you understand this well enough. Just one step at a time. As we say in Buddhism, discouragement is a form of laziness. At some point, you might also want to get back to resources your worked with at a beginner stage. Looking ahead doesn't always help, but when you look back, and you see how far you've come, when you notice how much comes easy to you by now, it helps.

I am 14. when I chat with random people they probably can't tell that I am not a native speaker of english unless I outright tell them I believe that my own native language is the hardest in the world(arabic). and at this point I literally think in english. its pretty crazy, it feels kind of bad. anyway, just thought I'd say how I became so fluent in english. I didnt attend any courses, and I didnt learn much from school either. I just spent a ton of time on the internet, just listening to people. my intent wasnt even learning english I just enjoyed it. and in like 2 years, here I am.

I always admire your attitude.

Can’t believe I’m saying this for the first time on a RU-vid video but here goes 😂 I’ve purposely started to learn Polish to speak to a woman (she’s Polish) yes to impress her but also I’m not naive enough to believe we’ll end up together forever and ever… so because it’s slim to none chances to wed her or bed her, I’m constantly still trying to learn more and more to achieve intimacy, which I know I’ll never get so I’m constantly motivated to impress her knowing full well nothing will work 😂 hopefully I’ve explained that well. Basically I’ve created my own paradox of motivation.

thank you very much you helped me a lot🙂

Hey, Robin, it's really interesting to know more about how did you start learning languages.

Thank you so much this helped me a lot.

I'm learning English and sometimes I lose motivation, but I'm keeping going, just thinking how it would be if I reach the fluency, that's awesome.. hopefully I'll get there and everyone want to the same.

Hi, Rob Your advice is great, although I'm personally not losing motivation to learn a specific language but losing motivation to learn new languages in general. I also feel that I'm unable to learn languages that are unrelated to the ones I already speak, unless I actually have somebody to help me and keep me accountable. The reasons are more deep-rooted than just sheer difficulty, I feel. First of all, I've become quite lazy, and find daily, dedicated study tedious and uninspiring. I hate almost every resource available - especially if I have to read dialogues, do exercises, study vocabulary lists, etc. The only way I see myself learning a language succesfully is with RU-vid videos on grammar (especially if they are in the target language), and other videos with stories, gameplays, or vlogs and such (though they aren't always ideal for a beginner.) Now I wanna concentrate on reading literature, learning about different places, learning history THROUGH my languages. I still would like to speak fluent Mandarin or be able to read Cicero in the original Latin, but I don't know if I have the patience and the discipline for it (I had to think for 20 minutes what the word was here. I had to ask my mother "Mom, what is the word describing that thing that soldiers learn to be in the army?" She answered: "Disciplined?" and I yelled "YES!" - such brainfarts happen all the time. Ugh.) So, anyway, what do you think about such long-term, more severe cases of not wanting to learn languages anymore? It doesn't have to be a question for a video, but it can be if you find it interesting enough. Oh, I've been thinking of embracing my skill of learning closely-related languages and thought of trying to learn the remaining few Germanic languages that I don't speak yet (I speak 5). Maybe I'd succeed at that, but now any language that's not Germanic is too difficult - even Slavic languages, which, as a Pole, I should be able to pick up relatively quickly.

Hi everyone! I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one going through this, so I'll just put it out the way I feel it ... Although I almost never have to deal with lack of motivation, I do feel like I haven't learnt much about myself over the course of this language learning journey ... Still unable to identify what are the things that actually work better for me and what I need to fix or improve in order to move forward and reach the next level ... Summarizing I'm stuck in that point where you can understand almost 90% while consuming content you're familiar with and around 65-70 when you're trying to watch something new or more challenging (I've tried to write things down eventually, but just a few things seems to be available for me to use freely while speaking) anyway most of the time I just let tons of vocabulary fly over my head *accept any comment or suggestion here* Just to finally wrapit up lets say I'm confident talking about familiar things but still struggling having random conversations, even saying simple things. Hope this comment triggers a nice and fruitful discussion! Best of the lucks for you all!

0:23, went to Roatan , Honduras for vacation once, was awesome! We went to a place where they made pure chocolate and we got to see the steps they went through, it was pretty cool, we all got chocolate bars at the end :)

I love your energy on these videos bro! Keep up the great content! Saludos desde San Francisco

thank you so much for this

Oi, sou do Brasil, te acompanho há pouco tempo mas gosto muito do seu canal. Falo português, espanhol, inglês e aprendo italiano, e suas dicas são ótimas. Quero ler seu livro. Abraços do Brasil. 👋🏻 Parabéns pelo canal.

I will admit up front that I’m not often in the position of feeling a total lacking motivation for doing something to practice a language. I think, though, that it’s not due to some Herculean level of unquenchable motivation, it’s partially that I rely more on habits and consistency built over time. When I’m having an off day - a day like today where I’m feeling a bit fatigued and don’t think I have it in me to do a lot of close, concentrated work - I always maintain in my back pocket, so to speak, a few fun-to-me activities that require only a few minutes yet get me engaging with the language, even if doesn’t involve a lot of deep or detailed work. I aim for a few minutes of enjoyable vídeos or a few minutes of a podcast; I might record myself talking about a recent experience in the target language and listen back to it on another day. If that’s as much as I feel like doing I stop there for the day. Sometimes that ends up becoming on on-ramp to doing more, sometimes not... but I’ve done something. Now I’m off to watch a short, funny “Porta dos Fundos” vid because I don’t think I’m up for reading a Portuguese book on Nordic mythology today. Not gonna let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

I'm about 5 months into Japanese and that "holy shit this is hard" is starting to kick in. I will see this through though. いつも諦めないぞ！！！

I'm studying English by myself right now, but I'm struggeling with the desmotivation. I enjoy the language, however I don't know how to study alone. I don't want to waste my time. I hope someone could give some tips. Regards!👋🇦🇷

I feel like I’m losing motivation because every time I do my Spanish studying, I get SO physically tired in the middle of putting in the effort. It’s like, learning is draining my brain 🧠 Any tips?

I’m a native English speaker and I can speak Spanish pretty well. I’ve been struggling lately learning Korean.

I learned spanish before I learned English, but I didn’t keep it up very well. So in middle school I took classes and picked it up in an instant. Now im learning Japanese, and it is extremely hard for me. Anyone have any tips for staying motivated when being able to converse or understand speaking is a problem?

Heyyy thank you so much for all your videos ☺️☺️☺️

13 years of czech study daily. Living in czechia 13 years. Intense classes and focus. No progress. Still can’t understand much. Hopeless. I Don’t trust the process. Quitting is harder than carrying on.

i learned english when i was 6 and i have been speaking it for a long time. and when i became bilingual, i also became impatient while learning languages. i often think: "wow, i learned english when i was six, and i can't learn this one now?" i often say that while i'm practically having a coversation in that language. this isn't a question, i just find it funny😄

I'm stuck on double-verb endings and i for sure won't give up but it's wearing me out. I want to be fluent but it feels like a world away. Lucky for me I have a hard time letting go. I feel like I have to finish everything I start.

I've been studying Italian for about 3 years, and I'm losing motivation. I live in Italy, but I don't actually need to use Italian that much in my day to day life. I have an Italian bf - but we always speak English, as when we met I didn't know hardly any Italian. We tried switching to Italian, but its soooo difficult to change the language of a relationship. And you BOTH have to really want it. I don't study a lot, maybe 1 or 2 hours a day max, sometimes only 30 min. I had private lessons for about 18 months, but stopped those when I realised my spoken level of Italian was much lower than what I was being taught - I felt I wasn't using what I was learning. Also, I couldn't afford to continue with them. I would say I'm a strong B2...I'm just not sure I'm using the right methods or materials. In addition, I'm an introvert who doesn't seek out people, which doesn't help! I've never lost motivation in 3 years, but now...I'm not sure if I've lost my "why". Anyway, thanks for all your videos, I've just recently discovered you....I think your channel is going to blow up soon! I wish I had your dedication and commitment to language learning! Bravo!

I’ve been learning a language for my friend who is German to surprise her but I don’t think I can do it cuz I lose track on what the words mean and I feel like giving up

High quality video

I've been learning Chinese for almost two years now and speak quite fluently..but I'm losing motivation.Im scared!

Why do people ruin what could have been a great espresso by adding water? 😅 Thanks for this great diary post, enjoy the weekend 👍

❤️

I just tell myself I’m learning French to marry a beautiful French woman in the future and that usually works

I'm 15, and Arab American. I can speak "meh" Arabic, I can read and write small words, and I am trying to improve. I am right in-between beginner and intermediate.

I'm trying to learn german and at some time it feels impossible to learn I want to give up but i can't Even i want to keep on i don't know how to make it.

"Trust the process"

I watched your video because I'm 14 and i am currently learning japanese and even if I reached a pretty good level, I feel like when i learn new words or new grammar points it's still funny but not like it was before. I was wondering if I'm "plateauing"(intemediate plateau) in my language learning but I don't feel I struggle more than before. It's maybe just a period but if anyone have gone through something similar, could you tell me your experience?

I'm having the complete opposite feeling. For some reason I'm... extremely enthusiastic?

it is a shame things like. youtube werent around when I was a kid. I really wanted to learn french but the school wouldnt allow it because it was a girls only class

@Robin MacPherson Good morning Robin!!! Thank you SO MUCH for answering my question! Your a big inspiration!! I feel like Ive asked to many questions but..... Is there a difference between a in-person-tutor and a online-tutor? Ive just had a spike in motivation because we contacted my tutor a couple days ago and its all set , all we have to do is talk about pricing a schedule!!

young, first language and only a few days in i just cant find a fun way to learn spanish ive tried youtube channels and none of them are entertaining to me and i feel ive made no progress my goal is to be able to talk to a native speaker for a few mins, or just watch spanish media without subtitles and understand most of it

I seem to be a returning star of the show, thanks for having me on 哈哈哈 I'm curious on how you feel about jumping from language to language. I tend to study Chinese for a while and then become seduced into studying other languages. I always end up coming back to Chinese, but it does delay my progress. I feel like i would be B2 (HSK4/5) in Mandarin if i didn't stray away from Mandarin. This has made me like beginner/ A1 in Korean, Tagalog, Indonesian, Spanish, and HSK3 in Mandarin. Im curious to know your opinion on "language hopping". Thanks for the vids, and being so active with your community. It's awesome!

I'm concerned that I'm not smart enough to do this. I've been learning Spanish for two years- for the last 11 months I've dedicated at least an hour a day to the learning process. I'm a parent with a full time job, so I finding an hour out of the day means I wake up by 5 am. I use Duolingo, RU-vid videos, and have even recently hired a tutor. Hearing in this video about someone being at an intermediate level after 3 months makes me feel horrible- as I have only tested into the intermediate level recently after 2 years of dedication. Any tips? Is an hour a day not enough? When should I expect to be fluent?

While me learning my second foreign language (French): frustrated af I think it's because i learned english years ago, in a way longer process, im rushing myself to learn French in the same level too quick. My perfectionist personality ufortunately. I know i came a lot of way (even tho im only A1)

I learn English myself in 25 years ,but to now I can not speak fluently ,what a shame ,can you give me some advice!

I’m learning Korean and I find it fun to study languages but I feel like I’m getting no where.

Anyone learning swedish, icelandic (basic) or spanish let me kow if you want to practice!

I already gave up on Spanish and Russian. I gave up on improving German.. and now it feels like Japanese is gonna be left behind as well. I'd love to stick around one language at least finally.. but I don't feel like I can keep it up for months..

You should make a discord.

I've sometimes thought of changing lanuage it my head that thinks that my mind and it kills me that it thinks that I'm learning polish made friends been learning for 3 years almost 4 and i don't want to leave it for languages like Russian or Ukrainian. Before i studied swedish and polish 2 languages at same time different cultures and lanuage i was more in tone with polish easier but i left swedish so how i do it to never learn polish for Russian or Ukrainian or any other Slavic languages for that matter i learn on my own i can't afford a teacher right now I'm 23 not working live with parents. Can you give me some advice Robin please on what i should do to never give up on Polish lanuage and leave it for Russian and Ukraine also the reason I chosen polish is because in the future i want to marry a polish girl and have kids. Also make friends. And that is where I don't want to give up in polish language learning Russian or Ukrainian or Czech languages that are not spoken that much in my area in USA new Jersey where I live. Also the same reason I learned swedish was to date and married a swedish girl but there were not swedish so i left it. So the think is that i want to continue with polish how i do it?

His accent goes from posh London woman to American every two seconds while stay Australian/New Zealand

Hello! I am still doing Duolingo and Memrise and I am taking a big risk by learning Arabic on Duolingo

Lol mě to im 15 i was Born in Slovakia And Slovakia And czehs Are similar So 2 languagess but i growth up in cyprus there they speak Greek so i learn it So easily but its So hard language And english i learn like nothimg even my Grammer its like 7 years old but any language i dont know right grammer So 4 languagess And Now i learnig spanish So first language i actuality learnig And honesly its alot harder Than i though new language you cant just learn in some weeks

Does someone have tips for losing Motivation in learning arabic? I do not know if I should quit and start maybe spanish

Watch tv in target language when low motivation

everybody should learn english because other language too hard

nice video

for me i basically have ZERO interest in learning arabic, as in id rather do something else with my time, i just need advice on how to not COMPLETELY hate arabic at school😭😭

I'm just about ready to just give up.... I recently found out that all I learned through duolingo means nothing (over a year in I can't hold a conversation) wasted time.... 🤐

I am an introvert, so it’s very hard for me to find the courage to speak to anybody even in my native language and obviously in another. So what do I do to maintain my speaking ability.

I'm 11 and I've been learning french on and off science i think 9 or 10 years old and I'm a low intermidiete but I'm loosing motivation can you give me advice?

losing motivation... I don’t think I have enough resources to learn 🥲

Great video, besides that you made an americano

After learning 5years I felt bored and tired ! I hope i did not learn any languages

You talk to much get to the point

U loud