How to Actually Learn a Language in 2025

Dec 28, 2024

Many people view the new year as a fresh start. This is the year I’ll actually use that gym membership. Starting on January first I’ll eat healthier. And for many, myself included, this is the year I’ll finally learn a language.

As new and exciting as these goals can feel in January, we all know that after a few weeks or months the novelty fades and we find ourselves starting to doubt we can actually achieve these goals. Maybe taking a few days off makes us feel like we’ve already lost too much progress to keep going. Maybe we realize we don’t actually know how to achieve our goals at all. Or maybe we try so hard those first few weeks that we totally burn ourselves out and can’t continue towards our goals.

If any of that sounds familiar to you, I’ve made this guide to help you make 2025 the year you finally achieve your language goals!

Know Your Why

One of the most important parts of successfully learning a language is understanding why you want to do it. There is no right or wrong answer, just make sure that you feel strongly about why it is important to you.

For example:
I want to learn Polish to better understand that side of my heritage.

Some other ‘whys’ may include:

I want to have a deeper connection with my own culture/heritage.
I want to be able to talk to locals when I travel.
I think it would be cool to be bilingual.
I want to read books or watch tv/movies in their original languages.
I want to prove to myself that I can.
I want a new hobby.

Everyone’s why will look different. You know that you found your why when thinking of it excites you. Make note of your why - you can come back to throughout your journey.

Your Why May Change

As you learn, you may discover new reasons why you want to keep learning. This is actually a great sign you’re on the right path!

Maybe you start to learn more about the culture and unique experiences you’d like to have in the language. Maybe you make friends through the language and want to be able to communicate only in that language. Keep a list of these things and reflect on them whenever the journey feels challenging.

Set Realistic Goals

It might be exciting to say ‘I want to be fluent by the end of the year.’ But truth be told, for the majority of us, this simply won’t be attainable no matter how hard we work. Then, at the end of the year we’ll feel like we failed in reaching our goal instead of recognizing how much progress we’ve made instead!

Since it can be nearly impossible to predict when we will reach certain levels in a language, some more attainable goals such as:

My goal is to try and study every single day.
My goal is to spend a certain amount of hours learning the language this year.
My goal is to read in my language once a week.

Notice, all of these goals allow for life to happen. Try and study every day is a healthier goal than I will study every day. If we don’t give ourselves flexibility, inevitably, we will miss one day because we simply didn’t have time or energy or both. Then we’ve failed at our goal and for many of us, it can be a lot harder to get back on track once we feel like we’ve already failed.

In reality, we haven’t failed anything! Life happens and at the end of the day, we are learning a language for our own benefit. We make the rules. Focus on goals you know you can achieve and remember to celebrate those achievements!

How to Study

So you want to study a language. You know your why, you have realistic goals in mind, and you’re ready to devote time and energy to this new hobby… but now what? If you are brand new to learning languages, getting a tutor on sites like iTalki, taking group lessons in person or online, or following along with a textbook or online course can be a great place to start! It will provide you with structure to make the process feel less overwhelming.

If you’ve never learned a language before, I would recommend trying a mix of techniques and finding what works best for you. Remember, the best resources are the ones that you enjoy using!

If you are learning Irish, you can check out my masterlist of Irish language resources here!

Once you’ve got your start, how do you effectively create a study plan to keep learning? It can sound like a good idea to plan out how much time to spend each day on flashcards, grammar, and other skills like reading and listening, but like I mentioned above, these plans can very easily be disrupted and then we find ourselves lost and unmotivated. And sometimes, we just won’t want to do certain things at certain times. Maybe in the beginning we’ll be so motivated that we can force ourselves to study grammar every Tuesday… but eventually, most of us will find that on Tuesdays, we end up not studying in any way at all.

So here are some things you can do instead:

Habit Menus

Instead of creating a rigid study plan, I like to create what are known as habit menus. A habit menu is a list of activities you can do to study or practice your target language. For example:

Listening Habit Menu

Listen to a podcast
Podcast Option 1
Podcast Option 2
Podcast Option 3
Watch a movie
Movie Option 1
Movie Option 2
Movie Option 3
Listen to audio lesson from textbook

Habit menus can be created for all different areas of study such as listening, vocabulary, grammar, writing, etc. Not only are they a good way to keep track of resources, they can also make the process of sitting down to study less stressful and more enjoyable. We don’t need to follow a rigid plan and we can adapt our study time to whatever we have energy, time and interest for at that time. Studying consistently over a long period will always yield better results than studying nonstop for a short period of time. The key to consistency is making our study time as adaptable and enjoyable as we can.

Habit Stacking

Another technique I like to use languages is known as habit stacking. What this means is that you take one habit you already have an add - or stack - another habit on top of it.

For example:

Listening to a podcast in your target language every time you clean or go on a walk.
Reviewing flashcards on your phone while you wait in line at the store.
Reading books in your target language while using public transportation or flying.
Writing shopping lists in your target language.

It might not seem like a lot, but all of these things add up and it can be a really easy, helpful way to spend more time learning or using your target language without requiring you to change your existing schedule and routines.

I like to think of language learning similar to a food pyramid. In a week, I like to make sure that I spend some time studying vocabulary, grammar, listening, reading, and output (speaking/writing.) This way, I can keep my skills more balanced, but as I’ve mentioned before, being good in all areas of a language is not everyone’s goal! Some people just really want to read, or really want to have conversations. If that’s the case for you, focus on the skills you value most.

What’s Holding You Back?

Even with the best plans and motivations, learning languages can still be really challenging. Here are some of the challenges that I faced in my own language learning journey and how I dealt with them:

Procrastination

For me, procrastination is usually a symptom of a different problem. If I am avoiding doing something, such as studying a language, the underlying cause is usually that I feel like I can’t do it. It is impossible to put effort into something we inherently believe we can’t do.

In this case, I did my best to forget about my overall goal. I no longer thought of what I was doing as learning an entire language. Instead, I broke it down into smaller pieces. Learning a language felt intimidating. Spending fifteen minutes looking at flash cards felt within reach.

Overtime, I began to develop a habit of studying which mean it became something I did without much thought.

Another reason for procrastination could be that you’re using study materials that aren’t fun or engaging enough for you personally. As I have said countless times before, the best resources and techniques are the ones you want to use. If you hate using flashcards, don’t use flash cards! It can feel like there is only one ‘right’ way to learn or we can look to what works for others and think that the same thing must work for us. Sometimes, it’s helpful to get inspiration and ideas from other learners, but it’s okay to let things go if they don’t work for us in the same way.

Mindset

I have shared before how much I struggled with a lack of confidence and fear of making mistakes when I began learning languages. There are a lot of other difficulties we can encounter regarding our mindset around language learning as well. Maybe we feel imposter syndrome. Maybe we’re comparing ourselves to what other people can do. And maybe, we have own challenges that make our experience learning languages uniquely different and perhaps more difficult.

These can all be really difficult problems to overcome. It takes time, but if we can remember our motivation, remember our why, and keep focussing on doing things we enjoy in the language, we will reach our goals in the language and realize that we are capable of so much more than we once thought.

Lack of Time or Energy

If you don’t have the time or energy to learn a language… You don’t have to learn a language!

Life is always changing and evolving. At one point in my life, I put language learning on hold. And that was okay. I am learning languages for my own enjoyment. There were no deadlines to be reached, no one had any expectations of my progress. And when I was ready to come back, I still remembered a lot of what I had learned and then I was able to learn more actively and study more often because I took a break when I needed to.

That said, sometimes, it feels like life will never get less busy or maybe we’re dealing with chronic physical or mental health conditions that can make it harder to use our energy doing the things we love. It can be really upsetting to totally put our hobbies on hold and we can feel like were loosing control of our own lives.

In those cases, you can try habit stacking as I mentioned above and look for resources and study styles that fit the time and energy you have right now. That might mean casually reading or listening to materials below your level that you can enjoy more easily, only studying for a few minutes here and there (it adds up!), or trying to find ways to subtly integrate the language in your life like changing your phone’s language.

Reflect on Your Progress

A really important part of continuing to make progress in our language learning journey is being able to look back at what we’ve already accomplished. When I started learning Irish, I kept a list of all of my little wins in the language. Wins may have been as simple as answering a question correctly, finishing a book, attending a new event or conversation group, or receiving a compliment from a teacher or more advanced speaker. All of these little wins kept me motivated to keep going.

I also took an online Irish level test every three months. I never researched my mistakes or the things I didn’t know. I simply took it with no preparation each time. Almost always, my score would increase. It’s easy to feel like we’re not making any progress even when we are! However, I will say, it is important to remember that learning a language is a lot more than your score on a test and these tests often fail to account for all of our strengths in the language. If you try this and your score doesn’t go up or even goes lower (this happened to me!) don’t be discouraged. This is simply a tool that helped me stay motivated, but if you find it doesn’t work for you in any way, that is totally valid and you will find your own ways of motivating yourself and tracking your progress!

When I started to learn languages, I first had to learn how I learned best. It takes time to find what works for us, especially when we’ve never learned a language before, especially when we each have our own unique way of processing information and learning. Language learning takes time and dedication and it is a lot easier to stay dedicated to a plan and habits that fit into our lives and don’t create stress or pressure. I hope that this guide helps you integrate language learning into your life in a healthy and happy way!

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