Fáilte - Welcome to the third edition of Irish Learner Support Group!
On the first Wednesday of every month, I dive into topics to help Irish learners on their journey!
We all know that learning a language is a massive time commitment. Sometimes, we find ourselves setting goals like studying for an hour every day… only to find we don’t actually have that extra hour in our busy lives. Or we try to force ourselves to commit, only to end up exhausted and burnt out.
What if I told you there was a way you could study Irish more often… without taking any time away from what you’re already doing?
Within the productivity community, there is a term: habit stacking. All that means is taking habits you already have and stacking another habit on top of them.
For example, listening to a podcast in Irish while driving to work. You already drive to work every day. That’s already a habit you have and time that is taken out of your schedule. By listening to Irish at the same time, you are increasing your exposure to the language without putting any pressure on yourself to give up more free time out of your day.
Other examples of habit stacking include: reviewing flash cards while waiting in line, reading a few pages of a book or article in Irish when you sit down to read a book in English, following Irish language creators on social media and replacing some of your scrolling time with learning.
Of course, listening passively to a podcast will yield different results than taking a lesson, but including the language in your everyday life is a tool to supercharge your more formal learning as well as keeping yourself motivated.
When we encounter the language every day, it becomes part of our life naturally. After a while, it would feel odd to get in the car and not hear Irish. By keeping the language as part of our daily lives, we avoid developing a sense of fear around engaging with it that we can develop when we feel insecure about our level our ashamed we’ve done less than we would have lived. In turn, we’ll be more motivated and engaged to continue learning more formally as well.
In addition to just helping us grow our skills and motivation to learn, by including Irish in our every day lives, we reach a goal that many of us often forget that we had when we begun learning: To use the language.
Still don’t know where to start? Or what resources to use?
Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered! You can book language coaching calls with me. Together we can help you identify ways to incorporate more Irish into your life and discover resources you love using!
I hope you all enjoy this new series! Let me know what other topics you’d like to see covered in future months and be sure to subscribe to receive every article straight to your inbox!
So I am brand new here. I have a fair bit of Irish blood in me, however, I am just now starting to scope out the idea of learning the language! Maybe you’ve discussed it somewhere else and I just didn’t see it, but what is the very first step you would advise someone to take toward learning the language? I am a homeschooling mom of eight so I don’t have a lot of time and certainly am not in a place to invest in coaching at the moment, though it is something I would consider in the future When my youngest kids are a little older. Thank you!
I remember you texting me that you were in a queue once lookng at flashcards, she's not lying folks!