How to stay motivated when learning a language? What to do when you feel unmotivated to keep it up

How to stay motivated when learning a language?
What to do when you feel unmotivated to keep it up - find inspiration!

You’ve been learning a language for quite a while but one day you suddenly felt totally unmotivated to keep it up? You feel like you’re stuck in the process because your language level seems to be the same as it was a couple of months ago? Or you simply don’t feel like you want to study anymore for some unknown reason?

Whatever that real reason is, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give up on this language right away,
I promise :) Here are some tips that might help you feel better and see how you can revive your motivation.

So, first of all, let’s put it bluntly - it is totally fine to feel unmotivated sometimes when you are on a language journey. Learning languages requires a lot of effort, commitment and energy, and it’s just something absolutely fine to want to take a rest sometimes! We, humans, need to “recharge” from time to time, take some time off from the activity we’ve been doing for a long time. Feels like your moment has come now to tell yourself “time to rest” and don’t feel any guilt about it. Try to “forget” about your target language for several days, do something totally different: go for a walk, read a book, watch a film, paint, do sports. In short, distract yourself from learning.

It's OKAY to have a rest

Remember WHY you started

If you were impressed by the culture of your target language, go read and watch something about it right away! Maybe you fell in love with the way it sounds? Listen to music in the language you’re trying to learn and fall in love with it one more time! Such reminders can definitely keep you motivated!

After you have a rest, you should feel more relieved and calm. Now take a moment to go a bit back and remember why you started learning this language in the first place. Remind yourself of why it appealed to you. Are these memories heartwarming in some way? Then why don’t you give that language a go one more time?

Now let’s think about what to do if those memories of why you began your study journey of that specific language didn’t make you want to continue what you have once started… First of all, if you feel like you honestly don’t want to keep it up, don’t be afraid to stop! It’s true that nowadays we are exposed to so much information that we get from language blogs, in particular. We see all those aesthetic pictures, study and progress trackers which sometimes make us feel “I need to do the same”, “I have to keep my progress up”, “My study routine should be like of that polyglot”, etc. But the truth is… you don’t have to do that. If you don’t feel happy or motivated anymore when learning a particular language, just stop it and go for another one. Nobody will accuse you of anything :) After all, joy and inspiration are the number one things when it comes to language learning.

Gift yourself some new stationery

It might sound silly but sometimes beautiful new stationery can also help you find both inspiration and motivation to keep your language study process. Buy yourself a new notebook of your favourite colour and maybe some new pens or pencils. Don’t know about you, but as for me, a total notebooks and journals lover, it helps a lot!

Another thing that can come in handy is to forget for some time about the so-called active learning and give it a try with the passive one. What I mean by passive learning is not to sit at your desk doing grammar, but watch films or videos, listen to music in your target language and something else of that kind. One of the main factors of why we sometimes get bored and unmotivated while learning a foreign language is that our study routine turns into some monotonous or tedious process, which it should never be.

Try passive learning

That happens because of several reasons and one of them (and maybe the most important) is that we forget about adding some fun stuff into our study hours - movies and music are just one tiny part of that! You can also read in the language you’re willing to master or else combine it with another hobby of yours (e.g. watching painting tutorials in that language)! Think of such a pastime as the time when you're resting. Remember one thing - it’s not necessary to take any notes on new vocabulary now because you’re just enjoying watching a film, listening to music or whatever you decide to choose!

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