The holidays can be a great time for language learning! Haha, you might expect the opposite, but I have my reasons.

Sure, the holidays are a busy time of year trying to be prepared, get errands done, shop for gifts, etc. Then actually making time to see or travel to family & friends, and spending time together. You might wonder, how can you keep up with your regular learning schedule?

The answer is- don’t try to keep up, don’t beat yourself up over missing practice sessions- but instead, create a new temporary schedule and take this time to try out new resources! The holidays are a great time for learning about cultural celebrations in other countries, and learning new vocabulary in the language you’re learning.

I might not make the time for my usual 2 week language practice schedule, but I’m still learning when I can. Every little bit counts! Now might not be the best time for me to take a progress test at home- it’s different for students when they’re in school throughout the day. As a full-time working adult with a personal life, it’s good to cut myself some slack around the holidays.

Keep things fun! This is why I mention checking out new resources. Something that you bookmarked, favorited, or screenshot recently, but haven’t had time to look into yet. It might only take a few minutes to click on a link, skim through a website page, and see if it’s worth using for your language practice.

Some resources that I already know I’m going to look into over the holidays:

-More HSK2 practice exams and vocab lists for Chinese

-Iceland Airwaves schedule of musicians to create my own Spotify playlist for Icelandic

-episodes of Learn Italian with Lucrezia that I need to catch up on (from her podcast and her youtube videos)

-Pokemon Violet in Spanish (I created 2 profiles on my Nintendo Switch, and one is my serious profile for playing Pokemon & the other is for trying out Pokemon in Spanish just to pick up some new vocab)

-Tadoku Books for free Japanese reading practice

Gleðilega hátíð! xx