September has been a busy one. Mainly for one reason: I FINISHED UNIVERSITY STUDY. It feels kind of weird as it’s been 6 years of my life that I’ve been studying with the Open University and now it’s just over. Poof! It’s gone. This huge part of my life that has quite literally shaped and led to everything right now is over.

I’m getting kind of emotional. It’s also the reason this post is a few days into the month. I’ve taken this weekend to relax…and by relax, I mean learn whichever language I want to at any particular point in time instead of feeling guilty for not doing university study!

So far, it’s been a crazy exciting month – and we’re only 5 days in! I found out on the day I submitted my dissertation that I’ve been nominated in no less that 5 categories at this year’s Milton Keynes Digital Awards! Lindsay Does Languages is a finalist in Small Business Site, Use of Video for Business, Lifestyle and Culture Website, Blog, and Use of Social Media for Business. Eek!

It’s not public voting and the award night isn’t until December, but I’ve booked my tickets today and I’ll let you know how it goes down as soon as I can!

Anyway, there’s no better time to start something new then when something else finishes, so without further ado, let’s talk about goals.

The Clear The List link-up has become Clear The List. But other than that, it’s pretty much the same! Hosted by myself, Shannon of Eurolinguiste, Esther of Local Adventurer, and Mariah of Food, Booze and Baggage, the idea is to share our monthly goals and inspire you to do the same. Check the bottom of this post for more info you you fancy joining us!

Let’s start by looking at a few highlights from the blog this past month:

12 Top Tips: How to Improve Your German Pronunciation
10 Essential Spanish YouTubers to Help You Learn Spanish
Finding Time in Your Life for Language Learning Free Ebook
Insecurities of a Language Learner (And How to Overcome Them)
A Language Lover’s Wishlist

September Review

I got some exciting new language books to read in September!

Write and submit my final dissertation.

Yes! This happened. It kinda had to to make the past 6 years worth it. Spacing it out over the month of September and doing at least an hour a day made it actually quite enjoyable and a lot less of a slog them an intense week or so would have been.

One telenovela/30 minute+ YouTube video per day

This happened! Patito Feo is my homegirl. T-shirts need to be made.

6000 Memrise points each day

This mostly happened. Some days it got missed out to devote more time to actually doing the hard graft of writing and polishing the dissertation but I think that’s valid!

One hour minimum of dissertation time per day

This definitely happened. I also spent a couple of Saturdays in the library until it closed or my brain couldn’t focus anymore, whichever came first.

Record and upload one Instagram video completely in Spanish each day

This didn’t happen. But I purposefully stopped and I know exactly why. What I wanted from sharing little chitty-chatty Spanish videos each day was to practise for myself but with the accountability of it being public. If that makes any sense?

Also, the way Instagram video works required filming all in one go or preparing and editing to the perfect 15 seconds, which wasn’t the point of the exercise.

I’ve discovered that Snapchat is literally the best thing for this. I can record little tiny things throughout the day and add them to my Snapchat Story for people to view if they wish, but without the worry of having extra comments to reply to or the fear of mistakes being on the interwebs for all to see forevermore. Snapchat Stories are deleted after 24 hours, making it perfect for sharing spontaneous multilingual language snippets throughout the day.

I feel a blog post coming on! In the meantime, if you want to follow me on Snapchat, you can by adding my username: ldlanguages.

Go to the Spanish Meet-up

This happened. A Venezuelan even said I sounds Argentinian. It must have been all the Patito Feo.

October Goals

For the first week of October at least, it’s all about Korean.

Ok, so after a weekend of relaxing and readjusting to my new-found free time, I’m finally ready to share my goals for October. Are you ready? There’s a few. I need to keep busy.

Use Gritty Spanish everyday for a week and share the results

This week, I’ll be using Gritty Spanish every day for a week, following my own advice that I shared here on the blog in August. I’ll be creating a swear book, a dialogue book, and recording my dialogues among other things. There’ll be a video of this out mid-October!

the final four scripts of the Language Script Challenge!

Eek! So close! I’m ridiculously excited to get back to this. A break over the past few months has had me standing at the starting block bouncing up and down raring to go.

The last 4 scripts are Korean, Tiginagh, Inuktitut, and Kannada.

First up is Korean and I’ll be filming all week and sharing the results of my little Korean alphabet journey on Friday to celebrate Hangul Day!

Start sharing daily multilingual vlogs on Snapchat

As I’ve explained previously in this post, I tried to do this on Instagram but the way that it works doesn’t allow for what I was intending. Rather than 15 seconds in one go, Snapchat allows for the creation of Snapchat stories that can be uploaded and added to throughout the day, which suits me much better.

You can follow me on Snapchat @ldlanguages. See you over there!

Start the Add One Challenge!

Towards the end of this month, I’ll be getting ready to up my Japanese game once more and spend three months giving it some real attention as I take part in the Add One Challenge!

If the Add One Challenge is new to you, I’ll be doing a webinar next Monday (12th October) at 13.00 UK time with Brian Kwong where you can learn more. We’ll also be talking about motivation when it comes to language learning.

Reserve your free spot by clicking the button below!

Release my first online course!

So close now! In case you haven’t heard, my first online course is due out later this month. Friday 23rd October to be precise! There’s lots of free stuff going on in advance to give you a little taster of what you can expect.

Are you on Periscope? I’ll be sharing and exploring one phrasal verb each day in October on there. Closer to the release of the course, I’ll be using real examples created especially for the course and sharing little secrets about the stories and characters in the course.

Follow me on Periscope @ldlanguages to catch up on the Mini Series each day between 13.00-14.00 UK time!

I’ll also be hosting a live webinar answering all your phrasal verb questions and sharing even more info about the course before its release. More details coming soon!

Phew!

So as you can see, October is set to be a rather busy month. Just what I need to keep my brain active now that my degree is over. Yay!

Do you want to share your goals this month? Here’s everything you need to know…

What are your plans for October? Share in the comments!