Welcome to July’s #ClearTheList! This month, it’s all about Guaraní…and Terrace House…

Hosted by myself, Kris Broholm, Angel Pretot and Shannon of Eurolinguiste, Clear The List is your chance to set monthly language learning goals + achieve them as part of the community. We share our monthly goals and encourage you to do the same. Check the bottom of this post for more info on how to join in.

Your free planner for July!

Before we get started, here’s your chance to make the most of July for language learning completely free with this month’s My Month in Languages Planner.

Click the image below to download your copy for July. Use it to keep track of your language plans and goals for the coming month. Woop!

Join the #IGLC in July!

Something a little bit different for July’s Instagram Language Challenge! It’s going to be especially fun if you’re not travelling anywhere this summer. Use the country prompts to learn country or language names in the language you’re learning.

Oooorrr…(+ this is my favourite one) use them to learn something about languages spoken in those countries + share something that you learn – it could be some words or phrases, it could be a fact. Your call. Either way, I’m looking forward to this one!

To learn more about how to join in, click here. It’s totally free + you get to learn a little language each day. Woop!

Language Learning Review for June

Slovak

I did my presentation in Slovak at the Polyglot Gathering, despite forgetting to take my notes up and therefore forgetting half of the thing! Hooray!

So that’s it with Slovak now, and probably it with Slavic languages for a while I imagine too, but hey, who knows.

Guaraní

Still fun.

45 minutes of study Mon – Thurs – Mostly happened. The reason I said 45 minutes instead of 1 hour was to allow me some “dabble time” with other languages. To be honest, this dabble time didn’t happen much as I was often so engrossed with Guaraní.

There were some mornings when I was actually doing extra little bits of work ready for the re-launch of Successful Self-Study, in which case neither Guarani nor other languages got learnt. Boo! That should calm down in July.

1 hour italki each weekend – This didn’t happen! So my italki tutor messaged to say he can’t do weekends anymore, I asked if he could do week days and I’m still waiting for a reply. Sucks because it’s slowing my progress slightly.

Duolingo via Spanish – This more or less happened. I missed one or two days since being back on my Duolingo so don’t have a full streak but I’m back to not having to refresh old stuff meaning I actually keep learning new stuff again now, which wasn’t the case when I got back from two weeks in Slovakia!

My Song! – This happened. Still don’t know entirely what he’s singing but still love it.

Wikipedia – This happened. I’m really enjoying using Wikipedia on my phone as my go to “I have like 5 seconds free to learn a language” resource. Normally it would be Memrise, but as I’m focusing on Duolingo right now and Duolingo doesn’t save results, this is proving a better go-to for moments when you don’t know how long you’ve got, eg, waiting in a queue.

Language Reading Challenge

I loved reading Shannon’s book and Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less.

I even managed to start a new book this month called Find A Way by Diana Nyad, which is about her journey swimming between Cuba and Florida. So far so good.

Language Learning Goals for July

Guarani

Same old, same old!

I actually have no new specific plans with Guarani this month other than to keep going.

It’s going to be a busy couple of months as we’ve only got about 8 weeks until we leave for our trip (more on that in a moment) and, naturally, there’s loads of stuff to do before we go, so I’m not putting too much pressure on Guarani as well.

But I will be keeping up and aiming for my hour a day Monday to Friday.

One thing I have started to use with more ernest is this free Peace Corps coursebook that’s proving surprisingly useful to consolidate and go further with what I’m doing on Duolingo.

I tried to find a language exchange partner too but no luck, and as it’s not a great time to be starting a new regular meeting, I figured it’s not worth pursuing too much right now.

It’s very weird for me to have such vague plans for a language, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes!

Japanese

So..something has happened. I’m going to tell you because I hope you can relate. Have you seen Terrace House?

Oh my. It’s glorious.

At the time of writing, I’m almost at the end of Terrace House Boys X Girls In The City, but I couldn’t find a trailer and this new series set in Hawaii exists too…

I grew up watching Big Brother every summer and, yes, not ashamed to admit that I actually watched it (until it moved to Channel 5, because, I mean, no Davina? No thanks.)

But I’d never really thought about reality TV for language learning. And it’s so useful.

I’m learning lots about Japanese culture, especially things about dating, attitudes to work, and co-habiting. It’s really interesting. It may be a blog post. Watch this space.

So this isn’t so much a goal, more a note that I’m refreshing some older, weaker languages with TV right now, especially Japanese with Terrace House.

Language Reading Challenge

I’m finishing Find A Way and will also finish The Emoji Code this month, both of which I got from the library the same day a few weeks back.

The topic for Shannon’s Language Reading Challenge over at Eurolinguiste this month is ‘History of the region, culture, or language that you’re studying. Well, I’m reading a heck of a lot of travel guides right now so I’m pretty sure that counts on that front!

Trip Update

Not too many updates on the route this time round, just practical stuff happening.

We have our first injection appointment at the start of July (and have to go about half an hour away for it because we couldn’t get a closer appointment! The perils of leaving in summertime when everyone else goes away and needs jabbing in the arms!).

My Amazon basket is full of things I may or may not need to buy before we go (but to be honest, mostly stuff I definitely absolutely must buy).

We also had the chance to catch up with a friend this past month who has spent the best part of a year in South America. Most stories about people she met ended with “…they were nice people. Oh yeah, they got robbed too.”. So that’s fun.

And like I said, still lots of reading fun stuff about places, and our home is littered with travel guides in every room right now. So that’s a bit more fun.

In other news…

One of the reasons I’m not being to clear with my language goals this month is that I just re-opened the doors to Successful Self-Study! Woop!

After opening up the Online Teaching Starter Kit earlier this year (keep your eyes peeled over the coming months if you want in by the way), I was super inspired to pretty much completely overhaul Successful Self-Study. So I did.

You can join this week and get access to some pretty rocking bonuses, which include 6 live Group Coaching Calls with me and your fellow language learners on the course, a Habit Tracker, and a Study Buddy Match-Up to pair you up with a long-term friend to support each other through your language learning.

If you’re interested, click the image below for more info and to enroll before the bonuses disappear (2.7.17).

Video Update

Join Clear the list!

1. Share your goal post whether it includes your aspirations for the month or year. Submissions unrelated to the theme or links to your homepage will be deleted.

2. Link back to this post. You can use our button code below if you wish.

3. Follow the hosts: Lindsay from Lindsay Does Languages, Shannon from Eurolinguiste, Kris from Actual Fluency and Angel from French Lover.

4. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Please visit the site of the person who linked up immediately before you and leave them an encouraging comment! By hosting this linkup, we’re hoping to create a positive community where we can all share our goals. If you do not do this, you will be removed from the linkup.

5. Share on social media using #ClearTheList.

<div align="center"><a href="http://eurolinguiste.com/tag/clear-the-list" title="Set your language learning goals as a part of the Clear the List Link Up hosted by Shannon Kennedy of Eurolinguiste, Lindsay Dow of Lindsay Does Languages, Angel Pretot of French Lover, and Kris Broholm of Actual Fluency"><img src="https://eurolinguiste.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/clear-the-list-sidebar-1.jpg" alt="Set your language learning goals as a part of the Clear the List Link Up hosted by Shannon Kennedy of Eurolinguiste, Lindsay Dow of Lindsay Does Languages, Angel Pretot of French Lover, and Kris Broholm of Actual Fluency" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Your free planner for July!

If you missed it up top, click below to get your free My Month In Languages Planner straight to your inbox for free. Woop!

P.S. If you’re already on my mailing list, use your password to get it direct from the Little Language Library.

Which language are you learning this month? What do you want to achieve? Join Clear The List to share your goals or comment below!