Two Amazing Ways to Finish the Year As a Language Learner
That aren’t about goal setting or resolutions.
As the end of the year is right around the corner now, many people will be on holiday for some of the remaining time. I’ll personally be going back to France to celebrate Christmas with my family from tomorrow.
With less than two weeks left, many people are looking back at their goals of the previous year and pushing themselves one last time to check as many boxes as possible.
I don’t reckon that’s a good way to finish the year. I’ve done it many times, only to start the new year already pretty burned out.
Instead, I now usually spend the last two weeks doing a combination of the two below great ways to finish the year.
If there’s one time, it’s now
While Christmas was originally a Christian holiday, it’s now part of society whether we want it or not. Even for people who aren’t Christian (like myself), work slows down or school stops.
We all have a bit more time for ourselves during this Holiday time.
What I used to take as an opportunity to push farther I now see as an opportunity to rest.
If there’s one time when cozying up under a blanket and chilling is accepted, it’s this holiday period.
If everybody’s taking a break, why not you?
That’s the mindset I like to finish the year in. No pressure. No intensive study. No “I gotta take care of this before next year!” Just pure acceptance of my laziness.
Experimenting as preparation
As I mentioned in my last edition, I tend to set certain goals but what I consider even more important is setting habits.
The holidays are never a good period to start new habits because that’s a period way too different from our daily life throughout the year.
It is, however, an incredible time to experiment with a bunch of different tools, methods, and combos.
For instance, as I am leaving Korea at the end of January and will be going to Taiwan for about a month, I’m trying to brush up on my Mandarin skills these days—more notably my speaking skills.
During my time in France, I plan on speaking to ChatGPT on my phone and maybe even see if I could find a setup that takes me minutes to find a (few) sentence(s) I could practice shadowing.
But that’s not just it.
Among the goals I set for myself for 2024, there’s reading more in my target languages and, notably, going through all the books I bought in Korean this year.
Instead of trying to finish counting for this year’s goal, I prefer considering myself as taking a bit of a headstart on 2024. Every extra page I read today is one fewer I’ll “have to” read next year.
And since I’m ahead of schedule, anything I read is a bonus and makes me feel extra good.
Next stop, 2024
As I’m just about to finish writing next week’s The Language of AI piece, this is the last time I’m writing for my newsletter this year. So, even if you’ll hear from me again next week, I’ll only hear from you in 2024.
And, yes, I’m one of those people who say “See you next year!” at the end of December. 😁
So here I am, ready to take a break, practice some Mandarin, and enjoy reading some Korean without pressure.
I wish you all some happy Holidays and a good rest, and I’ll see you in early January once I’m back in Korea.
Take care and see you in 2024!
Mathias, an average polyglot