My New Year’s Resolution: The 30 Day Trial

New Years resolution

This article was originally posted on WomenLearnThai.com.

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2010 is here…so soon…

As I mentioned last year in 30 Days to Successful Thai Language Habits, 2010 is my push year for ramping up my Thai. Absolutely.

Last year was ok for me. But as it was not brilliant, I needed to do something different this year. Sure, I had a New Year’s resolution post in 2009 (same same, but not quite). Following my intended resolution, I read the chosen book, took notes, and created an amazon.com wishlist. I even had a wonderful to-do list (numbered from 1 to 6).

But what I didn’t realise was how bad the first point on the list was going to be for me.

  1. Procrastinate as usual for a week.

Hah! If I learned anything at all, it was the fact that I was BRILLIANT at procrastinating.

(get thee behind me 2009 😉

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The guts of my plan for 2010…

Keeping it simple, for the full month of January I’ll chart Luca’s method on a Seinfeld Calendar.

My aspirations are fairly basic too:

  • Improve my reading and listening comprehension.
  • Speed up my typing/writing skills.
  • Ramp up my spelling.
  • Make my Thai teacher happy.

My 30 day calendar…

In the hopes that my strategy will help someone else, for the month of January I will share the sure to be painful trials of my Thai study schedule. And to make it less painful for you, I will keep my weekly sharing to Fridays.

As you can see from the calendar below, I have tweaked Luca’s schedule to make it easier to remember which days I’m supposed to do what. And knowing me, there will be more tweaking ahead.

January ScheduleDays 1-5: Listen, read, and repeat.

Day 6: Listen, read, then repeat. Translate the first Thai dialogue into English.

Day 7: Review.

Days 8-12: Listen, read, then repeat. Type/write.

Day 13: Listen, read, then repeat. Translate the second Thai dialogue into English.

Day 14: Review.

Day 15: Translate the dialogue from day 6 back into Thai.

Day 16+: Continue to the end of the month…

If you glance to the sidebar on your the right, you will see a screen shot using the Don’t Break the Chain! iOS app It will was updated daily.

Btw – if you missed the explanation of Luca’s method, you can catch up here:
An Easy Way to Learn Foreign Languages: Part One
An Easy Way to Learn Foreign Languages: Part Two

And below is what cinched the deal:
30 Days to Successful Thai Language Habits

So there it is. My plan.

Well, sort of. The real thanks goes to emk, Jerry, Steve, and Luca.

4 thoughts on “My New Year’s Resolution: The 30 Day Trial”

  1. Steven, how many dialogues is totally up to how much time and motivation you have. During the 30 day Trial I was battling with insomnia so tried to stick to one lesson per session (one a week). But depending, I sometimes did less. I checked and Assimil has around 12 sentences (give or take) per dialogue, plus an additional 15+ extra sentences to finish out the lesson.

    For Thai I found the listen, read, repeat, translate part quite easy. It was when I went to write/type out the Thai script that I slowed down considerably. I’m cacca at spelling in English so that was to be expected.

    At the moment I’m getting stuck into the Language Revolution (mind mapping), the Loci Method, and the Gold List Method (a new find). All are exciting so I’m bouncing between each. But, I seriously need to settle myself down to one at a time or I’ll never get those reviews written.

    Luca’s method of studying languages really is fabulous and if I wasn’t driven to write posts on other methods I’d look no further.

    Reply
  2. Hi Cat

    Just curious to see whether you’ve kept up the ‘Luca Method’? I’ve read the two articles that you posted some time ago and I’m really motivated to try it out. It really does seem a efficient and easy way to learn languages. I’ve done as research as to how it works, but I am confused as to howthe schedual works. How many dialogs do you do per week for example before you translate them? If you’re able to clear that up, that would be appreciated 🙂

    Thanks
    S

    Reply
  3. Talen, I’m only on day four and still struggling with procrastination, but it is working. I’ve put a red X on each day. And my Thai teacher is totally chuffed with my progress. We went through 2 and a half lessons today. Straight through. It would have been a full three but I’m on day two of an insomniac run. Tired.

    I’m excited to hear about your new routine! I was hoping my new schedule would help others too (not just me). Megga 🙂

    Reply
  4. Cat, I hate you…ok not really but after reading this post I realize I have just been toying with learning the Thai language and really have to buckle down with a schedule and get to it.

    Between reading this post and talking with little Fa last night on the phone I realize now just how much I have been chiding myself. Fa is getting quite adept at the age of three and lost me pretty fast on the phone last night. Fortunately Pookie bought her a cd to play with on the computer that teaches English so she is learning something I know a little of lol.

    I’m going to be writing a post later today on where I am and what programs I’m using and why…I’ll link back to this post of yours because I think setting up a routine is probably the most important aspect of learning anything.

    Reply

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