All those extra minutes

Thanks, Micah for your comment about diligence. It's true that you have to be good at bullying yourself adn so often, with time and opportunites available, the question is "Why am I not doing this?" I think one way of being effective at language learning is to use your "extra" minutes--those moments while you wait in line, drive, eat, etc. Instead of spacing out, many 2nd language learners have found ways of learning language that can be as natural as when we were toddlers learning English. I'm not just talking about vocabulary taped to common appliances in the house. As a missionary I started writing characters on my hand at every light and now I do it on my dashboard. It was also fun to see how many characters I could spot on signs and billboards that I knew. Language became a game that I've forgotten how to play lately. Toddlers often are entertained by language or vocabulary-identification activities: alphabet books, counting, rhymes, etc., as parents try to keep them occupied during those extra minutes. Our discretionary time has changed, but do we use what we have as efficiently? While toddlers play, they are in fact working hard at learning.

Speaking of extra minutes I now have 4 hours of Japanese character study a day. It's incredible to try to get 18 credits of Japanese into 8 weeks and hard to block out a solid wall to study it in. I've found this idea of overlooked crevices of time is very helpful. It can be as simple as putting character cards in my purse before I run out the door, thinking of the times of waiting I have ahead, or writing my grocery list in Japanese. I wouldn't take me long to say prayers in my 2nd language and after I finish remembering to jot down a quick note of what I struggled to express. Micah's exactly right--why don't I do things that I should? Don't I want to be bilingual? Take a minute and think of where you might find extra minutes or activities that you do anyway. Make language a part of your routine and the discipline factor won't be a problem. I'm going to bully myself a little to do what I should and remind myself that language is fun and interesting. Why else would toddlers be so fascinated with acquiring it?