First off…AHHH thank you all so much for all the love and support of my first Language Learning Mission post last month!

You guys totally helped us kick off our debut month for Brooke & Yara–we literally could not have achieved a great launch month without the awesome online polyglot community!

Props to the Online Polyglot Community!

Participating in Lindsay’s Septemeber #ClearTheList and having the support of these awesome polyglots helped a lot! A HUGE Thank You goes to

• Lindsay and Jo of Lindsay Does Languages
• Shannon of Eurolinguiste and her #ClearTheList post
• James of Lingua Materna
• Kerstin of fluentlanguage.co.uk
• Idohosa and Sophie of Mimic Method, and
• Olly of I will teach your languages!

You all inspire me, and I’m so touched by all your support and encouragement! THANKS!

Everyone truly loved my “Being multilingual is an incredible act of selflessness” quote on Pinterest too! 🙂

Feelin the love, fellin the love 😉

If this is your first time here–basically as my title states, I’m aiming to take my high school foreign language class to fluency. My chosen language: Spanish.

While this is my third language, learning from a school curriculum when you’re a teenager is different than being raised bilingual. 🙂

So, here’s my…

Monthly Language Learning Post Format

My monthly language learning posts will be a combination of

• Benny the Irish Polyglot of Fluent in 3 Month’s mission updates. Here’s his complete mission updates archive, but he recently posted all his and his team members’ past missions from the past 8 years here.
• Lindsay Does Languages’ Monthly #ClearTheList Link Party. Lindsay co-hosts this monthly linky with Kris Broholm, Angel Pretot and Shannon of Eurolinguiste.

The goal is to share monthly language learning goals and work towards achieving them with a community of language learning buddies. Also, one rule of the party is to visit and comment on the language learning blogs that are on the list before posting or post on the linky.

Lindsay also hosts a monthly Instagram Language challenge (#IGLC: IstaGram Language Challenge), as part of her #ClearTheList post. Participating in the challenge can be as easy as learning a new word, basic phrase or topic each day.

• Brooke & Yara adaptation and school requirements for foreign languages

As a high school student, I am committed for a full academic year (2 semesters: Fall and Spring, so 10 months). Since I can’t do full language immersion to meet fluency in 3 months like Benny, I’ll use his (and all the online language learners’) principles and advice to supplement my high school curriculum.

October’s #IGLC words to learn in Spanish

Lindsay posted October’s #IGLC which I’m determined to learn each new word.

Here’s October’s challenge image linked to Lindsay’s Instagram account. My goal is to simply define these words in Spanish each day.

Click Here to hop to Lindsay Does Languages’ Instagram account

Learning Language Progress Report – September

My goals for September were to

• • Review my curriculum – check
  • Set up a daily schedule to get classwork completed on time – check
  • Mark quiz and test days on my schedule – check
  • Supplement my coursework with various resources to make sure I hit all the critical things I need to reach fluency, like daily speaking, reading, writing, activities, etc. (more details below) – check

A must-have must-read fun series that’s really encouraging me to learn Spanish!

• Get Olly’s “Spanish Short Stories for Beginners” – check.

What a AMAZING awesome SUUUPPER cool huge surprise!!! My mom gifted me the whole series! We read the first short story together and I understood the whole story! I was able to answer the general story questions (like an end of chapter quiz). Yesss!

I had to “study” the story’s vocabulary so I could understood the story details better. But, it was so encouraging and a lot of fun to read aloud and comprehend!

• Review all of last year’s grammar rules, lessons, tests, etc. – check
• Really work hard on Ser and Estar which were my weakest points of last year – check

We started a “Language Learning” Pinterest board ya gotta follow it, btw! 😉 and we’ve been pinning pins to help me learning Spanish. 🙂

I found these three very popular pins to help explain the difference between Ser and Estar: This pretty infographic, this one using the acronyms: DOCTOR + PLACE to learn the differences, and this one showing some uses of both words.

• Do one lesson in Duolingo a day. – substitution made:  check

Substitution: Since I’m using a different curriculum than last year, but I’m jumping in Spanish Year 2, some of the vocabulary was unknown to me. So, my teacher gave me access to Spanish 1B (second semester of first year Spanish) so I can review any concepts or vocab I wasn’t previously exposed to. Since they don’t have vocab lists, I had to review past lessons and learn the words and phrases in context of the lesson taught. So, this replaced times spent with Duolingo.

• Read kids books in Spanish – substitution made: check

Another HUGE Surprise was my mom gifted me Olly’s “Fluent Spanish Through Stories Beginner” program! I’m in the beta group to offer suggestions and feedback to the curriculum and methodology.

My mom and I read the first chapter (I read aloud and then she tried 😐 😂), then we listened to the recorded narration, and out of curiosity we check out the English translation as well. I totally got the gist of the entire chapter–awessooome!

We also watched the pronunciation videos and corresponding lessons. It’s such a cool program!!

There is soo much information, and as I go through it, I’ll be sharing detail reviews. But, once it goes for sale to the public, undoubtedly it’s the best investment towards your Spanish language learning!

• Worked hard to expand my vocabulary  – check (via my new curriculum)
  • Olly of I will teach you languages. His Make Words Stick eBook
  • Learning more about and implementing SRS (spaced recognition system)

Language Learning Goals for October

• Get caught up in my school curriculum – I’m just a bit behind since I started school two-weeks late, but I’m determined to get all caught up by October 28th–my next monthly meeting.

Truth is…I find the curriculum a LOT of fun! It’s interactive and cute. I get to make audio recordings for my teacher to hear. The pace is ideal.

BTW, there’s reading, writing, watching, speaking, listening and translating throughout all my lessons, so this is a really complete curriculum–I AM learning. 🙂

• Maintain my “A” in my Spanish class 😉 – Truth: I wanna bring it up to an A+. I didn’t realize some assignments were being scored, so I went down a couple points unexpectedly. But, alll is good, so I’m going for it! 😉

• Read at least one Spanish Beginners Short Story

• Finish all the activities of Chapter 1 of Spanish Fluency. There are cognates lessons, writing, reading, and speaking lessons that I have yet to explore. There’s assignments to do with a native speaker (Spanish tutor, coach of teacher), so I have to find one who I can work with–I totally miss my private tutor from last year. :-/

• Try hard to read, listen, translate any Spanish that I encounter during my day! It’s in our TV commercials, street signs, all our store signs, etc. here in California, and all my family members ask me to translate (which I can’t yet… OKAY!?), but instead of saying “I don’t know”, I’m actually trying now. I’m reading it, sounding it out, writing things down and/or translating on the spot if I have a phone or internet handy. I’m definitely increasing my confidence this way. Before, I’d brush it off and say “not yet…” or kept using the excuse “I don’t know”…now, my mindset is “I want to know…I’ll find out…I’m trying to know…” (shrug) 😉

Learning Language Tip: Change your mindset from “I don’t know” when hearing or reading your target language to “I want to know”, “I’ll find out…”, or “Gimme a sec, I’m figuring it out right now…”. Just, don’t give up before even trying!

• Learn the word “bike” in as many languages as possible!

I’m up to six languages now! Jo of Lindsay Does Languages love the bit that I said I knew how to say it in four language last month, so she helped me add numbers 5 & 6. 🙂

1. English – bike
2. Spanish – bicicleta
3. Arabic – diraajah دراجة
4. French – bicyclette
5. German – fahrrad
6. Slovenian – kolo

What languages can you help me add to this list?

Awesome Fluent Forever Kickstarter App You Should Totally Back!

I am soo happy to see the HUGE success of Gabe’s Fluent Forever App on Kickstarter!

Ever since Kickstarter was launched, I’ve been a tech-junkie watching any and all new inventions, but never got the chance to actually back one up. But, this is so Ah-MAYY-ZIING: not just for language learning, but for app development through Kickstarter!

I mentioned that Gabe’s program as one of two (Idohosa’s Mimic Method as the second) to use for good pronunciation my first post…so it’s not surprising that Gabe’s app reached one of the fastest funded campaigns by being funded in the first 17.5 hours at quarter-million dollars and $266,000+ by it’s 24-hour mark (news that was picked up by Forbes)!

That first-day’s success set him up to being days away from being the single most-funded app ever backed in Kickstarter at $323,000 and he achieved that on Day 8!! He still has a whopping 20 days of this campaign and on-track to reach his first reach goal of $400K!

So, whatever level you can back this project–as a language learner, or a tech-app-geek…you’re making history by supporting this incredible app! And, hey–if you’re really not into language learning, you can actually “gift” your subscription to others…hint hint: Midge of Brooke & Yara…that’s midge@brookeandyara.com 😛 Jk

FREE Printable: Language Learning Daily Checklist

I shared about all my problems with accountability in my initial post, so Sam took my inspiration for the ideal daily language learning checklist to make sure I tracked at least 30-minutes a day of language learning study each day, and that I include all the critical things necessary to reach fluency (ie reading, writing, listening, speaking, etc.). The checklist is really pretty, so please download it today!

So.. 🤔 I believe it’s your turn. What are your language learning plans for October? How did you do with your September goals? Are you learning Spanish? Any tips to share with me? Oh, and if you know how to say “bike” in any language I don’t know right now, please comment below! Thanks!

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