12 objectives for learning a language in 2021

What is the difference between the italian word obiettivo and obbiettivo?

Nothing! Obiettivo, which in Italian means “goal”, can be written with one or two bs! in the past the first form was the correct one, but now both are accepted.

Do you have an obiettivo, a goal?

I’m talking about your goal for 2021, I mean, what you want to achieve in this year that has just started.

I have never been good at keeping my New Year’s resolutions – one year is too long and my goals keep changing. So, this year I decided to set a goal for myself every month!

What did I do?

I took 12 cards and wrote the name of a month on each one: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December.

Then, on the back of the “January” card I wrote my first goal.

If your goal is to learn a language, I have prepared a list of 12 goals for you!

1- The first goal, of course, is to start studying the language. You can start by buying a book, an audio course, or by choosing to take lessons with a teacher like me

2- Dedicate time to study every week and be consistent. Organizing this time into a specific day/time can help you. I am a very disorganized person, and this method helps me to be consistent! 

3- At this point you will start to worry about your pronunciation (it is the first difficulty that a student encounters with the language). But I’ll tell you a secret: pronunciation at this early stage is not that important. The important thing is to start understanding the words and the meaning of the sentences. So, you can set yourself the goal of improving your pronunciation, but don’t be too hard on yourself!

4- Don’t worry about understanding everything you hear. Again, remember that you are starting to learn a language from scratch – it’s impossible to understand everything!!! Think of children when they learn a language and how long they need to store what they hear before they speak

5- Listen to a podcast about something that interests you every week. Learning a language through what you are passionate about is one of the best methods. In fact, it will give you motivation and will also be much more enjoyable!

6- Write a summary of each of these podcasts

7- Join a language exchange group. You can find many on Facebook by typing “language exchange Italian English” (or the language you want to learn)

8- Watch an episode of a TV series you like in the language every week

9- Start reading a book in the language you are studying 

10- Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything you read; try to understand the general meaning (instead of every word)

11- Be satisfied with your results

12- Keep setting new goals for yourself!