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hi there steve kaufman here
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today i want to talk about how to build
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a step-by-step study plan for learning
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languages
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remember if you enjoy these videos
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please subscribe you can click on the
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me at link where i learn languages
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so
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a study plan i think
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for many of the things that are
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important to us where we want to achieve
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success
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it's often considered useful to have a
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routine
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a study plan some kind of a
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of a
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set of activities that we feel compelled
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to do
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so
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and i'm going to talk about how that
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applies to languages i think the biggest
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thing in a study plan is that you want
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to develop new habits
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all right now i've said many times that
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language learning is a matter of of
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attitude
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and spending the time with the language
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so we want to have
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habits that reinforce a positive
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attitude that give us a sense of success
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and we want to have habits that keep us
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with the language at the task that's the
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kind of study plan that you need to have
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and
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the the kinds of things you need to do
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for a successful study plan for
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languages is very similar to other
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activities that we would like to you
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know do
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like getting in shape all right so
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little things for example just on the
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subject of of people sometimes say to me
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steve you seem to be quite fit uh for
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your age
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what do you eat how do you you know
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exercise what's your routine
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so
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you know throughout my life i have done
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i have always you know been jogging
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exercising playing hockey playing tennis
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keeping active i try to eat
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you know healthy food i don't overdo
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greasy heavy
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you know i always eat healthy bread this
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kind of thing
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well the same with languages i i wanted
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to add too i recently
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got an app it's called something about i
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can't remember what it is but it's it's
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an h-i-i-t high intensive intensity
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internal training app and every morning
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seven minutes
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i do whatever they push at me in the way
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of an activity so i'm prompted to do
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this and i've now got that as a habit
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and i feel
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better because every morning for seven
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minutes i do this series of exercises so
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anything like that can be very
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beneficial
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i am in the habit of
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going to link
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for my language learning so people are
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going to complain i always promote link
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but i do because that's what i do i get
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up in the morning
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i go to whatever course i'm on
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i go play the course audio and while
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preparing breakfast i will be listening
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to that course
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this is then going to push me
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to read because there inevitably are
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portions of that
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lesson or several lessons that i
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listened to
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that i didn't understand and of course i
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can either shuffle
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the lessons or simply go through them in
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order
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typically if i'm well along
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in that
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course i'll shuffle them but if i'm
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still trying to learn new words i'll go
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in order
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so that's a habit that i have
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so i think that the study plan in in
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language learning
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is more about
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your mindset
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the habits you create rather than spend
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a half hour here a half hour there
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because
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so much of language learning is
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subjective it's emotional i think it's
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important to engage in the activities
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that we enjoy doing that we feel we want
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to do at this particular moment
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so i have found that listening
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tends to trigger a lot of other
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activities for me so it's very simple
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for me i just turn on the listening now
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i want to
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look up you know read what i listen to
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look up words
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and that kind of thing but another thing
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that's important in terms of a study
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plan is to make sure you surround
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yourself with the resources that you
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need
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so
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obviously content
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and i've mentioned many times that in an
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initial period that is going to be sort
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of repetitious listening to relatively
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simple content with a lot of repeated
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you know vocabulary especially high
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frequency verbs
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at a later stage you're listening more
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out of interest but you have to find
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this content of interest you have to
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find the content this repetitive content
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so you there is some work to be done
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there
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i find it useful to buy one or several
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starter books because it's nice to hold
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a book in your head
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you have to find some
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grammar resources that you can refer to
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whether it be online or in a book so
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part of a study plan is to make sure you
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surround yourself with the resources you
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need you're going to need
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an mp3 player you're going to need um
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obviously uh internet access to go and
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find these resources
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um
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that's got to be part of your study plan
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in fact i end up spending a fair amount
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of my sort of time that i devote to
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language learning looking for
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content for
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persian and arabic it's difficult to
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find
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interesting content at my level
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much easier to do say in english or
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probably in spanish
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but
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part of your study plan
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has got to be to prepare yourself i i
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will often go and get
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content and and make sure i've got it
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imported into links so that i have it
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ready so that when i want to go and
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listen i've got enough content in front
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of me
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so part of your study plan has to be
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devoting enough time to
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preparing the content you're going to
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use
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grammar resources i mentioned also at a
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certain stage in your language learning
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you're going to want to speak more
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and if you're not if you don't live
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where the language is spoken you're
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going to have to find some online
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people to either exchange the language
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with or tutors
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and i've mentioned italki which i have
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used we have tutors that think but
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you've got to find someone to speak to
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and eventually again
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to my mind in any sort of plan of
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language learning activity
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the amount of speaking you do is going
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to increase over time because in the
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first period you have to kind of break
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the code of the language you have to get
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some familiarity with the language
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people often say well if you don't know
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anything how can you get started well
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that's why you deal with very short bits
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of content where you have access to an
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online dictionary i wouldn't want to be
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looking up every word in a dictionary
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i find link very convenient in that
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regard with our many stories lots of
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repetition
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slowly you get a foothold in the
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language that's the first stage but at a
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later stage you're listening to things
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that are more interesting and at that
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point you want to start speaking you
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want to start speaking
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because
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you want to try out what you've learned
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you'll find out that you aren't able to
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recall a lot of the words that that you
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know passively so you have to get in
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there and start speaking
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speaking without worrying about the
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mistakes you make
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and so that
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speaking is got to be part of that study
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plan and what i find particularly useful
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when i have my sessions with my tutors
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at link is that i get a report from them
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of 10 or 15 words and phrases that i had
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trouble with and i have this as a record
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going back a year two years i can always
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go back to
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a lesson that we had and things that i
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struggled with and of course my tutors
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record this for me so that's also very
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you know that sort of
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that way of using
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your online uh you know discussions or
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sessions with your tutor is also very
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useful so
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i guess my approach to this idea of a
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study plan
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is that it's it's not so much sort of
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very specific you know 20 minutes there
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half an hour there because that's going
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to vary depending on your interests what
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you like to do some people maybe like to
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go through and key
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i think you want to be guided by by what
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you enjoy doing
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and because that's going to keep your
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attitude positive it's going to keep you
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liking it it's going to keep you
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spending enough time with it so
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it's more a matter of preparing yourself
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trying to develop
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good habits
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trying to develop habits that push you
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into the language push you along until
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you find
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enough compelling content that that's
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now starting to pull you along and then
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at some point
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when you start speaking
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be prepared to make mistakes recognize
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that that it's only in making mistakes
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that you're going to get better that
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you're eventually going to make fewer
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mistakes so
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you know
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people have asked me for this what's a
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step-by-step sort of plan for language
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learning
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i i'm not sure i think that i've often
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said that language learning is more of a
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fuzzy logic thing than a step-by-step
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thing
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uh you might want to go to one of my
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videos where i say that language
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learning is a subjective
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process
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i've also done a video on the stages
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you know the different stages we passed
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through in our language learning i think
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both of these videos might be worthwhile
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to go and have a look at so
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thank you for listening
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and good luck with your language
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learning bye for now
