Welcome to the 5-week Linguist Show. This week, we’re going to talk about private language schools.

Prepare to study abroad next summer with these tips

I’m a huge fan of private language schools in different countries. And I tend not to do them at home and I have some reasons for that. Firstly, I certainly don’t think that they’re ineffective, but when you’re a novice level or an A-learner, there’s so many things that you can do on your own. I might not even invest in going abroad while I’m in the A-level or the novice level until I can make my own sentences because you can make really quick progress, particularly over five weeks. So firstly, I wanted to talk about if you’re a complete novice in a language, within the next five weeks, you can find yourself really recalling a lot of language. You can make fast progress and I’m not going to say fluent by a long shot or even out of the A or the novice range. However, I say this because with a small investment, I wouldn’t do more than half an hour a day, you can really build your skills fairly quickly. It takes twice as long to go through the intermediate or the B-level and three times as long to go up through that higher level. So basically you can make really fast progress. You can go from nothing to being able to make your own sentences with a couple of hundred-hour investment.

Study abroad next summer: plan your time

Now we’re all different. I always refer back to those Foreign Service Institute courses and their research that talks about the number of hours that we have to invest in steady to be proficient at a language. I take those not at the hour value for a couple of reasons. First of all, the learner profiles, these are people who are dedicating all of their time to learning a language. And they’re very focused. Many of them have already learned another language so they can ladder. They get the process. They’ve been through it. They’re not intimidated and they can go very quickly. And they’re very career oriented. So they have to be successful at this to be able to move through their career. So it’s really imperative for them to do.

With that said, I think they’re great guidelines. They give you an idea. These are exceptional learners and it might take me twice as long to hit the same levels that they do. But I think they’re just good guidelines to plan your time. And I used to do a 200 hour challenge over five weeks and you’re welcome to do that. If you’ve got time during the summer, it was every moment I could find free. I immersed myself in languages and I made a great deal of progress. It really is just full time, if you thought about a full-time job being 40 hours a week over five weeks. But I wasn’t sitting in a class, I wasn’t paying tuition, and I wasn’t really paying for many materials. I was using some apps. I was watching some videos. I was spending some time on italki, journals, et cetera. Really, really fun and valuable thing to do that you could do over the next five weeks. And I also want to say that I took breaks. At this point, I wouldn’t do more than half an hour a day. I was very tired, but I was very pleased with my progress, having said that, and I made a great deal of progress.

But that’s not sustainable. So it’s not something, I don’t think I would ever do that again, to be honest with you. I was so tired, but it worked. And I was working on my Italian at the time and I made a big push. I went from one sub-level to another and it was really great. Again,