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People often believe that the key to learning a language is having a good memory, or being talented, or having a knack for mimicking sounds. And it’s true that those talents can give you an initial boost. But over the long term, it’s consistency that matters. The more regularly you are exposed to a language, the more familiar it will feel. And the more familiar a language is, the closer you’ll get to fluency. Even just 10 minutes a day is better than one hour a week. With 10 minutes a day, you’re building a language habit. With one hour a week, you have to start all over again each week.
In addition to racking up time, consistency helps with memory and fluency. When you make language a daily habit, you don’t have to waste mental energy getting your brain up to speed. Words, phrases and grammatical patterns will start to pop into your head automatically, allowing you to focus on the really important things (like getting your point across.) Because in the real world, there’s no pausing and thinking. When you consistently listen to, read, and speak a language, you get comfortable with it. Just like riding a bike.
The last reason consistency is more important than talent is motivation. It’s motivating to complete a task every day. When you consistently make time for language learning, you feel like you’re getting somewhere, even if you’re only practicing for a few minutes each day. But when you only practice once a week and take huge spans of time off, you feel rusty when you come back. You feel like you’re starting over from square one. So consistency is key to getting results that keep you motivated to continue.
Spaced repetition, in particular, is a powerful tool for remembering almost anything. And when you’re consistently exposing yourself to a language, you’re constantly reviewing and repeating old material in new contexts. So here’s the thing. If you have a talent for languages, that might help you learn faster in the beginning. But consistency is the key to long-term growth.
It’s better to do a little bit every day than a lot one day a week. Learning a language isn’t a 100 yard dash; it’s a marathon. So even if you only have a few minutes a day, that’s better than trying to cram all of your practice into one or two long sessions.
