When I'm Really Busy: It Isn't a Priority

So I haven't been as adamant about posting in the past few months. Like most people, I'm very quick to chalk it up by being busy with other things in my life. Over the past few months I've looked at multiple ways to incorporate self-improvement. By doing this, it has quickly filled up my schedule to the point that I don't have time to do certain things. Sadly, practicing languages is one of those things that took the hit.

I find this all extremely ironic because I really strive to NOT be busy. My goal is to always allow myself time to keep from overwhelming myself. I value the idea that I typically allow some free time each day to do whatever peaks my interests at the time. Every time that I see something regarding learning Arabic I get envious. I wish I could be able to communicate using it. The problem is that I can easily get wrapped up in the social media platforms (likely one that brought you here) and suddenly the time has been lost. I try to find those small pieces of time throughout the day to practice, but I also need to make sure I dedicate a good focused effort to really make progress. It just can get difficult when you are so busy.

I'm going to change my vocabulary; instead of saying that I'm busy, I will say, it isn't a priority to me. That's because it is true. We like to tell ourselves that we will find time to do things, but there really isn't secret time hidden throughout the day. Instead, we prioritize certain things to take up the 24 hours of our day. I've seen various things take up those hours, but each time I decide what will be a priority. As of late, studying languages has not been a priority for me. I don't really like the sound of that.

Think of the goals, activities, plans, etc. that you would like to incorporate into your life and instead of saying, "I'm just too busy to <activity>" replace it with, "<activity> is not a priority to me" and see how it feels. Exercising and staying healthy is not a priority to me. Staying in contact with a friend who has moved away is not a priority to me. Learning to cook healthy meals is not a priority to me. They don't sound as good than saying you're too busy do they? These are only a few examples, but you can hopefully see the point I'm making; we all have time to do what we want in our day but you have to be willing to sacrifice other things that can eat up your time (watching TV, browsing social media, etc.).

Time to get back on track with this. I really am going to think about making sure I dedicate a little time every day, no matter how long, to review and learn. Sure there may be days that I miss, those days may have something that I have to prioritize higher on my list. The goal is still progress, not perfection. I am happy to currently be on a two day streak of reviewing so let's see if I can keep this up!

Until next time.

I'm Not the Only One Out Here: There Are Others With Struggles

As I've gone about chatting with people using my languages, I continually mess up with regards to the grammar. Grammar is easily the portion of learning languages that causes the most struggle for me. As much as you would think vocabulary would be a big limiter, it usually isn't. Even if I don't know an exact word I can explain and describe it to a point that my conversation partner can figure out the missing word. For me, being able to structure a sentence correctly to make sense is a bigger struggle; do you put the adjective before or after the noun?

In all reality, it doesn't matter too much. If somebody said, "I ate a big meal." or "I ate a meal big." I would understand them either way. The main point is to speak the words because the more you use the language, the better you will become as speaking it and more comfortable overall.

When other language learners try to speak with me in English and mess up just a tad, I still understand them. I'm never frustrated with them for saying something wrong. I shouldn't be so hard on myself when it comes to the grammar. Every time I say something incorrectly, I feel embarrassed and want to apologize and yet on the other side, I never feel as though they should feel that way.

Last week I was chatting with one of my friends on a call and we started discussing how my Arabic was progressing. She, an Iraqi, was actually able to relate to some of the struggles that I have with learning the language. As I've mentioned many a times, the dialects can be very different from various locations. It was reassuring to learn that even other Arabic speakers struggle with different dialects. I learned when a Moroccan dialect is being spoken on TV there are Arabic subtitles provided to help understand them. They literally have subtitles of the same language that is being spoken. Knowing that native speakers struggle with the dialects was a very wonderful thing to hear.

Anyways, here is a short little bit of me talking about whatever comes to mind. It may not be factually accurate but instead I'm hoping to say a few things with no real plan of what I say. Let's see what happens!

Until next time.