#446 - My Daily Routine for Learning Languages — Improve Your English Every Day with These Habits for the Morning, Afternoon, and Evening
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What if I told you that 90% of English learners fail not because they're not smart enough, but because they don't have the right daily routine? Well today, I'm breaking down the perfect daily English learning routine which combines mental health practices, communication skills training, and real human connection. And at the end, I'll also share three of my own stories learning three different foreign languages. So don't be one of those 90% of English learners that fail.

Stick around until the end and get this bulletproof system that actually works. And just to let you know, this is a fast-paced lesson. It's going to be great for your English listening, but you might want to follow along with the interactive transcript over on the RealLife English app so you don't miss a thing. Now let's jump into episode 446 of the RealLife English podcast.

Alright, so I'm not so active nowadays in my own language learning, but everything that I'm sharing with you today, I have actually practiced myself in learning six different languages apart from my native English. And I'm going to structure it a bit by giving you like example times of the day from when you wake up to when you could be doing these different routines.

and I'll also be giving you where it fits into our Real Life Way methodology, which is our proprietary methodology for how you can most effectively get confident natural English. So before we get into the first habit or the first routine, I want to actually talk about the importance of habits. So

What I've found is that many English learners tend to make learning English into this big thing that they have to, you know, maybe spend an hour or two hours or whatever it is studying and they want to be able to do that every single day.

The problem with that is that the days that you don't do that, you know, because you're like, "I can't sit down for an hour, I'm too busy today," then you just feel really demotivated. And over time, this can cause you to lose your momentum altogether, meaning that instead of having any sort of study time because you can't do the really big thing of sitting down for an hour, you're just ultimately not doing it very much at all. You're very inconsistent.

So habits, they help to reduce a lot of that stress that comes when you think about it as being like this big thing that you need to do, like sitting down and studying for an hour or two.

and they also help you to make it automatic. So it's not something that you have to think about anymore, it's something that you just do. You also, in a sense, stop thinking about yourself as an English learner. You start seeing yourself as an English speaker, as someone who just uses their English every single day. And ultimately, the goal shouldn't be that you need to sit down for an hour or two and study. You don't need to think about English as this separate thing in your life that you need to make time for.

Rather, you should start seeing it as if you can make little consistent habits, little consistent touchpoints with your English every single day, over time, it's going to make a big difference. Whereas if you're very sporadic, sporadic means that you aren't consistent, that you just do it, you know, now and then, but without any sort of rhyme or reason.

If you just study sporadically when you have time, then ultimately your progress is probably going to be really slow. I wanted to bring a quote from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, who really is the master of habit building. And it's a really great read that you should pick up. You can probably find it in your native language as well if you prefer, but it could be a nice touch point for you with English.

So let me read that quote for you and we'll also learn some great vocabulary with that. Which by the way, you can study right now on the ReallyFingish app if you're not there already by clicking the link down in the description below. Okay, so here's what he says. Here's how the math works out. If you can get 1% better each day for one year, you'll end up 37 times better by the time that you're done. Conversely, if you get 1% worse each day for one year, you'll decline nearly down to zero.

What starts as a small win or a minor step back accumulates into something much more. So as I said, let's look at some of the vocabulary first of all. So he says this is how the math works out. If something works out, it's basically the result of it. So it's the result of the math. He says that first what happens if you get 1% better every day and then conversely if you get 1% worse each day. So conversely just means on the other hand or it's presenting an opposite point.

And then finally, a step back. So if you have minor setbacks every day, a step back is basically something that causes you to make a mistake, to fail or to lose progress. So that said, let's jump into the routine that's going to help you to be much more fluent, confident and natural when you speak English. And like I said, to go from being an English learner to actually being someone who considers themselves an English speaker, someone who uses their English every single day.

So let's say that you are an early bird, meaning that you wake up early in the morning, you wake up between like 6, 6:30. So let's say that your first habit could happen at 6:30 and this could be journaling. Journaling is a really great habit for mental health. So even if you were just to do this in your native language, that would have a huge impact. But why not kill two birds with one stone by doing it in English?

And this doesn't need to be this big writing habit. It could be something as simple as five minutes. So the exercise I wanted to give you that you could already start doing right now is a gratitude practice. All you have to do simply is write in your journal every morning three things that you're grateful for. And it could be really simple, trivial, mundane things. Trivial and mundane mean things that aren't huge. They're not...

like a big impact or anything. They're just like small things. So it could be as simple as like the cup of coffee, maybe that you're drinking while you're writing in your journal. And you could actually think about like, where did those coffee beans come from? How did they get to your house to become that cup of coffee that you're drinking?

It could be something bigger. It could be, you know, your own health or the health of your family, of your loved ones. It could be the bird that's chirping outside of your window that, you know, sounds so beautiful and kind of gives you this tranquility, this sereneness in your morning while you're doing this. All right? So that's a quick five-minute habit to write down those three things that you're grateful for. And then after that, at 6.35, you're going to move on to the next thing, which is doing a guided meditation.

Again, this doesn't have to be a huge like sitting down for 30 minutes or an hour. If you've never meditated before, it can be as short as 5 to 10 minutes. There's many different apps that have these 10-minute guided meditations. Actually, in episode 444, I shared some of my favorite apps, so you might want to check that out to get some more advice there. But you can do some research on this later. But that's basically that you can already get some English learning practice in the morning and

you know, between the journaling and the meditation, you're going to be becoming much more grounded, which means that, you know, you're more present in the moment and you're more able to deal with stress from a place that isn't super reactive, but rather is more proactive. And yeah, if just doing those two things already, you're going to see that you're going to have a much more impactful start to your day.

so let's move to the next habit so let's say now it's around 6 45 because you did 10 minutes of meditation and the first two that we looked at i did say i would be connecting it to our real life way so that's live it that's making it a fun natural convenience everyday habit which is something that i find really separates people who are able to reach that advanced level from people who get stuck at intermediates they don't have those everyday habits

And this is kind of where the rubber meets the road. That means it's, you know, where you have to actually challenge yourself. And this is deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is where you're actually having to give specific attention to gaining certain skills that you want to gain or to ironing out mistakes. To iron out basically means to try to remove them. Just like how when you iron clothes, you're removing wrinkles. So a teacher...

can be really helpful to do this. But even if you don't have a teacher, I'm going to give you some tips that will be helpful. And I think if you can make this deliberate practice just a 10 to 20 minute habit that you do every single day, it is going to give you those opportunities to, you know, be gaining new skills, new vocabulary, to be finding mistakes that you're often making and removing those.

So one thing I recommended to my students a lot when it came to studying grammar was a book called English Grammar in Use. And I think this is still a great one, but back in those days, we didn't have AI. So nowadays with ChatGPT, with Claude, with these other tools, I mean, it's a tremendous resource for your English learning. So...

One thing that I might suggest that you could already try is say you write out a short story or you could write out about what you did yesterday or maybe depending on if you want to study a certain tense, you could talk about something that you're planning to do like your summer trip.

and then take that short paragraph that you wrote and you could upload that to ChatGPT, let's say, and ask it, you know, to point out where did you make mistakes, were there any patterns, are there mistakes that you're making repetitively, and ask it to maybe point out what would be good for you to focus on studying. And probably if you do this over time, it's going to get to know better your writing and get to know better what are the mistakes you're repeatedly making, and so you can really focus on, like honing in on, focusing in on,

solving those mistakes that you're making repetitively. And that means that over time, you'll be making them go away. You'll be actually becoming a better speaker. That's what deliberate practice is all about. I like to switch up what I'm doing. So I probably wouldn't do the exact same thing every single day. When I was learning more actively, which actually I'm going to be talking to you some of my own stories learning different languages by the end of this podcast. When I was learning more actively,

Some days I would do kind of like more deliberate grammar study, for example, like I'm telling you. But some days I would take some of the vocabulary that I was learning while I was interacting with the language I was learning in different moments of my day. I had like them noted down and I would actually look up like the definition in the dictionary. So rather than translating, because translating kind of gets you in this habit of translating also in your head. It's better if you can try to understand it by looking it up in the same language dictionary.

and then adding them to an SRS tool, spaced repetition system, like Memrise or Anki. Those are ones that I used when I was learning more actively.

and then you actually have those available for study and it's really great if you can add other things to them that help you to have more hooks that can help you to uh like velcro you know that velcro like the more hooks it has the better it sticks together so it's the same thing for your memory that the more hooks you can add to it the better it's going to stick so it could be things like images pronunciation uh it could be example sentences and

you know, all these things, you can take the time to do that, but it might take you like 10 minutes to create a single flashcard, depending how deep you go. And...

A great way that you can do this and save a lot of time is with these actual podcasts. If you're watching them on YouTube or listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts or somewhere else is start watching them or listening to them on the RealLife English app, because there you get vocabulary flashcards for every single lesson, along with our learning should TV lessons that teach you a TV series, movies, and celebrities. And we give you the curated flashcards that have, you know, the perfect definition.

They have example sentences, they have carefully selected images, and they have native pronunciation so that you can practice these, you can practice as many as you want every single day and actually add them to your long-term memory. And this is going to make a huge difference in your ability to speak confidently and naturally because you'll have those words available to you when you get into a conversation instead of them just slipping your mind, them not being available to you.

So you can check that out for free. You can actually get access to the premium version of this lesson for free if you click the link down in the description below on your phone. And the final deliberate practice that I am going to give you right now that I love to do was actually learning with music. So there's no reason that this needs to be like dry and boring using a textbook or anything like that.

One thing that I do a lot is I find different songs in the language that I was learning and I would open up the lyrics and I would study them. Sometimes I would even print them out and go at them with like a highlighter and a colored pens and so on and really break down like what are the grammar, the different tenses, the uses that maybe I'm not a

accustomed to yet that I'm encountering there. Maybe things that were pronounced in a way that I wasn't expecting or that connected in some way, like we have connected speech in English, right? And of course all the new expressions and vocabulary that I was encountering in that song. And then a way that you can actually practice it beyond, you know, just every time you listen to it, trying to sing along and so on is using a tool called lyrics training. This is really great because you can use it either on your phone or on the desktop.

And it takes the song, you can choose a level and depending on the level you choose, it will take out a certain amount of the words of the song and plays the song and you have to fill it in as it goes. So this is really great because it forces you to practice your listening and to be able to write really quick. So that's a fun way that you can get some deliberate practice in.

All right, so this is basically your morning routine we've already gone over, which could have been around 30 to 45 minutes, depending on the time that you have. And you can be doing these while you're doing other things. I used to do my deliberate practice session while I was having breakfast and having coffee or tea, for example. So you can combine it with the things that you're already doing, and that actually...

James Clear talks about how this helps you to give it more roots, give more roots to your habit because you're connecting it to a habit that already exists like having breakfast or studying vocabulary while you're brushing your teeth, for example. All right, so now you're moving into your workday or if you're a student maybe you're going to university classes or whatever.

There's no reason why you can't also be having different touch points though with your English throughout the day. So this is maybe eight hours, nine hours of your day, right from like eight to 5:00 PM. So first of all, you can be living it throughout the day with music. We already talked a little bit about music. So I, for each language that I learn, I have a specific playlist in Spotify where I collect all the songs that I love. Every time I find a new song that I love, I add it to that playlist.

And this way I can just listen to that playlist and I'm getting like tons of exposure to the language throughout the day. So maybe while I'm working, if I'm not in meetings and so on, I'll be listening to music. And oftentimes I can be listening to music in languages that aren't English. And maybe if you just like want to take a break or something, you could look at the lyrics, maybe sing one song, or, you know, if you can't sing out loud because you're in an office, you can just be listening along, humming and reading the lyrics and maybe seeing if there's any new words or expressions that you didn't know yet.

And then like anytime during your day that you're in transit, for example, or you're doing something else, like you go to the gym, you can be listening to a podcast. If you are in your car or in the bus on the way to work, on the way to school, you could be listening to a podcast. So really feel all of your convenient moments throughout the day that you're not really doing anything else.

by listening to podcasts and by doing this you can get an extra 20 or 30 minutes maybe even up to an hour of english listening practice in throughout the day it's not so important if you don't understand everything it's totally fine i think the more important thing is just that you're immersing yourself that more and more you're getting used to listening to english throughout the day

This could be with English learning podcasts like this one, but you could also start challenging yourself to listen to podcasts that are made for native speakers. And this way, again, you're really living your English. And then the next thing is connecting it. So hopefully as you're going through your English learning journey, you are making friends who also speak English.

You can join different communities, like we have our Fluency Circle community for students of our different courses. You can probably online find all sorts of different forums and online communities related to your interests, like if there's a specific video game that you really love or say that you're really into Formula One, I'm sure that there's communities out there for that. So you just have to do a little bit of research and kind of find your tribe.

and you'll also hopefully be making friends who could be native speakers or there could be other english learners like yourself that you could be chatting with throughout the day so i bring this up because this is still happening during your work day that it's maybe just like five minutes during a break you are chatting with a friend or you're chatting in one of the communities that you belong to so find these opportunities where you can actually be using

the language in convenient moments during your coffee break, maybe while you're waiting for the bus and so on. And again, you could also be bringing in some of the things we already talked about, like using spaced repetition tools, maybe using the vocabulary flashcards on the RealLife English app in these different convenient moments throughout your day where you're just waiting for something else when you normally would be bored, you can turn that into an English learning opportunity.

all right so you finished work maybe you had to pick up the kids from school or something like that you might have had some errands to run hopefully again you took advantage during those different times of the day to be listening to a podcast or studying some vocabulary but then it's the end of the day you're getting home maybe you've had dinner already and it's time to relax so let's turn that relax time into english practice time if you're not doing it already and this again this is living your english making it fun natural and convenient so

One thing that you might already be doing, but if you're not already, is trying to watch any series or movies that you watch in English. So it can be with subtitles in your own language. If you're at a lower level, we have subtitles in English. If you're already getting to more advanced or maybe it's a series you've seen before, you can challenge yourself to watch without subtitles. But that's not really so important. Again, it's just like getting the immersion of listening to English as much as possible. And I would say because it's the evening,

The point here is more for it to be this passive learning time. So you don't need to worry so much about like pausing every time you don't understand something and taking note or anything. It's like just take it as a time to really enjoy watching that series or watching that movie. You can, of course, like take note of any new expressions or vocabulary that you notice and then you can study it during your deliberate practice time. But again, this is your relaxation time. Just have fun with it.

If series of movies aren't your thing, you could also be learning with YouTube videos. Just again, getting that listening exposure.

And then one of my favorite habits is before bed, I will read. And this really helps me to wind down at the end of the day, to kind of like shut off the chatter in my mind and to fall asleep ultimately. But a lot of times when I'm reading, so it'd be like reading fiction, obviously, a lot of times when I'm reading fiction at the end of the day, I'm reading it in Catalan, Spanish or Portuguese.

And what I do, again, it's like not meant to be really studying that material, but what I do is I read on an e-reader and so I'll like highlight any new words or expressions that come about so that later I can study those. But in that moment, I'm just trying to understand through the context and if I don't understand something, I just keep going.

So that's it. That's the end of your day. But then a final habit I want to talk about, and this could be every day, but I'd say try to make it at least three times a week. This is actually getting opportunities to speak English. So this again is really important because it's where you're connecting it, where you're connecting your English. So one way you can do this again on the RealLife English app, we have another tool that a lot of you love called the Global Speak. Now, if you haven't used it before, all you do is you open the app,

You simply press a button and you're instantly connected to another English speaker in another part of the world for a four to eight minute conversation.

Now this is really great because it could be something that you start doing every day during your coffee break at work. You know, you have a coffee and you can have a conversation with one person in English. Just imagine how fulfilling it's gonna feel if every day you're having at least one short conversation in English. At first you'll probably feel kind of nervous about this, but as you do it more and more, trust me, it's going to become second nature for you, which means it's going to become really natural for you.

You might also want to meet up with people in your city to practice with. So in the second part of this podcast, I'll be telling you some different ways that I've done that myself, but you can be also just research this and be creative. If you live in a big city, you can probably find English speakers there, whether natives or other people who are learning English like yourself.

And finally, if you don't have anyone to speak with, or even if you do, we have, again, really great resources with AI, with artificial intelligence that can allow you to practice anytime,

It takes away a lot of the nervousness, so you might want to do this to kind of practice before you start speaking with real people. And these tools are getting better all the time. So you can use ChatGPT. Again, that's a really great one. But one that I have found recently that I've been using a lot even to practice for these podcasts is called Sesame. Now this, it's really uncanny. That means that it's kind of like hard to believe. It's strange that it's actually true.

it's uncanny how much it seems like speaking with a real person because sesame has really focused on getting this the uh real world speaking experience so i highly recommend that you give that a try all right so to wrap up today's episode i'm going to be sharing with you three stories from my own language learning journey

because I live in Barcelona now and here they speak Catalan and Spanish so I get to speak those languages every day or pretty much every day and you're probably living in a country where they don't speak English

Maybe it's not the case for some of you, but I imagine most of you, you're living in a country where English is not the native language. And so you might be thinking, oh, it's easy for you to learn languages because you live in the country. But I'm going to be sharing these three stories that are actually from where I was learning a language while living in a country where that language was not spoken. So...

My first experience doing this, I believe, was learning French while I was living in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. I don't know why I decided to do this because I was learning Portuguese at that time too, but... Hiya guys! So I'm really excited to share with you the rest of the stories from my own language learning journey because I know that the lessons that I learned are really going to help you to reach your goal of being a confident, natural English speaker

You know, to go from being that lost, insecure learner to being that person who actually uses English in their everyday life to, you know, reach the life of their dreams. So you can do that right now for free over on the RealLife English app. You can access that by clicking the link down in the description below on your phone. And you're also going to get vocabulary flashcards for all the difficult expressions that we covered today. You can add them to your long-term memory. That way they're available to you next time you get the opportunity to speak

And if I was speaking too fast for you, if you lost some things, you can follow along with our interactive transcript so that you won't miss a single one of these gems that's going to help you to create that bulletproof English learning routine. All right, guys, see you over there.