I’ve come up on my second week in my Portuguese project. So far, so good. I feel like I’m seeing some good progress.

For anyone who’s had trouble staying focused and keeping motivation in a language learning project, I highly recommend making a video series of yourself at regular intervals during your project. Not only does it provide a way to look back and review your progress, but it also gives you incentive to keep it up – as you’ve publicly committed to all your viewers that you’re going to stick with it. No turning back!

When I begin language learning projects, I’m usually pretty good at leveraging what little I know of the language early on to try and express what I’m trying to say. I may not know the exact word I’m looking for, but I can circumlocute, or “talk my way around it.”

On the other hand, as I mention in the video, learning to understand the spoken language is much more difficult for me than speaking it. It’s just a quirk in the way I learn. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. So this week I’ll be spending a lot more time listening to spoken Portuguese – watching videos, listening to recordings, and having conversations.