Like we mentioned in the beginning of this series, OUINO is a core language-learning method in which you will learn the different aspects and skills of the language. But the goal is to go beyond that. All the time and effort you put into learning a language is rewarded by the experiences it can bring you; meeting new people, discovering new cinema, music and books, travelling to new places, finding new job opportunities and so on. Experiencing these benefits will help you stay motivated and reinforce everything you learn inside the program.
We need to find the perfect transition to get you from learning inside the program, to using the language in the real world. In the beginning, you can dedicate most of your time to your core language-learning method and very little time to external sources. External sources are not going to play a huge role because they will be completely incomprehensible to you. It’s difficult to enjoy or learn from something you don’t understand whatsoever. But as you take more lessons, you should also start incorporating the language in your life in different ways. After you have completed the program in its entirety, all external sources should now be comprehensible. From this point on, external sources are all you need to keep improving. You’ll be able to simply enjoy the fact that this language is now part of your life.
Most external sources will fall in one of five categories. First, you have your input sources: listening, watching, and reading. This means that you receive information. Many include “watching” in “listening”, but we feel like it deserves its own category. Then, you have your output sources: writing and speaking. This means that you are producing the language. You can use your OUINO calendar to log everything you do outside the program. External sources accomplish two very important things. First, they reinforce everything you learn inside the program without much conscious effort. Second, they increase motivation by interacting with the language in its natural form with things that are interesting to you.
It’s important to try and practice all 5 categories to be a well-rounded learner. However, the most important thing with external sources is to really enjoy what you are doing. Polyglots throughout the world all seem to learn languages in very different ways, yet they all succeed. They seem to only have one thing in common: they love what they do. When you enjoy what you do, it’s much easier to stay motivated and learning will become a seamless experience. When you watch a television show in English, you are not thinking about improving your English, you are simply enjoying the television show. The goal should be to eventually achieve the same thing when you use external sources in your new language.
If you are looking for new ways to incorporate the language in your life at anytime during your learning process, we have a complete series of comprehensive videos and articles to help you. These posts cover many different techniques to learn effectively using all types of external sources. Simply click on the top-right question mark icon within the program, and click on OuinoTips. You can also go to OuinoTips.com directly in your browser.
If you use OUINO to teach you the core of the language, use external sources to make the language part of your life in many ways, and stick to a routine you can sustain in the long run, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get there. That’s the perfect recipe for success.
