I’ve finished Lingoda super sprint!

Intro

How do you learn new languages? Do you study with a teacher or on your own with books? Do you prefer passive or active learning?

Nowadays, there is a plenty of different ways to learn a new language. These opportunities are almost limitless: movies are translated into numerous languages, youtube provides a way to learn by entertaining yourself and there are tons of mobile apps out there, that connect you with people from another country.

Although we have so many options, personally, I’m bad at consistency and scheduling. One day I can spend 4 hours learning, other — I cannot read even a line. Consistency and practise make perfect and I always wanted to be more disciplined.

In order to force myself and stick with a schedule I’ve decided to find a school (offline or online) in order to find such steadiness and stability.

Lingoda

There are many online and offline courses, but I stumbled upon Lingoda. This is a service for language learning online. You can study in small groups up to 5 people or 1–1 with a teacher. For the nonce they have 4 languages: English, French, Spanish and German. What also important is that teachers are native speakers, hence you can get used to an accent, while learning the language.

To be honest, I was attracted and chose this service over others because of their from time to time promotions — sprints.

Sprints

They call a Language Sprint a 2-month learning challenge. During this time you will have 15 classes (1 hour long) per month (Sprint) or 30 classes per month, so every day (Super Sprint). The rule of this marathon is straightforward: if you don’t miss a single lesson you earn 50% (Sprint) or 100% (Super Sprint) money back. As simple as that. These lessons are always in groups up to 5 people.

One thing that is worth to mention — you are responsible to schedule lessons yourself. In consequence, you are free to decide if they will be held in the morning or in the evening.

As for me, I always wanted to challenge myself in practising a language more often, than I usually do and this is an opportunity to fight against laziness and excuses.

As you could imagine, it is not easy to keep the pace. A couple of years ago I’ve already participated in the Super Sprint, but failed miserably — once I set up a lesson too early and overslept it. Aside, at that time, the Super Sprint was 3 months long.

What language I chose

As of now I live in Spain, I wanted to speak Spanish better. I simply do not have any other choice.

The Lingoda website also helps to choose a level by completing a simple test, but I wouldn’t rely on it much — it’s quite short. I’d advice you to change the level during the course, if you feel this way. According to the test my level was A2.1 at that time, but I switched a couple of times between A2.1 and A1.2 and I haven’t felt any difference.

Course structure

All lessons are split into themes, such as travelling, shopping, etc. Every of them has types of learning, such as Vocabulary, Communication, Grammar, Reading, Speaking. Although, at first glance it looks great and promising, the truth is that a bias in one action or another fully depends on a teacher.

Although, Lingoda provides slides for every lesson and, I suppose, has sessions with teachers to instruct them, there is a high variability in how a lesson goes. Some Vocabulary lessons can turn into Communication just because a teacher wants to speak and listen students more. Because teachers have different ways of working, I’d encourage you to find someone who will force you to talk more. At the end, that’s why we learn a new languages— to speak.

Difficulties

It was hard to keep up with the schedule. I learned from mistakes and haven’t set up lessons early.

Every day I felt like I have a little hammer somewhere in my head reminding me that I have to have a lesson today until I pass it. It put pressure, but at the same time, it helped not to forget preparing beforehand — to spend at least 30 min before the lesson.

My initial plan was to dedicate one hour in the morning for brushing up what I learned the day before, but it was hard to maintain this rhythm more than 1 week having a full-time job. Consequently, I concentrated mainly on lessons and tried to learn as much as possible during them.

In the course of these 2 months I also had 2 business trips and I had to tweak my lessons for trains and meetings. These days I was packed with meetings at work and right after lingoda classes I rushed to catch the last train back home.

Conclusion and outcomes

As you can see, the whole marathon was intense. These 2 months were finally over and now I can breath freely. I was able to attend every single class of it and recently got a full refund. Even it’s good money itself, I am most happy with what Lingoda gave me after such an intensive “trip”.

At the end of the marathon I felt much freer and more confident discussing topics in Spanish. It isn’t a long period of time and I couldn’t say that I speak much better, but it was a strong kick that I needed and a cure for procrastination.

The whole experiment proved a plain truth — if you really want to learn something new, there should not be any barrier — you can dedicate without a doubt 1 hour of your life every day.

To sum up, I’d definitely recommend Lingoda as a source of learning a foreign language. As a good start I’d recommend to try Sprint or Super Sprint and later — select a 1–1 plan with a personal teacher, with whom you like to continue learning or from time to time brushing up the language or work on an accent.