15-minute habit: Magyarul tanulok! (I am learning Hungarian)
4 weeks ago I wrote about taking on a 15 minute daily cleaning habit together with my wife. It has been tremendously effective and our home looks like we just moved into it: everything is clean and sparkly, and it even smells nice. And all it takes is 15 minutes per day!
In the wake of this astonishing success, I thought I’d try adding a second 15-minute-per-day habit, to see if I can stack these things.
The first thing that came to mind was something I’ve been meaning to do for years, but always kept making excuses about and postponing: I want to learn my wife’s native language of Hungarian.
Katalin and I have been married for over 10 years, and she has learned my language (Swedish), but I haven’t learned hers. Even though we live in Sweden, and her speaking Swedish has more obvious practical value, this has always felt unfair to me. At the same time I found it hard to take any real steps towards actually doing it.
For the last 7 days, I’ve been learning Hungarian for 15 minutes per day. I’m using the Duolingo app, and it’s been great. The ratio of “learning new words” to “repeating things I already learned” is extremely well-tuned, and it seems like things actually stick to my brain. Furthermore, the Duolingo lessons only take a few minutes each, so I can squeeze in a bunch every day. This makes it feel like I’m always moving forward, which is great.
This is my first time learning a new language since I was a teenager, and it feels both intimidating and exciting at the same time. I’m really looking forward to connecting with Katalin on a deeper level, and reading some of the books she loved as a child.
Have you learned a language as an adult? Maybe even Hungarian? I’d love to hear your experience and any tips you might have in the comments below :^)
Viszontlátásra! (Goodbye)
Nice! I slowly learned (some) German ~10 years ago but don't live there anymore, so hardly use it. But since I don't want to lose it, I forced myself to use everyday things (phone, laptop, websites, etc) in German as practically as possible, maybe you'll want to give it a try!
I’m about 2 years into a similar journey with Japanese. My wife is Japanese and we are teaching our son the language, so it’s been very valuable for me to know it too, ちょっと (a little bit). At this point, the time I spend on Duolingo each day is quite exhausting. To really absorb the lessons, I have to focus intensely, and it winds up taking away from my productive time rather than replacing down time. It’s been worth it, but it wasn’t something I was expecting when I started.