Category: language learning

The Long Term Goal Conversation

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Now that we’ve all gotten those resolutions for the year off our chest and January is nearly gone, let’s talk about what comes next.

Like so many people out there, I am complicated. My hobbies are multi-faceted, and it can be a real challenge to prioritize accomplishments. I want to get so much out of this single life I have, how can I make my dreams into more of a reality?

Most of us will undoubtedly lose that spark of enthusiasm that jetted us off into 2019. The mantras containing “new year, new you,” will be forgotten for another 348 days. So how do we keep ourselves moving towards our goals? I’m sure there are many ways to motivate yourself. And everyone will find that their ways of motivating themselves is different. But for me, I find that keeping my long term goals alive, involves my journals.

Shocked? I know right? I have talked about my journal experience more in 2019 than I have since I began my journey with it two years ago. But I swear, writing things down really helps me visualize where I am going/what I need to do in order to get to a specific endpoint. 

And yes, you read that correctly. I have more than one journal that I use for achieving my goals. A little crazy? Maybe. But I promise you it will make sense once I explain it a bit more to you.

So in order to prepare my journals for 2019, I did an overall goals page. I split up everything I wanted to achieve into six major categories. Here they are below:

  1. Creative Goals (includes craft projects also)
  2. Health & Fitness Goals
  3. Financial Goals
  4. Marriage Goals
  5. Spiritual Goals
  6. Language Learning Goals

I won’t share all the information or details on two of the six goal areas since they contain private information, but I will at least give you the basics and my tips for tracking my progress for the rest (once I figure it all out). It is a LONG post, so I placed them beneath the cut for your convenience.  Read More »

Language Learning with (Courtney) Lynn

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Can you tell from the title that I am obsessed with alliteration LOL? 😉

Anyway you may have realized by now that I have been including some [] with a lowercase ‘d’ and some interesting looking words that are definitely not English. If you follow my Instagram then you notice that I have in my little profile description that I am a language learner. And truthfully, I haven’t been doing a very good job at upholding that moniker. So I decided to include some posts about my experiences as an aspiring polyglot.

I previously alternated between learning Spanish and French while I was in school. But at that time, learning a foreign language was deemed kind of useless. So I didn’t focus as much as I should have.

I know, all of my non-American friends are probably cringing, writhing, and grumbling their disdain for this type of mindset that we have as Americans.

All I can say is: I am sorry [d: Het spijt me]. And you are the reason that I seek to amend this later in my life.

I have met some really amazing people from different parts of the world, who speak English [d: Engels], but are also fluent in other languages. As a result, I wanted a way to communicate with them in their native languages. Well, maybe not fluently, but at least include some expressions or words in their native language to show them that I care. After all, they tolerate speaking to me in English, so I figure it’s the least I can do.

(Not only that, but as an American in business, it can be extremely useful to be able to navigate another language outside of English. Especially if your company has plans on going global.)

So right now, I have two Belgian friends [d: twee Belgische vrienden–probably messed up the gender/plurality, so please correct me if one of you is reading this] who hail from the Dutch speaking part of Belgium (Flanders) and I am visiting one of them (for sure, maybe meeting up with the second one) next May. So I figured there is no time like the present to at least familiarize myself with the language.

This won’t become a language blog exclusively, and I am not sure if I will write any feature length posts about learning Dutch. I am by no means an expert, and I definitely won’t pretend to be. I merely wanted to explain why you might be seeing more Dutch included in my posts alongside the English. And maybe (if I do become brave enough to write posts exclusively about my language learning experiences) use this blog as another way to stay on track with my language learning. 🙂

Until next time, friends [d: tot de volgende keer, vrienden]!

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