Routines and habits are not things that come easy to me. However, I am very familiar with the trial and error of finding what works best. In this case, a language input routine.

A while ago I listened to a video by Steve Kaufmann on his own routine, and tried out his tip of getting some of my target language in first thing. This does not work for me. In the morning, I’m usually feeling the pressure to do the tasks I need to do that day, and anything I try to do before them gets rushed.

More recently, I’ve started setting aside around an hour to an hour and a half in the evening instead. This sounds like a long time, especially when I’m tired, but the beauty of comprehensive input is that it’s not like studying grammar or vocabulary lists. In the case of what I’m currently using, it’s listening to catchy songs while reading the lyrics, either with or without the accompanying animated video.

I don’t manage to do this every evening—if I’m particularly exhausted, or if I’m having tea late, etc. But so far I’m managing most evenings.

At the moment I’m also watching the alphabet video once or a couple of times in the day—it’s nice and short so can be done before I get on with my day’s tasks or between them without a problem.

Ideally, I’d like to occasionally listen/read to one of the songs mentioned above at times during the day as well. However this might take a while to implement, and that kind of habit is very susceptible to collapsing whenever I have a serious disruption to my general routine.