Welcome to the second week of the Babbel 30-Day Language Challenge! Every week, we’re publishing an article to help you get in the habit of learning every day. By the end of the month, you’ll have the tools to carry you forward.
This Week’s Language Challenge
Hopefully, by now, you’ve gotten into the swing of committing to some sort of daily challenge. Last week’s reading challenges should have given you plenty of ideas and resources for honing your reading skills, whether you had 20 minutes to spare on a given day or even just one.
Same goes for this week. If you only have 10 minutes today, try one of the challenges from the 10-minute section. If tomorrow’s so busy that you barely have 5 minutes to spare, there’s still something productive you can do to keep your momentum going.
This time, the focus will be on improving your writing skills. Reading is an accessible entry point into a new language, but at some point, you’re going to have to test your ability to form coherent sentences of your own, spell them correctly, and understand the correct lexical order and grammar. Unfortunately, there aren’t as many obvious or easily searchable resources available online to help beginner learners improve their writing skills. You might have to be a little more DIY in your approach, but you’re not totally on your own. We’re here to provide helpful suggestions and point you in the right direction!
1 Minute Challenges
- Write down as many words in your language as you can think of in a minute.
- Set a timer and write conjugations for the 5 most common verbs, adjectives or nouns.
- Add your target language’s keyboard to your phone and send a quick text to one of your friends.
5 Minute Challenges
- Write a brief postcard or letter to one of your friends.
- Start a vocab list that you can keep adding to as the week goes on.
- Write a Tweet or Instagram post in your target language and hashtag #BabbelChallenge (our native speakers will be looking out for them!).
10 Minute Challenges
- Complete a crossword in your target language (links below).
- Practice writing down what you hear — perhaps a short clip from a podcast or movie.
- Write a short composition about how your day went, or perhaps a diary entry about something that’s been on your mind a lot lately.
15 Minute Or More Challenges
- Create a language journal.
- Do a deep dive into the accent markings and punctuation of your language.
- Translate an English article into your second language. You’ll probably have to troubleshoot your way through this and consult a dictionary, but this will strengthen your muscles considerably!
Recommended Language Challenge Resources
General Resources
6 Tips For Improving Your Writing Skills In Any Language
How To Use Sentence Structure To Learn A Foreign Language
How To Use The Internet For Language Learning
The Peculiarities Of Punctuation Marks In Other Languages
How To Make Your Own Language-Learning Journal
All Of Babbel’s Crosswords In One Place
Spanish Resources
Crossword: How Much Do You Know About The Spanish Language?
The 9 Most Common Adjectives In Spanish
The 20 Most Common Spanish Verbs
How To Write The Date In Spanish
French Resources
Crossword: How Much Do You Know About The French Language?
Why Does French Have So Many Unpronounced Letters?
The 12 Most Common Adjectives In French
The 20 Most Common French Verbs
How To Write The Date In French
Italian Resources
Crossword: How Much Do You Know About The Italian Language?
The 21 Most Common Adjectives In Italian
The 20 Most Common Italian Verbs
How To Write The Date In Italian
German Resources
Crossword: How Much Do You Know About Germany And The German Language?
The 20 Most Common Adjectives In German
The 20 Most Common Verbs In German
How To Write The Date In German
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