42 Things You Can Do In 5 Minutes To Improve Your Language Skills

Imagine how much more time you’d have in your day if everything you needed to do took just five minutes. Unfortunately, this isn’t true for a lot of things in life, but it can be true for learning a language! Breaking your study sessions into smaller chunks has been proven more effective than overwhelming yourself with information. And there are countless five-minute activities that can build your language skills in a variety of ways and an array of settings. Here are 42 of the many, many language-related things you can do in just five minutes (42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything, after all).

Things You Can Do In Five Minutes (Or Less!) To Improve Your Language Skills

1. Read a short story in another language
2. Sing/say an alphabet in a different language
3. Find a recipe from another culture
4. Compose a tweet in another language
5. Order food at a restaurant in a different language
6. Learn how to greet someone
7. Listen to a song in another language
8. Translate the most recent note in your phone’s notes app
9. Watch a music video
10. Read a poem in a new language
11. Write a poem in that same language
12. Take a quiz to decide which language you should learn
13. Or to find your motivation for learning
14. Learn a handful of cognates
15. Listen to a short podcast
16. (And be sure to subscribe to our podcast Multilinguish)
17. Master food vocab in the language of your choice
18. Sign up for a cultural event
19. Follow some language accounts on Instagram
20. And Twitter
21. And also YouTube
22. While you’re at it, subscribe to Babbel USA on YouTube
23. Learn to count in a new language
24. Send an email in another language
25. Learn foreign language animal names
26. Also, learn the colors in another language
27. And, why not, learn the parts of the body in a new language
28. Pick a foreign language TV show to watch
29. Or pick a movie, if that’s more your style
30. If you’re a reader, choose a book
31. Switch your dating app location to another city
32. Make a foreign language meme
33. Master a foreign language tongue twister
34. Discover the cultural history of your favorite food
35. Meditate
36. Sign up for a language exchange meetup
37. Go for a walk
38. Lovingly curse out a friend in another language
39. Write in your journal
40. Train your dog to understand the language you’re learning
41. Change your phone settings to another language
42. Register for Babbel