Hi! I'm in sixth form right now, and I'm a huge lover of languages. I have ADHD and languages are the only thing that can get me to actually sit down and study (which doesn't bode well for my other classes but ah well). The thing is, my ADHD makes it difficult to get started and stick to a proper plan, because I get bored very easily. Do you have any advice for studying a language with ADHD?
Ah, yeah, the good old 'I adore this thing but to do this thing you need structured study' problem. I have exactly the same problem! I preach about the importance of Anki and I know my languages would be better if I just stuck to the same routine every day, but I seem to be chronically incapable of forming habits, and as much as I try and be accepting of my own limitations, sometimes that's very frustrating. Here are some tips I have from my experience with languages and ADHD - some of these may contradict each other, and only speak from my own experience.
1) Their way of studying is not worthier
I don't know if this is causing you distress or not, but regardless: one of the first things to consider is simply that what works for them - a specific routine, self-motivated study - might not work for you. Study plans are not designed for people with ADHD. Any well-meaning advice your parents, friends or teachers give you might similarly not be meant for people with ADHD. What does this mean? That there is nothing intrinsically better about studying in one way if it doesn't work for you, so stop beating yourself up if you can't follow that. Stop worrying if you are not studying as efficiently or as effectively. If trying to study in a specific way - like keeping the same habits every day - is stopping you from studying at all, how is that more effective than studying in front of the TV or whilst jogging??
Ok, true, if I did manage to plan my studying weeks in advance and stick to that every week, my languages would be better than they are now. I know that 100%. But I also know that the longest I have ever successfully done any flashcards was about twenty days, and that if I plan what I'm going to study I just end up spinning around in my spinny chair for thirty minutes or gnawing absently on my hairbrush.
I have been struggling with trying to keep a routine with exercise, cooking, teaching, writing, learning languages, reading and talking to friends for years. And I've always felt so frustrated with myself and like a complete idiot for finding things like 'remember to shower' and 'clean your fucking room' so hard.
But I think I'm beginning to understand myself better now. I completed NaNoWriMo last month and it was life-changing - I have never stuck with a habit that long!! And I realised why: it's because during NaNo, I wasn't trying to juggle twenty different hobbies and interests every day (because that's how you're 'supposed to do it'), but just focusing on work and writing. Just one thing, intensely, for a month! For ages I have known that's how I learn best, but I've been unwilling to implement it because that's not the 'best' or 'most effective' way to learn.
You know what though? If it gets you learning, it gets you learning. There is no 'right' way to do it. ADHD often exhibits alongside anxiety and perfectionism, especially if you're used to being good at school, have never had to learn how to learn and have planned your life to the Nth degree because you can't function otherwise. If this is you, your brain may try and tell you it's not correct to learn in X way - but the advice that you find online literally was not written for you. Don't be surprised if following it feels frustrating.
At school you may not have the flexibility to work on something for an extended period of time, but my point still stands: any learning is a good thing, and you know yourself the best. Try and look at it that way, rather than focusing too much on what is optimal.
2) Try and implement external structure into your routine
Speaking of knowing yourself. I struggle immensely with empty days and nebulous goals - but at the same time hate structure. What the fuck brain. I don't know if you're learning for school or pleasure, but either way, try and tack your language learning habits on to habits that already exist. For example if you're walking to school - listen to a podcast. If you have to do homework every night - put on a playlist and do languages after that after your homework is done. If you're on the bus - do Duolingo. When you're waiting for your brother to come out of swimming - read fanfic in Spanish. Even if it's an hour of complete self-study, you can still tack it onto another habit that exists, preferably one that involves exercise or social interaction or something different. I know just how hard habits are to form, but this is one of the only ways that has been effective for me. I can never plan in advance what exactly I'm going to study, but I try to plan when I will study at least.
The best kind of external structure, of course, is other people. Join a discord server where you can study together. Arrange to test each other on vocabulary every week with your friends. Get one of your friends to message you aggressively every week to check you've done your homework. Study with a friend who will literally take your phone and not give it back until you have finished.
3) It's not cheating to use software and technology to help
This is what I wish I had been told earlier. IT'S NOT CHEATING. If you have a problem with controlling your time, then don't let yourself have that problem. We live in the modern age!! Use technology to help you! Here are some I personally use and recommend:
- Habitica: this gamifies your to-do lists, and helps you earn points. This is great because you can put both things like homework on here as well as you know. Basic tasks like showering and tidying my room which I still find inordinately difficult.
- Discord study groups: these let you share your SCREEN!!! And because you're in a group full of random internet people you cannot go on social media unless you want to be axe-murdered. You just can't. In these groups you can also form little groups that keep you accountable every day - I was in a group of four who all studied at the same time every day online, and we shared both our cameras and our screens. You can't mess around when you have someone who is literally looking over your shoulder the whole time.
- Freedom: my saviour, my beloved, my one great love. This you do have to pay for but oh my god, it's the most worth-it purchase I have ever made in my life. You add blocklists and you can control what websites you can access when on your phone and your laptop, and they don't have to be the same. For example during my last year of university I only allowed myself access to Tumblr for 30 minutes a day, and it may have just saved my bacon.
- Chrome extensions: for example Pause, which makes you wait for ten seconds before going to any social media site. It still lets you go! But it stops that impulsive scrolling.
4) Utilise your special interests, and don't neglect input
The great thing about languages is that once you're at a certain level, you can do anything you can do in your mother tongue. What does that mean? FANFIC. Youtube. Music. Dnd. Tv programs. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE INFINITE. Of course there are times when you just need to study verb tables, but the majority of people fail at languages A-level or GCSE because they don't have enough input. You're still young; your brain is still spongey! One of the best things you can do, regardless of neurodiversity, is to pump it aggressively full of information. Bad at listening? After 300 hours of dnd...you'll get better.
And you, my friend, have an advantage the neurotypical does not: use your hyper fixations!! I had to speed-run my Spanish A-level in about three or four months for Reasons, and one of the reasons I succeeded without any teacher input was because I was hyperfixating on minimalism at the time. I listened to probably every single video on minimalism on Spanish YouTube. HUNDREDS of hours of podcasts on packing and lightweight travelling and minimalism and Marie Kondo...I haven't thought about minimalism in years, but at the time, that was what did it for me. Use them!! (Of course, if the language itself is your hyper fixation, so much the better, but you can't always control that...)
Please, for the love of god, if you have a tumblr and are a fan - read fan fiction. Hell, write fan fiction. Learning languages doesn't have to be boring!! I wrote pages and pages and PAGES of Silmarillion fanfic in German and look, now I'm applying to do a German-speaking Master's.
One final point here: Yes, random vocabulary about minimalism and packing cubes isn't going to help your A-level. But the sentence structures surrounding it, the constant listening practice, everything else will. So don't worry if your interests are niche or 'irrelevant'. I was obsessed with translations of Homer into German for a while and in my listening exam one of the points hinged on the word 'vanguard', so, you know. You never know!
Do you spend too much time aimlessly on your phone? So do I. Apart from just deleting all the apps from your phone and going cold turkey (which I did, apart from email and messenger, and it’s been pretty successful) there are two things you can do:
- Install social media / reddit / YouTube etc from the country whose language you’re studying. If you reach for your phone first thing in the morning to get into The Scroll, well, that’s thirty minutes of reading.
- Let yourself watch and consume as much social media / Netflix / YouTube as you want, but try and restrict yourself to only doing so in your target language.
- You can also buy a kindle! This has CHANGED EVERYTHING for me. I’m fundamentally a lazy person. I like scrolling and I like the dark and I like the shiny screen! But downloading books onto my kindle (from places like zlibrary *cough cough*) means that that’s the first thing I reach for in the morning - I literally sleep with it under my pillow, and I read for 30 minutes in the morning instead. I have made sure to download lots of fanfic onto there too for the times when I just can’t concentrate on anything longer; either way, it stops me scrolling through my phone. You can utilise this with languages too - download Harry Potter or the Little Prince or Lord of the Rings or anything you know well and love, or even fanfic, and read that instead of scrolling. It might not work for you, but I find I end up reading genuinely about 10 times more daily if I use my kindle rather than an actual book, because I can eat and read, lie down and read, jump around and read, walk and read...
6) Shake it up: incorporate movement and stimulus and PEOPLE
Most likely routine is boring!!! And most likely, at school, you are also somewhat bored!! Even if you’re a die-hard introvert like I am, talking to other people in your target language is the best way to stay motivated, and it measures real progress, not just vocabulary stats. Get an exchange partner. Join a discord server. Make friends with somebody in that country if you can. Organise a twice-weekly call.
Re movement: learning doesn’t have to be static. Listen to podcasts and audiobooks on the go - they will help your listening skills no end. You can go for a walk around the block every hour or so to get yourself moving, and whilst you do so, why not listen to American Gods in Spanish? Or whatever floats your boat. Do YouTube workout videos in that language. Anything which tricks your brain into realising that a language is a system of communication that real people use, not just for school. Of course, all of this is easier if you are somewhat intermediate at least. But there are plenty of beginner videos and podcasts too! Use a Youtube converter and download them onto your phone, and listen again and again as you go shopping or wait at the bus stop.
7) Run a blog (no, seriously)
Just something to consider. It’s time-wasting, but also it builds a community of accountability and explaining things to people is fun! I personally make it a rule though not to post when I’m not studying too much - I think it’s hypocritical otherwise, which is why this blog sometimes goes quiet for a few months at a time.
6) Understand if you are overstimulated or under stimulated, and adapt accordingly. Gamify your learning!
Habitica is good for for gamifying habits, but also basic things like washing up and cleaning. Memrise and Quizlet, whilst probably not as effective as Anki, are much more fun - I use them for that reason even though Anki is probably better, because I know I’ll actually USE quizlet.
I don’t think any advice I can give you for being overstimulated or under stimulated is going to particularly help, since I’m sure you’ll know what works and what doesn’t for you. For me personally I’ve learnt gradually that if I’m really under stimulated VERY few things are going to be able to make me study - most of the time it’s just not worth pushing through. So I take a break and run around for fifteen minutes, or punch my pillow listening to insane loud music. That sort of thing.
If I have to study in that state, though, learning languages is one of the few things that works. If you have quizlet or can test yourself online on verb conjugation, this is the PERFECT moment for it - it’s fast, it’s furious, you don’t actually have to think that much, but doing rapid-fire conjugation or translation whilst listening to repetitive, loud music is one of the only things that is even a little bit useful that I can do.
Learning to recognise your own moods and tailoring your learning accordingly is hugely important, and probably the best thing you can do in the long run for your own mental health. Sometimes you just need to take a break - and that might not come at the same stimuli or with the same clues as neurotypical people.
Alright, I hope that’s somewhat useful! I apologise for the long, ironically non-ADHD friendly post (though it means I get to info-dump hehe). If you take anything away from this, I hope you can take away the idea that finding what works for you is better in every single way than trying to persevere with trying habits that you have never successfully built.
A hard message, but - if it hasn’t worked so far, maybe it’s time to try something different.
Best of luck with everything - learning languages is hard, and it’s even harder when your brain won’t shut up. Kudos to you for persevering!!!
