The EDLL Guide to Sustaining

Written on March 28, 2011 by aarongmyers in Resources

The Everyday language Learner’s Guide to Sustaining is here and it’s free. In it I lay out what it takes to keep at the journey of learning another language. Like most things in life, learning another language is nearly as much about keeping at it as any other factor and so I want to offer a little help along the way with this short work of encouragement. This manifesto of motivation is about 5,000 words long and can be read in about twenty minutes. In it I share stories, offer advice and lay out what it takes to create a personal culture of perseverance.

I am not by nature a disciplined person. I wish I were driven, focused. But I’m not. In fact I am rather, quite often a quitter. I wish “commitment” was my middle name, but it’s not. That’s why I think Sustaining is important. It’s for the rest of us. Those of us who want something a lot – to learn another language – but don’t have that grit, that drive that others do to get through to the end.

Sustaining then is about helping you take the steps needed to create, maintain and protect the motivation, commitment and attitude necessary to learn another language.

Read it today and see what you think.

Click HERE to Read Sustaining Now

If you find Sustaining to be a helpful encouragement, feel free to send your friends over to pick up a copy for themselves. Tell them about it on Twitter or Facebook or email it to them if you want. If you are a blogger and want to write about this little booklet, go for it! I want to share it with as many people as possible so spread the word. Thanks and blessings on your language learning journey!

What about you? Do you need a bit more motivation and commitment on your language learning journey?

Ready to get serious about learning another language?

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"Aaron consistenly pumps out top quality language learning advice and motivational posts,
and is probably one of the best sources of encouragement you'll come across."
-Donovan Nagel, The Mezzofanti Guild

Your privacy will never be comprimised.

Steal My Blog

I have a problem.

My blog is an exclusive club where members only are allowed in. The secret password is the English language. If you don't have it, you don't get in. This is a problem because I believe that information about independent language learning should be available to those who need it most.

There are people all over the world who are desperate to learn English.

Desperate because mastering the English language will open up new doors of opportunity for them, for their families. But they don't know enough English yet to access my blog and learn how to be independent language learners. So they are stuck. Stuck in the systemic ineptitude of outdated and broken national education systems. Thy are held hostage by expensive language school that have stepped into fill the void. They stand looking down two roads: one an ineffective system; the other an expensive system. But there is a third way. They can harness the power of the Internet and an increasingly shrinking world. They can do this if they know how. Independence from the system is possible, but a revolution in language education needs to take place.

Will you join me?

Will you join the revolution?

Step 1: Steal my blog. Create your own blog. Take the ideas from this blog, translate them into your language and share them with your people. Begin to preach the good news of the third way - the independent way. Begin to empower and teach and give tools to those who desire to learn language. Step 2: Steal The Ten Week Journey. This is an email series that I create to walk beginning language learners into the life of an independent, self-directed language learner. I'll walk you into how to set this up with a free email subscription company. It's pretty easy. Step 3: Steal my books. They aren't the greatest books ever written but they were created to break down the old paradigms of teacher directed learning and introduce and explain self-directed learning. I'll give you the books if you can gather a group of friends around you who will work to translate them and then spread them like a wild fire through Facebook and Twitter and Myspace and email and whatever the people of your nation are using to communicate. Use them to direct people back to your blog. Use them to introduce the people of your nation to these ideas. Use them to break the chains of a broken system and set language learner's free to learn on their own. Interested? Send me an email and let's talk. aarongmyers @ gmail.com

Credit and Payment

I'm not asking for either credit or payment. While I think it would be great if you would let people know that what you are sharing with them was originally written by me, I'm not going to tell you that you have to. I also don't want any payment from you. Now, if you want to add an affiliate link on your site to my books (English versions) that I do sell, you can sure do that and then you would get 50% of the profit as well. So in that sense, I'll be paying you. I am mostly concerned with a world that continues to use a broken and outdated system that is effectively locking millions of people out of the advantages of learning another language.

Why Am I Doing This

I want to do something big with my life. I want to make a ruckus and be a part of tearing down broken systems. I don't wear a cape though and I have no super powers. So I need to assemble an army of other like minded people to wage the battle with me. I'm not the first to give away my content. Leo Babauta has been doing it for a while and he has one of the most widely read blogs in the world. I think we can start a grass roots movement of free information that a new system for language building can be built upon. But the important word here is WE. We can do it together. Let's get started.

Kat

March 29, 2011 | 5:05 am

Hi Aaron,

I read the guide and it was very helpful. So, thank you. I’m a “tire-kicker” to the core, so needless to say, I have a couple of languages under my belt that I never got past to after the first lesson or two of Pimsleur.

I decided to learn Mandarin Chinese and I’m looking to start very soon. Your guide couldn’t have come a better time for me.

I’ll spread the word. Thanks again!

–Kat

aarongmyers
March 29, 2011 | 6:30 am

Kat,
Thanks for the great response. Glad the guide was helpful and thanks for wanting to tell others as well. I’ll be checking out your site today – One Year Chinese – sounds interesting!

Igor

April 3, 2011 | 6:46 pm

Very nice guide, I wish I had it ten years ago.

Cool blog too, I’ve subscribed and put it in my blogroll too.

aarongmyers
April 3, 2011 | 7:30 pm

Thanks for the feedback and I am glad it has been useful and encouraging! Checked out your blog and am excited to follow your journey. Thanks for the link too.

10 Articles to Help Get You Started Learning a New Language | The Everyday Language Learner

February 2, 2012 | 4:05 am

[...] It is for those people that I created a free course called The Ten Week Journey. It was for those people that I wrote the comprehensive EDLL Guide to Getting Started, The EDLL Guide to Self-Assessment and the free manifesto on motivation and commitment called Sustaining. [...]