Follow up: Doing the Lingoda Language Marathon for both French and German!

This post is a follow up to my blog posts about doing a language marathon for French and German. This marathon involves 2 x 2 hour classes (for French and German) and another 2 hours of study, totalling to about 4 to 5 hours of language study per day.

Previous posts: Progress so far – month 2 and month 1.

I finished the two marathons for two languages and thought to share my notes around how I structured the three months. Looking back (see the notes “How I studied”) I would not do two languages at the same time, but I did because I was living (at the time) in a non English speaking country and I was also then moving to another non English speaking country on the last month of the marathon. So that was the only reason why I did two at the same time. Anyway here’s my notes, you can adopt it if you are also doing one language.

How I booked my classes / organized my day:

  • I would book classes for the first language first.
  • In your accounts page, you have an option to download your calendar in an .ics format. Download the calendar on to your calendar app and you will see all your classes.
  • Based on this calendar, I would then book my classes for the second language.
  • I have at least one hour in between the two classes. No back to back classes.
  • Each night before I go to bed, I would set my alarms to go one hour before each class the following day.

How I studied for the marathon

The 1-2 months was very difficult. I spent one hour (at least) doing my notes for each classes. With two languages, you are looking at about 4 to 5 hours each day to properly learn. Therefore if you don’t think you will be able to dedicate that time, I would reconsider doing two languages with the marathon seeing as Lingoda does these marathons are different stages

Another reason why it was difficult is because I was ‘speeding’ through one of the languages because I had studied it before. Meaning that in one language, I was doing A1.1-A1.2 and in another I went from some classes in A1.1 to doing 30% of A2.1
The final month was not as difficult, when it came to language acquisiton and I must have spent 3-4 hours each day. But doing the marathon got very stressful. For reasons I didn’t plan, I was also moving countries/houses, I had a trip planned out that I needed to go and I was going through some job interviews and various visa paperwork so it got very stressful in the last 3 weeks.

How I organized my notes:

Each class has its own notes, in Word (or Pages on Mac) format which I would then type with the FULL PDF-to-text version of each lesson PDF, my own exercise answers, other people’s answers, teacher’s notes, screenshots of teachers notes.

Each Word/Page document also had a beginning template which comprises of common rules, conjugation tips, common ways to ask a question, common ways to construct sentences, my own introduction etc.

Would I do two marathons again? Definitely not, but I justified doing the two since my situation during the last marathon did call for it (living in two countries). Some life events got in the way, and it is difficult to block in that amount of time for 3 months.

Will I use Lingoda after the Marathon?

I have 10 credits with Lingoda (not from Marathon) and I have paused the course for at least three weeks while I take a break and take care of other things. I would however be looking at more intensive courses offered by other language schools since I want to bump up my language acquisition.

Special thanks to the Lingoda social media team on Twitter…

Seriously, shout out to them who were like my personal cheerleader during the three months! A lot of their responses cheered me up when things got stressful.

Discount code!

Please note that this is not a sponsored post! But for a discount code for Lingoda, please use FYUVJH (I will also get a few free courses in exchange)!