I studied a language 30 minutes a day for 1 year, for free. Here’s what happened.

Ever wondered what could happen to you if you studied a foreign language for free, 30 minutes every day for one year straight?

Me neither. But I ended up doing that and what happened was beyond any expectations I could have had.

The language I picked?

German.

A language I thought I’d never learn, after a sad past experience.

A language that turned everything upside down.

Let me explain.

Part 1: The Failure.

Flashback to 2011.

My first year at Engineering University.

I knew my mother tongue and some English I learned in language classes, which I found insanely boring. My English was good enough — I didn’t want to hear anything about learning any other language.

But my fellow students kept talking about the importance of learning German. That baffled me. “What? In an engineering department? Why? I’m here to become an engineer, not to learn languages, let alone German!”

Lecturers, however, insisted that learning German would help me significantly in the engineering field, as many books and regulations are written in the language. It would push my career forward.

That sounded interesting to me, since all I cared about at the time was becoming a great engineer.

But learning German meant doing those pesky language classes again. “Not that nightmare again!” I heard a cry inside me.

Scared of what awaited me, I tried to find a different way to learn the language.

I paid for a mail-order German course with textbooks: a coursebook, a workbook, a study companion full of vocabulary, and some exercises that I’d send every month to a German teacher, who would correct them and send them back to me.

Basically, I would be teaching myself German instead of paying for language classes.

Sounded like a plan!

I lasted only one month, finishing just the first three units of the textbooks.

I found those units utterly boring, but I put a lot of pressure on myself and did exactly what the books said. I had to master German!

After I sent the first set of exercises to the teacher for correction, I waited. The corrected exercises came back to me.

Everything was wrong!

Even though I did everything the books instructed me to do and pushed forward to finish those uninteresting units, all my efforts were completely in vain. Everything!

I gave up instantly and never opened those books again.

I failed at German, and I started making up excuses to cope with my incompetence: “I’m not talented. I’m good at math, not languages. I have a bad memory. Everyone speaks English and I understand that language, so there’s no need to study another language.” You name it; I’ve used it as an excuse…

I went to great lengths to justify my choice not to learn German and threw any plans of learning it out the window.

Part 2: The Comeback

Fast forward to 2018.

Several years prior, Spanish had come into my life and made me start learning languages again. I changed my mentality, used fun methods that helped me learn, and created my personal learning plan, which I describe in a book I wrote two years later.

The conditions were ripe. I decided I’d finally make the big step: I’d tackle German! And I’d ignore my painful past with it.

This time, I’d go about it differently.

I wouldn’t learn it to improve my engineering skills. I’d learn it mainly just to prove a point to myself.

And this time, I’d learn it for free and have fun in the process!

I started collecting language-learning materials online as well as creating my own learning materials using my notebook and imagination. I studied and played with the language for just 30 minutes per day, no more, no less.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was laying the foundation for a radical change…

Since I was learning on my own — without textbooks and without a teacher to check over my exercises — I figured I needed a straightforward source of motivation to get going every day.

After some failed attempts, I found it in registering myself for the B1 Goethe exam.

I read online that this exam “certified that candidates are independent users of the German language”. Sounded good!

The catch? The only available exam date was exactly three months after my first day of studying the language.

Challenge accepted!

Three months later, I went to the exam center to take the B1 exam. I didn’t care about actually passing it as it had already helped me achieve my goal of staying motivated to study every day for three months. Not bad.

It was so funny entering the exam center fully unprepared, asking people around me minutes before the beginning of each part of the exam what we were expected to do and how long it would last.

My attitude baffled them all. “What, do you really NOT know?”

But when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. I had studied a language on my own and didn’t mind if I passed that exam or not. I improved my language skills but didn’t prepare myself for the tests. Judging from the stress I saw on the faces of the people around me, I know I had the most fun during that exam.

Some time later, the results came. I passed the B1 exam!

No, I wasn’t fluent in three months. I wasn’t even an “independent user of German”, whatever that means. But, after 92 days of daily learning, I had a B1 degree. Not bad.

With this newfound motivation, I kept studying. Soon enough, however, it faded, and I had to find a different goal to set to actually become fluent. I needed to keep myself motivated to log in for those daily 30 minutes.

Taking the B1 exam was bold enough in my book. But this time I had to find something even bolder to keep myself going.

And I found it: I’d quit my job and move to Germany.

I made that big decision in a matter of seconds, with only one goal in mind: to keep studying German.

I informed my boss that I was quitting and booked the ticket to Germany, just like that, without giving it too much thought.

This was the real deal. Up to that time, I never spoke German with anyone but my B1 speaking examiners. That was about to change.

I chose to move to a small town in Germany where I’d have no choice but to speak and be spoken to in German only. I also had to find a job and a place to live since I didn’t have any lined up. All that made perfect sense in my head until seconds before I boarded that plane and my excitement turned into terror.

So many changes! I thought. What the hell am I doing? I’m not even fluent in German! All I have is a B1 certificate in it and about 102 days of learning experience.

But there was no going back. My desire to prove myself wrong and become fluent in German was so strong, I was willing to take any risk that came my way — so much so that I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into.

And just like that, the plane landed in Germany.

What’s happened since I got off that plane has been beyond any expectations I could have ever had.

Part 3: The Surprise

I arrived in that small town in Germany and went to the local authorities to get settled. I was warned that they would send me to take German courses if they thought I really didn’t know how to speak the language.

Language classes! That nightmare again?!

I was so terrified of taking boring language classes again that I was ready to make a tremendous effort to convince the authorities not to send me to any.

I talked to them. They helped me register. They told me where to look for a job.

They never said anything about German courses.

Yes, after studying German for 126 days, 30 minutes each day, for free, I was able to convince them. I didn’t even have to mention that I had a B1 degree.

Epic personal win! If I ever have grandchildren, I’ll annoy them all day with that story.

After that incident, I faced the difficulties that come with moving to another country as a jobless immigrant, but I never ever switched to English. Not a single time. And this was my biggest language success.

From then on, every day was a reason to keep studying German.

I found a place to live and eventually a German-speaking job. I had a rule that I would speak nothing but German as soon as I got out of my apartment, and I adhered to that rule at all times, even under extreme pressure.

Exactly one year after I started studying German every day, I held my first conference talk in German and answered questions in the language.

Yes, that’s what my German was like at the time.

After exactly one year of studying German for 30 minutes for free every day, I was able to:

• pass the German B1 exam
• move to Germany and convince the authorities that I needed no German courses
• find a house and a job speaking German
• get out of my comfort zone and get used to doing that over and over again
• never switch to English, not even to settle disputes with a crazy landlord, reporting them to the police repeatedly
• hold a conference talk in German and answer questions in the language
• make local friends
• start new hobbies
• gain enough confidence to apply for and get hired to an online marketing job in an office where I’m the only foreigner, writing copy, doing SEO, managing content, and selling products to Germans, using German only.

I accomplished all of this just because I wanted to prove to myself I’d finally become fluent in German. Thinking back, it’s crazy what came out of a decision I made on a whim.

It’s crazy how much I’ve changed and how much stronger I’ve become, just because I refused to give up learning a language for half an hour every day.

Would you like to know exactly how I did it? Check out my Book “Fluent for Free”. Without any marketing, that book became a best seller and a source of inspiration for many learners around the world and even some famous polyglots who came to me asking for advice.

Yes, famous polyglots! People I admired! They told me they actually took notes from MY book! Me, a nobody, giving advice to people I looked up to. Priceless.

To this day, I continue to study German, curious to see where else this language can take me. (I have some more fantastic milestones I might share with you in the future!)

For now, though, all I can say is this:

Start learning a language today! You’ll never know where it can take you. Let it work its wonders for you, just like it did for me.

You’ll be surprised at the results.

Happy language learning,

Maria

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