#theroadto400
By: Bisii Adedun
Tags: Resolutions, French, Duolingo

So this is how it began.

One night in September 2019 during my final semester in university, I sat in my bedroom extremely bored and unmotivated with nothing (interestingly unserious) to occupy my attention. After scrolling through the majority of the applications on my phone, I asked myself if there was something I could pick up as a hobby which I could benefit from while also enjoying; I decided to learn french. A few minutes later I had the Duolingo downloaded and was taking my first lessons.

Now, this isn’t my first tango with the french language. I gave it an average go in secondary school when it was a compulsory subject, but subsequently dropped it when it became an optional one. I also took French in my third year in university, barely passing the first time (bad teacher and lack of interest), and acing it the second (taught myself using Duolingo). I was interested enough to learn it at the time because I needed a good grade, then I forgot about it all over again.

Two years later I decided to give it another go. Because I was legitimately bored, and also, I thought of how nice it would be to drop some flirtatious french lines to a few lucky guys (LMAO). But I’m grateful I picked up the hobby at the time. It kept me sufficiently occupied when I wasn’t losing my mind over class schedules, project deadlines, and strict lecturers.

My approach was quite simple. I set my daily learning target at 30 XP per day, which would equate to 2/3 lessons per day. Not more than ten minutes of my time daily. I got accustomed to taking my lessons between the hours of 11 pm and 12 pm (something about almost missing deadlines kept me motivated?). Sometime along the way, I increased my learning target to 50 XP daily (to keep the challenge on). So, I could be on a call with a friend by 11:30 pm and ask for a few minutes to complete my lessons. It just became a thing, and no one gave me grief about it. My mother used to consistently ask me why my phone was talking to me though.

In addition to keeping my learning targets really simple, I also set easily achievable milestones for myself at the initial stages. After my first lesson, I set a milestone of 3 days, then 7 days, then 10, then 20, then 30 days, then 50 days, then 90, then 100 days. (Sometimes I’d get annoyed by how long it was taking for me to reach a certain milestone, then I’d be surprised how fast another one came) This is a rough visualization of how I paced myself, it’s not the most accurate thing. The key was I tried to keep each milestone achievable while also challenging myself with how far I could take it. I took a few screenshots along the way and shared them on Whatsapp, the support was a thing of beauty :).

And before you ask, yes, I had my streak freeze on at all times, but I missed only about 7 days within the 400-day streak (I deducted the date of my first screenshot from that of the last one). One of the days I missed was my birthday, which I really shouldn’t be given grief about. I was tired after a night out (haha). Okay, it wasn’t a full night out, it was just dinner, but the point still counts. It was initially #theroadto365 but it felt incredibly remiss of me to celebrate that milestone without an accompanying article documenting the journey. I was unable to write an article in time for that milestone so I pushed it to #theroadto400; and here we are.

400+ days ago, I was still an undergrad, extremely bored, with knowledge of a single language. Today, I’m an unemployed almost-graduated (no convocation) young citizen who can read french to a fair level but will definitely not be speaking it in public. I really cannot believe it’s been a year. Through the craziness of 2020, all the disappointments, postponements, and heartbreaks, my french was a nice 15-minute escape. I’m glad I chose to go on this journey, I’m proud of myself for this milestone. Will I keep going after 400? Gosh, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop really. And if I do stop, I’ll be a bit sad about it. It’s become a part of me now and considering all the many vices in the world, this isn’t such a bad one to have.

S/O to 2019 Bisi for giving 2020 Bisi something to look forward to and celebrate, you’re the realest (love you). Hopefully, I can pay it forward to 2021 Bisi. It’s been fun.