Is Taking A Break From Language Learning A Good Idea?

Is taking a break from language learning a good idea or will it set you back? Perhaps you've got a holiday coming up and you're torn between packing your textbooks and leaving them at home.

Nicholas, who's learning German and Chinese at the same time, wrote in with exactly this question:

“Do you think that when we are on vacation or on holidays—when we go to a place to relax—should we still learn languages? Is it better to stop our routine, or better to try to keep it?“

It's a fantastic question, and here's the thing: taking a break from language learning isn't just acceptable—it might actually be one of the best things you can do for your progress.

If you prefer watching videos to reading, hit play on the video version of this post at the top of this page. Otherwise, here's what you'll discover in this article:

Why Do High Achievers Take So Much Time Off?

This whole question of taking breaks and time off is one of the least well-understood elements of learning in general.

Whenever you look at high achievers—people who are very good at what they do—they all take large amounts of time off because they understand that it's essential in order to be great at what they do.

When I look back over my life, there are all kinds of times when I've been away for a couple of weeks and come back to whatever I was doing, and a couple of things happen.

First, the fact that you've taken a break means you come back much fresher. You appreciate what you're doing so much more. But there's something else too: when you return, you can catch yourself slipping into bad routines and habits much more easily.

How Does A Break Help You Spot Bad Habits?

Think about it like this. If you're someone who's addicted to your smartphone, something interesting happens when you go away. Maybe you go to the beach for the weekend and leave your phone at home. You have an amazing time.

Then you come back home, and your first instinct is to reach for your phone. But you catch yourself and think: “Hang on, I haven't looked at my phone all weekend. Why do I need it now? That's a bad habit.”

The fact that you've been away helps you catch those bad habits, and this applies just as well to language learning. But we can actually go much deeper than this simple behavioural thing.

What Are Focus Mode And Diffuse Mode?

Barbara Oakley, creator of the online course, “Learning How to Learn” (the biggest ever, with over four million students), is well known for talking about the concept of focus mode and diffuse mode. This is something we now understand to be at play when we're learning new things.

Focus mode is when you're looking at something in detail. Diffuse mode is when you're doing the exact opposite.

Let's think of an example. Say you're trying to learn the present perfect in Spanish. In focus mode, you sit down at your desk and think: “Right, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to learn the rules, do some exercises, focus on this one thing and try to learn it.”

That's focus mode. But there's only so far your brain can get in that mode.

Later on, you might close your books, get up, go for a walk, take a shower, go to the gym or have lunch. During that time, you're in diffuse mode. You're positively not studying the present perfect, but your brain keeps working in the meantime.

When your brain is relaxing and doing other things, it starts to form connections between all the little bits of information you've been learning during your more focused study times.

That's when you get those bigger insights. That's when you appreciate the global picture and understand the concept as a whole.

High achievers know how to optimise and intentionally switch between focus mode and diffuse mode because they understand that taking breaks maximises their learning.

What To Do During Your Break

When you read books on productivity and time management, people talk about this a lot as a really important part of energy management.

The Pomodoro Technique, for example—where you have 25 minutes of work followed by 5 minutes of break—relies on the same principle. If you want to keep up a sustained period of work or study, you have to have breaks.

But here's the interesting thing: it's not so much the break that helps you, but what you do during that break.

If during your break you just sit and play with your phone, you're probably not going to make much out of it.

But if you lie down for five minutes, meditate for five minutes or go for a brisk walk, that's going to reset your brain and help it enter diffuse mode—where you're more likely to form connections between the subject you're actually studying.

In my case, I do a lot of writing: emails, blog posts, books and so on. My routine at the moment is to sit down in the morning and do 90 minutes of focused work. I find I can concentrate pretty well for 90 minutes.

But then, crucially, I get up and walk for 20 or 30 minutes through the park or down the street. I'll think about stuff or listen to an audiobook. The fact that I'm up and moving totally pulls me out of whatever I was doing before.

That means I can then sit down and do another 90 minutes of work while feeling fresh and focused. I can get three hours of really good work done in the morning by purposefully having that break in the middle.

Will A Longer Break Actually Improve Your Language Skills?

Now, what does this have to do with holidays and vacations?

If this works on a micro scale – on a daily scale – and you can make the most out of your day by planning in rest time, what do you think the implications are on a grander scale?

If you've been working at a language non-stop for three, four, five, six, nine or twelve months, do you think a one-month break is going to help you?

Yes, it absolutely will.

As soon as you stop actively studying, incredible things go on in the background. I guarantee you'll start to form connections between words you never realised before.

You'll start to make sense of grammar. Things will happen, and you'll come back to the language and realise you've improved during that time.

You can take two or three weeks off and get better – providing that for the previous months you've actually been working hard. If you don't do any work during the year, you're not going to improve by taking a break. You have to have something to take a break from.

So assuming you do work consistently at your languages, a two or three week break is a very desirable thing. Leave your books at home, do something totally different and enjoy every minute.

When you come back, you'll be very fresh and probably in a better place than you were before the holiday.

Can You Take A Break Without Stopping Completely?

You can actually enhance this even further. Let's say you study a lot with books – maybe you read a lot or take classes.

During your holiday, you could keep using the language but just go out and speak. Talk with people, make friends, do activities in the language.

You don't have to take a break from the entire subject. But if you take a break from the things you've been doing and do something completely different within the subject – speaking instead of reading, or reading instead of speaking – that can have the same effect.

If you've been focusing on detailed vocabulary and grammar study, your rest from that could be going to a meetup and making some friends, or watching films every night instead of studying. Do the complete opposite.

Taking A Break From Language Learning FAQ

The Bottom Line On Taking A Break From Language Learning

Taking a break from language learning is an excellent idea. Breaks are desirable. They're very helpful and an essential part of language learning.

So if you've got a holiday coming up and you're wondering whether to pack your textbooks, here's my advice: leave them at home. Go and enjoy yourself.

Your brain will keep working on everything you've learned, forming connections and consolidating your knowledge while you relax.

When you return, you'll be fresher, more motivated and quite possibly better at your target language than when you left. That's not a reason to feel guilty about taking time off – it's a reason to embrace it.

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.