Szia, Sziszi vagyok
I’m certified in teaching Hungarian as a foreign language. I teach Hungarian in an original way and help Hungarian learners to come up with their own personalized plans.
How it all started...
I am myself a language learner. I speak English, Polish, Russian and I’ve started to learn Spanish in 2020. While I was learning English in school and I was studying Polish and Russian at university I was convinced I was very good at learning languages. I graduated with good grades and I was able to have a conversation.
The hardest realization hit me after I finished university.
I thought I loved learning languages and all of a sudden it was so difficult. I felt the pressure every day but I just couldn’t get myself to sit down and study anymore. All my life I couldn’t wait to get home and practice any language just for fun but this joy turned into feeling guilty for not learning enough.
For the longest time, I couldn’t find the answer to this question and I took a break from Polish and Russian. Then I got married to a Mexican and I felt motivated again to start learning a new language – Spanish.
Everyone says that love is the best motivation to learn a language, right? I was super motivated and as my goal was to speak as fast as possible, I dropped all the traditional methods I was taught during my studies and I tried something new. I found a Mexican language exchange partner and I started to attend conversation clubs. I didn’t know any grammar, it was completely the opposite of how I ever learned languages. I dived into speaking right away.
I thought this was the method I was looking for, but I was stuck again after a year of only practicing speaking.f
I stopped going to the conversation clubs and I was convinced learning more grammar will be my savior. These were the only two ways I ever heard about. Either the traditional way – learn a lot of grammar first. And the opposite – start speaking right away, you don’t need grammar.
I started to see the bad sides to both of these methods. Even if I can fill in the gaps perfectly for a grammar task, how is that going to be beneficial for me when I try to have a conversation? Because that’s the whole point of learning a language, isn’t it? To connect with people, to communicate. But then, if I practice speaking 90% of the time, I’m basically just repeating my own mistakes and bad pronunciation.
If you ever felt the same way, I have good news for you!
In the end, I found all the answers I was looking for, and it’s much simpler than I thought.
It was never about my motivation.
It was never about my skills.
It was never about me being lazy.
I just never learned anything about HOW TO study on my own. All my life I was waiting for a teacher’s instruction and once I didn’t have that anymore, I was lost.
I spent the past years trying to unlearn everything that had been programmed into my brain in school about learning and about traditional teaching methods. What I want is for the student to be in focus. What I want is to create a routine that actually works. And how do I do that?
And how do I do that?
By simplifying everything I ever thought about language learning.
By focusig on only these three things:
Finding 1-2 good resources according to my level I enjoy
Creating a plan that helps me stick to something, but is possible to adjust on the way
Actual studying
I consider my biggest responsibility as a teacher is not to teach you Hungarian but to teach you how to learn Hungarian on your own.
I knew this was my mission since I started my master’s program in teaching. One day we had a task to write a haiku about what it means for us to be a teacher.
This is what I wrote:
Fogd meg a kezem!
Ne félj! Akkor engedem
el, amikor kell.
[Hold my hand!
Don’t worry, I’ll only
let go of it,
when you’re ready.]
I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed.
I don’t want to give you homework you do half an hour before your lesson because you feel pressured to do it.
I want you to finally see progress.
I want you to enjoy learning Hungarian so much that your planned 15 minute practice for the day ends up in 40 minutes because you were so excited you couldn’t stop.
I want you to see you don’t need to spend a lot of money on courses, private lessons or textbooks.
I want you to know you don’t have to wait for anyone to give you homework.
You have all the power to master Hungarian the way you’ve always wanted to!
But how?
I found a method that doesn’t seem to have any downsides – a good amount of comprehensible input. Listening to authentic audio at your level, about topics you enjoy. The more you hear the same structures, vocabulary in context, good pronunciation the more you’re going to remember. If you look up a word just by itself, chances are low that you’re going to ever remember. If there’s a whole story around it, you’ll be more likely to remember. It’s not about reading your flashcards every day and repeating words. It’s about constantly listening to the language. You don’t need tons of material and books, just 1-2 resources you truly enjoy.
This is exactly why I created a membership program for You with a study-guide where I explain:
how to use the material provided efficiently
how to set good goals
how to create a routine
how to track your progress
+ you get two free samples: 1 podcast transcription and 1 short text in three levels