Learning a New Language and Building Some Slack

 Dear Dan,

My wife is from the Netherlands, and we’ve talked about moving there someday. I’d like to start learning Dutch to prepare for this possibility, and I’ve bought some textbooks and recordings to help me practice. How should I approach the task? Is it better to study a small amount every day or to have longer sessions on the weekends?

—Terrance 

Learning a new language is much harder for adults than for young children. It takes time and dedication, but we can easily get discouraged when we feel we’re not making progress. My recommendation is to set yourself the goal of practicing every day, but allow yourself to skip one day each week. Research shows that building some “slack” into our goals helps them to seem more attainable. Just as important, it helps us not to feel like complete failures when we inevitably slip, making it easier to get back on schedule.