How to Use Instagram to Study Your Target Language

Finding time to study your target language is difficult, especially if you are a university student or you have a job. It's not that you don't have the time, it's just that you're not taking advantage of the free time you do have. Every time you go on a social media account, such as Instagram, you are wasting time that could be spent studying...unless every time you checked Instagram you got a dose of your target language and even had to use the language!


I am currently a little over half-way through the Instagram Language Challenge (#IGLC) set up by LindsayDoesLanguage, who has a YouTube channel, Instagram, website, etc. All I do  is look at the theme for the day and then scroll through the pictures on my phone or think of something I could take a picture of that fits the theme. The next step is to formulate a few sentences in your target language. Since I'm studying Chinese at university, I am working on using the language outside the classroom. It's been really great to get a little bit of Chinese practice in at times when I otherwise wouldn't have been studying or thinking about it.

It has been really helpful also to reinforce vocabulary and grammatical concepts that I have learned recently in class, but this also encourages me to look up useful words that I haven't yet been taught. I would highly recommend incorporating your target language into all aspects of your life, because it's fun and the more exposure the better.

If you want to follow me, I'm @cattheexpat!