Daily Exercises...Not Only for Muscles

Language skills are pretty similar to muscles: If you don't use them regularly, they shrink.

I have known this for years but never actually acted. Why not? I could come up with reasons like stress, no time, too much work etc., but the truth is: I was probably just too lazy. Let's face it: If I had really wanted to, I could have easily included some minutes of language exercises into my daily routine, just like I include some push-ups or curls into my daily routine no matter how busy I am.

Granted, language skills require brain work whereas push-ups or curls require physical activity, so maybe it's easier for me to do some physical exercises in between my regular "brain work" instead of occupying my brain with even more stuff in a break; still, that's no excuse for letting my language skills get rusty. I know that I'm still perfectly able to understand those languages I don't use regularly; I have problems with actively using it.

From now on, I'll try to include my languages more into my daily life. I don't want to lose the skills I have; on the contrary, I want to improve them even further. Luckily, it takes much less effort to reactivate language skills than to acquire new language skills.

Do you have language skills too which have become rusty? What do you do to prevent losing your language skills?

Watch out for my language exercises--soon to come! (Any preferred language? If so, let me know!)