What 365 days of learning Spanish taught me

Friday Copy Over Coffee Friday Copy Over Coffee ☕ This morning I hit 365 days in a row studying Spanish (using the Duolingo app). Vamos! Dear subscriber, When the pandemic shut everything down last year, I decided to do a little more "self-improvement" with the extra time. I got heavily into Wim Hof breathing exercises and also fired up Duolingo to work on my Spanish. I spent about 5-10 minutes per day on Duolingo Spanish exercises EVERY DAY from April 2020 to now, April 2021. Here's what I've learned in that time: 1. My Spanish is definitely better. I have a much clearer understanding of how to speak in the past, present and future tenses. My vocab has increased for sure. Spending 5 minutes a day on something, and doing it consistently will help you develop skills and learn something. These small sessions do add up. They have been valuable. 2. However, the application of what I've learned is severely lacking. I haven't traveled to Mexico or any Spanish speaking countries since before the pandemic. While I feel more confident, I haven't battle-tested my new found skills. Some people develop a straw man argument against CopyHour and handwriting. They say that I only recommend handwriting and you'll magically turn into the best copywriter ever. That's simply not true and I've never argued for that. I've argued that handwriting helps tremendously with confidence but that application in the real world is a must. You need the feedback in order to get better. Just like I need to try my Spanish out in a different country to truly assess where I'm at. I always find myself relating things I've learned in other aspects of life back to CopyHour. I can't help it. One under-appreciated aspect of CopyHour (these days) is that the course is delivered in bite-sized chunks via email. Instead of a shotgun blast of information, the learning is dispersed. (h/t Rob Hanly for the term "Dispersed Learning"). You get a short learning assignment each day. You do a short bit of memory development with the handwriting exercise. And suddenly, 90 days later, you find yourself with a heck of a lot more knowledge. The problem with a lot of courses is that they deliver everything right up front. You think: "Oh god, I need to block out 3-4 hours to go through this module." Blocking 3-4 hours of time is difficult. Fires flare up. You never find that time to block those hours and never end up consuming or learning much. CopyHour handles that for you. It's like Duolingo. Short assignments to get Mr. Momentum going. Of course, ultimately, you need to write your own copy to get real feedback. But CopyHour can help get you to the point where you're confident enough to put your copy out there to get that necessary feedback. Make sense? Cheers! Good Ad Intuit spent ~$326k running ads like this via the Yahoo Gemini content network from January 12th to February 10th. I don't normally share ads from huge brands like Intuit / TurboTax. They can rely more heavily on brand recognition than smaller companies... But this one reminds us of a tremendous lesson. The power of "free". Free filing. Free expert review. Of course, you know it's not actually free as you have to pay for their service. But they do help you reduce those filing costs. And having an expert take a look is worth something. So we have the words "free" and we also have a deadline: file by 2/15. That's scarcity. For paid ads, "deals" and "deadlines" are your friend. They get attention and clicks. What's the best deal you can possibly get? A free deal. I use [Adbeat]( or [SEMrush]( to find ads and do competitive research. Products/Apps I Love [CopyHour - My unusual but highly effective course for mastering the income-changing skill of copywriting.]( Launch starts: Monday, April 5th Launch ends: Sunday, April 11th First group assignment: Monday, April 12th How to Make Great Tasting Pandemic Coffee - Support your local roasters by buying a good bag of beans with a roast date on it. General advice that's not a rule: coffee typically tastes better if consumed within 5-10 days of its roast date. - Buy a grinder and grind the beans yourself right before you brew a cup. It only takes a few seconds. - Brew your coffee with a Chemex or Aeropress. Kuerig's suck at making coffee and they suck for the environment. - Water matters: You're not going to believe me until you try it - good filtered water will make your coffee taste better (and it might save your life). - Temperature matters too. I brew most cups at ~183 degrees. I use Ovalware's Pour Over Kettle. - Derek Johanson Sent to: {EMAIL} [Unsubscribe]( CopyHour.com, 340 S LEMON AVE, 5007, WALNUT, CA 91789, USA