I think one of the most important things anyone with any type of interest/hobby always has to ask themselves at some point is, how serious do they want to get with that interest?
Is it just something playful they want to dabble in once in a while, something that they want to take up as a consistent hobby, or something that they want to do full-time [and all other shades along this spectrum].

For anyone who is on the further, more serious side, a number of other questions pop-up. How can I incorporate it into my life full-time? Can it be a profession or aid me in a profession? Can I be competitive and successful? Will this really even help me? or am I just being foolishly quixotic??

As you can guess, this has been a question on my mind for some time now. How can I use the languages I love to learn to support me the most?

Everyone agrees that a new language can be one of the most useful skills to have. But considering that a new language opens your interaction possibilities to millions of new people and resources, its never clear how a language learner should take advantage of their skill.

This can, in part, be answered by ones' purpose for learning a language in the first place. Unfortunately, a weak purpose like just “wanting to watch dramas and movies in that language” is, to me, not strong enough to set anyone up for long-term success in the language [noted that many also start off with a weak purpose that grows strong over time].

In my opinion, in order to get to the highest heights of language success we must make the language inveterate in our lives.

This can happen a number of different ways but the most powerful seem to consistently be:

Notice how although any one of these alone would do well to root you in the language, they tend to interrelate/overlap and frequently occur one after the other, making the language an all the more common presence in your life. On the other hand, if you are not within any of these four, or are not working towards them, then its going to take a lot more brute force dedication to achieve long-term success.

For me personally, #4 [along with a strong purpose and lots of studying] has been the primary reason I have been able to come as far as I have with my language ability. But slowly over the past few years I have come to the realization that including numbers 1 and 2 in your life [excluding 3 because I'm too scared to be wed] not only increase your language proficiency but also allows the language to become a high speed lubricant for your success.

Creating or seeking out a career that in some way necessitates the language in your life produces a vicious cycle where your work makes you want to get better in the language and increased language ability makes you better at your work.

But what work should you do? Anything! That's the beauty of language, almost any career you want to pursue can work, you just have to make sure that it is done in the context of the language. For any career that exists, there is a way to make it fit in the language context to mutually support your language development as well as your career.

So that's really it, if you make the language entrenched in your life, you almost have no choice but to become awesome at it.

We only have just this one world we live in, so why not go out there and make it happen?