7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 6
Hi everybody,
I hope your study of your language(s?) is still going strong!
Each week, I share 7 things that could be useful to your learning odyssey. I hope they can help you improve your journey, tickle your curiosity, and inspire you to keep exploring.
Let's dive right in!
One video: Talking With Stephen Krashen: How Do We Acquire Language? - Matt vs Japan
In this very insightful conversation between Matt and Stephen, they discuss the importance of comprehensible input and different ways to improve your language with enough of it. Stephen Krashen is the reference on this topic so it was great getting to listen to his exchange with Matt.
One article I read: 4 Counterintuitive, Science-Backed Ways to Improve Your Focus - By Laura Izquierdo
I love articles like this one, explaining and proving what they advance while giving good tips at the same time. I especially like the 4th one about taking a break. Too often, we dive into a study session and refuse to stop before the end of the time we had set, even though that can fire back.
One article I wrote: How Giving Up 10 Languages Helped Me Become a Polyglot
In this article, I looked back at all the languages I've given up in the past decade and detailed all the lessons I've learned from them. Even though I had a lot of fun trying different languages, I don't think we should all have to take that long to learn those. If you can be aware of these pitfalls, you could get better faster.
One podcast episode: A Quick Tip to Progress Faster - Azren The Language Nerd
This very short episode gives a simple yet practical tip to remember better new words, grammar patterns and so on. Azren gives a clear example to understand his point easily and I couldn't agree more. Connections are the key to remembering better.
One tool to try: EasyReader
This simple extension takes out any text from a website page. While it's not created specifically to learn languages, it erases distractions from the page so you can focus on the text. Combine this with the Readlang extension and you can create a perfect environment to practice your reading skills.
One quote: "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." - Samuel Johnson
One challenge for the week ahead: Get Feedback on a Recording in the language you learn
For this week's challenge, it's time to put your pronunciation to the test. Find any text you want and record yourself reading it out loud. Then, upload it to HiNative and ask for some feedback about the pronunciation. You'll need to create a free account for it but it's worth the trouble. HiNative is a great resource. Here's how you can upload a recording. The higher your level, the longer the text you should try to record!
For last week's challenge, I went back to my studies of the IPA. I learned IPA about 2 years ago but still sometimes forget nuances between certain pronunciations. Reviewing all the different pronunciations helped me improve how I pronounced Burmese words.
Let me know how it went for you by sending me a mail at barra.mathias(at)gmail.com
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
For more of my articles, you can find them here.