7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 8
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: What is comprehensible input? With Pablo Román - Olly Richards
In this interview, Olly and Pablo discuss what is comprehensible input but also why it works so well and how to apply it as a learner. This method has shown good results and this short conversation is perfect to get a good overall understanding of how it works.
One article I read: How to Stay Focused — Scott H. Young
In this article that appears to be part of Scott's course, he explains precisely how to increase temptations for good habits and reduce them for bad ones. He finishes with a simple exercise you could try to find what to change in your weekly schedule. For instance, I'll try to increase the context that triggers me to learn Burmese by connecting it to the time I practice writing Korean.
One article I wrote: 6 Simple Tips to Make Language Acquisition Easier
In this piece, I went over the differences between language learning and language acquisition. Too often, the two are used interchangeably when in reality their processes are quite different.
One podcast episode: How to Learn Faster by Using Failures, Movement & Balance — Huberman Lab
In this long but extremely interesting podcast, Dr. Andrew Huberman goes into great detail to explain how to learn faster anything. There are so many gems to try out I couldn't even try to list them. I have to admit this can be rather difficult to listen to if you're not interested in how the brain works, but if you can listen to it all, I'm sure you'll want to try every tip he gives.
One tool to try: Rememberry
This extension is a combination of a dictionary popup and a flashcard system. Once installed, you can double click on one or more words and the translation will appear right below in the language of your choice. From there on, you can add it to a flashcard deck you can review directly online. This can work two-ways by double-clicking on words in your native language that you'd like to know in your target language.
One quote: "Attentional space expands and contracts in proportion to how much mental energy we have." —Chris Bailey
One challenge for the week ahead: Dive into a topic
There's almost nothing as amazing as to discover something new. Even better, discovering something new in the language you learn about the country. For this week, try to spend a few minutes every day discovering a new topic from the country's culture. I've chosen to learn more about Korean Zen (Seon). Pick anything you're curious about, like the history of Pasta in Italy, the culture of Neko Cafés in Japan, or even the bread-eating habits of French people. Depending on your level, dive more or less into details. What matters is to learn something new about the country in its own language.
For last week's challenge, I created a conversation in Korean about one advising the other of a method of concentration. Among (many) others, the corrections I received helped me notice my understanding of how to use 역할 ("role") was wrong. Creating the conversation also helped me strengthen my understanding of words I want to master.
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.