7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 14
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: My biggest language learning mistakes (and what I'd change) — By Ikenna
This video is perfect at explaining in relatable terms all the common pitfalls of language learners. I like that Ikenna didn't just state the mistakes, he explained them and gave a solution for each. I disagree with his advice of learning wordlists (lack of context) at the beginning and for bundling grammar (better to spread it to avoid overwhelm and learn incrementally), but apart from these, it was a great watch! I especially loved his remarks about purposefully watching videos.
One article I read: 10 Steps to Quickly Learn a Language on Your Own — By OptiLingo
I loved this article for its actionable steps for all language learners. I believe many new ones often forget the importance of priming their brain for the language, which is unfortunate considering how useful it is. Chunking is also highly underrated in my opinion!
One article I wrote: 11 Tiny Things I’ve Done for Over a Decade to Become a Polyglot
Being a polyglot isn't about spending hours upon hours studying a language. It's about noticing how to best use your time to learn and review the languages you have. In this article, I dove into what I think helped me most that's, unfortunately, not done enough by most people.
One podcast episode: Language Hacking Podcast Episode 036 | Lýdia Machová
I've heard many talks with Lýdia and this is the most recent one. I love the way she approaches languages. It's somehow similar to mine as she starts a new language every two years as I used to do. In this interesting talk, I loved her simple explanation of the Goldlist method and why she believes it's better to become at ease speaking a language rather than trying to be perfect. Couldn't agree more!
One tool to try: Audioblogs (Chrome Extension Only)
I've discovered this extension recently but have already fallen in love with it. It turns text you find online into a "podcast episode" just for you and it's all free. I've tried it for 4 languages and the AI voice seems quite good, although it obviously lacks the enthusiasm some pieces express. I'm playing with it for now and will write a guide on how to use it soon but, until then, you should definitely give it a go!
One quote to ponder: "A foreign language is like a frail, delicate muscle. If you do not use it, it weakens." — Jhumpa Lahiri
One challenge for the week ahead: Record yourself speaking the language every day of the week
This week, let's get speaking. Alone. The fear of speaking a new language is one of the most common fears of new language learners. We're afraid of what we'd sound like and struggle to string sentences together. To combat this, let's get talking on our own. Practice for a week and listen to the improvement at the end of the week. Bonus point if you also get some feedback on your pronunciation with HiNative.
Last week's challenge was to learn 10 adjectives and use them in an imaginary conversation. I learned 5 in Korean and 5 in German and wrote 2 short conversations. In German, I had only one sentence that didn't have a single mistake. (It was "Warum scheinst du traurig?") This could seem depressing, but I think that's the first time it happens so I'm pretty happy!
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.