7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 22
Hi everybody,
I hope your week was amazing!
I'm glad to announce I'm in the final stage of preparing an e-book full of efficient methods to learn any language, some of which are barely mention anywhere, or at least not enough. I should be able to send it to you in my next newsletter so look forward to it! I'll make it downloadable for free only for a limited time so don't miss out on it! As my first e-book, I've put all I can into making it as useful and actionable as possible. So stay tuned next week!
Alright, let's dive right in!
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.
One video: This TOOL can BOOST language learning! — By Lingua Franca
My god, I hate such clickbait titles. But, hey, at least his video went straight to the point and he made great points about why we should all use diaries when learning a new language. I've been keeping a diary for over three years and have been writing in Korean 3 things I'm grateful for since the beginning. I completely agree with him. And if you're not convinced, his arguments might do the trick!
One article I read: How to Learn the Pronunciation of Difficult Sounds in Any Language — By Luca Lampariello
Luca might be the reference in the polyglot community when it comes to pronunciation in another language. His accent for most of his languages is wonderful. No, it's magnificent. So when he talks about how to improve it, I always listen carefully. In this piece, he gives awesome tips to improve your accent. And that's also why I want to give it a shot this week.
One article I wrote: 21 Amazing Language Tips That Are Unfortunately Rarely Followed Long Enough
I love learning languages so much I often wonder why so many people give up quickly. Learning any language can be fun. I think the reason why most give up is that they haven't made the journey attractive and fun enough. Hopefully this list should help you learn better, faster, and, above all, keep going!
One podcast episode: 10 Tips To Achieve Your Goals and The Final Episode — By Better Humans Podcast
This episode isn't about learning a language but it's the last of the amazing Better Humans podcasts and it deserves to be listened to. It's filled with amazing tips and all of them can even apply to your language-learning journey too.
One tool to try: LanguageTool (Chromium Extension/Website)
I've recently fallen upon this extension and been trying it out. It's like Grammarly, correcting your errors when you write, except it does it in other languages than English. I tried it for Japanese and Chinese and it didn't seem to work well, but it notices a few errors for Spanish and German at least. Not all, but it can be a good tool for a first check before asking for real feedback from native speakers on Journaly or HiNative.
One quote to ponder: “Learning another language is not only learning how to do things with different words, but also learning how to do things in different world.” ― Wahyu Razak
One challenge for the week ahead: Read a short text every day
This week, let's practice our reading. Depending on your level, try to pick texts that are as difficult as possible yet manageable. You can choose short positive texts like I've been doing in Korean for years (with this app), read the news, or read part of a short story. The goal is to be consistent and try to pick up at least 5 new words you'd like to remember, each day.
Last week's challenge was to Create Your Own Text About a Topic You Studied
Working so much on brushing up the e-book and researching how to be able to send it to you, I pushed back most of my language study and ended up creating my text late and making it shorter than I wanted. Life sometimes gets in the way, and it's okay. As long as we always come back to the language, it's fine. I'm looking forward to getting feedback on my text to dig into my errors!
Let me know how it went for you by sending me a mail at barra.mathias@gmail.com!
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
For more of my articles, you can find them here.