7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 23
Hi everybody,
I hope your week was amazing!
I'm glad to announce my ebook is finally up and ready! It's short yet full of snippets for you to improve how you learn languages (or anything else even). You might know some of the methods but I'm ready to bet you don't know all of them. Let me know which one surprised you!
You can download the ebook by clicking on this link.
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: Why You Can't Stick to Language Learning — By Crashed Culture
I'm really starting to love this channel. Jamie's a language coach and has seen people struggling to continue countless times. In this video, she gives 3 common reasons people give up and how to do instead. I have to admit I've fallen for the first problem countless times. Have you?
One article I read: 10 Benefits of Bilingualism — By Trisha Dunbar
An oldie but a goodie. Since you're reading this, you're probably already convinced of the advantages of learning a foreign language. When motivation drops, however, a good reminder like this one can only help!
One article I wrote: How to Deal With “False Friends” in a New Language
No matter which language you choose to learn, you're bound to fall upon false friends sooner or later. These terms can easily mess with your head if you don't have a system to handle them. Hopefully, you'll find one that works well for you in this article.
One podcast episode: Dual Coding — By The learning scientists podcast
In this episode, the authors of the podcast discuss the importance of combining audio and visual formats to learn anything better. They explain the difference with the famous "learning styles" (that don't actually work). It's a technique I explain in my new ebook as well so don't hesitate to read about it there too!
One tool to try: Polylogger (Website and app available on Android and iPhone)
For those who struggle to keep track of their progress, this app can be perfect. It's a simple place to log in your activities in a foreign language, whether active or passive study. It can help motivate you as well when you notice other people entering their time again and again. No need to feel pressured by them though! Your journey is only yours.
One quote to ponder: “Do you know what a foreign accent is? It’s a sign of bravery.” ― Amy Chua
One challenge for the week ahead: Tweet in your target language
For this week's challenge, it's time to face our fears and write sentences full of mistakes in our target language. The goal is to get comfortable typing the language and accepting that errors aren't bad. I've reactivated an old Twitter account I had set up years ago for languages for this challenge. I plan to use it to practice a lot more from now on and felt it'd be great to do it alongside some of you! Don't hesitate to contact me there so we can connect even more! Here's to my first tweet for this challenge, in Mandarin!
Last week's challenge was to read a short text every day. I fell upon the Korean app "Brunch", a place for Korean writers to write about anything they want, at the beginning of the week and have been reading a story with 19 different tiny chapters on it. It's the story of someone who decided to stop dating people. Since the content is quite simple, I didn't need to look up many words but I loved discovering terms like 홀로 ("single-handedly") or 지조 ("fidelity"). What interesting words did you discover?
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.