7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 33
Hi everybody,
I hope your week was marvelous!
This week, I had some personal (good) news that impacted my overall schedule and will do so for at least a few months until I find the right new schedule for me. I also felt down the second half of the week until I'd start my study sessions. I'm loving the #1M1SLC though! It's a nice experience I hadn't had in a while.
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: The greatest struggles of learning languages + how to overcome them — By Victoria Lim
I'm not often a fan of such videos because they've been said and done countless times. This one, however, was great. I loved her mentioning trying to imitate others' methods as the second struggle. I've made that mistake for many of the languages I've given up!
One article I read: What’s the Difference Between Extensive vs Intensive Reading? — By Jonty Yamisha, OptiLingo
This article talks about a topic I love. I often struggle to decide whether I should do extensive or intensive reading and I think it might be because I tend to forget each's benefits. This article was a great reminder, talking about a lot without diving too much into detail (not that I'd have disliked that though!)
One article I wrote: How to Retain Vocabulary That’s Very Different From Your Native Language
One of you told me through my survey she struggled more with remembering words in Korean than Swedish because of how different Korean is to English. This article is, in a way, my answer to how to deal with this struggle. 화이팅 헤이리!
One podcast episode: Language Study Motivation And Repetition Q&A ― By Steve Kaufmann
This episode was quite useful in how to deal with repetitive listening and how to keep it fun. It's not a simple solution but it comes back to what works best: experimenting with different methods and audio resources until you find what works for you.
One tool to try: Tide (Android, iPhone, and Browser extension)
I absolutely love this app. I've used it for over a year to set nature sounds in the background when I read or studied away from my computer but only recently discovered they had a Chromium extension. Since then, I've used it a lot, especially since you can set a timer along. It's been perfect to help me not go over 30 minutes daily for the #1M1SLC challenge!
One quote to ponder: “Learning without thought is a labor lost, thought without learning is perilous.” – Confucius
One biweekly challenge: Set one single daily focus
This one might seem strange at first. When we learn languages, we're often pulled towards many things at the same time. Should we study listening? Grammar? Reading? Speaking? Vocabulary? Writing?
Instead of doing a bit of everything every day, choose one focus a day and skip the rest. Then change the next day. If you learn more than one language at a time, Choose which language is the focus of the day as well. For me, I'll jump back and forth between Chinese and Korean.
Last challenge sum-up:
The last challenge was to handwrite 10 sentences each day. The first week was awesome. The second one, much harder. Switching to writing 5 sentences in Korean and 5 in Chinese took a lot more time than just 10 in Korean. With a schedule that also got busier, I felt overwhelmed the second half of this week. I'm glad I kept at it but I'm also happyI can take a break from actively trying to find new sentences to write!
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
PS: The majority of you chose to keep the same format for this newsletter so we'll stick to it for now but don't hesitate to keep answering the survey or to send me a message if you have any questions!
For more of my articles, you can find them here.