7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 39
Hi everybody,
I hope your week was marvelous!
Mine was pretty harsh when it comes to my mental health. I felt low most of the week and struggled to find the motivation to do pretty much anything. If you thought polyglots were machines who could study forever without struggling, let this be the proof we're just humans. With a new month about to start though, I'm ready to get over the worries that stumped me and get moving again!
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: Polyglot Interview: Language Learning Insights from Hugo (innerFrench) — By Luca Lampariello
Loved hearing about Hugo’s method and his journey as I had never heard of him. It was a lovely interview with loads of good insights. It’s a good video no matter which language you learn but especially if you’re learning French since it’s in French. If you’re not learning French, just click the subtitles button!
One article I read: Learning Languages — the only article you need to read — By Rational Badger
I’m not so sure about the part that it’ll be the only article you’ll need but this article sure is quite complete! If you want a simple article to give you an overview of what learning a language is like, this one could do the trick.
One article I wrote: How to go from Barely Conversational to Highly Understandable
One of the least spoken topics discussed in the language-learning sphere is how to survive the plateau and keep improve from knowing the basics to handling the language without (much) hesitation. That’s what I dove into in this piece!
One podcast episode: Polyglot Stuart Jay Raj On Learning Tonal Languages ― By Steve Kaufmann
I think we don’t hear enough about Stuart. I first met him while at the Polyglot Conference in 2019 in Japan and was amazed by the level he’s reached in what most consider “hard” languages, along with a magnificent accent in each. If you’ve never heard of him, this episode is a great first introduction!
One tool to try: Hibee (Android & iPhone)
I’ve been trying out this app for the past few days and I absolutely love it. You can choose a language and watch 20-second videos with the subtitles being highlighted below. Then, you can check the translation and record the sentence to practice your pronunciation. For tonal languages, the words are color-coded to know which tone is used. Perfect for tiny bursts of study.
One quote to ponder: “Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.” ― Chinese Proverb (学如逆水行舟,不进则退。)
One new biweekly challenge: Study daily 15 more minutes than usual
We like to think we're way too busy when we're really not that much. For the next two weeks, try to add 15 minutes of study daily, no matter what your usual amount is. If you study 30 minutes every day, try 45. If you do only 5, try 20. Since I took a sort of a break, I'll start off with 15 minutes and try to work my way back up to my usual 45min-1h during the next two weeks!
Sum-up of the 2nd week of the previous challenge: Answer 15 Questions in your target language
You guessed it, I didn't do this at all this week either. I felt lost for some time and let my own challenge fly over me while sulking because I let both myself of those of you who join in the challenge.
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.