Hey language lovers,
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine was busy again but I still enjoyed it a lot.
I felt like I finally improved my Thai a bit as I understood more words I was told in the restaurants I went to and in the Thai movies I watched on Netflix. I’ve also been writing sentences on my notebook every day and adding some to Anki whenever I also have the audio for it.
I’ve been irregular with Toki Pona but I still find it amazing every time I study it.
In preparation for my next stop, Vietnam, in a bit under 2 months, I’m also adding some very common sentences in a “travel deck” I’ve created. I don’t plan on studying the language seriously but it’d be great to be able to say some basics. For each sentence I take from my phrasebook, I ask native speakers to record themselves on HiNative and add it to my flashcards.
I haven’t visited Chiang Mai much yet and this week is gearing up to be very busy as my client’s got a big event next week for which I’m helping. Well, I’ve still got time!
Alright, let’s dive right in!
7 Bullet Points
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
Studying 3 languages at the same time 🌿 study vlog — By Anna Lenks
I’m usually not a fan of study vlogs but somehow got hooked on this one.
I absolutely loved the idea of talking to yourself on a specific topic and looking up all the missing words. I talk to myself in Japanese and Korean a lot but rarely stop to do it mindfully and look up what I want to know.
Funny coincidence, I recently recorded myself speaking in Japanese while walking down a mountain! I talked about my worries, things I wanted to change, and plans for doing them. I was missing some words so going through that recording will be very useful!
📚 One article I read
How To Overcome Perfectionism: 5 Simple Ways To Let Go and Find Freedom—By Erin Rupp (Freedom Blog)
This article could be useful to absolutely everybody. We’re all perfectionists in one or more ways. If you tell yourself you’re not, you’re either lying to yourself or haven’t reflected enough. Either way, you need to accept your perfectionism so you can tackle it.
Well, that’s the first step at least: Being honest with yourself.
One method I find particularly useful for language learning is the law of diminishing return.
Too often, we want to keep practicing a grammar pattern or list of words until we master them when the best solution would actually be to move on. When you’re learning a language, what truly needs to be remembered will come back to you. No need to master it right away.
And if you want to avoid the luck factor of waiting, you can manufacture the next time you’ll encounter them thanks to spaced-repetition systems like Anki or Quizlet.
✍🏽 One article I wrote
How to Turn Any Language Resource Into a Useful One
There are resources to learn languages everywhere you look nowadays, unfortunately, most people rely on language apps that are complete crap on their own.
They learn stuff they don’t care about and give up the language before they get to what they do care about.
In February I saw a lot of stuff in Thai that I didn’t actually want to remember. Expressions like “to brush one’s teeth” even though I don’t plan on using it in Thai anytime soon.
That reminded me of this article I wrote last year. I hope you’ll like it!
Fun coincidence: there’s one word in Thai in this article, even though I wrote it many months before starting to learn Thai!
🎧 One podcast episode
Failure to Finisher - How to Master Habit Change and Personal Transformation in 2022 — By Flow Research Collective Radio
This episode was a pure gem. In it, the speakers talked about the problem with goals, their connection to flow, and grit.
I had already heard and read about the risk of sharing your goals with others. The idea is that by talking about your goals, you get the dopamine release, the reward, without actually doing the work. It turns out that’s not just it.
Your capacity to focus and learn decreases.
Since dopamine is also a driver of getting into flow, you have a harder time getting in a flow state because the dopamine has already been released.
I also loved what Steven said around the end,
“Grit without flow is burnout.”
Basically, by pushing and pushing and pushing to keep working on your goals, while dropping your relaxing flow activities—which could be anything from playing an instrument or a game to running or making origami—you risk what Steven called “Goal-related PTSD.”
Fear of setting new goals because of the pressure they make you feel.
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Eating Etiquette Differences Within East Asia
Since I speak—to different degrees—Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, I’ve often thought people in the West didn’t realize how different the four countries—including Taiwan—of East Asia can be. That ignorance is especially strong when it comes to eating etiquette.
Most people know these countries use chopsticks and spoons to eat food but there are nuances on what they are and how they are used.
Chopsticks in Korea are usually made of metal and flat while they are round and made of lacquered wood or bamboo the other countries. Their lengths also differ. If you’re curious, this website goes into more detail about their differences.
What is considered rude varies between the countries too.
In Japan, you should never pass food from chopstick to chopstick as bones are commonly passed like that during funerals. In places where the food is shared, it’s common practice to grab your part with the other side of your chopsticks.
These things are perfectly acceptable in Korea, Taiwan, or China.
Similarly, you shouldn’t stick your chopsticks in your food if you want to eat it. Planting chopsticks in your food indicates it’s now food for the deceased. This is also the case in Korea. In Chinese culture, it’s also frowned upon but that’s because it’s considered to bring bad luck (as it’s a reminder of the incense in funerals).
However, don’t ever bring your bowl up to your mouth in Korea. It’d be much more polite to lean in all the way to your bowl than the other way around. In Japan or Taiwan, it’s the exact opposite. Bring your bowl to your mouth and eat from there!
Finally, let’s talk about slurping!
Most people believe slurping is appreciated and shows your appreciation for the food in Asia (and particularly Japan). The reality is different. Slurping is considered to be the best way to fully experience the taste, which is why it’s common.
The belief that it shows how good the food is, in reality, nothing more than a habit natives have kept. It may have started as a show of appreciation though!
In short, each country has its own quirks.
Look them up before you go there! ✈️
📜 One quote to ponder
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity” — Dorothy Parker
💪 One monthly challenge (March Edition)
Get lost in a story (Improve reading or listening comprehension)
Too often, we understand words or sentences on their own but feel overwhelmed as a world gets developed further and further. It feels fine to miss a few words in one episode but it feels overwhelming when the story progresses and you’re stuck wondering what the hell is happening.
That’s why the goal this month is to learn to dive into a story and get as geeky as you want to.
This can take a lot of forms depending on your level.
If you’re at an advanced level, why not dive into a difficult novel you’ve had on your shelf for ages?
If you’re at an intermediate level, why not read a non-fiction book about a topic you know well or play a game in your target language?
If you’re at a beginner stage, why not watch a dubbed version of a TV show or anime you love? You could also discover a webtoon series fully in the language! You can find Webtoons in many languages here.
Here’s what I’m doing:
Thai: Reading slowly the webtoon Villain to Kill. I like the drawings and there are enough images to help understand the context.
Discover the visual game “Novena Diabolos” in Korean and enjoy finding the multiple endings.
✅How the challenge is going for me
I’ve been having loads of fun with this month’s challenge!
Reading Thai is extremely slow, especially when the font changes, but I’m already learning words more easily thanks to the context. I discovered the word “door” when a character said “Open the door!” and recognized it with ease when it popped up again in the chapter.
It took me a week to be reaching the end of the prologue so, hopefully, it’ll get faster from now on! I doubt it though. 😅
As for Novena Diabolos, I’ve spent over 1.5 hours on it and am still at the beginning but the story is ramping up as my character just found a dead body. I’m saving a few interesting expressions like “to leap to one’s feet” (벌떡일어나다) and “to feel nauseous” (구토감을 느끼다).
Useful? Maybe not much but that’s the kind of expression that gives depth to a situation!
How is the challenge going for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
Love the Dorothy Parker quote!