7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 58
Hey language lovers,
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
I’m finally done with quarantine and am slowly discovering Thailand since yesterday.
Walking around and going to shops has allowed me quite a few culture shocks and, above all, has also shown me how little I know of Thai. For starters, can someone tell me why I pushed back learning how to count? 😅
I’ve been also struggling to read the script out in the real world because the characters are not written in the same way at all!
You see, most of the Thai script has circles when written. Well, these often disappear when on panels or on many menus so I can’t recognize the letters anymore. For example, the “n” letter (น) actually looks like a “u” without the circles! 🤯
At least I’ll get a lot of practice as I keep walking around outside.
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
Overcoming Frustration in Language Learning — By Polyglot Progress
In this video, Abigail makes a great point of differentiating frustration in language learning and outside of it. Oftentimes, we confuse the two and decide we need to change something in our routine even though all we need might be to take a break.
I’m pretty sure I’ve confused the two before and when I changed my routine I became even more frustrated. If you’re feeling burned out right now, take a moment and think for a second about what’s causing that feeling.
Is it the learning process or something else in your life?
📚 One article I read
How I Learned Spanish by Walking for 3 Months — By Mark Farnsworth
What a nicely told story. Reading it reminded me of the many times I walked around Tokyo with Japanese people, talking about random stuff and feeling the language becoming ever more natural to me.
Mark was even luckier than I was since his interlocutor was there to help him improve!
Of course, walking around with a tutor while speaking isn’t possible for everybody but it’s worth a try if you have a native speaker around. I know I’ll try to find a language partner willing to do so while I’m in Thailand!
✍🏽 One article I wrote
7 Things I Wish More People Knew About Language Learning
Language learning is always seen as something magical by those who gave up or never even tried. They’re stuck with wrongly believing they could never do it.
I may speak a few languages but I’m just like you and the next person. The only things that really differentiate us are that I started before you and found ways to make it fun for me.
In this piece, I tried to explain why you can do it too. Convinced yet?
🎧 One podcast episode
How To Improve Your Pronunciation Fast and Effectively On your Own — By The RealLife English Podcast
Ten minutes packed with good advice here. What more to ask?
This episode was very interesting and on point since improving pronunciation is this month’s challenge.
I loved the idea of not only shadowing but also clapping the rhythm as you listen to a sentence. I’ve done a bit of shadowing but never tried clapping along to make sure I didn’t change the flow of the sentences.
If you’ve never tried it either, let’s do it this week!
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Gifts at Weddings
Weddings in France or in Japan look nothing alike. No surprise there, but I remember the surprise when I learned I had to give money to the newlyweds.
In France, most newlyweds will set up a gift registry where they say which items they’d want to receive. When I say “want,” I mean that’s what they expect to get, and will receive without a doubt.
That custom is quite common in the Western world although some countries, like Germany, expect gifts but don’t have a registry.
In most countries around the world, gifting money is also a solution. There are, however, those where it’s not a choice.
As mentioned, Japan is one of those. So are Korea, China, or Thailand. The amount can vary but some countries have underlying rules.
It’s considered bad luck to offer an amount that can be divided by two in Japan. The amount will be counted in “man en” (万円, “ten thousand yens”) so you could give 23 man but not 24. Why? Because if the amount can be divided by two, then the couple might divorce.
How you give the money can also vary.
In Russia, it’s okay to give the money in a box while this would be considered rude in Korea. In some traditional Greece weddings, there’s even a “money pinning” ceremony where guests pin the money on the couple’s dresses!
📜 One quote to ponder
“The greatest mistake a man can make is to be afraid of making one.” — Elbert Hubbard
💪 One monthly challenge
Record yourself for a month
That’s why in February, I challenge you to record yourself in your target language every single day. Do it from your phone if you’re on the move but try to keep the streak.
Pick one long sentence that you will include in your recording every day.
And if you miss one day, don’t give up and get back to it!
✅How the challenge is going for me
Nothing extraordinary happened this week with regard to the challenge.
I recorded myself asking for feedback on HiNative but only got replies with the correct pronunciation. I didn’t get any indication on what part to improve but at least I have more examples of how it should sound!
How is the challenge going for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra