7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 68

Advice in Italian, being a crappy learner, and Thai culture facts

Hey language lovers

I hope you all had a lovely week!

Updates

As you receive this in your inbox, I have landed in Vietnam an hour ago! So, I guess it’s time to say “Xin chào!” to you! (That’s “hello” in Vietnamese, FYI.)

This being said, I’m not planning on learning a lot of Vietnamese. I’ll be here for under a month before I head back to Europe. In the meantime, I’ll try to listen to the language around me and pick up a few words but that’s it.

Hopefully, I may come to enjoy listening to Vietnamese and choose to learn more of it but, for now, I’m enjoying other languages a lot more.

I’ve gotten a tad better at Toki Pona last week by writing out sentences in Toki Pona every day. I’ve also started listening to the 2010 Ainu Radio Podcast on top of this year’s course.

As for Thai, I’ve now started to read a bilingual book on top of the other one I’m translating. This allows me to alternate between exhausting-but-very-useful study and tiring-but-even-more-fun study.

The great thing? I feel satisfied no matter which I do!

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

A Coffee With...Luca Lampariello: The Secret to Learning Any Language From Home — By Easy Italian

There’s a lot of discussion about language learning in English but there’s also a lot about it in other languages. That’s why I loved finding this subtitled interview of Luca Lampariello in Italian, a language I don’t speak (yet? 😁)

In it he talked about reframing negative thoughts about language learning. As he says, what you can’t do doesn’t depend on you. It’s not your fault. It’s your system’s fault. Changing the system can be enough to solve that.

He also talked about the importance of developing a passion for the language you learn. Notice the wording here. “Developing.” It’s not something you have or not. It’s something you need to work on to get.

Finally, this isn’t about the content but something worth mentioning. This video is another example of the importance of context. Even though I barely know a few words in Italian, by the end of the video, I had learned that “ma” means “but” in Italian.

Another reminder that repetition with context helps with learning words!

📚 One article I read

The multi-track approach — By Iguanamon (on the How To Learn Any Language forum)

It’s interesting to read through pieces of advice given a long time ago. Some age well, some don’t. This one was on the right side. Iguanamon’s advice still applies really well 8 years after he posted it. The only thing is that Lang-8 is closed for new subscriptions but you can replace it with Journaly or HiNative.

I advise you to read the entire advice but if you’re in a rush, here’s part of his post that sums up the idea.

“If you have an hour a day to devote to language learning, try to take just 10 minutes or so out of that hour of structured study to puzzle out some native text, at least a couple of days a week- the more the better. Don't worry that it doesn't make much sense at first or if you only have a vague gist of an understanding. What matters is critical mass.”

That part is what matters most.

Time will allow you to get to that critical mass.

✍🏽 One article I wrote

How to Stop Being a Crappy Language Learner

Most people think they suck at learning languages. I’ll be dead before anyone convinces me that’s not a stupid belief.

It’s a stupid belief, but it’s a tough one to get rid of. I used to think I was bad at languages too. Hell, I even made a point to not try to get better. I’m now glad I’ve left this belief behind and hope to shake it from as many people as possible. This article is my latest try at that.

In this piece, I started with actual research that’s proven how incredible our brain is and then moved on to what makes a great language learner, well, great.

The great thing?

All of us can do become one.

🎧 One podcast episode

#105 The Story Learning Method with Olly Richards — By The Level Up English Podcast

This was an amazing interview of Olly Richards filled with great tips but here are my favorite titbits:

• Some people can have conversations without trouble but struggle with any random radio show or new topic because they lack the vocabulary. Reading is a great way to encounter new words and remember them with loads of context.

• If you’re serious about learning a language, you’ll spend time on it. Olly says you need a daily hour of study and I disagreed because I think it depends on your goals and expectations. However, he follows up with saying it’s about matching the time you spend with your ambition. That, I definitely agree with.

• Olly also mentions the concept of “Language islands,” the idea of learning to handle topic by topic well. By focusing on a certain type of vocabulary about, for example, philosophy or knitting, then the journey becomes easier.

🌎 One cultural aspect to discover

Random Thai Culture Facts

As I just left Thailand, I figured it’d be a great opportunity to share a few important cultural aspects found in Thailand. Some are related to the language, some aren’t.

Let’s start with the one that shocked me a while back and that I haven’t found an opportunity to share yet.

There are two ways to tell the time in Thailand. There’s the worldwide-used 24 hours but also another system based on the 6-hour clock. This method, which was also used in Laos and Cambodia until the French protectorate, has been slightly updated now and goes like this now:

• From midnight to noon, hours are counted “normally,” i.e. 5 am or 11 am.

• From 1 pm to 6 pm, hours are counted “normally,” i.e. 1 pm or 6 pm.

• From 7 pm to 11 pm, hours start back from 1. This means 9 pm is said as 3 ทุ่ม (“3 tum”), tum being the counter for that part of the day.

While people understand and also use the 24-hour clock, this method of telling time seems to be more common in familiar settings.

I haven’t been able to find a single other country using a way to tell time different from the “normal” 24 hours.

Another interesting aspect of Thai culture is the Jai Yen (ใจเย็น).

Jai Yen means “cool heart.” It’s the conceptualization of conflict avoidance found in Thai Culture. The idea is simple and can be also found in some other cultures, like in Japan for example.

Basically, Jai Yen is a way of living life by avoiding conflict with others. This can go to a frustrating extent for people from countries where debates are common practice (France comes to mind for example).

This aspect of the Thai culture links well with the common Thai expression mai pen rai (ไม่เป็นไร), which literally means “it isn’t anything.” Thai people use this expression regularly to indicate something shouldn’t matter, that they shouldn’t overthink it, and move on. For those of you who understand Japanese, this is similar to the shikata nai/shōganai (仕方ない・しょうがない).

Finally, there are many festivals in Thailand (here are just 15 of them), and most of them fall into one of two categories: festivals for the King/Royalty or Buddhist festivals. In fact, Thai people are highly spiritual and many beliefs stick to this day.

For example, as I mentioned before, many barbers close on Wednesday because it’s thought to bring bad luck. Similarly, there are spirit houses all around Thailand to keep the spirits happy and avoid unfortunate events.

The Thai culture, like most cultures in the world, is full of wonders! If you’re curious, I invite you to check this website out.

📜 One quote to ponder

“If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, to all the rooms inside.” - Khaled Hosseini

💪 One monthly challenge (April Edition)

Add a 5-10 minute task to your daily routine — Live the language

It’s easy to fall into the habit of considering the language as something you study and nothing more but this is wrong. Languages are alive. You are too.

If you want to keep learning the language, you have to make it a part of your life, outside of your “study time”.

For this month, let’s do just that by adding a short task to your routine. It doesn’t have to be long. Hell, if it’s short, it’s easier to fit in your probably already busy schedule.

Journal, meditate, follow a workout video in your target language. If you’re a reader, read for a few minutes daily.

FYI, if you meditate with an app like Headspace, Calm, or Meditopia, check if they have sessions in your target language. They do for most of the Western European languages and some Asian languages.

✅How the challenge is going for me

I’ve been listening to an evening meditation I barely understand in my not-so-secret second focus language. Each night, my brain feels more at ease listening to that language and some words make more and more sense.

This last week, I’ll try to look up a few words that keep on bugging me each evening so, hopefully, that’ll make it all easier!

How is the challenge going for you?

---

As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra