7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 55
Hey language lovers,
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine was hectic but also a lot of fun.
I got my visa for Thailand last Thursday so I’ve been running around to meet all my friends before I leave. The amount of work I have is also ramping up. It’s tiring but also exciting to see everything moving forward.
I’ve also been found a new interesting Japanese YouTuber who shares her experience as someone with bipolar disorder. The vocabulary she uses tends to be much more complicated than what I’m used to so it’s pushing my level to new heights.
As for Thai, I’m beginning to make sense of the construction of sentences. I’ve been asking more and more questions on HiNative and each answer helps me make strides.
I reckon I won’t have much time this week to improve but I hope I can finish making my imaginary conversation by the end of the month as planned for the monthly challenge!
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
How to Get Your Brain to Focus | Chris Bailey — By TedX Talks
Chris Bailey is one of my favorite writers. His book Hyperfocus, in which he goes deep on the same topic, changed my life when I read it a few years ago.
If you’ve never dove into the topic, this Ted talk will be a great starting point.
It might not be related to languages per se, but if you master the skill of scatterfocus, you’ll become more creative. That, in turn, will help you create more varied sentences. Above that though, you’ll also become better at going around a word you’ve forgotten in the middle of conversations.
As Chris Bailey said, “The state of our attention determines the state of our lives.”
📚 One article I read
How to Improve Your Pronunciation in Any Language - By Sami Nicholas and Jason Pockrus ( Glossika Blog)
If this isn’t a complete article about improving pronunciation, I don’t know what is. I love that the writers not only gave the concept but also practical tips on how to practice each method.
I also love that they mentioned the usefulness of learning the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). As I mentioned in my article about learning the Thai Alphabet, the IPA is extremely useful to get your pronunciation right with ease.
✍🏽 One article I wrote
8 Useful Exercises to Practice a Foreign Language on Your Own
Even though I’m a talkative dude one-on-one, I feel unease with speaking in front of a crowd or with people I just met. Not speaking well my interlocutor’s language adds to the stress so I prefer to practice first on my own.
Luckily, even though languages seem like they can only be practiced with other people, that’s not really the case.
I’ve found these 8 methods to work wonders for all my languages. They can be as challenging and as short or long as you need.
Some things are better practiced in front of a crowd. Writing is one such skill.
Speaking a language seems like one but doesn’t have to be.
🎧 One podcast episode
Effective Learning with Learning Scientist Megan Sumeracki — By Leading Learning - The Learning Business Podcast
In this episode, Megan breaks down a few beliefs about learning and gives tips to learn better.
As she said, what makes us feel like we’re learning well, doesn’t. And what feels like it’s not helping actually does. For example, rereading is easy but isn’t really useful while retrieving the information is hard but useful.
What surprised me was that there’s research proving that failing to retrieve some information still helps with remembering it in the long run.
She also talked about how feedback matters because, without it, you can become “confidently wrong” and cement the information in your brain.
Finally, I loved that she mentioned learning styles don’t matter. I wrote about it before but it’s still an all-to-often overlooked fact.
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Lateness perceptions
The Japanese are famous for being on time. Their train drivers even apologize profusely when there’s so much as a minute delay. From a 5 minute delay onward, you can get a “delay certificate” at a train station to give at work or school for proof.
Others countries see time more like a concept.
Being on time in Brazil is rare. Being late is considered the norm for most. In France, work or school appointments are strict but being late for social gatherings is accepted. There’s even something we call the “15 minutes of politeness” (which means that as long as you’re less than 15 minutes late, you’re fine).
Then, there are the places where time isn’t even a concept.
The language used by the Hopi tribe of Arizona doesn’t have any way to express tenses. The closest words they have to express time are “sooner” and “later.” That’s why they don’t have a concept of tardiness either.
Going to a place where the relation to time varies from your home country can be very stressful if you expect the same reactions there.
Don’t go to India hoping for your train to be right on time or expect your friends to understand if you keep arriving late in Korea.
📜 One quote to ponder
“Learn from the best, but remember that you can learn from everyone.” — Chris Wojcik
💪 One monthly challenge
Create a conversation from scratch
We’ve done a short version of this one last year. This time, the goal is to make a conversation as long as possible with an imaginary partner. Why not with a real person? So you can create both the questions and answers!
Adapt this challenge to your current skill level!
Last week, I switched my process and created the conversation I wanted to have. I then put it in a table and began to fill in the Thai version while learning the forms and words I needed.
Here’s the beginning of the conversation I created.
This last week of January will be all about finishing the conversation!
How’s the challenge going for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
For more of my articles, you can find them here.