7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 71
IPA, Reading easy stuff, Forgetting memory palaces, and breakfasts
Hey language lovers,
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine was quite hectic.
I’ve been unlucky to get rain every weekend since I arrived in Vietnam so I’ve turned to studying languages during that time but that’s also made me forget to reply to people and let messages pile up (both personal and professional ones).
Still, this was a fun week with a lot of progress on my translating the second chapter of my Thai book and also some dabbling into Esperanto because why not? 😉
This week will be my last in Vietnam so I’ll try to experience a lot of things before I leave! Hopefully, the weather will let me do so!
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
The Building Blocks of Speech | How Language Works — By Mango Languages
Hell, freaking, yeah!
I’ve talked about the IPA many times in the past and even wrote a full piece about how useful it can be. Well, in this video, Emily explains this again and in a very clear way.
I highly recommend watching this short video. It could change your future language learning forever!
📚 One article I read
On Reading Easy Stuff — By Stelle on the How To Learn Any Language forum
As I’ve been learning Thai through reading for the past month and a half, I can really relate to this post.
While I don’t think there’s a need to do actual maths to check whether you can read a book, it’s useful to know how far above your level the book is. It can help you get some perspective when you feel you’re still awful at the language because you have to look up so many words.
Stelle’s advice to create your own book by writing/typing texts you’ve seen during your actual study is something I really recommend because you know it’s at your level.
Experiment. Alternate between extensive and intensive reading, and your level will skyrocket.
✍🏽 One article I wrote
Why You Should Ignore World Memory Champions' Advice and What to Do Instead
If you enjoy learning, you may have heard of the “memory palace” that world memory champions use to remember decks of cards in second or long numbers.
Well, I’m sorry to tell you their advice, while amazing for their competitions, is useless for most things in life.
This piece combines a lot of what I’ve discovered about the science of learning, what works, and why the “Method of Loci” — as its real name is — is pointless.
🎧 One podcast episode
322: Don't Learn It Just Because It's In Your Textbook! | TROLL 009 — By I Will Teach You a Language
I always thought I was a perfectionist but I recently noticed I’m rather a “completionist.”
I want to finish whatever I start. I play video games to 100% completion. I feel a need to finish any TV show even when I start actively hating it halfway through.
For language, this means I want to learn every word I encounter. Whether from textbooks or just reading from a book, I feel uneasy letting an unknown word pass me by.
In this episode, Olly talks about the “natural order hypothesis” that states we learn grammar and words in a natural order that’s personal to us.
Two children born on the same day in the same country would have a similar level in their native language but there will always be some difference in their handling of the language.
This episode reminded me it’s okay to let some words fly over my head and, it’s allowed me to move along faster in my exercise of reading a book in Thai.
Maybe it’ll be a good reminder for you too?
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Breakfast around the world
Ever since I arrived in Vietnam earlier this month, I’ve been struggling to find food I actually want to eat in the morning.
You see, the breakfast culture in Vietnam relies on food I’d rather eat for lunch or dinner. While breakfast in France, relies on croissants, toasts with jam, and tea or coffee, the most common food item for breakfast in Vietnam is Pho.
That’s why, instead, I’ve been opting for Banh Mi, a Vietnamese-style sandwich, which is closer to what I’m used to.
Looking into this, it turns out breakfast varies a lot depending on the country.
The French word for “breakfast” is petit-déjeuner, which literally translates as “small lunch.” This is why this is a rather small meal in French.
Small breakfasts are a staple in the Western world.
In Brazil, the word for breakfast is “café de monhã” translating into “Morning coffee” and therefore relies mostly on having a coffee. This being said, a staple of the north of Brazil is cornmeal, cooked in a special pot, or appearing as cake.
In Germany, breakfast is similar to what we have in France although they sometimes also add cheese or yogurt with fruits. In Greece, they follow a similar pattern but a common type of bread for breakfast is the koulouri, a sesame bread ring.
In many countries in Asia, however, breakfast is a proper meal.
In Japan, people have miso soup, rice, and often natto or grilled fish. In Korea, the meal is similar, relying on soup, rice (there it’s not white rice but bean-sprout rice to be more precise), and some other side dishes. They also regularly add eggs to their meal.
In Myanmar, Mohinga (a rice noodle soup) and Nan Gyi Thote (a salad made of thick noodles with a curry taste) are the most common. While they are incredibly tasty, I struggle to imagine eating those right out of bed!
Obviously, just because something is “common” as a breakfast style doesn’t mean everybody eats it. I’ve seen people eating cereals for breakfast everywhere around the world and Japanese people sticking to a coffee and fruit for breakfast.
Still, it can be interesting to try the country’s common cultural habits!
📜 One quote to ponder
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” — Henry Ford
💪 One monthly challenge (May Edition)
Practice Elaboration - Get a Better Handle Your TL
Learning a language can be fun and almost effortless but actually putting some effort is what helps you improve faster.
During May, let’s work on this.
One difficult aspect of learning a language is creating long sentences. It’s all good and fun to make sentences like “I eat a croissant.” but can you precise where, or why, or with whom, or any other detail within the same sentence?
The concept of Elaboration is just what it seems like: to expand (elaborate) your sentences little by little.
For example. “I eat a croissant.” could become “I eat a croissant because I’m hungry.” and then “I eat a croissant because I’m hungry for French food.” and so on.
Try to expand sentences you encounter as often as you can.
Add one detail to a sentence you find in a resource or create a small sentence you slowly make longer and longer!
Continue until you struggle, for that’s where you’ll actually progress! Of course, the more fun you can have along the way, the better 😉
✅How the challenge is going for me
This past week, I made my German text even longer and got some corrections on Journaly from a bunch of people. Making sentences is getting easier as I keep riffing so I look forward to seeing what this incoming week will bring me!
How is the challenge going for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
Hi Mathias, two thoughts:
The IPA video was really interesting. I know the IPA fairly well, or at least I did at one point, and I always thought of it more as a research tool than as a learning tool. I guess I've always thought of it as being more-or-less analogous to learning musical notation - you don't really need it to play and knowing it doesn't necessarily make playing any easier, it just makes learning new material easier in some cases. But I'm reconsidering that now, so thanks!
And, about breakfast, c'mon, no mention of either the artery-clogging Full English or the heart attack inducing American standard? More seriously, one of the things I miss from American life is the habit of going to a restaurant for breakfast. I've had countless meetings before work or school in bagel shops, coffee shops, diners, and even the occasional proper restaurant and I can't really do that here in Japan.
Good post!
I look at your posts as mini essays now.
I will have to delve deeper on why you think Method of Loci is a waste of time. (It has helped me a lot though, but i will go through your article. Agree to disagree ✨)