7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 62
Dabbling, stupid questions, and coming-of-age ceremonies around the world
Hey language lovers
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine was quite awesome.
Despite having a lot of work, I somehow found the time to study Thai and Korean a lot, and learn a bit of Toki Pona—I even read a few chapters of this simple webcomic.
I also witnessed my brother’s wedding ceremony in Myanmar through Zoom. Hearing Burmese motivated me again to learn the language so I undusted it a bit afterward. I don’t know how consistent I’ll be but it was pleasant to see I could still read the script and recognize certain grammar patterns!
Thai has been going well but I’m starting to realize how much I lack active practice.
My neighbor reached out from her balcony yesterday evening and asked if I could speak Thai. I replied that I could a little bit and we started to talk… except that I couldn’t understand anything past the common “where do you come from?” type of questions.
I’m moving closer to the center of Chiang Mai this week so, hopefully, I’ll get more opportunities to practice there!
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 UNSTUCK in Language Learning — By Soundlyawake
I was hooked from the first point of the video onwards: knowing you will get demotivated.
We start learning with so much energy at the beginning we think we’ll never run out of motivation. Even after studying many languages, I still tell myself “this time I won’t get demotivated.” And each time, I get stuck and feel demotivated.
(Luckily, this isn’t happening yet for Thai, but this video reminded me I should be ready for it!)
The last tip about watching people doing what you want to do (ie. learning a language, even if not the same one) was such a good point too. I do it all the time. Maybe you’re reading me for that same reason? 🙃
📚 One article I read
5 Simple Language-Learning Exercises You Can Add To Your Routine — By Thomas Moore Devlin (in Babbel Magazine)
In this article, Thomas shared some commonly-used exercises but also explained how to actually make them good.
For example, I was never a fan of “Word of the day” types of tools but Thomas is right when he explains you shouldn’t stop at learning the word but also figure out in what kind of context it appears. Creating your own sentences with it could be a great exercise to add to your routine!
✍🏽 One article I wrote
7 Tiring Questions Polyglots Get All too Often
I love being able to speak many languages but am still shocked regularly by some of the stupid or plain degrading questions I get.
Let me be clear. I love answering questions and helping others on this magnificent journey. But I hate when the questions do neither of those things and are hidden ways to find excuses for not having studied enough.
This article was a rant I had been keeping for myself for too long.
Want an example of these questions? Here’s a short answer to the first one:
“No, I didn’t learn my languages to pick-up girls.”
🎧 One podcast episode
Hack Chinese Founder Daniel Nalesnik on How to Master Mandarin & Find the Fun in Language Learning — By The Language Mastery Show
This interview is worth listening to whether you’re learning Mandarin or not. Daniel has an interesting journey that got him to create his own Chinese learning app.
There’s one tip that really stuck with me more than anything else though.
His method to learn with a tutor.
One of his tutors relied heavily on roleplay by setting a situation and letting him talk for 15 seconds or more uninterrupted. They’d do that for a while and then have a breakdown of mistakes.
If you have a tutor, this is definitely worth a try.
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Coming of Age CeremoniesThe word “coming of age” puzzled me for a while when I first discovered it.
While coming of age ceremonies and celebrations are common in many places around the world, it’s a concept we don’t have in France. Sure, we officially become “adults” at 18 years old, but there’s no ceremony. Just a larger-than-usual birthday party.
That’s why I was surprised to discover the Japanese Coming of Age ceremony was more than just a simple celebration for their 20th birthday. Well, it’s not even celebrated on your birthday. The second Monday of January is the Seijin-no-hi. Everybody turning 20 that year celebrates on the same day. The yukata women wear is also a specific one worn for that occasion alone and features a large fur.
I realized only recently the American “Sweet 16” and the Jewish tradition of “Bar Mitzvahs” were also coming-of-age traditions. It got me curious.
Are such traditions common? How do they vary between countries?
Well, it turns out there are tons of such celebrations!
Korea, like Japan, also has a specific coming-of-age day shared between all citizens. It’s on the third Monday of May though and isn’t as widely celebrated as in Japan. These countries seemed to be the only two around the world where the celebration isn’t on the day of your birthday.
In the Philippines, women celebrate at 18 with a large ceremony called the “Debut.” The basic format is for the Filipinas to choose 18 flowers or 18 candles, along with 18 participants, although they can choose other 18 sets nowadays. Men can only do their Debut at 21, but they usually happen without a large ceremony.
While these versions are pleasant celebrations, the ceremony is more of a challenge in many other cultures.
In some tribes of Ethiopia, the custom for boys is to go over four bulls made slippery with dung and jump back down, all that while naked.
If you want a real challenge, though, turn toward the Satere-Mawe tribe of the Brazilian Amazon. When boys turn 13, they need to wear for 10 minutes gloves in which there are numerous bullet ants (whose bite is about 20 times worse than a wasp). They then have to do it again 19 more times!
There are a lot of traditions based on religion, just like the Jewish bar mitzvah. Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, and even Christian traditions have their own.
The more I researched this topic, the more I realized how many versions exist. I highly encourage you to read about some of the more obscure ones!
📜 One quote to ponder
“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” – Malcolm S. Forbes
💪 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 novel game “Novena Diabolos” in Korean and enjoy finding the multiple endings.
✅How the challenge is going for me
I fell into a spiral with the Korean visual novel and spent about close to 6 hours on it this week, despite the heavy work. I took every opportunity to dig deeper into the story and find new clues about the murderers and devils.
I have already succeeded in this month’s challenge since I’ve fallen deep into this game’s story.
I’ve added saved quite a few sentence examples and am now asking people on HiNative to record them so I can add the recordings into my Anki flashcards. I just hope my account won’t get banned for asking for recordings of strange sentences about murders!
As for the Thai webtoon I’m reading, it turns out it’s a translation of a Korean manhwa!
Knowing this helped me speed up the understanding of exposition discussions by looking them up in English or Korean. That way I can focus on what matters most more now. Getting exposed to simple sentences.
How is the challenge going for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
Three thoughts:
1) I think people too often make the mistake of putting the cart before the horse when they think about language learning. What I try to tell people is that, while it's fine to have a goal or a reason to learn a language, you should also just learn languages to learn languages. All that other stuff - making friends, traveling, etc. - comes because you start learning the language and trying to use it.
2) Regarding Coming-of-Age, I grew up on the border of the U.S. and Mexico. A lot of my Mexican and Mexican-American friends celebrated their 15th birthdays with a party called a Quinceanera. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinceañera)
3) I have a question - one of the hardest parts of language learning for me is learning how to read. With Japanese, I still struggle with Kanji, with other non-alphabet languages, learning how to read the scripts seems to take me longer than it does everyone else. Any tips?