7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 73
Retrieval practice, pointless caring, napping around the world, and last challenge
Hey language lovers
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine was exhausting but still pleasant.
Ever since I arrived back in France, I’ve been meeting friends and family every single day, and I’ve also had tons of work to handle. To be honest, it’s quite overwhelming but I like it… as long as this doesn’t turn into my everyday life for months.
I haven’t had much time to study languages but I did sneak in a few episodes of Kimetsu no Yaiba in German, a lesson of Toki Pona, and 3 translations of Thai paragraphs. It’s not much but it’s something at least.
I’ve also caught up on Anki whenever I was in the metro so I’m ready to add more flashcards now. I’ve even asked for a few recordings on HiNative to add to my future cards.
This incoming weekend will be quite busy so I hope to find more time before then to catch up on all the things I’m behind on, such as replies to emails, comments, Twitter, and some more.
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
Is input more important than output in language learning? — By Phoenix Hou
This video felt right on point for me as I’ve recently purchased Dogen’s pitch accent course for Japanese and have started noticing mistakes in my Japanese pronunciation habits.
In this video, Phoenix mentions the “noticing hypothesis” that states you can’t correct your mistakes if you can’t hear them.
If you’re already afraid of your speaking skills, I would advise against being self-conscious despite what he says, but if you’re already at ease speaking, it’s time to turn back to your errors and see how awful you can be!
📚 One article I read
Retrieval practice - free brochures — Discussion on “A Language Learners’ Forum”
This discussion started with some very useful links to guides on how to use retrieval practice and spaced-repetition and then went on to discuss the importance of retrieval practice.
While it is a very difficult task, retrieval is a very useful task to learn language. It pushes you to dig into your memory so you can remember better in the future.
The key part here is “in the future” because, as mentioned in one of the guides:
“Retrieval should be used as a learning strategy, not an assessment tool.”
Try to recall what you learn often but never judge yourself based on what you could or could not remember. Think long-term, not short-term!
✍🏽 One article I wrote
3 Trivial Things You Shouldn’t Care About on Your Language Learning Journey
Language learning can easily get stressful when you start reading about it online. It either feels like way too much work or like you need a talent for it.
Then, your brain starts acting up and begins worrying about pointless stuff such as whether your method is the right one or if you’re actually making progress.
In this piece, I broke down why you shouldn’t care and how to move on.
🎧 One podcast episode
Ask Benny: What are Language Islands? — By Language Hacking
I love the idea of language islands.
If you’ve never heard of it, this explanation from Benny Lewis is the most on-point I’ve seen in a while but I’ll try to summarize it too. Basically, language islands represent blocks of knowledge about certain topics that matter to you.
You could make a language island about food (recipes, ordering, etc.), marketing (advertisement, engagement, etc.), or even knitting (stitches, weaving, etc.).
As you master the vocabulary about more and more islands, bridges get created as some of the knowledge can be found on more than one island.
Fluency then happens when your islands have become so large they merge together and the bridges disappear.
Take a moment and think about your language. Is there an island you could grow right now?
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Napping around the world
I love naps more every year.
I remember when I discovered the “Nappuccino.” It blew my mind how useful it could be.
So when I woke up from a nap to start researching cultural habits for this newsletter yesterday, I suddenly felt the need to write about it. And there was a lot more than I expected on the subject!
By now, I think most of the world has heard of the Spanish afternoon “Siesta.” It’s common for businesses to close down between 2 and 5 pm to allow for a nap, but in reality, this culture has been slowly disappearing according to the BBC. Still, some villages are trying to revive it. One town has even made it mandatory.
The Italians have a similar culture, called the “riposo” in the north and “pennichella” or “pisolino” in the south. This being said, I suspect it’s also disappearing with the advance of globalization.
In China, the afternoon nap, “wǔjiào” (午覺) is common practice but, contrary to Spain or Italy, Chinese people often do it at the desk, by pushing the keyboard and laying their head in the available space.
Bangladesh seems to have a similar practice, called the “bhat-gum.”
Japan doesn’t have an “official” napping culture but it is still a rather common practice for about 22% of the population, according to Oura’s data.
More interestingly, the inemuri (居眠り) can be seen everywhere in Japan. The concept is to find small pockets of time to close your eyes. Japanese people often doze for a few minutes while standing in the metro or in the bus. I love this cultural aspect and have been doing it for years now.
Finally, there's one shocking napping culture: the Scandinavian one.
In Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, it’s common to let babies take their naps outside for up to 3 hours with temperatures going as low as -10C (14F). And if temperatures go lower? Well, they just put a cover.
This culture is widely spread and, obviously, easily misunderstood by foreigners. In 1997, a Danish mother spent 36 hours in jail for child endangerment after leaving her baby out in New York.
This may be the most surprising cultural fact I’ve seen in a long time.
In France, we don’t have such a napping culture, although taking naps is less and less looked down upon as the years pass and research proves over and over how healthy it can be.
What about your country? Is there a napping culture I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments!
📜 One quote to ponder
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” — Oscar Wilde
💪 One monthly challenge (June Edition)
Bidirectional Translation - Master your language
I’ve decided to replace these monthly challenges with something else from July onwards so this will be our last challenge.
To conclude these, I’d like to try bidirectional translation. I mentioned translation as part of Week 72 so I won’t detail its importance again here. Go have a look to know why I think it’s important.
This month, let’s take one (or more) text(s) in our target language and spend some time translating it, one word at a time using a dictionary if need be.
Once we’ll have the translation, we’ll wait a few days and translate it back into the target language. Obviously, this might mean you’ll have to look up words again and research grammar patterns.
This is the goal. To get a good enough handle on the language and improve it further.
I plan on doing this for Korean and maybe also in Toki Pona!
✅How the last challenge went for me
Practice Elaboration - Get a Better Handle Your TL
I, unfortunately, didn’t get feedback on my last German Journaly entry and I didn’t find the time to ask for some feedback on other platforms like Italki or Lang-8, but I’ll do it this week since I’m curious.
Overall, this challenge was a lot of fun for me. I loved practicing grammar patterns and mastering new words by repeating them in multiple sentences.
I may not do another “official” elaboration challenge, but I’ll probably have another go at it in the next few months for other languages.
How did the challenge go for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
"Nappuccino." I love the idea but the word makes my ears hurt. :) Anyway, the Dogen course looks intriguing. I'll be curious to hear your thoughts after you've been through the lessons.