7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 64
Fictional dialogues, memory improvements, and informal greetings
Hey language lovers,
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine flew by in a blur but I loved it.
On a non-language-related topic, I got a bicycle monthly pass in Chiang Mai, which has allowed me to move around more easily and stop whenever I see something beautiful (oftentimes, it’s Thai writing 😅). I love it.
My shining red arms and legs aren’t loving it as much though.
On the language side of things, I bought three Thai books with loads of images, short chapters, or both. I’ve been having a lot of fun translating one of them. The first time I started, it took me almost an hour to translate three short lines. I had completely lost track of time as I was looking every bit up.
I’ll get more into these books in a future piece about Thai though!
FYI, these books are one of the reasons I didn’t post last week’s update about Thai: I spent too much time studying and didn’t get around to it until much later. That update will be live tomorrow.
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 I Learn To Speak Foreign Languages Without Talking To People — By Robin MacPherson
It’s been a while (a month or two? 😅) since the last time I recommended a video from Robin. And so, here comes an oldy but a beauty.
Robin’s first tip is a common one: to repeat everything out loud. He doesn’t just repeat the words and sentences but goes the extra mile to mimic the intonation, emotion, and rhythm of each.
From there on, he plays around with the sentences. He manipulates any sentence possible and even substitutes himself in fictional dialogues.
I won’t spoil the entire video for you as he explains it best—and hypes you for it with his energy—but here’s the part I loved most:
“I will always try to become very comfortable saying a lot of things with a little bit of language.”
Yes. Let’s stop counting how many words we “know” and switch to how many things we can say!
📚 One article I read
Become Conversational with These 5 Unorthodox Language Learning Exercises — By Brad Woodhouse
Not sure about the unorthodox part, but these sure aren’t what schools push us to do—which is a shame!—to learn languages.
There are some great ideas here. In particular, I enjoyed the idea of writing scenarios. I tend to focus more on dialogues but scenarios seem like a good idea to expand your vocabulary on certain topics.
This being said, I really don’t think you should learn to “boil the kettle, pump up their bike tire, or chop onions” in your target language unless you need these expressions.
Hell, I’m fluent in Japanese and still mix onion and garlic all the time. It literally happened to me (again) on a call last week! 🧅🤔🧄
✍🏽 One article I wrote
Improve Your Memory With These Three Simple Tricks
Some people think they have a crappy memory. The thing is, I used to be one of those people. Looking at the fact I can speak “many” languages now, it might seem like my memory rocks. The truth is I’ve just spent way more hours studying languages than you could imagine.
I brute-forced my way through polyglottery.
I now know there are better ways to learn and I discuss them in this piece. My favorite, by far, is interleaving. Why? Because most people don’t know about it despite it being extremely useful.
Fun fact: Even those who know about it tend to fall back into “blocked practice” because it feels more efficient!
🎧 One podcast episode
How Language Works | What is Language? — By Adventures in Language
If you’re not interested in languages yet, this short episode might help you realize how beautiful Language is. (Also, why are you here if you don’t care about languages?)
It’s no secret that I love languages but I rarely venture into the beauty of linguistics in my writing. Still, it’s a field I love to look into because it touches on a lot of other topics too.
In this podcast episode, Emily explains the difference between “language” and “Language,” and discusses some of the many ways Language impacts every aspect of our lives.
If you’ve never looked into linguistics, I highly recommend you this introduction! (and the future episodes as well, I guess!)
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Informal greetings around the world
Last week we discussed how people greet each other in the physical sense. This week, let’s talk about speaking habits.
Every language has its own customs and, for most languages, the “official” way to say “hello” or even “hi” isn’t what’s used between friends at all. It’s impossible for me to list them all but let’s go through a few that may surprise you—and aren’t just simple ways to say literally “What’s up?” or “Yo!”
In Korea, a common greeting is to say “밥 먹었어?” which means “Have you eaten?” This can feel strange and potentially intrusive for Westerners but Koreans only see it as a question to know how you are. The habit apparently comes from the 50s to 70s when Korea was a poor country after the war and having eaten meant being well.
Similarly potentially intrusive, it’s common in Thailand to ask where you’re going (จะไปไหน) or where you’ve been (ไปไหนมา) as a way to ask how you have been. A common answer for those who don’t feel like saying is to say “running an errand” (ไปธุระ).
On the other side of the world, there are many ways to ask how a friend is in France and I wouldn’t be able to give them all but here are a few I love.
“Ça gaze?”— Comes from the French word for “gas.” One theory is that it comes from the WWII expression “mettre les gaz” (push the throttle) to take off in rickety aircraft. Most French people don’t know about this origin though (I didn’t either until I look it up!)
“La forme?”—No idea where this comes from but this expression which literally translates to “The form?” is typically used by many to this day. Probably the expression I use most with my friends.
“Ça farte?”— Comes from funny skits by Jean Dujardin in the early 2000s. It grew in popularity when the movie “Brice de Nice” came out in 2006. Most people don’t use it anymore but I still love using it. For the curious, the verb “farter” means “to wax (skis)” in its original sense.
“Ça baigne?”—Literally “It bathes?,” this expression seems to come from the mid-20th century expression “ça baigne dans l’huile” (“It is bathed in oil”).
There isn’t any particular slang to ask how are you in Japanese but friends can often replace the common “Ohayō” (おはよう) and “Konnichiwa” (こんにちは) with “Ossu” (オッス) or “Yahhō” (ヤッホー). The former is a more masculine version and the latter a more feminine one although I tend to alternate between the two depending on who I talk to.
Let me know some of the slang used in your language too! I tried to look for some slang in other languages but couldn’t find anything apart from informal vs formal ways to say “how are you.”
Do you have some intrusive questions or strange expressions like we French people have?
📜 One quote to ponder
“My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.” — Maya Angelou
💪 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.
I like to meditate but I’ve been irregular with it since the beginning of the year. I want to make it a habit again. Why not make it so in a foreign language?
I’ve found this short 5-min guided meditation in Thai with only a bit of text (that I don’t understand at all currently). I’ll transcribe the audio, work on translating it, and then do this short meditation daily!
I might also find another short 5-10 minutes guided meditation in another language but we’ll see about that (and about which one)!
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 March challenge went for me
The March challenge was all about getting lost in a story.
I completely fell in love with the story of the Korean visual novel Novena Diabolos. It’s complex but not too much. There are a lot of extra hints you can get through reading some of the evidence you find. And the choices you have to make to move the story forward keep you involved. I’ve been having a blast and won’t stop playing it anytime soon.
On the other side, I, unfortunately, lost interest in the Webtoon Villain to Kill. It was quite difficult to follow despite the images and I missed having a paper version I could try to follow from the comfort of my bed.
Also, the books I found completely excited me too much to keep struggling through that Webtoon. It’s still bookmarked though so hopefully I’ll get back to it one day.
How did the challenge go for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra