7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 77
Storytelling, gifted polyglots?, wedding traditions, and new series info
Hey language lovers,
I hope you all had a magnificent week!
Updates
Mine was just the kind of weeks I love.
I had a few wonderful evenings with those dear to me. I caught up with quite a few matters I had been pushing back again and again. I studied most of my languages a little bit. And I started watching a Chinese drama for the first time in a while.
It was busy, but not so much that I felt overwhelmed either.
I was also ecstatic to find new Ainu resources to study from. I even found an Ainu radio calisthenic, also called “Radio Taisou” (ラジオ体操) in Japan. I even have the PDF with the translation! Here’s the audio! 🏃
Finally, here’s another reminder that I’ll be taking off the Challenge part of the newsletter from next week onwards to replace it with a new section.
What, you ask?🤔
Each week, I’ll be diving into a lesser-known language. I’ll share a bit of the language’s history and its grammar basics. You’ll even get to learn a few words!
And for those whose curiosity needs more to be satisfied, I’ll add another letter once a month where I’ll go much more in-depth on one of the languages I’ll have covered.
We’ll talk history, culture, language structure, and much more!
This extra letter will be for paid subscribers only, though, so subscribe now so you don’t miss the first edition next Monday!
From the third one onwards, you’ll even get to ask me which language you’d like me to dive into and write about. I’ll do the research and satisfy your curiosity urges.😊
Alright, let’s dive into what you came for!
7 Bullet Points
Each week, I share 7 things that could be useful to your language learning odyssey.
I hope they can help you improve your journey, tickle your curiosity, and inspire you to keep exploring.
🎥 One video
How to Not “Freeze” When Speaking a New Language — By UrbanEve
I’ve frozen so many times in foreign languages I’ve lost count so this video really spoke to me.
As Eve mentioned, the most important skill to develop to speak in a foreign language is confidence. The more confidence you have, the less likely you’ll freeze.
To develop confidence in your speaking skills, you can, well, speak. To yourself! I do it all the time in Japanese and Korean so that’s why even when my skills decrease, I’m still at ease speaking them.
Another method is to “shadow” sentences. This method, coined by Professor Arguelles, allows you to learn to imitate the speakers’ tone and rhythm, and to get your mouth used to moving as it should in your target language.
Eve gives one more tip in her video so go check it out. You’ll also get her contagious energy as a bonus!
📚 One article I read
Learning languages through storytelling — By Gosia Rokicka
Gosia’s article about her journey of learning Italian and Russian through stories is exactly the kind of story I love: insightful while entertaining.
And it just happens to also be what learning through storytelling is!
As she said, there are tons of resources to learn through storytelling but what matters most is to find resources aimed at learners so they can make the journey faster.
I loved her tip about using The Language TV Club. I had never heard of this resource to practice your language with other people by discussing about TV shows in your target language! If you’re a binge-watchers, this might be for you.
✍🏽 One article I wrote
Here’s Why Polyglots Look Like They Have a Gift
Polyglots are too often put on a pedestal. As one, I should be happy but I hate it. It’s frustrating to be misunderstood and reduced to one thing as if you have some sort of “talent.”
Polyglots have put tons of time in to reach the level they’re at. They’re not good because of a mystical talent, but thanks to the tools they’ve given themselves.
And in this piece, I show you what they are and why you could create them for yourself too.
🎧 One podcast episode
S1E3: You don’t need to overhaul your life — The Language Confidence Podcast
This tiny podcast of under 5 minutes was just what it advertised: a good boost of confidence.
It’s funny to have fallen onto this podcast just days after I reinstalled Instagram on my phone and saw the mountains of “Studygram” pictures of beautifully crafted notebooks and setups.
My handwriting is awful (see below) and I’ve never succeeded in taking magnificent notes I want to revisit. Because of this, I’ve had periods during which I stopped taking notes.
If you’re like me, this might be just what you need to look at your notes with a smile and be happy you took them anyway.
Happy learning! 😄
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Wedding traditions around the worldLast week we dove into wedding attires—well, mostly wedding dresses—but this week it’s time to turn to traditions.
I began researching this topic as I wrote last week’s piece but doing more research revealed a well deeper than I ever thought I’d find. There are tons of amazing wedding traditions around the world.
Some shocking. Some beautiful. Some just plain weird.
We’ll talk about the “weird” ones, those that made me open my eyes wide.
And, my god, there are some good ones.
The Tujia ethnic people located in the Hunan province of China have a tradition of holding “crying marriages.” The bride is expected to cry for one hour every day during the last month before the wedding, in order to get rid of sorrow and start a happy married life.
In Southern Germany, one custom is to have the guest go to the bride’s home on the night before the wedding and break porcelain, so luck comes to the couple. The idea originated from the German adage “Shards bring luck” (Scherben bringen Glück). This custom is evolving, however, and guests now often bring their own ready-to-smash porcelain.
Sticking to Germany, another tradition is for the bride and groom to saw a log during the wedding, wearing their suit and dress! This is called Baumstamm Sägen and, from the pictures, looks quite fun!
In Norway, the wedding cake is even more valuable than usual because it hides a surprise. In the middle of the Kransekake, as it’s called, is hidden a bottle of wine or champagne!
For the Maasai people of Kenya, the bride’s father may spit on her at the end of the wedding to wish the couple good luck. It turns out spitting is a sign of respect for them!
Finally, one tradition in South Korea is to hit the groom’s sole of the feet with a cane or dried fish. I had never heard of it despite learning Korean for 12 years so I reckon this isn’t too frequent anymore but still a surprising one to watch!
If, like me, you’ve now got your eyes wide open, I highly advise you to check this list of 43 traditions where you’ll discover many more!
From cutting neckties, to stepping on relatives, or even kissing the bride!
📜 One quote to ponder
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”— Mark Twain
💪 One monthly challenge (June Edition)
Bidirectional Translation - Master your languageAs informed above, from next week onwards, this section will be replaced with information regarding a lesser-known language.
Until then, here’s what this month’s challenge was: 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, the goal was to 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 had the translation, we were to wait a few days and translate it back into the target language. Obviously, this might mean we might have to look up words again and research grammar patterns.
✅How the June challenge went for me
June was a busy month for me and, in the end, this challenge ended up weighing on me too much. I enjoyed doing the exercise a few times but this is clearly not something I enjoy relying on.
I like translating what I read but the exercise of translating it back into the target language felt needlessly hard as I tried to replicate the exact same construction even though I thought of other ways to express the same ideas.
This frustrated me because languages are supposed to be flexible and this exercise canceled that fact.
Still, I reckon this can be a good method to practice grammar patterns that feel unnatural or to push a language past a barrier so I’ll return to it once in a while.
How did this challenge go for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
Ouch to the wedding rituals. In my country though timing matters a lot for wedding vows.