7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 63
Perfectionism, learning languages for a decade, and greetings around the world
Hey language lovers
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine started with a final push before a client’s main annual event and followed with some tourism and catching up with many friends I hadn’t talked to for a while.
I was the good kind of busy. The kind that makes you feel exhausted yet satisfied.
I didn’t get to dive deep into any language last week but I was psyched to find that the annual Ainu (free) radio course—that I love to start and give up on each year—is back online. The radio episode (in Japanese) will start coming on April 3rd, but I’m already having fun discovering the content in the PDF.
Who knows what language I’ll play around with this week on top of Thai and Korean? Maybe a bit of German?
We’ll see 😉
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 start speaking a language when you suck — By bianca.learns
I actually said “yes!” out loud when Bianca asked the rhetorical question “What’s so wrong about being a language learner?”
We often push back practicing with native speakers because we want to be perfect from the get-go, even though we know that’s not possible. As Bianca said, we need to change our frame of reference.
“We’re not just language learners. We’re also students, coworkers, friends, family members. We have lives. If you make a mistake, don’t let it affect your perception of your abilities.”
Let’s stop fearing to make mistakes, and proudly showcase our ever-improving language skills!
📚 One article I read
The Accent is your Feature, Not your Flaw — By Lily Lin
It’s funny to see Lily’s article reflect the conclusion I reached in my article about improving pronunciation and accent. She summarized it better than I did though:
“As long as your accent isn’t so strong that it impedes being understood, it is maybe not that important.”
Just like what Bianca said in her video too, there’s no need to try to be perfect. Who you are is who you are. And that’s it.
✍🏽 One article I wrote
A Simple 10-Year-Long Method to Learn Any Language With Ease
I didn’t become fluent in all my languages in a few days. It’s taken me a long long time. But it was worth it. This article talks about what happens when you keep learning a language for a year.
And then how it exponentially improves throughout the rest of the decade.
I love learning languages but what also amazes me is how it made me realize I could learn anything I wanted. If you ever hesitated to start or gave up too soon, I hope this piece will inspire you!
🎧 One podcast episode
The Danger of Self-doubt — By The Unconventional Polyglot
This tiny episode was extremely motivating. I ended up listening to it once a day for most of the week so I could really take in the message.
I loved the speaker’s acknowledgment that self-doubt creeps in a few times every week because, well, it happens to me too as often. Despite years of study and the awareness it is possible to learn a language, it’s easy to think otherwise on bad days.
That’s when putting your evolution into perspective helps a lot. Try it. You won’t regret it.
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Greeting practices around the world
French people are well known for their practice of doing kisses—la bise—to say hello. But did you know there’s more than one way to do it? Depending on where you live, the custom can range from one kiss to four or five. It’s also common practice to make a kissing sound while your cheek touches the other person’s cheek.
How people say hello varies a lot around the world and it’s easy to mix them all up.
I thought for years that putting your two hands as in prayer when saying hello was a misconception held in Europe. I knew that the Japanese bowed to greet others (at different angles depending on the interlocutor) and didn’t use put their hands in prayer so I hated seeing people mistakenly put their hands together.
It wasn’t until I began learning about Thailand that I discovered putting your hands together is actually a real thing here. This greeting, called the “wai,” also varies depending on who you greet. The hands will go higher in front of your face depending on how polite you need to be. Monks deserve the highest version with the tip of the fingers at the top of the forehead.
Even for more “common” practices in the West such as shaking hands, there are varieties. In China, it is common to avoid having a firm grasp of the hand while in Germany, it should be a firm handshake stopping at one downward yank.
It seems there are also more “original” ways to greet in specific situations around the world.
In northern Mozambique, people often clap their hands three times before saying hello. In Tibet, sticking your tongue out seems to be a way to greet too.
Whether you travel or choose to live in a foreign country, you’re bound to say hello to people so looking up how to greet strangers is a good habit to take before you leave!
📜 One quote to ponder
“You’ll never know everything about anything, especially something you love.” – Julia Child
💪 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
This week went fine regarding the challenge but without anything extraordinary to say.
I didn’t read much of the webtoon in Thai but kept playing Novena Diabolos in Korean, although a bit less than the previous week—still loving it though!
How is the challenge going for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
I love seeing when two people from different cultures come together for the first time. That awkward moment when they decide if they're going to shake hands, bow, or air kiss is always amusing if only because I've been in that situation so many times myself.
It's also funny how quickly we can become used to another culture's way of doing things. I've been teaching in Japan for a long time; at the end of the semester, students usually say goodbye with bows or the occasional handshake. Then, one year, I did a stint at a local Brazilian school. At the end of the semester there were hugs and cheek kisses and crying. Color me culture-shock-pink because, even though (in this specific instance) Brazilian culture is closer to (my) American culture, I had grown so used to Japanese culture that I didn't know how to react!