7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 54
Hey language lovers,
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine was exactly what I needed.
I spent some time alone which allowed me to dive further into Thai. I’ve created a YouTube profile for videos in Thai alone and most of the recommendations I get there are perfect. I started watching Vlogs with double subtitles so I get to travel to Thailand before I even get there and notice words here and there.
I also sent my first two “letters” on Slowly to Thai people and included a few sentences in Thai. I still haven’t received replies but I’m looking forward to practicing more!
I started to organize my round of goodbyes to friends before I leave France for a while again. For some reason, I love these meetings even more than the common drinks we usually have. I guess it might be because conversations tend to be deeper than usual ones.
Finally, if you missed last week’s newsletter, I’m building a course about learning how to learn with a few incredible skill learners.
We want to make it as amazing as possible so help us achieve that by answering this short survey if you haven’t done it yet!
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
Why You Can't Focus - and How To Fix That — By The Art of Improvement
After handling tons of different tiny and unrelated tasks at the end of 2021, I realized I was beginning to struggle to focus. I had overcome this in the past but knew I needed a quick reminder.
That’s when I remembered watching this video a few months ago. It’s filled with simple yet practical tips applicable to life in general, but also to language learning.
I’ve been getting more control over my capacity to focus ever since I watched it again so jump in if you also feel all over the place!
📚 One article I read
Stop Idealizing Speakers of Several Languages - By Annika Wappelhorst
What an amazing article by Annika! I absolutely loved how vulnerable she was in this piece. I agree with absolutely everything she says.
No, polyglots aren’t gods. They’re human beings who forget words, give up, and mix up their languages. If you ever idealized a polyglot, realize that person is just like you. They just started earlier and got more practice than you.
✍🏽 One article I wrote
22 Free Tools to Learn Any Language to Fluency
I told you last week I’d make a list of all the tools I found last year. Well, this isn’t the complete list but this one includes my favorite ones and what they can be used for.
Don’t worry, I’ll still make the complete list. For now though, I hope this one will get you started on the right path!
🎧 One podcast episode
The Four Research-Backed Steps to Be Indistractable with Nir Eyal — By All the Hacks
I absolutely loved this interview of Nir Eyal. As he says, procrastination is nothing more than a desire to escape discomfort so time management is pain management.
If you want to be more productive, you have to learn to deal with distractions, both internal and external. You shouldn’t be visualizing your goal because it gives your brain the pleasure of achieving it without actually doing it. Instead you should visualize what you’ll do when you feel discomfort.
If you prefer reading Nir’s thoughts, you can check this article instead.
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
Gift giving in other countries
Everybody loves receiving gifts but giving gifts abroad can be tricky. The gift-giving culture can change drastically based on where you are.
For instance, there’s nothing wrong with offering an umbrella in France, but if you give an umbrella to your partner in China, it means you want to break up (because that implies you don’t want to share the same one).
The same reasoning applies when offering shoes to your partner. It’s considered as a way for the other person to walk away from you.
Here’s a relaxing song about the above two missteps.
For weddings in Japan and Korea, you shouldn’t give physical gifts but money instead. The amount you give matters though! If you give an even number like 20,000 Yens, that brings bad luck to the newlyweds because it can be divided between them.
Unlucky numbers also change depending on the country. In most of the western world, 13 is a number to avoid but in countries in north-east Asia, 4 is the number to avoid (as it means death in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan).
Finally, there are also places where offering gifts is almost forbidden! In Yemen and Saudi Arabia, only close friends give exchange gifts. And if you do have a close friend from there who’s a man, never give something made of silk or gold!
📜 One quote to ponder
“Standardize before you optimize. You can't improve a habit that doesn't exist.” — James Clear
💪 One monthly challenge
Create a conversation from scratch
We’ve done a short version of this one last year. This time, the goal is to make a conversation as long as possible with an imaginary partner. Why not with a real person? So you can create both the questions and answers!
Adapt this challenge to your current skill level!
I started working on my conversation in Thai by learning all the question words (why, what, where, etc.) and finding how to connect simple sentences.
One of the questions I want my imaginary interlocutor to ask me is “Why are you learning Thai?” so I found all the information I needed to create my answer: ผมจะไปประเทศไทยเดือนหน้าผมเลยเรียนภาษาไทย (“I’m going to Thailand next month so I’m learning Thai.”
It’s the longest sentence I ever created in Thai so far, so it felt super good!
How’s the challenge going for you?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
For more of my articles, you can find them here.