7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 51
Hey everybody,
I hope your week was marvelous!
Updates
Mine was quite the ride!
As the year is coming to a close soon (and the many celebrations before then too), I’ve been running back and forth trying to fit everything in.
In the middle of all this, my booster shot of vaccine took all my energy for 2 days and disrupted my sleep so it took me the next three days to catch up and be completely back.
While I was exhausted, I turned my attention to Thai some more and binge-watched The Stranded on Netflix with double subtitles (using the Language Reactor extension). I also spent some time resting on the couch while practicing repeating simple sentences like “ผมพูดภาษาอังาฦษครัข” (“I speak English”) to get used to making the sound and tones.
I’ve also done quite a bit of research regarding where I could go from mid-January onwards. 2022’s gonna be quite an exciting year if all goes well!
Alrighty then. Let's dive 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 @bianca.learns went from beginner to intermediate Chinese in 6 months — By Dan Yo
I love discovering new language learner creators and this interview with Bianca was filled with interesting bits! Bianca studies neuroscience and has learned a few languages, which is an incredible combination. In this interview, she explained many things she’s tried along with what’s worked. I loved her intensity of picking up sentences from movies one by one, even though I would never have the same motivation to do it.
The video they did on her channel, about the impact of growing up bilingual, was also incredibly interesting!
📚 One article I read
Steepen Your Learning Curve with Deliberate Practice — By Eva Keiffenheim
I went back to read this piece from Eva because it’s just so damn on-point. Too often, we focus on “practice” without thinking about it in detail. Well, in her piece, Eva goes all in and gives clear examples to make it stick. To get some feedback for your language, Journaly (writing) and HiNative (pronunciation) would probably become your best friends!
✍🏽 One article I wrote
How I’ve Been Fine Not Improving My Korean for 6 Years
Sometimes Korean frustrates me because I know I could have been better by now. Like, so much better. And yet, I still love learning Korean. I love everything about it because it’s not just a language I learn anymore. It’s something I do. If you’ve been feeling bad for stagnating, I hope this piece will cheer you up and help you see you’re not so bad after all!
🎧 One podcast episode
The Neuroscience of Learning a Language | Tips on How to Become a Better Learner — By The RealLife English Podcast
This was quite an interesting chat about all sorts of things so I recommend listening to it all. If you’re short on time though, start around the 43-minute mark to get to the nitty-gritty about neuroscience and language learning. I loved how the interviewee reframe mistakes as “miss takes.” It allows him to know each mistake is only one take that turns out to be wrong, without forgetting there’ll be more takes in the future anyway!
🧰 One tool to try
Clubhouse (iOs & Android)
When Clubhouse was all the rage at the beginning of 2021, I hated it. Without doing much research about it, I had my own preconceptions of it and stayed as far from it as possible. Recently, my Google Play account recommended it and I thought it could be a good way to get some listening/speaking practice.
Since then, I’ve listened to many Korean, Chinese, and Thai conversations. I’ve also taken part in a guided meditation in Korean or listened to Japanese news here and there. I haven’t actively taken part in any conversation yet but that’s because most happened while I was sleeping, which forced me to listen to replays.
📜 One quote to ponder
“If you want to master a habit, the key is to start with repetition, not perfection.” — James Clear
💪 Current biweekly challenge
Rest! Or Start right now!
It’s the end of the year and you’re either rushing back and forth to prepare for the holidays or with a lot of time on your hands because you’re one of those rare pearls who planned that time well (congrats if you’re one of those!)
2021 was a long year. Many things happened and many others, well, didn’t. For the last two weeks, here’s what you should do:
If you’ve learned a language for the entire year and never took a proper break, take one now.
If you’ve been considering starting a language (and especially if you did the last challenge of finding goals for 2022), start right away!
If you’ve set a strict routine for yourself all year, taking a real break probably feels wrong so you can take a false one. If you’ve struggled to get started and thought January 1st would be the kickoff, don’t wait and start right now with 5-10 minutes daily. Don’t do too much but do something. Just to get you started.
As for me, I’ll take these next two weeks rather off from language learning, only studying a bit of Thai here and there and mostly preparing my departure from France by mid-January.
✔️Review of the last week of the previous challenge (set your 2022 goals)
I’m still not done deciding my goals for 2022 but I’m starting to get a better idea. Chinese is the most complicated to prepare because it’s so “in the middle” and will highly depend on whether I get to travel to Taiwan in 2022.
As for the rest, I’ve divided tasks by regularity (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly.) I’ll keep tweaking them in the next two weeks so they can be as flexible as possible and fit into a lifestyle of moving around in 2022.
For now, here’s a sneak peek at what it looks like:
German will be on break for the first month or so at least so I’m giving myself more time to see what I want to do and how I want to go at it.
Of course, I’m giving myself the authorization to change them all, skip days when needed, and do more when I feel like it.
Goals shouldn’t be a chore. They should be something you look forward to accomplishing!
Let me know how it went for you and if you want to hear more about my goals!
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
For more of my articles, you can find them here.