7 Bullet Points About Languages - Week 66

Cheating, the importance of Culture, and Lucky Numbers around the world

Hey language lovers,

I hope you all had a lovely week!

Updates

Mine was a lot of fun although quite tiring! I didn’t get to study much during the week but still managed to have some fun dabbling in Ainu and translating a Thai book.

The biggest update of the past week was that my plane to Vietnam which I thought got canceled, well, isn’t canceled. So I’m now also trying to learn a (very) few basics while I look for where I’ll settle there for a month.

On some other news, I mentioned at the beginning of the year that a few highly effective learners and I were building a cohort-based course to help you get better at learning skills. It’s still in the works but, for now, we’ve decided to start with building a community to support learners. More on this in the next few months! 😉

Alright, let’s dive right in!

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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

The Halfway Point & How to Keep Going with Language Learning — By Learn English with EnglishClass101.com

This was an interesting video about setting goals and anchors, although I disagree with the final point where the speaker says it’s indispensable. You don’t have to know how many words you’ve learned. Nor do you need to “have something to show for yourself.”

This being said, it’s true knowing how much you’ve learned helps with keeping the motivation. You don’t need to know you learned 79 words this month, but having a look at your past notes is a great way to see how far you’ve come.

It’s also one more reason to keep a notebook!

Side note: despite the channel name, this video isn’t just about learning English, but any language.

📚 One article I read

The Cheating & Consolidating Method — By Emk (on the “How To Learn Any Language” Forum - HTLAL)

I spent much of my first years learning languages on HTLAL forum. It’s filled with interesting methods that are well developed and discussed. In the next few weeks, I’ll share a few old posts filled with insights.

In this one, Emk, one of the most well-known people on that forum and its successor A Language Learners’ Forum, goes deep into how he came to understand French at a very high level.

I love the positive spin he puts on “cheating,” and its importance in his method. Obviously, this is a long-term method but if you’re in it for the long haul, why not give it a go?

✍🏽 One article I wrote

Learning a Language With One Single Method is Madness

I love learning languages and I love discovering new ones but I’m always a bit disappointed when I find someone who says they only rely on one single tactic.

They’re shooting themselves in the foot for not varying their methods.

If you want to learn a language, you need to grab methods from a bunch of people. Pick a part of mine. Pick some part of Emk’s method, mentioned above. Pick some of Benny Lewis or anybody else.

And if you really want to stick to one single resource, let it not be Duolingo!

🎧 One podcast episode

RLEP #280 Why You Aren't Fluent Until You Understand the Culture — By
The RealLife English Podcast

Yes! The title says it all and I couldn’t agree more.

This discussion about the importance of learning the culture associated with a language was simply amazing. Learning a language without learning the culture that goes with it is foolish.

Each language is used in a particular way because the culture impacted it. That’s why learning the culture matters. But it’s also important to learn the culture because not knowing it might cause misunderstanding.

One example they give in this episode is the use of the word “shame” in South Africa. It turns out they use it for cute things to say “oh that’s adorable!” or to express empathy!

🌎 One cultural aspect to discover

Lucky Numbers Around the World

I’ve mentioned unlucky numbers in the past but what about lucky ones? Is there an agreement between countries on what number rocks more than the rest?

Well, as you could guess, no.

In Thailand, 3 is a lucky number but the luckiest number is 9. It is pronounced “kao” (เก้า) and sounds similar to ก้าวหน้า (kao-na) which means “to go forward.” The word for “rice” (ข้าว) which is seen positively also has a similar pronunciation.

In North Korea, 9 is considered lucky because of a legend stating that eight shamans from eight different Korean provinces told Kim Il-Sung his bloodline was to be forever aligned to the number nine. That number is also lucky in South Korea, where 3 and 8 join the fray as well.

The number 8 is actually considered lucky in many countries in Asia (such as Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, or Cambodia) often due to a Chinese root meaning “prosper” or “wealth.”

Vietnam actually considers numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9 to all be lucky because of their auspicious homophones!

While in these same countries with Chinese influences, the number 7 is often considered unlucky, it’s the opposite in the West. In “Christian cultures” such as France, the UK, or the USA, it’s considered lucky because according to the Bible, God would have made the Earth in 7 days, although the superstitions isn’t really connected to religious beliefs nowadays.

Four is also often a lucky number in Western countries because it is associated with the lucky four-leaf clover.

Interestingly enough, the number 13, considered unlucky in most Western countries, is seen as positive in some regions of Italy because it represents St.Anthony in Italy, who is considered to be the patron saint of finding things or lost people.

There are many other lucky numbers around the world I couldn’t list them all but it’s an interesting topic to dig into so I highly encourage you to look for your target language’s lucky number and its origins!

📜 One quote to ponder

“Question what you read. Change is the only constant in knowledge.” – Eva Keiffenheim

💪 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.

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 challenge is going for me

I wasn’t consistent with the challenge this past week but at least I kept with it. Every day I either forgot to do the warm-up session in Thai or the sleeping mediation in the other language.

Still, I’m happy to say I can now listen to the beginning of the meditation and understand it without struggle because I’ve studied it enough. The end of it still barely makes sense because I haven’t transcribed and translated it though so that’ll be for this week!

How is the challenge going for you?

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As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra