Hey language lovers
I hope you all had a lovely week!
Updates
Mine was… let’s say something else!
I’ve had to deal with multiple problems for a project with a client and spent the vast majority of my awake time this past week on it. On top of that, I got some throat problems that are impacting my daily life.
Still, I somehow feel like I had a good week overall!
I’ve dabbled into Toki Pona for around an hour (divided throughout a few days). More on that below but I’m having a lot of fun for now! I found a discord channel where people exchange in the language so I enjoy going and trying to understand a few sentences.
As for Thai, it’s making more sense each day even though I still get lost and scared every time I got out in the wild! Practice makes better so, hopefully, that’ll be the case soon!
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 learn vocabulary in a smart and effective way? Not just spaced repetition — By Zoe.languages
What a great discovery it was to find Zoe’s channel! I absolutely loved it when she explained how useful mind-palaces and other such techniques work but only in the short term.
It’s true many people—even “world memory champions”—advise to use memory palace but such methods can’t work to remember words in the long run.
Don’t count the words you learn and try to memorize them, use the words you want to remember. Write. Speak. Even to yourself!
I loved her example of extending sentences little by little. Have a look, I’m sure you will too!
📚 One article I read
Toki Pona: A Conlang For Minimalists — By YearlyGlot
I fell upon this piece about Toki Pona by accident and felt I had to share it. You see, Toki Pona is a language with a total of about 120 words.
That’s it! Other words are combinations made from the basic 120 words. I actually dabbled a bit in it last summer but stopped to learn Greek for the #1Month1SecretLanguage Challenge.
Conlangs are usually considered pointless but they can be a great entry to language learning. They help build confidence because they are so easy to learn and their communities are very supportive.
The result? I’m back on the Toki Pona train for a little bit. I just hope it won’t ruin my Thai journey!
✍🏽 One article I wrote
You’re Not Bad At Languages, You’re Just Full Of Excuses
I’ve been told too many times that I was “good at languages” or had a “gift.” A few weeks ago, I received one more comment like this and it got to me. I opened a text editor and wrote the first draft of this article.
I’ll be honest, even though I edited this piece, I still ramble in it but I hope this piece can help you see my point of view.
And, hopefully, get rid of the wrong belief that some people are better at languages than you!
🎧 One podcast episode
What You Need to Know About the Fluency Illusion — By Adventures in Languages
The fluency illusion is something that keeps bugging me year after year. I feel I’ve gotten better at a language and then realize I still can’t produce anything. To be perfectly honest, I’m usually fine with this as long as I have reached a conversational level, but I hate it when I’m not at that level yet.
For example, there are many words and grammar patterns in Thai that I can recognize but can’t seem to produce on my own. It’s frustrating as hell!
It turns out there’s some research about the fluency illusion that says about a third of the studying time should be passive and the rest should be active. If you want to produce the language of course! (If you only want to watch TV shows in your target language, more passive study could be the solution!)
In this episode, Emily gives 5 methods to combat the fluency illusion. I loved the idea of trying the Sir Francis Bacon experiment (learning two choruses in different ways to prove to yourself how much you can remember with a bit of cognitive stress.)
🌎 One cultural aspect to discover
To strike or to not strike… or to strike differently?
French people are known to be lazy and to go on strike all the time. It turns out it’s not just a myth. France is the country that goes on strikes the most around the world, with Denmark as a close second.
I was quite surprised to discover Denmark has a strong “strike culture” so I did some more research. According to researchers, it seems this might be because the workers’ demands often relate to the working conditions rather than wages, which creates conversations at a company level instead of at a branch level.
Another interesting fact is that 3 of the first four countries with the most strikes have at least a part of their population that speaks French. (I once heard that the Quebecian part of Canada goes more on strike than the rest of Canada, although I couldn’t find proof of that.)
The common belief is that Japanese people don’t go on strike but that’s actually wrong. Although it is rare, strikes can happen and are usually agreed upon with management beforehand (which seems to contradict the goal in my opinion).
The goal of strikes in Japan is never to disrupt the actual work. That’s why bus drivers in Ookayama on strike in 2018 kept working while giving free rides to passengers.
What an amazing way to go on strike!
Did you also know there was a 10-year-long strike at Chicago’s Congress Plaza Hotel that ended in 2013?
📜 One quote to ponder
“The greatest rewards in life are often delayed. The financial benefits of work and investing. The emotional benefits of marriage and friendship. The psychological benefits of creating something that matters. Meaningful outcomes take a long time to grow and compound.” — James Clear
💪 One monthly challenge (March Edition)
Get lost in a story (Improve reading or listening comprehension)
For March, I’d like to focus on extensive learning rather than the focused learning like we did in February.
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.
For me, I’ll dive into a Webtoon that currently 35 chapters: Villain to Kill. I like the drawings and there are enough images to help understand the context.
I’m also trying to get my hands on the game “Novena Diabolos” in Korean so I can enjoy finding the multiple endings. I’ve never played a visual novel game so it seems like an interesting experience!
✅How the February challenge went for me
Record yourself for a month (Improve pronunciation)
I got quite unlucky since I spent the last week of the month with (still unresolved) throat problems. I’ve had to choose how often I speak carefully so it wouldn’t impact my “normal” life (ie. work and planned conversations).
In the end, I almost regret doing this challenge for Thai as it might have been a bit early on my journey to focus on pronunciation.
I started noticing more intonation patterns this last week as I increased my dose of listening each day. I should keep noticing more things as I keep learning and listening.
I might do this kind of challenge again in the future but probably for languages I’ve already reached a somewhat conversational level. This will allow me more flexibility.
In the meantime, I’ll keep shadowing every new sentence I study in Thai!
How did the challenge go for you?
On that note, it’s time for me to dive into this month’s challenge and read the prologue of my Webtoon! Why don’t you go find what you’ll dive into this month?
As always, thanks for reading!
Mathias Barra
toki! sina pilin seme?
I think I got that right. Anyway, I loved learning Toki Pona. It was such an interesting experiment; I think the key point was that it Sonja Lang wasn't just conlanging for the hell of it, she had a point to make.
I've been thinking a lot, lately, about language learning as a deliberate statement of socio-cultural belief or support. In as much as the creation of Toki Pona was a philosophical act, I think learning languages can be a deliberate act of politics.
Anyway, there's probably a lot more to be said about that, but, in the meantime, I think I'm going to go brush up on my Toki Pona.