Sunday, October 23, 2016

What defines you?





After watching this video I said to all the people who hates me, thank you.

The Learning Brain


It is great to know more about our brains and how we learn and remember things. Our feeling  which are "a brain process and not just a heart feeling" as many people think, play an important part in our learning and to develop new skills in life.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

When passion meets discipline

Passion gives you strength, but it won't last forever.
It gives the push from nothing, to anything you want to start.
However, this isn't all you need.
You need to keep going.
You need more than a push.
You will study when you love it, yes, that's right, but we need more.

Discipline, it won't knock on your door and say here I am.No!
You have to go and look for it.
You have to fight and stand up and catch it.
You need to chase it and grab it.
You need to hold it and hide it. 
You need to empower it and practice it.
You need to be able to fail and stand up again.
It won't be beautiful, and you...

Will hate it.
You will suffer, cry, and crawl but this is real strength.
This is what you are looking for.
Your dreams are not only to sleep on.
You need to wake up and work, make them, build them, paint them, talk about them, laugh with them, cry with your dreams; because these are your goals coming true.

When your passion meets discipline your dreams become a reality,  and anything you want will be yours. Your enemy is you, your ally will be yourself.
Be responsible for your own future.
We create tomorrow today, and rest yesterday.

When passion meets discipline it doesn't matter how tired you are.
Your energy source, it is not your body or your mood; it's yourself, your dreams, your choices,  your goals.


If there is something you want to do, remember that your passion should meet discipline to achieve anything in life. 


By Sira Grays Palmers

Korean Learning


안녕하세요 (Hello) was the first word I learned in Korean and today I want to share with you some sites, apps and extension that have helped me to improve and they might be useful for you too, if Korean is the languages you are learning too.


안녕

1. In First place TTMIK( talktomeinkorean) You will never think that learning Korean is hard after using this site, not only the explanations are clear and easy, moreover the site has tons of sources you can use, wonderful phrases, videos, pronunciation and more. This is a 10/10.

2. Korean for a Smart Keyboard It is a wonderful app, I mean "we are learning Korean here let's type in Korean". This keyboard is not only great because it comes with a Korean auto corrector( believe me that it is important) But comes with an English dictionary 9/10.

3. DramaFever : There isn't better way to learn a new language than listening to native speakers, you can't find Korean friends, why not try watching some Korean shows or tv programs? This will help you with it's culture and listening( be aware that some dramas will not be close to Korean reality) 8/10

4. Lang-8: A great place, to meet, chat with and read native speakers. (N/A)


5. Hello Lingo : A great community to make new friends and language interchange partners in any language, born from Sharedtalk. People here are really friendly and are always willing to help. (9/10)


6. Ihaessi: A Chrome extension that provides you a Korean text dictionary. By clicking or highlighting a word. (7/10)


7. Korean.go: Alphabet and pronunciation (N/A)

8. Korean IME: Practice Typing. (4/10) The site should have more features and many a manual, and it's a little confusing, but it's OK if you just want to get used to type.





To be continued...



If you have any other site app or extension please leave it on a comment.

The value of hard work


I learned the value of hard work by working hard.



 Margaret Mead

Never exhausts the mind

Learning never exhausts the mind. 


Leonardo da Vinci

Monday, October 10, 2016

Language Learning Difficulties 1

One of the biggest challenges when learning a new language it's actually doing it, giving yourself the time to start studying and finding the most efficient  ways to do it. There are many factors that might set us apart from this journey. I will like to address some these difficulties. For self learners people, learning a new language (or several at a time) face.

1. "Language block": You can't think of anything in the second language after studying for long periods for time when talking to someone else, maybe because you're nervous, or try to do it "right".

2. "WENT BLANK": You don't know anything in any language anymore, even if you listen to some one speaking it slowly, or they write it down.

3. "I forgot how to say it in my native language": You start forgetting words in your native language, but can recall it in the second language.

4. "It's to difficult to understand no many how much I study": You can't focus on the learning process.

5. "Not enough time": You don't have enough time to improve yourself, you find it hard to make some time during the day; normally studying really late at night or forgetting to review or practice your second language.

6. "MEMORY": You have problems remembering anything, perhaps you aren't using an effective method or find yourself forgetting things you already knew.

7. "Bla bla bla? I don't know what happens to my tongue". Your tongue doesn't cooperate with you sometimes, and you end up saying stupid things, or mispronouncing things. (Or even using a word L3  when you are using the L2)

8. "NOT FUN anymore". You don't find learning this particular language fun anymore, perhaps the reason why you started wasn't clear.

9. "Lack of practice" You find it hard to find someone to practice with, or like the number 5 just not enough time to do so.

10. "I just know many words " You know more than 1,000 words in the new language, however when it comes to make a sentence I feel like a baby. Or you don't even know where to start.


These are some of the most common difficulties, later I'll bring more and add some advice to overcome these problems, a few of them might be a normal brain function or perhaps you aren't using the right method to study.


To be continued...

If you think I left one out please add it on the comments below.

Spaced repetition


Pomodoro : time management


Tuesday, October 4, 2016

POMODORO (I use this technique to study)


Check this technique out, time it's crucial factor when studying, also one of the most important parts, because when we know how to manage time efficiently we could have time to do other activities and dedicate to our families and hobbies. 

Friday, June 10, 2016

Speaking VS Writing

 Is speaking or writing more important when learning a new language? Or it doesn't matter? This was one question many of my friend asked me, and I even asked myself. However if we look back
when we were young learning was so easy, all because we had so much fun and we didn't care about mistakes. Today we feel the pressure of being perfect and want to learn things as fast as possible, Am I saying that Speaking it is more important? No.



In fact there isn't a way to compare these two because both are different ways of communication, perhaps we think writing and reading is useless if all you need it's to understand when and talk when talking to someone in their language. But it will be really hard for that person to achieve a high level of proficiency in a short time if he/she only speaks. In the other hand writing has another "public" and it does help you a lot, even tho you write and understand like a native speaker you might wont be able to help someone who's lost, (that may be asking you for an address) or yourself when you are hungry in a foreign country you might just point to the menu( that's another option).



So I asked my friends to try a new method called Speaking VS Writing, so I asked a group(4 people) to only speak the language they were learning for 1 week only, no writing allowed, they could read if their level in the language let them do it. To another group of friends only write and write, no skype calls allowed, no pronunciation practice, 0 repeat after me for the same period of time( 4 people too). And last the 3rd group will do both (4 people).

At the end of the week the first 4 people were able to have a better pronunciation and learned new words, but they mostly forgot half of those words. They could notice their understanding got better, learned new phrases that would help them in daily life and they weren't afraid of making mistakes or feel stupid after the 4th day.

The second group learned many new vocabulary and their writing skills got better, they also felt like writing essays or reading books they weren't able to do before, they also felt like grammar was a lot easier and got better listening to others.



And in the end the third group improved a lot in both skills, and felt like it's was easier to remember not only new phrases, but also new words and pronunciation. It might be because they used more time of their lives to learn something in different ways, they also learned how to stay focused and to listen to understand and not to talk, because they were talking also writing those new things on only one week they could notice the difference.


How long they were suppose to speak/write? in the new language for 5 hours a day minimum.

They used pomodoros not to feel stressed and other techniques I recommended.

They were all at different levels of learning and divided by skills in the different groups, however this could change depending on the person and the difficulty of the language. The main purpose of this challenge was to prove that both are different skills and important as well.





This girl is talking about how different skills speaking and writing are.
She is a language learner, but she wasnt part of the challenge( random person I found) 


1 man 25 languages


The benefits of a bilingual brain








Any fool


“Any fool can know. The point is to 

understand.” 





― Albert Einstein

Top 50 World's Most Spoken Languages in 2014


I found this interesting video of 2014 of the world's most spoken languages 2014, some of them about today and others have ranked different, could you guess which ones? 

This is a great video to see, I'll post an actual video later showing today's most spoken languages. 


Wednesday, June 8, 2016

There is no end to education




There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of 

learning. Jiddu Krishnamurti

The silence within yourself



Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. Elisabeth 



Kubler-Ross

By working hard



I learned the value of hard work by working hard.


 Margaret Mead


Saturday, June 4, 2016

Learning like a human

While reading an essay about the brain, and how people think of our brain as a computer I came up with this post. The title of  the essay is "The empty brain", It explains how humans are different from machines, and how our memories don't storage things or are programmed to do so. As we grow our abilities improve and language is something we are not born with, babies will learn the language they are exposed to.

So then I though that our brains are simple and at the same time complicated, the way we acquire knowledge is simple even though remembering is another matter. Memory doesn't storage information like computers, remembering things "we have feelings for" is human nature, like to be away from fire because we are afraid of getting burn. In the other hand computer can "learn" or recall things we program them to, however this is not something they can do by themselves.

Of course this is  just my opinion about learning with feelings involved, but when you think about how children develop awareness about their surrounding, social life and how they  face different situations in life, is basically "feelings + curiosity" what helps them to learn more about the world. I have heard people say that they can't learn things because they have grown old, but this is also false, meeting many polyglots that started learning their second or third language at their later thirties, and then being able to speak 7 or 9 by their late forties. So I wonder how this could happen?



Memory Games Young Brain

Hello, It's been a long time since I posted anything. Since my discovery of Shared Lingo to the fact that I am using QQ (chinese app) everyday.

So today I bring some tips for your memory. :) I've try them all.
Just to let you know some of them are really dangerous. (like walking with your eyes closed)


How important is memory for learning? 

Try remembering how to say I am hungry in 10 languages in one day. Is that really important? No.
The important thing is that learning is remembering in time.



Sunday, March 27, 2016

Why memory is important?

One of the most controversial topics in the world is, memory, for a long time, people have wondered how our memory works and how to improve it, for the simple task of remembering your friends phone without checking on your cell phone or to do better at school. As a language student, memory for me has become an important and interesting topic.I found this TED video very interesting I'll continue to talk about my memory journey, but before, let's see what can we learn about memory from this video.


Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Language Community SharedLingo

 https://sharedlingo.com/


https://sharedlingo.com

Let's talk about the community. The Community is pretty nice, however they are really shy when it comes to voice chat, about 13 was the biggest numbers of users in voice chat that saw at the moment, whole community. 

Chatting Rooms: However it has general chat room which more active users about 75 as minimum. Voice chat: Well the quality isn't the best for connecting but once it does, it doesn't crash (maybe because it doesn't have a camera.)

Design: I give extra points for design because it's clean and easy. 

Games: No much to offer only 4 languages available and one game option. (>o> what?) 
There aren't many native users in Korean or Japanese rooms however it might be because it isn't weekend yet.

I found out that no many of my friends know about it, and most of them aren't willing to try because they found someone to practice with so yes the community is pretty short, I think it will grow :) because the site is easy to use, I think you can have on your phone, I haven't tried tho. 

I hope you join the site and help it to become a better place :3 and of course let's learn together. 


This is my personal opinion as a user I haven't been paid in anyway.


Monday, March 21, 2016

English Grammar


I  a wonderful site for grammar, sometimes when writing an essay or even for us that are learning more that one language at time which can be confusing sometimes, I recomend you this site that will help you a lot, by asking questions or even giving to the community you can improve your English language ability, and of course be a better writer. 





This is my personal opinion as a user I haven't been paid in anyway. 

The most disastrous thing...

“The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.” 
― Alan Kay

Language Community Gospeaky


After crying because Sharedtalk closed I moved to this site, the community is pretty nice and friendly however they are a little shy when it comes to voice chat.(Plus voice chat here is more like video chatting.) The quality of the video is good but sometimes crashes and some people have complaint that it's harder to use with some browsers. (Like firefox, perhaps it's just their internet, for me it's pretty fine but well).

One good thing is that it gives you the option to posts notes and you earn badges and points by using the site and completing your profile which I found cool, the only sad thing is that you can only post once every 2 hours it doesn't matter the  language wall you posted you have to wait, however I heard you can solve this with premium.

You can also add as many languages as you can in both your native and learning languages. Oh right we also have levels that reflects your contribution to the Speaky community.

Let me know if you like it and once you're there if you see my profile don't hesitate in sending a message maybe we could practice together. 



Go and check it out if I have forgot something let me know and I'll add it. 



This is my personal opinion as a user I haven't been paid in anyway.