After spending a while paying attention to the online language learning crowd, at a certain point all the advice starts repeating itself. Not everyone says exactly the same thing, as different people talking on the subject have different favored methods, but there is a sense that the amount of advice that can be given on … Continue reading The Finite Nature of Language Learning Advice
I can hardly believe that I’ve been running this blog for a full year now. A lot of the time I’ve spent has really flown on by, between real life and putting in the hours to work at improving my Spanish. I’ve come a long way in the year, from my stumbling first few steps … Continue reading Looking Back on a Year of Progress
When doing anything for a protracted period of time, it’s inevitable that some weeks are going to be good weeks, and some are going to be bad ones. You could probably manage to do something for a month, or even six months, and manage to stay consistently on top of the ball and be feeling … Continue reading Good Weeks and Bad Weeks
Repetition is a common language learning topic. It’s something that a lot of people who spend time talking on the internet about language learning are constantly arguing in favor of. Listen to or read something over and over again, keep going back to those same things over time, and keep doing that week to week. … Continue reading Repetition’s Role in Listening Comprehension
(This blog is the English translation of this week’s primary blog, which was originally written in Spanish.) There’s a thought in the United States about language learning, and that thought is that no one can learn any other language unless they live in a place where people speak it. If you live in the United … Continue reading Is Immersion Vital?
(This blog entry is written in Spanish. There will be an English translation available tomorrow morning / Esta entrada está escrito en español. Habrá una traducción de inglés disponible mañana por la mañana.) Hay un pensamiento en los estados unidos sobre el aprendizaje de idiomas, y ese pensamiento es que nadie puede aprender ningún otro … Continue reading ¿La Inmersión es Vital?
When you first start learning a new language—provided that your language learning is going to last for any real amount of time—there’s almost always something specific about that language that catches your interest. Whether that’s the people who speak it, the way it sounds, the mechanical structure of it, or something else, there’s a kernel … Continue reading The Language Honeymoon
Six months ago, after having finished reading Harry Potter in its entirety, I wrote this blog adding up the word counts for all the books I’d read up to that point. As six months have passed, I thought I would revisit that topic, add up the words for the books I’ve read in the interim, … Continue reading Number of Words After Six More Months of Reading
Something fun that gets said a lot in regards to people who know multiple languages is that their language skills improve when they’re drunk. There are very few talents that a person can have that get better when inebriated, and when thinking about it from an abstract angle, I’d be inclined to expect that it … Continue reading Confidence in Language Learning
(This blog is the English translation of this week’s primary blog, which was originally written in Spanish.) When I started learning Spanish, I thought that the most important thing for learning languages was memorization. That was at least a decade ago when I was in high school. At that time, I wasn’t a great student, … Continue reading Memorization in Language Learning
Fumbling Toward Fluent 