(This blog entry is written in Spanish. There will be an English translation available tomorrow morning / Esta entrada está escrita en español. Habrá una traducción de inglés disponible mañana por la mañana.) Econtrar tiempo para aprender algo mientras trabajas no es fácil. Esta semana, empecé un trabajo nuevo, y tenía que cambiar cómo estudio. … Continue reading Aprender un Idioma con un Trabajo
After last week’s fiasco for studying, brought on by a doozy of an illness, I knew going into this week that I’d end up being in a period of recovery and stabilization. I had to pause my life for the whole week and had lots of things to get caught back up on, which meant … Continue reading Prioritizing Language Learning
It’s been another six months since the last time I added up the total number of words that I’ve read from books in Spanish. That last time had been six months after the previous time I’d added them up, so at this point it’s a bit of a tradition to look back and reflect on … Continue reading Number of Words Read in Spanish After Another Six Months of Reading
At the risk of being a little meta here, it’s becoming more and more common for me to be at a total loss for what to blog about each week. I mean, I tend to find a topic to write something interesting about (with the possible exception of this very blog), and I always have … Continue reading A Metatextual Blog About Blogging
Something I’m constantly surprised by and reevaluating over time is my perceived current level in Spanish. I’ve talked a number of times on this blog about how difficult it is to judge yourself in an objective way and how easy it is to both overestimate and underestimate your own abilities, and I can comfortably say … Continue reading The Folly of Self-Assessments
(This blog is the English translation of this week’s primary blog, which was originally written in Spanish.) This time of year always feels like it’s the season of challenges. October is the month of tintubre/inktober and November is NaNoWriMo/Mes Nacional de Escribir Novelas, so you can't go anywhere on the internet without finding someone trying … Continue reading It’s the Season of Challenges
(This blog entry is written in Spanish. There will be an English translation available tomorrow morning / Esta entrada está escrita en español. Habrá una traducción de inglés disponible mañana por la mañana.) Esta época del año siempre se siente como la hora de los retos. Octubre es el mes es tintubre/inktober y noviembre es … Continue reading Es la Época de los Retos
It is often a bad idea for productivity to spend too much time “planning ahead” on goals and projects. Planning is usually a smart move, especially for complicated projects. If you’re only looking at a project in an abstract way, you might not have a clear idea of what steps there are to get you … Continue reading Having Restraint When Planning Ahead
A common topic to cover in language learning circles is finding and making time for studying, because doing that is often the key factor in determining whether someone learns a foreign language or not, all other things being equal. If someone devotes either an hour a week or an hour a day toward language learning, … Continue reading Recognizing When to Scale Back Learning
There’s an attitude that I think is immensely important with any sort of long form learning or self-improvement project like language learning that doesn’t get talked about very often, at least not in a way about embracing the attitude itself, and that is learning to accept and being okay with not seeing improvement in yourself … Continue reading Embracing a Lack of Progress
Fumbling Toward Fluent 