Most people who start in on a long-term, time consuming project eventually have to deal with burnout. I mentioned last week that I was worried that I might be going through a bit of burnout currently, and I was right. It hasn’t completely capsized my study time or anything, I’m still finding the time and … Continue reading Dealing With Burn-Out
A lot of language learners talk about the Intermediate Plateau, a point in the course of language learning where improvement seems to drop off and the learner is left spinning their wheels. They’ve gotten to a good level in their target language and can do quite a bit already, but not in any comfortable or … Continue reading The Intermediate Plateau
If you were to jump down to the numbers section for this week’s blog, you would see that last Saturday was rather abnormal for me. I had the day that was unusually free and could spend it basically however I wanted to spend it, and it turns out that what I wanted to do was … Continue reading Language Learning: Work or Play?
Toward the start of this blog, I stated that I had an advantage with learning Spanish growing up here in Denver, where there have been lots of native Spanish speakers around me. From the start I wasn’t left totally unaccustomed to the phonemes of the language, and I already knew how to do things like … Continue reading My Dumb Mouth
There’s a saying I’ve heard a few times bandied about by some of the folks that talk about language learning, which is, “You can’t learn a new language, only get used to it.” I’m not sure who said it originally, or if it is a quote with a traceable origin at all, in contrast to … Continue reading Learning Vs. Getting Used to It
Reading 1984 over the past week has been an interesting experience. It is very difficult to read, which of course was expected, considering the jump in reading level compared to the books I’ve read before, but I’ve made myself jump up levels of difficulty before. I’d go as far to say that it is the … Continue reading Reading Out of my Comfort Zone
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of all the poor, innocent puns, taken far too soon from this world, struck down in the act of translation from English to Spanish. Some may not mourn their loss, some may even feel the world is a better place without them, but … Continue reading Pouring One Out for the Puns
In my daily life, I am frequently brought into contact with people who speak languages other than English. It’s not always Spanish—I overhear conversations in German, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, and others that I haven’t been able to recognize—but most often it is in fact Spanish. And if there’s one surefire way to reinforce … Continue reading Listening to a Foreign Language: The Struggle is Real
I finished Harry Potter y la Cámara Secreta last Friday and had to decide what to read next. Well, not really, Harry Potter y el Prisionero de Azkaban would be next, as I’ve been saying that I wanted to stay with the series. It’s a longstanding favorite that I find myself rereading again and again, … Continue reading The Role of Repetition
There’s this thing that a lot of people do to themselves when setting goals that leads to a self-defeating cycle. They don’t actually set a goal at all and leave their plans nebulous. This causes a whole host of problems, first and foremost being that it’s difficult to come up with a plan for how … Continue reading The Starting Line Mirage
