(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
Lots of people who are aspiring to learn a language take to the internet with a holy grail in mind: the search for efficiency. Efficiency is a highly sought-after commodity in this sphere of education, because language learning is a slow process by its nature. You can’t sit down, look through a list of words, … Continue reading Efficiency in Learning Words
(This blog is the English translation of this week’s primary blog, which was originally written in Spanish.) Today is my birthday. I don't say that because I want well wishes or anything, but this week’s been busy for me. My friends wanted to celebrate with me and so did my parents, so I didn't have … Continue reading When Life Gets in the Way
(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.) Hoy es mi cumpleaños. No digo eso porque quiero felicidades o nada, pero esta semana ha estado ocupada para mí. Mis amigos … Continue reading Cuándo la Vida Está en el Camino
Something that gets talked about a lot, in both language learning circles and wider academia, is intensive reading vs. extensive reading. Intensive reading is the careful, focused reading of text with the specific intention of learning something, usually with directed questions about the text afterwards, vocabulary word lists from the text, that sort of thing, … Continue reading Intensive vs. Extensive Reading
So at the start of the month, I decided to experiment with my studying methods. Months before, I had switched up my focus to almost exclusively reading, because after the first month I had very noticeable results on not only my ability to follow books, but also my listening comprehension. However, after three additional months … Continue reading Watching/Listening Experiment Post-Mortem
(This blog is the English translation of this week’s primary blog, which was originally written in Spanish.) Normally I write blogs in Spanish for the week of the middle of the month, and this blog is a week late. Last week I was in Chicago visiting my family, and I didn’t have much free time. … Continue reading The Long Path of Learning
Fumbling Toward Fluent 