Sunday, June 11, 2017

Being a Sponge: Realizing Your Breaking Point

How is it going? I have taken a little time off as the past month has been a little hectic with other things taking priority but we are back at it again!

When trying to learn anything knew, it is important to take it in steps. We can't assume to learn everything in one sitting. How much time can you dedicate to one thing before you need to stop? That depends on every session. I like to view my mind as a sponge; if I try to put way to much information in a small setting, it won't be able to absorb all that is presented to me. Instead, if I take small steps along the way, I can retain a lot more information so that it stays with me for the next time.
This is a pretty good representation of how I feel when I can't retain anything else.
A good example of this was when I learned the phrase, "I don't care" in Mandarin. Instead of brushing it aside and learning more things, I took it upon myself to use it multiple times in a conversation. This really helped me to remember how to say it and when to use it. I made sure to keep myself from getting overwhelmed with information.

This past month I started meeting with new students at the University of Maryland. This situation usually causes my sponge to overflow with information. I met two weeks in a row which caused two different reactions for me. The first week I was stressed out and had a lot on my mind. While I tried to talk as best I could, nothing really was "sticking" and I could hardly understand a sentence that was said to me. The second week I came at it with a different approach, was more structured, and even challenged myself by not falling back to English and had a more positive result.
Some notes from one of my previous meetings. No English was allowed.
I like the idea of not falling back. This causes you to learn what is being said with no direct translation. When discussing how I struggle to read handwritten characters, I learned the phrase for short hand characters without any English explanation. This means that my whole understanding of the phrase is directly in Mandarin. Now, I have no way of falling back to English because I never learned it that way.

Here is a quick video recapping what I've done the past few weeks. The time it takes to add the subtitles right now is more effort than it is worth.  Instead, here is a summary of what I talk about:
A few weeks ago I built a new computer, last week I volunteered, and today I want to ride my bike. It is too hot outside so I should drink a lot of water. I thought building a computer was very hard but now I think everyone can do it. Later, I have to buy food and wash my clothes. Yesterday I went running.
Until next time.

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Another Post, Another Talk About Dogs

So if you know me quite well, you are not surprised to know that I have a dog. He is wonderful. I make to let everybody know.

Why am I mentioning this? When I go about learning words, I learn the words that apply to me. I need to know phrases that I will likely use because......I plan to use them. Being as I don't have a cat, the need to talk about cats isn't as high on my priority. This is likely why you hear me mention "kelbi" nearly every video, because that is "my dog".
Look at how tired they are though! You may not know this, but I really like my dog.
I learned very quickly how to say "engineer" not because it is an easy word to say, but because I need to be able to say it. This means I learn it much sooner than would typically be taught, but I also will be using it more than the average learner would.
Hesitated in writing the translations in Arabic and instead just used the phonetic versions.
Anyways, I'll keep this short. I started writing out some sentences and seeing how well I could translate them before having to look up words and I was pleasantly surprised. I've gotten very good in the past few weeks at saying "to swim" (which coincidentally is how long I have been swimming again).

Until next time.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Throwback Time: Realizing Massive Gains

When I first began learning Chinese, I signed up for a class. There are a lot of reasons to sign up for a class; you may not know where to start, you may want a structured outline of where to go, you may want to have friends that you can study with. Overall, everybody will have their own reasons, but mine was mainly to confirm that the pronunciation that I was doing was correct. I had been studying Chinese for over three months and I wasn't sure if my tones were actually correct.

After the class, I grew the confidence to have my first real conversation and start really practicing. I believed I could converse with natives and wasn't as nervous about the situation (granted I was still VERY nervous)

Recently, my teacher invited me to attend a private lesson with some of his other students. I was excited as this likely would be both a new opportunity to learn, and a way to refresh and show him the progress that I've made. Attending the class was a wonderful experience for me. It wasn't due to the learning that I achieved during the class, but instead the opportunity to see how much I have improved since his class.

I quickly saw that most of the phrases and vocabulary that I use now were taught to me through real life conversations, not while attending a class. My confidence to speak was far greater than I realized while watching others in the class speak. Not only that, I noticed that my pronunciation was much closer to the style that the native speakers do than the other classmates.

I can't begin to praise how effective actually speaking with people did for me. When I first began learning how to speak Chinese, I would have to sit and rehearse fake conversations with myself in hopes that I would have the courage to actually go and initiate one someday. Now, I don't hesitate for that opportunity because I know the joy that it brings both myself for being able to speak, and them for having somebody willing to talk to them.

Anyways, here's a short video randomly talking about my weekend.
Until next time.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Heading In The Right Direction: Small Efforts In All Places

A few weeks ago, I mentioned how as of recently, other things had taken priority in my life. I wanted to learn Arabic, but not as much as I was willing to give up other things. I told myself to change this habit and to focus a little time on Arabic every day. These small time frames could be anywhere from five minutes a day to an hour, but the key was to do it EVERY DAY.

Most of the time, these efforts were utilized in a common setting: staring at a notebook and reviewing vocabulary. The parts that were more beneficial were the uncommon settings. Allowing myself to review, speak, practice, etc. in a more natural state allowed me to associate speaking in every day settings. Here are some of those moments:

  • Talking to myself in the car.
  • Having conversations with myself at the grocery store.
  • Translating conversations while in the middle of them.
  • Explaining all the steps of getting food to eating it, while trying to cook it.
  • Posting small phrases on language learning websites to be corrected.
  • While exercising.
  • Conversing via WhatsApp
The big thing is to keep going. Sure, I feel like I've had more success as of late but if I pause I could lose all the progress that I've made. The longer I wait between reviewing the harder it is to remember. Making sure to take a small amount every day, no matter how small, can help to keep that comfort and confidence where it is at right now.

Here is a video of me trying to utilize some of the phrases I worked on this week. Making all my videos on the first take definitely leaves the sentences sounding choppy, but with repetition after the videos I can become more flowing with all that I say.
Until next time.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

When I'm Really Busy: It Isn't a Priority

So I haven't been as adamant about posting in the past few months. Like most people, I'm very quick to chalk it up by being busy with other things in my life. Over the past few months I've looked at multiple ways to incorporate self-improvement. By doing this, it has quickly filled up my schedule to the point that I don't have time to do certain things. Sadly, practicing languages is one of those things that took the hit.

I find this all extremely ironic because I really strive to NOT be busy. My goal is to always allow myself time to keep from overwhelming myself. I value the idea that I typically allow some free time each day to do whatever peaks my interests at the time. Every time that I see something regarding learning Arabic I get envious. I wish I could be able to communicate using it. The problem is that I can easily get wrapped up in the social media platforms (likely one that brought you here) and suddenly the time has been lost. I try to find those small pieces of time throughout the day to practice, but I also need to make sure I dedicate a good focused effort to really make progress. It just can get difficult when you are so busy.

I'm going to change my vocabulary; instead of saying that I'm busy, I will say, it isn't a priority to me. That's because it is true. We like to tell ourselves that we will find time to do things, but there really isn't secret time hidden throughout the day. Instead, we prioritize certain things to take up the 24 hours of our day. I've seen various things take up those hours, but each time I decide what will be a priority. As of late, studying languages has not been a priority for me. I don't really like the sound of that.

Think of the goals, activities, plans, etc. that you would like to incorporate into your life and instead of saying, "I'm just too busy to <activity>" replace it with, "<activity> is not a priority to me" and see how it feels. Exercising and staying healthy is not a priority to me. Staying in contact with a friend who has moved away is not a priority to me. Learning to cook healthy meals is not a priority to me. They don't sound as good than saying you're too busy do they? These are only a few examples, but you can hopefully see the point I'm making; we all have time to do what we want in our day but you have to be willing to sacrifice other things that can eat up your time (watching TV, browsing social media, etc.).

Time to get back on track with this. I really am going to think about making sure I dedicate a little time every day, no matter how long, to review and learn. Sure there may be days that I miss, those days may have something that I have to prioritize higher on my list. The goal is still progress, not perfection. I am happy to currently be on a two day streak of reviewing so let's see if I can keep this up!
Until next time.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

I'm Not the Only One Out Here: There Are Others With Struggles

As I've gone about chatting with people using my languages, I continually mess up with regards to the grammar. Grammar is easily the portion of learning languages that causes the most struggle for me. As much as you would think vocabulary would be a big limiter, it usually isn't. Even if I don't know an exact word I can explain and describe it to a point that my conversation partner can figure out the missing word. For me, being able to structure a sentence correctly to make sense is a bigger struggle; do you put the adjective before or after the noun?

In all reality, it doesn't matter too much. If somebody said, "I ate a big meal." or "I ate a meal big." I would understand them either way. The main point is to speak the words because the more you use the language, the better you will become as speaking it and more comfortable overall.

When other language learners try to speak with me in English and mess up just a tad, I still understand them. I'm never frustrated with them for saying something wrong. I shouldn't be so hard on myself when it comes to the grammar. Every time I say something incorrectly, I feel embarrassed and want to apologize and yet on the other side, I never feel as though they should feel that way.

Last week I was chatting with one of my friends on a call and we started discussing how my Arabic was progressing. She, an Iraqi, was actually able to relate to some of the struggles that I have with learning the language. As I've mentioned many a times, the dialects can be very different from various locations. It was reassuring to learn that even other Arabic speakers struggle with different dialects. I learned when a Moroccan dialect is being spoken on TV there are Arabic subtitles provided to help understand them. They literally have subtitles of the same language that is being spoken. Knowing that native speakers struggle with the dialects was a very wonderful thing to hear.

Anyways, here is a short little bit of me talking about whatever comes to mind. It may not be factually accurate but instead I'm hoping to say a few things with no real plan of what I say. Let's see what happens!
Until next time.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Back to the Grind: Selecting Conversation Topics (Arabic Week 31)

So the past few weeks have been all over the place. Sadly, I wasn't able to post for a few weeks, but I'm back today!

As I've been working with language partners, sometimes the conversations get repetitive or redundant. You can only talk about what you did today for so long before you realize you do the same things quite a bit. This can limit your excitement about conversing if you aren't sure where to go.

When I first started chatting, it helped to have an outline because it allowed you a certain vocabulary to stay within when trying to have a conversation. It helps to make you more comfortable when you only have to talk about one topic to help prepare. These topics can be useful as they are pretty general that you can do a few times without repeating:

  • Weather
  • Hobbies
  • Food
  • Introduce a family member/friend

While this helps at the beginning, later on it isn't as necessary. Your vocabulary can expand so that you can talk about more daily routines without much difficulty, but what about when you want to do more? How can you encourage yourself to continue to grow and have unique conversations. This is my next goal of expanding conversations beyond just formalities about the week. Here are some easy conversation topics that are still easy to discuss but can help generate a more interesting conversation than just "What did you do today?"

  • Tell a story from when you were younger
  • Give a synopsis of your favorite movie
  • If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
  • What is your biggest pet peeve?
These are a little more advanced than just, "Today, it was raining," but help to create a more meaningful conversation. Next week, I plan to tell my friend, Jing, about how I was my high school mascot for three years. I'm guessing that it will create A LOT of questions and a conversation we haven't really had.

This week I prepare for a chat talking about the weather in Arabic. We will see how this goes!
Until next time.

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Well This Got Interesting: Getting In Over My Head (Arabic Week 28)

Last week I got excited as I felt like I was making more progress with being able to ask for a specific dialect. To make sure I kept up that momentum, I took to the language learning programs that I've used to make sure I find people who are willing to work with me using the correct dialect. I took some time and prepared a few phrases to send to people. My hopes was that I would get a few who were willing to respond. That escalated quickly.
I spent a good 10-15 minutes writing that up....
and then I go and get these responses!
I forgot that when you message somebody in a specific language, they believe you can speak that language. Instantly, the level of responses I got back was much higher than I was ready for. This required me to quickly establish myself and try to converse with everything that I had. I'm happy to say that it went better than I originally thought.

Today, I was able to have two different conversations in Arabic with two different people. Both lasted for just short of 20 minutes including about half of it in Arabic. I was happy to learn new words that I will likely become more accustomed to using. My goals were to be able to be understood and to recognize at least one portion that I wasn't expecting. Looking back on both, I was successful!

More than anything, these conversations were a great way to see if what I'm doing is right. They were able to understand what I was saying, would recognize when I needed help, and were more than happy to clarify things that caused questions for me. I'm hoping that they continue into a more consistent language exchange.

Being as I didn't get to record either of the chats, I get to freestyle for a little today. We will see what I come up with. Seriously, I think I mention that I like playing with my dog, Ryan, EVERY week......
Until next time.

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Dialects Are Not A Joke (Week 27)

So in a previous post I mentioned how Mandarin is actually, in my opinion, not as hard as many people make it out to be. There are some differences than English, but some of those differences can actually be easier depending on how you approach the difference. I've mentioned before that Arabic has been more difficult for me and there are definitely some things that I've done to also increase that challenge.

One of those ideas is to try to spend a small amount of money on learning this language. This was intended to show that you don't need to spend a lot of money to learn a language, you just need the right resources. By limiting the costs, I've limited some of the resources I could use such as professional teaching. This required a lot of guessing and hoping without true direction from the start.

Another issue I had was trying to learn a specific dialect. The typical way people learn Arabic is through "Modern Standard" Arabic which nobody actually speaks. This is taught first because it is the foundation you can build off of for other dialects but to be able to speak, you need to learn a dialect. Trying to speak "Shakespeare-ian" is as close of an analogy to the experience you would have trying to speak Modern Standard to a native. Instead, dialects are more the path you need to take, but which one? At first I didn't know but after reflection I finally settled on the Levantine dialect which is most commonly used in the Middle East countries as opposed to Egyptian Arabic which is actually the most popular but used mainly in Egypt and mainstream media. By choosing Levantine, this required me to be sure I was learning the correct words, so I need to filter through all Modern Standard, Egyptian, Moroccan, Levantine, and all lesser used dialects to be sure I'm learning the material I want. This at times can be confusing.
"Kwayis" "Jayid" "Mniih" are three different ways of
saying, "I'm good"......not very similar.
This past week, I was able to find a new resource called Forvo which has recordings of people from different regions saying different translations. This is perfect for me as it shows a map and I can quickly determine if they are using the same dialect and relevant vocabulary for me. I'm really happy with this new resource.

Reviewing what I learned in my lessons I took at the end of last year, I need to focus on incorporating more verb tenses into what I say.
Until next time.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Making Learning Fun (Arabic Week 26)

Last week I started one of my goals to read 20 books for the entire year. I felt it was appropriate for me to read a book about language learning so I tried out, "Fluent Forever" by Gabriel Wyner. I won't go into much detail about my opinion of the book but instead will focus on one part that I've really embraced.

A common trend that all learners are adapting to is the SRS (spaced repetition system). This idea is that as you review things more often it will allow you to go longer without having to study it again. This is a common way to transfer short term memory into long term memory. Basically the goal is to bring something back up to review right as you are about to forget it. This allows you to only study things that are absolutely necessary to be more efficient. There are multiple programs that utilize this system which I have used before but this previous week I began making my own flash cards. Instead of using a pre-made deck of cards, I have to go and find the words that I want to learn. This also is allowing me to better understand what each word means to me. This has allowed me to completely remove English from the flash cards and have them entirely in another language. 
What does this card mean? Unless you made it
(or can read Arabic) it likely won't have the intended meaning.
Not only has this helped me with the spelling, but it has made the experience more fun. Now, I get to choose which picture best represents "sleep" for me instead of just trying to associate the spelling alone. The last few days I have been much more excited to do my flashcards than previously before. I think having fun is important for this. You can't go after a goal if you don't enjoy what you're doing. After a while, that initial excitement will wear off and then you are left with whether you "want" to do something.

A good example for this is my weekly Skype chats I have with my friend, Jing. Being able to discuss things in Mandarin has always been exciting for me. When I first started I was terrified and sat with a long list of vocab words that I needed to use. Now, I'm much more comfortable and just talk about anything that comes to mind. This week I'm including a short 2 minute recording of our chat we had this morning where I talked about what I did over the holiday break. I apologize for the quality of the audio/video combo. Testing out new ways of doing things. Enjoy!
Until next time.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Bring On The New Year: New Goals (Arabic Week 25)

Back when I started, I set a few goals of what I wanted to accomplish this year. Here is a look back on those goals and which I accomplished:

  1. Have a 15 minute conversation using ONLY Chinese
  2. Be able to speak a 5 minute monologue in Chinese
  3. Have a 40 minute conversation using ONLY Chinese
  4. Having a 15 minute conversation with somebody who DOESN'T speak any English
  5. Watch an episode of a Chinese TV show and be able to understand what is happening
  6. Be able to read and pronounce a full page of Arabic whether I know the words or not
  7. Have a 30 minute conversation with somebody that is a mix of Arabic/English
  8. Listen to an Arabic song and be able to explain it in Chinese
Yikes, 4/8 is not too high of a number to be proud of. As the year progressed I learned a lot about what was realistic to ask of myself for these languages. There were times I didn't study as much as I should have but there was also times I studied more than I planned. Had everything gone perfect I feel I could have gotten around 6 or 7 of those goals completed this year, but I'm not perfect nor do I strive to be.

I try not to look at the failures that have happened. Instead, I strive to look at the successes that came about. Here are a few things that I was able to do that was not intended:
  1. Reconnect with old friends who have since started to learn languages as well.
  2. Get in contact with language learners from Europe who are also learning the same languages as me.
  3. Have my blog posted on an international language learning website.
  4. Have a conversation about something that I've never prepared for in another language.
  5. Meet some people from countries that I was learning their language.
  6. Have foreigners trying to help me plan my trip to China.
Now's the time to look forward to 2017. With the new year I'm supposed to make new goals right? I'm not going to be adding any new languages but instead just trying to develop the languages I've started.
  1. Be able to have a 15 minute conversation in three different foreign languages for 15 minutes each (Mandarin, Arabic, and Spanish) without any English
  2. Write an entire blog post without using English (sorry)
  3. Find somebody that I can set up a weekly chat with to have an Arabic/English exchange
  4. Find somebody that wants to learn one of these languages that I can help teach
I'm sure I'll create some more specific goals along the way. Main one is number 4, if you or anybody you know is interested in learning Spanish, Mandarin, or Arabic I would be happy to join them on that journey (I can offer the most tips in Mandarin of the three). For now, here is a video of all three at once!
Until next time.