A little place for learning languages
By thomas on May 21, 2009 in Motivation | 8 Comments
Learning a language is like having a pet. You need to feed and water it everyday. You can’t miss days. Many people who try to learn a language do really well at first. They are really motivated. They daydream about being a master of their target language and it gives them all this purpose and [...]
By thomas on May 20, 2009 in Motivation | 9 Comments
My Japanese teacher back in college spoke perfect English. I wanted to speak perfect Japanese someday, so talking with her was always motivating to me. One time I asked her if she could remember what got her interested in English in the first place. She said yes, she remembers the very day [...]
By Peter on Oct 24, 2008 in Motivation | 6 Comments
I need to make a confession. Over the past month or two, I’ve not been studying Spanish or any other language as I should. I found myself neglecting my SRS for up to a couple of weeks at a time. I was not studying any new material. I was not playing My Spanish Coach on [...]
By thomas on Oct 19, 2007 in Motivation | 4 Comments
Recently Khatzumoto over at All Japanese All The Time wrote a great article comparing language learning to boiling water. Khatzumoto’s metaphor reminded me a lot of one used by my favorite Thai forest monk Ajahn Chah. He said:
Nothing happens immediately, so in the beginning we can’t see any results from our practice. This [...]
