17 April 2014
My 90-Day Challenge has come to an end! A period of increased learning intensity brought me new momentum in my Korean, and taught me some new learning habits. I can’t say I am fluent, but I feel confident I can become fluent if I keep going. In that sense I achieved my most important goal. It was worth the effort.
Congratulations to all the participants who shared this great learning journey with me and made a breakthrough in their languages!
10 April 2014
I wrote 250 words of Korean today on a rather difficult subject. Lots of mistakes, which were corrected by Korean member at LingQ.
I would rather be listening and reading, but I know the writing helps. It helps me to notice the language. It is quite motivating to see your writing corrected so I hope to do some more tomorrow, if I have the time. Time, where to find the time…
9 April 2014
I am glad that my son nudged me to start writing Korean. I know writing is good for language learning, but I kept putting it off. Now with less than a week to go, I have to write to meet my obligations under the 90-Day Challenge. Using the iPad makes it a lot easier. I can touch the Hangul characters on the iPad screen without having to use a mouse, as on the computer. I can even dictate Korean using the dictation software that comes with the ipad, and then correct the mistakes. And writing does give you a better grasp of the language and makes it more fun to read.
8 April 2014
I don’t know how many people follow these events in Russian but the following exchange provides some insight into the dynamics of the Maidan and yet another example of how Russian TV deliberately edits video to spread misinformation.
http://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-witnesses-say-euromaidan-participants-were-paid/#more-2066
7 April 2014
Language and politics often go together. Language is often as much a political weapon as a means of communication. Ukraine and Quebec are examples. For a fascinating glimpse into the tensions of Ukraine, if you understand Russian, watch today’s episode of ShusterLive.
I was treated to political debate in front of 6 students from Donetsk who had visited Kviv, and 6 students from Lviv who had visited Donetsk, on an exchange sponsored by the Donbass hockey team in the KHL. I was pleased to see Ruslan Fedotenko there, two time Stanely Cup champion with New York and Tampa Bay, and currently captain of Donetsk hockey team. The politicians included the first President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, and various politicians from both Western and Eastern Ukraine.
The most sensible people were the students, who said little, but made a lot of sense, whereas the politicians looked like they are quite incapable of resolving anything or finding a compromise.
Meanwhile, Quebec voters rejected the call of the nationalists, and voted for stability. I have the feeling, based on the students I saw on ShusterLive, that if the politicians and hot heads got out of the way, normal citizens in Ukraine would also prefer stability.
6 April 2014
Demonstrators in the Eastern Ukraine cities of Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkiv have stormed government buildings, waving Russian flags. The scenario has some resemblance to what happened in Crimea. I have no idea what the people in these regions think, how many want to join Russia, how many support the government in Kiev, how many just want more autonomy within Ukraine. I guess time will tell.
The Kiev government is in a difficult position, probably afraid to put down the demonstrators too harshly for fear of giving Russia an excuse to intervene. Putin has created a popular mandate with his program of stirring up patriotic feeling on the one hand, and reducing independent media and freedom of expression on the other hand. I am following these events daily, via the international, Russian and Ukrainian media, with all of the biases and inaccuracies we usually expect from the media. But at least there is some independence of views and some genuine attempt to find out what is happening. I avoid the government controlled Russian media which is nothing more than a propaganda machine, reading from a script.
30 March 2014
As the tension eases a little, at least for now, around the situation in Ukraine, it is useful to reflect on the words of one of my favourite authors, and a major incentive for me to learn Russian, Lev Tolstoy.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
― Leo Tolstoy
“A Frenchman’s self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman’s self-assurance is founded on his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“Kings are the slaves of history.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“To us, it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England’s policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg was wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have the with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“Millions of men, renouncing their human feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows, just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east to the west slaying their fellows.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of ‘greatness.’ ‘Greatness,’ it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong. For the ‘great’ man nothing is wrong, there is no atrocity for which a ‘great’ man can be blamed.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he wished to and because he was very clever and a genius”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power — the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns — should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals…”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“On the twelfth of June, the forces of Western Europe crossed the borders of Russia, and war began–that is, an event took place contrary to human reason and to the whole of human nature.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“The combination of causes of phenomena is beyond the grasp of the human intellect. But the impulse to seek causes is innate in the soul of man. And the human intellect, with no inkling of the immense variety and complexity of circumstances conditioning a phenomenon, any one of which may be separately conceived of as the cause of it, snatches at the first and most easily understood approximation, and says here is the cause.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“And so there was no single cause for war, but it happened simply because it had to happen”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
27 March 2014
Language is supposed to be a huge issue in Ukraine, at least the question of making Russian an official language there. As I follow Ukrainian television via the internet, I am amazed at how well most Ukrainians seem to speak or at least understand both Russian and Ukrainian. I wonder if the same is true in Catalonia, for Spanish and Catalan, also somewhat similar languages.
In Canada, only a minority of people are comfortable in both of the official languages of Canada. As to the question of official status, although English and French have official status in Canada, only one of the ten provinces is officially bilingual, New Brunswick. Quebec is unilingual French and the other provinces are officially unilingual English. Only federal institutions need to offer bi-lingual services.
Ukraine is a unitary, not a federal state, so I don’t know how they can solve their language issues. It appears to be a burning issue politically, but not a big issue in real life.
22 March 2014
An interesting article at our LingQ Central blog shows the results of a survey of those participating in the 90-Day Challenge. Almost half of the respondents to a question on why the want to learn a language, chose an interest in the culture as the main reason. This was the largest group, and almost three times larger than the next group of respondents who want to learn a language for travel. This may seem to go against conventional wisdom. Most people whom you ask will usually answer that they want to learn a language for travel.
I think the difference is that those who say they want to learn a language for travel are not really prepared to put the effort into language learning that is required in order to achieve success. Those people who are serious about language learning, know that success depends on an interest in the culture.
I agree with this approach and always put the emphasis on exploring those things in the language that interest me, rather than polishing up a few phrases that I hope will work when I travel. In fact I have never had success in using the language in a country, when I have not previously invested a great deal of time in listening and reading and learning about the culture. In a way , the following video about my learning strategy reaffirms this principle.
12 March 2014
How is the 90-Day challenge going? I would like to hear from others, from you about your language learning experience!!
I certainly feel my Korean has improved and in fact is gathering some momentum. How about you? Please let me know.
Here is a video on this, in which I also display my Korean, such as it is after 56 days of the Challenge. Remember I did Korean some 6 years or so ago for about 6 months so I am not starting from scratch. My Mandarin and Japanese also help me.
