Generalismo

For those of you who are studying languages, allow me to introduce Unilang.org. This site has less organized lessons than livemocha.com but I get the feeling that these people are much more die hard fans of languages who are learning for fun. There are a lot of people there with 3 or more languages under their belt, and there is almost always someone in the chat room. There are resources for many languages. One that I found for German, for instance, are stories with the English and German next to each other, line by line. The range of languages here is also much more wide. They have many user submitted exercises and they also have their own wiki.

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This morning’s recipe:

Grind 4 tablespoons coffee. (Or use already ground, like I did :D) Place in filter in coffee machine and fill with two cups water. Press the “On” button. Wait and enjoy the dripping/bubbling noise. Pour in cup with creamer. Drink. Enjoy.

Oh yeah, and get a free Iced Coffee at Dunkin Donuts on the 15th at participating stores! I’ll have to put that up in a post all by itself so people see it even if they don’t read my entire posts.

Posted by Bonnie under deals, food, languages, learning, recipe, spanish, world

[2] Comments

I am getting fed up with getting ims, emails, and now, seeing even ads with the spelling of “ur” for You’re/Your and “U’ for you. To some people it isn’t a big deal, either to use it or to see it, but it’s soo widespread now. Oops. Did I transgress the laws of spelling when I said “soooo” with more than the called for amount of ‘O’s? Ok, so I guess we’re all guilty of breaking the rules sometimes. I guess the reason I’m not yet accustomed to spelling words that way is because I’m not a mobile messenger. I didn’t even have any messengers installed on my new laptop until a few weeks ago I downloaded Skype.

By the way, for any of you who have Skype or are going to get it, are you aware that in their user agreement they have the rights to record all audio, text, or video communication that is received or sent by Skype? I think they can use it as they see fit, or however they word it.

I have to yet again mention LiveMocha.com even though it feels like I blog about this once a week. I usually go there at least once a day and do some Spanish (and lately German.) It’s a great way to learn a language. If you’ve been thinking about taking up a language , why not go and check it out? I was thinking I wanted to learn French, but I discovered learning how to pronounce certain sounds that don’t occur in our language was too painstaking. So I decided German was a better choice. And then, when I read up in the book I have on it I discovered that the definite article changes based on the context! (In these three sentences: The man is here. The man’s hat is here. I gave the man a hat. I see the man. The definite article (the) would be different in all three cases!). For now though, learning German articles beats learning French sounds.

For anyone here that does visit live mocha, look me up: Authorized77 One note of interest - the site doesn’t function well with the browser Opera. I use Firefox when visiting livemocha and it works fine.

Be careful who you talk with, though, and be aware that cultural and language differences might result in some quite strange conversation. Someone from Brazil asked me if Americans shower every day, and do they smell OK? I later found out from a different, more globally aware Brazilian, that there is a myth in some parts of South America and in Africa that people in cold climates don’t shower.

One more word on language learning. Don’t worry if all you learn is a smattering. I know that I want to be able to converse in Spanish and my goal is to become at least halfway fluent. But I don’t really have an immediate use for German, I may just learn a bit and then move on to something else. Learning languages is almost like learning music. Once you learn how language works, it’s much easier to learn how to speak more than one. It’s not quite as simple as it sounds, but it is a whole lot easier if you know about the structure of languages - even your own language. Hey, if I had studied more English in high school I would have already know about all sorts of things that I am just starting to learn in Spanish! So whatever you find yourself studying, just apply yourself and chances are, whether you remember it or not, it’ll help out down the road. When you go over drills of verbs, or multiplication tables, or memory verses, or anything else, you may not be consciously memorizing it, but it often happens that later on it just pops into your mind when needed. And I’m convinced the more you do, the better your brain becomes at memorizing.

So if you’re bored, and want something relaxing to do? Go over your verb conjugations and don’t make it a point to memorize them. Just read them, study them, make observations if you can, and let the material seep into your brain while you’re having a fun time. If you forget them, it doesn’t matter. You can’t erase what you continually put into you.

Do I sound nuts? If so, you’re drawing a completely logical conclusion

I’ve been struck with a desire to write more music. I know I’m not that great of a flat picker in the big realm of flat pickers, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be really good. Good, maybe someday, but not really good. So I got to thinking, if I’m not going to be up there playin’ with the big boys, I may as well try to do something behind the scenes. If song writing is an art that can be learned, I want to learn what it takes. Someone told me once to write every day. If I had done that since he told me, I’d have just about 100 songs written I reckon. Out of those 100, I’m pretty sure that ONE would have been decent enough to play. But no, I’ve let a lot of times pass, a lot of emotion just waste away without one word to describe it. Like painting, every piece doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. If it sharpens your skills in some way then it wasn’t a failure. So if you feel the urge to write a song, don’t push it away because it might not be any good. Of course, it might not be any good (I’ve written loads of the bad ones!) but just write it down, get the chords down, etc, maybe record it in *“rough draft style” and put it away. Ah, yes, it’s exciting! But don’t play it for anyone. Just keep it in a safe place and continue to write when the urge arises, or if you can make yourself write. Then go back to it in a few weeks, or months, and see how it feels. Are there any things that pop out that make you cringe? Should you change a few words at the end of the line before the chorus? Then, if you’re satisfied with it, share it with people if you have the hankering to. It‘s really painful to play a song for someone and realize that you can hear a bunch of “mistakes,“ and you know the person you‘re playing it for can hear all those things too. Correct and revise before you let people hear it. I’m not saying you can’t get some help or advice from someone you trust, but it’s a shame that you lose the urge to write because you think you’ve failed and all you can remember are those embarrassing moments of putting yourself out on the proverbial limb. It’s hard to tell if you’re comfortable with a song immediately after you write it, which is why I suggest waiting a little bit before appraising it.

Posted by Bonnie under english, learning, spanish, world

[4] Comments

(The title of today’s post means “I’m hungry,” in Spanish. Literally “I have hunger.”

Today someone took us to a pancake breakfast at the place we’re staying at. Quite nice, and since I skipped the desserts after our concert last night I was HUNGRY! It helped me to pray better for people who are hungry. It’s such a shame that we so easily forget people who are suffering. Our selfish minds have very short memories. How often have we been touched by an image or a story of someone suffering, yet at this moment reading this blog you (and I) probably had nothing more on our minds that surfing the internet, and maybe a petty problem that doesn’t cause true suffering but just an annoyance of self. Now maybe I’m just not as feeling as y’all, but I surely feel ashamed that I can go hours and hours and hours without thinking about and earnestly praying for the many Christians who are being persecuted around the world, and the millions of people who are suffering from hunger or other life threatening ailments. Yet I can find time to dwell on the fact that I ate too MUCH for breakfast, or that I was annoyed by someone.

One of the best ways that I have found to learn about historical figures is through childrens’ books. Yes, that’s right. The ones that kids take out to read for school projects in elementary school. If you’re writing a big report on people you may have to go through more indepth research, but often times when I visit people who’s kids are working on reports, I find it enjoyable to read through the books they have there. They’re short (usually), in bigger print, and sum up most of the important details in a book. Don’t feel as if to learn about something you have to do all the research the author did. I’d rather know a little about each of the major historical figures than know a lot about only one and never have heard about the rest. Of course, you can pick and choose who you want to study more about.

On the school front, I’ve also discovered how math can become very disagreeable. If you don’t spend enough time on the basics, you will absolutely hate advanced math. I won’t give all of the details, but I had forgotten how to do a very simple mathematical procedure and it made finishing a lesson from my brother’s math book miserable. Then I went back, reviewed the process, and now I find it very enjoyable to write certain types of math problems down on a sheet of paper and work them out when I have spare time. If you really hate math, try going back to the beginning and drill yourself on multiplication facts and addition facts until you have them down and can figure them out instantaneously. Don’t worry about how slow you go through the memorization process, take as long as you need for each problem. If you find one that takes a long time to remember, say it over and over again in your head. I’m amazed at how studying Spanish has changed my views on studying and learning in general. If you put something into your brain hundreds of time and do it over and over again, you will memorize it. Sometimes it doesn’t come to mind immediately, but soon after it pops in and can almost be surprising how automatic it becomes!

One more thing, I’m trying a new comment filter system. I get dozens and dozens of spam comments, so I have had to moderate everything before it goes “live.” However, I’m trying something new. You need to have a previously approved comment for your comment to appear without moderating, new commenters and comments with links will go to moderation. I hope that helps the comment process move along, because I’m not always around and I want everyone to be able to SEE their comments right away, instead of leaving and wondering if it’ll ever appear.

Posted by Bonnie under books, learning, math, reading, spanish

[6] Comments

Shortly after I put up the last post on languages, someone emailed me from LiveMocha asking me to check out their website. I’m glad to report there is another language learning resource available online. LiveMocha offered much more than I expected. Of course, the hitch is that they plan to eventually start charging for services. In the meantime you can access their free Rosetta Stone-like courses, invite other members to chat in the language you are learning, and tutor members learning your native language. Part of the exercises are spoken exercises. After you record yourself speaking, you can invite someone who natively speaks that language to correct and rate your exercise. There are a few bumps they need to iron out (for one, the site doesn’t function well in Opera, the browser I use) but I highly recommend LiveMocha.com.

LiveMocha currently offers courses in German, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, and Mandarin Chinese.

Posted by Bonnie under languages, learning, spanish, world

[7] Comments

The resources available to aid in our learning of foreign languages has changed since the good ol’ days. I remember starting out with the Berlitz Language Course records - not that I’m old enough to have purchased it new, I got it used for nothing because someone else didn’t want it anymore. Now, instead of records we have CDs containing not only text and audio, but also pictures and videos.

Rosetta Stone is one computer program that is popular, and Pimsleur is a popular audio course. There are also programs from Berlitz, their company being over 125 years old.

There are also many free resources available. For example, Youtube has a variety of different vloggers that make videos primarily in Spanish, and some made with the express intent to serve the student of Spanish language. Ben and Marina Diez, who are a couple in Spain, make videos and pod casts in Spanish directed at the student. But forget the typical lesson material, Ben y Marina have pod casts on things like MySpace, the ethics of tazing, and summers in Madrid. .

There are also a wide variety of internet radio stations available. No longer do you need a shortwave radio to be able to hear what is broadcasting in Mexico, or even Spain. They include talk shows and music of all types. All you need is a high speed connection, some speakers, and a search engine. Check out this list of Spanish radio stations to help you learn every day, spoken Spanish.

Still, with all the courses available, languages can be very difficult to learn without someone to interact with. Find someone to call on the phone, or the meet with in person on a regular basis to practice what you’ve learned. For Spanish, you can visit the forum at Notes In Spanish and practice what you’ve learned and get feedback from others.

Posted by Bonnie under books, english, languages, learning, spanish

[10] Comments