In today’s newsletter:
🔸 An announcement
🔸 Anki is the resource of the week
🔸 The power law in language learning
Hey Reader. I’m excited to announce I will be doing a talk for the Polyglot conference global. You can find the programme here. I will be talking about my experience moderating r/languagelearning. My time is Thurs Oct 2 at 8pm GMT +1 (UK time).
Simon
Did you know you can reply to this email? I read every response, and interesting responses can be featured in future editions.
🛠️Resource spotlight: Anki
I’m not sure how I haven’t mentioned it yet, but Anki is by far my number one most recommended resources. Using the spaced repetition algorithm to optimise your vocabulary learning will save you time and supercharge your usage of input. You can use their shared decks to get a head start. The documentation will also be useful. You can find my advice on how to use Anki in the guide.
🌐Language learning
A quick peek at the article:
Let’s say you’re just starting to study Japanese. You might picture yourself being able to do the following things, after a few months or years of study:
- Have a conversation with a Japanese person who doesn’t speak any English
- Watch the latest episode of some anime in Japanese before the English subtitles come out
- Overhear a conversation between two Japanese people in an elevator
After learning several languages, I discovered that the first task is a lot easier than the other two, by an order of magnitude
An unintuitive insight for beginner learners, but one I find completely true.
From around the web:
Languages
Why some words don’t change.
Why do some people drop their t’s when speaking
Not related just cool
I randomly came across this historical tech tree, it was interesting to see how different inventions lined up.
Mondecast is a bi-weekly newsletter about people: their lives, their languages, and their cultures
Follow Mondecast