Tag Archives: motivation

September 9, 2012 · 10:02 pm

Repentance: It’s not just for religion

Repentance

Repentance (Photo credit: Moh Tj)

I went to church today and no I didn’t have anything specifically about repentance, I do think about it.  For me church is a fantastic opportunity to go and think about what I messed up on and to recommit myself to doing better.  No I will probably fail again, but no one is perfect.  The important part is to get up when we fail and start again with a new commitment to keep going.  This is what repentance means to me.

What does this have to do with language learning?

I’m not turning my blog into a sermon.  I was thinking about how this applies to language learning as well. Continue reading →

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August 22, 2012 · 7:59 am

Want2SpeakThai’s Greatest hits

When I started this blog, it was actually a Spanish blog.  I eventually started a separate Thai blog, before I eventually combined them both into this one blog.  While many have followed me for a while now, most probably were not there from the beginning, there fore I thought I would repost one of my old post from when it was just a Spanish blog.  With out further ado, Seesaws: The key to success in language learning and in life.

How many of us can sympathize with the picture on the left.  All of our lives are full of ups and downs and this only gets exaggerated when one does anything new or attempts to change anything in their life.  It is hard to learn something new and doing anything that disrupts our routine is painful.

We can be on top of the world one moment and down in the dumps another. These drastic changes are the biggest reasons we fail to follow through on new things we want to do in our lives.  Hows did your New Year’s resolutions work out this year?

It’s just too uncomfortable dropping, from such high heights to such low lows, that we would rather not do it again.  So when the first sign of  ”failure” happens, we loose all motivation we need to keep going.  There is a trick, though, Continue reading →

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February 28, 2012 · 4:08 pm

Falling flat on your face and getting right back up again.

In this business of language learning, you have to be humble.  You have to be ready to have someone laugh at you when you speak and tell you that your sentences makes no sense at all.  You also have to be ready for life to come in, kick your butt and turn all your well laid out plans inside out and upside down.  Why?  Because that is how life works!

I have talked about different things one can do to keep your attitude positive and upbeat while you go through this sticky mess called language learning.  I have mostly written them for myself so I have something to fall back on when I need it.  If they have benefited anyone else, then all the better.

This weekend I needed them and then some.  I usually do a Spanish Friday video every friday(I actually post it on saturday here) and then I do a Thai video every monday(posted on Tuesday).  Over the weekend I also try to fill up any available time with rebuilding my Thai level back to an advanced level of speaking.  The fluency is still there, but my vocabulary is just not at all what it used to be.

Then Life Happened…

This weekend, I did none of them.  I failed out right!  My airplane crashed and burned,  I fell flat on my face and I got a bloody nose doing it.  I don’t even get honorable mention, because I eventually just gave up and stopped trying to salvage the weekend.  I took 4 days off and did absolutely nothing about langue learning the whole time.

To be honest this is the first time this has happened to me!  I have set realistic expectations of only being accountable for 15 mins of language learning a day.   I am also very good at making the most out of those little free moments that you don’t plan, but just some how find.  Despite all that, nothing I could do this weekend would correct the course and my car drove right off the side of the mountain(ok, no more analogies).

When in doubt, reboot

One of my favorite TV shows is IT Crowd.  It was made in the UK and has never made it to the US (though NBC did make a pilot for an US version that eventually got scraped).  When ever someone calls the IT department they answer, “I.T. have you tried turning it off and on again?”  PC’s are great, but sometimes they get so messed up that you have to just shut it down and restart again.

That I what I ended up doing.  I ended up just shutting down, taking a step back, and rebooted a day later.  Sure I could have tried to get some studying in, but it wouldn’t have really solved the problem.   Sometimes, we just need to take a day off and then start over.  Yes our saved data may get lost, but at least we know where we are ended up and where to start over.  Ok sorry that was the last analogy

The moral of the story is that you need to stay humble and to make the most of the things, but sometimes you also need a reboot.

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February 2, 2012 · 3:33 pm

Something has happened!

I had the shock of my life last night!  I was so incredibly shocked, that I was taken off my guard.  I couldn’t believe what was happening!  It was so amazing that I just looked and stared dumb founded, like a deer in headlights!  “When did this happen?!?” was all I could think about as I stared at the tv.  This has to be the most surprising thing to ever happen to me this year!

What is this shocking interesting thing you might ask?  Well I think I need to give a bit of back story so that it will all make sense.

How it all began

Since starting to learn Spanish, I have found a use for the language menu of the DVD.  I am always trying to get my family to let me at least put Spanish subtitles on.  However, my kids are not big fans of watching something in a language they don’t understand.  More often than not, the movie stays in English.

Last night, they caved.  I was given one night to watch whatever I wanted in Spanish, as long as the English subtitles were on.  I was over joyed.  Where should I start?  I decided I would start with a simple program.  We pulled out the Living Scriptures(animated scripture stories for children) and we started watching that together.  That was when the shock happened!

What was it?

The thing that shocked me beyond belief was that I was actually keeping up with the spanish.  No I didn’t understand everything, but I was keeping up enough that I could figure out the ‘gist’ of everything that was going on.  This is the first time that this happened.

After living scriptures I put in Tangled!  This was going to be more interesting, because we bought it in New Zealand and the Spanish was Castillian Spanish and not Latin-America spanish.  I put it in and first thing I noticed was that the quality of Disney movies in other languages is very impressive.  The whole movie has no English in it at all!  Everything in English is edited to Spanish and the voices cast fit the characters wonderfully.  They really do what they can to make it feel like the movie was originally made in Spanish and it always was going to be in Spanish.

This was not as easy, but I still hung on too much more than I ever had before.  The songs were harder to follow and many things I didn’t know due to it using more colloquialisms than the other program, but I did follow the ‘gist’ very well.  It was amazing to me and it shocked me.  You assume you spanish is getting better, but until you are put in a situation where you test it, you don’t really know how much.

Sorry if it was a bit anticlimactic but it was a surprise to me when it happened.  I am not letting this go to my head though.  I still don’t understand a lot of spanish.  However, I do think that this was a very big step closer to me being fluent!

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January 27, 2012 · 10:54 am

Why I blog

The picture says it all I think.  I don’t aspire to some greatness.  I don’t think I am god’s gift to anything.  My Spanish is good, but nothing much at the same time.  I live in a little town called Whangaparaoa (pronounced fang-a-pa-rao-a, Don’t ask) and my life consists of working, cleaning, cooking, and hopefully finding a way to court my wife in between all that.  In between all those   To put it bluntly my life is not that interesting.

No I am not trying to tear myself down, just stating the obvious.  I am not expecting to become an overnight sensation and have books and movie deals made about it.  I blog for one very specific reason and one very specific reason only:  for me.  Now it does get more specific than that, but every reason I can give leads to that one answer, I blog for my own personal development.  It may sound selfish, but when I list them you will see it’s not as bad as it sounds.

I blog to get my ideas out of my head and into action.

I don’t know what it is about a blog that makes me take action, Continue reading →

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January 25, 2012 · 10:57 am

Time to Get out of my comfort zone

Benny Lewis!  I have a love hate relationship with him I think.  Ok I don’t know him from Adam and I can guarantee that he doesn’t know me.  What I am referring to is his Blog.  So often the blog gives specific advice that I just can’t and wont do.  I wont get into all the details, but I will say this:  His advice is great for a single guy who travels the world.

Its something that single people don’t understand about married people and married couples don’t understand about those of us who are married with children:  Nothing is just yours anymore.

Your money, your house, your bed, and yes your free time is now shared by your partner and your kids.  Do I hate it?  No.  I got home last night and spent my entire free time sorting laundry, washing dishes, and catching up on heaps of honey do’s.  During that time I also had to pull out a plastic daisy that my 4-year-old got stuck up her nose.  So my “free” time is not mine, it goes into the family vault and is used up as the family wants it.  When I do plan to go out what do I plan?  A family outing.  Who do I hang out with, other couples with kids my age.  This is just what its like as a parent.

Is that ok?  Of course I wouldn’t have it any other way, but no I am not going to have meet ups, intercambios, and I am not going to speak  in Spanish all day.

So why do you keep reading his blog?

Despite the fact that sometimes what he say gets on my nerves, the other things he says are fantastic and inspire me to go on!  This is what I mean by Love/Hate.  Its not middle ground with him!

Lets look at this latest post: The only way to get far quickly is to get out of your comfort zone (my typical day learning Mandarin).  I love this condescending attitude he has about a typical day of a language learner:

[They] Get up, work, study some vocab in the break, after work get the weekly one hour private lesson, and speak in English the entire time, go home and study for an hour, then go out with your English speaking mates for the rest of the night, complaining about how hard Chinese is… in English. Satisfied that 2 or 3 entire hours of “hard” work mean he’s done his part on the “long road” to speak the language some day. (emphasis mine)

There is more than just this part, but this part gets to the core of my annoyance.  First of all  I know what Benny is trying to say, but this attitude that people just have this freedom to leave their English speaking world behind, but wont is annoying to me.  To leave my English speaking world would be selfish of me.  To cut out even a part of that English would be to either cut my work, cut out my family time, or cut my time with my wife.  Maybe I am making too much of it, but it still annoys me the attitude of your just not trying hard enough, because you speak English all day!

That said I love and am inspired by that same article!  How? Read this:

One reason it will indeed take you years to learn a language is if you make sure you are comfortable the entire time. Stay indoors with software that mostly requires that you just click a few buttons, sit down with a book or go for a pleasant jog with a podcast on, go to a class and let the teacher do all the talking, or do exercises only at the level prescribed to you. Even if you are pouring everything into studying hard, is that really trying as hard as you can? Working hard is not the same as living hard.

In my mind, this isn’t good enough and it’s too academic. The real world presents you with problems and learning opportunities before you are ready. The more you are exposed to them, the faster you’ll be forced to learn.(emphasis not mine, but I agree with them)

I don’t have much more to say about that than what he has said!  I have talked about this as well on my post about yin and yang, It’s ok to study structured and preplanned activities, but if you don’t expose yourself to Unstructured unplanned activities as well then your language acquisition is hampered.

My comfort zone

That was a long-winded introduction to the meat of what I was going to say, but that just who I am and to thine own self be true.  About two months ago I introduce, correct my spanish.  The idea is was that I was going to record stuff and get corrected and post it on my blog.  It did work for a while, but I got less consistent in making the recordings and I also got too dependant upon a few very wonderful followers who corrected my spanish for me!

First of all I am going to Change this format!  From now on I will be recording things about any and all topics, I will not stop talking about the topic if I don’t know the word in Spanish.  I will use English and go on.  I want to expose the holes in my Spanish now.  Why don’t I just write it out before hand and then try to translate it?  Because I am trying to practice my ability to improvise and think in Spanish.  I don’t want to think in English and translate.

Second of all I am going to be correcting it myself!  I wont post anything until it is corrected and then I will post it for everyone to tear apart.  I guess it is becoming Correct my Corrections.  I am pushing myself more with this!

Finally I am going to do weekly videos.  Spanish Friday is now Spanish Video Friday.  Just so you know I am also going to be doing weekly Thai videos for my other blog, but both will be available on my Youtube channel.  I have put a field on the right hand side for those who want to send comments or questions about what you would like me to talk about.

There you have it.  This is the plan.  Its going to be uncomfortable for me and it might before you guys as well, but If you stick with me I will get better soon!

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January 23, 2012 · 11:53 am

Do I have to?!?

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that….I would have a lot of nickles.  This phrase, or something like it, so common in a parent’s life.  I know I told myself when I was a young adult I would never tell my kids because I said so!  What I didn’t know then was that you cannot reason with your kids sometimes.  And no matter the answer, you will always get a response similar to the one I put in the title.

So why am I talking about child tantrums on my blog about spanish?  Well I think adults get to have a tantrum as well.  Maybe we wont sit on the floor and scream about it (even though we may want to), but I think we get to throw questions that probably has no correct answer.  These are all questions that one could probably respond back with a ‘tantrum’ and cry out ” Do I have to?!?”  What is this question I have?  Simple.  Do I ever have to focus on one dialect or another?

That’s it?

Yes that’s it?  I know I am way off from this bridge ever needing to be crossed, but what I want to know is do I really need to focus on one country or one regions variant on Spanish?  Continue reading →

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January 18, 2012 · 2:08 pm

A day in the life of a language learning Dad

This is a picture of me and my daughter Felicity when she was less than a year old.  She is almost 5 now!  Kids grow up too fast!  It’s unbelievable that that person I was holding is getting ready to start going to school!  Scary!

Anyway, I have mentioned before that I started this blog, because many of the language learning blogs were made by single people living abroad in another country or at least in a country that has a significant community who speak the language.  That doesn’t mean their blogs are bad or that I don’t like them, but There was a voice that I wanted to give to those who are full-time workers/parents.

So I thought you would like to see what a typical work day is like for me.  It’s not that my life is really that interesting, but for me it is very important.  So here I go:

Me despierto y me levento no son los mismos

I typically wake up at 7:00 and then again at 7:10 and then again at 7:20, 7:30, and finally 7:40.  Only when I see that I can’t sleep any longer I get up.  I get ready for work and dash out to the car.  Now first thing I do, is plug in my ipod and turn it on to the podcast or lesson I am working on next.  This will depend on which day it is according to my system.

I have a 30 min drive to work, so I can get a lot done on the way there.  Drive times are probably when I get the most studying in at all.  I study everywhere I drive, even if its two mins away.  Two mins there and back means 4 mins of study.  That is 4 mins of perfecting my Spanish.

Trabajo como un receptionista

I have mentioned before that I am a receptionist. I don’t have many duties during the day, but they do like me to look busy.  Since I can’t just start speaking Spanish at work or listen to podcasts, I often write blog posts, read blog posts, and lately I am writing my Thai course.

For lunch I often walk over to a cafe near my work.  That way I can order food and study while I wait.  If it is an output day, I still just listen to a podcast at the cafe.  I don’t want to freak out the other guests with me spitting out, he desayunado esta manana or la pelota es azul.  Then I go back to work and same old same old till 5:00

Vuelvo a casa!

Of course I study on the way home.  When at home at open the door and usually say, “Hola, familia!”  Then I hear one of the best sounds in the world, “DADDY!!!!!!!”  It is usually not long after that I see what the kids of done to the house and we start the battle of who should clean what.  The exception to that was yesterday.  I came home and the place was wonderfully clean, even the kids bedrooms.  I threw out a ‘que orden’ and told them how proud I was that they cleaned up the house for me.

Dinner is often a tag team event for my wife and me.  Sometimes she cooks it all and sometimes I cook it all(she does that more often than me though), but usually it is a team effort.  This always my wife and I to communicate and talk about things.

After dinner I usually offer to do the dishes.  Why?  Because it gives me another opportunity to study spanish at the same time.  My wife notices this, but ignores the fact that I do dishes more is because I really want to study.

Despues, nos preparamos para dormir

A few nights a week, we try to watch a movie as a family.  Other times my wife and I will watch a movie just the two of us.  Then it’s off to bed and ready to start the day again

Like I said it’s not that my life is interesting, but my life is mine. I love it.  I wouldn’t change a thing!

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January 12, 2012 · 11:43 am

A spoon full of sugar….

You know you are a parent when you watch more kids programs than “adult” programs(No, not those kind of adult programs, shame on you.)  That’s ok though.  Some of my favorite movies are considered to be children’s programs.  One classic movie that I have always loved is Mary Poppins.  She is the original Nanny Mcphee (I love that movie too).  Despite Dick Van Dyke’s weird English accent in the movie, her messages stick out today as important for all of us to learn.

The one lesson that Mary Poppins teaches that sticks out to me most is that, “… a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.”  The point being that even undesirable things, when made to be fun, can become much easier to complete.  Mark Twain’s classic book, Tom Sawyer, Tom learns a very similar concept when he “tricks” the neighbor hood boys to whitewashing the fence for him.  He tricked them into thinking it was a fun desirable thing to do and they happily paid him in childhood trinkets to do it.

Tom made one other observation that has stuck with me since I read it.  He noticed that as soon as something becomes “work” or something you “have to do” it is no longer desirable.  He noted that people would pay good money to get their own team of horses to drive, but hate having to get paid to drive a team horses for work.

So how does this relate to you learning spanish?

Learning anything new, especially another language, Continue reading →

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January 9, 2012 · 12:25 pm

Where is the Finish line?

As I have been studying Spanish I have learned that there are many things you need to define for yourself.  One of those things is what are you going to do to reach your goal of learning a new language.  In other words you need to define your system.  I have created a system and I am continuing to refine it.  Is it perfect?  No.  What it does do is it keeps me going and helps me know what to do next.  Your system needs to be rigid enough that you don’t really have to think about what you are going to do next.  At the same time it needs to be flexible enough that you can adjust it to your life and the changes that undoubtably will occur.  I believe my system does just that, when I find free moments in my day I study, otherwise I don’t.  What I study is defined in two of my posts.  Essentially I try to fill my free moments with both structured and unstructured, or Yin and Yang activities.  These activities are defined by if they emphasize Input or Output.  Then every other day I work on either Input or Output.  It is rigid.  When I find a free moment, I don’t have to think about what I should do.  I know the moment it happens what I should be doing.

What else do you need to define then?

The other thing, I believe, you need to define Continue reading →

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