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Spanish

How I'm learning Spanish

  1. I had the advantage of my father being a native speaker growing up, so while he never spoke to me in Spanish, I at least learned the accent / sounds from listening to him speak to others.  I've had people think I'm a native speaker from my pronunciation, despite my extremely limited vocabulary and knowledge of the grammar.
  2. I studied the language in middle school and high school.
    1. This left me with a basic understanding of / familiarity with the grammar and vocabulary after accounting for everything I forgot.
    2. I think the huge flaw with how the language was taught in school was that we spent most of the time learning grammar and doing exercises instead of actually using the language in conversation.  I think an immersive classroom (where the teacher only speaks the language) could have been better but I feel like it helps to have the teacher use simplified grammar / vocabulary when you're just starting out, and I feel like in the US school system the teachers would probably feel pressure to always use "real" grammar / vocabulary (i.e. not dumb it down at the beginning), which would make it harder.  And the fact that there's only one teacher 
  3. I'm currently using Duolingo for ~3-5 minutes per day and finding it by far the best way to learn Spanish that I've encountered.
    1. I love how they've been giving me consistent practice with the preterit and imperfect tenses.
    2. The time required each day is so little that I always find myself thinking, "Eh, it's just 3 minutes, I can do it."  Whereas if it was even just 15 minutes, I'm sure I'd end up stopping at some point ("I don't have time today"), and then I could end up going for months or years before starting again, as often happens with other projects.
  4. I think the next step beyond Duolingo would be to get into a situation where I actually need to use the language, like if I had a girlfriend who only spoke Spanish or moved to a Spanish speaking country and was interacting with people on a daily basis.  When I'm around my father or brother, I end up just using English because it's easier.
    1. I think also something like my "Let's Play" idea would work, where I'm playing games with someone who only uses that language.

Thai

How I'm learning Thai

  1. The first few years:
    1. For the first few years, I didn't put any effort into it at all, I just absorbed the few words I needed.  I did note down at one point the list of words I could remember off the top of my head and the order in which I learned them.  But basically I just picked up words without putting conscious effort into learning.  I probably learned maybe around 50-100 words.
    2. One big thing that I was passively learning the first few years was the phonemes and tones used by the language; I was learning the accent, even without knowing what people were saying 99% of the time.  These years helped me with my pronunciation when I later got more serious about learning, because I had a sense of whether how I was talking sounded "right" or not.
      1. I learned that some people's pronunciation of certain letters sometimes encompasses or falls between two different English phonemes.  For example, some people pronounce the 'ch' sound as 'ch', 'sh', and/or halfway between them (sometimes varying depending on the word), without distinguishing between any of those sounds, where in English there is a strong distinction between 'ch' and 'sh'.  The same thing for 'l' and 'r' when saying 'know'.
  2. Going to Thai school for six months:
    1. This was actually very helpful for giving me an overview of the language and getting me started at knowing how to read.  They moved so quickly that I didn't end up remembering a lot of the vocabulary / grammar / pronunciation rules I learned, but it made me unintimidated to go back later over the next few years and really memorize all the stuff I had been shown in that period of time.
    2. They put a lot of time into teaching the tonal rules / different classes of consonants.  I forgot probably 90%+ of what they taught.
  3. Learning on my phone:
    1. I then spent a couple of years just studying on my phone.
    2. I put time into learning new vocabulary with Ling (an app), but IMO the vocabulary they had me learning had not been chosen well; I was learning uncommon vocabulary like "lawyer" while not being taught very basic vocabulary like how to say "for" or "about".
    3. I used the "Thai Alphabet" and then the "Write Thai" apps to build a solid memory of the alphabet, which really helped me to learn new words.
  4. Having a girlfriend who only speaks Thai:
    1. This really took my Thai to the next level.  I was learning phrases and words that are actually useful in day-to-day life.
    2. This really gave me the confidence to start talking more to random Thai people in Thai, which further helped me build my vocabulary and confidence with the language.
    3. I think this was a very similar experience to being a child who has their mother speaking to them in the language: you start with very basic interactions / vocabulary, and then gradually add more vocabulary and a deeper understanding of the grammar.
    4. I think it was key that she only speaks Thai (or very limited English) because if her English is better than my Thai, it will be easier to just switch to English much of the time, which will prevent you from improving.
    5. When talking to people, if I'm not sure I said something correctly, I ask them if I'm speaking correctly.  This helps me catch situations where Google Translate is teaching me uncommon ways of saying things.  This is a great way to get better at the language.  I see a lot of people learning languages who don't ask this often enough when in conversation with native speakers.
    6. 2023.09.29 - For ten months I'd been communicating via FB messenger in English with her, but I'm now switching to speaking in Thai to Google translate, double-checking that the meaning is correct (by looking at the English translation), and then sending the Thai.  I'm now going to do this with every Thai person I trade messages with.
  5. Improving my grammar:
    1. I started studying a little grammar every day with "Thai: An Essential Grammar", a great book I found on Amazon.  I bought the digital version and would keep it open on my phone and would try to just study a single rule (basically a page of the book) every day that I can motivate myself to set aside a few minutes to do it.
    2. I think this helped me a lot to learn rules that I would not have been able to learn easily through conversation with my girlfriend or referring to Google Translate.

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Eminem - Kim

First song: '97 Bonnie & Clyde
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