Hello, everyone and welcome back to my blog! In today's post, I want to talk about one of my favorite ways to incorporate languages into my daily routine. I don't know about you, but I have been under constant stress since high-school, as I have had to balance my work, school, and personal life more than ever before. I always had to worry about the next assignment, or deadline coming up, so I would feel tired and worn out without even noticing it. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, the burden was much larger than I thought I could carry when it came to prioritizing certain decisions, or people in my life. That happened until May 31st, 2018. On that day, my life changed. I remember going on YouTube and seeing a suggested video pop up titled "ASMR Different Languages Whispering". I clicked on it and as soon as I saw it, I was intrigued.
The video that I watched on that day is attached to this post and now has over 2.5 million views since it was published. I have to admit that I had no idea what ASMR stood for, or what its purpose was until I started to watch Sharon's videos on a more regular basis. ASMR can best be defined as "a feeling of well-being combined with a tingling sensation in the scalp and down the back of the neck, as experienced by some people in response to a specific gentle stimulus, often a particular sound". Essentially, ASMR videos are meant to help relax you, or put you to sleep. These videos are made for any viewer, but I have found them to be especially helpful when I have been under a lot of anxiety, confusion, or stress. I have been watching ASMR videos ever since I watched Sharon's video and have found that I have had healthier thoughts and sleeping patterns. I have watched ASMR videos in Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese, which has helped me not only improve my listening comprehension skills, but has also increased my vocabulary in those respective languages while putting me into a zen mood. I now know words like "whisper", "relax", and "massage" in 7 languages, which is amazing, ins't it? These videos have transformed my life in such a way that I can no longer imagine my life without them. I invite you to watch Sharon's video found in this post if you're interested in getting tingles in multiple languages and to also look up other ASMR artists in the languages you're learning. As my parents would say, you can kill two birds with one stone when doing this. You can get in some language practice and do yourself a favor by taking some time to stop what you're doing, let your body breathe, and, most importantly, be free of any negative thoughts and vibrations. Here are some of my top ASMR artists:
Hello, everyone and welcome back to my page! After taking a few months off of blogging, I decided to post a language Q&A answering some of your most common questions. If you want to get to know me and learn more about my polyglot identity, then make sure to watch this video. Below are the questions that I answered and the time frames in which I answer each question, so that you can skip over to a particular question if that's what you want to do; however, I highly encourage you to watch the entire video if you think that these questions are of interest to you.
DEUTSCH: Wie geht’s? [1:19-1:44- Deutsch] [1:45-1:59 - English]
ESPAÑOL: Como comienzas a aprender un nuevo idioma? Tienes algun
recurso que nos recomiendas? [2:00-5:11- Español] [5:12-7:37- English]
ENGLISH:Does learning one language make it harder
to learn and/or remember another language? For example, Latin makes it easier
to learn the Romance languages because of some similar vocabulary, but are
there languages that have the opposite effect because of different vocabulary
or rules? [7:38-12:22]
ENGLISH: How do you effectively approach getting
back into using a language you haven’t studied in a while? [12:23-15:51]
ENGLISH: How do you keep all of the languages and
different grammatical rules straight in your head? [15:52-18:14]
ENGLISH:When you are abroad and you are focused on
the language of the country that you are in, do you find it harder to remember the
other languages that you do not have to use and are not your primary language(s)? [18:15-20:37]
ENGLISH:Which language did you find most difficult
to learn, and why? [20:38-22:01]
ENGLISH: What are the language(s) you would like to
learn next? [22:02-25:28]
Thank you so much for reading this post. I hope that you enjoyed reading it! Don't forget to follow me on all of my social media accounts to be notified every time I post on this language blog and to keep up with my language studies and travels abroad on my Instagram page and to see interesting content about foreign language learning, multilingualism, and anything I like in other languages on my Facebook page.
Ciao a tutti e bentornati
sulla mia pagina! (Hello, everyone and welcome to my page!) I wanted to
start off by apologizing for not writing on here for a few months. I have to
admit that senior year has been much busier than I originally thought, so I
hope that you understand. Despite my inactivity, I’m happy to start regularly
blogging again for the rest of the year. Though I’m still unsure as to what the
future awaits me, I know that this year will be filled with many new
adventures.
For today’s post, I’m sharing the links to part 1 and
part 2 of the TED-style talk that I gave on Thursday, March 28th
titled The Power of Language. The name of my talk was inspired by my favorite post
on this blog with the same name, because the feedback that you all gave me
about it was so incredible that I felt that I had to share it with all of you a
few years later.
Are you curious about how my
bilingual upbringing and bicultural identity have influenced me throughout my
life? Do you want to know how I have managed to reach conversational fluency
in 6 languages and an advanced level in a 7th language at the age of
22? If you answered yes to any, or both of those questions, I highly encourage
you to watch both parts of my talk.
Once again, I want to thank
each and every one of you. None of this would have been possible alone. In
fact, most of what I have been able to achieve has taken years of unending love
and support from my friends and especially my parents and my sister, Carolina.
Espero que sepan que los amo con todo mi corazón. Gracias por siempre apoyarme
en todos mis empeños y por ayudarme a realizar todos mis sueños.
Thank you for everything! // Muchas
gracias por todo! // Je vous remercie pour tout! // Danke für alles! // Grazie
di tutto! // Спасибо вам за всё! // Obrigada por tudo!
Hello, everyone and welcome back to my blog! Though it has been a while since I last posted on here, I am excited to talk about a topic that I hold very dear to my heart: practicing multilingual worship to grow in my faith as a Catholic. No matter what your religious background is, I highly encourage you to read this post in its entirety, as it may benefit you, or someone you know.
For those of you who know me, I am very involved in our Christian and Catholic groups on campus. In fact, I am currently a Worship Team leader for our Intervarsity chapter on campus. So far, our worship team has sung songs in Spanish, French, Italian, German, and many different African dialects, but I hope to make our space even more diverse and inclusive during my last semester at Dickinson.
I have found that my faith has been spiritually, physically, and emotionally healing over the years, especially this past year, as I have been suffering from chronic migraines. That being said, I found worship music and specifically contemporary Christian songs to be my saving grace.
While I was abroad, I lost one of my grandfathers in Italy and had to pray for over a month for my health to get better in Cameroon. Though both of these instances were very emotionally draining, music healed me. It gave me hope that someday I would be cured and that I would feel better.
Given that languages are one of the most important parts of my life, I find international Christian music to be even more empowering. Not only am I increasing my vocabulary, but I am also working on my pronunciation, cadence, and tone. As I am sure most of you have noticed, learning a language is hard, but singing an entire song in a language that is not your first language is even harder, but even so, if you push through the highs and the lows throughout your language-learning process, you will persevere. You can even learn how to change your voice and the rhythm of a song when you become fluent in a language. That is one of the most rewarding parts of the process for me.
A lot of you have asked me what means the most to me and that is hands down my faith, so if you are currently on a faith journey, feel free to join me in this journey together. You may just be in the process of understanding what Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, or another religion means to you and to your identity, or you may be comfortable with that part of who you are. No matter where you find yourself, I highly encourage you to start incorporating worship music into your life.
You may be asking yourself, "That's great, Laura, but exactly how can I do that?"The easiest way to do so is by typing up "([INSERT RELIGION] worship songs" in your target language. Start listening to some songs that pop up. They will most likely be some of the most recent, or popular worship songs for your particular religion and once you start feeling comfortable with some of the songs that you listen to, make it a goal to learn a song by heart.
Start off by looking up unknown words to slowly build your vocabulary. Practice it consistently and take it as slowly as you need to. It may take you a day, or three months to fully memorize a song, but the point is to never give up. Who knows? Maybe you will even develop a closer relationship with God, or with a higher being in the process.
As a bonus, I am sharing the link to my favorite Italian worship song that I sang while I studied abroad in Bologna, Italy in Fall 2017 (SEE ABOVE).
Before
getting into the rest of this post, I wanted to wish everyone a happy new year,
un feliz año nuevo, une bonne année, ein glückliches neues Jahr, un felice anno
nuovo, С новым годом! I was recently talking to my parents and told them how
amazed I was by how quickly 2017 flew by for me after being away from the
states for over 6 months, but am hoping that this year provides even more
opportunities for language-learning and for dedicating more time to this blog.
Despite having an unsteady posting schedule last year, I am determined to
create more content for you this year.
I also
wanted to thank each and every one of you who has taken a few spare moments out
of your day to read my posts. We are slowly approaching 2 years on this blog,
which is very exciting! Before getting ahead of myself, I will be spending 5
months abroad this semester and am told that I will rarely have access to wifi,
but do not hesitate. As soon as I get back, I will make up for lost time and
content and will write entire posts about all 3 of my study-abroad language
immersion experiences.
I love starting off the
new year by starting on a clean slate. As a language guru, I love getting
inspired by videos made by language-learners who have similar ambitions to mine.
As few days ago, I stumbled across a video, “Plan with me: Language Goals &
2018 Bujo”, made by one of my favorite
YouTubers, Lindie Botes. In this video, she takes out her agenda and walks you
through how you can set meaningful and realistic goals for the new year, most
of them being language-related. What I like most about her approach is that it
is feasible and very rewarding if you stick to it. She gives you practical tips
on how you can track your progress the old-fashioned way, using a notebook and
colorful pens to jot down your goals. If you would like to know what it is that
she does to keep up with other 10 languages amidst a full-time job and
schedule, feel free to watch it by clicking on the video that I have attached
to this post! Below are my language-learning goals for 2018:
Spanish: As a native Spanish-speaker, I will admit
that I have not had much time to listen to any audio or spoken Spanish aside
from hundreds of calls with my family. I would like to change that this year, as I have found that a big part of my identity has been lost ever since
college (due to there being very few Hispanic students there in general).
·Read as many books and novels in Spanish as
I can-I already have a couple dozen books that have been purchased within
the past year in Barcelona and books that I bought in Colombia years ago
waiting to be read.
·Watch movies and YouTube videos from
many countries throughout Latin-America, including Colombia.
·Write diary entries in Spanish.
·Try to reach out to other native Spanish
speakers on campus to make more meaningful friendships.
French: Status-Fluent; Hope to achieve:Native-like proficiency
Given that I will be studying abroad in a country whose official language is French, this list will not be as long as the other ones.
·Listen to as much audio content (i.e.
podcasts, videos, movies, and music) as I can to complement what I study
in my courses and my conversations with my host family while I am studying
abroad.
·Journal about my experience abroad
in French starting on the first day.
·Write down new words, sentences, and phrases
that I learn in a notebook dedicated to French.
German:Status-Upper intermediate; Hope to achieve:C1 level (European framework of
reference)
Given that I have not taken a German course since my senior year
of high-school, I have lost a lot of vocabulary that I would like to relearn. I
hope to do the following to reach my goals:
·Take German both semesters of my senior year
to review advanced grammar and vocabulary, reading, writing, and speaking with
other classmates who want to do the same.
·Go through at least one, or two of my German
workbooks that have been laying on my shelf for a while to work on all areas
of the language.
·Fill up more of my German notebook
with what I learn from my workbooks, what I learn in my courses, and any other
additional materials I use (i.e. free online sources, such as YouTube).
·Memorize a few songs in German.
Italian:Status-Fluent;Hope to achieve-Native-like proficiency
Given that I studied abroad in Italy for 4 months, I am
finally fluent in the language; however, believe that in order to fully master
a language, you have to sound and feel as native-like as possible, which is always
my ultimate goal with every language endeavor I take on.
·Video call my Italian friends as
often as possible and, whenever that is not possible, message them to ask them
questions about how to say certain sentences correctly.
·Fill up an entire notebook of new Italian
words and sentences that I learn during my academic and personal studies.
·Write many journal entries in
Italian after returning from being abroad.
Russian:Status-Intermediate; Hope to achieve-Advanced
This year will be a challenge for Russian since I have not
taken it since last spring semester, but am still determined to get back on
track. Doing so will take an incredible amount of patience and hours of study,
but I have never wanted to improve a language as much as I do Russian.
·Use “Dots” application every single week,
and, whenever possible, every single day to increase my vocabulary through
spaced repetition.
·Use two, or three of my workbooks to work on
all areas of the language, including grammar and vocabulary.
·Watch many Russian films with either
Russian subtitles, or no subtitles at all and write down new words and
sentences.
·Listen to more Russian music and watch more
YouTubers talk about their lives, lifestyle, traveling, and languages
to acquire those sets of vocabulary.
For now, I believe that is it! Just to clarify about my
upcoming language-learning endeavors, I am hoping to focus on these 6 for now,
as I am not fluent in all of them quite yet. Once I am, I will feel more comfortable
taking on new languages.
What are your language-learning goals and how do you
hope to achieve them? Hopefully my goals will give you some inspiration to write down your goals to track your progress as the months go by in 2018.
Good luck, buena suerte, bonne chance, viel Glück, in bocca al lupo, удачи with
your language studies!
