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! I hope that you have been having a nice month so far and that you have been staying warm during our cold winter days. For this week's post, I wanted to share my all-time favorite language-learning app. I have been using it for almost a year now for German, French, and now consistently for Portuguese.
LingoDeer is an app that I found out about from one of my favorite language YouTubers, Lindie Botes, who made an app review about it on her channel a while back. At first, I was not sure if I would like it, or if I could use it, given that I am not learning any Asian languages, but the more I learned about it, the more I started to use it. I completed almost the entire course for German in a few months, started using it for French, and have now completed 40% of the Portuguese course it offers.
What makes this app so great? Well, to start off, it is free, so you do not have to worry about spending a single cent to install it on your phone. It's also very practical, fun, and easy to follow. Unlike Duolingo that gives you very unnatural-sounding sentences and often robotic sounding voice recordings, I would say that the sentences you are asked to learn and then spell out, as well as the voice recordings, are very clear and logical. They are also made by native speakers, which helps you practice your phonetics and pronunciation.
It's a bit hard to describe how to use this app, so I decided to attach a YouTube video that shows you how to use it step-by-step. It also talks about many of the features that you can use that provide further vocabulary and grammar explanations that you do not get when using Duolingo. I am determined to finish the entire course for Portuguese within the next 3 months or so, which goes to show how much I love this app. I especially love how you can earn prizes after completing certain challenges, such as having a 30-day streak, or completing a certain level of the course.
This app offers courses in Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, French, German, and Portuguese. I have to say that I have been very impressed with the non-Asian language courses, but have never tried the other ones. Most LingoDeer app reviews talk about the Asian language courses, so they seem to be very thorough and easy-to-follow from what I have gathered.
On January 16th, 2016, I made the bold move to create a language blog called Switching Languages. Though I had been contemplating about whether or not I would go through with this idea, I convinced myself that it was something that I wanted to do. It has now been 3 years since then and I have no regrets. In fact, I am beyond blessed by all of the love and support that I have received over the years to keep up with this blog. I truly believe that blogging is an art-form that can unite us despite any differences we have.
The main purpose of this post is to say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Those of you who have been reading this post have stuck with me, even when I doubted myself, or lost inspiration to write more for you. Though I was not very active on this blog from 2017-2018, I have taken time to reflect about my purpose and what makes me happiest in life over our long Winter Break. I knew that something was missing in my heart, so after some reflecting, I realized that it was this very blog that could fill the void in my heart. As you can see, I am back healthier, stronger, and happier than ever before. Of course, this does not mean that my health is at its very best, but I do know that this year will be my year, as it can and will be yours, too. I have so much exciting content ready for you in the upcoming months, but I am also always willing to take suggestions from you: anything from a language question that has been on your mind for a while to a blog post idea that you would like to see from me this year. As a preview, this year, I will be writing language book reviews, documentary and film reviews, app and podcast reviews, and will be sharing some of my personal experiences about the benefits of majoring and minoring in languages in college, of the beauty of having a bicultural identity, and about why I love to travel around the world. These are just some of the many ideas that I have ready in store, so make sure to stay tune for them! I will also be traveling extensively this year. In March, I will be going on my graduation trip to Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmö, Sweden. I will also be studying abroad in Moscow, Russia for 5 weeks during the summer, which means that I will be sharing some of the highlights of my experience with Russian and Russian culture after taking Russian for 4 years in college. Aside from that, I will also be auditing a Portuguese 200-level course during the Spring 2019 semester, because, as you already know, I could not resist working on my 7th language. Again, thank you for all of your kind messages and for all of the conversations that we have had about the impact that this blog has had on you. I hope that you have gained some knowledge about languages along the way and that you have gotten some inspiration to make languages an integral part of your life. If that has not been the case up until now, then, no worries, 2019 will be filled with many surprises! I am hoping to post every Saturday, so that I post more regularly this year. This semester seems to be looking up for me compared to last semester, so I should have plenty of time to share my passion for languages with all of you. Stay tuned for a language book review this coming Saturday! I am looking forward to growing our Switching Languages community and to seeing what 2019 has in store. Thank you very much for everything! // Muchas gracias por todo! // Merci beaucoup pour tout! // Vielen Dank für alles! // Grazie mille di tutto! // Большое спасибо за всё! // Muito obrigado por tudo!!
I wanted to start off by wishing all of you a Happy
New Year and thanking you for being so supportive of my blog for almost an
entire year. In order to start off the year on a good note, I cannot stress how
important it is to set ourselves identifiable, realistic language-learning
goals that we hope to achieve before the end of the year. I will highlight a
few of Steve Kauffman’s points in this post in hopes to reiterate what I find
most noteworthy.
As Steve clearly points out, “the way we set goals
depends on our level in the language.” In the video attached above, he mentions
that he is working on improving his Portuguese, which, in his eyes, there is no
need to set very specific short-term-task-type goals, as he is far into the language.
On the other hand, he is also learning Korean, which he is not as far into, so
he has to take a “much more deliberate approach” for that language. He also
briefly explains how many people look at language-learning: “through the common
European-framework of reference [that] divides the levels of proficiency into 6
levels: A1-2, B1-2, and C1-2.”
To give all of you some perspective, I will tell you
what my language-learning goals are for 2017:
1. Spanish (Native)-
Despite being fluent in Spanish, I hope to become more informed of what is
happening around the world by reading current events. My hope is to read the
news every day and to read at least 3 novels in Spanish by the end of the year.
2. French
(Advanced)-Since I am closest to reaching fluency
in French, I will continue to read and watch the news every week to inform
myself about what is going on in the Francophone-world. I will be putting in all
of the new words that I learn through that exposure, as well as any words that
I learn when reading children’s books on the application Anki to increase
my vocabulary. (I highly encourage you to read my post “Foreign Language Vocabulary Builder Using Anki (Application)” from
6/25/16 to learn about how you can drastically improve your vocabulary).
3. German
(B2 Level)-As many of you read in my post “Why You Should Study at a Language
Institute” from 8/2/16, I received a B2 certificate for German from d.i.d.
Institute in Frankfurt this past summer. That means that my goal is to achieve
a C1 level by the end of the year. I will try to do so by finishing up the second
part of the B2 book that we were given at the institute that I have not had a chance to complete, will continue to
learn words through songs, and will read as much as possible. To make sure that
I retain all of these words, I will use Anki. 4. Italian (Advanced)-I have been taking Italian for
three semesters in college now, have edited many Italian essays as my job at
our writing center, and have attended virtually every event offered by my school’s
Italian department, so I am conversationally fluent. On the other hand, since I
have not had nearly as much exposure to vocabulary as I have with French and
German, I will continue to listen to music and read as much as I can. If
everything works out as planned, I will also be studying abroad in Italy this
upcoming fall where I will be taking 4 courses in Italian and living with a host
family, so my ultimate goal is to become fluent in the language.
5. Russian
(Intermediate)- By the end of this school-year, I will
have taken 4 semesters of college-level Russian, so I would say that I am much more
comfortable understanding native speakers and authentic material than I was a
year ago, but am still very far from achieving mastery in it. I hope to become
an advanced learner by the end of the summer, as I am planning on studying
abroad in Russia, or in another Russian-speaking country for 2 months and living with a host family. I will continue to
learn words through songs and will try to expose myself to as much authentic material
as possible before I embark on that journey.
6. Portuguese
(Beginner)- My goal is to become an intermediate
learner of Portuguese by the end of the year. I hope to complete every lesson
of Davelanguages that is currently available (I have already finished the
beginner series) and to watch as many videos and movies as I can to become more
accustomed to the flow of the language.
To get to the halfway point, which can be considered
to be the first 3 levels, you have to get to point in which the learning
becomes “a more natural, enjoyable, flowed-type experience.” As with any
journey that you take, after surpassing the beginner’s stage, which Steve
refers to as the “struggle stage”, you can improve your language through an
exposure to interesting content (ex: audiobooks, talking with friends,
podcasts, watching YouTube videos or videos).
I agree that the first steps require some
heavy-lifting, but it is possible to successfully move forward by setting
specific measurable tasks and targets for yourself (ex: learn x amount of words
per day). By forcing yourself to be active, he says that you will achieve more results.As you can see above, I have very concrete goals that I want to set for myself
and for which I will hold myself accountable the last day of this year. I
encourage all of you to do the same and to not let what others tell you, or
what you tell yourself get in the way of your aspirations. Good luck, buena
suerte, bonne chance, Viel Glück, in bocca al lupo, удачи, boa sorte!
