Random language practice idea: write a letter to your future self in your target language, put it in an envelope, and read it one year later to see how much you’ve improved!
I love this idea, and if I were more proactive I’d do it haha
Hey, guys. Lala here! As polyglot who speaks 5 languages and learning more, I’ve been through my fair share of language learning experiences. Here, I wanted to share some tips with you guys that have helped me along my journey.
What are some language learning tips that have helped you guys? Share them with me! Do you have a question? Don’t be afraid to leave me an ask!
Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos. You can always check the audit course or no certificate option so that you can learn for free.
Hard to tell, right? Well scientists have figured out that this question isn’t so hard for newborn babies to answer. And this discovery could make a difference for parents who want to raise their children as bilingual. Here’s the full story fromThe World in Words podcast.
(ps- the first sound is English, and the second is Filipino —if you’re keeping score)
It’s easy to get the meaning of the individual words through an addon like Rikaichamp(https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/rikaichamp/) and, if you still don’t understand the meaning of the sentence, just click “language switcher“ and it will give you the translation. I don’t recommend it though. As Matt from MIApproachsays, «Growing your capacity to tolerate ambiguity is essential to making rapid progress. Unfortunately, tolerating ambiguity often doesn’t come naturally. Most of us have grown up in a culture that places a lot of value on “understanding things.” Because of this, for most people, being able to tolerate ambiguity is a skill that must be actively cultivated over time.»
Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos. You can always check the audit course or no certificate option so that you can learn for free.
Everyone learns differently. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another. However there are two classes of personality traits that have things in common when it comes to learning a new language and that is whether you are an extrovert or an introvert.
What Is An Introvert?
Generally speaking if you identify as an introvert you will be a deep thinker, be introspectiveand…
As you might have noticed, if there’s one thing I love, it’s Chinese food. Even now when I go home on holiday from China my stomach craves the mouthwatering Chinese food I’ve left behind. So I decided to pick three snacks to introduce to who learn Chinese or have children learning Chinese online. It was hard to just pick three, but here are my favorites that can be found easily everywhere.…
While helping your children to learn Chinese, are you curious about the children education in China? What does the beginning of the semester at Chinese elementary schools look like? Elementary school is very important for Chinese students. It lasts a long 6 years, and it marks the start of their compulsory education journey, even though most students have already been attending a pre-school. The…
So I was originally signed up for the level 5 class beginning February 2020 so I could finish right as my grad school semester started…well, we all know what happened in early 2020. My class was delayed, then delayed again, then canceled and we all had to sign up for a new class. So I decided to just wait for the summer, after my school semester ended, and do an in-person class. I registered for one beginning in June. It got moved online. We just had to join our virtual class (not through Zoom, it was some other program) from 9am to 1pm every Saturday & Sunday for 5 weeks. Our teacher was very kind and knew the class material well, but she wasn’t used to teaching online and it’s hard to have a conversation with 25 people in a video call.
Also, the most important thing to know about level 5: you are basically doing 1 chapter per hour of class. This level does not focus on language, so while you’re probably going to encounter new vocab, you are expected to learn the actual content.It covers everything from Joseon era clothing & housing, the Korean school system, various welfare benefits available to parents/foreigners/married couples/elderly/etc., dining etiquette, the history behind important dates like 3.01 and 6.25, the government including past presidents, etc. It is a lot of stuff that probably doesn’t come up in your everyday life.
On to the exam!
For covid-related reasons + being slow to register, I wasn’t able to take the final exam until February 2021. Also I had to travel 1.5 hours to Suwon. This was obviously many months after I had taken the class. I got a study book right after I finished the class because honestly, I didn’t really pay attention that well in the online class and didn’t absorb most of the info. So I studied a lot in the week leading up to the exam.
It’s basically the same format as the “midterm” one.
The first 10 or so multiple choice questions are worth 1.5 points and are focused on language (vocab/grammar). The rest are content questions and worth 2 points. I was immediately discouraged because there were soooo many questions on things I hadn’t gotten to while studying.
The writing topic was “a good memory with your family” which I just kinda made up something about spending Thanksgiving together. You only get 10min to answer like 3 sub-questions, which means very little time to sit and think about what you will write. I wrote the full 200 characters but had to sacrifice the 원고지 rules a couple times to make it all fit ㅠㅠ One of the exam proctors told me (while waiting for the interview) that I have very nice handwriting, though, so that was nice.
The interview portion killed me. It was so much harder than my study book led me to believe. We did it in pairs, with two instructors who were sitting literally 10ft away behind plastic barriers. First, we read a passage about how single-person households are on the rise because people aren’t getting married, so companies are making more products catered towards them. Then we were asked what the most common family/household structure is in our respective countries. I don’t know that info for America because I don’t live there and only know about my friends’ lives…? So then we got asked to introduce a Korean UNESCO heritage site (neither of us knew one lol), then one in our home country (I said I’m sure we have them but I don’t actually know which places are officially recognized…), then we switched to politics and had to explain how does Korea choose a president, and one of the 4 types of elections. I left thinking please just let me get 10 points from that and I should be able to pass~ But on the bright side, the guy I did the interview with lives near me and we took the bus/subway home together and now we’re friends!
Anyway, I passed! (And so did my new friend!)
Overall score of 71 (60 is passing), with 59 points from the written section and 12 from the interview~
And now I’m 100% done with KIIP! So glad to not have to worry about these visa points any more.
