Last week I posted on my Posterous (my unedited, whenever I feel like posting, random thoughts “diary”) about the 5 Levels of Fluency. As you already know if you pay attention to Benny (Happy Birthday Benny!), a lot of learning a new language is confidence and making mistakes in conversations with native speakers.
My lack of confidence in speaking Polish has always been due to the fact that I should know how to speak well (I was born here!) and I was embarrassed that, while I could easily get around in Poland, I stammered, stumbled, and misspoke. (I still stammer, stumble, and misspeak.) I wasn’t giving myself any slack for having no real practice with the language for a good 10 years. I mean, I speak with my Parents regularly, but that is not nearly enough.
And yes, I may have been born here, but my family left to Austria when I was 6 months old, and then the US when I was 1. Not much language practice there. ;)
I know quite a lot of people who have Parents who speak other languages but they don’t speak a word themselves. I should have given myself credit for at least being semi-fluent. The first 6-7 weeks were somewhat of a struggle none-the-less because I was too far into my head. That is all neither here nor there now. I’m really happy I decided to come back here and I am falling in love with this city. If it wasn’t for the fact that it has a Fall/Winter/Spring that are not up to my temperature requirements I would definitely stay longer.
More on confidence:
If you didn’t read Thursday’s article How To Be More Confident I highly suggest you read it as well as all the comments. Lots of good stuff in there. If you’re into that article, a tweet or a facebook share would rock my Saturday.
Links 2, 3, 4 … (I probably shouldn’t throw an old Rammstein reference into my article without making it known, so … made known!)
8 Ways To Be More Confident: Live The Life of Your Dreams by Lori Deschene
In keeping with the confidence theme here is some more great advice about confidence. Lori and I planned this. Kidding. I don’t know Lori. Hi Lori! I love TinyBuddha. Blog high five.
How To Stop Living For Others’ Approval by Tammy Strobel
Ja to kocham. ;)
The 20 Essential Habits of Highly Passionate People by Henri Juntilla
A great list here from Henri. I have nothing of consequence to add. :)
Start Before You’re Ready by Steven Pressfield
“By the time we’re ready, it’s too late.”
I’ve stated it before, but as far as Wednesday blog articles go, there is none better than Steven Pressfield’s. If I was only allowed to read one blog on Wednesdays it would be this one.
The Best Way To Deal With Loss by David Cain
David writes the blog Raptitude and I love it. He’s at a few thousand readers right now. In one year I suspect he’ll have exponentially more. :)
This is the story of his ruined laptop and how, in the grand scheme of things, life is amazing.
Vegan and Vegetarian: Questions and Answers by Niall Doherty
Although these are specifically Niall’s answers and mine would be different, I get enough questions on this topic to warrant sending you here to get Niall’s perspective.
On Monday I’m posting an article about Stress Free Vegan Travel. It’s an epic at ~2,500 words. It might piss you off if you’re vegan, and you probably won’t read it if you’re not. Sweet! ;)
That’s all for this week.
Questions/comments/this? You know what to do…
That’s you hanging down right? I wonder how your first vegan article will piss me off! But maybe I shouldn’t be talking too early. :)
Yup, definitely me hanging by a thread. :)
Hey Karol:)
sweet post:).
Hope the rope wasnt to long… heh.
Thanks Henk :)
1. Thanks for the birthday wishes in continued link love format! Just online for 20 minutes before returning to celebrate it :)
2. WTF is that Youtube link you gave at the end?? :P
1) Yessir!
2) Ha!
Thanks for including me here Karol. I’m making my way through the other links and they’re all pretty good so far. Not ready for canyon swinging yet though :)
:) Nobody’s ready for the canyon swing until they’re on the canyon swing!
Hey Karol~
Thanks for including me in here! I like your site and I’m excited to poke around a little.
Wow that’s a scary picture. Kudos to you for taking the plunge. I went skydiving once on a second date…with my current boyfriend, actually. He told me if I ever wanted to see him again I’d have to jump out of a plane. I have never been so terrified in all my life! But buy was it worth it.
Happy Saturday friend =)
Lori
Hey Lori!
Skydiving is an amazing second date. Awesome that you went for it. I haven’t been in 11 years, but will do it again when the time is right. :)
Cheers,
Karol
Wow, thinks for the linkage, Karol. Much appreciated. Looking forward to your post on Monday. As a vegan about to embrace the vagabond lifestyle, it should be right up my alley.
You’ll either dig it or you won’t. ;)
I love the fact that you love to learn or improve your language skills! It is true that most immigrants who have kids for some reason don’t take the time to teach them.
Hey, at least you have the basics down. My wife is from the Philippines and I am trying to learn Tagalog (The Philippines National Language). I see so many Filippino parents not teaching their kids and it is a shame. My only problem is that when I travel to the Philippines, they have at least 80 different dialects. My wife speaks two and understands three. It can be confusing! Anyway, happy learning!!
Hey Randall,
Thanks. I have more than the basics down. I mean, I can hold a conversation and all. I still mess up a lot, but that’s part of the fun. :)
Cheers,
Karol
I’m sure you have much more than the basics down. You and Benny are to thanks for some conversations my wife and I have been having lately about learning language. I remember something like this from one of your posts “you can’t learn a language unless you speak it, studying and practicing will only take you so far”.
You are so right about this. I learn Tagalog when I am in the Philippines and around Filippinos. The learning curve is so much shorter and the progress is faster.
Thanks
“On Monday I’m posting an article about Stress Free Vegan Travel. It’s an epic at ~2,500 words” – awesome, can’t wait for this article! I always wondered how to travel as a vegan or vegetarian, especially in places like Thailand when you don’t know a language and don’t know what is vegan/vegetarian-friendly.
BTW (I hope you don’t mind that I correct your Polish hehe) it’s better to say “kocham to”, instead of “ja kocham to”. “Ja” isn’t necessary here, it’s used mainly if you want to emphasize a subject, eg. “Ja kocham to, a ty kochasz tamto”.
Dzi?ki Marcin. :) I don’t mind at all that you correct my Polish.
I´m not Vegan, but I´m really interesting in it these days for it looks like the ultimate respect to our body and planet Earth.
Skydiving rocks, we should all do it once in a while. I did it twice but I can´t dare to do to bungee jumping. Actually I did it once and I was really sure I was going to mack my face on the ground, but wouldn´t chicken out after waiting for an hour.
Hey Karol – thanks for the link love! You rock. :) And I loved all the other articles too – such a great resource! :)
You’re welcome Tammy! :)
oooh my brother-in-law does that for a living but from a helicopter(in case you ever fall into the Grand Canyon). ; )
I hope to never meet your brother! :)
I hope you don’t either–but he started on a zip line ; )
PS there is an old youtube vid of him and friends, he is the 1st and at 6:30min–Rapelling in Novato is the name