Kerstin Cable 04/11/2018 Kerstin Cable 04/11/2018

#clearthelist November 2018: How To Stay Consistent (Or: The Goals I Missed)

Welcome to my latest language learning update through #clearthelist, which is a language learning round-up sharing monthly language learning goals, support, and accountability.

This month: Travel, Polyglot Conference, some missed goals, and new energy for November

Welcome to my latest language learning update through #clearthelist, which is a language learning round-up sharing monthly language learning goals, support, and accountability.

What Happened In October?

I feel like October began and then I went travelling and got home and then it was over. In our personal life, big things were afoot as we started the process of buying a flat here in Canterbury. Cue lots of new levels of bureaucracy, which I never knew the game of life could offer.

The month also saw a new speech I made at Toastmasters, this one probably my favourite so far as I spoke about feminism and the Women’s Equality Party, a cause well worth your attention.

Travel in October

Halfway through the month, I set off on a language trip with podcast co-host Lindsay to Croatia and Slovenia. I admit I didn’t study much Croatian before setting off to this beautiful country, mostly because I was relying on the linguistic guidance of lovely Shannon Kennedy (from eurolinguiste), who sadly had to drop out at the last minute.

Croatia’s most exciting language discovery was to spend a few hours in the mental Froggyland museum with Lindsay and trying to work out as many Croatian words as possible from the captions and their English translations. It worked surprisingly well, and later at the Polyglot Conference I learnt that this is an official teaching method called the Discovery Method. Not sure if it always has to involve frogs.

Polyglot Conference

Our travels led us to Ljubljana in Slovenia in time for the Polyglot Conference! Overall, what a fantastic event. I presented a talk on the seven questions you need to answer to learn a language solo, which was my first live workshop on the topic, during the Friday Language Learning Event. The line-up was excellent, with fellow presenters including Olly Richards, Gareth Popkins, Judith Meyer, Katie Harris, Lindsay Williams and Tim Keeley.

I also saw some great talks at the main conference, including Angelo DeLeo re-visiting the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in a talk on Linguistic Anthropology. So interesting!

Sadly I missed a large part of the conference as I got pretty sick, but I was well taken care of by many language friends. Thank you all!

The Fluent Show

My favourite episode of the month has got to be the conversation with Kathryn and Sam about how to start an amazing language journal. The podcast episode was combined with a gallery of inspiring shots from language journal keepers everywhere, and I loved the variety and creativity.

Language Goals and Progress

Let’s have a look how October went in terms of my language goals. I had hoped to focus mostly on Welsh, though I knew it’d be a busy one.

Listening

The goal was to switch the TV or radio on in Welsh 2-3 times per week, and somehow I just got too busy and overwhelmed and completely forgot about this. I will be back on this one as soon as I’m feeling well!

The trick with TV is always to find one TV show with a narrative that I want to follow, either a reality programme or a drama. In the goals section below, I’ll choose and commit to one.

Reading

Not a bad month! During my trip I worked my way through about 5 chapters of this book, and I’ll be able to finish it as soon as I find where I’ve put the damn thing when unpacking.

Speaking

I did okay here on the Say Something in Welsh goal, as I completed level 20. It’s not up to 22 as I’d aimed for, but 20 was a long one and taught me several new things. I also got to chat to several Welsh speakers at the Polyglot Conference, though sadly no fully Welsh speaking “paneds.” ☕️

Say Something in Welsh continues to be a great resource when my friends are busy.

Writing

My goal was to write at least one instagram caption in Welsh every week, and I did post 3 out of 4 (I’ll add another one today).

In addition, Lindsay’s idea of writing prompts helped me fill a few more half pages. I’ve even found writing prompts inside of the Duolingo app - finally something I like it for!

Monthly Contact Goal

Every month, I log my “daily contact” with the Welsh language. And October was not impressive, with just 13 days out of 31 logged. As always, this depends on me remembering to tick a box, so it’s not a 100% accurate number. On most of those contact days, I did spend a good 15+ minutes, so there’s that for a sunny side.

Other Languages

I’m slowly reducing my fear and getting a tiny sense of the words in Chinese, though I am far from spending 10 minutes every day. Overall, I spent about 60 minutes on Chinese this month. I watched an Easy Languages Chinese video which was excellent, taught me a word, and kept me interested.

In addition used the apps Lingodeer,Drops, and the book Chinese in 10 Minutes a Day.

Goals For November 2018

I’m pleased to say that November is not much of a travel month, so I can actually get a little bit of a routine going! Fantastic stuff. For the rest of this year, I’m excited to prepare for the Fluent German Retreat in Trier, and start work on my next secret project.

I am planning my goals using the Language Habit Toolkit, my collection of handy self-coaching materials for solo language learners.

Listening

As I mentioned above, the trick with TV is always to find one TV show to get into. Last week I checked into the S4C app and saw that the Welsh political drama Byw Cerlwydd is back for a 3rd season. Fantastic! For this month, my listening goal is focused on catching up with this show. That should give me over 5 hours of exposure.

Reading

If I write the name Sgwp here again, will you be cross? NO! I am getting better and better at reading in Welsh with the help of this book and there are just under 100 pages to go, so this month’s goal can be really specific: Get to page 150 of Sgwp!

Speaking

Apart from the Polyglot Conference, last month was a quiet one. So this month, I’m not sure how I’ll do with time but I am making it my goal to book 2 italki lessons and 2 language exchanges, one every week at least.

I am tempted to add a stretch goal as I’m super impressed with a coaching client who recently took the italki Challenge, and will return to italki this month to find a new tutor to chat with.

Writing

After the Top Tools episode and the language journal episode of the Fluent Show in October, how could I not be excited about language journaling! I’ve been diligently writing, but this month my goal is to put pen to paper and write in my Welsh journal 3x a month.

Other Languages

I’ll keep up the Chinese dabbling and aim for at least 6x10 minutes during the month. That’s a whole hour, after all, and often a goal of “10 minutes” turns into 20 before you know it.

How Was Your Month?

So that’s it for this month’s goals! Be sure to check out the linkup for #clearthelist, hosted by Lindsay Williams and Shannon Kennedy.

Are you setting goals, too? How do you feel about your target language and its usefulness?

Leave a comment below to tell me all about it!

Kerstin Cable 14/03/2016 Kerstin Cable 14/03/2016

Podcast Episode 35: Polyglot Club Certificates Available Now

Episode 35 of the Creative Language Learning Podcast is brought to you with support from HelloTalk. Go visit them NOW!

Do you remember when you first heard the word "polyglot"?

And what does this word mean to you?

Show Topic: What Is a "Polyglot" and Should You Be One?

In this episode, Lindsay and I went deeper into what's changed in the emerging community of internet polyglots. A few years ago, the YouTube landscape in particular was a nasty place. But things are looking up!

What does the word mean, and is being polyglot desirable?

Far from being entirely opposed to polyglots as a barrage of braggards and internet trolls, we are able to bring you many positive thoughts and perspectives.

Polyglot Guest: Alex Rawlings

In this episode, we have a special guest who is a famous fancy polyglot and known for winning the prestigious Harper-Collins award of being [Britain's Most Multilingual Student]. It's Alex Rawlings, co-founder of the [Polyglot Conference] and "full-time language guru dude".

Polyglots have existed a lot longer than YouTube.

Alex did an amazing job of describing how the polyglot community has changed and also why it wasn't a great place to start out in. It's fascinating how much YouTube comes up in this discussion. He shares the story of bringing a bit of offline magic into the online world, and we agree that the internet is now a nicer place for language learners, and thank God for that.

Takeaway of the Week

"It is what you make it."

There is still a personal challenge to readers, but also a real sense of permission to make the word mean what it means to you. Polyglots might be online, offline, nice, nasty, multilingual or just really curious.

For me, the biggest update to the polyglot label was the idea of it being all about the intention of learning languages, and the interest, and the passion. I love that!

Links and Tips from This Episode

Alex Rawlings writes at Rawlangs
Lindsay on Youtube: What's a Polyglot?
Kerstin speaks (reads!!!!) 25 European languages - the best part of making this video was finding native speakers of 25 languages in one week. I even rang the Icelandic and Luxembourgish tourist offices. ^__^
My Blog Article from May 2014, summing up all the polyglot negatives
Polyglot Conference - this year in Greece and the Polyglot Workshops or just search for any of these things on Facebook
Polyglot Gathering in Berlin
HelloTalk

Are you going to claim the polyglot title this year? Or still not convinced?

Kerstin Cable 09/11/2015 Kerstin Cable 09/11/2015

Podcast Episode 26: Language Careers, Language Events, Language Inspiration

In this episode, Lindsay and Kerstin discuss a good bunch of topics around the topic of language learning in person.

This episode is brought to you with support from Other Cats to Whip, a cute French book that you can buy for 10% off using the code FLUENT.

What was language learning like before the internet?
What’s so great about an event like the Language Show?
Our ideas for Langathon and Language Speed Dating
Language and Careers: What’s out there beyond Teaching and Translating?
Lindsay’s passionate explanation of “Primary Languages” in the UK, and how to instil a language passion for life in younger learners
Our appreciation of multilingual actors and subtitles in TV and movies

Our podcast also featured a short interview with Dan McIntyre from the University of Huddersfield and our discussion around what fluency involved.

Tip of the Week

Lindsay chose Tip 2 as the winning tip for this episode and added more great ideas on how you can present to people, even when they are not learning your language.

1) Draw a trilingual vocab chart to practice vocab divergence

2) Prepare a presentation for your tutor or buddy

3) Swipe in two languages using the Swiftkey Keyboard app

Links and Interesting Stuff from This Show

Language Learning Events around the World

Kerstin Cable 22/06/2015 Kerstin Cable 22/06/2015

Podcast Episode 18: World Views and Polyglots with Lindsay Dow

Episode 18 is packed full of language learning news and chat with Lindsay from Lindsay does Languages, my trusty and lovely co-host. I hope you'll join us for all the debate and learning!

We discussed

A truly useful and helpful definition of Polyglot by Richard Simcott
What the Polyglot Gathering is and how it went down in Berlin in 2015
If a language you learn really makes you think differently, and
Whether Kerstin should make herself study more Russian or allow herself the fun of exploring a bit of Welsh

In Episode 16, I'm introducing our new co-host: Lindsay Dow from Lindsay Does Languages I’m bringing Lindsay in for more Creative Language Learning Podcast because she's just been so much fun for you to listen to.

Article of the Week

"How the Language you Speak Changes your View of the World" in the Independent

closely related Does your Language Shape how you Think? in the NY Times

Tips of the Week

Lindsay's tip of the week was tip number 1, of course because she is completely involved in the awesome Script Challenge this year. Unplug your computer, get a book from the library and write down those words.

1) Go Old Skool with handwriting

2) Use your internal thesaurus when you get stuck

3) Play video games in another language (here's a relevant article from Learn out Live)