I’ve been writing about my language learning journey with French (click on the Search box above and type in ‘French’ to see the list of blog posts) over the last 18 or so months and one of the things that I’ve been deliberating is whether “language immersion” works and whether we need to be IN […]
What Did You Miss in May?
Blog Posts Alone in My Car (on Digital Minimalism) Time to Get Serious About the Next Phase (of My Life) Loving the Crafty Side of My Network (on preferring to read about the lifelong learning pursuits of my personal network rather than anything to do with their actual work because it’s what they do outside […]
What Did You Miss in April?
Here are my collected posts and YouTube videos for April 2020. Blog Posts What did you miss in March 2021? (Collected blog posts and videos from March) Completing the 30 Day Speak Your Target Language (French) Challenge Enjoying the Moment [on self-reflection] Enjoying My Birthday Future Fit [on importance of having a digital profile] Creating […]
30 Day Learning Challenge
Recently I found a tweet that had a language learning challenge over 30 days that I wanted to try out: I decided to give it a go and see how it all pans out. A few French speaking people have been helping me along – most prefer to give their feedback through Direct Message as […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing writing a blog post in French and then seeking feedback from my French speaking network, I’m able to correct the written phrases. Here’s what I got up to this week. A BIG Merci to Rotana Ty (@rotanarotana) for this weeks corrections! Cette semaine […]
Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait cette semaine?
Big thank you to my friend Céline Schillinger who helped me out with the French corrections this week in purple. Big thank you to Kevin Le Vaillant once again who has helped me out this week in the blue writing. Learning to write French requires practice and lots of feedback. By doing this, I’m learning […]
Learning Languages Ruined My Life
Phoenix shares his story of how he found a book in a bookstore called, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” (a book by Lionel Trilling) and how it made him think about how learning languages makes you intelligent BUT it comes at a cost. They are both painful. Painful in the sense that it gives […]
Qu’ai je fait durant le weekend?
Je vais utiliser ce blog à ecrire pour ècrire ce que j’ai fait sur durant le weekend. Je vais dire ces paragraphes à durant ou lors de mon cours d’Alliance Française ce lundi. Chaque semaine, j’ajouterai une autre encoure nouvelle histoire. Je ne sais pas si ces phrases ont sont raison correctes, mais il faut […]
Speakly – A New Language Learning App
I’ve been watching this YouTuber’s videos about language learning for over a year now. I stumbled upon his videos as there’s tons of polyglots out there on YouTube land all trying to outdo each other when it comes to learning multiple languages. I love his videos because he takes a genuine and authentic approach to […]
Tips on Seeking Feedback in Language Learning
For the last year, I’ve been trying to learn French. Last year, much of it spent housebound in lockdown and unable to go outside into the world, I had more time to focus on picking up a new language skill and devoting lots of hours towards it. This year with the Christmas break in-between, the […]
What I Learned About Myself – And About Learning – Learning French
Many of you know that I have been learning French this year. I have been devoting time, energy and attention to getting my language skill up to speed in the hope that I learn this language to the point of being able to speak it, read it and also understand it when it is spoken […]
The Costs of Learning Something New
You probably would have seen my rants and raves online about French. Don’t think I’ve lost the plot or something. If anything I’m letting off some steam usually because I think I should be at a level higher than where I’m at the moment. However, it’s all my fault of course. I’m more angry at […]
Without Feedback There Ain’t No Learning
For a while now I’ve been thinking “without feedback, there ain’t no learning”. Why? As you know, I’ve been learning French. I started this year taking a more self-directed approach to the language before realising that I can’t escape the fact that I need to speak it – and by speaking I mean having someone – […]
Resources I Use to Learn French
Many people on Twitter have asked me what resources I’ve been using to learn French recently. Others have also shared their own resources and apps they use to learn a language. I marvel at the huge amount of resources we have available – mostly free and readily available to learn a language. I have written […]
Learning French
By now you would have seen the tweets where I bang on about learning French. Many years ago in the (*cough*) I did six years of French but I failed. What a waste of six years of doing a language at high school! Since then, the only time I spoke the language was three times […]
Reflections About Personal Learning This Week – 3 May 2020
Beside my desk at home, I have a list of questions that were created by Kenneth Mikkelsen who wrote the post on The Best Leaders are Constant Learners. Every week, I glance over to it and make a mental note to use it as a means of self reflection for the week. After all, I […]
Apprendre le Francais
My recent trip to Strasbourg re-inspired my love of the French language. I learned French in high school and studied it for six years. At the time, I recall people telling me that I was wasting one subject at school when I should have focussed on an additional maths or science subject. However, I loved […]