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four days at sea (atlantic, ijsellmeer, baltic sea, north sea)

#scheduled water post

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In my L1-acquisition class two weeks ago, our professor talked about how only 9% of the speech a baby hears is single words. Everything else is phrases and sentences, onslaughts of words and meaning!

Thus, a baby not only has to learn words and their meanings but also learn to segment lots of sounds INTO words. Doyouwantalittlemoresoupyesyoudoyoucutie. Damn.

When she talked about HOW babies learn to segment words our professor said, and I love it, "babies are little statisticians" because when listening to all the sounds, they start understanding what sound is likely to come after another vs which is not.

After discussing lots of experiments done with babies, our professor added something that I already knew somewhere in my brain but didn't know I know: All this knowledge is helpful when learning an L2 as well:

Listen to natives speaking their language. Original speed. Whatever speaker. Whatever topic.

It is NOT about understanding meaning. It is about learning the rhythm of the language, getting a feeling for its sound, the combination of sounds, the melody and the pronunciation.

Just how babies have to learn to identify single words within waves of sounds, so do adults learning a language. It will help immensely with later (more intentional) listening because you're already used to the sound, can already get into the groove of the languge.

Be as brave as a baby.

You don't even have to pay special attention. Just bathe in the sound of your target language. You'll soak it up without even noticing.

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i always feel like peace of mind is one proper list away

begging my brain for One Structure....

#mo talks

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i always feel like peace of mind is one proper list away

begging my brain for One Structure....

#mo talks

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begging my brain for One Structure....

#mo talks

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i don't want to write my paper it makes my bad wrist hurt >:(

#mo talks

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When you first start learning a language the meaning of all of the words that you learn depend entirely on the equivalent word in a language you speak, and without that word to give it a meaning it would just be a random sound to you, but later on you don’t need that equivalent word for the new words you’ve learned to have meaning anymore and they just exist on their own in your brain without attachment to any other languages and I think that that’s my definition of fluency, when the words stop depending on another language for meaning in your mind

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Something that literally changed my life was working with a friend on a coding thing. He was helping me create an auto rig script and was trying to explain something to me but his words were just turning into static in my brain. I was tired and confused and there was so many new concepts happening.

I could feel myself working toward a crying meltdown and was getting preemptively ashamed of what was about to happen when he said, “Hey, are you someone who benefits from breaks?”

It broke me.

Did I benefit from breaks? I didn’t know. I’d never taken them.

When a problem frustrated or upset me I just gritted my teeth and plowed through the emotional distress because eventually if you batter and flail at something long enough you figure it out. So what if you get bruised on the way.

I viscerally remembered in that moment being forced to sit at the table late into the night with my dad screaming at me, trying to understand math. I remembered taking that with me into adulthood and having breakdowns every week trying to understand coding. I could have taken a break? Would it help? I didn’t know! I’d never taken one!

“Yes,” I told him. We paused our call. I ate lunch. I focused on other stuff for half an hour. I came back in a significantly better state of mind, and the thing he’d been trying to explain had been gently cooking in the back of my head and seemed easier to understand.

Now when I find myself gritting my teeth at problems I can hear his gentle voice asking if I benefit from breaks. Yes, dear god, yes why did I never get taught breaks? Why was the only way I knew to keep suffering until something worked?

I was relating to this same friend recently my roadtrip to the redwoods with my wife. “We stopped every hour or so to get out and stretch our legs and switch drivers. It was really nice. When I was a kid we’d just drive twelve hours straight and not stop for anything, just gas. We’d eat in the car and power through.”

He gave a wry smile, immediately connecting the mindset of my parents on a road trip to what they’d instilled in me about brute forcing through discomfort. “Do you benefit from breaks?” he echoed, drawing my attention to it, making me smile with the same sad acknowledgement.

Take breaks. You’re allowed. You don’t have to slam into problems over and over and over, let yourself rest. It will get easier. Take. Breaks.

#i don't have a queue

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24.04.2024 [😏]

🫖: 지금 할 일에 집중하기/ Let's just focus on now

#i don't have a queue

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#queer history

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Back to Childhood: Starburst

What's better than colourful paper stars? My aunt taught me how to make them when I was little, and I was quite bad at it. I tended to squish the stars too much when folding and so they wouldn't puff up.

#i don't have a queue

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My Earth Day reading pile is pretty big, but these are my Top 3 currently to dive into. We’ve got:

🩵You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by Ada Limón

💚Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer

💜According to Season: A Celebration of Nature by Mrs. William Starr Dana

#i don't have a queue

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doing a lit degree is just. "oh, you're on a book buying ban? please buy 8 books for class!"

#i got most of them second hand at least so it wasnt like 100€ #mo talks

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Hallo deutsches Tumblr - nicht deutschsprachig, sondern wirklich Deutschland-deutsch, bin selber aus Österreich - helft mir, was rauszufinden: Kennt ihr die Wörter "Beistrich" und "Strichpunkt"? Nicht ob ihr sie verwendet, nur ob ihr die schon mal gehört habt und versteht.

#strichpunkt ja aber beistrich keine ahnung #ausm süden

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how to say lola by the kinks is about a t4t couple having sex in the alleyway behind the club in my seminar

#mo talks