Chinese Clothing: A Comprehensive Guide to Traditional and Modern Styles
When you think of Chinese clothing, different images probably come to mind. Perhaps you envision the elegant flow of a silk qipao...
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Getting by a few weeks into learning a language: my Turkish haircut (& ear burning) experience
About six weeks into learning Dutch I was ready to go on 25 speed dates entirely in the language. It’s not quite the same thing for me now five weeks into my Turkish mission! Due to some annoying health problems and some frustrating travel related issues I’ll mention soon enough (that have nothing to do […]
How to learn to speak your 2nd language as if it were your 16th: The polyglot edge
In the last eight years, I’ve invested serious time into learning 16 languages (so far; I’ll be giving clues to the 17th one in the e-mail list throughout August, to be started in September. You can sign up to that on the top-right of the site if you think you’ll be able to figure it […]
The linguistic genius of adults: Research confirms we’re better learners than kids!
I wrote in great detail before about why adults are much better language learners than kids, but now linguists are starting to chime in! There is a stupid rumour going around that you can’t learn a language after a certain age (was it 6, or 12, or 14? I forget where the drunk blind man […]
Easy lifestyle adjustments to get a huge boost when things are going slowly
Now that I’m about a month into my Turkish mission I can say that things are going slower than expected. I’m behind on where I would normally be at this stage in learning a language. This has nothing to do with any issues with the language itself; Turkish is actually one of the most logical […]
Why does the language have to be so weird?
This post was originally part of my introduction e-mails for the Language Hacking League (which you can sign up for on the right to get similar tips or links twice a month in your inbox after an introduction series). Considering how I use Turkish as an example (but you can apply this tip to all […]
29 life lessons learned in travelling the world
This blog post was written on my 8 year travel anniversary in 2011. In 2013 I celebrated my TEN year travel anniversary with a much more visual representation of the top ten lessons learned in travelling the world, including the absolute best footage from my travels, and you can hear me speak out the lessons […]
Manga Case Study: Learning Japanese in One Year
How comic writer Mars Dorian set himself the challenge of learning Japanese in 12 months so he could read Manga comics. Did he make it?
How to prepare, record & upload a video entirely in a foreign language just after starting to learn it
Making a video in a foreign language is incredibly easy, even if you have just started to learn it. I made a minute long segment of my video entirely in Turkish this week just a few days after starting to learn it and have been getting great feedback and encouragement from people once they had […]
First week in Istanbul, where I live & first (video) attempt at Turkish!
Here it is! My first attempt at speaking Turkish (first minute of the video), followed by a look around where I live (in English).
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