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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The most important skill a traditional learning approach will never teach you (+2 month Arabic video)
Here it is; my official two month point in Arabic! Subtitles in English, Arabic and Portuguese via Youtube.
I had initially planned to go to the Egyptian consulate in Rio, to finally speak the language for the first time in my life in person, but there were issues in setting up a meeting there. Luckily, I randomly ran into an Egyptian-American, Ahmed, at a Couchsurfing meeting!
I decided to only speak English with him then and ask him if he’d be up for recording a video with me. We still spoke English before recording the video, so he had no idea what my level would have been at. The reason I did this, was so you could literally see the very first time I genuinely spoke the language face-to-face with someone in my life, the moment after I pressed record.
Sharing this key moment is good for tracking my progress, since I know people are curious about such important milestones of the mission, (unlike some friends of mine, I don’t tend to have a camera on my head to catch such moments in cognito!) but obviously breaking into Arabic suddenly, after not speaking it for over a day since my previous Skype session, meant I didn’t have quite the ideal kind of flow I’d like. In future, I’ll speak in the relevant language for several minutes before recording, so I have this flow.
Why focus will get you much more than talent ever will
Shortly after I started blogging on Fi3M, I came across another site about learning and improving your ability to learn and made contact with the author. A few months later, Scott Young and I met up while I was passing through Paris briefly. (He’s the one who took that photo of me in front of […]
The month I lost faith in the system, and gained it in humanity
Today, I want to mention one of the most important points in my life, when my destiny changed and my faith in the traditional system of study hard, get a job, work up the ladder, and retire with as much money as possible, was absolutely shattered and I decided to start over from scratch, and why I’m really glad that I did.
Sorry it’s a little long, but I do want to give the full picture so you have the context of how my philosophy on life evolved dramatically in a very short time.
There are no quantum leaps in language learning – but that doesn’t mean you can’t sprint
Today’s video marks the half-way point of my mission to learn Egyptian Arabic to fluency in 3 months, while in Brazil. I’m talking to Henry, an Egyptian who lives in Australia, and it was the first time we ever talked. He’s a reader of this blog, and offered to let me record our Skype conversation.
How to speak French like a Quebecker – Le québécois en 10 leçons
As you all know, I’m a huge fan of Quebec and especially of its French dialect (here’s a video of me in French, interviewing a Quebec girl about the differences) and the wonderful people there. Because I genuinely tried to speak like them while living in Montréal, rather than rigidly sticking to the French I […]
How to Get Free French Classes on YouTube
I think the potential of learning online from what most consider something that you must go to classes for, was recently excellently demonstrated by Scott Young, as he successfully learned MIT’s Computer Science four year course in one year without actually going to MIT.
Pulling Back the “Magic” Curtain of Language Hacking
When I met my first polyglot at age 21, I was floored. It was like looking at a wizard. He jumped into various languages, and could express himself with ease in each language! Unfortunately, this is how most monolinguals look at it. It’s as good as magic.
21 ways to work, socialise & sleep well, maintain inbox 0 with 400+ emails, AND intensively learn a language all in a day! Time hacking 2.0
I can now share 21 hacks I apply every single day, to make sure that I can stay on top of all of this and still have plenty of time to invest entirely into learning the language, as well as have an actual social life!
Your ego is the reason you are not speaking the language (My 3 week video: speaking with a native)
Subtitles in English, Arabic and Portuguese as always. Don’t forget to click to activate! When learning Arabic, I decided to record my entire day of learning the language on camera. I was going to make it one video, but by the time I reached 9AM, I already have enough to make an important point! (Part […]
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