Posted in 2020, 3 Day Projects, Russian on 18 September, 2020| 2 Comments »
Conversation practice and vocabulary mining (travel; coronavirus; environment): 20 hours.
It’s been an absolute age since I last posted here, but I’m back baby! In just three days, I’ve learned close to 500 new Russian words and phrases, and my wife assures me that both my fluency and accuracy have simply skyrocketed.
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Patwa on 22 December, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Read a collection of funny stories in Jamaican Patois (Patwa): 3 hours.
Like sweet music to my ears, a mere phrase or two of Patwa brings a smile to my soul on the rainiest of days. Rather than dive into Jamaican movies and music (which is what I usually do), I purchased Joelle Wright’s A Soh Dem Gwaan on Kindle (along with Jamaicasaurus for reference) and was not disappointed: I rarely laugh out loud this much while reading!
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Toki Pona on 12 December, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Finish reading Michael Fridman’s translation of “The Little Prince” along with Sonja Lang’s Toki Pona: The Language of Good: 8 hours.
I believe there’s real power in learning grammar and vocabulary through short and playful projects, and you don’t necessarily need to wait until you’ve read a textbook or graduated a formal language course either. Completing some small journey or adventure in the language (in my case, reading a children’s book over the last week) felt really empowering, and made the task of studying grammar afterwards a much more motivating and rewarding experience.
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Toki Pona, Uncategorized on 8 December, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Read a children’s classic in a constructed language: 7 hours.
Having dabbled in Toki Pona over the years, I thought Michael Fridman’s (heavily abridged) Toki Pona version of Antoine de Saint-Expuréry’s “The Little Prince” would make a fun little project. Chapters were initially challenging and slow to decipher, but I soon got the hang of it and sped up with all the growing confidence of a cryptic crossword aficionado.
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, ASL, Uncategorized on 1 December, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Study Baby Sign Language in preparation for my son learning it next year while at daycare: 3 hours.
With free time at a premium this week, I opted for the easiest project that came to mind. And this was a good choice on the whole, as learning several hundred ASL-based Baby Signs while up to my eyes in baby diapers and toddler tantrums turned out to be a relative crawl in the park.
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Irish on 23 November, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Dive into Buntús Cainte and breathe life back into my moribund Irish: 8 hours.
Having completed almost half of the first textbook, I’m finally “back on the capall (horse)” after all these years… I absolutely love the melodious lilt of the Irish language, and the cheeky retro illustrations used throughout this course are great craic (fun)!
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Filipino, Tagalog on 16 November, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Try out a new online grammar course (Tagalog Lite, currently in beta) and provide user feedback: 9 hours.
I’ve made my way through just over a third of the course so far, leaving corrections and suggestions in my wake as I go. Each chapter and appendix unlocks new mysteries, and I feel my grasp of the language’s grammar is slowly but surely starting to fall into place.
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, French on 10 November, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Kick-start my French back into action with the help of Assimil’s New (old) French with Ease: 11 hours.
Ignoring supplementary exercises, I pushed through more than half of this textbook and picked up a few hundred phrases for productive review along the way. My wife says it took her close to forever to finish this course, so I guess 63 lessons is a respectable result for 3 days.
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Multilingual on 6 November, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Look up 5 useful expressions across 25 different languages: 5 hours.
I really enjoyed indulging my inner language nerd in this project, and have already used some of the phrases I learned across several new languages in the wild. I don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier?!
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Filipino, Tagalog on 3 November, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Study a small subset of Filipino words and phrases to enhance everyday conversation in Honolulu: 6 hours.
Out of respect to our extensive Filipino community here in Hawaiʻi, I finally got round to learning some Filipino (the official standardized form of Tagalog, used as a lingua franca in the Philippines and abroad to unite people across 182 indigenous languages!) It’s amazing how peppering conversation with simple token phrases can lead to a spinning Wheel of Fortune of beaming smiles, suspicious snake eyes, and the occasional free dessert.
Travels with Teango 