Learning a foreign language - part III

...continued from here

5. Read newspapers and magazines in the area in which you would like to be fluent.

If you are learning the foreign language so that you can converse with Chinese manufacturers of VOIP equipment, you might want to know their words for VOIP, telecommunications, phone, etc. This is not the usual fare served at a typical language school.

A typical language school will teach you how to ask for an espresso, politely introduce yourself, and be able to describe how you are related to some far removed relative. Rarely have I found enough 'meat' in these courses that would help you carry a typical conversation with a friend or a business partner.

6. Listen to conversations in the subject area in which you would like to be fluent.
It is not enough to know the right words and proper grammar in order to be a good speaker of a foreign language. Listen to people. Learn what phrases they use when they answer the phone, order a meal, or get out of an awkward social situation.

A great example of 'It's not enough to know the language' is Australia. Here is a country that shares the same grammar and words with the language spoken in Canada and the States, but there are quite a few things that are different. Instead of "How are you doing?" Australians will say "How you going?" Or, instead of "Thinking outside the box" Australians "Thinks outside the square."

My message here is that studying in a classroom setting won't get you the fluency you want. Even the new teaching methods of 'teaching by doing' still won't get you there. They will get you almost there, but don't expect to be fluent after finishing the course. It is out there, in the real world, that real learning happens.

7. Start SPEAKING.
This is a must after you've accepted the previous point. Your language skills will improve by speaking and learning, learning and speaking. Not just by learning.

In the beginning, you will make a lot of mistakes. That's ok. Heck, even later on, once you've been speaking the new language for a while, you will still be making mistakes. That's still fine. As opposed to looking at all the mistakes that you are making, focus on all those times that you are understood. If you had not decided to learn a new language, all those new experiences never would have happened.

Australia has a new Prime Minister

A shocking development happened here in Australia on Thursday morning.  First, the Prime Minister was replaced by his own party just a few months before an election.  Second, the new Prime Minister is a woman, for the first time in Australia's history.


The new Prime Minister, JULIA GILLARD, is a very good speaker and I do hope she makes some good decisions in the next few months.  She has elections coming up soon, most likely in August, and I do hope that she gets (re)elected, as the Opposition is lead by a bumbling idiot, also knows as Tony Abbott.


Australian governments have fixed terms of three years, which make it difficult to accomplish much during one term, as you have to fight for re-election quickly after you've started governing.  


Australia was run by a Liberal (Conservative, Republican-type) government for 11 years from 1996 to 2007, which had moved country towards right-wing policies and measures.  The country would benefit from being nudged a bit to the left.

Wikisummaries.org / Charitable work / Book Report - Economics 2.0

I was going to write a summary of the "Economics 2.0" book that I have just finished reading, but I thought that instead, I would direct you to browse the summary of this book that I've put up on wikisummaries.org.

I found the book very interesting, and full of summaries of various studies into economics issues.  Study of economics is finally starting to take into account that not all human activities are guided by desire for profit.  If they were, then Bill Gates would still be working at Microsoft, instead of spending billions of dollars trying to better peoples' lives.

Also, if I were motivated solely by money, I would not have spent my time (>15 hrs) writing up a summary of a book for free, to be read by strangers that I will never meet.  Where would Wikipedia be if people did not volunteer hours and hours building this huge body of knowledge for all to use freely?

There are various ways that each of us can do charitable work.  For some, charitable work is spending a day in a soup kitchen, or delivering meals to the poor.  For others, donating money to a favourite charity is the preferred way of helping others.  My preferred way to help is to share knowledge.  I really like the concept of wikipedia and wikisummaries, as my one selfless act of committing information to a wiki, helps/teaches people  over and over again.

I think that the only way we can make this world a better place for all is through sharing of knowledge.  You can feed a person, and that will get him through the day.  If you teach him something new, that will get him through life.

Faxing for free

A few days ago, I found myself in a situation where I had to send a fax within an hour.  As it was around midnight my time, I did not have the liberty of going to work or anywhere else to use a fax machine.  So what did I do?  15 minutes later I had found two web sites that allowed me to send a fax to North America for FREE.  I love free!

The first web site I tried was My Fax.  Their web site allowed me to quickly fax a one-page document that needed to be delivered urgently.  MyFax also has a 30-day free trial which could potentially be useful if you do a lot of faxing.  I only had to send one page, and it had to be quick.  Another nice thing about their free service is that they sent me a confirmation when the fax was successfully transmitted.

The second web site that I tried was FaxZero and that is exactly what I got.  I sent a fax, was sent a link to confirm sending my fax and then never received a confirmation that my fax was sent.  Their web site also seems to indicate that they are currently undergoing maintenance, but is dated 4 days ago.  Best to stay away from them.

There are many other fax web sites that will give you access to Internet faxing at a reasonable price, TrustFax being one of the ones that I would recommend.

A beautiful winter day in Sydney

This is my kind of winter!  Clear skies and t-shirt weather.  I missed out on nice weather yesterday (worked from home) so I decided to make good use of my Sunday and go sightseeing.

I discovered quite a few good vantage points for taking nice pictures of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  I also visited the Sydney Luna Park (free to enter, you only need to pay for the rides).  The rides were definitely not age appropriate for me so I chose to enjoy the weather and take some amazing pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/ivanonthemove/2010WinterInSydney?authkey=Gv1sRgCK-qvpHWq--O3gE

Funny Name of the Week

This week's pick for a funny town/city name is:

Wallarobba

Weird!

I just got on the train to work and I had to pull out my laptop to post what I saw.  Person sitting right next to me has the WEIRDEST nails that I have ever seen.

He was sleeping in his seat when I sat down, so I looked over to see what he was holding in his hands.  He was not holding anything, but it was his long nails that made it look like he was holding something.  The nails on his thumbs were about 8 cm long.  Very disturbing, might I add.

I thought that weirdness stopped there, but no such luck.  He stirred from his sleep and then I got to see his right hand.  ALL of his fingers on his right hand had 6-8 cm nails.   I wonder if he has a girlfriend.  Maybe she has even longer nails than he does.  Hmm.

Mental health temperature

What do you do to check if your body is not feeling well? You check the temperature, and then you know that something is not wrong with your body. How often are you not aware how bad your mental health is?

Often, your mental health is in the middle of a prolonged fever, but you don't even know it. So how can you easily test your mental health temperature? Simply! Just observe your reaction to simple troubles in life. How would you react to a burned toast? When you are feeling comfortable, strong, relaxed, you say "No big deal, let's throw in another slice of bread in there." When you are rushed, under pressure, feeling down, a burnt toast is a calamity. If you don't toast your bread, you could use any other little problem that life throws in your way (i.e. getting cut off on your way to work, people bumping into you on a busy train, someone hogging your favourite treadmill, etc.).

It is really important to take care of your mental health. One of the most important reasons for this is that your mental health has a huge impact on your physical health. When you are feeling happy and confident, you don't get sick, you eat well. You can even go exercise without much prodding.

Check your mental health temperature often. It's good for you!

What's a papaw?

I have been admiring the selection of tropical fruit at local grocery stores.  It is just amazing to see the variety of all this foreign (to us) fruit.  Here, they don't just sell mangoes (like they do in Canada), but they sell Calypso mangoes, R2E2 mangoes, Kensington Pride mangoes, Honey Gold mangoes, etc.  They sure know their mangoes.

One fruit that looked appealing was paw paw.  I finally decided to buy it and try it, only to realize that although it smells good, the taste was not to my liking.  It tasted strangely familiar, though.  After doing some research, I found out that paw paw is either the same as or very close to papaya.  I have yet to see papaya in the grocery store, so it seems that when they say paw paw, they mean papaya.

We have experienced a lot of those moments when Australians talk about some new thing which we have never heard of, until we actually see or try it, only to realize that this is the same as ... back home.  It's just that it is called something different in Australia.  Capsicum, for example, is what they call a pepper.  Yes, red capsicum is a red pepper.  What I find confusing is that black pepper (the spice) is called - black pepper!

We are still learning new Australian words, but I am happy to say that these days we may hear an Aussie word that we have not heard before about once a month, while half a year ago, the rate was a new Aussie word at least once a week.  

Funny Name of the Week

This week's pick for a funny town/city name is:

Koolewong

Blog - Two year anniversary

I just realized that it has been just over two years since I've started this blog.  What have I learned through my blogging experience over the past two years?

I've learned that it takes a lot of time to write a good post.  :-)  I first write a rough draft of what I want to say, then go through it and make the ideas flow.  On the last run through the post, I check and correct minor punctuation and spelling errors.  It does take a considerable amount of time to write a good piece.

I have also noticed that I have a lot of ideas that I want to share with others and this blog provides me with a venue where I can safely share those ideas.  At a later time, I can revisit those same ideas and see if my views and opinions have changed, and if I they are still the same, maybe I can evolve the ideas even further.

The last point that I would like to reflect on is that I am really happy that I have persisted with keeping my blog continuously updated for the last two years.   I have seen MANY people start a blog, and then have their enthusiasm wane after a few posts.  This quick drop in enthusiasms is usually an indication that the person was not very passionate about what they were doing/writing.  As a corollary of that, I would say that I AM passionate about sharing my experiences and thoughts with others.  I believe we can learn a lot from each other, but the only way to learn is by each of us sharing their knowledge.  In my case, I try hard to share my knowledge and experience in this blog.

I hope you continue enjoying my blog.