Nothing much happens

If you suffer from insomnia and can’t sleep because you keep overthinking everything that’s happening in your life and mainly the problems ahead of you (like me), I have something that might help you. As a bonus, you can improve your English at the same time.

Everyone knows that stories help people to fall asleep. That’s why parents read their children bedtime stories. It didn’t work for me when I was a child, because I refused to fall asleep until I’ve heard the end of the story. For that reason, it’s difficult for me to fall asleep while watching movies or listening to audiobooks or fiction podcasts. Last night though, I found something perfect. It’s a podcast called “Nothing much happens; bedtime stories for grown-ups." This podcast is supposed to make you feel sleepy and relaxed and prepare your body and brain to fall asleep. Nothing much happens in each episode, but these short stories are filled with cosy images and safe places that make you feel good and then you are suddenly asleep without thinking about it.

The storyteller’s voice is soft and calming. At the beginning of each story, she advises to deeply inhale and exhale. If you get used to it, it will become your falling asleep ritual, which will also help. The woman’s voice says every story twice, the second time a little bit slower.

Concerning the studying part, the stories are very simple, written in short sentences, therefore easy to understand. What is more, you will hear each story twice and some of the sentences will get stuck in your head. English is idiomatic with fixed structures, so the more of it you absorb, the easier it will be for you to build sentences yourself.

People also tend to remember more, if they study their target subject right before they go to sleep.

If you want to take it to another level, you can try to start writing such simple stories yourself. First with short sentences depicting everyday life details and then began to make them gradually more complicated.

Duolingo

Today I’m introducing another one of my favourite language learning apps. Duolingo is awesome, because it teaches you not just vocabulary, but also how to build sentences including the articles, tenses and other grammar rules.
It’s easily recognisable because it uses this adorable little green owl as a mascot.

You can study 23 languages including Hawaiian, Welsh, Hebrew, Latin, Indonesian, Navajo, Esperanto or Scottish Gaelic but also High Valyrian or Klingon. If you are a non-native English speaker (and crazy enough), you can practise English while learning Spanish for instance.

It’s super easy and intuitive. You just choose a language you would like to learn and decide if you want to start from the beginning or take a placement test in case you have some experience with the language. At first, you are introduced to some basic vocabulary using pictures and soon you’ll start to put them into simple sentences. It is possible to practise listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. There are multiple layers in every lesson, which are divided according to various topics (either grammatical or semantic).

Duolingo uses a freemium model, which means that you can use it for free or sign up for premium membership and unlock some extra functions.

You can set your daily goal, come back any time and practise what you already know.

They are trying to make learning fun. I bet some of the example sentences will make you giggle.

I use it for Norwegian these days. In the past, it came in handy when I needed to quickly refresh my Japanese, Russian and Spanish knowledge and check how much I understand.

When you focus on the achievements, it feels more like a game than studying.

Memrise

First I want to talk about an app, that taught me hundreds of words when I was trying to learn Japanese, helped me pass exams and in the end graduate university successfully.

It is called “Memrise” and you can use it on your laptop or smartphone. First, you need to create an account and enter your native language. Then you click on “Courses” and select a language you would like to learn. Some of the courses were created by the team of Memrise and some of them by other users of the app.

I know just the English and Japanese sections. Concerning Japanese, my classmates and I just put in the vocabulary and other things we had to learn by heart, so it would be easier for us to prepare for an exam. Regarding the English section, the options are endless. You can learn vocabulary from a certain level (A1-C2), from various textbooks, topics (food, travelling, business, phrasal verbs, irregular verbs,...) or to prepare for specific English proficiency exams (FCE, CAE, TOEIC,...) and so on.

If you don’t want to study a language, there are also other possibilities, such as literature, maths, science, history, etc. or just general memory training.

When you click on a course, you will see all the levels included. The levels are represented by pots, in which you will start to grow your knowledge.

Course -> Level 1 -> Learn these words

They will introduce the vocabulary first. Then you will practise by reading, listening and writing (in some cases also speaking I guess). If you want to practise the pronunciation more, you can always repeat the word aloud.

The button “help me remember this” sometimes provides some kind of strategy, how to remember a certain word.

Then you will slowly plant and grow each new word in your mind. You can come back any time and revise.

Especially if you are a beginner or your language level is quite low, always choose a course that includes an audio file with pronunciation.

It might seem complicated described like this, but believe me, it is in fact pretty intuitive.

When you become more familiar with the app, you can also create your own courses and packages with vocabulary, that will be personalised.

This is how you see your profile with all your courses (you need to scroll down) and words learned. Mine says: learning 27 courses with 8642 words learned. I don’t know how this insane number happened.

I don’t know what else to say.
Go and try it!

About me

- Perfectionist; I don’t feel in control, yet I’m always trying to be; Organized and methodical; Open-minded; Reliable; Caring; LGBTQ-friendly; Outwardly cynical (but secretly hoping for the best); Big sister who will always help you with your problems; I like to pick people's brains and to know why you like certain things; Also Sensitive; Emotional and Unstable

- I love to learn foreign languages and I’m interested in linguistics in general. My major at the university was Japanese. Currently, I teach English (and basics of Japanese or Korean if there are students) in language schools.

- Fluent in Czech, English
- Would like to be fluent in Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Norwegian

- Other things I like: travelling, forests, mountains, lakes, libraries, cafés, cats, wine, paperbacks, old furniture and dishes, diaries and handwritten notes, physical photographs, summer music festivals and open-air cinemas, true friendship and unconditional love, hot tea in winter and cold coffee in summer, night sky without light pollution, Japanese culture and language, meaningful tattoos, heartbreaking poetry

- I like ships and I admire airline and ship captains and saxophone players.

- Countries I’ve Visited: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, United Kingdom

- Music: The Mountain Goats, Julien Baker, Ezra Furman, Amanda Palmer, 21 pilots, Bishop Briggs, Alt-J, Lewis Capaldi, Hamilton soundtrack, Billy Talent, Japanese (One Ok Rock) and Korean indie (also BTS, yes I'm ashamed)

- Movies: by Hayao Miyazaki, Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino
Rocky horror picture show is the ultimate feel-good movie

- Actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Mads Mikkelsen

- Writers: The Beat Generation (Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs), Chuck Palahniuk, Haruki Murakami, Robert Fulghum, George R. R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Andrzej Sapkowski, J. H. Krchovsky, John Darnielle
Franz Kafka is my spirit animal

- Books: I grew up reading Harry Potter books. My favourite book ever is "The home at the end of the world" by Michael Cunningham. Other favourite ones: Tell the Wolves I'm Home, The Catcher in the Rye, The Art of Asking, The Master and Margarita, The Great Gatsby, The End of Punk in Helsinki, Wolf in White Van

- I'm trying to live lightly on this Earth.

- My life is a constant cycle of me deciding to get my shit together and me deciding to not give a fuck and giving up

- On all levels except physical, I’m already retired and living in a cozy cottage where I keep bees in my garden

- "If you can’t beat fear, just do it scared."

- あなたが一番好きなことを見つけ、それをしているあなたを好きな人に出会いましょう。

- Virgo

- Ravenclaw

Introduction

I’ve been thinking about starting this blog a lot recently because I’ve been learning languages my whole life (teaching them during the past few years) and I know what helps. If I come up with something new, that I consider helpful for my students, I always do it sooner or later.

I recommend my students the same things over and over again, typically those that I’ve tried and that I’ve kept using ever since. When I come across something new, that I would like to share with my students, it is troublesome to send an email to everyone separately.

As a result, I created this blog to have all the tips and tricks in one place available to everyone. We’ll see if it’ll work.

The name of the blog comes from the idea that once you begin learning a language, you suddenly stop hearing disjointed sounds and start hearing meaning.

The quote on the top is something that Péter Medgyes, a Hungarian linguist, said as a part of his lecture “How’s this for fun?” at the 25th P.A.R.K. Conference in Brno.

Very true indeed.