Posts Tagged ‘setting goals’
Feb
Feb
My language choice for 2010 is…
I was really torn about which language to focus on this year. The two I was most interested in were Italian and Polish. Italian, because it’s really the link between all other so-called romance… languages; and Polish because I live in Chicago, where there are more Polish people than anywhere else in the world, outside
Feb
Feb
The most important step you'll take toward fluency
I’ve chosen to learn to speak Italian fluently this year, but I have yet to complete the most important step I’ll perform this year. There are a lot of important steps involved in becoming fluent in a new language: learning vocabulary, figuring out those strange new grammatical constructs, opening your ears to hear the language,…
Mar
Mar
Updated goals for Italian
When I started this blog, I made a point that it is important it is to have clearly defined goals by which to measure success, and then I laid out some goals for this year. As it turns out, I think those goals were a bit too easy.
Mar
Mar
How much Italian can you learn in one month?
Okay, so what if you still don’t think it’s possible to be fluent in a new language in one year? Or, maybe you believe it’s possible, but just not possible for you. Or, maybe a year sounds fine, but you think anyone who claims to do it in two months is a pure genious… or just crazy. Right?
Mar
Mar
Fluent in one week? The Esperanto challenge!
While looking into the rudiments of Esperanto on a bit of a weekend whim, I tweeted, somewhat jestfully, that I could imagine someone being able to acheive fluency in Esperanto in one week. That remark was met with a friendly challenge and even a starting point, and so I’ve decided to give it a try.
May
May
The new "About Me" page
Things are off to a good start here, but I think there’s something that’s still missing. Learning all of these languages is neat for a web site, but it’s not the reason I do it. The real goal has always been to travel the world, and the point of the languages was to make new friends and enjoy new experiences in all of the places I want to go.
May
May
What do I want out of life?
In addition to sharing my tricks and methods for language learning, and my progress as I learn a new language every year, I have decided to also share with you my reasons for doing so. Today, I want to give more substance to that, but sharing my “Bucket List”.
Jul
Jul
Mid-year progress report, part 1
It’s mid-year, and even though I have only completed 5 months with Italian (I started this blog in February), is seems appropriate to consider this my half-way point.
So… how is my progress?
General assessment
Today I want to give a general self-assessment and talk about what sticks out in my mind… how I “feel”…
Jul
Jul
Mid-year progress report, part 2
It’s mid-year, and even though I have only completed 5 months with Italian (I started this blog in February), is seems appropriate to consider this my half-way point.
Yesterday, I gave a general assessment of how I’m feeling about my progress so far. Today, I’m going to look at my status in relation to my…
Sep
Sep
Is it important to speak correctly?
When you start learning a new language and reading all the motivation and instructional blogs, you find that there are a lot of strong opinions on whether or not it is important to speak correctly. Today, hopefully, I can help you cut through the dogma and the loud voices to figure out the answer for…