SketchNotes

Ah, this is my favorite time of the year - Winters;P

I am in the middle of this dark and stormy night, which people affectionately call "Exams";P - there are a few holes here and there in my longboat but I see the shores ahead! 

And, like any self respecting student in the middle of exams, I find myself procrastinating, hehe. But, hey I thought that I'd share the excitement with you guys about having made my first SketchNote. Nah, I won't share it over here just yet 'cos the technical side of Uploading things need to be taken care of but, I think that I near future I'll definitely be using this method A Lot. I love this way of learning things, being a Huge fan of Learning Organically and Quickly. So, through my other passion Sagematics I came across Sacha Chua's website and lOvEd her way of doing things. More on this later;P

It's been a great year so far and as December closes in, I am beginning to reflect on my goals I set for myself this past year. Beginning to Blog was an important one, not necessarily 'cos of a need to do it but rather for motivating myself for doing things which does worry me a lot - Actually speaking any of the Languages which I have gained a certain Proficiency at. I still am a bit anxious about it.

I know that the next couple of months might be the most busiest ones so I won't be able take strides regarding languages but, languages are like the One Good Obsession. I keep coming back to them no matter how busy I am, these days I am back to the Wonderful Anki Chinese deck which I was doing everyday a couple months back - about 1500 of a total of 14000! Long looong way ahead - happy about it;P

My life has taken an pleasantly surprising turn with the StartUp experience so there is Tons of learning to come and I am actually looking forward to it eagerly but how can I make most of what I learn?

After being  mesmerized by this SketchNote techniques, which came my way via Sacha Chua's wonderful ways of doing things. There are many examples over here at SketchNotes Army

I doodled my very first Sketchnote only yesterday and it was initially with a Pencil and today I finalized it with a Pen. Isn't this a wonderful way to revise what you have learnt, I literally could remember every word of the TEDtalk I SketchNoted. 

Three programs which I felt compelled to have a good command are Inkspace, Krita and GIMP which will help me digitize my notes and sketches.

I do love sketching and I am definitely looking for ways to use it effectively to learn languages. I am intrigued with the idea of using Visuals to learn languages and all the other Technical stuff which I'll be covering over the months to come. And I am happy to tell you that I have started to really improvise with tunes on the Harmonica as well.

Wonderful the way that Languages actually helped me explore and understand more about my own Learning Style. I'll tell you more about how it all came about in the next post or so.

Till then,

Strong Winds and Safe Waters)

Anime Season

I have definitely realized that, if I am to learn about Japan properly - then the entire facet of Manga/Anime can't be overlooked. It's a really really big thing, not only in Japan anymore but all over the world. So, I thought why not watch the unfinished Anime series back from my childhood days.

After all, why not?

Anime uses the Japanese language with it's subtleties in as natural a way as in real life - often with exaggerated graphics though;P

I kinda obsessed over theses whenever I could salvage the time for myself and in those little windows of time I managed to slog through

> About 180 episodes + 4 Movies of Inu Yasha.

> Wolf's Rain

> Death Note

> Ghost in the Shell
                     ( If you thought Matrix/Inceptions ware Awesome, you are gonna Love this)


Of course, there is Dragon Ball Z which is still left - but I don't find it as interesting as I used to, nearly a decade ago, same goes for Pokemon or say Astroboy. Too child-like for my taste, I find.

I now have a lot better understanding of [[  さま,  ちゃん,  さん,  くん  ]] and the numerous Interjections and Imperative statements which I found to be a bit of a slog before. So, there's passive learning at it's best. Actually, I have used this method before as well, with Russian. I went through all the screen adaptations of the Russian Classics - I learned a ton from those as well. Of course, nothing beats, actually speaking the language but, hey, there's so much amazing stuff which people have been doing in their own languages, I find it better to embrace it.

Sure, I understand the fact that the language/situations used in Anime or Manga can't really reflect the real world as such, so I have been exploring various Japanese movies to watch. I liked Okuribito a lot, quite an interesting concept and screenplay. Of the other real world material I have focused on are Gokusen series like sitcoms.

I definitely prefer watching comedy in any language and as soon as I get a whiff of News-like material my brain decelerates to { Bored } level.

As you know very well by now- I experiment a lot and I try my best not to confuse, Activity with Improvement. 

The reason for my interest in Manga and Anime has another dimension as well, I wish to understand Drawing/Sketching better. I mean, I often have trouble making human shapes on the paper but is sketching only about Sketching Figures ( Portraits) - not really?

For me, it's a mode of expressing a storyline or even an idea;P

So, instead of fidgeting over what I don't find interesting at the moment I'd much rather focus on the Human-like shapes of Manga/Anime characters and focus on the finer details of the Art form like Perspectives, Shading Patterns, Dresses. Till the time I have matured enough for handling actual figures, I seriously believe that this MangaSketching is a good approximations for the "Real" Stuff.

The Mystic Far East!

If you are Passionate about Languages and for some incomprehensible reason, you don't plan on learning one of the Big Three in Asia ( Chinese, Korean and Japanese ) then, my fellow journeymen, you are missing out on a lot!

Lately, I have been getting quite interested in the Korean language and the Korean history - don't you wonder sometimes too about the Twin States as in "What do the people in South Korea think about North Korea?" and vice versa, how different the life over in these two countries really is; how do people in these countries look back at history and more importantly how do they interpret it all.

Besides, if you get interested in the Asian Far East, there is no way that you won't learn about other countries as well. The histories of China-Japan-Korea are intertwined so deeply, needless to say that there is (my favorite) Mongolia as well in the mix but considering that only about 3 Million people are there in the entire country ( 2 Million of whom live in the Capital Ulan Bator itself ) and being surrounded by such Population juggernauts, Mongolia often gets overlooked.

But I digress;P

The point being, if you too are crazy about languages and "figuring out people" then the Far East can satiate your curiosity for a lifetime. Of the three languages, I think Korean is the easiest as the letters are phonetic ( like English or Esperanto) and thus you can gain confidence and have a taste of Asia through Korean itself. Later on move to Japanese and Chinese as you feel comfortable with the various narratives that you'd find interesting.

Say, if you like Buddhism and history of Ideas and Wars ( talk about Irony) then why not understand the languages within these contexts. For me, reading Harry Potter over and over again in different languages works perfectly for most non-Asian languages but when in the Far East, I better start reading more of it's Long history.

Lately I have been listening to History of China and History of Japan podcasts, both of which I would definitely recommend to get anyone started in the Asian History and then slowly start expanding one's knowledge base from there onwards.

I have already been gripped by these two, I think I have covered about 20 hours ( of 50 hours ) in History of Japan and about 10 hours ( of 40 hours) in History of China. In addition to these I am flirting slightly with Topics in Korean History and The Korean Society podcasts, though only a couple of episodes which seem interesting enough to take break from the other two.

Hmm, being obsessive is a useful trait to have;P

Mental Translations - How to avoid it.

It's frustrating when you find yourself mentally translating all the stuff you hear in your target language in your mother tongue. I know, that it makes us feel dumb when we don't understand what is being said but for languages it is the only way forward - Just do it!

Even if it doesn't make sense  - Just do it!

Even if it seems so so childish  - Just do it!

Even if your cheeks redden 'cos of sheer embarrassment - Just do it!

Even if your methods seems insane  - Do it anyway!

Continue to move your body around in this river and eventually it's gonna start making sense and One Fine Day, without you even noticing it - you'll be swimming like a natural.

It takes a while before our ears start responding to the various sound and speech patterns of any language. My trick for getting myself beyond this initial mental parsing ( translation ) state is by using Massive Listening. Which is to say, that I'd keep listening to the Music in the language, watch a movie or two even if it doesn't make any sense to my mind what so ever.

I'd put on my Google-skills hat on and type away all my questions over the internet, sometimes a blog shows up and at others some Video. But it all moves me towards the language I want to learn.

Recently, I have really come to appreciate the Value of Podcasts! Seriously, once you change the Coutnry Flag down at the bottom right corner of iTunes Store - you can see the magic unfold. You can discover your own interests in any language using this Podcasting revolution that's been going on. 

Don't fret if things don't make even the slightest sense whatsoever, stick with it anyway. You know, with all the interesting stuff you expose yourself to in a Language is Like watching a river flow by, try to enjoy the moment rather than worrying about controlling the river. Personally, I don't remember much of anything I hear in podcasts and that's the reason why I repeat them all over again after a while and this time I pay more and more attention.

Well, this works wonderfully for me and I use this method to just expose myself to new and interesting things in the language - temporary ignorance mustn't come in the way of constant exploration. That's the only way we Grow!

My advice to any one who wants to learn a language is Just-Do-It. Ideal conditions don't exist, rather you create them yourself.

On a sidenote, I wonder why I don't find Iran in the Flags menu! I mean, come on - Farsi is such a beautiful language and there are no native Iranian Podcasts listen over at iTunes. Though I still managed to find the Chai and Conversation Podcast through my surfing excursions.

P.S. This Mental Parsing might actually be a blessing in disguise! How, you ask?

If you are learning multiple languages and you wish to keep most of them active at the same time, then instead of translating a target language to your mother tongue, why not try translating it to another language you have learned in your journey.

Learning a language is not so much the ability of a person, rather a Universal feature of the Human Mind - Just Do It;P

The Visual Word

A couple months back, I joined Anthony Metivier's Free video course and over the next few days I received links for various Private videos on YouTube, letting me in on the Magnetic Memory Method.

Apart from long advertisement towards the end of the videos, I'd say the course was worth the time. I have already been following his Podcast for a couple of months now, so I thought why not explore his website and videos as well. What he has to say about memory is quite sensible - especially the fact that Memory is just a Muscle, the more we use this muscle; the stronger it becomes.

At the same time, I was exploring various visualization libraries for Programming and somehow the idea got came together that " What if I could make a random bunch of journeys/palaces using programs and then use them for my practice?". 

I did make progress with the libraries and the memory practice ( about the time when I bought the Pack of Cards ) but my rhythm came to a halt with being caught in the Dengue wave that was going on in the country, plus after that I got involved with the StartUp I mentioned in the previous posts.

Fast forward a month, I made little graphical representations of Japanese sentences which I wanted to memorize - as I haven't mad any active progress with the Memorizing Songs Project - I thought why not experiment with something else. This week I plan to make progress with actually putting those key-phrases Visualets in an actual Memory Palace.  The Idea being that I'd be able to remember more by making all these associations and organizing them in a particular order - this promises awesome skills.

Hopefully, this technique that I am working on, will make the entire Memory Ability thing more appealing for me. To be honest, I know it's gonna benefit me immensely but so far I have been quite resistant to the Idea of actually putting in all that work. That's the reason why this-post came about.

All I have to do is to be creative and make it Fun!