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- Great post. I am in a similar position as you are. I already got laid off. I should be ok for at least a year, which now gives me the opportunity to work on an income stream I have been developing...
- hat they spend more time with their co-workers than with their friends and families and therefore want to contribute to the morale of their workplace
- I was the very definition of a jet-setting businessman. I had an American Express Corporate Card and no limits on spending
- Isn't it funny how creative we can get when faced with financial uncertainty? Being able to create side hustles, alternate income sources and additional money has always been a part of my life...
- yessir yessir yessir. you've got soul Steve, and that's why we like you. *Shadox - great comment. haha.
brip blap
life, family, the world, wealthbuilding and the pursuit of happiness
Patrick, of Cash Money Life fame, has tagged me to give my best financial move in college. This âorganically growingâ meme was started by plonkee. The first part was posted yesterday.
Best Financial Move In College #2: Learning an “exotic” for ... Continue reading »
Best Financial Move In College #2: Learning an “exotic” for ... Continue reading »
6 months ago
My best financial move occurred not in college, but in my senior year of high school, where I took a one-semester personal typing course on a lark, in an era and culture where few men knew how to type. It eventually brought me gainful employment as both a computer programmer and a writer. And I didn't have to pay anyone to type my term papers in college.
6 months ago
I still remember things like "Do you speak Russian?" and the ever-useful "Excuse me, please."
6 months ago
@Mrs. Micah: I have always wondered if my interest in Russian and the difficult, rules-heavy languages has been because I'm a mathematician and accountant, etc... maybe it's a left brain/right brain thing?
6 months ago
6 months ago
I lived in TX, so I was able to use it while I was there. However, once I made it into college, I stopped taking classes because of scheduling, and once I joined the AF and returned to college, I focused on taking only the required classes to receive my degree.
With a structured set of courses, I have no doubt I would have been fluent. I think languages are fun and I have an aptitude for learning them... just not the time to do it! :)
There is a saying I firmly believe is true - "to learn another language is to gain a soul."
6 months ago
6 months ago
Many Malaysians know at least 2 languages, some 3. We are quite a racially mixed country with Malays, Chinese and Indians. We speak, read and write Malay (the official language), English (a legacy of our British past) and the mother tongue if we are Chinese or Indian. The key thing is that it is very easy to practice the languages.
We have a fair share of Westerners who speak our local languages and it never fails to impress.
I would think that your studying Russian must have been a tougher deal, but then you seem to be one of those rare A+++ students / sports athlete and people that bozos like us don't like, but secretly admire.
Best regards
6 months ago
My problem has always been 2-fold, I can never get the accent right, and I never have an opportunity to practice. So, I've lost the French, Spanish, Mandarin, etc, etc, that I've learned throughout the years.
6 months ago
I'm a francophile myself. Not very popular, I know.
6 months ago
6 months ago
The language that stuck and has been very helpful in my career, is, of all things, Latin. Because I learned Latin before I was 6 yrs old it seemed easy at the time and as Latin is the root of so many other words I always seemed to others to have a large knowledge base of vocabulary - something people seem to equate with intelligence. I know it's just good memorization skills!
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@Fathersez: Heh - well, the sports glory lasted about 8.3 seconds after I didn't make the tennis team for my university and (this is a subject for a future post) the high school grades were meaningless after the first semester in college. But I was intensely focused in high school, that's for sure - in college I let loose a bit more and let my social life expand a bit. I played a lot of club sports and one varsity sport in college (lacrosse) but in the end it's all just about being happy with where you end up at, not where you were - and I can tell you I wish I had a few of those hours spent hammering away at the tennis ball in high school back...
@Stanislav: I'm enough of a russophile that we came VERY close to naming our son Stanislav, actually :)
6 months ago
Say hi to your Dad from all of us in Malaysia.
I have always wondered about your name. Sounds a little (a lot like) Deepavalli...the Indian Festival of Lights.
Regards
PS: Steve, Sorry to use your post for this off topic spreading of goodwill and good cheer
6 months ago
(Gee, I was there back in the 80s, you know. ^-^)
I wish I get as much credit for learning English. . . Americans tend to take it for granted that everyone speak English, and some puts me down for the minor errors I still make, like the singular and plural rules.
Anyhow -- thanks for learning any foreign language. I think it's good because you get more perspectives.
6 months ago
@Akemi: Yeah, that's about what happened. I don't think I had any special affinity for Russian culture before I took the course, and so I'm sure I could have become just as infatuated with Japanese (or Chinese or Czech or Brazilian or whatever). I am still fascinated by Japanese from a distance - I watch documentaries and movies about Japan all the time. So I didn't completely lose my interest!
The funniest thing is that you would think I met my wife in Russia, but I didn't - I came back to the States and then met a Russian immigrant in NYC. Go figure!
And you have a great point that Americans assume everyone should speak English, and I think everyone should! I have always said that the value of a common language is extraordinary. I traveled throughout the former Soviet Union and having Russian as a common language was very helpful. If the world had decided on French, or Spanish or whatever as a common language I would learn that, but hey - if English is emerging as the common language, fine. I just like the idea that everyone in the world speaks their own language but has one more in common. I think in the end it may be Spanish or Chinese, but for now it's English - and that's fine with me. Anything to understand people better!
6 months ago
Once you get the fundamentals down you start to understand languages very quickly, especially when they have the same roots.
6 months ago
My French is to your Russian, a lot of people look at you different when you say you "know" three languages. It's definitely opened some doors for me and differentiated me from other people when it comes to work.
6 months ago
Solar Yard Lights: Could you elaborate on the wasy you develop to acquire new languages fast? Since I grew up in Miami I learned basic Spanish & could benefit from knowing it in my job now but I don't seem to be moving the needle much with language CD's - any hints?
Steve (a/k/a BB): Thank you for letting us take off on a tangent! It is too bad that colleges are not pushing more for current students to learn an additional language as in business we are becoming more global by the day - my company does business in 55 countries.
And, yes, English is spoken most places on the planet but as you have found out, if you really want to get to know the locals, speaking the language, or even making an effort in their mother tongue is a huge help to entering the culture.
6 months ago
@WC: Having parents who speak two languages is definitely a help - we are hoping that Little Buddy and his sister will both be completely fluent in my native language (English) and Bubelah's (Russian).
@Pamela: No problem, going off on this tangent has certainly given me some ideas for future posts, anyway! :) I may write more at length on this, but there are some very easy ways to pick up a foreign language. One of the simplest - if you already know a little bit of the language - is to read children's books in that language. I started reading German children's books, then graduated to comics, then to basic stuff I had read in English (The Hobbit, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, etc.) and then finally to "heavy literature." Reading newspapers helps, too. The sports section is seldom written with fancy vocabulary in any language.
I'd love to SYL's tips, too!
6 months ago
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It's also interesting to me that however rusty and disused those primary and high school languages are, you never lose it entirely. I can still make myself understood, however garbled, in both French and Irish, as can most of my Irish friends.
Here's a thread I was reading this morning, which you might find interesting Steve.
6 months ago
Well, try to start with large common languages. English is a must, but English doesn't help you with any other languages. French, Spanish (those two help you with other romantic languages), Italian can be learn't quickly with the knowledge of those 2 especially Spanish. With Russian, learn Greek (if you can read Russian then you can pronounce Greek fairly easily and learn to read Greek quickly), With those two try and tackle languages like Serbian or other languages from that area.
You use your knowledge of one language to build onto another. Tractor in Russian is Tractor in English (pronounced anyway), porque is why in Spanish and Italian. Little bridges like this can help you acquire languages very quickly, you just have to find similarities between each.
6 months ago
What really helped me learn english well enough, was watching CNN all day long..
I have also studied Russian and German, but I only know some phrases there.. I guess not having a german or russian version of CNN has impeded my learning curve for these two languages..
I do believe though, that in the 21st century it will be important to speak more than 1 language.. Even though everyone in the world seems to know/ or be in the process of learning/ english, speaking another major language should definitely put you at a big advantage over others..
6 months ago
@Pamela - start with the spoken language, memorize sentences, not words, at least initially. Avoid translation - you need to learn to think in a language, as in an everyday situation there is no time to translate anything. Memorizing phrases teaches you to think in a language, translating does not. If you read a paragraph, try to grasp the meaning without formulating the sentence in your native language. Look up the words you don't know but need for understanding, but still try to understand the original paragraph without actually translating it. Get yourself a good course with tapes or CDs spoken by native speakers. I usually prefer CDs where they speak in a normal conversational speed, not that artificial slow tempo of language teachers. Comprehension is very important, and you cannot learn to really understand people if you are only used to very clear, very slow teacher's "speak". You cannot always hope to ask everyone to "speak slowly". People are often in a hurry.
Also, it is important to learn how to talk about simple things in a fluent, idiomatic manner - directions, food, etc. first. There are some people who have a university degree in a language and who can write a composition about the role of providence in the novels of Manzoni in Italian, but don't know the right words to use to ask for a bill in a restaurant. Our teacher in Perugia university tried it as an experiment once. It was pretty funny: so many advanced students who read all the great literature and who wrote papers, and yet nobody could quickly come up with "il conto, per favore".
Choose contemporary authors for reading material, at least unless you are really interested in literature and know enough of a language to understand the differences between then and now. You don't want to worry about whether an expression or sentence is still in use.
You can learn grammar and words while memorizing simple dialogs related to everyday situation a tourist can face. As you get better, you can improve on your grammar and vocabulary, but if you start from conversation, you'll get the reward of being able to communicate quicker, also you will learn all four aspects - understanding, speaking, reading and writing at the same time. Way too many people who know grammar but cannot speak or understand.
When I was learning Spanish, I tried several courses sold in stores. The one I liked most was made in the UK. It used Spain's Spanish, which is what I wanted, it may not be what you want. The main reasons I liked it, though, were 1) native speakers on tapes spoke in normal everyday language at normal conversational speed 2) the course started with common situations that tourists encounter, then built on them, and 3) it had everything - good tapes and comprehension exercises, a bit of grammar, vocabulary, reading, and writing.
I don't agree about Latin. Personally I consider it a waste of time unless you plan to go to medicine or study Latin or old Spanish and old Italian literature. Pretty much any Romance language - Italian, Spanish or French makes it easier to learn any other Romance language, you don't need Latin for that. Also, learning any other language improves native language as well. At the same time, while Latin may help you with grammar/vocabulary, it's not going to help you to learn to think in a language, and being able to think in a foreign language is the key to being able to learn any language quickly. This ability to completely switch to thinking in another language immediately, even if you are just starting learning it, is the reason why those of us who know more than one language really well find it easier to learn other languages. Also, unless you have an unlimited amount of time, you cannot learn everything. The time spend on learning Latin can be spent on learning Spanish, and at the end you both improve your ability to learn other Romance languages and know an actual language. This is just my personal opinion, and as I don't know Latin, who am I to say...
6 months ago
As to Latin, I learned it in kindergarden & first grade so it wasn't a choice. The private school I attended had it as part of the curriculum. I took French in high school but don't remember much & Spanish, at this point in my career will get me further than French (even though I work for a French company! They all speak English).
I appreciate everyone's tips - it's been very helpful in my quest to become bi-lingual!
6 months ago
Great point on being multilingual. At one time, everyone thought Japanese was going to be an important language skill. Now it look's like Russian and Chinese will be among the important ones for the future.