Of recalling words and winter days on the mountains!

Hi!

new year, new what?

Although I am absolutely in favour of new year's resolutions, as I wrote in the past newsletter, I must admit that I do not like the hype on change that follows the beginnig of every new year.

That hype is somehow connected to those statistics that tell us that 60 to 80% of the new goals that people set for themselves are forgotten by mid-February (top of the list those about losing weight).

If we want to get some real results, we must focus on sustainability, which makes our processes last longer. And this will get us results.

Revolutions in routines and breath-takingly complex goals are nice on paper. In reality they lead to nothing most of the time.

So...

A little change in my language routine

If you recall, I am commited to C2 in German this year. Well, to get there, I do need to speed up and improve my learning routine a little.

So, I started learning about how our brain "learns". And in the book I am reading at the moment (Fluent forever, by Gabriel Wyner) I found a simple principle to improve my performace in studying lists of words.

More than the excercise itself, it's the explanation of why it works that struck me for its logic, because to say the total truth, I had done this before, in some form or another.

So, when you find yourself in front of a list of words, be it irregular verbs in English or in German, irregular plural nominatives in Russian or Italian, what do you usually do? You read the list over and over again, maybe with some examples for each words.

Reading it for ten minutes will help you fix some of those words in your memory, for sure. But what you are actually doing is practicing reading, not recalling.

To practice recalling, you have to...recall. So, the book suggests you cut the time of reading the list in half, and then take a piece of paper and write down all the words of the list that you remember.

And that you do it more than once. This is recalling. I did this orally during my time at the university or even before, in school.

It works both ways, but if you write down what you remember, you add vision to sound...if you can write in a clearly readable way.

I will post a video on this to better explain the process. Just keep an eye on my Instagram account.

Or, right, and if you have problems with new routines and habits, give a look at this article on my blog; it might be of assistance with some ideas.

Finally the mountains and a little snow

After I do not know how long (my fault entirely), I had the chance to set off on a real hike on the mountains. And to see the sky and smell the crispy air of a sunny winter day.

In the first days after the beginning of 2024 some late snow finally fell on the mountains neighbouring Verona. And a very strong desire to go there and see it took hold of me.

Coincidentally a friend invited me to go hiking on the mountains and of course I jumped at the chance.

The day was perfect. It was cold (I adore cold winter days). It was sunny and as clear as it can be, not cloud to spot for kilometers. The hike was mildly intense, especially on the last part, where the snow made going forward quite challenging on the quads and calves.

And there was abundant and good food to wait for us.

I had a blast. There is a thing in overtaking difficult things that gets me all the time. I do not understand how one can desire to stay on a sofa whatching stuff on TV, when there is a whole world of challenges out there.

I will not rant on this today, I just want to let all the beauty I saw and felt stay with me for as long as it can.

Next month, maybe.

Blog

I slacked off in the last month. It was holiday season, first excuse, and I wrote an article, a very long one, for an English teacher friend of mine. So the list of the past month is a little scarce.

But here you have it.

3 Steps to learn a new language

Hey, I encourage you to reply to me with your notes, comments and, above all, criticism.

It would mean a lot to me.

And if you need help in your language learning process, I am here to help you.

I offer you a free coaching session. Seriously!

You just have to send me a message and we'll take it from there. Ok?

Thanks for being here and walking the talk with me!

Yours with love,

Andrea