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Learning Korean

Since some weeks ago, when the confinement because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was thinking about learning languages, because I had nothing to do (my job contract was suspended temporarily, so I can’t work). Surfing on thw web I found the Coursera platform in which they offer free courses by different universities in the world (if you want an official certificate, I need to pay). It took me so long to start learning Korean and, luckily, I found a Korean 101 course.

Nowadays, I’m about to finish it, although I paused it for a while, I’m taking advantage of the free time that I have to rewrite my notes on my iPad using GoodNotes 5.

In this screenshot, you can see that I was learning some greeting and farewells in Korean, and its grammar. It is so interesting for me because in many cases, they have different ways of expressing this kind of greetings and farewells according to their politeness rules.

I’m so in love with this language, I hope I could learn a lot more of it.

If someone is willing to start learning Korean, you can use this 101 course in Coursera. This course is offered by the Yonsei University (Seoul). Here you have the link: First Step Korean | Universidad Yonsei https://coursera.org/learn/learn-korean

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Most Common Adjectives 💡 PS: Learn more about Parts of Speech in Swedish, just click here: https://www.swedishpod101.com/?src=social_special_infograph_adjectives_10_020620

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I felt like I was being stabbed on my chest, I was smashed, I was broken into thousands of pieces.

I wasn't alone.

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/B8L-bLEIE8x/?igshid=j0jq0lein63s

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Don't take me seriously.

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I hate being so competitive.

This week I started the Pearl league in Duolingo. Usually, I get to the 1st position because I use too much this app and I get the biggest prize. I'm learning Italian, Portuguese, Catalan and Swedish at the same time. Well, the first day I get a lot of EXP but some minutes later I receive that notification that says: you lost #1. I felt like WHAAAAT? so I made tens and tens of lessons just to have a huuuge difference of EXP between me and #2.

Nope, it's impossible. Once I do lessons, that another person does the same. If you don't believe me, look at the following picture.

And what's more and even funnier: half of those EXP that I have at this moment were made ONLY YESTERDAY.

I'm crazy.

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"I thought that everything changed until the moment when you left me shattered with your words one more time. No. You've not changed. You still are that same person that disrespected me, that one who made me feel very little in front of the world, undervalued. My inner me was bleeding pain, frustration and hatred. Nothing was unable to block that hemorrhage until everything went dark again."

Original content by me. You can see the post here: https://www.instagram.com/p/B7_tQPJIcGK/?igshid=29dkoij8zcfk

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I just got woken up, from a nightmare, by the train going by shaking my bed, to find that duolingo randomly sent me the first notification in over a year, please understand my state of mind right now

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What it's like to live and work with 6 people of 5 different nationalities and none of you is a native English speaker

- desperately trying to explain to another coworker that your Bangladeshi flatmate is saying "pea shells" and not "bee shells" ("pea pods, du ved, ærte... skræller..? Ærtebælge!“)

- Tunisian guy says a French word. Everyone understands. French guy says "it's the same in English"

- you forget the English word for strainer. You know it in German. Only your Austrian flatmate understands what you're talking about.

- "according to my high school diploma I speak B1 French"

- Austrian forgets the English word for fork, but remembers it in Danish.

- "I don't have the name in English" *tells us what an animal is called in Latin*

- 0 out of 6 people can remember what broom is called in English

- "fucking... she's trying to kill me" – our Frenchman after tripping over the dishwasher

- *accidentally speaks Danish to non-Danish flatmate* *starts to say something in English to my family* *is spoken to in English by Danish flatmate*

- I tell the Frenchman to write leverpostej om the shopping list. He looks at me like he's dead inside and writes pâté

- no one knows how to spell

- "what gender is apple in German?" "is book neuter or common gender in Danish?" *calls an inanimate object he or she* "what's the plural of hus? Huser?"

- What are gendered genitive pronouns? I mean, who really knows? Not the French speakers, that's for sure!

- everyone speaks 2 languages, most at least kind of speak 3.

- my English gets worse for every day that passes

-translating jokes from your native language to English makes for the best anti jokes. "A dwarf walks into a bar and the bartender asks him 'Do you play cards?' 'No, I was born this way,' the dwarf answers"

- Austrian: "ti, tyve..... uhhhh..... fyrre, halvtreds, tres, halvfjerds.... fjers?? ..... ...?????? hundred."

- "can you hand me the... Uhh... You know the, the thingy!" "The what?" "THE BOWL!"

- "You can't name your child Valdemar, that's the guy from Harry Potter!"

- I try to speak German and my Austrian roommate tells me that my accent is cute because I speak the hard German sounds so softly

- Frenchman imitates really bad French accent and it's hilarious

- someone thought the Austrian was Scottish because she rolls her r's

- "Share a coke with... Vendire... Veninerere..." "Veninderne" "Please tell me that's not a name" "It's means female friends"

- Høkeren -> hookeren

- *French speakers forget to pronounce an h*

- there's a heated discussion about whether or not some penguins can fly. The argument immediately dissolves as it is revealed that in French auks are called penguins.

- you learn to never correct people unless they ask you to or you literally do not understand what they're saying

- you translate an idiom from your own language into English. It's the same in one of the other languages, but not in English. No one questions it.

- you borrow a flatmate's Netflix. All the titles are in a language you don't speak. FRIENDS is dubbed in German, so you turn on sous-titres. They're in Bangla.

- "Santa Claus surprise", the Frenchman cheerfully says about secret santa

- you try to talk about knitting with your roommates but you don't know any of the proper terms in English. They try to talk about crotcheing in turn, but they don't even know what that's called.

- you have to disassemble the couch, so you send your roommate to get the tools for doing that. You never talk about the tools of which you don't know the names, but she brings the right ones regardless.

- you say a sentence and someone repeats it back to you, mispronouncing one of the words because they're certain you mispronounced it

- you somehow manage to hold a conversation in two languages at once

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Translation from Spanish Sign Language (Spanish subtitles) into English:

"Hello to everyone. What's up? Time for a video in Sign Language. I want to take advantage of the fact that the Canary Islands just got into 2020, so Spain completely entered the year 2020. I want to say to you 'happy new year 2020', I hope all your new year purposes come true during this year. Remember that mental health is very important so take care of yourself, love yourlself. And that's all, I hope everything is OK in this year that we just entered. Lots of kisses, bye!".

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Año tras año, mi vida se va llenando de cambios importantes. A mejor, o a peor. Pero va cambiando. Por ejemplo: he aprendido con el tiempo que una persona está bien sin otra, pero que al mismo tiempo no podemos privarnos de estar con gente. Está bien estar solo. Está bien disfrutar de ti mismo. Está bien ir a un restaurante, viajar, ir a un concierto, al teatro, quedarte en casa, pasear solo. Está bien que en un momento determinado sientas la necesidad de estar con alguien (amigos, pareja, familia...), está bien que necesites un poco de cariño de la gente. Lo importante es que que tú estés a gusto contigo mismo.

También he aprendido que el futuro es algo que no podemos prever. Por eso hay que saber vivir en el presente y disfrutar de todo lo que tenemos ahora. Preocuparse por algo que no sabemos si tendremos nos provoca una innecesaria angustia y, por tanto, nos genera ansiedad. Somos capaces de gestionar las preocupaciones y los problemas del ahora. Centrémonos en estos y no en los futuros. Igualmente, el tiempo y la vida nos termina colocando a cada uno donde debemos estar.

He aprendido, y estoy aprendiendo, que cuantas más cosas tengamos o cuanta más gente tengamos en nuestra vida, nunca estará completa. Solo aquello que nos aporte lo justo y necesario para que todos tengamos un bienestar y estemos en armonía. Cosas o personas que no necesitemos ni nos aporte nada, que se queden fuera. Cosas o personas que nos traigan malos recuerdos o malas vibraciones, fuera.

Un año más, sigo aprendiendo para crecer personal y emocionalmente. Espero que este 2020 me traiga mejores momentos y lecciones para mejorar. Que tengáis un feliz año nuevo y que vuestros propósitos se cumplan.

PD: ¿soy yo o parezco una portada de playlist de Spotify?

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“Gracias por protegerme”

Hace tiempo leí un libro sobre la soledad cuyo consejo me sirve para controlar mis episodios de ansiedad, una ansiedad que arrastra impulsos relacionados con la ira.

Lo que dice este libro es que conectemos con nuestas emociones y tratemos de rebajar esa intensidad, calmándola para que no aparezca en los peores momentos. Es decir, que nosotros mismos seamos capaces de gestionar situaciones en las que estos sentimientos pueden aparecer.

La última vez que tuve un episodio de ansiedad fue a causa de mi trabajo actual, durante la noche, hace una semana sobre las 5 de la madrugada. Comencé a tener cientos de pensamientos intrusivos bastante agresivos en muy poco tiempo. Solo visualizaba imágenes violentas física y verbalmente durante mi jornada laboral en mi puesto de trabajo. Recordé las herramientas que tengo disponibles para poder tranquilizarme, incluidas las que mi psicóloga me proporcionó.

1. Parón de pensamiento: la mente está sumergida en una serie de pensamientos que nos provocan bastante malestar emocional. Una vez seamos conscientes de esto, directamente cortamos este episodio con cualquier estímulo, sea gritando ¡BASTA! ¡PARA! ¡YA!, dándonos con una goma en la muñeca, dando un golpe en la mesa...

2. Respiraciones profundas abdominales: inhalar durante 5-6 segundos, sostener 2-3 segundos y exhalar durante 6-7 segundos.

3. Una vez estemos algo más tranquilos, intentamos que la mente no vuelva a divagar en nuestros pensamientos. Dejamos la mente en blanco y conectamos con nuestras emociones. De todas ellas, con la que nos está provocando ese malestar, en este caso, ansiedad e ira.

4. Cuando ya sepamos que estamos con esas emociones, tenemos que agradecerles primero que, formando parte de ti, traten de ayudarte y protegerte. Esto es muy importante porque el agradecimiento hace que nos terminemos sintiendo más a gusto con nosotros mismos. Un ejemplo es lo que digo a mis emociones:

“Hola, ‘ansiedad’. Lo primero de todo, quiero agradecerte que trates de ayudarme y protegerme ya que tu misión es la de alertarme de situaciones que me ponen en peligro. Como persona adulta, tengo los suficientes mecanismos para poder gestionar todo sin que tú te muestres. Si en algún momento te necesito, te avisaré. No quiero que aparezcas siempre ya que quiero evitar depender de ti y que, en el futuro, me perjudique hasta el punto de llegar a tener una depresión. Es importante para mí poder estar bien conmigo mismo y poder crecer a nivel emocional y personal.”

El malestar no desaparece instantáneamente. Tenemos que darnos tiempo mientras nos concentramos en nuestra respiración hasta que estemos completamente tranquilos.

Tras leer esto en aquel libro “A solas” de Silvia Congost, y ponerlo en práctica, he notado cierta mejoría en mi control de la ansiedad y de mis emociones. Y si ya sumamos todo lo que estoy progresando en la psicoterapia, la cosa va mucho mejor.

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coming soon: the duolingo owl will break into your home at night and beat the shit out of you if you don’t know the word for potato in french

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Sign language meeting in Madrid: my experience

Este post estará escrito primero en español y después en inglés.

This post will be first written in Spanish and then in English.

ESPAÑOL

Hace un par de semanas organicé una quedada para practicar lengua de signos española (LSE) en Madrid con el objetivo de no olvidar la lengua y animar a otras personas a que la conozcan y la aprendan. Esta idea se me ocurrió en base a otra quedada organizada en esta misma ciudad que yo también asistí, con personas que tienen un bajo nivel de esta lengua.

La cosa es que al principio intentaban signar pero al final acabamos usando la lengua oral para contar ciertas cosas o incluso quejarse de que no tenían buen nivel de LSE, o que no encontraban a nadie con quien practicar. Eso me hizo pensar mucho, y recuerdo que a una de esas personas le dije: en la próxima quedada, si vienes, quiero que uses la lengua de signos aunque te tengas que quejar de que no encuentras a nadie para practicar. No hables, signa. Si no usas la lengua de signos, con más motivo se te va a olvidar.

Y es verdad que, por muchos cursos de esta lengua que se hagan, al final a la gente no le va a servir de mucho si no tienen ningún tipo de contacto con gente que sabe la lengua o con personas con problemas auditivos/sordas. La probabilidad de que haya algún contacto es muy baja.

Por eso, se lo comenté a mi novio, que es sordo, y le pareció buena idea hacer una quedada, y además, en la que él participase. Le comenté -y no quería que malinterpretase- que quería incluir a personas sordas para que sepan lo que es comunicarse con alguien que no puede oír y así obligarles a usar la LSE. Igualmente, todos vivimos en una sociedad oyente, lo cual es cómodo para nosotros los oyentes, pero no para las personas con problemas auditivos. Entonces, mi intención era incluir a todo tipo de personas.

Cuando organicé la quedada, empecé a recibir bastantes respuestas de gente a la que le interesa, gente que le gustaría ir pero no pueden... no sé, hubo mucha actividad. Y es algo que no me esperaba ya que tuve muy mala suerte organizando quedadas hace muchos años, las cuales acabé asistiendo yo solo. Y me juré a mí mismo no hacer una más en la vida.

Total, que el pasado fin de semana (23 y 24 de marzo) se hicieron las dos quedadas en el Parque del Retiro en Madrid sobre las 6 de la tarde. El sábado 23 asistieron 10 personas, de las cuales 2 no sabían nada de lengua de signos, 4 tenían bajo nivel, 3 nivel alto y 1 persona sorda. La verdad es que fue una tarde muy buena porque estuvimos todos usando la lengua de signos, e incluso a las que no sabían nada, les enseñamos cosillas básicas de la lengua y a tener cuidado para que no hubiesen malinterpretaciones (como hacer mal la configuración de la mano). Me fui con una buena sensación porque todos fuimos muy participativos y aunque algunos hacían frases muy simples y cortas, se atrevieron a decir algo. Vi todo el interés que mostraron y eso me alegró muchísimo.

El domingo 24 fuimos 4 personas: mi novio, yo y otras dos personas oyentes con nivel bajo-medio. Éramos poquitos, pero lo suficiente como para seguir usando la lengua y practicar. Hablamos de muchísimos temas de conversación diferentes, nos reímos muchísimo... también me fui bastante contento.

Creo que es una experiencia increíble el poder compartir y tratar de difundir la lengua de signos y sensibilizar acerca de la comunidad sorda (y sordociega), además de animar a la gente a participar independientemente del nivel y de si es oyente o no, o hipoacúsico.

ENGLISH

Two weeks ago I was in charge to organize a meeting in order to practice the Spanish Sign Language (LSE) in Madrid. The main aim is to not forget this language and also encourage other people to know about it and learn it. This idea came to my mind because of another meeting which I attended to in this same city with other people with low LSE level.

The thing is that at the very beginning, they tried to use SL but finally they used the oral language just to tell anything about themselves or even complain about their low SL level, or because they can’t find anyone to practise with. That situation made me wonder, and I remembered that moment when I told one person in the group: in the next meeting, if you come, I want you to use SL even if you have to complain about the fact that you find no one to practise it with. Don’t talk, sign. If you don’t use SL, then there’s a reason that you will forget it.

And that’s true. It doesn’t matter how many SL courses you do, but in the end it doesn’t worth it if you don’t get in touch with people who know this language or people with hearing issues/deaf people. The likelihood of getting in touch with them is very low.

So, I told to my boyfriend, who is deaf, about it and it was a very good idea for him to prepare this meeting as well as he can take part of it. I told him -and I didn’t want him to misunderstand me- that I wanted to include deaf people in it for all the learners to know how’s comunicating with people that cannot hear, and force them to use SL. Likewise, we all live in a hearing society, which is comfortable for all of us, hearing people, but not for all that have hearing issues, and also deaf people. That’s why I wanted to include all kind of people.

When I organized the meeting, I received so many requests of interested people, others that wanted to attend but they couldn’t... I don’t know, there was so much activity. And that’s something that I didn’t expect due to my “extreme” bad luck that I had so many years ago, when I tried to make some meetings and I was the only one who went. From then, I swore to myself not to organize them anymore.

“In short”, last weekend (March 23rd and 24th) two meetings were made in Madrid’s Retiro Park around 6 pm. Saturday, March 23rd, around 10 people came: 2 of them didn’t know LSE, 4 of them had low SL level, 3 high levelled and 1 deaf person. Truly, it was a good evening, ‘cause we all used SL and to those who didn’t know, we tried to teach them something basic of the language, and also things like being careful because some misunderstandings could me made (for instance, if you make a wrong configuration of the hand). I felt so good because all these people were very participatory and also those people with low level tried to say something, with simple sentences. I noticed so much interest and effort, and that made me feel good.

Sunday, March 24th, we came 4 people: my boyfriend, me, and other two people with low SL level. We were not so many people, but enough to communicate and use the language. We talked about too many different conversation topics, we laughed a lot. And I also went out very happy.

I think it is a very incredible experience sharing and spreading the SL as well as raising awareness about the Deaf Community (and deaf-blind people) and encouraging them, in addition, to take part in this kind of meetings no matter how’s your level and the fact that someone’s hearing or deaf, or hard of hearing...

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Welcome back!

Hi there, langblrs! How are you? I hope you’re fine.

I’m so sorry for not posting anything since a time ago but I was working in the Deaf Association here in Madrid, so I didn’t have time to do anything. Even I wanted to hang out with friends and meet new people. Nevertheless, I tried to study languages when I was free.

I’m telling you...

I started again with Swedish. I took @lovelybluepanda‘s language challenge and I put it in an agenda that I did myself, so I make sure that I revise it everyday. I took a pic from the “daily challenge” part, and this is the result:

I have to admit that some days I didn’t have enough time to complete some of these challenges.

Well, about Swedish, I discovered that I like so much this language but it turns a little difficult to me. I’m seeing some grammar concepts that takes me time to understand, but it shouldn’t be something that would make me give up (I won’t). Even I took some sources like music, books (novels), webpages, dictionaries... to keep learning this language.

And that’s all. I hope I can be more active here and VI SES!

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🇨🇳BEST LEARNING MANDARIN APP ( Reading and listen practice) 🇨🇳

THIS IS THE MOST UNDETERRED CHINESE LEARNING APP THAT I’VE EVER SEEN. Slry I’ve studing mandarin for almost 2y and I was trying to find some immersion activities that were not so boring or difficult and suddenly I met this app and THANK GOD FOR THAT. This has a lot of mangas about daily life, fantasy, love stories, pets, foods, travel and all this history are dubbed in a funny and understandable way that can make you really learn something new every time you read something. Besides this, they also explain some grammar points and some slangs very useful for you. And the best part is that almost all the books are already unlocked!! If you need to unlock some chapter, you just have to win some beans by completing missions and answering questions!!! Trust me, this is one of the best tools for learning!!

If you make a account, feel free to add me (and by putting this invite code you’ll help me win some beans <3) and we can exchange experience and questions!!! Thank you and good studies!!!