Triple Your Productivity Overnight with a Simple Strategy

How to triple your productivity overnight with a simple strategy

Before I get to the meat of the matter and explain to you how you can triple your productivity overnight, let me say this:

willpower is dead.

Yeah, you heard me right. It is cold stone dead. At least for me.

Its demise came absolutely unexpected. There were no tell tales. No gloomy music heralding this event.

Because it wasn't a process. It was an instant. It was enough to read one of the articles of Maneesh Sethi. It gave me a blueprint to refurbish my learning routine and tripled my productivity.

But before I get to that let's take a look at two kinds of motivation.


Triple Your Productivity - Basics


 


Two Kinds of Motivation

 

If you are driven by extrinsic motivation you do things mainly to receive a reward. For example, you might decide to get a new job because it pays better.

If you are driven by intrinsic (internal) motivation, your need to do different thing stems from the meaningfulness of the work you do. You don't need any reward or compensation.

I have always believed that it is enough to feel this internal fire in order to achieve big things.
But I was wrong.

I am quite sure that we are not motivated by good things. At least not as much as we would like to believe it.

What makes me say it?

Well, most things in life are pretty simple.

  • If you want to lose weight, you work out and keep a diet.
  • If you want to learn a language, you learn every day.
  • If you want to get a better job, you acquire additional skills or improve the ones you already have.

The final result is always crystal clear - you become fitter, more intelligent or successful. And you really DO want these things, don't you?

Then why is it so damn hard to start acting?

Because the potential benefits are deferred in time. The day-to-day results you experience when you do any of the activities above are barely noticeable. So if good things don't motivate us effectively, what does?

The fear of loss.


Triple Your Productivity with Betting


The logic behind this strategy is really simple. You will do much more to avoid a loss than to receive a reward. Given that the loss is almost immediate, it's not that strange.

One look at the real-life castaways, or desperate mothers who lift cars, can tell us how the fear of loss (of life in this case) can motivate us.

But you don't even have to look that far. Let's say that you want to learn 60 new German words today. You can either try to do it on your own or bet with me.

In the second case, you know that if you lose, you have to give me your favorite watch. Do you think you would lose? No way! These are just 60 words!


The simplest form of this strategy looks as follows:

  1. 1
    Choose a GOAL you want to achieve
  2. 2
    BET with someone that you'll achieve it in x hours or days
  3. 3
    Choose your PUNISHMENT in case you fail to deliver

Of course, there are some things you should take into account if you choose to use this strategy (and you should!). But first...

Here are just some random results I got thanks to betting within the last 18 months.

  • I created this very website (with over 2k subscribers) you're reading right now
  • I have been interviewed  a couple of times (which is a weird feeling)
  • I have created a Beta-version of a vocabulary learning course
  • I have written a book proposal
  • I have learned Czech to a B1 level within a month
  • I have managed to double my income
  • I have lost over 10 kilos of fat and gained and then bulked up
  • I have read about 30% more than I do normally
  • I have increased the number of words I learn by 20%

And probably many other things I have already forgotten about.

Alrighty then. Let's take a look at what a good bet consists of.


5 Elements Of A Good Bet

 

triple your productivity overnight with a simple strategy



1) Do you know what you want to achieve?

What problem keeps you up at night? What bothers you?

Maybe you don't learn regularly. Maybe you procrastinate too much. Maybe you are too fat.

Identify the most important things you would like to change and set a goal.


2) Is your goal achievable?

You can bet about anything you want but you have to be sure that the goal is within your reach.

It shouldn't be too easy. Such goals will rob you of your satisfaction. But they shouldn't be too hard either. Such goals may nip your enthusiasm in the bud. If you want to bet with your wife that you are going to run 5 km today, analyze how much free time you have on your hands today.

3 hours? Great, then it is certainly doable.

But wait!

When was the last you actually ran more than 1 km? During your studies?
Then I have bad news for you... I hope you see what I am getting at. Always make sure that you are able to deliver.


3) Can you prove that you did it?

This is the key issue. You probably like to think about yourself as a guy who is squeaky clean when it comes to morality.

I know, I do too.

But trust me when I tell you that all morality goes to hell when the deadline of your bet is breathing down your neck with a musty stench of failure.


The questions you should consider are:
  • What are you measuring?
  • How will you measure it?
  • How will you deliver proof?

Most of the time it's perfectly possible to determine the answers.
If you decide to run 5 km, you can use an app to track your distance.

If you decide to learn 100 words today, you can send screen-shots of your ANKI interface.
The list goes on and on.

Sometimes it's worth altering your bet a little in order to make it measurable.

If you want to bet that you won't eat sweets all day, it will be nearly impossible to prove it. However, if you bet that you will lose 1 kg until the end of the week, there will be no doubt whether you failed or not.


4) Is your punishment motivating enough?

Listen, if you bet with your buddy that you will give him $10 if you lose a bet and you know that you earn $30/h then who are you fooling? When the push comes to shove, you will probably shrug your shoulders and pay.

The thing is that you should be REALLY afraid of losing. The perspective of the potential loss should infuse you with fear. Not the paralyzing kind of course. But the motivating one.

Bet $70. Or lend your car to a cousin you hate.

Come up with something which really makes you uncomfortable.


5) Can you be sure that the other person will execute?

As a rule, I don't bet with people who are mushy softies. I don't want to hear, "It's ok, I don't need your money because I know you tried'.

No way.

I want somebody who will take my money and laugh in my face while doing so! "Thanks for the easy cash sucker!".

I have a small group of 3-4 people with whom I bet and that's more than enough.

You can actually convince your friend(s) to bet with you as well. This way you will be motivating each other!

And now time for the bitter truth. Probably 17 out of every 20 people who will read this article won't do anything (and I am being an optimist here).

Why?
Because of excuses.


Triple Your Productivity - Summary


I find it fascinating when people approach me and complain that they have so many plans, but they can't get anything done. When I suggest this strategy most of them freeze and mumble one of the following reasons why they can't do it:

  • Yeah, I know it works, I will definitely try it in the future (code word for "I will never try it")
  • It won't work because money is not that important to me (then choose a different kind of punishment!)
  • I don't want to be forced, I prefer to rely on my willpower (how has it worked for you so far?)

What's going on?! Don't they want to change?

They do. OR at least they think they do.

But the thing is that most of them are simply afraid. Because once you place your bet, there is no turning back. You either deliver or pay up.

If you decide to use this method to boost your motivation, I'd love to hear from you and talk about your results!

Oh, one more thing. Do you know why I have written this article? Yep, bet (thank you, John!).

Good luck with your projects!


Done reading? Time to learn!

 

Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 10 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go. This way, you will be able to speed up your learning in a more impactful way.


What To Do Instead of Nootropics In Order To Maximize Your Brain Power Permanently

What To Do Instead of Nootropics

Nootropics are certainly one of those things that capture your imagination. You pop a pill and everything becomes clear. You are more vigilant, more observant.

Sure, three months down the road you start resembling a patient with a full-blown neurological disorder. You catch yourself scratching your arms nervously while your eyes twitch.

And if your pill is nowhere to be found you drop on the floor and start rhythmically convulsing.

But hey man! Those moments of clarity!

In all seriousness - nootropics have definitely become a thing in the last couple of years. The appeal is understandable.

At the price of a pack of pills, you can become a better version of yourself.

Is it really the case? Nope.

If you ask me, it's definitely more of a fantasy for the naive. Let me explain step-by-step why it is so and what you can do instead to become this sexy learning-machine.


What Are Nootropics?

 

Not everyone is familiar with this notion. Since I don't want to risk keeping you in the dark, let's delve into it.

Nootropics are natural and synthetic compounds that can improve your general cognitive abilities, such as memory, attention, focus, and motivation.

As a rule of thumb, natural nootropics are much safer and can actually improve the brain's health (see Suliman et al. 2016).

As you can see the definition is very far from being precise.

Let's suppose you go into the panic mode before an important meeting and your colleague bitch-slaps you. You suddenly become more focused and sharper.

Can this backhander be treated as a nootropic?

Once again, the definition is unclear. What is clear is that, even though you might not realize it, you probably take some of them already.


Some Of The Available Nootropics?

 

What To Do Instead of Nootropics

 

Our civilization can pride itself on having a long, rich history of drugging ourselves to feel better and smarter. Here are some of the weapons of the mass enlightening:


Caffeine

If your head bobs like a crazy pigeon if you don't get your daily fix, you are probably not surprised to see it here.

These days, it can be found almost everywhere. Especially in soft drinks, dark chocolate and, of course, in coffee.

Effects: 
At normal doses, caffeine has variable effects on learning and memory, but it generally improves reaction time, wakefulness, concentration, and motor coordination. - Nehlig A (2010). "Is caffeine a cognitive enhancer?". Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.


L-Theanine

L-Theanine, or simply theanine, can generally be found in tea.

The amount is dependent on the kind you drink but generally, you can get more in black tea than in green tea.

Effects:
Increases BDNF and attenuates cortisol-to-DHEAS, also has low affinity for AMPA, kainate, and NMDA receptors.


Curcumin

Great news for any enthusiast of Indian cuisine.

Effect:
Produces neuroprotective effects via activating BDNF/TrkB-dependent MAPK and PI-3K cascades in rodent cortical neurons.


Lithium

Elevates BDNF by inhibition of GSK-3, which also increases skeletal muscle growth.


Asian Ginseng

One of the most famous herbs which can boast such effects.

Effects:
Improved memory, enhanced focus/attention (similar to caffeine), enhanced mood through reduced anxiety, enhanced performance: reaction time, endurance, memory retention.


What About Real Nootropics?

 

I know that you probably want to learn more about "real" nootropics. Here is a short list of some of them.


Racetams

Effects:
Enhanced brain metabolism, better communication between the right and left brain hemispheres


Rasagilin

Effects:
Offers neuroprotection via stimulation of PKC phosphorylation; upregulation of PKCepsilon mRNA; induction of Bcl-X(L), Bcl-w, and BDNF mRNAs; and downregulation of PKCgamma, Bad, and Bax mRNAs.


Pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ)

Effects:
An antioxidant that also stimulates NGF. Found to be a potent enhancer for the regeneration of peripheral nerves.


Selegiline

Effects:
Elevates NGF, BDNF, and GDNF.


Lion's Mane Mushroom (Hericium erinaceus)

Effects:
Stimulates NGF


Lithium

Effects:
Elevates BDNF by inhibition of GSK-3, which also increases skeletal muscle growth.


Magnesium-l-threonate

Elevation of brain magnesium increased NMDA receptors (NMDARs) signaling, BDNF expression, density of presynaptic puncta, and synaptic plasticity in the prefrontal cortex.

The list goes on and on. As exciting as it all sounds, I would advise against taking most of them. Especially the ones which are intended for the patients with neurological disorders.


Why You Should Stay Away From Most Nootropics



Caffeine is still one of the best nootropics around

 

Maximize Your Brain Power Without Nootropics


If you take caffeine in any form, it might be more than enough for you. Last year, a famous study compared the effectiveness of the CAF+ nootropic to caffeine.

The CAF+ contains a combination of ingredients that have separately shown to boost cognitive performance, including caffeine, l-theanine, vinpocetine, l-tyrosine, and vitamin B6/B12.

It was supposed to be the next big thing in the world of nootropics. Alas, it turned out to be a flop.

Here is the conclusion:

We found that after 90 min, the delayed recall performance on the VLT after caffeine was better than after CAF+ treatment.

Further, caffeine, but not CAF+, improved the performance in a working memory task. In a complex choice reaction task caffeine improved the speed of responding.

Subjective alertness was increased as a result of CAF+ at 30 min after administration. Only caffeine increased diastolic blood pressure.

We conclude that in healthy young students, caffeine improves memory performance and sensorimotor speed, whereas CAF+ does not affect the cognitive performance at the dose tested.

And that's exactly my point. A lot of those compounds which are being plugged shamelessly by different fancy-sounding brain websites are close to useless.

Do yourself a favor and stick to the devil you know.

It's expensive

It's not uncommon to find comments on a Reddit about Nootropics saying that:


"500$ for nootropics is not that much. This is just the price of admission for finding the one which is right for you."


It doesn't sound alarming at all. No sir. Don't think of yourself as a cowardly version of a heroin addict. You're a brave brain-explorer! On a more serious note - a lot of these nootropics are not only shady but expensive as well. Keep that in mind, if you decide to try them out.


Unknown long-term effects

Even though natural nootropics are potentially safe, or even very safe, it definitely can't be said about synthetic nootropics. By taking them you automatically volunteer to become a guinea pig.

Many of the nootropics change your levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamineserotoninGABA and many others.

The thing is that so do many drugs like cocaine.

The long-term effect is usually a strong imbalance of transmitter levels in order to compensate those extremes.

It reminds a lot of enthusiasts of brain-zapping couple of years ago. Even though there were almost no double-blind studies confirming its effectiveness, people glibly jumped on this bandwagon.

Of course, you didn't have to wait long for the first papers showing that brain-zapping might not be as great as we once thought.

As Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir explain in the journal Nature, we don’t know how extended use might change your brain chemistry in the long run.


It's a short-term fix

Call me old-fashioned but if somebody needs a pill every time they want to feel smart or sharp, maybe they are not that smart or sharp? After every use, it's time for a cold and lonely wake-up call.


It's a lazy solution

The important question to ask here is:

what kind of people would like to take such pills in the first place?

There are two groups:


a) lazy-ass slackers and loafers

These are people who have probably never put effort into any of the things they have been doing in their life. I know that you're not one of them because you can read. That takes us to the second group.


b) high-achievers

You know much, you've achieved much but you want more. That's great. That's admirable.

But as a high-achiever, you know that there is no such thing as a lunch for free. Things which are worth your time come with a price.

There are a lot of better, and more permanent, solutions to becoming a person with an extraordinary mind.


What to do instead of nootropics?

 

What To Do Instead of Nootropics In Order To Maximize Your Brain Power Permanently

 


1. Improve short-term memory

Your short-term memory is the bottleneck of your ability to acquire knowledge. By improving it, you can greatly accelerate your learning rate.

Mnemonics are definitely one of the best ways to do it. Read more about improving your short-term memory here.


2. Improve your diet

If you eat like crap (e.g. a lot of processed foods) and you look at a cucumber as if it touched you in your childhood, you should definitely take care of this problem.


3. Fix your dietary indeficiencies

If you have problems with brain fog, concentration, and mental sharpness, there is a very good chance that your diet caused a lot of deficiencies. No nootropics will fix that for you.

Get your blood checked to see what minerals and vitamins you're lacking.

Not sure if you lack anything? Check your nails.

Healthy nails should be smooth and have consistent (pinkish) coloring.

Any spots, discoloration and so on should be alarming.

What's more, most of the time, you can basically assume that you lack Vitamin D3. Especially if you have an office job or don't live in a sunny climate. You probably also lack magnesium unless you're a health buff.


4. Improve your lifestyle

More sport and more physical interactions with people. Both these things will give you a nice dopamine and serotonin kick. If you suspect that nobody loves you, try hugging stray dogs. Even this will do.


5. Learn how to learn faster

Call me biased but no pill will substitute this kind of knowledge. Let's assume that you want to learn a language and you gobbled up a magical tablet. If you use bad learning strategies, you will still get nowhere. This time, however, a little bit faster than before.

Knowing how to learn is a permanent power.


6. Learn how to be more productive and how to focus

If you don't know how to prioritize, nootropics will only make you browse all the cat pictures faster. Here is a good place to start.


7. Learn how to take meaningful breaks

Doing something all the time is definitely one of the worst learning strategies ever. Breaks and a good night sleep are a part of the job.

I should know. I consistently ignore and rediscover this piece of advice.


8. Learn how to make better decisions and how to think

There are dozens of mental models and biases which invisibly shape the decisions you make. Get to know them in order to reason more efficiently.


9. Be consistent and build your knowledge over time

This is probably the best piece of advice I can offer anyone. You need a lot of facts in order to think efficiently and recognize patterns.

Their accumulation won't happen overnight. It can be most aptly explained by one of my all-time favorite anecdotes.


How geniuses are made


Knowledge builds on knowledge; one is not learning independent bits of trivia.

Richard Hamming recalls in You and Your Research:


You observe that most great scientists have tremendous drive. I worked for ten years with John Tukey at Bell Labs. He had tremendous drive.

One day about three or four years after I joined, I discovered that John Tukey was slightly younger than I was. John was a genius and I clearly was not.

Well, I went storming into Bode’s office and said, How can anybody my age know as much as John Tukey does? 

He leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, grinned slightly, and said,

You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know if you worked as hard as he did that many years. I simply slunk out of the office!


What Bode was saying was this: Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.

Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works 10% more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former.

 

The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest.


I don’t want to give you a rate, but it is a very high rate.


Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.


I took Bode’s remark to heart; I spent a good deal more of my time for some years trying to work a bit harder and I found, in fact, I could get more work done.


Final words

 

As enticing as nootropics might seem, I would strongly advise against using them. There are literally dozens of other, more permanent solutions, which you should try out first.

And I can tell you this - once you try most of them, you won't even remember why you wanted to give them a try in the first place.

Would you ever consider trying nootropics? Let me know in the comments!


Done reading? Time to learn!

 

Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 26 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go. This way, you will be able to speed up your learning in a more impactful way.


Conversational Topics for Specific Language Levels (A1, A2, B1, B2, etc.)

conversational topics for specific language levels

Establishing which language level you're at can be quite tricky. Not only do you have to know how large your current vocabulary is, but also you have to be able to talk about specific topics.

This knowledge can be useful for three purposes:

  1. To measure your language level more precisely 
  2. To choose a conversational subject for your lessons or speak-to-yourself sessions
  3. To be well-prepared for official certificates

If you fail to meet these conversational requirements, it can be quite difficult to pass appropriate exams. 

Read more: How To Learn German From Scratch To A B2 Level In 5 months: A Case Study

Of course, if you just learn for fun or you don't need official papers, you shouldn't worry too much about being able to talk about all those topics.

Let's dive right in and learn what they are.


Conversational Topics for Specific Language Levels 


A1 - BREAKTHROUGH (requirements)


  • Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type.
  • Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has.
  • Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.
  • Let's be honest. You don't know much at this level and not much is expected of you. Still, you should be able to discuss the following topics.


    Expected conversational depth level: very superficial
    Expected vocabulary depth: everyone is happy that you know any words at all and that you can string them into semi-coherent sentences.


    A1 Conversational topics


    1.  Personal information and introductions
    2.  Offers and requests (can you ..., do you want to ... ?)
    3.  Free time and daily routines
    4.  Past events, first times, important events in your life (e.g. describing what you did last weekend)
    5.  Describing places, homes (... is big/small/red/etc.)
    6.  Shopping, food (e.g. ordering something at the restaurant)
    7.  Work/study life (What do you do _______?)
    8.  Describe people
    9.  Getting around
    10.  Suggestions/arrangements to meet (e.g. inviting someone somewhere)
    11.  Journeys/visiting places/means of transport


    A2 - WAYSTAGE (requirements)


  • Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment).
  • Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters.
  • Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment, and matters in areas of immediate need.
  • You know simple words, phrases with very limited reading skills and cannot keep up with conversations in the language. You still second guess your choice of words and constantly refer to guidelines.


    Expected conversational depth level: superficial,
    Expected vocabulary depth: you should know the most basic of all the words. No fancy or precise vocabulary belongs is expected of you.


    A2 Conversational topics


    Here are conversational topics you should be able to talk about at this level (source):

    1.  The individual* personal particulars* appearance* clothing* daily routine
    2.  Partnership* family* relatives* acquaintances, friends* classmates/ colleagues
    3.  Family* family members* family occasions /celebrations
    4.  Place of living* house/flat* furnishing of the living-room /bedroom* kitchen furniture, gadgets* the street, the town* (sharing the housework)
    5.  Traveling/transport* means of transport* timetable/information* buying tickets (bus, train, plane)* traveling documents
    6.  Shopping/shops* shops* special shops* electronics* markets* grocery* clothes shops* departments in a shopping center
    7.  Communication/keeping in contact* post (letter, postcard)* telephone / fax* text messages, e-mails
    8.  Services* restaurant (menu, ordering, paying)* hotel (booking, paying)
    9.  Culture/entertainment–* free time activities* guests* cinemas* theatres* museums* concerts
    10.  Time/weather* seasons* weather* rainy weather/winter weather/snowing
    11.  Health/illnesses* at the pediatrician’s* at the doctor’s* at the dentist’s* some common illnesses(flu, cold)* medication* at the chemist’s
    12.  Sport* popular sports* football* athletics* doing sports* sport and hobby
    13.  Media* television* radio* newspapers* magazines
    14.  Hobby* reading* listening to music* computer games* the candidate’s favorite pastime
    15.  Studying/work* subjects* popular professions* workplaces* colleagues / school-friends* daily routine at home / at work


    Here are sample A2 speaking tests:

    Here is an excerpt from a German A2 exam (passed by those candidates). Even if you don't know any German, just pay attention to the pace of this conversation. If you do, notice the simplicity of the vocabulary which is being used.


    B1 - THRESHOLD (requirements)

     conversational topics

    Photo by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash


  • Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
  • Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst traveling in an area where the language is spoken.
  • Can produce simple connected text on familiar topics or the ones of personal interest.
  • Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.
  • This is the level which most people think of when they hear "conversational fluency". The gist of this level is that you can participate in a simplified conversation about popular topics.

    Notice that topic-wise, this level is not that different from an A2. The main difference is that your vocabulary is bigger and hence you can talk about these subjects at a slightly deeper level.


    Expected conversational depth level: you can discuss things at a slightly deep level
    Expected vocabulary depth: you can convey many of your thoughts but you lack precision. Think "It's bad that people like" rather than "it's infuriating that people can be such mendacious scum"


    B1 Conversational topics


    Here are conversational topics you should be able to talk about at this level (source, source 2):

    1.  The individual* personal particulars* appearance* inner characteristics* casual / evening wear
    2. Partnership* relatives, friends* acquaintances, neighbors* classmates/schoolmates/colleagues
    3.  Family* family members* family occasions/celebrations* distribution of tasks in the family
    4.  Place of living* house/block house/flat* furnishing/gadgets of the rooms* furnishing/gadgets of the kitchen and the bathroom* rent and bills* housework
    5.  Traveling/transport* means of transport* public transport* timetable/information* buying tickets/preparation for a journey* traveling abroad/traveling documents
    6.  Shopping/shops* shops/markets* department stores / departments* groceries/household goods* clothing* electric appliances
    7.  Communication/keeping in contact* post (letter, telegram, parcel)* telephone (traditional, mobile, text messages)* Internet (e-mail, Skype, chat)
    8.  Services* financial services (transfer, exchange)* restaurant (menu, ordering, paying)* hotel (booking, paying)
    9.  Culture/entertainment* guests* cinemas* theaters* museums* concerts* library (school, at home, public)
    10.  Time/weather* seasons/weather* weather forecast
    11.  Health/illnesses
      eating and drinking
      at the doctor’s* common illnesses and their symptoms* prescriptions / medication /pharmacy
    12.  Sport* popular sports* national sports* doing sports
    13.  Media* television* radio* newspapers / magazines
    14.  Hobby* gardening / DIY* reading / listening to music* computer
    15.  Studying/work* types of schools* subjects* popular professions/workplaces* daily routine
    16.  European Union* members of the EU* travelling / work / mobility
    17.  Culture and civilization* basic practical information regarding the home country and the target language country (weather, currency, eating habits, daily routine, celebrations, shopping opportunities, etc)* tourist attractions* accommodation / restaurants
    18. Holidays and celebrations


    Here are sample B1 speaking tests:


    • In English

    I find this one especially fitting if you want to understand what this level is all about


    • In German


    B2 - INTERMEDIATE (requirements)

    Photo by Ben White on Unsplash


  • Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.
  • Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party.
  • Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options
  • This level can be depicted as a FULL conversational fluency. You can have real conversations with native speakers about a variety of subjects.


    Expected conversational depth level: you can discuss things at quite a deep level
    Expected vocabulary depth: you can convey most of your thoughts but you still, for the most part, lack precision. Compared to a B1 level, you can discuss more topics with more precise vocabulary.


    B2 Conversational topics


    Here are conversational topics you should be able to talk about at this level (source and source 2):

    1.  The individual* behavioral patterns* fashion/clothing/cosmetics
    2.  Partnership* making friends (in person, on the net, etc.)* roles in the family* contacts at work / at school
    3.  Family* family/bringing up children* relationship of generations / living together* marriage/forms of partnership
    4.  Place of living* rental/property/lodgings* buying a flat/buying on credit /renovation* way of living in a town and a village
    5.  Traveling/transport* driving/highway codes* walking, riding the bike* reasons/forms of traveling abroad
    6.  Shopping/shops* shopping habits/commercials, ads* chains/shopping by mail* retail shops versus shopping centers
    7.  Communication/keeping in contact –* reasons for the popularity of mobiles* the role of language knowledge in communication* the increasing dominance of the English language
    8.  Services* car rental / travel agencies* repairs / guarantees
    9.  Culture/entertainment* books versus Internet* cinema, theatre versus TV, video, DVD* he Internet and the social networking sites
    10.  Time/weather* role and accurateness of forecasts* relationship between climate and flora/fauna
    11.  Health/illnesses* outpatient department / hospital / specialists* nature cure – medicines* prevention / screening* healthy diet
    12.  Sport* doing sports – healthy lifestyle –dangerous/extreme sports* ball games / team sports / rules* water sports/winter sports* Olympic Games
    13.  Media* features of newspapers, their columns* sensation and news
    14.  Hobby* pursuing amateur arts* clubs (sport, cultural, professional)* hobby and work* modern/peculiar hobbies
    15.  Studying/work* language knowledge / skills / career* equal chances in education / finding a workplace* unemployment* exchange programs / scholarships abroad / professional development* new forms of studying
    16.  European Union* work in the EU* language teaching/language knowledge/work opportunities in the EU
    17.  Culture and civilization The home country and the target language country* population / ethnic minorities* historic traditions / monuments / cultural values* artistic / ethnographic characteristics
    18.  Public life* public institutions / personal documents* public safety* national holidays
    19.  Environmental protection* pollution (air, water, soil, et)* selective waste management* recycling* alternative sources of energy
    20.  Current topics/events* public life / politics / NGOs* economy
    21.  Education system


    Here are sample B2 speaking tests:


    • In English ​
    • In German 



    C1 - ADVANCED/PROFICIENT (requirements)


  • He/she can understand a wide range of more demanding, longer texts, and recognize implicit meaning in them.
  • He/she can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for the right expression.
  • He/she can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes.
  • He/she can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing the correct use of organizational patterns, connectors, and cohesive devices.
  • In linguistic terms, proficiency does not translate to the same meaning as fluent. To state you are proficient means you are comfortable with the use of the language in spoken and written form but not at the same level as a native speaker.

    Read more: The Word Substitution Technique – How To Increase Your Vocabulary Size Considerably.


    Expected conversational depth level: you can discuss things at a (very) deep level (depending on a subject)
    Expected vocabulary depth: not only can you convey almost every thought but your language is also becoming more and more natural. You start using idioms and distinguishing between different shades of meaning of many words.


    C1 Conversational topics


    Here are conversational topics you should be able to talk about at this level (source):

    1.  The individual* ambition/career building* the individual and the society* problems of social integration
    2.  Partnership* forms of partnership* nationalities/minorities
    3.  Family* the social status of families / the system of family allowances* family/career
    4.  Place of living* housing situation/difficulties in building a house* homelessness / its causes/ problems* housing and mobility
    5.  Traveling/transport* problems of city traffic / public transport versus using cars* transport and environmental protection* tourism as a source of income* development in transport / its aspects
    6.  Shopping/shops* consumers’ society* buying on credit/with credit cards/on the Internet* shopping tourism
    7.  Communication/keeping in contact* the Internet in business communication* Fax, e-mail versus traditional letter writing* less widely used languages versus English
    8.  Services* quality/guarantee of services* role, significance of services* electronic services / online ordering
    9.  Culture/entertainment* role of arts in the past and present* public collections and their maintenance / art / historic relics / monuments* mentorship / sponsorship / advertising
    10.  Time/weather* natural catastrophes and their consequences* hole in the ozone layer/dangers of global warming
    11.  Health/illnesses* science/research serving medical care / genetics* alternative methods of healing* health tourism
    12.  Sport* first-class sports – mass sports/doping* professionalism in sports / amateur sports / extreme sports* sport and women (chess, boxing, weightlifting, football)* sport and commercials
    13.  Media* objectivity / impartiality of providing information*  stars / celebrities
    14.  Hobby* promoting traditions* exclusive hobbies (golf, horse riding, scuba diving, etc.)* hobby and/or professionalism?
    15.  Studying/work* (over) qualification/chances on the work market* lifelong education* finding work/mobility* chances of the underprivileged
    16.  European Union* the role of the EU in world politics* common / national currency
    17.  Culture and civilization The home country and the target language country* fame/recognition in the world / their relationship to each other* their image* differences in traditions / customs / ideology
    18.  Public life* the purity of public life / corruption* political parties / elections / referendum
    19.  Environmental protection* prevention in environmental protection* environmental catastrophes and their consequences
    20.  Current topics/events* public life / politics / NGOs* economy / arts / sports
    21.  Globalization* uniformity (dressing, eating, culture, consumer products, etc.)* globalization / maintaining national characteristics
    22.  Current questions on ethics* animal experiments* nuclear experiments
    23.  Current questions on economy/society–* smuggling: goods/people* smoking/dangers of drug addiction


    Here are sample C1 speaking tests:


    • In English


    • In German


    C2 - MASTERY (requirements)

    Photo by Ashton Mullins on Unsplash


  • Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read.
  • Can summarize information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation.
  • Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations.
  • C2 Conversational topics


    No need to waste my breath, or fingertips, here. At this level, you are absolutely fluent and can talk about almost everything. No wonder! You're approaching the level presented by well-educated-native speakers.

    My only advice for you at this level is to dive into details of any topic you decide to discuss. You need to put in lots of effort to activate all those obscure words. Don't talk just about shopping. Discuss "high-impact strategies to increase a wholesale diversification". Or, you know, something of this sort.


    Conversational Topics for Specific Language Levels - Summary


    Knowing conversational topics for specific language levels is crucial if you want to pass any official certificate. Even more so if you decide to do it on your own. Such knowledge allows you to shield yourself from any unpleasant surprises during the speaking part of an exam.

    However, if you feel no need to obtain any official documents, knowing conversational topics for specific language levels can help you prepare better for your lessons or even give you lots of question ideas for your self-talk!


    Side Projects – Rediscover The Joy of Learning and Expand Your Knowledge

    Side Projects – an easy way to rediscover your joy of learning


    The general sentiment towards learning these days never ceases to amaze me. Whenever I mention that I love to study or read research papers in my spare time, I often hear perplexed grunts or shy hollering "burn him!". It's perfectly normal to binge-watch three seasons of some TV series over the weekend. A five-hour session of board games is entirely acceptable. I have this vague feeling that even if I sprinkled my nipples with glitter and pretended to be a pigeon in front of the local police station, the reaction would be kinder.

    Unfortunately, learning, instead of being associated with joy, sounds like a lifetime sentence, especially for adults. Of course, this progression does not occur immediately but almost imperceptibly, step by step. Just look at children. Their unrestrained joy of learning and discovering the world is nothing short of contagious. It usually lasts until they reach the school age.

    Schools are like a grotesque B-rated horror infirmary where kids get their first doses of venom. It poisons their souls and actively discourages them from learning. It all starts innocently. First homework, the ubiquitous sense of compulsion, displeased stare of their teachers are enough to kill anyone's enthusiasm.

    Each of them leaves little scars on their souls that eventually turn into an utter reluctance to learn. For adults, studying is usually the equivalent of working on a galley. You know you have to do it to get your pesos and an extra ration of bread but to enjoy it ?! Only deranged lunatics like learning.

    In this article, I wanted to show you one of the possible ways to rediscover your passion for learning thanks to a simple concept I call Side Projects. I believe it has great potential to change anyone's view on learning, including children.


    What Are Side Projects?


    Side projects, as the name inconspicuously suggests, stand in opposition to your main projects. We can safely assume that your main goals are inevitable. They are necessary to secure your or your family's financial future and to guarantee a high standard of living.

    Side projects have absolutely nothing to do with overwhelming pressure.

    Here is what side projects all about.


    1. Any field of knowledge


    A side project of your choice can concern any field of knowledge. The only thing that matters is your willingness to pursue this goal. Forget about money, pragmatism, profitability, or utility.

    Wanna learn the names of all the saints in Romania? Cool!

    Do you want to explore the life of various species of ants in your home country? Great choice.

    Are you dreaming of becoming a specialist in the field of toilet bowls? Brilliant!

    The only condition is that it charges you with tons of positive energy.


    2. No daily goals or deadlines


    The only set-in-stone rule regarding side projects is this - abandon all that productivity jive that hunts our lives on a day-to-day basis. There are no daily goals or deadlines. Spend as much time as you like on your side projects.


    If, after 10 minutes of reading about a given field, you have had enough, finish your studies for today. Kick up your legs and enjoy your whiskey or rotgut remorse-free.


    3. There may be more than one of them


    What if you're interested in more than one subject? Even better! I find that the best number of side projects is anything between 2-3. If there are more of them, you might use them as a welcome distraction while working on your main project.

    Read more: How To Master Many Fields Of Knowledge - Your Action Plan And Recommended Strategies


    4. A springboard from major projects (the perfect getaway from)


    The side projects should be the equivalent of a Tequila shot at a boring party. If you have already worked a bit on your main project a day, and you feel your brain's convolutions are beginning to unfold, give yourself a jolt by enjoying your project, even for a little while.

    The way you implement this strategy is quite simple. Start working on your project, and once you start feeling burned out, switch your gears and fool around for some time with your side project. Get that dopamine high to revive your focus and energy levels. Once you are done, go back to your primary focus.

    They should be your stepping stone from the routine of everyday life and instill in you unfettered enthusiasm!

    Read more: Make Your ANKI Learning Sessions Longer and More Enjoyable by Manipulating Dopamine Levels


    Benefits of Side Projects


    Don't expect a balanced approach in this article. There are no cons of this strategy in my mind, just pros. How many? Plenty!


    1. Rediscovering the joy of learning



    Perhaps I am largely isolated in my opinion, but I believe that nothing kills the joy of learning like a compulsion. Schools, for most children, are places where enthusiasm comes to die. Kids sit there for long hours, shackled to their desks by obligations and expectations. It doesn't get better once they get back home. There is no mercy. "Do your homework, honey, or you will end up as a car mechanic (that earns twice as much as most white-collar workers)!"

    What's especially sad for me is that institutions that are supposed to promote science really don't give a damn about it. For example, did you know that there is virtually no research of good quality that shows that homework is an effective tool in the learning system? The largest study to date on this issue was conducted in 2006.

    Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement?

    It is a meta-analysis meaning it's a study that summarizes the conclusions of many other research papers. Here is its conclusion:


    "No strong evidence was found for an association between the homework–achievement link and the outcome measure (grades as opposed to standardized tests) or the subject matter (reading as opposed to math).


    In other words, all we have is a very weak correlation that homework is worth our while. Science would dictate that if we fail to find any strong evidence for a given hypothesis, we should abandon it. Of course, that's just a theory. The reality dictates that we should keep on spiraling into this madness and continue doing what we have done for over a century. Let's just ignore countries like Finland that have forsaken this misbegotten and obsolete concept and do way better than the others.

    Does this mean that children or students should not do anything when they come home? No. But there's a clear alternative to homework after all.


    Freedom of choice means more fun from learning

    The flip side of this tarnished coin is freedom of choice. The amount of research that shows the benefits of giving people the freedom to choose what they want to learn is quite overwhelming. It is, among others, correlated with:

    • happiness
    • academic achievements
    • success in life
    • e.t.c.
    Here is a handful of studies on that topic:

    Even though all of these studies are mostly correlative, the question is, do we really have to scour through a pile of academic papers to understand how important choice is?

    When I studied Computer Science and Econometrics, it turned out that my love for mathematics wrinkled and withered like a piss-watered rose. When I studied English Philology, I stopped learning this language at my own time. After one semester, studying it seemed as satisfying as chewing rubble. The same thing happened during my Postgraduate Studies for Sworn Translators and Interpreters. I was so disgusted with them that I quit my job as an interpreter and gave up on any translation-related career.

    Funny enough, it did not prevent me from studying all these subjects on my own after graduation. It also didn't stop me from teaching subjects like statistics subjects and showing people how wonderful they are.

    Freedom of choice is inseparable from the joy of learning and discovering the world.

    Maybe this damned omnipresent feeling compulsion is why most people don't work in the profession upon graduation.

    To sum up, telling someone that they have to do something reminds me of the growing agony on the face of a person who finds out that yes, they are going on a romantic getaway to Paris, but the one in Lamar County, Texas.


    2. Developing the habit of learning



    The freedom of choice and the joy resulting from it always result in one thing - everyday learning. I don't think anyone should be surprised. If we like to do something, we do it often. And the more we do something, the better we are at it. And the better we are, the more we want to demonstrate it to others. After some time, we reach the point where our newly acquired "specialization" becomes a part of our identity. You become "the car guy", or "the diet lady", etc.

    It's worth remembering that side projects have the potential to change your attitude towards any kind of learning. One day you might wake up just to realize that studying every day is as natural to you as brushing your teeth.


    3. Knowledge and development


    I love the fact that all the benefits of side projects seem to overlap. Freedom of choice restores the joy of learning, which in turn leads to the habit of regular learning. The consequence, of course, is the accumulation of knowledge and continuous development.

    Where will they all take you? Nobody knows, and that's their beauty. Good things, as well as bad things, have one thing in common - usually, they come in hordes. Perhaps the knowledge you have accumulated will help you get a raise or a new job. Or maybe you will infuse your children with this passion, giving their lives a wonderful trajectory. You may start waking up with joy, even looking forward to the new day, and your enthusiasm will begin to infect all those around you.

    No one knows what will happen, but be sure of one thing - it will be something breathtakingly positive.


    Examples of Side Projects of Mine


    I have no idea what's in your head or what potentially interests you. All I can do is give you some examples of my current side projects. Note that they are quite bizarre, at least for most people. It doesn't matter. I enjoy them, and that's what counts.


    1. Toxicology


    As a kid, I was absolutely in love with the trilogy "The Assassin's Apprentice" by Robin Hobb. The first part of this series instilled in me a strange fascination with the world of "poisons and venoms." Since then, I have always had this strange desire to delve into the fascinating world of toxicology. Of course, I kept telling myself for many years that I didn't have time for this. After all, it's silly and unproductive! I am an adult, and I need to focus on what's important. Once I implemented a side project into my learning toolbox, I could finally shut those annoying voices of ill-intentioned reason.

    Now, I know a decent bit, as for an amateur, about this area, and I love it.

    Fun fact #1: We can obtain strychnine from an ordinary houseplant called difenbachia. It is found in quite high concentration in the leaves.

    Fun fact #2: Strychnine in doses less than 5 mg can be used as a stimulant.

    Fun fact #3:  Breathing is getting difficult, and I can't feel my fingernails.

    Fun fact #4: Ignore fun fact #2 - stick with coffee.


    2. Geography


    Side Projects – an easy way to rediscover

    Photo by Brett Zeck on Unsplash


    For at least 20 years, in every conversation that touched upon trips, holidays, countries, etc., I felt like a geographic idiot. Heck, I even brought it up myself asking people over and over where a given city or sea is located. I brushed off my ignorance because I always felt that it's one of those things that I can easily google if need be, At the same time, it didn't diminish how silly I felt when it turned out that I don't know quite big towns located literally 50 km always from my hometown.

    It's no surprise that geography became one of my side projects. And man, what a ride down the memory lane it is! I used to spend half of my childhood hiking in different mountain ranges in Poland. I never remembered their names - all I had were souvenirs in the form of pictures. Now I am rediscovering all of them in ANKI.

    Don't get me wrong - I still suck at it more than a 5000 W vacuum cleaner. However, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. And for once, I don't think that's the end of the colon.


    3. DDD (Disinfection, Deratization, Disinfestation)


    Not that long ago, my close friend and I had a brilliant plan to take over his dad's business in that industry and try to expand it. Even though our project fell through for different reasons, the whole undertaking gave me a push to start studying this area. Frankly, I was almost sure that I would drop this field of study the moment I knew that our project would fail but surprisingly, I am still studying it even if just at a leisurely pace.

    Funny enough, some of this knowledge turned out to be useful when pharaoh ants invaded our flat! I managed to quickly fight off this menace without resorting to chemicals. It's the little things that matter!


    How Side Projects Turn Into Serious Ones


    Unpredictability and randomness are inherent parts of life. You never know what a tiny rolling stone may turn into. My experience clearly shows that if you give it some time, it might be an avalanche of monumental proportions.

    So many things that are my daily bread and butter nowadays were alien to me a couple of years ago. The mere suggestion that I could do live off them would be rewarded with a doubting and pitiful smile of mine. And yet, they are all a part of my reality. Isn't it easy to underestimate the smallest of things?


    Investing


    I started investing a couple of years ago after way too many conversations on that topic with one of my students. He often told me about his experiences with the Polish stock market in the 90s. I never thought of myself as someone who could do this. My primary association with investing were sad guys in three-piece suits and their fake bleached smiles.

    After some cogitation, I began to timidly memorize everything I could on that topic on various websites. It took me about 18 months before I finally opened my brokerage account and started investing. Money aside, this project was and still is a lot of fun. That is if we forget about the market crash in March. That was anything but fun.

    Still, in hindsight, it was one of the best decisions of my life and up to this day. Up to this day, investing is an integral part of my week.


    Trichology


    My interest in trichology started very sneakily. My friend, who at the time wasn't even 30, started going bold. Knowing my obsession with medicine and especially endocrinology, he asked if I could help him with that. Even though I had some information on alopecia in my ANKI, and I knew the basic mechanisms behind this process, I felt it was not enough. 

    I started going through different books and research papers in my spare time, and before I knew it, I was head over heels in love with this topic. It got serious enough that I even did my certification as a trichologist, and now I consult clients a couple of times per month.

    I could list many more examples like this, but I think you already know what I mean. You never know where your side projects will take you, but one thing is for sure - it will be a very positive place.


    Side Projects - Summary


    Whenever somebody asks me how to get good or excel in many areas, my answer is always the same. Learn how to learn effectively and then start with side projects.

    Side projects have the potential to revive your joy of learning and make it an integral part of your life. The great thing about such an approach is that you don't need any sophisticated goals, detailed planning or tools.

    Just think about the field that has always interested you, download ANKI and get down to work! Good luck!


    Let me know if you have put some of your projects or interests on the back burner in the comments!


    Done reading? Time to learn!

     

    Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

    I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 11 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go. This way, you will be able to speed up your learning in a more impactful way.



    Benefits Of Talking To Yourself And How To Do It Right To Master a Language

     There is no better way to start a piece on the benefits of talking to yourself than to quote Mr. Jones.

    "One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody's listening," Franklin P. Jones.

    You must be thinking now - is there a BAD way to do it? Of course. Believe me, It's definitely an art. Just like basket weaving.

    But seriously - we take our ability to talk to ourselves for granted. I tried to google "talking to yourself" in some languages. The result? Usually, people are trying to make sure that they don't have schizophrenia.


    Taking to Yourself - Why so Many Bad Associations?


    Every time, every damn time, when I mention to somebody that I love talking to myself out loud, they give me this weird look. They probably think that I put on my trench coat, get on the bus, sit near some nice old lady, and rub myself while blurting out some incomprehensible words.

    That's a grave misunderstanding. If used the right way, "self-talk," as psychologists refer to it, can be a handy tool in your mental arsenal. It can, I kid you not, improve almost every area of your life.

    No more shameful hiding in the shadows. Embrace your inner voices, and let me walk you through the benefits of talking to yourself!


    Cognitive Benefits Of Talking To Yourself


    What does the research say about the benefits of talking to yourself?


    Research from the University of Michigan found that those who worked through their stress about giving a speech about their qualifications using "you" rather than "I" performed better and were less tormented by anxiety and self-doubt.

    When people think of themselves as another person, "it allows them to give themselves objective, helpful feedback", says Ethan Kross, associate professor of psychology and director of the Self-Control and Emotion Laboratory at the University of Michigan

    In another study, psychologists Gary Lupyan (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Daniel Swingley (University of Pennsylvania) conducted a series of experiments to discover whether talking to yourself can help you to locate lost objects.

    Long story short - they established that speaking facilitated search, particularly when there was a strong association between the name and the visual target.

    You see? Not only children can augment their thinking while doing some tasks!

    Are there any other benefits other than being more likely to stay on taskstaying focused better, and showing improved perception capabilities?

    Sure! Better memory. Think about it - when you talk out loud, you stimulate more sensory channels than when you subvocalize. You hear the sounds. What's more, even though you may not realize it, your body feels sounds as they are conducted through your bones.

    Fun fact: Bone conduction is one reason why a person's voice sounds different to him/her when it is recorded and played back.

    Last but not least, whenever you say something out loud, you engage your emotions. One of the most potent ingredients to boost your memory.

    Research is great. But experiencing something first hand is even better.

    Choose some words you'd like to memorize and shout it out angrily or with joy and afterward start laughing like a madman. I'll be amazed if you can't recall it a few days later.

    Here's a good example. I'm sure you remember this scene if you have seen the movie.



    I hope that by this moment, you're at least muttering to yourself!


    Benefits of Talking to Yourself - Overcoming Stage Fright


    Everybody has his favorite tricks to deal with anxiety. But the one which I find the most effective is preparing yourself for what's about to come.


    Have a presentation?


    Stand in front of the mirror and go through your presentation as many times as it's necessary to turn it into a brilliant performance. Who knows? Maybe you will enjoy it that much that you will join Toastmasters.


    Have an interview?


    Collect the list of 20-30 most frequently asked questions and rehearse the crap out of them!


    Want to confront your boss about the long-overdue raise?


    List all the possible questions that may come up during such a conversation and prepare your answers. Doing so will put you in a much better position when push comes to shove.

    And so on. You get the idea.

    Proper preparation kills stress and anxiety.


    Benefits of Talking to Yourself - Practicing Languages


    What if I told you that you could learn a language without uttering a word to anyone else but yourself? You would probably think I'm crazy. And I certainly am. After all, I'm writing an article about talking to yourself.

    But that doesn't change the fact that I learned Swedish (B2 level) to get the job in less than four months without talking to anyone in Swedish (but myself). And while working 50+ hours per week.

    Talking to yourself is one of the best (and cheapest!) ways to improve your language skills. Conversations with others always impose various limitations on you. It's entirely understandable - It's much more important to keep the talk alive than to experiment with different grammar constructions or new vocabulary.

    Self-talk enables you to concentrate on your weaknesses. Such deliberate practice can significantly improve your language level.


    How to Talk to Yourself?


    All conversations are based on the "action-reaction" principle. Somebody asks you some questions - you answer. It goes on and on. That's why, if you want to prepare yourself for conversations with, say, friends from abroad, you should list potential questions that might come up, together with answers to them. Don't forget about taking into consideration the interests of potential conversation partners!

    Of course, you don't have to come up with all the questions by yourself.

    I want to recommend two fantastic websites which I have been using for many years:

    They cover almost every socially acceptable topic which might crop up during your conversations. Together with some more "unusual" subjects, such as - eye contact or Jamaica.

    If you discuss most of these subjects with yourself, I can guarantee you that you'll be able to talk with every native speaker about almost anything you want. Isn't it a definition of being fluent?



    Overcome Weirdness of Talking to Yourself


    Benefits Of Talking To Yourself


    It's only weird if you make it weird. You don't have to rush to your friends to brag about this, nor do you have to write an article about this (sic!). It's just a tool to make you a better person.

    It's perfectly normal. Do you know that computer scientists do it as well (not that it means anything!)?

    Rubber duck debugging is an informal term used in software engineering for a method of debugging code. The name is a reference to a story in the book The Pragmatic Programmer in which a programmer would carry around a rubber duck and debug their code by forcing themselves to explain it, line-by-line, to the duck. Many other terms exist for this technique, often involving different inanimate objects.

    So don't be a weirdo and don't feel ashamed to talk to yourself!


    Other Benefits of Talking to Yourself


    That's right. You might use the self-talk for various things, such as:

    1. 1
      Energizing and motivating yourself - you can psych yourself up with: "Come on!" "Let's go!" "You can do this!". Martial artists have been using screams for hundreds of years to give them some extra energy. I'm pretty sure there is a good reason for that.
    2. 2
      Playing devil's advocate - find the weaknesses in your argumentation. Try to debunk your theories. Saying your options out loud and elaborating on the pros and cons can help bring the right choice to light, and you might be surprised at the unexpected direction your thoughts take when they're audible.
    3. 3
      Blowing off steam - don't keep it all inside. If your colleague is a massive w*nker, say it out loud and scold him. Scientists found out that swearing can alleviate pain and decrease stress.
    4. 4
      Cheering yourself up sometimes, it just happens that others don't appreciate you enough. So what? You can pat yourself on the back for being a great human being!

    Benefits of Talking to Yourself - FAQ 


    My spouse/brother/friend is talking to himself/herself a bit too much? Should I be worried?

    Generally, no, unless you notice any of the two following symptoms.

    • The self-talk is accompanied by general hostility towards others, cupping some object and calling it "my precious."
    • It turns out that they are talking to the invisible friend called Jimmy.

    Remember, it's not weird until you make it weird!


    Done reading? Time to learn!

     

    Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

    I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 9 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go. This way, you will be able to speed up your learning in a more impactful way.

     


    How To Read Books Fast Without Speed-Reading (Which Sucks Anyway)

     

    Being able to read books fast is undoubtedly a fantastic skill and a very tempting one.

    Can you feel the thrill of endless possibilities? If you just knew how to do it, you could read, like, ten books per week!

    No wonder speed reading is a huge business. There are probably thousands of books written on the subject. And 99% percent are crap – promises-flavored crap.

    Sure, everyone would like to be the guy who picks up a thick book, thumbs it through in two minutes to say, “Do they have to dumb down everything these days?”.

    Can you become such a person? Definitely no. Can you become a person who reads very fast? Yes. However, if you are looking for a quick and easy solution, you will get severely disappointed.

    Let’s start with some basic facts to help you read books fast without speed-reading.

     

    Want to Read Books Fast? Forget About Speed Reading

     

    Read Books Quickly Without Speed-Reading

     

    I know that some might take this statement very personally or even be offended. 

    “How dare you smear the good name of the speed-reading community?!” However, it has to be said as it frustrates me endlessly.

    Almost anywhere I go, I encounter opinions that it is entirely possible. From Tony Buzan’s classic to Tim Ferris’ article, everyone claims that reading with a speed of 1000 words/min is entirely achievable.

    Some even go a step further. Comments under any article on speed-reading usually spiral into some bizarre contest.

    “800 wpm (words per minute)? That’s laughable, man. Try getting to 2000 wpm, like me, to see what REAL speed reading is!”

    Sounds great, right? It doesn’t work. 

    Before we get to the specific methods, I think you should know a thing or two about my reading background.

     

    MY EXPERIENCE WITH SPEED-READING

    I started my speed reading journey about 12 years ago. I have always been a great believer in the capabilities of a human mind. No wonder, I quickly got sucked into the speed-reading world.

    Initially, I thought that I was a speedy reader. It quickly turned out that my typical reading speed of >300 wpm was pitiful.

    Wouldn’t you feel that way?

    You start reading about people who underwent a special kind of speed-reading training. About some super-geniuses, or so I thought, who can read with 3000 wpm or even 8000 wpm?

    I felt inadequate.

    I started reading every speed reading book I could ferret out. There were good books, and there were terrible books. Ok, mostly they were awful.

    Some titles sound as if a shitfaced magician concocted them. Here are some of them. But just a word of warning. Don’t buy them. They are crap. Get yourself drunk instead. Or buy your horse a three-piece suit, It will be a better use of your money

     

    • A Course in Light Speed Reading A Return to Natural Intuitive Reading
    • The Alpha-Netics Rapid Reading Program
    • The PhotoReading Whole Mind System

     

    Did I get better? Yep. At least in some way.

     

    Trying to Read Books Fast – My First Results

    After a couple of weeks of training, I could read with a speed of 1000 words per minute. Then I pushed myself even more, and I got to 1400 wpm. 

    There was just one problem I couldn’t spot back then. The speed was there, but I understood almost nothing.

    I guess Woody Allen summarized it quite brilliantly when he said, ” I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”

    It was a very disappointing experience. I needed some time to digest the burden of this conclusion. When I did, it became clear that:

     

    1) Nothing worth reading can/should be read fast.

     

    and

     

    2) You can read books fast, but you can’t understand and analyze information quickly.

     

    That’s why, as far as I am concerned, anyone who is selling “photographic reading courses” should be pilloried while a fat dude named Stanley sticks a tongue in his ear (so-called “seashell”).

    Ok, we got this covered. Let’s move on to the things which can help you read faster.

     

    How To Read Books Fast – Strategies

     

    1. Know Thy Goal
    2. Separate Learning from Reading
    3. Learn What You Read
    4. Skim
    5. Learn Core Vocabulary
    6. Build Core Knowledge
    7. Read a Lot
    8. Use the Knowledge You Learn

     

    1) Know Thy Goal

     

    Read Books Fast Without Speed-Reading

     

        Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,
        and some few to be chewed and digested. –

    FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626)

     

    When in doubt, trust in Bacon. He was definitely onto something.

    The very first thing you should do before you open a book, and a waft of the paper hits your nostrils, is to decide why you want to read it.

    It doesn’t sound sexy. I know. You are a bad boy, and you’d rather slap that book open right away. However, you need to restrain yourself as it is a crucial step.

    You might not feel it, but your decision, subconscious or not, will weigh heavily on what your mind concentrates on. And on what you extract from the text.

    You usually read for

    • knowledge
    • inspiration
    • relax

     

    Try to choose one of the said purposes. 

    Of course, sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the exact purpose of reading. Nevertheless, you always do your best to determine it as precisely as you only can

     

    2) Separate Learning from Reading

    You are ambitious – that’s great. It’s even admirable. And very likely, it is an invisible burden that hovers over your head and stops you from reading faster.
    Why?
    Let me guess. Are you trying to read and analyze information at the same time? You see something thought-provoking, adjust your monocle and say, “Oh my, utterly marvelous. Let’s ponder over it for a while.”
    Do you?
    Then if your goal is to read books fast, you are setting yourself up for failure. There is one crucial lesson here you need to understand.

     

    Reading is not learning. Learning is not reading.*

    *it’s a good tattoo idea if you ever need one

     

    Your brain is not a computer. It can’t switch effectively between two different activities. Do it for a short period, and you will burn through all the glucose stashed in your brain.

    Result? Headaches, the feeling of general fatigue, malaise, and so on. After a while, your brain becomes impervious to new information. This method of reading is not very sustainable.

    Mind you that I am not saying that you can’t read and learn at the same time. I am just stating a simple fact that it is not a very effective method of reading.

     

    Read Books Fast Without Speed-Reading

     

    How to Separate Learning from Reading

    To be honest, I have struggled with this problem for quite some time until the two beautiful words dawned on me.

    *whispers sensually”

     

    Batch working.

     

    I am sure you are familiar with the term but just to be sure, let’s explain it:

     

    Batch working is a process of grouping items because they are similar, or because we plan to do something similar to them.

     

    For instance, it wouldn’t make much sense to make a massive omelet without preparing products beforehand. Can you imagine how ineffective it would be?!

    “I need twenty eggs to make this omelet.”

    *takes two and cracks them open into a bowl*

    “I need two more.”

    *opens a fridge and takes another two*

    Doesn’t it sound frustrating?

    That is why you should always try to group similar tasks. It is the method which, I am pretty sure, saved my sanity.

     

    1) First mark/highlight

    Whenever you stumble across something that is

    • interesting
    • thought-provoking
    • vague
    • incomprehensible
    • you don’t agree with

    mark/highlight it in some way.

    Jot it down on a margin or copy it into some file. Don’t try to dismantle any of the concepts you have read about. The time for that will come.

    Done? Good. Keep on reading. Have you marked another fragment? Good. Keep on reading.

     

    2) Learn/analyze

    After reading a certain number of pages, set aside some time for a more detailed analysis.
    Go crazy, analyze the heck out of everything.

    Refute, digest, criticize to your heart’s content.

    Learning is demanding enough on its own. Don’t mix it additionally with reading.

     

    3) Learn What You Read

     

    Learn what you read

     

    This one comes from a very frustrating experience.

    About two years ago, I was binge reading about 3-4 books per week. Of course, being a sensible learner, I took notes and scribbled my remarks about everything, even mildly interesting.

    In quite a short period, I amassed notes from over 40 books. The bad luck had it that I hit a rough patch and didn’t have so much time anymore. After everything settled, I came back to reading. I didn’t do anything with the notes, mind you. They just sat soused in my notebook.

    Fast forward year and a half, I was reading some interesting excerpts from a book on cognitive neuroscience. My eyes lay on a particular sentence, which solved one of the biggest obstacles I had at the time concerning my memory experiments.

    I was freaking ecstatic! The worst part?

    A couple of months ago, I finally strapped myself to a chair and started going through the notes mentioned above. A couple of minutes into the reading, I saw it. There it was, guffawing blatantly at my helplessness — the same damn fact.

    The miracle solution was there all along. I didn’t learn it. In the process, I wasted myriads of hours on useless experimenting.

    Lesson learned:

     

    Before you move to the next book, learn what you have read before.

     

    Almost Every Book Is a Treasure Trove of Knowledge

    It makes perfect sense, even more so if you want to specialize in some area. Your average author spends hundreds of hours researching his book or summarizing his knowledge.

    Without notes, you will spend dozens of hours reading it and end up with almost no knowledge. You will remember just a couple of main things. Nothing more. And it would be a damn shame.

    Thanks to this strategy, your ever-growing knowledge will help you go quickly through most of the books.

    How quickly?

    It’s not unusual for me to read a 400-page book in less than two days. There is not enough new information for me to absorb. Sometimes you have to do the hard things first, so it gets easier.

    Read more: How to Master Many Fields of Knowledge – Your Action Plan and Recommended Strategies.

     

    4) Skim

     

    Skim While Reading

     

    You don’t have to read everything.

     

    You can skim through some paragraphs or descriptions. Nobody will judge you.

     

    I am yet to hear, “John is such a filthy, primitive animal, I have heard he skips paragraphs. He sickens me!”

    What is important for an author might be meaningless to you. Take this article as an example. I thought it was essential to include my personal experiences. But maybe you don’t care. That’s ok, skim through such passages until you catch a glimpse of something more interesting.

     

    5) Learn Core Vocabulary

    A specific lingo permeates every industry and area of specialization. Love it or hate it; it’s still something you must learn.

    My main area of specialization is learning/memory and everything in-between, like productivity.

    Not knowing what the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus, or the Premack’s principle is, would have the paralyzing influence on my reading ability. It would be equivalent to kneecapping myself and expecting to run.

     

    If you care about being good in the area of your choice, always try to master every word you encounter.

     

    6) Build Core Knowledge

     

    In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. – MORTIMER J. ADLER

     

    I can safely assume that whatever you read, you read because you want to learn more. Or you want to master a given field of knowledge. In any case, you should know that initially, your pace of reading will always be slow. But that’s good.

     

    Slow is new fast. This deceptive sluggishness is the speed of light in disguise.

     

    Look at this excerpt.

     

    In an imagery study by Okado and Stark (2003), increased PFC activity for false memories was localized to the right anterior cingulate gyrus. Given the role of the anterior cingulate in response competition and conflict (Kerns et al., 2004), the authors concluded that this reflects the increased effort involved in incorrectly endorsing an imagined item as “seen.” ERP studies also support the conclusion that frontal regions may distinguish between true and false memories, and be engaged in greater monitoring and evaluation associated with false retrieval (Curran et al., 2001; Fabiani, Stadler, and Wessels, 2000; Goldmann et al., 2003; Nessler, Mecklinger, and Penney, 2001; Wiese and Daum, 2006).

     

    It is a typical excerpt from a book on neuroscience. If you have no scientific foundation, it can be hard for you to read even a couple of pages from such a book. Let alone an entire book.
    It is precisely where building core vocabulary and knowledge comes together.

     

    It’s one thing to get familiar with the nomenclature. But do you really understand how these terms interrelate?

     

    Do you understand, at least superficially, what is their function? If not, you have to analyze it. Only then can you move on. It’s not fast. It takes time. But there is not even one discipline in this world where you can skip basics.

    Read more: The Magnet Theory – Why Deep Understanding and Problem-Solving Starts with Memorization.

     

    7) Read a Lot

     

    Read Books Fast Without Speed-Reading

     

    The more you read, the more efficient the reader you become. The reader who knows the ins and outs of different styles of writing. The one who knows when to skim and when to read deep into a text.

     

    These benefits alone explain well why you should try to read as much as possible. But there is one more reason.

     

    The spiral theory of knowledge.

     

    The Spiral Theory of Knowledge

    The spiral theory of knowledge describes a fascinating phenomenon.

    First, when you encounter a particular idea, you might not notice or comprehend it. Not fully anyway. Then you move on to something else. You learn other subjects, read other books. Then, after some time, you reencounter the same idea, and only then can you get your Eureka moment.

    “How could I not understand it before?! That was so easy. The answer was there all along!”

    And that’s a great question. How come you didn’t understand this concept before? Your knowledge was to blame. At the time, it was patchy and full of gaps. You were not ready to comprehend the full scope of the idea then.

    The potential answer to whatever questions that might be bugging you, consciously or subconsciously, lies in yet another book.

    Yes, there is a door behind the door. But you will never know if it has the answer written on it until you open it.

     

    8) Use the Knowledge You Learn

    Many people love to brag about the number of books they read every month. They are like beautiful shiny badges. The phenomenon is so well-known that Issac Watts wrote about it in his book “The Improvement Of The Mind” in 1821!

     

    Such persons are under a great temptation to practice these two follies. (1.) To heap up a great number of books at a greater expense than most of them can bear, and to furnish their libraries infinitely better than their understanding. And (2.) when they have gotten such rich treasures of knowledge upon their shelves, they imagine themselves men of learning, and take a pride in talking of the names of famous authors, and the subjects of which they treat, without any real improvement of their own minds in true science or wisdom. At best their learning reaches no further than the indexes and table of contents, while they know not how to judge or reason concerning the matters contained in those authors. And indeed how many volumes of learning soever a man possesses, he is still deplorably poor in his understanding, till he has made those several parts of learning his own property by reading and reasoning, by judging for himself, and remembering what he has read.

     

    Don’t be one of those people.

     

    Try to find even the slightest use, if it is only possible, for whatever that is you’re reading. Impress someone or help a friend with some problems. Find a better job. Anything will do.

     

    Just don’t let it go to waste as I did for such a long time.

    Years ago, I used to learn every single fact about almost anything. And I am sad to inform you that it was mostly wasted effort. I don’t remember almost anything I learned.

    Why would I?

    My brain didn’t find this knowledge useful, nor did I find it helpful – and so it had to go.

     

    How To Read Books Fast – Summary

     

    We are wired to follow the path of the least resistance. No wonder. We are drawn to, seemingly, easy solutions such as speed-reading.

    But you already know the truth, don’t you? There are no easy fixes. There are no easy solutions. And yet it is still possible to read fast. Even very fast. But first, you have to put effort into building a foundation.

    The very same effort which will make your newly acquired skill taste so sweet. Enjoy it.

     

    How to Learn Finnish Fast – from Scratch to a B1 Level in 3 Months

    Learn finnish fast

     

    Do you want to learn Finnish fast? Great! I have a great pleasure of showing you a case study, or a magical transformation as I like to call it, of one of my superstar students. Kate took my language learning course Vocabulary Labs quite many months ago and very quickly morphed into a learning beast! She learned Finnish to an A2 level in 3 weeks and a B1 in about 3 months as verified by one of her local language schools. What makes it even more impressive is that Kate is a busy mom of 2. She has no time to waste.

    Another cool thing about this case study is that I collected all of Kate’s emails throughout the course. They will give you a detailed picture of how drastically one’s approach to learning can change once they switch to different learning strategies and start violating memory principles.

    This article also gives me yet another chance of showcasing a core philosophy promoted by the Universe of Memory.

     

    Learning is mostly a lonely struggle. It’s what you do at home that really matters. Choose a bad learning strategy, or focus on the incorrect things and you can kiss your progress goodbye.

     

    If that wasn’t enough, Kate also shares her advice about encouraging your family to join you in your language mission. It seems that the key strategy which has eluded me for years are thinly veiled threats of starving your significant other. Who would have thought?

     

    Learn Finnish fast – the Pre-course Evaluation

     

    The pre-course evaluation

     

    One of the indispensable parts of the Vocabulary Labs course is a pre-course survey which I send to each member before the course starts. It helps me evaluate the state of knowledge of all the participants as well as their propensities and current learning styles.

    Below you can find some of Kate’s answers from the said survey. Her original goal was to learn German, but at the very beginning of the course, she decided to change it to Finnish.

     

    • What languages do you know currently and at what levels? Which one is your native tongue?
      Russian is my native tongue.
      I know English at C2.
      I used to know French at B2-C1 and some Latin, but I’ve forgotten most part of both by now. Also, I tried learning Japanese and German, but I’m about A0 in them 🙂
    • How much time can you devote to learning per day? Be as realistic as you only can.
      About an hour if I’m enthusiastic, not more than half an hour if there’s no interest, but only my will power involved.
    • How much time do you spend learning your target language every day? Please give me the approximate numbers for the following categories: reading, listening/watching, writing, talking.
      I‘m not learning German now.
    • What are you reading/watching/listening to?
      I don’t read or watch much (if we speak about fiction or things like news and films), I listen to audiobooks. It isn’t because I don’t like reading or watching. The only reason is that I can listen doing something else at the same time, while reading and watching need total concentration (well, watching a film + crocheting is possible, but with reading even this is out of the question). The majority of what I read/watch is in English (articles, lectures, etc. on the Internet).
    • Who do you talk to (teachers, friends, etc.)?
      Students. But that’s in English. In German, I don’t talk to anyone.
    • How do you learn and revise your vocabulary? What systems/apps/ websites are you using? (the more details the better)
      To learn German, I used Duolingo. I did it because I was interested in whether a program can really teach you anything. It taught me a couple of things, but not much. To study some C2 vocab when I was getting ready to take my CPE exam, I used Quizlet. I created flashcards myself, but I didn’t use them much – it was rather boring.
    • What do you (currently) like/dislike about language learning?
      There isn’t anything that I dislike. Languages are part of my life and have always been. I just enjoy them.
    • What are your strengths/weaknesses when it comes to learning? (discipline, concentration, etc.)
      I remember and understand things quickly – these are my strengths. I drop things easily if I’m bored. This lack of persistence is my weakness.
    • What are your favorite hobbies/pastimes?
      Usually, I’m up to my ears in work, which is also my hobby. When I’m too tired of work, I just relax doing nothing.
    • What is your current vocabulary size in your target language? 
      In German it’s about 100 words, I guess. Not more. Although I’ve never counted them. And they’re all my passive vocabulary.
    • How many new words do you learn per day?
      Zero.
    • How do you currently learn grammar?
      I don’t learn it in at all.
    • What is the quickest you have ever learned a language?
      A year – I was able to talk to a native speaker after a year of studying. But the level wasn’t high, so it all depends on what you mean by “have learned”. If it’s totally independent use of the language, like C1-C2, then my only achievement is English, and it took me many years to reach this level.
      To finish answering, let me say that although I’m very curious about your system, I’m at the same time very skeptical about it. In other words, I don’t really expect much and regard it more like an experiment of some sort. I don’t remember when and how I found your first article about memory and language learning, but I certainly liked it, because I rarely subscribe to receive e-mails. So, I was very interested to find out that you’re launching this course. Judging by your articles, the course is going to be interesting, regardless of my expectations 🙂

     

    Learn Finnish fast – Kate’s Progress!

     

    Meet Kate!

     

    Meet Kate!

     

    Once the course starts, all the participants receive e-mail reminders about their progress. It helps me keep track of their learning pace and any potential problems. It also makes for a great read later on! These e-mails create an amazing narrative and show how much people, and their learning capacity, can change within just a couple of weeks.

    Here are Kate’s e-mails.

     

    Update #1 – Beating 2 months of learning with Duolingo in 5 days

     

    Hi Bartosz,

    I’d like to share my impressions of your course. At the very beginning, I was skeptical (and I wrote to you about it). Well, seems like I’m not skeptical anymore)) Bartosz, your E.V.A. method is mind-blowing (both literally and figuratively). Its simplicity and effectiveness are just amazing.

    Now, more details. My initial aim was German, but right at the beginning of the course, I changed my mind. Since I’ve already tested how Duolinguo works using German, I decided to pick up some other language and see what I will achieve using your method. Then I was going to compare my Duolinguo achievements in German with the achievements in the new language. For the experiment, to be totally honest, I chose a language which looks absolutely alien to me: Finnish. It has nothing in common with the languages I know, since it belongs to a different family.

     

    Duolingo experiment

    My Duolingo experiment (which I carried out 2 years ago) lasted for about 2 months. I spent on it an hour or more daily. I learned some words and got some understanding of some grammar structures, but that’s about it. I don’t think I could say anything in that language except for the phrases which were repeated multiple times and which I simply knew by heart. I wasn’t satisfied with the results and deleted Duolingo after two months.

    I started using your method on May, 5th. On May 10th I realized I’ve already achieved more than after 2 months of Duolingo. And that’s not because Finnish is easy and German is not. Actually, it’s the other way around. In German, there were notions easy to grasp since they’re similar to English in some way. Many words looked familiar, too. Finnish, ha-ha) Nothing in common either with Latin, or with English, or with Russian.

    Maybe, pronunciation is easier, but nothing else. Still, I already know more than 100 words and CAN USE them. And it’s very inspiring, of course, to see this progress.

    I didn’t believe at first that B1 in 4 months is achievable, but now I think it is pretty possible if I just keep doing it at the same pace (which is not highly demanding, by the way).

    As for the biggest takeaway from the Grammar Module — that’s Deep Learning. I haven’t yet been doing it for long, but it already brings in the results.

    Read more: Master Grammar of Any Language with Deliberate Practice.

     

    Update #2 – First 1000 Finnish words and A2 level in 3 weeks

     

    Hi Bartosz,

    I’m happy to share my experience of using your course, which is very pleasant indeed.

    First of all, yesterday I finished my first thousand of Finnish words (yes, I was waiting with this email just to be able to boast). 400+ of them are regarded by ANKI as mature. This would have never been possible but for the techniques, I learned from you. I do study grammar as well from time to time, but as it requires more concentration and can’t be done 5-10 minutes in the morning, then 3 minutes while the kids are playing in the sandbox, I study little grammar in comparison with vocabulary.

    I’ve got a textbook in Finnish. I don’t use it, but what I do is open it once a fortnight and see if I can understand something in there. In the beginning, it didn’t make any sense, but now the first four or five units are pretty easy to understand.

     

    Hungry for more

    The method has changed my perception of language learning so much that sometimes I feel my progress is slow. At this moment I remember my words “I’d call reaching A2-B1 in 3-4 months a tremendous success”. I know this phenomenon of greediness from my students, and now I’m experiencing it myself. Funny, but when I was doing Duolinguo making no progress whatsoever, I didn’t feel that I was going too slow.

    At the end of the third week of my experiment, I found an online placement test offered by some Finnish language school in Moscow. The result was that they suggested I join their second-semester group (which means I’d achieved in 3 weeks what they were studying for 4 months at the same price which I paid for your course).

     

    Update #3 – 1500 Finnish Words + Convincing Her Husband to Learn as Well!

     

    Thanks for monitoring the progress 🙂 I’ve learned a bit more than 1500 words (today it’s the 80th day of my learning), and I’m progressing further. This learning thing seems to be infectious: my husband started on Finnish, too. His pace is slower – just 5 words, but in spite of this, some progress can already be seen. Now I’ve got a partner to practice my skills during breakfast time :)) Totally free and always available.

     

    2800+ Finnish words

    Summer is over, a new school year has started, which means a lack of time. Well, no time at all, actually. So, I set my daily word limit to 10 (it used to be 20) just to make it doable. Right now the number of words I’ve learned is 2800, which is quite a lot. I decided to take a lesson with a native speaker to see if I will be able to speak. Yes, I’m able to speak and, which is even better, the natives can understand it! It’s more difficult to understand what they say, but I’m sure it’s a matter of practice. I’ve tried lessons with 2 different people, and both couldn’t believe that I’ve been studying Finnish for 4 months only (I took those lessons at the beginning of September, which was exactly 4 months since I started this language from scratch).

     

    Plans to take the officialYKI test

    Now my plan is to try taking their YKI test. It takes place only in Finland, but the more I learn the eager I am to visit that country. And if I visit it, why not taking the exam? There are three levels on which you can take it: A1-A2, B1-B2, C1-C2. I’m thinking of taking B1-B2. I would attempt at C1 if it weren’t for my extra-busy teaching time till the end of May. I just won’t be able to find the necessary time. However, B2 looks achievable.

    Best wishes,
    Kate

    P. S. “B2 looks achievable”. In a year. God, who could have thought I’d ever say this…

     

    A Short Interview With Kate

     

    A short interview with Kate
    While writing this case study, I was also able to catch up with Kate and ask her a couple of questions about learning and her family. It’s truly inspiring to see how much effort and sneakiness she put into encouraging them to learn Finnish fast as well!

     

    What do you do?

    I’m a teacher of English. I’ve been teaching for 15 years. I have experience of working at school, but for the last ten years, I’ve been a freelance teacher.

     

    Why exactly did you decide to learn Finnish instead of German?

    I’ve chosen Finnish because at first learning it was part of an experiment. I was interested to find out whether the system you suggest really allows people to learn languages faster than usual. For this purpose, I needed a language which is different from the ones I was familiar with.

    Since I studied Latin, such languages as Italian, Spanish, etc. were out of the question — being familiar with Latin makes it easier to learn them, so it wouldn’t have been clear whether it’s Bartosz’s system working or just my experience. German is in certain ways similar to English. Moreover, by the beginning of the experiment, I had already tried learning German, so this language wasn’t new either. So I was looking for a language from a different language family. Finnish, which is a member of the Uralic family and looked totally alien to me at the beginning of my experiment, was a perfect choice.

    My 2 cents: That’s a great approach. It’s really to fool yourself into believing that you can learn fast if you learn a language that is similar to the ones you already know. For years, while I have been devising my learning strategies, I used languages which I knew nothing about to minimize any background knowledge interference.

     

    Did you have to force your husband to learn Finnish or was it his choice :)?

    Yep. I told him I wouldn’t feed him if he didn’t start learning at least 5 words a day. Speaking seriously, I didn’t force him, but it wasn’t his choice either. I started by creating an ANKI profile for him and added 3 words there every day.

    It took less than a minute to revise them during breakfast time, and in about ten-fifteen days he realized he could say simple phrases. It inspired him and he asked me to increase the number of words up to 5. Then 7. Then 10. Then he started reading to learn some grammar and listen so some dialogues on Finnish sites. So that’s how it happened.

    My 2 cents: Let’s take a second to appreciate Kate’s brilliance. She didn’t wait until her husband makes up his mind. Instead, she created a separate ANKI account and flashcards to kickstart his progress. Sure, it would be better if he produced them himself. the thing is that probably he wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Kate’s initiative. If you’ve been contemplating how to force your loved ones to take up a new language, you might benefit from this strategy.

     

    Do you currently have some opportunities to use the language? If not, how do you maintain it?

    Right now, I don’t have many opportunities to use the language unless I read/listen to something or exchange a couple of phrases with my husband. I used to have 1 lesson a week with a native speaker (I started in September to see whether I would be able to understand something and make myself understood, I liked the person I talked to, so I continued the speaking sessions till February. In February I had to quit because I was fully concentrated on my work).

     

    Do you use methods from Vocabulary Labs at your work? Did they affect the results of your students? How?

    Yes, I used the methods. One of the methods (or ideas, probably) that I used was to set a certain minimum of what has to be learnt/done every day. I prepared the materials in such a way that the goal of doing them every day was achievable pretty easily. It resulted in my students having covered LOTS of stuff. Much more than was covered by those who studied less systematically.

    Another one is, of course, ANKI. I explained to the students how to make cards. Some of them started using it right away, others didn’t want to. I didn’t insist much. In about 3 months it was easy to detect who was and who was not using ANKI without even asking them. The formers’ level grew much more rapidly.

    My 2 cents: That definitely sounds familiar. Even after one week of private coaching, I can already hear whether my clients use ANKI or not.

     

    Do you use the said methods in your daughter’s education? How exactly does it look like?:)

    The only method I’m using in my daughter’s education is ANKI. We just use it to learn words. For example, when we watch a cartoon or just talk about something while walking and this or that word pops up, we write a sentence with it in ANKI (and a picture! you can’t make a card without a picture, it’s almost a crime).

    My daughter’s pace is 3 words a day, but we often skip writing new words (not because she isn’t willing, but because I’m a lazy and irresponsible mother). She never skips revising, though. She can’t read in English yet, so I read the sentence aloud making a pause where she has to insert a word. Sometimes she makes sentences herself for the new cards.

    About a month ago she asked me whether she could have lessons with someone who speaks English. I found a teacher on iTalki, and now they’re having lessons. I write out the words which are an active vocabulary for the lessons, and then my daughter learns them. If not for this learning, the lessons would mainly be a waste of money (as well as my speaking sessions in Finnish). Backed up by ANKI, however, they are fine: my daughter enjoys talking to someone from far away and understands more and more. I used to have lessons with my daughter last year. She’s a quick learner, but now she’s progressing quicker than she used to.

    My younger daughter (3.8 years old) is always near my elder one when she’s revising. Side effect: the younger one knows half the words, too.

    My 2 cents: I am raising my son (22 months) bilingually ,and I am also optimizing his words repetitions with ANKI. Of course, he is way too small to do it himself,  being the lazy bugger he is, but I do it for him to optimize his learning curve.

     

    What are the three main takeaways you learned from Vocabulary Labs?

    1) I found out that learning a language can be amazingly quick. Finnish is more difficult than any other language I’ve come across so far (ok, Latin can compete, but it’s a dead language), yet the pace with which I learned it was quicker than, for example, French. Knowing that a language can be learned fast is, actually, a very important takeaway. It motivates and gives hope thus making me succeed.

    2) The one that I’m using in my work: better take a small step every day than sit for 10 hours once a month.

    3) ANKI. Needless to comment I suppose.

    3a) Switching my mobile to Finnish. It’s a tiny detail, but it reminds me of what I’m supposed to be doing every day.

    Actually, I have forgotten many things from the course since it’s very big. Now that I have some free time, I’m going to revisit it 🙂

    Are you planning to learn another language anytime soon?

    I’m not planning, but dreaming of learning Swedish as soon as I reach B2 in Finnish (which I hope will happen by the end of summer if everything goes as planned).

     

    Finnish From Scratch to a b1 Level in 3 Months – the Learning Plan

     

    Language strategies

     

    In this section, you can find a rough plan which Kate used in order to learn Finnish fast to a B1 level as verified by a language school. As a reminder, if you’re looking for a more detailed version of this blueprint, please read another case study of mine “How to learn German from scratch to a B2 level in 5 months“.

    Let’s start with the learning resources Kate has used to accomplish her mission.

     

    Finnish Learning Resources

     

    Kate only four things:

    • ANKI
    • Frequency lists (in the form of ANKI decks)
    • Websites to find native speakers to talk to
    • FinnishPod101

     

    I can only smile when people shake their heads in disbelief upon hearing that you don’t need more than a handful of resources to learn a language. Interestingly, the opposite is true. The more learning resources you use, the smaller your chances of being able to use them efficiently. What’s terrifying, even one small piece of paper which you scribble on can be counted as a separate resource. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s a fact.

     

    The Best Anki Decks for Finnish Vocabulary

     

    One of the fastest ways to learn a language is to start with vocabulary lists. Here are the best English-Finnish ANKI decks I have been able to find.

    Please keep in mind that those lists are supposed to be a basis for your own ANKI deck. Nothing can replace the effort you put into creating your own flashcards and sentences.

    This deck should be enough to take you from zero to about a B2 level. It also includes examples and audio.

    And here are other noteworthy frequency lists of Finnish words:

     

    How to Talk With Finnish Native Speakers for Free

     

    Organized lessons are, of course, a great idea. However, in the era of the internet, it’s absolutely not necessary to pay for them in order to talk with native speakers.

    Here is a list of great websites where you can arrange language exchange with language enthusiasts.

    My absolute favorite is definitely Italki. This is also the website that Kate has used to find a language partner.

     

     

    Finnish From Scratch to a b1 Level in 3 Months – What to Do

     

    Learn finnish fast

     

    (1) Download ANKI
    (2) Download a frequency list (e.g. in the form of ANKI decks)
    (3) Calculate your daily goal.
    It’s a number of words you need to learn daily in order to achieve your goal withing a certain timeframe. You should base your calculation on this article – how many words you should need for every language level.
    (4) Start creating sentences with the words from your frequency list.
    Don’t learn passively. Actually use the information you want to memorize.
    (5) Be systematic
    (6) Use deliberate practice to quickly acquire grammar
    (7) Talk with yourself to consolidate grammar and vocabulary
    (8) Once you learn 2000-2500 words, find a language partner if you want to.
    Of course, the more words you know before your first conversation, the better for you.
    (9) Don’t forget about listening. Try to start practicing your listening comprehension only once you learn at least 2000 words if you want to optimize your learning time.
    Of course, there are many nuances to this strategy but this learning plan should allow you to learn Finnish fast.

     

    Finnish From Scratch to a b1 Level in 3 Months – the Learning Plan – Summary

     

    Way too many people think that learning boils down to devoting vast swathes of time to your learning projects. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, effective learning is all about energy and effort you put into your learning. Very often one hour of honest work can beat 10 hours of bumming around. If you add effective learning strategies to this mix, rest assured that your progress will know no bounds.

    Do you want to ask me or Kate something about this mission? Let us know in the comments.

     

    Vocabulary Labs

     

    Interested in all the methods and strategies that we have used to learn German within that time? Check out my language course Vocabulary Labs. You can read dozens of similar testimonials here. It has been used by hundreds of learners to master over 40 different languages.

     

    Course-Oriented Thinking – Improve Your Knowledge Coherence and Create Potential Products at the Same Time

    I love how paradoxical the modern world is. You are just a click away from accessing almost every imaginable piece of information ever created. If you could acquire just some of it, you would be able to dominate almost every possible area of life. However, it seems like there is a glass wall holding you back. You can lick it all you want but you can't get through it.

    Why is it so? Why is it so difficult to master even one field of knowledge?

    My guess is that most people are notoriously bad at tying information together. What's more, we are also easily overwhelmed by the sea of information. All the facts that we face usually take a form of an impenetrable tangle.

    In this article, I would like to show you a way out of this maddening maze. It's not a complete map but it should be enough to help you wrap your head around any discipline. With some time and dedication, of course.

    The remedy is a method of mine which I dubbed course-oriented thinking. Not only will it help you to create or consolidate your expertise but it'll also, hopefully, give you lots of ideas on writing a book or a course.


    Knowledge coherence - the best predictor of one's expertise

     

    Course-oriented thinking - Improve your knowledge coherence and create potential products at the same time

     

    Do you know what the biggest predictor of one's expertise is? 

    Knowledge coherence, or in other words the way we structure information we acquire. And we suck badly at it.

    Why wouldn't we?

    Throughout our entire education, everything is served to you on a silver platter. It's always the same dish - the prechewed and predigested informational spaghetti. God forbid that you put more effort into your learning than it's necessary.

    And then comes the day when you need to recall and apply all this knowledge. You reach for emptiness. There is nothing there.

    Why is that? 

    After all, the knowledge presented to you was structured.

    What went wrong that you couldn't remember it?

    The answer is "Easy come, easy go".

    Learning takes effort.

    There is no way around it. It doesn't matter how many people you will meet on your path who scream otherwise. You need to put in a lot of effort.

    And let's be honest here. If you receive knowledge in a form of a fully digested pulp, you won't know how to use it. You won't understand it either.

    The truth is that nobody can structure and organize your knowledge for you.

    And this is where course-oriented thinking enters the scene.


    Course-oriented thinking - a general overview

     

    In the simplest of terms, course-oriented thinking is based on one principle. You should approach every domain you want to master with a single goal in your mind.

    You will create a course to teach someone all there is to know about a given subject.

    It will be the best damn course in the universe on a given subject which you can sell to others (read more about mastering many fields of science here).

    Pay attention to the words I have used.


    1.   The best course in the world


    It's not going to be any course. It will be the best in the world. No other course will come even close. However,

    keep in mind that your course won't be any good in the beginning. Being the best is the end goal. It's a journey.

    Initially, it will rather resemble a steaming pile of manure. With time, however, you will turn into your own version of David Statue. The one made of marble, not s**t. I better add it so there is no misunderstanding here.


    2.   The most comprehensive course in the world


    If you want to go in, go all in. Create a course which will teach you every aspect of your field of choice.


    3.   It has to be structured and organized


    Keep in mind that the course should be able to teach a complete beginner how to master a given field of science. If you want to teach somebody how to invest, even a retarded, three-headed shrimp which survived a nuclear apocalypse will succeed.

    Ask yourself this while working on your project - "How can you make a layman understand what you want to convey?".


    4.   You're going to sell it


    Course-oriented thinking

     

    Another important assumption is that you're going to sell it. Of course, it doesn't really matter whether you do it or not. What matters is that this approach will give you some mental incentive to devote as much attention to it as it's needed.

    You wouldn't sell people crap, right? Exactly. This way of thinking should help you keep your focus on the right track.

    Another self-evident advantage of this rationale is actually creating something of value. You might be doing it for yourself right now. However, as the time goes by, you might be struck by a curious thought, "Why won't I create an actual course or a book?". And come it will. Trust me.

    I still remember my bewilderment in college every time I saw an author publish a book. I couldn't grasp how it's possible to amass such vastness of information, structure it, and package it as a complete product.

    The secret seems to be disappointingly easy. You start with a product in your mind and you learn as you create it.


    5.   It's going to be YOUR course


    If you set off on this journey with an intention of just copying a curriculum of already existing courses, you might as well stop reading right now. The course has to be your creation. Sure, you might borrow different concepts, methods or solutions from other authors in the field, but it has to be yours. Only this way will you be able to fully understand the scope of a given domain. Trust me, knowing how most of the puzzles fit together is amazingly empowering.

    It also means that you can add whatever you want to the course. Dollop some funny pictures or a bucketful of ridiculousness on top of each module. Appreciate all those little peccadilloes that only you can bring to the table.

    Example:

    In my "investing course", I find myself frequently quoting a lot of prominent figures from the investing world. Sometimes one quote is more than enough to help a give rule to sink in.

    Here is the one by Warren Buffet which I use on a daily basis:

    "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient."

    Sure, I also include some scientific data to back up this idea. However, I don't find it even half as powerful as the aforementioned quote.


    Course-oriented thinking - how to structure your course



    1.   Tips for rookies


    If you are new to some area of expertise, you may find it extremely difficult to create any curriculum. After all, what do you know?

    Don't worry. You don't have to do all the heavy lifting on your own. Simply pick up any book, or google an online course which is similar to the one you want to create and copy its rough outline.

    I would like to remind you that it's just a place to start. You shouldn't copy everything. Without the effort of creating a schedule, you won't be able to learn nearly as fast.


    2.   Tips for old-timers


    If you already possess a wealth of knowledge about some domain, you're in a great place. You already did the bulk of work in the past. Now, muster all you know and start structuring it from A to Z.


    3. The general advice


    Improve your knowledge coherence and create potential products at the same time


    Typically, you should structure your course in an old-fashioned way. Break down a domain of your choosing into modules and units.

    Remember that you're the structure of your course is not permanent. It's a living organism. The more you know, and the more information you add to it, the more it will change.

    Don't get too attached to its current form.


    Course-oriented thinking - what are the best information sources?

     

    By that point, you should already have a rough curriculum in place. The next important question you have to answer is, "how can I learn more about this"?

    Actually, saying it's important would be an understatement. It's absolutely crucial. You don't want to learn from source you don't trust.

    I might be old-fashioned but if I wanted to learn more about investing I wouldn't take advice from a pimply teenager who lives in his mom's basement. Especially if he has no previous track record.

    Here are some places to start:

    Keep in mind that just reading information is not enough. You actually need to memorize it to be able to connect the dots.

    Read more about the importance of memorization here: The Magnet Theory – Why Deep Understanding And Problem-Solving Starts With Memorization.


    Your mental framework for approaching new information

     


    1. Be critical


    Don't take facts or information at face value. Pay attention whether the opinions are rooted in anything trustworthy. 

    As a rule of thumb, my bullshitometer buzzes like crazy anytime I hear that "there is a study proving ...", or better yet, "everyone knows that ...".

    Have you read this study yourself? No, not an abstract, an entire study. If not, remain skeptical. As yet another rule of thumb, anyone quoting documentaries as a source of knowledge, especially about health-related issues should be slapped six feet deep into the ground by the mighty gauntlet of knowledge.

    Sometimes I waive this rule temporarily if I respect a given expert enough. However, that's an exception.

    I know what you're thinking. It's hard. And I fully agree. Nobody said that forming your own opinion and knowledge is easy.



    2. Stay open-minded


    Improve your knowledge coherence and create potential products

     

    It's confusing, I know. Can you be critical and open-minded at the same time? You can, and you should be.

    The principle is best encapsulated by Stanford University professor Paul Saffo.

    Strong opinions loosely held

    At no point in time will you have a complete picture of a given domain. Hence, you are bound to hear lots of different opinions and theories which might contradict your present knowledge.

    Don't discard them just because they don't sound right. Analyze their conclusions. And don’t stop there. Analyze the rationale which led to those conclusions as well.

    A great example is a way in which I approach rapid language learning as described in a case study of mine.

    After learning and analyzing hundreds of linguistic studies and memory-related books and papers, it wasn't hard to see why a typical approach can't work well. What's more, it wasn't too difficult to see why extensive reading and other passive learning approaches are usually terrible ideas. Yet, a couple of years ago there weren't many people who shared this belief. Luckily, language learning is one of those fields where usually results speak for themselves.


    What to do with the contradictory information


    If I encounter some evidence which is either flaky or contradictory to what I already know, I still try to place it somewhere in the course. However, I always place an extra note saying "to be verified".

    You can choose to copy my methodology or think up some other way to mark uncertain information. Whatever works for you.

    Upon doing so, you are left with two choices. You can either set off on a revelatory journey to discover what the truth in this particular case is, or leave it for time being. As you acquire more knowledge, the problem will most probably sort itself out.


    The best program to structure your knowledge


    In my book, there is only one clear winner - Evernote. It's everything you will ever need to write a book, a course or anything else for that matter.

    Of course, I might be biased as I don't know many other programs of this kind.

    Evernote makes it very easy to create module and units for every single folder (i.e. your course idea).


    Improve your knowledge coherence


    Course-oriented thinking - a long-term perspective


    If you have ever dreamt of mastering many fields of expertise, course-oriented thinking should also be right up your alley.

    Once you read this article, you can download Evernote right away and start creating course outlines for every single domain that interests you.

    Will you be able to pursue them all at the same time with smoldering passion? Definitely not.

    Will you be able to work on them for years to come until you achieve mastery? Absolutely.

    You can think of every field of expertise you want to master as a journey. Maybe you won't make too many steps in the forthcoming months. But you will keep on going and you will keep on getting better.

    What's more, the mere awareness of having a course which you can expand should keep your eyes wide open to all the wonderful facts and information you stumble upon.

    They all will become a welcome addition to your creation. And as with learning intensely, the more courses you create, the easier it will be to master any other domain.


    Examples of practical, long-term courses


    CREATE POTENTIAL PRODUCTS


    I am pretty sure that you already have a rough idea of which areas of expertise you want to explore. Regardless, I've wanted to show you some examples of the courses I have created so far. Of course, they are work in progress. Knowing me, I will keep on expanding them till the day I die. You might use them as a source of inspiration.


    A list of my projects (i.e. courses):

    The list is certainly not complete but it should give you a general idea of what to gun for. Remember to think long-term. Your course (i.e. knowledge) doesn't have to be perfect from the get-go. The mere action of having such a project in place will help you put any piece of information in the right context.

    Approaching learning in this manner can lead to truly spectacular results. You might discover that after some time, some of your projects will come to life and will become an inseparable part of your existence.

    For example, I have never thought of myself as an investor. However, just a couple of weeks upon creating a rough curriculum of my investing course, I dipped my toes in the financial waters. Surprisingly, it turned out that I am really good at it. These days trading is a part of my everyday ritual.

    So what do I think? I think you should give it a shot.


    A summary

     

    One of the most important factors affecting your ability to remember things is the coherence of your knowledge. Course-oriented thinking can provide you with an excellent framework for structuring your knowledge. What's more, your potential courses can turn into real-life products which might benefit you in the future.

    Keep in mind that your projects don't have to be perfect from the very beginning. They will probably suck. Only working on them systematically and methodically can guarantee that they will become world-class products.

    Don't treat them dead-serious and don't be too formal. Sprinkle them with silly memes, anecdotes or quotes. Your courses should be a natural extension of your character. Let your personality shine through the quality information. With time, you might be truly surprised how much this approach can change your life.


    Done reading? Time to learn!

     

    Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

    I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 23 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go. This way, you will be able to speed up your learning in a more impactful way.

     


    Why Is It Difficult to Recall Vocabulary and How to Fix It?

    The phenomenon of retrieving words at will seems to be almost magical. The mere intention of wanting to use any of them recalls them effortlessly and in no time.

    Hah! You wish!

    The truth is that most of us look like constipated capuchin monkeys trying to poop out a screwdriver when we try to retrieve vocab! It’s difficult and it sure as hell doesn’t come easy.

    Why is it so?

    Well, first of all, the universe is a cruel place and probably hates you.Other than that there are some other memory-related reasons for that state of affairs.

    Since I can’t do anything about the universe, let’s concentrate on the latter.

     

    Difference between remembering and retrieving a word

     

    Let’s start with a very different distinction between remembering a piece of information and retrieving it. Contrary to common knowledge and intuition, they are not the same.

    To explain this concept, let’s look at a simple model of memory.

    1. encoding
    2. storage
    3. retrieval

    As you can clearly see that first you have to encode (memorize) a piece of information and only then can you retrieve it.

    It means that:

     

    a) you can remember something but you might not be able to retrieve it.

    b) if you can retrieve something you certainly remember it.

     

    The infamous tip-of-the-tongue feeling refers to the so-called failure to retrieve error,

    If you want to improve your chance of recalling an item you need to improve its retrievability.

     

    What is retrievability?

    Long-term memories can be characterized by two elements: Stability (S) and Retrievability (R) are part of the Two-component model of long-term memory.

     

    Retrievability of memory is a variable of long-term memory that determines the probability of retrieving a memory at any given time since the last review/recall.

     

    I would like to direct your attention to the word “probability”. You can never be certain that you will be able to retrieve a given memory. It all depends on a plethora of factors. But what you can do is increase your odds.

    Let’s dig deeper.

     

    Fundamentals – Retrieval Cues

     

    Whydifficult to recall vocabulary

     

    Before we move on, you need to familiarize yourself with some basic memory concepts. Only then will you be able to fully understand why you can’t recall a word and how to change it.

    Everything starts with a retrieval CUE.

     

    A Retrieval Cue is a prompt that help us remember. When we make a new memory, we include certain information about the situation that act as a trigger to access the memory. Source: AlleyDog

     

    As you can see, literally everything can be a cue! Let’s say that you meet a nice girl. The way she looks is a cue. Actually, every piece of her garment is a cue. The weather is a cue. The look of disgust on her face as you empty yet another cup of beer and whisper gently into her ear, ” Shh. Let the magic happen” is another great example of a cue.

    The sound of your feet being dragged across the dirt by the security is yet another cue.

    What? No. That did not happen to me! Mind your own business! Let’s get back to science!

    Saying that everything is a cue is a bit lazy, isn’t it? I think you will be able to understand them much better once you see how they are typically categorized.

    And don’t worry. This is not an exercise in futility. This info will come handy.

     

    Types of retrieval cues

    Gillian Cohen in her book Memory In the Real World distinguishes the following cues:

    • External cues were ones that came from the environment.
    • Abstract (aka internal) cues were all thoughts or linguistic references to the original episode.
    • Sensory/perceptual cues were those that provided sensory/perceptual referents to the original episode.

    Sensory cues can be further categorized as visual cues, auditory cues, haptic cues, olfactory cues, environmental cues, and so on.

    • State cues were physiological or emotional referents to the original episode

    I hope that now it’s easier for you to understand that literally everything can be a cue – starting from a thought and ending with a smell.

    Then, you might wonder, if there are so many of them, how come you still have trouble retrieving memories or words?

    The easiest answer is that you need to use the right cues.

     

    Memory principles governing recall

     

    There are a couple of general rules which will help you with understanding when it is usually possible to retrieve a word.

     

    1) The encoding specificity

    Somewhere in the 70s, a psychologist by the name of Endel Tulving proposed a theory called the encoding specificity principle.

    It states that:

     

    Successful recall relies on the overlap between the thing you are trying to remember and the situation in which you first encountered it, and the cues or prompts that are available when you are trying to recall it”.

     

    This gives us our first rule:

     

    The more retrieval cues are similar to encoding cues the bigger your chance of retrieving a piece of information.

     

    Let’s stress it one more time – it’s not guaranteed that you will recall desired words.Meeting the said conditions simply increases the likelihood of retrieving them.

     

    Example:

    Let’s say that you memorized (actively) the word “cat” in the following phrase: “a black cat”.If at any given time during a conversation, you decide to use this phrase, it will most likely come to the top of your mind.

    But what happens if you decide to use this word in another phrase:”a wild cat”? Assuming that you already know actively the word “wild”, there is a chance that you will be able to string this sentence together.However, the likelihood of this is definitely smaller than in the previous example as you have probably never ever made such a mental connection before. This leads to problems with so-called “information transfer“.

     

    If you memorized some word in only one context, your mind can cling to it so tightly that it won’t be able to transfer a given item into another context.

     

    Any time you use a given word in one part of a conversation and then can’t use it in another one,you run into exactly this problem.

     

    Fun fact

    Interestingly, these rules stay true regardless of the relevance of the information you are trying to retrieve.

     

    “When short-range contextual dependencies are preserved in nonsense material, the nonsense is as readily recalled as is meaningfull material.” – The Changing English Language: Psycholinguistic Perspectives

     

    Side note: Now, when I am reading this sentence I think that I need to go out more often.I have a strange definition of “fun”.

     

    2) The strength of associations

    Another aspect of successful retrieval is how strong your associations are. I think that it is intuitively understandable that the stronger the association between the cue and the target information the bigger your chance of retrieving an item is.

    However, make no mistake:

     

    The strength of your association is still not as important as the match between features of recall and features of encoding (Pansky et al., 2005; Roediger & Guynn, 1996).

    Example

    Imagine that you are eating peacefully your breakfast in a hotel abroad and all of a suddensome cat jumps on a table and gracefully puts its paw into your cereal bowl.

    You think for a second how to word your outrage in a language of your choice andthen you finally cry out “I will skin you alive, you sack of fleas!”.

    From now on, every time you decide to express your outrage in a similar situationthe chance of using exactly this phrase increases.

    3) Number of cues

     

     

    Edward Vul and Nisheeth Srivastava presented another interesting perspective. Namely, the process of retrieval is the process of retrieving cues that anchor the said item.

    From this it follows that:

    • recognition performance is superior to recall performance when the number of items is greater than the number of cues
    • recall performance is better than recognition when the converse holds.

    It means that the bigger the number of words you want to memorize, the bigger the number of cues you need.

     

    Don’t overdo it – a cue overload effect

    There is definitely such a thing as too much of a good thing. If you decide to go over the top and insert too many cues into a piece of information you are trying to memorize you might notice that your recall rate didn’t change.

    It happens so because:

     

    If retrieval cues are not recognized as being distinct from one another, then cues are likely to become associated with more information, which in turn reduces the effectiveness of the cue in prompting the recall of target information (Watkins & Watkins, 1975).

     

    Example

    Let’s say that you want to memorize a two-word phrase “a disgusting slob”. If you just create a flashcard and then try to din it into your head, there is a good chance you won’t succeed.

    The number of cues is minimal here. You can just see these words visually.

    In other words, you are using one sensory cue. But as you know now, there are quite many different kinds of cues.

    You can dollop more of them on top of this one.

    1. You can add a sound (another sensory cue)
    2. You can say it out loud (internal and sensory cue)
    3. You can modulate your emotions (state cues)

    Instead of just saying a phrase, you can shout it out angrily.Win-win! Unless you shout it out on a bus, of course.

    It’s worth mentioning that it’s a slight simplification of a problem as it doesn’t factor inthe capacity of our short-term memory.

     

    4) Distinctivity of cues

    The last (important) piece of a puzzle is how distinct your cues are.

     

    In order to increase the likelihood of recalling a verbatim-based piece of information, you need distinct retrieval cues (Anderson, 1983a; Anderson & Reder, 1999; Tuckey 743 & Brewer, 2003).

     

    But why do we need distinct retrieval cues?

     

    Shortly, recall of one item can prompt further recall of semantically related items (Collins & Loftus, 1975). This occurs through the spread of activation through the associative links of the memory network. Gillian Cohen – Memory In the Real World

     

    You can think about it as a domino effect. One element leads us to another.

    How to build good cues 

     

    difficult to recall and retrieve vocabulary

     

    Good quality retrieval cues often have:

    • (1) constructability (cues generated at encoding can be reliably reproduced at recall);
    • (2) consistency between encoding and retrieval within a given context  (i.e. an effective retrieval cue should be compatible with the memory trace created during encoding and show high cue-target match);
    • (3) strong associations with the target and the ability to be easily associated with newly learned information;
    • (4) bidirectionality of association (the cue recalling target information, and target information recalling the cue).
    • (5) It is also important that retrieval cues are distinctive or discriminable.

    Think about those rules as guidelines. Applying them will definitely increase your odds of retrieving an item.

    However, don’t go too crazy and try to apply all of them every time when you try to memorize something. If anything, you should increase the number of cues only for the words you have trouble remembering.

     

    Examples of learning methods which impede retrievability

     

    In the world of learning, there are a lot of methods and approaches which don’t work at allor which can be used only in the specific cases.

    I would like to complete your understanding of this topic by giving you a couple of examplesof strategies which don’t follow the aforementioned framework and thus, will mostly hinder your learning

     

    Mnemonics

    As I have argued before, mnemonics are a great addition to your learning toolkit.However, you shouldn’t treat them as anything more than just a temporary extension of your short-term memory.

    Let’s look at the quickest way to retrieve a word in a conversation.

     

    PHRASE YOU LEARN       PHRASE YOU RETRIEVEencoding cue             ->      retrieval cue (identical or similar to the encoding cue) = success

     

    Quite straightforward, isn’t it?

    Now here is the path of retrieval when you decide to use mnemonics:

     

    a big cat  -> looking for associations -> turning them into pictures -> placing them in some location -> decoding them -> retrieval

     

    As you can see, we are adding a lot of unnecessary steps into the process of retrieval. The usual effect is that you:

    • a) don’t remember them after a couple of days/weeks
    • b) you remember them but can’t recall them since you have no real context for these items

     

    Associations

    Associations are certainly a useful learning tool. The problems occur when there are too many of them. In my line of work, I have met people who were obsessed with finding an associationfor every possible piece of information.

    The thing is that the associations, just like mnemonics, can at best help you with remembering the word but not retrieving it.

     

    A couple of associations are great because they are distinct.However, there is nothing distinct and special about 100 associations.

     

    Another problem is that once again you are lengthening the process of retrieving a word

     

    encoding information -> building an association -> decoding an association -> retrieval

    (a cat) -> (it sounds similar to a candy bar ” Kit Kat -> (now you want to use the word in a conversation) it was something connected with a candy bar -> I bought a new Snickers!

    Teaching/learning styles

     

    difficult to recall vocabulary and retrieve it

     

    I have mentioned before in a couple of articles that learning styles don’t exist (read about it more here).Sure, you can have preferences for a giving style of learning but that does not mean that this styleof learning will be more effective memory-wise.

    Sure enough, there is a host of studies which suggest that even teaching styles have no influenceon the students’ ability to recall information.

    If you have ever had a teacher who hired a throng of merry and naked gnomes in orderto sing you a lengthy list of historical dates then I have bad news for you.

    Although, you have to appreciate the effort, right?

     

    How to maximize your chances of recalling words – Summary

     

    Time to recap everything you have learned so far about maximizing your chances of recalling something. But let’s do it in plain English this time.

     

    • 1. You should be the person who generates cues

    If you download ready-to-use flashcards or use apps like Duolingo and then whine that you can’t learn then there’s your explanation.

     

    High levels of recall usually occur when the cue is self-generated (Hunt & Smith, 1996).

     

    • 2. Retrieve vocabulary in different conditions

    If you just sit at home and pore over a computer or books you are encoding and retrieving items in the same conditions and that clearly hinders their retrievability.

    As you already know in order to retrieve a piece of information we need to use good cues.

    Remember:

     

    Retrieval is a selective process, relying on a complex interaction between encoded information and features of the retrieval environment (Tulving & Thomson, 1973).

     

    • 3. Memorize natural phrases / collocations

    One more time – the more retrieval cues are similar to encoding cues the bigger your chance of retrieving a piece of information.

    Let’s say that you want to learn the word “a bike”. You decide to put it into the following phrase which you will later memorize “a bike made with light alloys”.

    If you have never ever heard yourself saying such a phrase in your native tongue then what are you doing?! Use something simpler and more natural, for example, “a new bike”.

    P.S. Here you can read more about choosing the best learning methods.

    Done reading? Time to learn!

     

    Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

    I am on the mission to change it. I have created 32 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go.

     

    Polyglot Tips, Advice, and Strategies – Why You Should Take Them With a Grain of Salt

    WHY YOU SHOULD TREAT POLYGLOTS; ADVICE, TIPS, AND STRATEGIES WITH A GRAIN OF SALT


    One category of emails which I regularly get is called: "X did Y, what do you think about it?" (or some variation of it).

    X is usually a polyglot or a YouTuber who just did a mission, whereas Y often stands for a short amount of time. Usually, what a reader expects from me is to tell them that it's possible because they also want to learn fast. I get it - it all sounds exciting. If you can learn a language way faster, then why wouldn't you take advantage of polyglot tips, advice or learning strategies? 

    The answer is simple: critical thinking. You are not them, and depending on your skill set and language background, it might not be possible for you even to get close to their results. There is a long list of warning signs that you should be aware of before you decide to emulate what they did. And no - I am not above it. Apply those criteria to my advice as well. 

    Let's chomp down a healthy dose of red pills.


    Polyglot Tips, Advice, and Strategies - Why You Should Take It With a Grain of Salt



    I get this vague feeling that sometimes both people who give and take language advice are a bit detached from reality. 

    In a rational world, if someone decided to start training box twice per week, initially, they would choose some simple form of training. Some stretching, basic forms, leg work - that kind of stuff.

    A mere suggestion that, "Dude, Mike Tyson has this cool training, let's give it a try!" would be greeted with a pitiful smirk. They would know that this kind of workout routine would leave them in tears and wouldn't be too effective for them at this stage.

    Yet, in the realm of languages, people get this idea that any language strategy is immediately applicable to them. Let me assure you - it is not. What's more, very often they can do more harm to your learning progress and motivation than good.

    Here are a couple of arguments to bear in mind.


    1. Expertise Reversal


    The expertise reversal effect occurs when the instruction that is effective for novice learners is ineffective or even counterproductive for more expert learners.

    If you look at it differently, more experienced learners learn more from high variability rather than low variability tasks demonstrating the variability effect. In contrast, less experienced learners learn more from low rather than top variability tasks showing a reverse variability effect.

    Variability refers to a lack of consistency or fixed patterns in the tasks presented to a learner.
    That means that beginners learn the best when there are:
    • not many tasks,
    • tasks are easy and predictable.

    If you complicate a learning plan for them, they will never progress, or they will do it extremely slowly.

    Call me pragmatic, but I wouldn't like to learn my first language to a B2 level while turning 70.

    Sure, thumbs up from a nurse who is just emptying my bedpan sound encouraging, but I think I will pass.


    What's an example of a crazy learning plan for beginners?

    I bet you have seen or done it before - most of us did. Very often, if you have 45 minutes of learning time per day, you will hear the following recommendations:


    • 15 min of reading,
    • 10 min of listening,
    • 10 minutes of talking,
    • 10 of writing.
    It's either this or some other variation of this madness.
    Polyglots Advice

    Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

    What I do recommend most of the time for beginners in my course Vocabulary Labs is this:

    • learn vocabulary with Anki,
    • learn basic grammar,
    • consolidate this knowledge with activation strategies.

    Once they learn enough words, they start more advanced training, which involves lots of passive learning. Unsurprisingly, people who have failed to learn a language for ten years, miraculously start progressing like crazy.


    Polygot Tips - Reading vs. Listening


    The expertise reversal also manifests itself in the reading vs. listening effectiveness. Here is an excellent excerpt from a recent study.


    Read-and-listen approach benefited novice learners; more expert learners could benefit more from the read-only approach.

    2. Confidence can be misleading



    The first thing you should keep in mind that we all crave confidence. Nobody wants to listen to people who seem hesitant. It all starts at a young age.

    Researchers found that young children between the age of four and five not only prefer to learn from people who appear confident, they also keep track of how well the person's confidence has matched with their knowledge and accuracy in the past (a concept called 'calibration') and avoid learning new information from people who have a history of being overconfident. - ScienceDaily

    Said another way, sometimes we don't pay much attention to what somebody has to say as much as how convincing they are when they do it. However, let's not confuse confidence (or age) with good advice.

    Never underestimate how gullible we can be. While I am writing this, probably a dozen people on the internet are buying some course on healing cancer with banana enemas because the dude selling it looks and speaks like Gandalf.

    Heck, I would probably buy it if he lowered his voice enough.


    3. Experts are notoriously bad at explaining why they do certain things



    Here is an excellent excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell's' book, "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking."


    "Out of all the research that we've done with top players, we haven't found a single player who is consistent in knowing and explaining exactly what he does," Braden says.


    "They give different answers at different times, or they have answers that simply are not meaningful."


    One of the things he does, for instance, is videotape top tennis players and then digitize their movements, breaking them down frame by frame on a computer so that he knows, say, precisely how many degrees Pete Sampras rotates his shoulder on a cross-court backhand.

    That's precisely how you combat this problematic phenomenon - you don't rely on opinions, you track data. Without it, our explanation of why something happened might be heavily warped by other factors.

    If you want to see how far you can go with experimenting, check out this article: Over 30 Things You Can Learn From All My Fail And Successful Memory Experiments.


    4. Achieving a certain skill level ≠ efficiency


    I love Tim Ferris' approach to breaking down complex skills. One of his strategies involved finding outliers in a given discipline - people who shouldn't be good at something (especially sports), but they excelled against all the odds.

    This framework allows you to cut through all the potential noise and eliminate variables that might distort your conclusions.

    For example, I have had plenty of discussions with students of philology who claimed that the way they are taught at universities is impeccable. Every single time I had to point out that for five years, at least in Poland, they spend about 40 hours per week learning their target language. Go figure that you can achieve a C1 or C2 level after that many hours of practice!. Personally, I would be more interested in finding out how somebody, with similar or identical background knowledge, did it in a year.

    The same goes for a lot of people who were born and raised in multilingual families or countries. It's great that they have acquired all this knowledge, but they are probably not the best people to give advice on how to learn languages.


    5. The warping effect of background knowledge



    Background knowledge is another variable that is NEVER considered by learners. 

    Most of the relevant theories of learning to acknowledge that learners' knowledge bases are the most important moderating factor influencing our ability to acquire information (e.g., Chi, De Leeuw, Chiu, & LaVancher, 1994; Graesser, Singer, & Trabasso, 1994).

    It is well established that knowledge of a given domain facilitates recall of information in that domain. For example, Spilich, Vesonder, Chiesi, and Voss (1979) found that after listening to a description of a half-inning of a fictitious baseball game, participants high in baseball knowledge recalled more game actions and other game-relevant information, but less irrelevant information, than did participants lower in baseball knowledge.

    Similarly, after listening to short vignettes from a game, participants high in baseball knowledge were better able to detect changes in the event descriptions on a subsequent recognition test than participants lower in baseball knowledge, especially when the changes related to the goal structure of the game (Chiesi, Spilich, & Voss, 1979; Experiment 1). 

    Walker (1987) also found a domain-knowledge effect when participants could read as well as listen to a half-inning game description.

    Finally, Recht and Leslie (1988) reported the same effect when participants read silently the half-inning description.

    Knowing many languages significantly changes your ability to acquire new ones. What's more, the more similar the language you want to learn is to the ones you already know, the faster you will acquire it.


    Factors affecting your ability to learn



    Keep in mind that there are lots of factors affecting your ability to learn, among others:

    1. 1
      Lack of a learning system
    2. 2
      Regularity of exposure
    3. 3
      Timing of repetition
    4. 4
      Retention intention
    5. 5
      Pronounceability (i.e., how difficult it is to pronounce)
    6. 6
      The usefulness of a word
    7. 7
      Emotional saliency
    8. 8
      Ease of application (i.e., knowing how to use a word)
    9. 9
      Lack of context
    10. 10
      Number of contexts
    11. 11
      Active encoding
    12. 12
      Morphological awareness (i.e., derivational complexity)
    13. 13
      The capacity of your short-term memory
    14. 14
      Intrinsic cognitive load (ICL)
    15. 15
      Germane cognitive load
    16. 16
      German cognitive load (GCL)
    17. 17
      Mental and physical condition
    18. 18
      Mental barriers
    19. 19
      Random variable(s)

    Polyglots enjoy lots of unique advantages that have one thing in common - they decrease their general cognitive load. It means that they can learn much faster, longer, and more effectively than mono- and bilinguals. We can't pretend that it's not taking place, and we're all start at the same point. If this was a 100-meter dash, a typical polyglot would get a 70-meter headstart.

    For example, quite a widespread piece of advice one can hear is that beginners should read simplified texts. Unfortunately, it's not true.

    I want to make one thing very clear - no one is lying to you. These strategies DO work for them, but they will most probably won't work for you if your language background isn't extensive enough.


    Learning Czech in 1 month


    Let me give you a great example. My ninth and the last official language I learned was Czech. In 1 month (about 5 years ago), I managed to learn it from scratch to a B1/B2 level and confirmed with language tests.

    It is a great result, and I am proud of it, but even at the beginning of this case study, I mentioned that I already know eight languages. What's more, my native tongue is Polish, and I speak fluent Russian.


    Why is it important?

    Because Czech shares about 70-80% of words with Polish. That means that right off the bat, my passive knowledge was big, and it was further increased by my knowledge of Russian.

    Here are the implications of these numbers:


    • on day 1, I could already read and listen, and start acquiring some words passively
    • I didn't have to practice listening much because Polish and Czech are similar enough
    • there weren't too many words that seemed difficult for me pronunciation-wise
    • etc.


    That was Czech. What about Slovak? To my surprise, when I visited Slovakia for Polyglot Gathering in 2017, I understood 98% of everything by virtue of knowing Czech. 

    Would the above be true for me if I decided to learn Chinese? No!

    That's why be alert if somebody tells you that passive learning is great. It's not - it sucks. However, it is effective for a person with extensive background knowledge.

    If you have it - great. If not, better get back to active learning.


    Summary -  Polyglot Tips, Advice, and Strategies 



    Taking polyglot tips and advice at face value can be a fatal mistake for people who don't know many or any languages. It can lead to opposite effects. Instead of progressing way faster, your progress can be almost non-existent. In extreme cases, you can become so overwhelmed that you will give up.

    The overall explanation is simple - polyglots enjoy all the benefits of having extensive background knowledge in a specific field of language learning. That makes their knowledge acquisition process much more efficient.

    My suggestion would be to think twice before using their (and my!) advice. Better make sure that it applies to you before you waste any time!


    Done reading? Time to learn!

     

    Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

    I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 18 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go. This way, you will be able to speed up your learning in a more impactful way.

     


    The Curse of the Hamster Wheel of Knowledge – Why Becoming a Real Expert Is Very Difficult

    The curse of the hamster wheel of knowledge

    A fascinating and, let's be honest, an inseparable part of human nature is attributing to oneself mainly positive qualities, i.e. egocentric bias.

    Egocentric bias - a tendency to explain the consequences of one's own behavior in such a way as to increase positive and reduce negative significance for one's self-esteem.

    And maybe I am slightly prejudiced because of my interest in memory, but it seems to me that nowhere else is it as visible as in the work we do.

    How many times have you met a doctor, IT specialist, or even a chef who said he was average or mediocre? That's right. It doesn't happen often.

    The truth is, there are very few real experts. Not that people are lazy or lacking in intelligence.

    All because of the phenomenon I call ... * sinister background music *


    THE CURSE OF THE HAMSTER WHEEL OF KNOWLEDGE



    What is the curse of the hamster wheel of knowledge?


    Before proceeding to clarify the nature of the curse itself, it is worth starting with a reminder of what the Pareto principle is.


    The Pareto principle



    The Pareto principle says that statistically, in many areas of life, 20% of the potential causes are associated with 80% of the results.

    This does not mean, of course, that the ratio is always 20/80. Sometimes it will be 10/90 or 30/70.

    The most important conclusion, however, is that most often a relatively small group of variables will be responsible for most of the results.

    How does this relate to the work we do?


    The Pareto principle for work


    By transposing the above rule onto professional soil, it is not difficult to notice that in any profession there are a limited number of tasks or problems that will dominate the workload.


    Knowledge Pyramid


    The next step that will help you understand the curse of the hamster wheel of knowledge is to look at the knowledge pyramid.



    Although it is sometimes criticized for lack of precision, this pyramid still shows one important thing: active learning, such as performing activities, guarantees much more effective assimilation of information.

    In other words, the information we don't use very quickly fades from our minds.

    What's more, the more abstract the information is, the faster we forget it.


    Final explanation of the curse of the hamster wheel of knowledge



    Summarizing the above, we can say that:

    1. 1
      A limited number of problems and tasks fill most of the time in any profession.
    2. 2
      Unused knowledge (especially abstract) quickly leaves our minds.

    And this is the curse of the hamster wheel of knowledge.

    Most of us have no idea how to retain a great deal of knowledge in our mind, and thus it is quickly forgotten. At the same time, we do not have to suffer undue consequences for this. The lesser amount of knowledge we have and use is able to address the tasks we face, through repetition caused by the Pareto principle.

    Thus, most people are at a level of competence that guarantees no one will kick them in the ass, making them a corporate piñata.

    But make no mistake about it - it is the so-called survivable level of competence, which is self-sustaining at most.

    However, it is no indicator of sophistication or highly specialized knowledge.



    An example of a hamster wheel of knowledge - building muscle mass



    Initially, I wanted to Google relevant articles or statistics for this section. However, I found that it would be easier to just relate an anecdote from my own life, which for some reason stuck in my mind.

    It was relatively easy for me to notice it because I obsessively remember absolutely everything in every field that interests me, in particular anything related to medicine, nutrition and physiology.

    A good friend of mine, during one of our conversations, mentioned that he is considering testosterone supplementation because he is not particularly pleased with the growth rate of his muscle mass.

    The training and nutrition plan that he got from his trainer with 15 years of experience can be called a classic.

    Lift 3 times a week for power to hit every muscle group 2-3 times, eat 5 meals a day, and ingest a ton of strange supplements that if they had an effect, it was definitely a placebo.


    After looking at the whole thing, it turned out that:
    • His basal metabolic rate was poorly calculated and was not further adjusted for his weight loss.
    • The optimal amount of protein needed for muscle mass synthesis had been incorrectly calculated.
    • Before starting training, he was not asked to perform thyroid tests. To be honest, I've never heard a trainer instruct a client in my life, despite the fact that in the event of a thyroid disorder, muscle building and regeneration will be impaired.
    • The coach hasn't recommended measuring baseline testosterone. Most mean nowadays have abysmally low levels of this hormone, and it can be easily increased.
    • Carnosine had been recommended as a supplement, although it is found abundantly in meat which my friend eats in abundance. For example, about 450 g of chicken has 2g of carnosine in it, and 450 g of beef about 1.5g. At the same time, the saturation threshold for carnosine is about 2g. After crossing the threshold, it ceases to be effectively absorbed in the small intestine.
    • It was recommended to take BCAA, or branched chain amino acids. This is all the more strange because it is taught in school that proteins are broken down into amino acids and that proteins of animal origin contain large amounts of branched chain amino acids. In addition, he also took whey protein hydrolyzate, which as a supplement of animal origin is also broken down into amino acids, including large quantities into branched chain amino acids.
    • Etc.

    I could go on and on about what else could be done, but I think the above is enough to highlight the following thought:

    the moment when you think you know enough is the moment when you condemn yourself to mediocrity.

    To become a real expert, you need to constantly expand your knowledge.

    Let's discuss the simple ways you can do it.



    How to fight the curse of the hamster wheel of knowledge


    Don't worry. We are not talking about smearing your face with bat guano or sticking dill into your colon during the new moon. I mean, it will certainly not hurt, but it won't be that useful.

    The following approach is needed here:


    1. Have a system


    99% of the people I've ever talked to have absolutely no systematic way of acquiring knowledge.


    Most often they work on the principle of throwing wet paper at the wall. If you read or listen to information enough, something will probably stick.

    If you give yourself 20 years to be decent in your field of choice, then the above solution is completely rational.

    However, if you want to do it much faster, create your own learning system.

    By the learning system I mean a fixed way of acquiring new information.

    The one I usually recommend is simply downloading a review optimization program (e.g. ANKI) and entering the information you want to remember.


    2. Don't stop learning


    It doesn't matter how much you already know. It's always worth assuming that you still don't know enough. If you already study regularly, you should not have special problems with this.

    If you have trouble with regularity, you can always set an overarching rule that you must stick to every day.

    It can be, for example, learning 3 new facts a day.


    3. Create a knowledge map


    I say it repeatedly: one of the biggest challenges in science is to be aware of what we don't know as accurately as possible.

    Although this sounds abstract, it is perfectly logical. Until you know that there is knowledge that you have not yet acquired, you will not be able to access it in any way, nor will you be able to even consider using it to solve a problem.

    A good example is an IT specialist who has learned to program in a given language at an intermediate level and has been using the same commands over and over again to solve various kinds of problems.

    Although this knowledge level is often sufficient to solve the problem, it is neither optimal nor efficient.

    So your goal is to create a long-term knowledge map, i.e. a list of things you need to learn. You can do this even by browsing through appropriate textbooks or courses and systematically acquiring encountered knowledge.


    Have you noticed any signs of the hamster wheel of knowledge curse in your immediate surroundings? Let me know in the comments!


    Done reading? Time to learn!

     

    Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

    I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 13 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go. This way, you will be able to speed up your learning in a more impactful way.

     


    The Curse of a b2 Level AKA the Language Learning Plateau – What It Is and How to Get Unstuck

    The curse of a B2 level might sound like a title of an F-rated horror movie but it’s a very real thing. In fact, it affects most language learners,

    What is the curse of a b2 level (aka the language learning plateau)?

    The language learning plateau is a phenomenon describing one’s inability to progress past the intermediate stages of language learning (i.e. a B1/B2 level). Typically, the main reasons are using inefficient learning strategies, or not using any learning system at all.

     

    Let’s break down step-by-step why a B2 level is a final station for most language learners and what you can do to fix go beyond this mark. Time to break that curse.

     

    What’s a B2 level is all about

     

    What? You thought I would skip a dry, boring and theoretical part? No way! That’s where all the fun is!

    Let’s take a look at requirements which one would have to meet in order to be classified at a B2 level. They are a part of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

     

    Description of a B2 level (B2 INTERMEDIATE)

    At this level, you can:

    • understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.
    • interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party.
    • produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

     

    Brief explanation: this level can be depicted as a FULL conversational fluency. You can have real conversations with native speakers about a variety of subjects.

    Expected conversational depth level: you can discuss things at quite a deep level.

    Expected vocabulary depth: you can convey most of your thoughts but you still, for the most part, lack precision. Compared to a B1 level, you can discuss more topics with more precise vocabulary.

    Still, any topic that differs from typical, conversational standards will probably throw you off.

     

    How many people master a language at a C1 or C2 level

    The curse of a b2 level - what it's all about and how to get unstuck

     

    English proficiency in the world

     

    Now that you know what a B2 level is all about, let’s take a look at the level of English proficiency in different countries around the world. It’s only natural since this language is still the most popular choice. Our starting point is the EF English Proficiency Index. For brevity’s sake, I will skip the part where I lambaste the reliability of those results.

     

    Countries with the highest English proficiency

     

    Here is a list of countries that were classified as the ones with “very high proficiency” i.e. a C1-C2 level. Pay very close attention to the top dogs. Almost every country in the top 12 has either English as an official language (e.g. Singapore) or it’s a Germanic-speaking country.

     

    Very High Proficiency

     

    Why is it important? If you’re learning a language which is similar to your native tongue, it will be CONSIDERABLY easier for you to master it. Since English is also a Germanic language, it’s not difficult to notice a pattern here.

    Of course, there are other factors at play here but this is the most important one for me from the memory standpoint. The way information familiarity modulates your working memory and increases your learning capacity can’t be ignored.

    A good example is my mission from a couple of years ago where I learned Czech from scratch to a B1/B2 level in about 1 month., even though my learning system at that time was far from perfect. Yes, I specialize in memory, so I knew what I was doing but I also already spoke Polish, Russian and German. Those languages helped me establish my initial familiarity with Czech vocabulary at about 80%.

     

    Countries with moderate English proficiency

     

    Now it’s time for countries whose English proficiency can be characterized as about B2 level.

     

    The curse of a b2 level aka the language learning plateau

     

    As you can see, once we drop outliers like the top 12, the level drops to a B2 level and below. But let’s not stop there.

    Here is an excerpt from one of the official Polish reports about German Proficiency in Poland. Let’s keep in mind that we’re talking about self-evaluation here of people who probably wouldn’t be able to describe language requirements for any level. The reality, in other words, is less rosy.

     

    German proficiency at a B1+ level has been achieved by more than 53% of language learners., of which 22% mastered the language at a B2 level, 19% at a C1 level and 12.5% at a C2 level.

     

    In other words, the amount of German learners who claim they have mastered this language amounts to about 16%.

     

    The magical number 20

     

    In different reports, the number 20 is the reoccurring theme. It seems that only less than 20% of learners of any language get past a B2 level. That is of course if you believe that these numbers are reliable.

    Scientific studies are less forgiving in this department.

    Long (2005, 2013) that the number of learners who achieve a C2 level is anywhere between 1-5%.

    From that, we can only conclude that students who achieve a C1 are also relatively low (read more about in The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Multilingualism).

    I rest my case. Let’s move on.

     

    The curse of a B2 level – the two main reasons why you are stuck

    1. No learning strategy and no system

     

    One of the most surprising facts about how people learn is that most of them have no organized system of learning. You might think that’s an exaggeration but I assure you it’s not.

    Here is an excerpt from a recent study (Schimanke, Mertens, Schmid 2019) about learning strategies at a German university.

     

    To get a better insight on how students actually learn, we have conducted a survey among the students of our university (HSW – University of Applied Sciences) about their strategies and learning behaviors.

    Overall, there were 135 students participating in this survey from all 6 semesters and between 18 and 31 years of age. 68.1% of the participants were male, 31.9% female.

    Only very few of them deliberately make use of learning strategies, such as spaced repetition or the Leitner system. 94.8% of the participants just repeat the learning topics randomly to have them available during a test.

     

    The terrifying thing is that we’re not talking about a bunch of clueless people without any education. We’re talking about bright individuals who will shape the future of their nation.

    And yet, almost all of them rely on something I call a let’s-hope-it-sticks strategy. It’s nothing more than spitting on a wall and hoping that something will set. But it rarely does, right?

    You can read, reread and cram all you want. Most of the knowledge you gather this way will be forgotten by the end of the next week.

     

    There can be no effective learning if you’re not optimizing your repetitions.

     

    2. Concentrating on passive learning

     

    Passive learning can be a very effective learning tool provided that you’re already at an advanced level (especially a B2 level and higher). It can also be relatively useful if, for one reason or another, you are already familiar with a language you want to master (e.g. because it’s a part of the same language family). However, passive learning is a terrible tool for language rookies.

    The body of research shows that you need to repeat a piece of information (unintentionally) between 20 and 50 times in order to put it into your long-term memory (i.e. be able to activate it without any conscious effort). Other studies quote numbers between 7-60.

    I will let it sink in!

    That’s a lot. Of course, the number varies because it all depends on your background knowledge, emotional saliency of words and so on but it’s still a very big number.

    Let’s delve into its consequences.

     

    Everything works if you have lots of time

    We know that in most languages 5000 words allow you to understand about 98% of most ordinary texts (Nation (1990) and Laufer (1997)). Such a vocabulary size warrants also accurate contextual guessing (Coady et al., 1993; Hirsh & Nation, 1992; Laufer, 1997).

     

    It means that as long as you are stubborn enough, eventually you will get to about a B2 level. It doesn’t matter how crappy your learning method is. As long as you soldier on, you will get to the finish line even if that takes you 10 years.

    Why?

    Because it’s almost guaranteed that you will amass a sufficient number of repetitions (7-60) of the words which occur in a language with a frequency of 98%! But what if you want to really master a language. Or two. Do you believe that you will be able to pull that number of repetitions for the words which occur with a frequency of about 2%? Of course not.

    Think of any rare word from your native tongue like “cream puff” or “head physician”. How often do you hear them in your daily life? Not that often, right? And that’s the problem. C1-C2 levels consist of rare words like these. That’s why your chances of getting there if your default learning style is passive are very thin. Unless you have 20 years of spare time and are willing to spend most of your waking hours surrounding yourself with a language.

     

     

    Real vocabulary gains from reading and listening at the early stages of language learning

     

     

     

    Below you can find some findings which closely echo the results I have obtained from my experiments.

     

    Vocabulary gains from reading

     

    Horst, Cobb and Meara (1998) specifically looked at the number of words acquired from a simplified version of a novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge, which had 21000 running words. The novel was read in class during six class periods. It was found that the average vocabulary pick-up was five words.

     

    Lahav (1996) carried out a study of vocabulary learning from simplified readers. She tested students who read 4 readers, each one of about 20 000 words, and found an average learning rate of 3–4 words per book.

     

    The above survey indicates that reading is not likely to be the main source of L2 learners’ vocabulary acquisition. If most words were acquired from reading, learners would have to read about as much as native children do – that is, a million words of text a year. This would require reading one or two books per week. If, however, teachers can expect only small quantities of reading, then word-focused activities should be regarded as a way of vocabulary learning.

     

    Vocabulary gains from listening

     

    Vidal explored incidental vocabulary acquisition from L2 listening (2003), and compared gains from listening with reading (2011). These studies analyzed the effect of a large number of variables (e.g. frequency of occurrence, predictability from word form and parts) on learning. Knowledge gains of 36 target words were measured with a modified version of the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale, on which learners could effectively score 0 to 5.

     

     

    Out of the maximum score of 180, readers scored 40.85 (22.7%) on the immediate post-test and 19.14 (10.6%) on the one-month delayed test. Listeners scored 27.86 (15.5%) immediately after listening and 14.05 (7.8%) one month later. The main finding is that both reading and listening lead to vocabulary knowledge gains, with gains from reading being much larger than from listening. An effect of frequency occurrence (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 occurrences) was found in both modes but this was considerably stronger in reading. More repetitions were needed in listening (5 to 6) than in reading (2 to 3) for it to have a positive effect on learning.

     

    Some caveats

     

    At the risk of repeating myself, I would like to stress one more time that your learning capacity is affected by your background knowledge. If you’re a Frenchman learning Spanish, the aforementioned numbers won’t apply to you.

    At the same time, there are just a few studies around which test long-term retention of vocabulary for almost any method. That’s a pity because 3 months is a cut-off point proving that words have truly been stored in your long-term memory. The studies quoted above also share this problem. Retesting the students of the above experiments at a 3-month mark would surely yield much worse, and realistic, results.

    Anyway, the point I would like to drive home is that passive learning is an ineffective language acquisition tool for beginners.

     

    The curse of a b2 level – how to get unstuck

     

    The curse of a b2 level aka the language learning plateau

    Photo by Tomas Tuma on Unsplash

     

    The most important element you should concentrate on is to develop some kind of learning system. Ideally, it should encompass the following strategies:

     

    Summary

    A B2 level is achievable to almost anyone as long as you pursue your learning goal with dogged persistence. However, moving past this level requires from you the use of systems that will allow you to focus heavily on rare words which make up about 2-3% of a language since it’s almost impossible to master them just by learning organically (i.e. reading, listening and talking).

    If you stick to smart learning methods, you will surely overcome this hurdle.

     

    Done reading? Time to learn!

    Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

    I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 30 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go.

    Laying the Foundation for Learning a Language – How to Learn a Language on Your Own (Part 1)

    learn a language on your own

    You probably have felt this burning need inside to learn a new language once or twice in your life. But there's a good chance that you didn't know where to start.

    It's like standing in front of the dark forest. You know that you have to get through it in order to get what you want.

    But it's scary and lonely, and you're hungry, and... look! What a mess! I must clean my room and do some other ... stuff. The point is - not knowing the way is probably one of the biggest obstacles on the way to master the language.

    And that's the ultimate goal of this series of articles - to show you where to start, what to do and what to avoid. Each part of the series is devoted to a different issue.

    You will learn how to tackle every component of learning a language - including notoriously gruesome grammar and vocabulary.

    I really do hope that it will help you get started.

    I've learned 8 languages so far and I know one thing - if you can't create the system which emulated what you do, there is a good chance you have no idea what you're doing.

    Without further ado:


    0. Choose The Language


    I assume that you already have a pretty good idea which language you would like to learn.

    If you're still on the fence - check this article. it should help you make a right decision.


    1. Motivation


    This is where it all starts. Sure, other things are important as well. But ask yourself this - why do I want to learn this language?

    There are no wrong answers. The reason should be valid for you, not for others.

    Do you want to get a new job? Impress your wife? Visit some country? Be able to read Manga?

    Remember - if your motivation is flimsy there's a good chance that you'll drop your project as soon as some obstacles get in your way. You definitely don't want that to happen! Can you imagine the surge of anger after you realize that you put hundreds of hours into the project which is a flop?!

    You'll probably punch some nice, old lady to vent! That's why you should make sure that your motivation is strong enough to pull you through your darkest hours.

    Your desire to learn is a foundation - cherish it.

    Let it be a constant reminder of why you do what you do. Reinforce right motives as often as you can - they will be your shield against all the distractions and temptations


    Learn a language on your own


    Your initial momentum will help you break down all the barricades.

    But can you increase your motivation or is it something constant? Well, great news everyone! You can. If there is something I've learned about learning, in general, it's that: the faster your progress is the more and harder you're willing to work to see even more impressive results.

    So how can I increase my progress? Read on. We will get to that. My personal favorite to boost my motivation is betting.

    How does it work?

    Bet with someone that you'll learn, let's say, 300 words in 2 weeks (set a deadline). If you lose you have to suffer consequences - e.g. pay your friend 200$. If you win - great, you've achieved your goal. It's worked wonders for me!

    What are other great ways to keep yourself motivated?

    Read the Forbes article.

    2. Change Attitude Or Die


    Another pivotal part of laying the foundations is getting rid of the mental barriers you've been cherishing up to this day.

    One of the most widespread (and harmful) beliefs concerning languages are:

    I believe that they are terribly destructive (and obviously not true) and seriously impair your learning ability if you do not become aware of them.

    That's why you need to become more mindful and

    learn how to overpower your inner demons of procrastination and laziness.

    So go ahead - slap yourself every time when you catch yourself having these thoughts. The words which you use to describe yourself shape your reality. That's why you should remove all the negative terms from your vocabulary, as well as the word "can't".

    Way too many people are stifled by their own preconceived beliefs about what they can and can’t do. Don't be one of those people.


    3. Set a Goal


    But why? Do I have to? Nope, you don't have to do anything. But if you're vague about what you want to achieve, you 'll probably never do it.

    You have to see the target to be able to shoot it! Remember, your goals should be SMART.

    So what is a good goal?
    • I want to learn Spanish at a communicative level to be able to get by in Mexico in 2 months
    • I want to learn Russian only to read the works of Dostoevsky in original in 4 months
    • I want to speak German fluently to get the job in the company XYZ in 7 months

    I believe that determining an initial level of language which you want to achieve is essential. It has a great impact on the learning methods you should choose and as well on the scope of material.

    Be as specific as you only can. You can, of course, learn a given language without purpose if you're passionate about it but most people will simply give up after some time.


    4. Get The Right Resources (and not too many of them)


    Let's start with basics and explain why you shouldn't use too many learning materials. The reason is simple - having too many options paralyze our ability to make decisions.

    That's why I typically provide myself with the three following things:


    A pocket dictionary


    Laying the Foundation for Learning a Language


    Why is it indispensable? Think about it...that's right! The smaller the dictionary the more useful words are included there.

    Don't waste your time and money on any big dictionary at the beginning (or at all). The good dictionary should include the most important meanings of a given word.

    If you can see only one meaning for each word - skip this dictionary and look for another one. Another quality of the great dictionaries is that they always contain the most popular phrases including given words.

    And finally! Pronunciation! Always check if a dictionary has a phonetic transcription of words. Don't worry if you don't know how to read these strangers symbols right now. It's not that difficult.


    A good grammar book


    Usually, any which is not dedicated to advanced learners is just fine.


    A phrase book


    It shows in a very neat way frequently used phrases and sentences.

    That means you can memorize them and use them right away!


    5. Set a Deadline


    If you think you shouldn't set one then you're not serious about your project. Even if you don't achieve exactly what you wanted in the given period of time - that's ok. The world hasn't ended. Draw conclusions and move on.

    Read Six things about deadlines by Seth Godin

    GET TO WORK!


    If you have any questions or comments regarding this article, or maybe some other burning problem, drop me a message. And don't forget to subscribe if you enjoyed reading this guide.



    Read Other Parts of the Series "How to Learn a Language on Your Own"



    The Impossible Tuesday – Your Day To Overcome All The Excuses and Prove How Tough You Are

    The Impossible Tuesday

    We are certainly walking paradoxes. We all want to do something big and be successful. Unfortunately, very often we get stuck in the rut or in the mode of learned helplessness.

    We just lie there in a puddle of our tears and weakness. Every now and then when someone passes us by, we cast them a most imploring look with a silent request “help”. But the help never comes.

    It’s time to change it. It’s time to act and kick yourself in a butt. And the Impossible Tuesday will show you how.

    Two Typical Strategies To Make Progress

     

    I believe that maybe 0,001 percent of all the people have this natural, inner motivation that allows them to always work at full capacity. No matter what they do, they always do their best.

    But what about the rest of us, mere mortals?

    We are royally screwed. Usually, we are doomed to use two compensatory strategies:

    1. building habits
    2. using external motivation (i.e. forcing ourselves to do something)

    Building habits

    Building habits is the best way to guarantee the long-term success. Having a habit means that your brain doesn’t have to spend much energy to perform a given activity. What’s more, the activity itself is usually the source of constant satisfaction. After all, you are doing something productive every day!

    Normally, this is the best possible way to do something. You don’t huff and puff every day to achieve your goals. You are consistent and methodical. As great as this strategy is, it has one big disadvantage – it takes time. Not everyone has enough patience to do it. Not everyone wants to wait a couple of years to be great at something. That leads us to the second strategy.

    Using external motivation

    Even though the consistency is the key, a short sprint every now and then might help your progress skyrocket. This is what allows you to grow and develop fast – short spurts of concentrated focus.

    Think about a physical development, for instance. If you do 20 push-ups per day, you will get bigger and fitter only for some time and then hit the wall. However, if you force yourself to put some more effort once per week, you will keep on growing and developing.

    If you learn 5 words per day, then pushing yourself to do 50 words on just one day will more than double your learning pace. Will it frazzle you at the same time? Hell no. That’s just short sprint. You do it and then you’re back to your usual pace.
    The thing is that usually it’s difficult to get a grip on yourself and actually do something.

    That’s why you need a gentle reminder to get off your butt. A gentle kick, if you will. Actually, the truth is that you probably need a boot so far up your ass that it will act as a pacemaker.

    And I am here to deliver this kick.

    The Impossible Tuesday – What Is it All About?

     

    The Impossible Tuesday
    The idea for the Impossible Tuesdays came to me over two years ago. I knew that I was doing a lot but I felt that I could much more. I just needed some reason. Something to force myself. This is how the idea of the Impossible Tuesdays came to be.
    I decided that on this very day, I will always try to push myself to do something impossible. Something I would never do normally because it’s too tiring and uncomfortable.
    Here are some of the things I managed to pull off on this day:
    • learning 800 words during one day
    • talking to myself for 6 hours in Russian
    • doing 400 push-ups
    Unfortunately, somewhere in the turmoil of life I neglected this idea and stopped celebrating this day. Recently, however, I decided to revive it and to share it with you. The Impossible Tuesdays are our chance to claw our way through all the bullshit excuses straight to the finish line. This is one day per week when we will prove that we are not a weak, disgusting, spongy blob and
    we can do things we have never thought we could.
    We are damn tough and we will prove it. It can be one day a week which makes all the difference.

    Bets as the primary tools of The Impossible Tuesdays

     

    If you decide that you’re in. You should know how to properly push yourself to do the impossible. Bets are the perfect tool for this purpose. It doesn’t matter how much you love doing something, there is always some border which you won’t cross. It’s uncomfortable, after all. I sure love learning new words but usually, after getting to one hundred I call it quits.

    If, on the other hand, you dislike doing something, you need a whip over your head to make you act. In other words, you need to put something at stake.

    Here is how bets work:

    1. Choose a GOAL you want to achieve
    2. Determine your TIME HORIZON (1 day in our case)
    3. BET with someone that you’ll achieve
    4. Choose your PUNISHMENT in case you fail to deliver (20$ for example)
    5. Send evidence to your bet buddy
    Even though what you have just read is more than enough to act, you can read more about this method here – how to triple your productivity overnight.

    Keep in mind that bets are fully flexible. You can mold them and twist them as much as you like to fit your goals.

    Now that you know how to flail yourself properly, it’s good to familiarize yourself with a couple of extra guidelines.
    They will allow you to maximize your effort.

    How To Make Your Effort Count

    The Impossible Tuesday - Your day to overcome all the excuses

    If you already do something, do 4-5 times as much as you usually do

    Remember that the Impossible Tuesdays are all about doing the impossible. Demand from yourself.
    If you normally do 10 pushups, do 40.
    If you noramlly read 20 pages of a book, read one hundred. Make yourself sweat and squeal.

    If you want to take up a new activity – just do it

    If you have always wanted to do something but have been delaying it indefinitely – this is your day.
    It doesn’t have to be anything huge as long as you start. Always wanted to learn Chinese but life got in the way? Do as little as 1 unit from a textbook.

    Break it down into many sessions

    Doing a lot of repetitions of any activity is straining.
    That’s why make sure you always break the entire process into many chunks.
    Don’t even think about knocking out 200 flashcards in one sitting. Try to do it in at least a couple of sessions.

    Identify “the dead time” and use it

    Dead time is the time spent doing activities which don’t absorb all of our attention.
    Think about sitting on the subway or standing in line. These seemingly useless moments can usually be used to do some more productive stuff. Plan ahead and consider how you can incorporate dead time into your Impossible Tuesday.

    What can be your goal?

     

    I can’t tell you what you should concentrate on. Only you know what’s important to you and what’s worth your blood and sweat and tears. I can tell you this – usually you should be doing the things you are actively avoiding. Brainstorm what that thing is for you.
    Regardless of that, here are some proposals of the things you can bet on:

    Working out:

    • running
    • push-ups
    • sit-ups
    • crunches

    Learning:

    Creativity

    • Brainstorm a problem you have
    • Come up with X ideas to improve some aspect of your life
    • Come up with a new product you can sell
    • Write X pages of something

    Big projects

    If you have any other suggestions, let me know in the comment.

    The Final Words + The Invitation

     

    Every idea needs a critical mass to gain motion. I don’t know if this will work out or maybe I will have to bury the hatchet in this idea. It’s up to you. However, if you decide to take part in, post your goals in the comments together with your bet.

    If you can’t think of anything right now, think about it and post it later. On Wednesday come back and post your result as a reply to your original comment.

    Who knows? Maybe this is the sign you have been waiting for!

    If, however, you decide to bury this idea, know that you will have dirt on your hands.  The dirt that is soaked in guilt and shame. The stains left by it will taint your soul permanently and they will never go away. They will keep growing until they spill onto your very existence polluting everyone you love. It will …

    Ok, ok. No more guilt-tripping! Join me in the comments! We will see how it goes and hopefully, we will make it a permanent thing.

    P.S. You can increase your chances of sticking to your plan even more by making yourself accountable. Tell somebody about the challenge or tweet #ImpossibleTuesday together with your goal!

    How to Self-Assess Your Progress – a Short Guide for Independent Learners

    How to self-asses your progress - a short guide for independent learners

    Learning on your own can be quite an unsettling experience, especially initially. Instead of being guided by a helpful hand of a coach or trainer, you cling to a clammy hand of doubt and despair. Questions like "What if I am wrong?", "Am I consolidating all the wrong things right now" become your bread and butter. To minimize the amount of all those unpleasantries, you need to learn how to self-assess your progress.

    Sadly, choosing the right method to do it can be also confusing. After all, there are lots of ways to do it! No strategy is universal enough as to work for everyone. That's why I suggest that you spend some time thinking about the right way to assess your progress. If you don't do this, it will be challenging to tell whether you're pushing forward at the optimal pace or just spinning your wheels.



    How to Self-Assess Your Progress as an Independent Learner


    1. Use SRS (Spaced Repetition Software)


    A fantastic feature of every SRS program, including my all-time favorite ANKI, is that every flashcard is a form of self-quiz. It provides you with immediate feedback about your knowledge.

    It's like a virtual friend that regularly hangs out with you to make sure you have mastered your area of choice. You can't lose long-term with buddies like that!


    2. Assess Others' Performance


    We're getting a little meta here, but trying to evaluate somebody's performance, for example via teaching, is an excellent gauge of your current progress.

    You see, it's very difficult to be able to single out somebody's mistakes unless you're on the same or a higher level than this person. Thus, doing so is a meta confirmation that you've achieved a certain level.

    Of course, you don't have to teach someone to be able to benefit from this strategy. It can be as easy as observing somebody's performance on video. Or you can simply try to criticize somebody's work "theoretically".

    For example, let's say that your goal is to create amazing facial creams. In that case, you can pick up any cream of one of your potential competitors and try to find flaws in it. At the same time, you can also try to find positives to consolidate your knowledge further.


    3. Take part in interviews


    Comparing your performance against other learners can tell you volumes about your current skill set or expertise. There is nothing more telling than seeing where you fall within a given group.


    Interviews are a great form of a comparison between you and, often, hundreds of other candidates. Even if you're not looking currently for a job, it's still worth applying for one to test yourself.

    If you fail, you will still get feedback from a company, and thus you will learn where you fell short. Heck, failing in itself, is a form of feedback.

    If you succeed, you can ask for detailed feedback concerning your performance. Even if you turn the job down, you will still learn a lot.


    4. Take part in Competitions/Contests/Tournaments


    Competing with others is probably almost as old as our entire civilization and is still as popular as ever. Find a relevant competition that involves your skillset and see how you fare against other candidates.

    An important benefit of this assessment method is that you also test how well you cope with pressure. Of course, it doesn't make much sense if your skill is performed in isolation. However, in all other cases, it's necessary to get out of the comfort zone to get a realistic picture of our expertise.


    5. Take Online tests


    Online tests can provide you with relatively precise and, more importantly, almost immediate feedback. In the era of the internet, finding one that is relevant to your field shouldn't be too challenging.

    The only thing you should keep in mind is choosing the test of high quality. You need a test that can provide you with meaningful information. Sometimes, it simply means paying a couple of bucks.


    6. Get a certificate


    Certificates are one of the best ways to get very detailed feedback about your performance. It's not only a benchmark to measure your knowledge against - it can actually be something you can strive for. A source of inspiration if you will. If you want a meaningful confirmation that you've learned the material or skill effectively, look no further.


    7. Produce/create something


    In some cases, your goal is to create some masterpiece. It can be a program, a flying machine, a flamethrower, and whatnot. Creating the said item will allow you to assess your expertise critically.

    Here are some questions you can ask yourself:
    • Does it work?
    • Does it work well?
    • Is there any room for improvement?
    • What do others think about it?

    My Example - Composing Music


    a short guide for independent learners


    It's important to ask yourself these questions because if you just mindlessly keep on producing these items, you won't be able to improve. At least not by a significant margin.

    You can use my experience as a case study. I have been composing for lots of years now with a plan for publishing my work in the future. You can call it my long-term side project. Whenever I finish an outline of a song, I send it to a group of my friends, asking them for a review. 

    The group is selected based on one criterion — they are honest. If something is shit, it's shit, and there are no two ways about it. This isn't where the process ends.

    To further maximize the usefulness and truthfulness of this feedback, I ask my friends to share it with one or two other people. These may be family members or just close friends.

    Some of them listen to other genres of music, and some don't listen to music at all. Once I get all the reviews and comments, I paste them into an Excel file and analyze them.

    A bit unorthodox way of composing, but it certainly helps to yank me out of the echo chamber in which many creators live in. It's very sobering sometimes to hear, "man, just delete this song." 


    8. Use checklists


    Checklists have been widely popular for at least a couple of decades now. It's hard to find even an averagely organized company that doesn't use it to some degree. And there are good reasons for that - they make the overwhelming manageable.

    Of course, checklists are amazing at all levels of advancement, but they are especially useful for beginners. First of all, they allow you to decrease your cognitive load drastically. They are the life-ring that stops you from drowning in the excessive amount of information. One look and you know what should be done.

    However, the most important benefit for independent learners is that they enable you to efficiently self-assess your progress. Upon performing a given activity, you can quickly consult such a list to see what was done right and where you fell short.


    9. Videotape or record yourself


    Videotaping yourself is a form of formative assessment since it allows you to assess your performance during instruction (i.e., performance).

    Recording yourself on video is an amazingly simple and effective way to identify areas that you need to improve. Of course, it's not for everyone, and it won't apply to some areas of knowledge. However, it's a perfect feedback mechanism for musicians, actors, speakers, performers, and dancers. 

    The research certainly supports this way of learning:


    Developing musicians typically engage in self-regulated practicing during the time that passes between lessons with their teachers. An important aspect of self-regulated practice is the ability to identify and correct areas of development in performance in the absence of a teacher’s feedback, but the effort required to perform as well as monitor a performance represents a challenge for any learner. 
    Videotaping the performance and watching it afterward to fully concentrate on each task could constitute a solution to this problem. In our study, we verified how video feedback could affect the self-evaluation of intermediate-advanced musicians while practicing a new piece of music. 
    To attain this objective, we analyzed and coded the self-evaluative comments of 16 classical guitarists while practicing. We then compared the number of coding entries in each category of a group of participants who used video feedback (n = 8) on four occasions over a period of ten practice sessions with those of a group of musicians who did not use video feedback (n = 8).
    Our results indicate that musicians who used video feedback modified the way they formulated their self-evaluative comments while practicing and that these changes were more marked with higher-performing musicians. [[source]]

    How to Self-Assess Your Progress - Summary


    Knowing how to self-assess your progress as an independent learner is one of the most important keys to your success. Without that skill, you are bound to forever stray in the cognitive darkness or worse, beg for crumbles of advice from others' mouths.


    Keep in mind that your feedback mechanism will heavily depend on what resources you have and your area of choice. It's also one of those cases where more is better. It's certainly preferable, especially if you want to be independent, to rely on more than one of the strategies above. Even if you can't pick a perfect feedback mechanism, you can incorporate smaller feedback drills to ensure you're not entirely without feedback.

    Here is how you can self-assess your progress:

    • 1. use SRS (Spaced Repetition Software)
    • 2. assess others' performance
    • 3. take part in interviews
    • 4. take part in competitions/contests/tournaments
    • 5. take online tests
    • 6. get a certificate
    • 7. create or produce something
    • 8. use checklists
    • 9. Videotape or record yourself

    Done reading? Time to learn!

     

    Reading articles online is a great way to expand your knowledge. However, the sad thing is that after barely 1 day, we tend to forget most of the things we have read

    I am on the mission to change it. I have created over 14 flashcards that you can download to truly learn information from this article. It’s enough to download ANKI, and you’re good to go. This way, you will be able to speed up your learning in a more impactful way.

     


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