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Hobbies / Language Learning

Heritage language learning

What is a heritage language? What is a heritage language you may ask? This is a specific phenomenon where a language is learnt by a child or a person who isn’t the region’s dominant language, for example, at home with their parents or family.  Heritage language as a definition can vary widely. It’s the case; however, the longer the family who speaks that heritage language remains in a country whose dominant family is a different language, the more likely the language will not be passed down. So, a lot of people, a lot of them adults; decide to start learning...

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Language Learning / Productivity

What are the CEFR levels?

Often these CEFR levels are used in the language learning system and community. But what do they mean and what are they used for? And is it applicable or should you care about this framework? The CEFR levels where CEFR stands for the Common European Framework of Reference the levels associated with different levels of fluency/proficiency used in the language learning space in Europe. It goes as follows: A beginner, B intermediate and C advanced. Each letter can be split into upper and lower. For example: A1 (beginner), A2 (pre-intermediate), B1 (intermediate), B2 (upper-intermediate), C1 (advanced) and C2 (proficient). Generally,...

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Language Learning / Productivity / Review

Anki Review (For language learning):

Anki is a SRS Flashcards software. These flashcards are fully customisable and use popular SRS or space repetition system software. This software system manipulates when the cards are seen based on the science of the forgetting curve. One thing to note about using Anki for language learning is that I believe it should be an addition or a supplement to a strong study program for that language rather than being used as the main resource. This is because by itself it cannot teach you the language rather it can consolidate and help you with what you do know. I will...

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Hobbies / Language Learning / Productivity / Review

Year 2024 Plans – Language Learning and otherwise:

2024 is a fresh new year. It is currently January. This therefore begs the question: what is new for me this year? This blog post will be split up into two main sections. My language learning goals and then everything else. Language Learning goals: This year I want to continue learning Mandarin and Cantonese. This is very good. I would also want to dabble in French. I started dabbling in French because I enjoy this idea, and I would find it fun (language learning isn’t just about improving all the time and becoming fluent fast, if it isn’t the most...

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Language Learning / Review

CantoneseClass101 Review

Hello all! I have used this website: CantoneseClass101 to learn Cantonese extensively and wanted to give everyone a review on what I think this website can do its pros and cons/limitations. Overall, I will conclude by saying who I think this product is for and who I feel can benefit from it. CantoneseClass101 – how does it work? So the website operates under a freemium model – meaning that the website is free but unlocks the vast majority of its content you need to subscribe to the website. There are multiple tiers of subscriptions: basic, premium & premium plus. Basic...

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Language Learning

Learning English

My question is how I would learn English if it wasn’t my first language. Here is what I would suggest if you want to learn English as a second or foreign language. Language Goals First and foremost, you must be clear about what your goals are with a language, for example: Depending on your goals you would do different things. However, this article will suggest things you can do, depending on your level, to improve your English generally. You must use English and learn English regularly to see improvement. My recommendation is half an hour of active study a day...

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Language Learning / Teach English

My experiences so far with TEFL 120-hour course:

Before wanting to teach English as a second language, I had a background in teaching Maths GCSE mainly face-to-face to secondary school students. I had a lot of success doing this, so I wanted to continue this but with a different subject: TEFL. This is because although I am quite passionate about Maths, I don’t do anything to do with Maths in my free time; rather I enjoy learning languages which has been my main passion for a few years. As such being a language learner myself, I can understand the ups and downs, lows, and highs of learning a...

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Hobbies / Wellbeing

My health and fitness journey:

I have had a journey with my relationship with food. As a teenager, I initially struggled with Eczema, which led me to a guide that said it could “beat” eczema. This was through a raw vegan diet that allowed my body to heal itself. However, this led to an impaired relationship with food and eating, leading me to eat unusual foods in unusual ways/patterns which is far from the good health I wanted. This could’ve eventually led to an eating disorder associated with clean eating. However, my health and fitness journey started when I was in my 20s. I became...

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Productivity / Writing

Blogging review after 1 year! Plans for the future

Next month marks my first anniversary of starting blogging. I have learned a lot during that time I wish to gain more experience and knowledge as I go ahead and continue blogging now and into the future. Personal reflections: Overall, I have enjoyed my experience blogging this past year. I’ve been able to express myself in ways that I never thought would have been possible before and talk about topics on which I previously had little to no knowledge. As a result, I have published around 30 blog posts in around three languages: English, Cantonese, and traditional Chinese. Although I...

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Hobbies / Wellbeing

Reading books vs Watching television:

In general, there are many books that are converted or made into films or TV series. In this article I will be exploring whether watching TV series of reading books is better and which one is more enjoyable. Personal thoughts: In my opinion watching TV is a very passive activity that doesn’t require much concentration and it’s very easy to binge watching TV. However, reading books is more of an active activity in the brain as we must process the words on the page to understand it. Overall, though, it depends on what you enjoy the most is any negatives...

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Hobbies / Writing

Fiction writing – my experiences so far:

I think that creative writing is great and my experience so far of the genre fiction also has been awesome. In this blog post I will be comparing my experiences with this drama compared to other free dramas such as creative non-fiction, drama, and poetry. So far fiction has been good but also challenging because of the way it is done. It can be very long in length including if you wanted to write a book, especially if you wanted to write a book because it’s upwards of around 50,000 words which is a lot. So, I’ve decided to start...