✨ My language journal✨

Nicholas Hely Hutchinson

Farm on the Healy Pass

Language Patterns: Spanish and Portuguese 

Noticing patterns from Spanish -> Portuguese helped me improve really quickly, because I would be able to guess a word in Portuguese based on the patterns I knew and the word I knew in Spanish. 

All words that are similar (no matter what language) may be an exception though, so it’s not always 100% reliable. 

This also helps with trying to figure out pronunciation. The first one that comes to mind is the ñ/nh example. They sound similar except one is with a different accent. 

How to overcome fear of speaking a language 🙈

1. Analyze the situation and go easy on yourself 🥰 Identify WHY you’re afraid of speaking a language. It could be because you’re too shy or because you don’t know enough vocabulary. If you use the wrong particle, grammar structure or word, what’s the worst that can happen? If people laugh at you, that’s a reflection of them as a person, not you.

2. Prepare vocabulary and phrases in advance ✍🏽 When I was working as a design intern at a Japanese company, I was really scared that I wouldn’t understand anything during meetings and presentations. It helped me a lot to look up words I suspected I might hear during the internship. I built vocabulary lists and example sentences of design-related vocabulary. You can’t find a textbook for every topic, so taking matters into your own hands and creating your own language learning materials boosts your confidence. If you cannot remember or don’t know a word, you can always talk around the word and describe it in another way. If you don’t know the word for “cake” for example, but you know the words “sweet” and “food”, you can say “sweet food” and they might say “cake?” in return.

3. Practice beforehand 💬 Just like practicing a speech for a presentation, you can practice using new words and phrases in a safe environment until you’re ready to use it with a native speaker. This could be talking to yourself, a pet, a chatting partner online, or a tutor. My favorite method is talking to people on voice apps. When I can’t see someone’s face and they can’t see mine, I feel less ashamed of making mistakes.

4. Record yourself 🎥 You’ll hear your mistakes easier and be able to correct them if you need to, but you’ll also gain confidence over time hearing that you aren’t actually as bad as you think you are! You can use sites like Forvo to hear a native pronunciation or ask a native speaker friend you trust to correct you first, if you like.

today I’m learning about italian linking words! These are super useful for stringing together sentences that flow well; I’m still in the very (very!) beginning stages of my italian journey but these are super helpful in the long run!

Linking words are words that connect sentences, parts of sentences, and phrases. They make your text or your speaking feel more stylistically beautiful! e all know it isn’t very pretty to simply put 4 word sentence after 4 word sentence, so these words will definitely upgrade your italian.

Here’s a PNG of all the words I compiled (feel free to download it and use it for your own italian language learning!):