Ty's Mandarin Journey!

UPDATE because apparently not everyone has seen this yet the new and improved version of this is a MEGA folder

来自：Yoyo Chinese Intermediate Conversational Level 5, Unit 47

叫上 / jiào shàng / "to call up" someone

三五个 / sān wǔ ge / 3-5 (people, objects, etc); "a few"

KTV / karaoke

庆祝 / qìng zhù / to celebrate (holidays)

饭店 / fàn diàn / restaurant (fancy, for special occasions)

餐厅 / cān tīng / restaurant (nice, but not super fancy)

饭馆 / fàn guǎn / restaurant (cheap, casual homestyle food)

餐馆 / cān guǎn / interchangeable with 饭馆

长寿 / cháng shòu / longevity, long life

Grammar: 到 + place + 去/来

去饭店 = 到饭店去

来我家 = 到我家来

来中国 = 到中国来

Extra: 不怎么 Not Really

不怎么 + adj. or verb

我不怎么喜欢 = I don't really like it

这里的菜不怎么好吃 = The food here isn't that good

今年冬天不怎么冷 = Winter this year isn't really that cold

下面有句子～

Let’s send some emails!

Vocabulary:

电子邮件 - diànzî yóujiàn - email

查收 - cháshōu - to check (email), to find something enclosed

附上 - fùshang - attached, attach

随电子邮件 / 随信 / 附件 - suí diànzî yóujiàn / suíxìn / suíjiàn - with this email, with this letter, with this document/email

参考 - cānkâo - for reference, for your information

供 （以供） - gòng (yîgòng) - for, provided for

一份 - yī fèn - one copy / sheet

一张 - yī zhāng - one sheet (photos, cheque etc)

文本 - wénbên - text 

全文 - quánwén - whole text 

寄上 - jìshàng - attach

内有 - nèi yôu - enclosed are

希查收 / 请查收 - xī cháshōu / qîng cháshōu - please find attached, literally ‘please receive’ and ‘hope + receive’

兹 - zī - this, very formal, meaning ‘with this’, ‘here’, not 这个

Example sentences:

我随信附上了两张票 

- I have attached two tickets with this letter

附上。。。一份，请查收

- Please find attached one copy of…

现附上采访记录文本的全文

- Please find whole transcript of the interview attached here

我附上笔记一份供你参考

- I have attached a copy of my notes for your reference

仅供参考

- only for reference

我随电子邮件附上电子表格一份

- I have attached a copy of the electronic form to the email

填写所附上的。。。

- Please fill in the attached…

兹附上两份计划以供比较

- Herewith are attached two copies of the plan for your comparison

请查收我附件里的CV，和我学校推荐人的介绍信

- Please find attached my CV and the recommendation letter from my school

附寄照片四张，希查收

- Please find attached four copies of the photo

请查收附件，内有新图纸

- Please find attached inside the new designs

请查收随信附上的会议日程复印件

- Please find attached to this email a copy of the agenda for the meeting

Happy email sending!

加油！

lmao four. english, hindi, urdu and french. i don't know if i should count urdu separately but i noticed that when we go for urdu poetry fests my friends do need translations sometimes. i don't know how to read or write urdu, though. i was learning it like a year ago and then i had to stop due to being overwhelmed with work.

Hi everyone! So I'm excited to release my Notion template designed to serve as a complete workstation to learn any foreign language of choice, whether or not you're studying in a formal capacity or you self-study.

Here's the official link!!!

The template includes a task organizer, templates to create vocab lists and make literature notes, and pages for daily task management and grammar. Additionally, these pages include options to view your data in table form, list form, calendar form, timeline form, etc. This template, fully customizable, is only $5 USD and it's available as a one-time purchase on Gumroad.com.

So to the left, you have the main hub where you can essentially put in widgets or lists or tables to make your study station *aesthetic*. It's also a sort of mastersheet to all the subsections of the station: it's got links to hubs for vocabulary, grammar, literature and my personal favorite: the Task Organizer.

To the right, we've got the Task Hub which includes a table (this can be changed to a list, calendar, timeline, or gallery if you don't like tables) where you can include your language tasks or your homework. You can sort and label each task by status (to-do, doing, etc), language skills, or by topic (I've pre-added about a dozen general topics). This table is backlinked to other pages in the workstation to keep track of your tasks and link everything together. This table is also ideal for monthly language challenges like we have on langblr!

Then we've got the Vocab Builder. It includes a pre-added template I made for you to make vocab lists with the toggle feature (basically, a pseudo-flashcard-making system) and a link to import web pages (good for storing langblr vocab lists!). There's the Grammar Hub which you can use to take grammar notes and sort/organize them by topic. And finally, you've got the Literature Hub. It includes a property to set your reading goal, collate new vocab you've learnt from reading, and of course, take notes either by Cornell style or using your own method.

This template can be used for any language (your keyboard must be able to imput accents/characters) and it can be used at any level (beginner, intermediate, advanced, etc).

second topik II mock paper down! last one to go!

Something really bad is spreading within online language-learning communities, and it’s not intentional. In general, the positivity and motivation on langblr, language tumblr, or studygram, study Instagram, are really common. It’s good to motivate people to make positive changes to improve their language skills. However, jealousy is a powerful byproduct of the motivation-focused social media accounts. What can we do to overcome polyglot envy?

What is polyglot envy?

Polyglot envy is the jealousy that language learners experience when treating language acquisition as a leaderboard. It’s natural human psychology to compare yourself to people similar to you. In school, it’s classmates. At work, it’s coworkers that joined at a similar time to you. In our world controlled by social media, people that share a hobby will compare themselves just as much.

Generally, online language learners will experience some jealous feelings when comparing the language abilities of their (perceived) equals. This could be about someone’s speaking ability, frequency of studying, or the sheer number of posts someone makes about their target language. The triggers for envy are endless. This could be someone’s flag emojis in their profile. Speaking practice videos might trigger this feeling. At the heart of it, comparing your skills to another person’s skill create something that I call “polyglot envy.”

Why do some people experience this?

Online language learners are particularly motivated, which contributes to something that may turn into toxic competitiveness. If you are motivated enough to learn a language, which most people don’t even want to do in school, it’s almost guaranteed that you will feel seek out constant improvement. That’s on top of the fact that language learning is a hobby that is generally social. You will therefore always be encountering people that can share their skills. This dangerous concoction can create a situation where online language learners become obsessed with being better than the others.

Be wary of social media

A big reason that some polyglot envy can be so severe is because of how social media presents language learning. Because you are only seeing a portion of someone’s life, you cannot see the blood, sweat, and tears. Nobody posts the day that they don’t want to learn. It would be really strange to see someone post “didn’t feel like learning language today; did nothing” on Instagram.

Social media is a curated perspective of someone’s life. In regards to language learning, you only see people’s successes and not their failures. Videos are edited to include only the best takes of someone using a language. Instagram posts only go live when the poster actually accomplished something. It’s not intentional that people give an inaccurate view; it’s the nature of social media that people only post the interesting parts. That’s not to underestimate the performative posts that exaggerate people’s abilities for views.

Like any social media niche, language learners can get more views by using inflammatory titles that aren’t necessarily accurate. Titles like “POLYGLOT speaks OVER TEN languages” or “WHITE GUY surprises STOREOWNER with his PERFECT CHINESE” are bound to get more clicks, but they can create a false image that you should be doing everything you see. However, what people do not post is the effort that goes into learning a certain grammar point. There is nothing glamorous about posting a video about how you didn’t understand the difference between these two tenses then looked up 7 different resources on the topic, and you still don’t fully get it. The problem is that that is the reality. For everyone, even the most seemingly genius people online struggle.

Social media will never communicate this to you. A major step in overcoming polyglot envy is to recognize this inaccuracy to reality.

Stop comparing yourself!

I think the most important part to avoid polyglot envy is to attack the source of the envy: comparing yourself. We are all different people. It simply makes no sense to compare yourself to others; there are millions of factors that contribute to the reason we are at our current levels in our languages.

Imagine a person who is mother of two children, has to work 40 hours a week, goes shopping, laundry, childrearing, and only finds 10-15 minutes a day to improve her French. How can you compare her to the 19 year old part-time university student who doesn’t need to work and has all the time in the world to learn ten languages? With the given situation, 10-15 minutes a day is a huge accomplishment.

The flashiest online polyglots dedicate most of time to language learning, so assuming you need to be at their level will only hurt you. Even if you compare yourself to someone in your age group with a similar lifestyle to you, it is still really bad to assume their situation because the internet conceals the uncomfortable truths about language learning. You can see them post their aesthetic notes, but you did not see deeply they understood the material. The person with the ugly notes might have worked harder, but social media could have you thinking the most beautiful notes or most enthusiastic speaker has the best skills.

Although I love to post my language efforts of the day onto my Instagram, I always try to make an effort to show the real side of my thinking in the caption. “lol I don’t get it, and I think I never will” caption so many of my posts, and I put an effort to show my weaknesses. I don’t want to push the idea that everyone should have an easy time with language learning or that I am some perfect language learner.

Think relatively