student + witch

spoopy

If you go to a big music festival, there’s a good chance you won’t actually get to hang out with any of the musicians who are playing, but if you go to a bit academic conference, it’s likely that almost everyone you meet there will be presenting their work. In fact, it’s uncommon to meet someone who *isn’t* giving a talk at an academic conference.

Academic conferences are quite different to festivals, fan cons and industry conventions. In this 21st bonus episode, Gretchen and Lauren take you into the world of the academic conference. Why do people pay to travel and present their research? What’s the difference between giving a talk and giving a poster? And how do you meet other people? Plus: we’re taking advantage of both being in the same place at the same time to record a special bonus Q&A episode for patrons! Normally, we ask $10+ patrons for bonus topic ideas, but this month we’re opening up questions to all levels. Support Lingthusiasm on Patreon to find out more! We’ll see some of you very soon at the liveshows in Melbourne and Sydney in November! Patrons in each city can get 2 bonus tickets, even if you sign up this month. We’re also hitting our two-year anniversary this month! In celebration, we want to help new people find the show – there are still people out there who would be totally into a fun linguistics podcast in their ears but don’t even know we exist yet! Plus, if you tag us in your rec on social media by the end of November, we’ll thank you by name in our special anniversary thank you post! You can pick a specific episode or share this post which contains handy links to all our episodes so far.

Hey guys, here are some of my favorite channels on youtube for learning French.

Francais avec Pierre  - great channel if you want to know more about grammar rules and expressions, how to sound really French and natural. He also makes videos about the DELF/DALF exams…

Comme une Française  - also very good if you are confused about certain things… you can learn a lot about used expressions and words you would not find in a book

1 jour, 1 question - the main purpose of this channel is to explain things to kids, but in a fun way. It’s animated and short, but it’s great for obtaining a wide range of vocabulary, because the themes go from politics, geography and history to something like animals and food. Also might be good for learning about some history things, and interesting new facts, not just learning French.

Learn French with FrenchPod101.com  - again… grammar, expressions, vocabulary channel

Cyprien - this is the only channel that is just a normal channel, not meant for learning French (but I am sure everyone knows Cyprien anyway). I just really enjoy his videos and it’s very useful for learning new words and of course for some listening practice.

.

I am sure there are many more channels like these… but I just wanted to write down my favorite ones for you guys

my desk 💫

A Small Guide to Journaling by Eintsein

I’ve summarized professor  Alexander Arguelles’ video, because I think this is crucial for language learning. 

There is no magic trick that will help you become fluent in 1 month, but there are very effective approaches to learning a new language and if you combine them, you will surely become fluent.

If you’re learning a new language, the most important thing you need to consider is – what type of language learner are you? 

1. If you:

have a more deductive approach, which means that you’re better at listening to and observing the language first and learning through that, rather than starting with plain grammar points from a textbook

have a fair degree of intuition

like to observe a phenomenon

feel somewhat comfortable with ambiguity for a while, until things become clear

are someone who can feel comfortable being corrected when they realize they were wrong, rather than getting confused and frustrated because they went down an initial path that turned out not to be correct (so you actually learn from being corrected and you don’t get confused by it)

then, these manuals are best suited for you: the Assimil Language Series, the Linguaphone Series, the Cortina Methods.

2. If you:

have a desire to have things explained to you beforehand in a nice and clear way

have a logical and analytical mind (which is usually the product of education in general)

have a need for a systematic approach (basically if you’re most comfortable with a book which is going to introduce the grammar according to an agreed set of methods or an organized plan)

then, you should try out some of these manuals: the Hugo Series, the Made Simple Series, the Teach Yourself Series, the Buske Series. 

3. PAY ATTENTION TO PATTERNS!!!

the most important part are the patterns of a language

no matter what type of language learner you are, I think it’s really clever to incorporate this method into you learning. 

a language is actually made up of patterns which constantly repeat themselves and that is THE KEY TO FLUENCY

repeating the patterns over and over again, until they become natural, until you no longer have to conjugate the verbs in your head before speaking

when you become really good with patterns, your sentences will come out naturally, and patterns are what will get you to fluency

I’ve provided the links, where you will find a review of the books, so that you can have an idea of what they look like. You can find most of these on amazon.

Hey guys, since my previous post on Morning Routines was very well received,  I decided to make a night version. This small infographic thingy outlines the things I do at night to prep myself for rest, as well as some other things you could try to ensure you get a good night’s sleep. Hope this helps, and don’t hesitate to drop me an ask if you have any questions!

méxico and argentina:

argentina: ni idea, pero es un pendejo (idk, but he is a pendejo)

méxico:

argentina:

argentina: 

arg: 

Thanks to the growth of computing power, statistics is a rapidly growing field but what is it good for?

Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Machine Learning

The ubiquity of computers have made piles of data readily available and people are using them to make useful predictions. This “big data” is changing the way we use statistics and it has given rise to some really cool applications:

1–Netflix Ratings. Predictive analytics uses data from yours and others’ viewing and rating patters to make predictions for content you haven’t even watched yet.

2–Facial Recognition Software. Photos are data too. Developer use a boat-load of sample photos to “train” a computer program to identify people’s faces. This is called machine learning, a form artificial intelligence that uses statistics to develop computer algorithms. These artificial neural networks are also used in Alexa, Siri and the thumb print reader on your iPhone.

Medicine

3–Medical Treatments. Survival analysis is used to find treatments that predict the highest levels of success for patients given their physical characteristics and medical backgrounds.

Engineering

4–Dependability. Reliability analysis is used to determine how long one can expect a part to last given temperature, thickness, material, etc. Applied to a system, analyses can determine which component is most likely to fail first.

Business

5–Marketing. Who would like our product? Who should we gear our ads to? These are questions advertisers want to know. Data mining is being used to sift through piles of customer data to find patterns and identify most likely customers. It isn’t all about numbers either, text mining uses statistics to find patterns in text-based data such as Amazon customer reviews.

6–Insurance Quotes. Actuaries use statistics to weigh risk and determine the optimal price to offer their insurance.

Social Science Research

7–Education. I thought I’d include this one because this is how I use statistics. I use statistical modeling to determine factors that lead to desirable student outcomes. I explore data to determine which teaching practices, after-school programs, courses, attitudes, etc. predict success in mathematics.