Are your proficiency goals in line with your practical goals? How many hours a week can you realistically commit to your language learning? What does success look like for you a year from now? In this episode of Adventures in Language, we’re talking about how to set good goals for yourself and walk you through 6 prompts to set you up for success.
Pssst - we have an awesome (and free!) worksheet version of the 6 prompts we cover in this episode, which you can access by downloading here: https://info.mangolanguages.com/glc-signup
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Wondering what languages were used in this episode? In addition to English, you heard Hebrew, Polish, and Spanish. שָׁלוֹם (sha.LOM) and יַאלְלָה בַּיי (YUH.lah bye) are ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ in Hebrew, which is spoken today by over 8 million Israelis as an L1 (native language) and statutory national language. Fun fact: did you know that when saying ‘hello’ in Hebrew, you’re literally saying ‘peace/harmony’? Dzień dobry (djen dOHbreh) and do widzenia (doh veedzENyah) are ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ in Polish, which is spoken today by appriximately 37 million people in Poland as an L1 and statutory national language). Pues, sin más preámbulos means 'Well, without further ado' (lit. 'Well, without further preambles…’') in Spanish, which is an Ibero-Romance language that is the statutory national language of over 20 countries world-wide. Interested in learning Hebrew, Polish, Spanish or one of the other 70+ languages that the Mango app offers? Click here to learn more: https://mangolanguages.com/
Meet your guide Emily! Emily Sabo (PhD, University of Michigan) is a linguist at Mango Languages. A Pittsburgh native, her areas of specialization are the social and cognitive factors that impact bilingual language processing and production. Having studied 7 languages and lived in various countries abroad, she sees multilingualism -- and the cultural diversity that accompanies it -- as the coolest of superpowers. Complementary to her work at Mango, Emily is a Lecturer of Spanish at the University of Tennessee, a Producer of the “We Are What We Speak’ docuseries, and get this...a storytelling standup comedian!
Want to know more about the scientific research underlying this episode? For a fun, easy read that summarizes the takeaways of how we learn - check out Ben Carey’s 2015 book entitled How we learn: The surprising truth about when, where, and why it happens. Chapter 2 (titled The Power of Forgetting) is of particular relevance to this video/episode. We highly recommend this read because Carey writes in a way that’s clearly well-researched but accessible and free of jargon. He does a great job of sprinkling in engaging reviews of the experiments that laid the foundation for how we know what we know about how learning happens in the brain. One academic article that illustrates how active learning strategies can combat the Fluency Illusion is Roediger III, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing memory: Basic research and implications for educational practice. Perspectives on psychological science, 1(3), 181-210.