How to learn any language in 30 days?
My friend’s boss who is from England is having hard time learning Hindi. And my friend is not making it easy for him at all.
The biggest problem about learning languages is that you start with learning formal style of speaking. This has been my experience with Japanese. There’s huge difference between formal and in-formal way of speaking Japanese.
While learning Japanese I started out experimenting few things differently. I realized, unless I do things differently, I’d end up spending 3–4 years with 10,000 words or so of vocabulary as a requirement and yet will have hard time understanding it.
I used a technique which I always use when I am learning new topic. So I never tested in learning a language.
Something which I call Immersion.
Simply, immerse yourself completely in trying to learn the language. The basic idea behind this is to use as many methods to learn as you can. So in this case, I ended up reading/watching/listening up Japanese.
Of course as an experiment, it was big headache to handle at that time, but I refined the idea to something far better.
Tuning your ear.
One of the biggest problem you’ll face in learning a language is recognizing what is being said. So you have to someway “tune your ear” to Japanese language (in case of Richard, it’s hindi).
I did this was by watching Japanese shows, animes, and listening to audios. Now because Japanese people are speaking in these shows, it starts programming my ear to listen to Japanese sounding words. Plus I started understanding the grammatical flow of speaking Japanese.
Notice how similar this technique is to how a child learns. Children doesn’t start learning grammar or alphabets. They start tuning their ears and then follow the adults.
You can easily find Movies, shows with English subtitles that’ll help you tune your ear and help you get acquainted with the language. In Richard’s case, he should find Hindi movies with subs titles, plus while living in India, he does have daily connection with Indian people speaking Hindi.
Some people speak slow, some people really fast and some people are barely comprehensible. Your ear starts tuning to all kinds of speech pattern and voices. This helps in long run when you are learning language and bridges the gap between formal and regular speaking.
I remember before my ears tuned to the Japanese language, I couldn’t differentiate between Chinese, Japanese or Korean at all. All of them sounded same. But today, I can hear them quite distinctively.
For me, learning Japanese was a great experience. Though I wouldn’t call myself an expert in Japanese but I am good enough to go Japan and communicate with people.
Varun Pratp
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
Just a Thank You
Few weeks ago, I had to go to electoral department.
It was hot, It was sunny, it was crowded. Just the way I don’t like.
Because of my work at the office, I had to pay Rs 75 for the forms and change. Now it’s not a big deal, but these guys refused to give me change of Rs 500. They told me, you have to get the change by yourself.
I argued, begged, threatened, they never relented. Damn govt officials.
So I started asking around… Guess what with at least 70–80 people, no one had the change for 500. Do you believe it? I’d never, if it wasn’t happening to me.
So in search of a change I went out and start looking for people (now there’s no store in sight, where I can buy things and get change for myself).
After looking for it for 20 minutes, sweating, cursing like a pig, I bumped into a woman. Like a machine I blurted out, “do you have a change for 500?”.
She looked at me (and may be took pity) like a robot,she pulled out her purse and gave me the change.
WOW, I was excited, overjoyed and I was thankful for her help. So I end up saying “Thank you so much”.
Suddenly her complete posture changed, her pupils enlarged, she smiled really big and said “Your welcome”.
Of course, I felt different too… We shook hands and off we go. The whole situation changed. From a shitty day to really good one.
Why?
Because a simple heartfelt ‘thank you’ and a simple heartfelt ‘your welcome’. Before saying “thank you” we both were on automatic, going through the motions of life. Without warning, like a strike of lighting everything changed.
“Thank You So Much”, 4 words changed my whole day.
I realized, How powerful the word thank you can be. We don’t say enough heartfelt thank yous in our life. We are going through the dull motion of our lives. A monotonous “thank you” won’t probably change your day.
Thank You, I love you, Sorry are one of the few words which are far more powerful than we know. We are not using enough of our heart into our lives. How can we change that?
How about really thanking people who are in lives?
How about just stopping and start noticing how life is going around you?
Making a heartfelt change just life that.
Varun Pratap
Decide. Commit. Succeed.
Taiji-fy your life
Yesterday I re-started my taiji (tai-chi) practice and start teaching it to someone. While teaching (and practicing) the form, I was telling my new student to be in motion, relax and rooted to the ground.
When you are relaxed, rooted to the ground and movement comes out freely and naturally, you move without resistance in nature. You are like a force, meant to be there.
No matter what your situation is, you can always think of relaxing and rooting. By rooting, I meant, standing solidily and occupying your space.
This advice can be applied to any situation in your life.
Feeling stressed out with work? Relax and feel rooted/connected with the earth. You’ll feel instant energy boost.
Girl friend left you? yup, root yourself and let go of your emotions.
Money problems? Again, worry never solved any problems, so you better relax and let go.
Deep breathing, relaxing and rooting has turned many a wimps into men.
So that’s why “Taiji-fy your life”.
Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
PS: You can also try Qi-gong (chi-kung), Yoga and other meditation techniques to get rooted and relaxed.
Let’s scare the kids
Sometimes I shake my head watching people do stupid things… I know, I have done stupider things in my life but somehow this takes the cake.
Today I somehow got lost and found myself in front of my TeeVee. Anyone who knows me, knows I avoid TeeVee like a plague. But anyways, I digress.
I almost ended up scaring the hell out of myself. On the TeeVee, we had celebs acting as a foster parent to toddlers. I mean which stupid came up with the idea on putting kids less than yr old in the hands of more stupider people (celebs tends to lose whatever braincell they receive you know) and put them on show.
Now I am struggling to decide who’s more stupid, TV directors, Celebs or the parents of the kids participating?
Sigh…
People do anything to get a chance on the TeeVee.
Crazy thing is one of the so called celeb Rakhi Savant was trying to be a foster parent to kid… Man was she being a parent or being a snooty nosed witch? I know she makes money being nosy (and noisy) but that doesn’t mean scare the shit out of kids.
If I was a parent, I would have punched the nose, kicked the shin and stomped on foot. Multiple times.
Anyone who called TV as an Idiot box was pretty damn right.
One of my mentor used to say this “The size of your TV tells me about the size of wallet and pant. The bigger the TV is, the smaller the wallet is and fatter your waist is”. Funny eh?
My thought of overall show was simple. I don’t care what people do, there’s no need to push toddlers into all this. We already have 3–4 yrs old in front of stage and trying to outshow the other 3–4 yrs old in singing, drama contest.
There’s another Ad on TV which literally says something like this “I could not live my dream but I’ll make sure I live my dream through my childs”. Scray thoughts.
The ad is about a Credit card (If I remember that right).
People are pushing their dreams onto their children. Why not let them find their own goals, dreams?
When I see people around me, I see them trying to re-live their life through their children. Of course their parents did the same to them, now it’s their chance to payback. How about breaking the chain and becoming the parent you should be?
Fortunately my parents never tried that… Thank god their foresight. I am not a parent, right now. But whenever I am going to be, I won’t be any of the above stupids I talked about.
Like in the pic, You got to teach your kids lots of things, but pushing your dreams on to kids is not one of those.
Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.
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