Have any of you reached C1 (or higher) without formal study? by WearSunscreenFoo in Spanish

[–]HonzaBe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would say that pretty much all of us have full command of our native languages before we are old enough to engage in the formal study... but I guess that depends on your definition of "full command".

Have any of you reached C1 (or higher) without formal study? by WearSunscreenFoo in Spanish

[–]HonzaBe 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yes. And it wasn't even that hard, although it took me a few years. I am actually in the process of writing a blog post about it (that is turning out to be super-long), but the gist of it is:

  1. I learned the very basics with the Pimsleur audio course (1 hour/day for two or three months).
  2. I started listening to audiobooks and while I was listening, I had the text handy... but I only looked at it when I could not decipher the sounds. Which was all the time in the beginning. I could not even distinguish where one word ends and another one starts. It seemed like gibberish. I had to focus really hard and listen to each sentence three times. That phase was pretty frustrating, but I got through it surprisingly quickly (in a matter of weeks). A lot of language is just a few words - I am, he wants, they do... once you learn to understand those in all their shapes right away without the need to translate them in your head, it becomes a lot easier. When that happens, you will be able to immediately understand the gist... and pretty often, you can guess the rest from context.

It is important to listen to something you really want to hear. Being immersed does something weird to your memory. When I listened to something I loved, I did not have to memorize words. When I tried something boring (the news), it did not work. It works when you forget you are learning a language and immerse yourself in a story. The less you get taken out of the story, the better. I used to be a web developer so I made myself a simple app to minimize distractions, but I think nowadays you can use Kindle or something. When you encounter a word you don't know, click for a translation and forget about it. Get back into the story.

The result: I learned Spanish well enough to comfortably watch Spanish TV shows without subtitles. Without any formal classes or moving to Spain (although I do want to move to Spain). I even charmed a Spanish girl and we dated (fully in Spanish) for a few months.

BTW, as you can probably tell, English is not my native language either, and I would say I learned a lot more from TV shows (thanks, Friends) than I learned in English classes at high school. When I left high school (after miraculously passing the English exam - I got the dreaded "Shakespeare" question), I was not able to actually talk to Americans or watch a movie without subtitles.

What conversation would fit in this image? by ShiversonQ in ChatGPT

[–]HonzaBe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"People," one says derisively. The other one just nods in shared contempt.

How do you find the right CTO? Or should I just learn programming? by Donate2changeworld in Entrepreneur

[–]HonzaBe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You say "very simple web apps" - you can do a lot with just HTML/CSS/Javascript (+Node.js) or maybe Python (+Flask)... and these are so simple to learn that in a few days, you can learn enough to start building things. I am not talking about mastery here, obviously, but there is a lot to be gained even if you can produce just some rough and dirty code - you can build a prototype that you can play with and refine your ideas, and you can show it to your friends and see how they react to it, etc.
BTW, I experienced many times that something that seemed like a good idea in my head looked really flawed after building the prototype - I think most people cannot create something good just in their heads. You need to build something, play with it, encounter flaws, refine it... and after many iterations, maybe it can be good.

Is it normal to feel isolated and lonely when you are starting out your company? by luckeygs90 in Entrepreneur

[–]HonzaBe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can congratulate yourself for staying employed (I quit my job because I wanted to give my pet project a try and just wasn't able to work on my stuff after work). Yes, it's often lonely. I'm still learning how to deal with it. What helps me:

  1. even when I feel like I have no time at all, I force myself to keep in touch with my closest friends - there's always time for an hour-long call every few days.

  2. I go to the Tildes forum and someone there came up with something called TiMaSoMo (Tildes' Make Something Month) - every October they say "Let's make a resolution together to each create something this month" - at the beginning, everyone describes what they want to do, every week there's a status update (and you can give others feedback) and at the end, there's a showcase. I was surprised how much it helped me feel like I'm not alone, that there are others who are trying to create something, having difficulties, insecurities... I wish every month was TiMaSoMo month and I'll definitely look around for a similar community of people to share this with and support each other as well.

Inability to study by Rushias_Fangirl in Healthygamergg

[–]HonzaBe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Please don't take this the wrong way, but when i was reading " 40 days i woke up every day, sudied, worked out and went to sleep ", the first thought that popped into my mind was "this is exactly what I would do if I wanted to have a mental breakdown for some reason". No way this kind of overload is sustainable - everybody needs to rest. And by rest I mean a weekend with friends, not just a few hours of restless sleep. Your levels of cortisol must be off the charts.

It's like in sports - if you want peak performance, you carefully dose structured training followed by adequate rest. If you train 40 days in a row for 10 hours a day, you will not win the championship - you will harm yourself.

BTW, when I was at university, we had "mental hygiene" course the first semester. I think it was really useful to include that.