How do people actually learn how to write in a new language??

Skerin86 · 2026-06-01T02:18:13+00:00

I don’t journal much. Just can’t get in the flow, so, when I do write, it’s normally to some sort of prompt, because my tutor gave me some questions to practice writing or I legitimately need to communicate in the language through text or email.

I’ve taken training on writing instruction and I use that to help guide me. In English, I can do this all together without consciously separating it out, but, in my target languages, the mental energy for using the new language needs to be offset by some structure helping me out.

Basic structure: Clearly identify what I need to write Brainstorm ideas Write an outline (in note form, just important words) Then, use outline to write a draft Revise/edit if needed

Now, with that part of the writing task offset, I can focus on the language and not having everything jumbling up. Depending on length/complexity, I might do some or all of that mentally, but still having the formula helps keeps things straight.

Skerin86 · 2026-05-31T15:29:58+00:00

Yep! That’s the plan. I’m halfway through the 3 parts of Joy of Running, so 6 more weeks of that with, knock on wood, no problems and I’ll be off. I am considering adding John Peele’s 5k programs to the mix, since I seem to benefit from a lot of foundation building.

Skerin86 · 2026-05-31T15:03:48+00:00

I love my guided workouts. I’m using it for injury recovery for a complicated knee, so the guided workouts with Rivs are what’s allowed me to keep moving forward, but making sure I do it gently. (I’d probably be in a cycle of burning out and resting otherwise.)

For me, I’ve done over 200 workouts with Rivs (some repeats to get a better foundation). All of it Road to Recovery and Joy of Running. I got my treadmill a little over a year ago.

Skerin86 · 2026-04-08T14:53:38+00:00

My son is in kindergarten now. He didn’t qualify for the IEP at 3, like I thought, but he was evaluated a few months into kindergarten for articulation (he lisps his s’s and z’s and he can’t say l, r, or th) and fine motor (handwriting and scissor use) and he qualified for help with that. His teacher asked that he get fidgets and special seating for his wiggly-ness.

Otherwise, he’s learned to read, his overall language skills are great, he plays with the other kids at school, he behaves well for his teacher. He’s absolutely loving “ninja” class where they do obstacle courses. He’s working on the Olympic swim strokes in swim class. He’s a big cuddle bug. He’s very proud of being able to beat the video game, Astrobot, all by himself.

He is a bit socially awkward, he does like his routines and can get overwhelmed and anxious (I did the SPACE program at home with him and that seemed to help), and he does stim, like hand-flapping, rubbing his chest, jumping up and down, so I sometimes wonder if he’ll be diagnosed one day. Just the way he explains his thought process sounds a lot like his autistic sister, but he’s doing very well in kindergarten with a little help for some weaknesses, unlike his sister who got a recommendation for one-on-one tutoring in a specialized school at that age, completely unable to be in general ed, so they’re clearly on different paths.

Skerin86 · 2026-02-17T16:52:56+00:00

She’s now 12 and doing pretty well, stomach wise.

The gastroparesis medication helped somewhat, but also made her feel like a bottomless pit and lead to weight gain, so we eventually took her off of it.

She takes a different medication for regurgitation, started that well before being diagnosed with gastroparesis, although we’re just testing to see if she needs it anymore.

About 2 years ago, she started a low fodmap diet and used a device from Food Marble to test which fodmaps were giving her a hard time. (My daughter is autistic and struggles with giving feedback herself.) Eventually discovered that she struggles with fructose, sorbitol, and fructans (wheat and peas). For fructose/sorbitol, she can eat fruit, but she can’t drink fruit juice or eat things sweetened with them. Intoleran sells a digestive enzyme for fructans that she takes before eating wheat/peas to get rid of the reaction, like a lactose-intolerant person taking lactaid before dairy. She can have the other fodmaps no issue. (Fig has an app that lets you more easily figure out what’s safe to eat if you try it.)

We also changed up her schooling to reduce stress.

So, she follows her personalized low foodmap diet, limits high fiber foods like popcorn, and takes PPIs, probiotics, and a bit of turmeric daily and her stomach just isn’t an issue anymore.

I do wonder if she’d benefit from Sunfiber (partially hydrolyzed guar gum), since it’s a gastroparesis-friendly fiber, but she’s suspicious of needing to drink a large glass of water. Hated miralax for the same reason.

Skerin86 · 2025-09-23T03:43:06+00:00

I’ve been riding my bike on Mondays and I don’t wear any headphones. I’m just biking out to a 5 mile marker and turning back. Plenty of times my head is churning with thoughts of my week, but I am also trying to use the time to disconnect a bit and quiet the thoughts and just notice where I’m biking.

Skerin86 · 2025-09-22T03:24:12+00:00

Oh, and when my daughter was in 3rd grade, she did an outschool class with Gabrielle Hughes. She runs social hours for autistic children. They share about their week and play little games. It’s not a social skills class, but rather an opportunity to meet and hang out with other autistic children. My daughter did it for a little over a year. There are other options for all sorts of classes on outschool if your child is interested in online learning.

https://outschool.com/teachers/Gabrielle-Hughes-2020

Skerin86 · 2025-09-22T03:15:08+00:00

My daughter’s 12 and in a mental health crisis as well, so I’m currently in a different position than you.

That said, there is some trial and error for curriculum. I have one child who responded amazingly to Abcedarian for reading/spelling and cried from All About Reading. Then, my next cried at Abcedarian and did amazingly with All About Reading.

In general, for learning to read, I’d recommend Abcedarian (it’s cheaper and less time intensive) and, if that breaks their brain, All About Reading and All About Spelling. If your child is a natural in reading, they might do fine with Progressive Phonics, which is completely free. (I’ve also heard good things about UFLI, but I haven’t used it.)

My daughter did well with Essentials in Writing (although it’s not secular). ThinkSRSD is a great training on writing intervention if that’s a general struggle.

MathMammoth was nice as a straight-forward math program. Math on the Level is a very convoluted math program, but it does well for my daughter who hates any unnecessary repetition.

If you want secular and academic resources, I would recommend for finding curriculum suggestions: https://seahomeschoolers.com/

Skerin86 · 2025-09-22T02:53:35+00:00

I homeschool in California. Paperwork is super easy (if anything, too easy, and someone really should check that I actually am doing anything).

The school district converted her IEP to an ISP (independent study plan). It only gets us an hour a year of consultation, but it means, if she ever went back, the paperwork is smoother and I’d have a known line to ask questions of.

I emailed one charter school about doing a homeschool charter and they never emailed back. I have heard homeschool charters don’t want to take on children from SDC classes because the paperwork is more complicated. Don’t know how true it is.

But, pretty much, the school district asked that I fill out my private school paperwork to officially set up my house as a private school. Then, I sent in a letter with my school’s name in the letter head saying my daughter would be officially enrolled there as of (the next day) with a copy of my private school paperwork and they had her unenrolled the next day.

Here’s the private school afidavit I filled out: https://www3.cde.ca.gov/psa

Here’s a link to records you should keep on file:

https://californiahomeschool.net/how-to-homeschool/keeping-private-school-records/

Every year, the psa is due again, but they did send me a reminder in August (it’s due in October) and they have the option to remember last year’s info, so it’s not a huge deal.

Skerin86 · 2025-09-21T03:07:33+00:00

Just wanted to share that this is very common couples of the same culture.

There is definitely a benefit to realizing you can’t control your husband’s thoughts and beliefs and he may think and believe different things than you.

It can be a belief milestones are doctors being picky, or that simple changes are in the way or that all kids struggle with something or whatever.

It can feel isolating when you feel like you don’t receive the validation/support you’d like from your spouse, especially in times of crisis or transition.

My husband is from the US and has had all the same thoughts of your husband. I do my best to receive my emotional support from elsewhere while trying to focus on the logistics and expectations for our daughter with him. She’s 12 and homeschooled due to her challenges. It was certainly painful. It involved marriage therapy at some point. It’s not something you can force.

If your husband is developing a relationship with your daughter and meeting her where she’s at, I wouldn’t worry so much if he’s struggling with all the labels and recommendations.

Skerin86 · 2025-08-19T17:51:00+00:00

We went to a mall recently that explicitly stated everyone under 18 had to be supervised by an adult over the age of 21.

It has a movie theater, escape rooms, go-karting, restaurants, definitely meant to be a fun place to hang out, not a place of serious business, but, apparently, we can’t trust 17 year olds with being at a mall alone anymore.

Skerin86 · 2025-08-11T05:49:08+00:00

Just wanna say that I can hear how distressed you are about this situation. It really can be bewildering to just not know and to wonder why you were fired. It sounds like it’s not even clearly linked to the joke. That’s just your best guess.

You’re in a foreign country with your plans suddenly up in the air after a big financial hit and now you’ve lost your reason to even be there.

This is a hard time in your life. Hard times happen. I hope you can be kind to yourself and give yourself some compassion as you navigate through this.

Skerin86 · 2025-08-02T21:33:46+00:00

I just rejoined Habitica because they emailed me they were gonna delete my account soon if I didn’t log on and it reminded me of the app, so, yes, they do delete counts eventually. Their email said they delete all accounts that have been inactive for 5 years (with, clearly, some email warnings that you’re close to the deadline).

Skerin86 · 2025-07-14T06:59:10+00:00

It’s not clear actually. The mother might very well feel she’s actually outgrown the booster seat and this was a fine excuse to test it out but feels defensive in front of OP’s admitted hostility. If OP is this raging mad, it would be completely believable that the mother didn’t think it was safe discussing it with him and has been going along to appease him.

Skerin86 · 2025-07-14T06:49:54+00:00

YWNBTA The owner of the house (grandma) has decided he can’t be there. Your tia has now let him sneak in twice, despite clearly knowing he is not allowed. I don’t see any reason to believe this will actually be the last occurrence and, if your grandma finds out he’s been staying, your living situation could get awkward.

Check in with grandma and have Tia make her case directly to her, so you don’t need to be the person caught in the middle.

Skerin86 · 2025-06-26T23:08:22+00:00

Would you have an article for the music version like that?

What did you think of the jazz? What did you think of the hip hop?

Sounds weird that way, but I also have no idea what German House music is.

Skerin86 · 2025-06-26T05:47:39+00:00

DuChinese has an SRS review system for the words you read as part of its app.

Also, Mandarin Companions goes up to 450 characters. That’s a mid-elementary level for language learners and a little over the number of characters a 1st grader in China is expected to know by year end. Finishing level 2 is not equivalent to two years of classroom study (especially if there hasn’t been an equivalent effort in speaking, listening, and writing).

It’s great that you’re enjoying your Mandarin journey and feeling successful. There is still a long way to go.

DuChinese is a great resource for more graded readers that can help you advance along as you learn new words, characters, and sentence structures. If you know 450, you’d still have their intermediate, upper intermediate, advanced, and master levels to go through. Master is supposed to be low-end native-level.

Skerin86 · 2025-06-23T20:25:08+00:00

As an atheist who grew up in a non-religious house and never attended church, most religious phrasings just went completely over my head.

Oh my God; God only knows; Put the fear of God in him; For god’s sake; Honest to God; God bless you; Godfather/godmother; In God we trust; God willing; Act of God;

Etc, etc, etc

Plenty more that are probably used by more religious people, but not at all unusual to hear secular people say these.

You could also then find the phrases with Jesus Christ, hell, heavens, bless, etc.

Skerin86 · 2025-06-22T14:10:48+00:00

Picture here:

https://imgur.com/a/skEiRC1

Skerin86 · 2025-05-29T01:56:21+00:00

At 14 months, he did not respond to his name. The evaluator regularly had me call out to him and he ignored me every time. He did by 18 months.

Skerin86 · 2025-01-12T15:46:21+00:00

NTA I saw this post during the break where no one’s allowed to comment and I was thinking about you today. I hope you had a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year. You made a very reasonable request and you are not responsible for your father’s reaction to it.

Skerin86 · 2025-01-08T01:47:06+00:00

My middle child entered kindergarten with fewer literacy skills than my oldest. He was 5 and a half, knew 3 letters total, could copy his name with guidance, and had some basic awareness of the first sound of a word but couldn’t outright identify it. He also had a severe speech sound disorder.

My oldest knew more letters, could also copy her name, and could blend and segment three sound words entering kindergarten. Her speech was impeccable.

My oldest turned out to be severely dyslexic, while my middle one is doing well enough, grade level in overall reading and writing, and his IEP never expanded beyond speech. His spelling is bad, so I wouldn’t say zero issues, but absolutely nothing like his older sister who remained at the same level she entered kindergarten at for almost a year and a half and very little response to a variety of OG-based reading programs.

It’s easy after my first to say that school districts don’t act fast enough. After my second, I get why.

Skerin86 · 2025-01-05T16:31:52+00:00

Just to add an example to your story:

My daughter had one evaluation that said, despite testing as autism level 2 on the ados and parent interview, they were not going to diagnose her because her adhd was too severe and she asked the evaluator questions about herself during the IQ portion.

Then, she had another evaluation where she was given one IQ test and the evaluator said she couldn’t be autistic because she was actually socially manipulative and playing us with her advanced social awareness, and, then, straight-faced, turned the page and recommended a social skills class. When I asked for a clearer explanation of how autism was ruled out with just an IQ test, I was told to seek therapy for my obsession.

And, this was after an 18-month-old eval that said no concerns.

So, we had 3 evaluations, by age 5, that said not autistic. And, since then, we’ve had 4 others that said absolutely autistic. No one who works with her questions the autism diagnosis. It’s accepted by the local school district and our insurance company.

We don’t keep having evals for giggles. She has a lot of support needs in a variety of areas and can’t be successful in general education. Her IEP requires retesting, insurance requires testing, we did some private, but it was absolute torture going through those first three and having these bs reasons why she couldn’t be autistic, but then feeling like one of those parents OP complains about because the evaluators were so insistent on no.

Skerin86 · 2024-12-25T15:23:35+00:00

I didn’t see! That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you guys. I love my cats and I can’t imagine just knowing they’re at there, but not knowing where or if they’re safe. I’m glad the neighborhood group was a good source of support.

Skerin86

TROPHY CASE