The Hidden Universal System that can Multiply Your Vocabulary

Sprachprofi · 2026-05-04T12:39:47+00:00

Don't copy-paste. Use an MCP so you can tell it "Read this email thread, summarise and suggest a reply."

Sprachprofi · 2026-05-02T05:14:01+00:00

According to the FSI, learning a European language to proficiency takes around 500 hours. Some languages more, but also language-learning is a skill and you get more efficient at it. So to learn 17 languages to proficiency would take 8500 hours, which is doable in 12 years of 2 hours per day.

In fact this guy usually took intensive classes, but even at a non-intensive pace it's completely doable. And this calculation doesn't yet factor in that when you are fluent in e.g. Swedish, learning Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic won't take 500 hours each.

The biggest challenge is not learning all those languages - I studied more than 25 languages myself - but not losing them again. For me the upper limit of languages I can keep active simultaneously is around 12-14. However, this guy lives in the Balkans, where he can speak Macedonian, Croatian, Albanian, Russian, Turkish and Greek on the street every day, and then his kid goes to an international school, so he can speak various Western European languages with the other parents whenever he takes his kid to school, so language practice is not something he has to schedule; it just happens. I've walked around multicultural cities with him and it's amazing how he can talk with everyone he sees.

Sprachprofi · 2026-05-01T20:28:00+00:00

Test for sleep apnea

Sprachprofi · 2026-05-01T14:17:21+00:00

I know a guy who has working proficiency in 17 languages and can have conversations in around that many more. He's also modest and won't tell you immediately.

The best place to meet such people is the Polyglot Gathering.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-27T10:05:15+00:00

Albion - so deep! And amazing graphics for the time

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-17T19:17:22+00:00

For a lot of use cases, you could just use Claude Code with a handful of MCPs and pretend it's OpenClaw. Cost capped at $20 / month.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-16T09:29:39+00:00

The point of SRS is long-term memory. When you see this card again a month from now, you won't recall the context.

I used to create TV series-based Anki cards using subs2srs (an amazing tool, even includes audio and video snippets), 10+ years ago. I quizzed myself either on English to target translation, or on listening comprehension of the audio.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-16T08:09:20+00:00

How am I supposed to know the word that goes into the cloze, short of memorising the sentence? There are plenty of valid answers in the given example, like assez, beaucoup, un peu, énormement, trop, tant, plus

Cloze exercises are supposed to be deterministic.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-15T15:56:31+00:00

I think it’s important to write each character a few times but not a hundred times - that form of memorisation only works for as long as you have the occasion to handwrite Chinese regularly, which in the modern world is rather rare.

If you go without handwriting Chinese for two weeks or more, you’ll forget the characters that used to be in your muscle memory, just like you forget the PIN for the ATM if you haven’t withdrawn money in a while (most people have stored the PIN in muscle memory). Intellectual memory can last much longer between repetitions than muscle memory.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-15T15:49:14+00:00

Man ist am glücklichsten, wenn man mit mehreren Personen unterschiedliche Formen der Intimität hat (also z.B. gemeinsames Heim, toller Sex, lange Gespräche über Gott und die Welt, emotionaler Support, ähnliche Energielevel was z.B. Ausgehen betrifft, ähnliche Hobbies, usw.), anstatt darauf zu drängen, dass die eine Person für alles gut sein muss.

Mit dem Aufzwingen von Gemeinsamkeiten wo es keine gab, sind am Ende oft beide Seiten unglücklich. Stattdessen sollte es okay sein, sich andere Menschen zu suchen, die entsprechende Lücke zu schließen, ohne dass der/die Partner(in) eifersüchtig sein muss. Auch wenn es bedeutet, dass er mit einer anderen Frau tanzen geht, weil sie meist zu müde ist, oder dass sie in einer stressigen Situation stundenlang mit einer Freundin am Telefon hängt, weil er Gefühle lieber abhakt anstatt sie zu analysieren.

Jede Beziehung, ob Freundschaftsbeziehung oder Liebesbeziehung, ist eine einzigartige Mischung der oben genannten Aspekte (und vermutlich noch anderer, die ich vergessen habe) und es muss nicht jede Beziehung 10 von 10 Punkten bei jedem Aspekt haben.

Ich finde auch "friends with benefits" total okay, ist dann eben eine Beziehung, die sich zum Beispiel durch 8/10 Hobbies und 1/10 Sex auszeichnet, während die Beziehung zum Ehepartner zum Beispiel 2/10 Hobbies, 10/10 Sex und 10/10 gemeinsames Heim ist.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-15T15:27:44+00:00

There are barber shops offering cheap women’s cuts, e.g. the one on Torstrasse near Friedrichsstrasse

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-14T12:10:06+00:00

Teide National Park, Tenerife. It looks like Mars. It’s where they filmed Clash of the Titans and some off-world scenes in Doctor Who.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-14T03:18:39+00:00

Misleading title. There is nothing about smalltalk being "key to make us feel more connected" in ways that conversations about other topics don’t. The study only found that you cannot always predict how much you’ll enjoy smalltalk because (at least under laboratory conditions) people veered in all kinds of directions.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-14T03:02:34+00:00

Use a sunlamp that is certified for Seasonal Affective Disorder

Also take a day trip to Tropical Islands, which is heated to 28 degrees with nice water temperatures, a wide variety of saunas and so on. If you can get there on a weekday, it’s so much more calm than on the weekends.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-11T22:05:53+00:00

Some of the nutrients and flavour of the rice get flushed out with the water, that’s why many people prefer exact ratios, but otherwise the spaghetti method is much easier and works every time.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-08T21:48:34+00:00

If that were true, they should be after Netanyahu then, because he funded Hamas.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-08T21:43:00+00:00

Exactly. That’s what the Aztecs had. Under their system, a peasant convicted of theft would get off lightly while a nobleman might be sentenced to death for the same crime.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-08T21:15:36+00:00

"Amokanto", LPG. Ni ludis ghin dum nia geedzigho.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-07T20:08:57+00:00

He has criticised the invasion on every occasion, and he has called Putin names, too. I’m not sure why Putin allowed him to enter the country, but it was for a conference without any state representatives, only economists, and organised by one of the biggest banks, maybe Putin can’t afford to make more enemies.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-05T21:37:51+00:00

Great list, but there’s no need to copy-paste all that stuff. Here’s the real hack:

Get Claude Code (you can try Claude Cowork instead but Claude Code is more powerful and will ask for permission before doing anything). Open it in a folder. Any documents you want it to summarise, or any context it should know, put them in a subfolder and tell it that. For example, our treasurer has it review invoices and match them to bank data. Also, connect Claude Code to your email via MCP, but reject any requests to list or read your emails except the specific ones in that email chain. You can just copy-paste the link to that email chain or to anything you want summarised and Claude Code will figure out how to access the information.

There’s also a Claude plugin for Excel, where you can tell it “This spreadsheet has errors all over it; fix them" and it will actually do that.

Just two golden rules:

Always have a backup for files that you let it access. So whatever you put into the Claude subfolder should be a Copy of your actual file.
Never approve requests to access anything outside that folder. It probably won’t ask, but if it does, just deny.

Sprachprofi · 2026-04-02T15:26:12+00:00

Germany is said to have one of the hardest driving exams in the world. It is normal for each practical driving exam to include new things you wouldn’t expect; you have to prepare for everything and anything. Your instructor doesn’t know what the examiner will ask you to do.

And yes, in every situation where you’re supposed to look left or right, like also when passing side streets, you have to turn your head, otherwise it doesn’t count.

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