Learning a foreign language as an adult

This hits a little too close to home. From Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays by Bill Holm. (A very good book from a superb writer.)

When you begin learning a language or try to use a new one, your adult power and resourcefulness slip away, and you sound to yourself, and to others, like a drooling child or an idiot. In a new language, you are first a baby, then a little child; then, if you work hard, a badly educated teenager with a low IQ.

Focus for 2009

I like the idea of choosing a learning focus for the year. A focus that I wouldn't naturally navigate toward. (I got the idea from Peter Drucker, a big advocate of lifelong learning, who would focus on an area he knew nothing about for something like two or three years.)

For this year I think I'll focus on learning more about Asia. Yes, a bit broad! I'm thinking particularly of China and southeast Asia (e.g., Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam). Not just the wars but what are the cultures and people like? What are the histories? I'm hoping that in addition to being interesting, it will push my brain outside it's western-world focus. I know next to nothing about this area of the world. I'm notoriously distractable so it will be interesting to see if I can stay with this.

Earlier I thought I'd really challenge myself by concentrating on economics or something math related. I am not gifted in these areas and frankly, they freak me out. For longevity's sake it's probably best not to focus on something that makes my stomach seize up.

But for now I need to finish When the Astors Owned New York. It's not about Asia but it's another world -- ueber wealth -- I know nothing about.

Podcast addiction

I am addicted to podcasts. Like Google Reader, books and Thanksgiving dinner, my eyes are bigger than my stomach/hours in the day.

Ever since I can remember I've been hooked on learning things. Most people want to learn new things but for me it's a compulsion. (I don't think this makes me any better/worse, smarter/dumber than anyone else. It's just part of my geekiness.) It's like someone who hasn't eaten for a week heading crazily for the buffet table.

Three of my favorites:

• The Bugle -- Audio Newspaper for a Visual World (from Times Online). It's hilarious. The hosts review, and skewer, some of the news events from the week. They're snarky, smart and sometimes rude. The link to sharing your views on the shows says: "Send your partially informed opinions to The Bugle where Oliver and Zaltzman will respond to, rebuke, lampoon, plagiarise or ignore your comments as they see fit."

• News from Lake Wobegon (from Prairie Home Companion). Garrison Keillor's monologues on small-town life and human foibles. Usually hilarious and often poignant. This program is about the only thing that's ever shut up my whole family during dinner. Another plus -- if it's bluegrass night you can catch the monologue while avoiding the annoyance and anger that bluegrass induces.

• Animal Planet Audio Podcast, particularly Animal Miracles. (Don't be scared away by the narrator -- Alan Thick. The great stories cancel out his annoying voice.) The stories tell about animals' extraordinary relationships, knowledge and intuition. E.g.:

• A diabetic woman whose dog kept bugging her until she woke up enough to eat some sugar. She was slipping into unconsciousness because her blood sugar level was out of whack. The dog was not trained to do this. He saved her life.
  
• Prisoners who train rescue dogs to make them more adoptable. The dogs likely give the prisoners some of the first unconditional love they've ever experienced.

• This American Life. This show is one of the best on public radio. There's a theme each week and several essays or stories around it. The show can be poignant, touching and/or funny. The host, Ira Glass, is so crazy smart as are the contributors. Because it's now available as a podcast, I avoid the panicky feeling I used to get when I missed the radio broadcast.

Mental Floss is beautiful

I've talked about mental_floss here before. But as I just finished the latest edition (at right), I'm compelled to talk about it again. It's just packed with info and trivia that you wouldn't likely learn elsewhere without quite a bit of effort. Much of it you don't need for day-to-day life. But that's part of the fun.

If the magazine is a really good meal, then the Web site is the equivalent of a mile-long buffet. (A good one, not the Old Country Buffet.) For example, on the trivia page you will find the following treats:

• Daily Lunchtime Quiz (includes "Star Wars Reference or World War II Reference?")
• The Amazing Fact Generator (includes gems like "House flies younger than four days old don’t react to light and therefore won’t be attracted to your bug zapper.")
• What's the Difference (includes "Art Deco vs. Art Nouveau" -- always go with Art Nouveau if you ask me)
• Geography Challenge (with sound!)
  
• All the Great Lists (includes "7 of America's Quirkiest Food Festivals")
  
• Cocktail Party Cheat Sheets (a bit of background that will make you sound smart on a variety of topics including The Qur'an, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Martini).
  
• 5 Questions (daily, five-question quizzes)

Working your gray matter

I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love. It's an OK book. I waver between loving it and finding the main character (the author) highly annoying. I did, however, gather a very good tip from the book which I am putting to use.

For the last few days I have been reading a small news story in German. The first was a story from Der Spiegel about the new Simpsons movie. I love the show but I don't know about the movie so it wasn't quite cheating. It was a fun interview with the creators, Al Jean and Matt Groening. I even laughed out loud a few times!

Today I'm reading a story from Deutsche Welle about people who are learning German at the Goethe Institute in India.

Practicing your language skills is amazingly entertaining and the pay off is three fold: you work your brain, improve your language skills and learn something interesting. (I will not be reading any finance or economic stories. That stuff freaks me out in English.)

On a side note, you may, as in all news reading, learn things you do not want to know. I just read in Der Spiegel that Tom Cruise will play Claus von Stauffenberg in an upcoming movie, Valkyrie. Shudder. (Stauffenberg was a crucial player in the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler.)

How children learn

"Not every kid needs to go to college." Them's fightin' words! Earlier this work on Midday Mel Levine, a neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina and the author of All Kinds of Minds, said that and many other provocative things.

He believes we should celebrate all kinds of minds. Work on children's strengths, don't continually press them to excel in things they aren't inherently good at or have a passion for. He doesn't say that if you don't like math or you're not good at it you should skip it. But he believes our education system isn't well tailored to the way many kids' brains work. He also rails against memorizing route material.

It's a fascinating, thought-provoking and often funny speech. Makes me want to be a neuroscientist!

Listen to the speech here. Click on "listen to the call-in show, even though it's not a call-in. The speech starts about a minute into it but is supreme awesomeness. He starts out by talking about how most kids don't know what the words in the pledge of allegiance means.

Great tools available at All Kinds of Minds.