I can't do crosswords in English, my native language. I definitely can't breeze through classical texts. It's important to be realistic on the other end of the scale too.
Criteria like this are way too demanding, and it's one of the biggest problems in language learning that makes people feel worthless; having elitist standards that you "don't" speak a language unless you speak it like a university professor, regardless of the fact that you may not speak your mother tongue that way.
Hi there Hacker News! Thanks for the interest in my article :)
My site went down an hour or so ago because I'm making database changes - I'm actually HN proof, since I had an article do very well here years ago that is much more positive than the one linked to this time. Check it out:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2780067
Some of you might have noticed that I changed the post title - this was coincidentally something I was doing just before I found out HN was linking to me. This article of mine from years ago sends me lots of traffic, but I do wish that my less controversial articles encouraging language learning would get more exposure too ;)
Thanks for all the comments, and I hope not too many arguments come about! I was only thinking out loud in that post, as you can see written at the end.
I loved the new readers I got from HN when my Life Lessons post went viral here, so I hope a few of you will stick around. Thanks again!
As I said in another comment, these are just things that I have personally learned in the last 8 years. Disagree with them if you will.
I do agree that TV quality is better in the UK (we get most of it in Ireland) compared to the states, but there is still plenty of rubbish that people waste their time with. If you just watch documentaries or educational programming, then that enriches your life and there would be nothing negative for me to say about it.
If after spending many hours watching TV you feel your life has been enhanced in some way, then by all means keep it up. In my opinion people don't feel this way (I certainly never did and grew up glued to my TV) and would have spent their time better in other activities rather than following hours of reality TV shows etc.
Doing "whatever you like" doesn't necessarily enrich your life. It's just immediate pleasure. Sometimes doing whatever is BEST for you (which you should of course decide) is way more important. If people really sat down and thought about it, a lot of them would realise that, as much as they like it, TV is NOT best for them.
As I said in the post, closed-mindedness is something that people have to realise lies within themselves. This post wasn't calling Parisians closed minded.
This is the only list post I've ever written on my blog, since I was in a reflective mood about a long list of specific things and felt this got my point across clearest. You'll find a lot of stories that expand on and discuss particular parts in greater detail if you follow the links ;)
It's been an amazing experience seeing this go viral (see the counts on the left of the post), but I'll be sticking to my non-list posts for the majority of what I write :)
Also, this isn't advice but what I've learned. I didn't want it to come across as preachy, but actually something I would like to have told myself at age 21 and am thinking aloud.
Another post that you may find more relevant to Paris is my experience in finally learning how to get along with Parisians: http://www.fluentin3months.com/closed-minded/
This is important to keep in mind as it's the only place in the world that my speak-the-language-from-day-one approach needed some tweaking ;)
Enjoy the city - my favourite activity there is to stand over the bridge to the Cité and wave at a boat passing underneath and have 200 Japanese tourists wave back. Fun times!
How do you become an expert? Change your concept of expertise! Another excellent article from 30sleeps about thinking outside the box to achieve your goals
Criteria like this are way too demanding, and it's one of the biggest problems in language learning that makes people feel worthless; having elitist standards that you "don't" speak a language unless you speak it like a university professor, regardless of the fact that you may not speak your mother tongue that way.