Keeping your language learning motivation high when travel remains so uncertain

[@jankoszuta9835]

Hi. Please remember that just 1% of the world population is 70 million people. We have to take that seriously

[@johnpaulhughes6867]

I've recently started learning Irish so I've been watching KZbin videos. I thought you were an Irish man living in Australia from that video 8 years ago. That's really impressive you actually sound Irish when speaking Irish.

[@diariosdelextranjero]

We still have the internet. Long live language learning.

[@mezzoguild]

True but I miss being around other humans. :)

[@AfroLinguo]

OMG! I am so sorry to hear that. Hope everything gets better for you.

[@wild4fp]

Great podcasts. Found you on spotify.

[@strangerintheselands251]

I was about to say that you can always cherish the literature and videos or youtube in a foreign language, or have a pal on Italky to talk to. But then... my experience shows that being able to move around the country whose language you learned through great commitment, being able to travel there and interact and have an adventure - that is soooo enlivening and it animates the spirit. Travelling in French villages and hitchhiking in rural France, that was a lifechanger for me.

[@mongrelselkiemusings8514]

Just discovered your website/presence on here and I am so inspired and grateful for it. I'm Australian too and when covid all took off I got caught up in a crazy adventure and ended up following my partner back to the UK for 4 months. Now I'm back in Australia and only really beginning to get my head around the fact that I won't be able to return to the UK as soon as I want to. I'm getting deep into ancestral lineage connection through celtic music, learning the bagpipes and tin whistle, and also starting to learn Gaelic which is how I came across you. My heart is basically still in the UK on a deep level and it is really confusing. I feel called to be over there, but yeah maybe I won't ever be able to. Living on stolen/never ceded Aboriginal lands as someone whose blood lines come from far away is confusing to me. I deeply love Australia and feel so grateful for this country and my belonging here... but part of me can't make sense of my living here the way I can in the UK. Starting to learn Gaelic with the idea that I may never be able to actually go over to Ireland again, or by the time I do won't be able to do a working visa, is emotionally and psychologically confusing for sure. Balancing all this longing and paradox is a lot. Thanks for asking the question.

[@mezzoguild]

I get how you feel. I feel the same way about Ireland and the UK. Don't forget - we are the aborigines of Celtic lands. That's our aboriginal and ancestral homeland. What you're feeling is very valid and I often struggle with it too.

[@alwayslearning7672]

Jeez... I hope you can get it back man...that's a nightmare.

[@Cam_Galaxy]

Welcome back brotha.

[@mezzoguild]

Cheers mate.

[@andreadomingachidiac9855]

Hello, I have read the resources you recommend for Local Arabic (Levantine-Egyptian etc...) but none for MSA. I would like to know any site or app I could download to help me improve in Standard arabic to an advanced level. Thank you.

[@jimmorrison2657]

I think the world will go back to normal. Just like before. But it will take some time. Maybe two or three years. ✌️

[@blitzer658]

Sup man, thought I'd sneak into your youtube channel to directly contact you instead of getting lost in your emails lol. I have a time management , personal advice sort of question.. Would you be so kind as to answer it for me? I really appreciate your videos and I learned alot from you that's unrelated to language learning , your academic story really struck a cord with me as I'm currently going through my own personal failures.. How do you manage your FREE time? There's so much I want to learn! (Not including my academics, computers,languages,etc) So much that I go into analysis paralysis... Do you just say "learn russian for 3 hours then work out 1 hour then work on linux 1 hour" or do you have a more free flow style?

[@SilentJaguar68]

I'm really bad at setting travel goals for my language learning lol So I mostly try and measure my progress by how much and how consistently I watch something, listen to something, or read something in my target language(s). I find more of the Seinfeld "keep the streak going" to be pretty motivating for myself, so I hold myself to that.)

[@JuiceJay]

Time to turn to ancient languages maybe...

[@StunningTransformations]

Hi! I'm new to the Mezzofanti Guild... I work in healthcare... Dealing with COVID 40-60 hours per week... I can tell you this. Keep your eye on the prize, use this time to think, reflect and enjoy solitude. The sun will shine again!!! You have to believe it!

[@futurebliss]

Quite the opposite: More people are respectively learning languages, using digital tools and video meetings in particular; and the various apps, services and companes behind them, are getting bigger and better. I get more motivation because I can learn quicker, and when I finally will get to travel, I’ll be able to have ≥2 more languages than what I thought I’d have! 🎯 Anyhow, good luck to you! 🍀

[@alwayslearning7672]

True..just look at what the Polyglot Conference is doing this year. It's going to huge..all thanks to technology.

[@elliottmcfadden6261]

It’s not 99% asymptomatic. Depending on the population demographics and health system, 1-6% fatality. As much as 20% more have extreme symptoms leading to hospitalize which can include permanent lung damage or brain damage from stokes. The remaining 80% can be anything from asymptomatic to the worse flu you have ever experienced. Why it affects some and not others is not understood yet. It’s a nasty bug, and you don’t want it. I don’t know what the economic answer is, but we have it take the disease seriously.

[@mezzoguild]

The problem is that we hear so much conflicting information, it's hard to know what to believe anymore. Media can't be trusted, WHO most certainly cannot be trusted. Then you hear all kinds of reports of inflation of stats, bogus testing and so on. If someone had COVID and then gets hit by a car, that's a "COVID death" in some places. Not exaggerating. I'm not downplaying it. I just question everything.

[@elliottmcfadden6261]

There I really isn’t that much conflicting information from the medical community about the seriousness of the disease and how to reduce risk. There is a lot of conflicting information from politicians and talking heads who have their own agendas.

[@inputimmersion9577]

Simply not true. By official statistics (www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/) Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) = Deaths / Cases = 23,430 / 1,694,781 = 1.4% (1.4% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 have a fatal outcome, while 98.6% recover). 1.4%. When we take this with the AT LEAST 80% of people who are asymptomatic - which is way, way, waayyyyy underestimated due to the fact that hardly anyone relatively speaking has been tested and so the number of actual infections is much, much higher than stated - and add those to the 1.4% of people who die which is only the number of deaths per official confirmed COVID testing status and we have a picture that is most probably less than a fraction of a percentage of people who get this are actually dying. And we've shut down the entire planet, cost millions of people their jobs and careers, ruined the future of our children and gotten into mind boggling, crippling amounts of public debt whereby if we don't owe the bank money they own our businesses and assets. Because less than 1% of mostly chronically ill people in terrible states of health die from it. If you don't see something wrong here then OK. But those of us who are watching from the sidelines with a keen eye can spot the bullshit a mile off. Lastly, governments do not care about people or health. I don't know how many times this has to be said before people believe it. They don't give a fuck about you or your health. So why would they shut you down to protect you? See how the narrative changes when you get your info from the stats instead of the news? Please, stop spreading fear, and try to do some actual thinking.

[@miaportuguese24]

@@inputimmersion9577 1.4 is ludicrously high. the real number is closer to 0.5%. the vast majority of cases aren't tested for. and there is overreporting of deaths. i'm not sure what makes ANYONE believe that the "medical community" is sacrosanct, particularly in the US. it's and industry, with a profit or power motive like any other, and it's corrupt.

[@noonecares5340]

Hey, I'm new here... Do you speak arabic? and if so... could you make a video in which you actually speak arabic so you can show us how fluent you actually are? and I mean a long unscripted video that proves you're not full of it

[@miaportuguese24]

the response to covid has been predictably idiotic. you're in the worst state in the country, on many many different fronts, unfortunately