learning learning learning

no thoughts, just vibes

[xuexisprachen]

personal curriculum - winter 2025

it's new personal curriculum time!

quick reflection on autumn: I definitely did less than I thought I would, but it ended up being a much busier time (wrt work specifically) than I expected. It's all fine. I crocheted a jumper! I also found my Mandarin was wayyyyy better than I thought (spent three weeks in Taiwan) and I bought a load of books, so v happy about that. Did less worldbuilding than expected (but I did publish three novels, so...), and the stretching routine went nowhere, so I've rethought those a bit. And the final module - I didn't get as deep into the book as I thought, but I read all of Empire of Pain and really, really enjoyed it.

onto ❄️ winter ❄️

duration: sunday 21 december 2025 - thursday 19 march 2026

✨ the classes ✨

developing character voice - a practical class on developing distinct character voice when writing prose. I will read book and analyse character voice through copywork and other exercises. I will also use films and podcasts (and other audio) to add depth and explore my repertoire when it comes to describing voice.

loop theory II: knitting a garment - crocheting went well in my autumn curriculum, so it's time to knit something. Choose a patten and cast on! Ideally, I will complete one pair of socks and make significant progress on one jumper/vest. I'd also like to practise colourwork and make some swatches.

becoming a multilingual bookworm - like I said above, my Mandarin held up well in Taiwan, but I can't read well and considering that this is one of my favourite activities in English, it's a skill I'd like to develop in my other language, too. The most important part is creating a habit and maintaining it - I'd like to read for at least 15 mins per day in a non-English language for at least 60% of the days in this curriculum. I'll also use Anki and a foreign language specific commonplace book to learn vocab/note insights.

move your body - focusing on the splits didn't last long last term, nad my general fitness level has proven to not be as high as I hoped for. I also have a gym membership I've not used as often as I'd like this year. Time to fix that! This class is all about devloping a gentle fitness routine and adjusting my attitude to looking forward to working out rather than dreading it. (Note that I'll start back at the gym in Jan because I'll be away until then; I'm beginning with regular long walks, which I already enjoy and are good for inspiration/mental health.)

bloody nasty networks: the rise of the UK far right - the wildcard! I've listened to all of the Knowledge Fight podcast at least twice, and between that and everything else I consume, I'd say I have a decent working knowledge regarding the rise of the far right in the US. However, that's not where I'm based or from, and while the UK is heavily influenced by their politics, the rise of the far right and how they're sneaking into the mainstream here is a little different. I want to know why and how, because the best way to counter them is to understand them. The main book I'll use for this class is Bloody Nasty Networks by Daniel Trilling, but I've saved a lot of relevant reading to my Storygraph TBR.

✨ reading list ✨

2-3 Discworld books - Terry Pratchett

Cadáver exquisito - Augustina Bazterrica

Roman - Grae Bryan (in German)

First Polish Reader for Beginners - Paula Wojcik

Mandarin Companion graded reader (TBC)

Bloody Nasty People - Daniel Trilling

Whisper - Chang Yu-Ko

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin

Wuthering Heights - Charlotte Bronte

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Starve Acre - Andrew Michael Hurley

at least five library books (any genre, any subject)

I'm going to try and update here more often throughout the term to keep myself on track/accountable. (And I'll post a pic of my crochet jumper when I finally take a good one lol.)

Yay, I'm excited for a new term to start! Happy almost winter solstice ❄️

[english-history-trip]

[xuexisprachen]

personal curriculum - autumn 2025 - week six

read about my personal curriculum here

okayyyy so it's been busy. and yet I have done nothing. yikes!

basically, the last work trip wiped me out and now I am on another work trip (thankfully flying solo so far) and I think I've just recovered. literally didn't want to make a decision for the first two-three days. fun.

still, I've been working away on this kind of. I'm glad I picked such varied 'classes' because working on knitting is always nice and easy to pick up and come back to (though there have been developments) so I feel productive even when I want to veg around and do nothing.

(and no, feeling productive is not the be all and end all, but it helps me to feel like I've done something in a day, even if that was, like, knitting two rows and reading one paragraph. Stayed in bed until 5pm on Sunday, so having this as a benchmark was honestly helpful)

and we're in November! I'll start my winter curriculum on the winter solstice - which I think will be easier to keep up with because travelling really does make things more complicated, so being away for five weeks out of 13-ish wasn't helpful - and some of these classes may well roll over lol.

but let's see what I'm doing:

flex appeal: flexibility and mobility - fallen off, but I've been dealing with some lower back pain the last few days so I'm going to focus on lower back/leg stretching for the rest of this autumn 'term' I think. This was always going to roll over (like I'd get the splits that easily lol!), so I'll focus more on the splits again come December.

loop theory: fibre arts - ended up frogging what I'd done of my jumper so far because some stitches fell off when I travelled here and then when I put them back on I had too many (???) and besides there were mistakes in the rib I hadn't been a fan of the entire time. One of the goals I set myself this term was also to crochet a Christmas stocking for my mum - that took six days in the end and I did it in between trips; learnt a bobble stitch, used faux fur yarn for the first time, and really worked on inc/dec, so I learnt a lot. I also wanted to crochet a jumper but couldn't find any patterns I liked until I found this one. I've done the back panel and the front rib and that's all of that yarn I brought with me, so will finish that when I get home. I like the stitch; it works up really fast.

mandarin: reactivation and ascension - I'm in Taiwan! And my Mandarin is terrible! buuuuuut I'm feeling inspired to work harder, and I'm trying what I can, and it'll be easier when my friends get here because I'll feel more like I can put myself out there lol. I did get my Anki reviews to 0 at one point but uhhh there are a few again, so need to get back on top of that.

worldbuilding: creating fairyland (urban fantasy) - need to just get stuff written down, really. I think this might be my main focus when I get back, since I need to start writing this book on 12th Dec, so there's still time. I've been writing my current novel (very behind oh no) and just got an idea for a Christmas-themed short/novella, so the writing is fine if slow.

the pharmakon files: a deep dive into empire of pain - finished the book a few weeks ago and OOH it is GOOD. watched the fall of the house of usher over Halloween and if Mike Flanagan didn't read the book/do as much research into the sacklers as Radden Keefe, I'll eat my hat. currently reading merchants of doubt and the shock doctrine - neither are quite as readable as empire of pain, but they're interesting.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I saw someone recently say that they use chatGPT to get information about language rules (grammar, sentence structure, translations, etc) for languages that are very rare and have pretty much no information available online.

And that really stuck out to me because generative AI like chatGPT does not think. It doesn't magically have information about every single language in the world in its database. Generative AI works by deciding what words are most likely to be next to each other in a sentence, based on information it pulls from either its internal database or from whatever online resources it is given access to.

So if you're looking for information about, for example, Ojibwemowin grammar and you can't find ANY information about it online no matter how long you search, but chatGPT somehow has the exact information you're looking for? Then whatever chatGPT is telling you was made up. It took a bunch of different resources about a bunch of different languages, probably using pages that mentioned Ojibwe once or twice, and smashed it all together into something that looked somewhat coherent to someone who doesn't actually know the facts. Whether it's accurate or not doesn't matter because that isn't actually the purpose of generative AI.

[xuexisprachen]

personal curriculum - autumn 2025 - week two

get the rundown on my personal curriculum here

well lads, this week has gone off the fucking rails

tbf I kind of expected it - I’ve flown halfway around the world for a work trip, so it’s me and a bunch of my colleagues stuck together for two weeks and one is proving to be a nightmare so that’s fun

but also the place we’re staying has the world’s slidiest floors so I can’t even stretch properly (I fell on the first day lmaoooo)

not the most exciting update I’m afraid. I’ve kept on at reading empire of pain at least, so I’m still a little ahead and I summarised what I like about the book to another colleague the other night, so I’ve now internalised that. Have also done some Mandarin flash cards every day but have been too exhausted to watch anything so far

Knitting is ongoing too tbf and I am getting faster. One of my other loop theory projects is actually to crochet a stocking for my mum for Christmas and I ordered the yarn I need, so I’ll get stuck into that when I get back

but yes. It’s a new week. I’m another year older (it was my birthday last week). And now most of the work is done so I’m going to take time for the curriculum as often as I can

yay, learning!

[mylatinaddiction]

For those studying ancient languages (like myself), resources can seem pretty scarce, so I found this awesome website that goes through the basics such as alphabets, pronunciation, vocabulary, sentence structure, forms of the language (such as nouns, adjectives, pronouns etc.) and lessons with writers in the ancient language (like Ceasar, Tacitus, Livy, Virgil, Homer, Hesiod, Plato and so on) so your totally immersed.

It covers languages such as: Albanian Armenian Baltic Old English Old French Gothic Greek (Classical) Greek (New Testament) Hittite Old Iranian Old Irish Latin Old Norse Old Russian Vedic Sanskrit Old Slavonic Tocharian

and all of these are free

You can access this site Here

[xuexisprachen]

personal curriculum - autumn 2025 - week one

get the low-down on my curriculum here

it's been a weird week. started strong, but then i had a couple of downer days before my book release on friday and then because i'm going away for work next week (and will be away for my birthday), i spent yesterday with family/friends and then spent the rest of my time getting another book all finished to go to my editor.

fun!

but there've been some wins and i'm not feeling bad about what's got done tbh.

class one - flex appeal: flexibility and mobility

great week! i picked this blogilates video to follow and did a session monday, wednesday, and friday. monday's hurt afterwards, even my abs for some reason???? but then i also did that one in the morning, whereas i did the other two at night. obviously i'm not even close to getting the splits, but my left side is far more flexible than my right. my poor little hammies 😭 i want to find another all over stretching routine to do maybe at the weekend, because i was tired today and that might have been a nice midday boost.

still, this is low-maintenance and i'm enjoying it. i'm flying out on tuesday for a work trip and won't be back home until the 15th, but this seems doable while i'm away. i can just take myself off to my room and spend 30 mins stretching/decompressing, which is actually a nice excuse to have time alone haha.

class two - loop theory: fibre arts

did a bit every day on the knitting. i'm getting four rows of the back of this jumper knit in about 30-33 minutes, but i know the purls at least are getting a lot easier the more i do. it's just stockinette for another ~20cm, so nothing exciting lol.

i'm going to take my knitting with me ofc, though it'll go in my checked bag because those needles are long and pointy. i'm going to take an extra skein of yarn bc i'm pretty sure i'll work through what's left of this one, and probably the needles i used for the rib (3mm) so i can finish it off if i get that far!

class three - mandarin: reactivation and ascension

hm okay. so, i've touched on this every day, which is great, but i definitely could have fit more of the "fun stuff" in on those low mood days. just good to know, i guess. i also wanted to have my anki reviews cleared by the end of this week, but since i'm going hard on getting tones correct, there's still so much to do!

just gotta keep at it. i've got anki on my phone and tablet, so i can keep working on that, and i'm taking my little planner so i can note the words where i get the tones incorrect and practise in other bits of downtime when having my phone out might not look so professional. i'll definitely watch some stuff in mandarin, too. i've got a couple of shows on my netflix watchlist already.

class four - worldbuilding: creating fairyland (urban fantasy)

this is the other one i'm most worried about, just because it's actually important for a project haha. i wanted to work through the entirety of fairies: a dangerous history (richard sugg) this week, but i haven't - i'm probably halfway through, though i should finish chapter three tomorrow. still, i can start world building without this and i have some other books on my kindle app to read.

another one to keep at; while i'm thinking on other things, this will be working away in the back of my mind. i did mean to watch pan's labyrinth today and i haven't, so i might watch it tomorrow; since it's in spanish, it'll be practice for our work trip, too!

class five - the pharmakon files: a deep dive into empire of pain

i just have to take the book back to the library before i go away (for various reasons, i'm not going to be able to renew it while i'm not here and it's hefty, so i'm not hauling it along with me), so i got the ebook and i'll work from that. good news! i'm ahead with my reading, and the chapter i'm on rn is short, so i should get even further ahead this week. i also wrote my first mini essay based on the book last week and that was very fun.

low priority while i'm on the work trip, though since i work in marketing and what partly interests me about the book is the use of marketing by the sacklers, i'll likely dip in and out.

all-in-all, not a bad week. this is still low-pressure, low-stress, but it's leaving me feeling a lot more structured and a lot less inclined to just scroll pinterest or instagram or reddit for hours.

i'm also kind of glad of the disruption to my routine, in all honesty. week two/three is where the initial enthusiasm tends to wane, so having to find time to work on things should actually make me more inclined to do so. then i'll come back, have a normal routine for a bit, and i'll be off again. sounds weird, but it's true, at least in my case - the busier i am, the more i fit in and get done!

happy new week 🖤🍂

[thatswhywelovegermany]

Mozzarella harvest very good again this year

[what-even-is-thiss]

Me when someone else has a heavy accent when speaking English: That accent is charming and I can tell they put in a lot of effort to learn English.

Me when I have a heavy accent speaking another language: They are going to shoot me the second I open my mouth aren’t they

[rotzaprachim]

the specificity of the Italian language remains, truly, one of humanity’s greatest achievements

(this verb came up in an academic treatise on the formation of Italian from Vulgar Latin lol and it means to violently snatch someone’s handbag while passing close to them on the street”)

[xuexisprachen]

personal curriculum - autumn 2025

yeah, i saw that personal curriculum tiktok trend. not even sure how - must have been through youtube - because i genuinely don't use tiktok really at all (i prefer to have my reels/tiktoks curated through reddit 😂) but i did and i love learning and i love STRUCTURE so basically i watched maybe 25 videos across tiktok and youtube before i gave in.

september had already started and with all the work trips i have going on in the next couple of months, i'm opting for quarterly terms. this one goes from 22nd sept - 20th dec, so autumn equinox until the day before the winter solstice. that feels more themed.

i've picked out five 'classes'. they're kind of themed too - one physical, one crafts, one writing, one language, and then one new topic i want to explore. it gives variety without being super overwhelming. and i've been excited to get on with things! we'll see how long that lasts, but it's promising.

✨ the classes ✨

flex appeal: flexibility and mobility - i should stretch more; i work from home and i don't really move around enough. i also want to be able to do the splits at some point. so, i've started training! three long (30 min so far) sessions per week; i'm using a blogilates video rn, but that might change. goal of this class: start a consistent practice.

loop theory: fibre arts - i'm trying to knit my first jumper and stockinette is sooooo booooring lol. also i chose black yarn and I UNDERSTAND WHY I SHOULDN'T but also i mostly wear black so what are we gonna do? goal of this class: finish my knit jumper, start a crochet one for variety. (the crochet one will be orange)

mandarin: reactivation and ascension - once upon a time, i did a degree in mandarin, and then i promptly stopped using it. kinda. i've always had it on anki, and i've watched stuff, and i've come back to it again and again, but i'm going to taiwan at the end of next month and anyway, i want to be better. i think the highest level i was at was hsk 4, so i'm trying to reactivate around there. i did a mock hsk 4 reading (kinda, i know it wasn't really like the real thing) yesterday and scored 30/40 - i definitely guessed a lot, but i could also feel some of the words coming back to me. got lots of resources for this, since language learning is my thing. goal of this class: feel comfortable with my spoken mandarin, hopefully get to hsk 4 level, but at LEAST hsk 3.

worldbuilding - creating fairyland (urban fantasy) - i've published a bunch of books since i last logged in here, but the next in my current series involves characters going to another world... that i haven't built yet. it's all about the fae, so i'm using this class to do research and build that world around the rules i've already established. reading lots of books about celtic/nordic/slavic folklore, but especially fairies in the uk and ireland. technically, this class will end on 12th december because that's when i need to start drafting the book! goal of this class: create a worldbuilding bible.

the pharmakon files - a deep dive into empire of pain - i borrowed empire of pain (patrick radden keefe) from the library a few weeks ago and i am obsessed. i work in marketing, so stories about how marketing is used to manipulate people always fascinate me, and this is one of the worse. i'm also interested in how mike flanagan drew on the sacklers for the fall of the house of usher. i think this will conclude with some project where i look at different marketing-based scandals or manipulations (i'm thinking pistachio marketing, bananas, baby formula, horsemeat, juul, etc.) but i'm going to get through the book, then read merchants of doubt and see what themes they throw up. goal of this class: explore the book, understand how marketing can be used against people.

seems like a lot but aside from the last class, the other four are kind of already built into my daily schedule. i'm off on a work trip on tuesday, so i expect my current rate of doing stuff will scale back, but that's fine, and i've planned for it.

and besides, whatever. nothing bad will happen if i don't finish any of this. i can just keep doing it in december, or drop it if i hate it!

[corvid-language-library]

Remember that if you want to do more of something, you have to do less of something else. It's that time of year where people set goals for the new year and they have plans and hopes and it's always focusing on what they want to do more of. More studying, more exercise, more crafting, more socialising, more making things from scratch. Okay, great. What are you going to do less of in order to have the time and energy to do more of those things you really want to do?

[goatsandgangsters]

an interesting linguistics find! so I'm reading this text from 1908 and it keeps referencing "hp" in the context of "not being at full hp" "applying your full hp to a task" etc

and I'm like....... okay that is a perfectly normal way to describe energy and reads totally clear to me, but I KNOW you don't mean hit points/health points which is the first place my brain goes, so what are YOU using hp to mean

and it's not explained in-text, which means it was common enough to not warrant explanation to the 1908 audience, so gotta look elsewhere

horsepower. turns out it's horsepower.

and I'm absolutely FASCINATED that a commonly used initialism from 1908 now stands for something different AND YET the contextual meaning is still the same to a 21st-century reader

I could hand this guy my nintendo switch and he'd be like, ah yes I understand, this ''''pokemon'''' loses horsepower throughout the fight

language is amazing

[xuexisprachen]

not me just finding out this weekend that the words gluten and agglutinative are OF COURSE related

Source

[xuexisprachen]

time to return to tumblr for the first time in five years 🙃

[coyoteweird]

tip for for making your personal curriculum: you can find a plethora of real course syllabi for pretty much any topic or focus you can think of via google! pages of results of real syllabi from great colleges & universities freely available!

instead of using ai or similar to make your curriculum for this fall, look into actual courses created by professionals and academics that are free and accessible to the public!

[xuexisprachen]

20 Endangered Languages in 2020: 7. BSL

Back to my endangered language posts (I'm catching up! 😅), so here's my intro to BSL #languagelearning

It’s been a long time since I did any of my endangered language posts, I know – but that doesn’t mean I’ve not been learning them! In fact, I’ve managed to keep up my 30 minutes of study a day all year so far, which is quite an achievement. Anyway, it’s time to dive back in and first, I’ll be looking at British Sign Language (BSL)!

(more…)

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