Jan. 28, 2023
The Language Diary
In this post, I want to talk about two things which have caught my attention this week, namely a writing practice and a strategy of small habits.
How to create new habits
One guy on a learning forum advised me of a book by Brian Jeffrey Fogg “Tiny Habits”. He told me that this book is a great tool to build regular habits for anything, including language learning. I’ve started to read it and, to be honest, found it quite interesting. There’s a lot of advice about approaches that can help not only build healthy habits but also eliminate bad ones.
I’ve written out some advice so that I can remember them better:
Keep a positive attitude. If we want to achieve our goals we should keep in mind that we and only we are in charge of our behaviour and attitudes. It doesn’t make sense to be hard on ourselves or sink into despair when we don’t perform by our intentions.
Don’t rely on motivation and willpower. These are too shaky concepts that have nothing to do with long-term goals. At times we can be motivated and complete even more than we’d planned, other times we don’t have enough energy and can just sleep in and binge-watch Netflix. Instead of letting our willpower control our behaviour, we should rely on small, regular habits. In the long-term perspective, they help us accomplish more regardless of whether we have the motivation or not.
Take small steps. There is a popular delusion that to succeed we have to do radical, bold, and complicated things. However, that’s only the way to self-criticism and disappointment. If we want to build a positive streak and maintain regular habits, it’s better to take small steps: do 5 minutes of exercise instead of 30 minutes, or write one page of text instead of a whole article.
How to create new habits:
1) clarify your aspiration;
2) decide which kind of behaviour will help you to achieve your aspiration and write out 8-10 possible habits;
3) choose from the list of habits 2-3 habits for your everyday life.
Here’s an example. Let’s imagine I want to write in a foreign language every day. Because I know about the power of small steps, I eliminate my ambitions and clarify my aspiration — I have to write only 500 words every day. Now I have to think about possible habits that can prompt me toward writing and after a little brainstorming, came up with a list of possible habits.
Then I narrowed down the list to three habits:
1) drink a cup of coffee before writing;
2) brainstorm some ideas for posts;
3) open the document and create a structure for a post.
In theory, these habits will help me to write 500 words in English without hesitation every day. To be honest, I don’t know whether it’s a workable strategy so you’ll read about the results of my experiment after a while.
Writing Practice
Another thing that concerns me already for a week in my learning is writing practice by itself. A couple of native English speakers after seeing and correcting my English posts concluded that since I achieve an intermediate level, it would be better for me to devote more time to writing practice than to immersion with books and podcasts. As they explained to me, from this point deliberate and longer writing practice will help me improve my writing more than listening/reading. I still haven’t decided whether I should follow this strategy so I continue to postpone my decision. it would be great to hear more opinions and advice from other language learners.
In this post, I want to talk about two things that have caught my attention this week, namely a writing practice and a strategy of small habits.
How to Create New Habits
One guy on a learning forum recommended a book by Brian Jeffrey Fogg called “Tiny Habits”. He told me that this book is a great tool to build regular habits for anything, including language learning. I’ve started to read it and, to be honest, found it quite interesting. There’s a lot of advice about approaches that can help not only build healthy habits but also eliminate bad ones.
I’ve written out some main points so I can remember them better:
Keep a positive attitude. If we want to achieve our goals, we should keep in mind that we and only we are in charge of our behaviour and attitudes. It doesn’t make sense to be hard on ourselves or sink into despair when we don’t meet our goals.
Don’t rely on motivation and willpower. These are concepts are too shaky, and they aren't helpful for creating long-term goals.These are too shaky concepts that have nothing to do with long-term goals. Sometimes, we can feel motivated and complete even more than we’d planned, other times we don’t have enough energy and can just sleep in and binge-watch Netflix. Instead of letting our willpower control our behaviour, we should rely on small, regular habits. In the long-term, that will help us accomplish more, regardless of whether we have the motivation or not.
Take small steps. There is a popular delusion that to succeed we have to do radical, bold, and complicated things. However, that only leads to self-criticism and disappointment. If we want to build a positive streak and maintain regular habits, it’s better to take small steps: do 5 minutes of exercise instead of 30 minutes, or write one page of text instead of a whole article.
How to create new habits:
1) clarify your aspirations.
2) decide what kinds of behaviour will help you achieve your goals and write out 8-10 possible habits.
3) choose from that list of habits 2-3 habits for your everyday life.
Here’s an example. Let’s imagine I want to write in a foreign language every day. Because I know about the power of small steps, I eliminate my ambitions and clarify my aspiration — I only have to write 500 words every day. Now I have to think of possible habits that can prompt me toward writing. After a little brainstorming, I came up with a list of possible habits.
Then I narrowed down the list to three habits:
1) drink a cup of coffee before writing;
2) brainstorm some ideas for posts;
3) open the document and create a structure for a post.
In theory, these habits should help me write 500 words in English without hesitation every day. To be honest, I don’t know whether it’s a workable strategy yet, so you’ll read about the results of my experiment soon.
Writing Practice
Another thing that's been on my mind for a week already is writing practice by itself. A couple of native English speakers after seeing and correcting my English posts concluded that since I've achieved an intermediate level, it would be better for me to devote more time to writing practice than to immersion with books and podcasts. According to them, from this point on, practicing deliberate and longer writing practice will help me improve my writing more than listening/reading. I still haven’t decided whether I should follow this strategy so I continue to postpone my decision. it would be great to hear more opinions and advice from other language learners.
In this post, I want to talk about two things whichthat have caught my attention this week, namely a writing practice and a strategy of small habits.
How to cCreate nNew hHabits
One guy on a learning forum advised me ofrecommended a book by Brian Jeffrey Fogg called “Tiny Habits”.
I’ve started to read it and, to be honest, found it quite interesting.
There’s a lot of advice about approaches that can help not only build healthy habits but also eliminate bad ones.
I’ve written out some advice so thatmain points so I can remember them better:
"advice" isn't necessarily wrong, but it stylistically feels strange to use it in this context. I would use it more if I were referring to the advice that a specific person gave me, like "I wrote that my mom's advice". If it's for a book, it feels more natural to say "main points" or if you must say advice, something like "I've written out some pieces of advice from the book". I'm not sure, that's just my personal feeling on it!
If we want to achieve our goals, we should keep in mind that we and only we are in charge of our behaviour and attitudes.
It doesn’t make sense to be hard on ourselves or sink into despair when we don’t perform by our intentionmeet our goals.
perform by our intentions, do you mean, you don't do as well as you wanted to? You could also say "meet our expectations"
These are too shaky concepts that have nothing to do withconcepts are too shaky, and they aren't helpful for creating long-term goals.
"have nothing to do with" isn't really naturally used in this context. You would use it more if you want to express a feeling of wanting to avoid something. In this case, I think you're trying to say that these concepts are useful or helpful for creating long-term goals, and that you can't rely on them.
"Having nothing to do with" can also mean that a concept is not at all related or relevant to another concept. For example "Do you need to wash your hair before feeding the cat? Washing my hair has nothing to do with feeding the cat!"
Anyway that's just my personal feeling on this, I'm not sure if that's clear. Perhaps someone else can confirm or elaborate on this?
At Sometimes we can befeel motivated and complete even more than we’d planned, other times we don’t have enough energy and can just sleep in and binge-watch Netflix.
Instead of letting our willpower control our behaviour, we should rely on small, regular habits.
In the long-term perspective, they, that will help us accomplish more, regardless of whether we have the motivation or not.
Take small steps.
There is a popular delusion that to succeed we have to do radical, bold, and complicated things.
However, that’s only the wayleads to self-criticism and disappointment.
1) clarify your aspiration;s
2) decide which kinds of behaviour will help you to achieve your aspirationgoals and write out 8-10 possible habits;
3) choose from theat list of habits 2-3 habits for your everyday life.
Here’s an example.
Because I know about the power of small steps, I eliminate my ambitions and clarify my aspiration — I only have to write only 500 words every day.
Now I have to think aboutof possible habits that can prompt me toward writing and a. After a little brainstorming, I came up with a list of possible habits.
Okay so you use "think of" when the emphasis is on completing the thing you're thinking of. For example "think of a plan" "think of a schedule" "think of a gift for John"
You use "think about" when the emphasis is on the process, but it doesn't matter as much if you come up with a final product. If you said "I need to think about a schedule", it implies that you're still deciding if you need a schedule, maybe you're thinking about some parts of it, but you're not sitting down and writing a final schedule yet. The emphasis is on the process of thinking about the topic in general.
When you write "I need to think of a schedule", it means you are more focused on creating the end result. In your case, "I have to think of possible habits" means I want to write down some possible examples for my list of habits. If you wrote "I need to think about possible habits", it means that you are going to think about the topic of habits generally. In your case, it's clear you want to come up with a list, so you need to use "of'.
I hope that's helpful! Maybe you can search on the internet a better explanation. That's just how I understand it intuitively.
In theory, these habits willshould help me to write 500 words in English without hesitation every day.
To be honest, I don’t know whether it’s a workableuseful strategy yet, so you’ll read about the results of my experiment after a while.soon.
after a while is not really natural here. Soon would be more natural, even if you don't mean soon, and you mean, after a while or some time! If you really didn't think it would be soon, you could say "later" or "down the line".
Writing Practice
Another thing that concerns me already for a week in my learning's been on my mind for a week already, is writing practice by itself.
"on my mind" suggests more something you've been thinking about, whereas "concerning me" suggests you're kind of worried about it. Like I would say "a mole on my back has been concerning me", and I would say "it's been on my mind whether I should go to that party".
You also want to avoid sentences that are too long when writing. There's a difference I think between ideal written language and spoken language.
A couple of native English speakers after seeing and correcting my English posts concluded that since I've achieved an intermediate level, it would be better for me to devote more time to writing practice than to immersion with books and podcasts.
As they explained to meccording to them, from this point on, practicing deliberate and longer writing practice will help me improve my writing more than listening/reading.
I still haven’t decided whether I should follow this strategy so I continue to postpone my decision.
it would be great to hear more opinions and advice from other language learners.
Feedback
Hey! Great job! That was a no small feat! 500 words is a lot! I very much agree with small habits a day, that's why I usually set really small habits, like "just write one sentence", so I am more likely to do it, and less likely to quit if I don't do it for a few days.
Regarding language learning, here is my personal opinion!
It depends on what your goal is! If your main goal is to speak and sound more native when speaking, you should watch tv shows (try the language reactor chrome extension) in English, have conversation practices in English, etc... focusing on phrases/sentences that are different than how you would say it (using more native constructions, etc...).
If you want to write for work or school, then definitely practice writing more. One issue with doing so much writing is that there are actually some small stylistic differences in written and spoken English. When you're trying to explain how to do something or summarize a book, the written style would lean towards being more succinct and clear. For example, you would want to make sure your sentences aren't too long. When you're talking, it's pretty natural to have long run-on sentences that makes sense when speaking, but wouldn't be good in writing.
For example, when writing comments here, I'm mostly writing the way I would speak, but I find myself editing it a bit afterwards for it to be more clear for someone to read. It isn't exactly how I would speak in real life. You also aren't practicing the skill of speaking without thinking too much. If you are practicing only writing, you might find yourself primarily practicing translation. You might get really good at writing English, but only if you have unlimited time to think of the perfect word or grammar. In spoken conversation, you have only a tiny bit of time to form the sentence, and that's important to practice too!
Jan. 29, 2023
One guy on a learning forum advised me ofrecommended a book by Brian Jeffrey Fogg called “Tiny Habits”.
I thought I can say "advised me"?
Jan. 29, 2023
I’ve written out some advice so thatmain points so I can remember them better:
Understood.
Jan. 29, 2023
It doesn’t make sense to be hard on ourselves or sink into despair when we don’t perform by our intentionmeet our goals.
yeah, I mean that. "perform by our intention" just not common and weird?
Jan. 29, 2023
These are too shaky concepts that have nothing to do withconcepts are too shaky, and they aren't helpful for creating long-term goals.
I ask another native and he told me it's ok here. "the concepts being referred to are unrelated or have no connection to the long-term goals."
Jan. 29, 2023
At Sometimes we can befeel motivated and complete even more than we’d planned, other times we don’t have enough energy and can just sleep in and binge-watch Netflix.
at times more formal, that why you changed it? I think "be motivated" is also OK
Jan. 29, 2023
In the long-term perspective, they, that will help us accomplish more, regardless of whether we have the motivation or not.
I didn't know I can say just "In the long-term" :)
Jan. 29, 2023
Now I have to think aboutof possible habits that can prompt me toward writing and a. After a little brainstorming, I came up with a list of possible habits.
thank you! that's very useful!
Jan. 29, 2023
To be honest, I don’t know whether it’s a workableuseful strategy yet, so you’ll read about the results of my experiment after a while.soon.
I saw "workable strategy" as a common collocation. "We need to find a workable strategy to solve this problem."
Jan. 29, 2023
Another thing that concerns me already for a week in my learning's been on my mind for a week already, is writing practice by itself.
Thank you, I'll remember that collocation
Jan. 29, 2023
Hey! Thank yo so much for your comments, I appreciate. I do't know that part of your comment, could you explain again please?
" You also aren't practicing the skill of speaking without thinking too much. If you are practicing only writing, you might find yourself primarily practicing translation."
I think I have to practise both speaking and writing. The problem is, I think that reducing the amount of immersion can be harmful for my speaking and writing also, I don't know.
Jan. 29, 2023
Hey! Thank yo so much for your comments, I appreciate. I didn't understand that part of your comment, could you explain again please?
" You also aren't practicing the skill of speaking without thinking too much. If you are practicing only writing, you might find yourself primarily practicing translation."
I think I have to practise both speaking and writing. The problem is, I think that reducing the amount of immersion can be harmful for my speaking and writing also, I don't know.
Jan. 29, 2023
Hey! Thank yo so much for your comments, I appreciate. I didn't understand that part of your comment, could you explain again please? " You also aren't practicing the skill of speaking without thinking too much. If you are practicing only writing, you might find yourself primarily practicing translation." I think I have to practise both speaking and writing. The problem is, I think that reducing the amount of immersion can be harmful for my speaking and writing also, I don't know.
Yes! I mean that if you are only practicing writing, you are not practicing speaking spontaneously. Because when you write, you have more time to think about what you want to say. When you speak, you have to think quickly!
Overall I think you should do a little bit of everything and just do what you enjoy!
Jan. 29, 2023
Yes! I mean that if you are only practicing writing, you are not practicing speaking spontaneously. Because when you write, you have more time to think about what you want to say. When you speak, you have to think quickly! Overall I think you should do a little bit of everything and just do what you enjoy!
Thank you for your explanations :) Yeah, I agree about everything. 🙏👏
Jan. 31, 2023
Your english is incredible! You are definitely above A1 level!!
Jan. 31, 2023
I saw "workable strategy" as a common collocation. "We need to find a workable strategy to solve this problem."
The meaning is different between workable and useful. Workable suggests that it's feasible, as in, it's possible to execute. Useful suggests that not only is it feasible, it's also effective.
Jan. 31, 2023
at times more formal, that why you changed it? I think "be motivated" is also OK
It's not more formal, it's just that nobody ever says "be motivated" unless you're telling someone they need to become more motivated, like "you need to be more motivated", but even then it would more likely be phrased as "you need more motivation". It's just a usage thing, motivation usually goes with the verb 'feel'.
Jan. 31, 2023
I ask another native and he told me it's ok here. "the concepts being referred to are unrelated or have no connection to the long-term goals."
I personally disagree because clearly the concepts you're referring to (feeling motivated) are commonly considered by most people to be helpful towards achieving long-term goals. Therefore, it's relevant. The point you're trying to make is that unlike what most people would expect, those things are not actually effective for long-term goals. The emphasis, in my reading of it, is that it's not effective.
Jan. 31, 2023
yeah, I mean that. "perform by our intention" just not common and weird?
Perform is not used in American English with "goals' or "intentions". It's more like "perform a play" or "perform my duties."
Even if you could use it with "intention", there would be no "by". I don't know why English is like this! It's very strange! It would be "perform our intentions" grammatically, but that's not something anybody would ever say naturally!
Jan. 31, 2023
I thought I can say "advised me"?
You'd have to say "he advised that I read blah blah book" or "he advised that I go buy this book". You can't "advise of a book".
But in general, "advised" is less commonly used than "recommended" especially for specific pieces of advice. Advised is used more for general things, like "he advised me on my career trajectory", but we'd say "he recommended a take that class." "He advised that I take that class" sounds a bit formal in American English.
Jan. 31, 2023
Overall your writing is really good! I am making very advanced suggestions because it seems like you are already very advanced. Many the things you wrote are already correct, I'm just making suggestions on more subtle things to help it sound even more natural and native. Best wishes on your learning journey!
Jan. 31, 2023
Your english is incredible! You are definitely above A1 level!!
I'm not sure how to react on this comment since I was thinking I'm at least at B2 😂
Jan. 31, 2023
I personally disagree because clearly the concepts you're referring to (feeling motivated) are commonly considered by most people to be helpful towards achieving long-term goals. Therefore, it's relevant. The point you're trying to make is that unlike what most people would expect, those things are not actually effective for long-term goals. The emphasis, in my reading of it, is that it's not effective.
I see what you mean now, the problem is in meaning. Thank you.
Jan. 31, 2023
Overall your writing is really good! I am making very advanced suggestions because it seems like you are already very advanced. Many the things you wrote are already correct, I'm just making suggestions on more subtle things to help it sound even more natural and native. Best wishes on your learning journey!
thank you so much for your corrections and explanations, I appreciate your help. I'm also grateful for your feedback on my skills 😊👏
Jan. 31, 2023
I'm not sure how to react on this comment since I was thinking I'm at least at B2 😂
On your profile it said that your english is only A1, you should probably check that.
Jan. 31, 2023
On your profile it said that your english is only A1, you should probably check that.
ahh, thank you! I'll check 🙏
|
The Language Diary |
|
In this post, I want to talk about two things which have caught my attention this week, namely a writing practice and a strategy of small habits. In this post, I want to talk about two things |
|
How to create new habits How to |
|
One guy on a learning forum advised me of a book by Brian Jeffrey Fogg “Tiny Habits”. One guy on a learning forum |
|
He told me that this book is a great tool to build regular habits for anything, including language learning. |
|
I’ve started to read it and, to be honest, found it quite interesting. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
There’s a lot of advice about approaches that can help not only build healthy habits but also eliminate bad ones. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
I’ve written out some advice so that I can remember them better: I’ve written out some "advice" isn't necessarily wrong, but it stylistically feels strange to use it in this context. I would use it more if I were referring to the advice that a specific person gave me, like "I wrote that my mom's advice". If it's for a book, it feels more natural to say "main points" or if you must say advice, something like "I've written out some pieces of advice from the book". I'm not sure, that's just my personal feeling on it! |
|
Keep a positive attitude. |
|
If we want to achieve our goals we should keep in mind that we and only we are in charge of our behaviour and attitudes. If we want to achieve our goals, we should keep in mind that we and only we are in charge of our behaviour and attitudes. |
|
It doesn’t make sense to be hard on ourselves or sink into despair when we don’t perform by our intentions. It doesn’t make sense to be hard on ourselves or sink into despair when we don’t perform by our intentions, do you mean, you don't do as well as you wanted to? You could also say "meet our expectations" |
|
Don’t rely on motivation and willpower. |
|
These are too shaky concepts that have nothing to do with long-term goals. These are "have nothing to do with" isn't really naturally used in this context. You would use it more if you want to express a feeling of wanting to avoid something. In this case, I think you're trying to say that these concepts are useful or helpful for creating long-term goals, and that you can't rely on them. "Having nothing to do with" can also mean that a concept is not at all related or relevant to another concept. For example "Do you need to wash your hair before feeding the cat? Washing my hair has nothing to do with feeding the cat!" Anyway that's just my personal feeling on this, I'm not sure if that's clear. Perhaps someone else can confirm or elaborate on this? |
|
At times we can be motivated and complete even more than we’d planned, other times we don’t have enough energy and can just sleep in and binge-watch Netflix.
|
|
Instead of letting our willpower control our behaviour, we should rely on small, regular habits. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
In the long-term perspective, they help us accomplish more regardless of whether we have the motivation or not. In the long-term |
|
Take small steps. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
There is a popular delusion that to succeed we have to do radical, bold, and complicated things. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
However, that’s only the way to self-criticism and disappointment. However, that’s only |
|
If we want to build a positive streak and maintain regular habits, it’s better to take small steps: do 5 minutes of exercise instead of 30 minutes, or write one page of text instead of a whole article. |
|
How to create new habits: |
|
1) clarify your aspiration; 1) clarify your aspiration |
|
2) decide which kind of behaviour will help you to achieve your aspiration and write out 8-10 possible habits; 2) decide which kinds of behaviour will help you |
|
3) choose from the list of habits 2-3 habits for your everyday life. 3) choose from th |
|
Here’s an example. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
Let’s imagine I want to write in a foreign language every day. |
|
Because I know about the power of small steps, I eliminate my ambitions and clarify my aspiration — I have to write only 500 words every day. Because I know about the power of small steps, I eliminate my ambitions and clarify my aspiration — I only have to write |
|
Now I have to think about possible habits that can prompt me toward writing and after a little brainstorming, came up with a list of possible habits. Now I have to think Okay so you use "think of" when the emphasis is on completing the thing you're thinking of. For example "think of a plan" "think of a schedule" "think of a gift for John" You use "think about" when the emphasis is on the process, but it doesn't matter as much if you come up with a final product. If you said "I need to think about a schedule", it implies that you're still deciding if you need a schedule, maybe you're thinking about some parts of it, but you're not sitting down and writing a final schedule yet. The emphasis is on the process of thinking about the topic in general. When you write "I need to think of a schedule", it means you are more focused on creating the end result. In your case, "I have to think of possible habits" means I want to write down some possible examples for my list of habits. If you wrote "I need to think about possible habits", it means that you are going to think about the topic of habits generally. In your case, it's clear you want to come up with a list, so you need to use "of'. I hope that's helpful! Maybe you can search on the internet a better explanation. That's just how I understand it intuitively. |
|
Then I narrowed down the list to three habits: |
|
1) drink a cup of coffee before writing; |
|
2) brainstorm some ideas for posts; |
|
3) open the document and create a structure for a post. |
|
In theory, these habits will help me to write 500 words in English without hesitation every day. In theory, these habits |
|
To be honest, I don’t know whether it’s a workable strategy so you’ll read about the results of my experiment after a while. To be honest, I don’t know whether it’s a after a while is not really natural here. Soon would be more natural, even if you don't mean soon, and you mean, after a while or some time! If you really didn't think it would be soon, you could say "later" or "down the line". |
|
Writing Practice This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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Another thing that concerns me already for a week in my learning is writing practice by itself. Another thing that "on my mind" suggests more something you've been thinking about, whereas "concerning me" suggests you're kind of worried about it. Like I would say "a mole on my back has been concerning me", and I would say "it's been on my mind whether I should go to that party". You also want to avoid sentences that are too long when writing. There's a difference I think between ideal written language and spoken language. |
|
A couple of native English speakers after seeing and correcting my English posts concluded that since I achieve an intermediate level, it would be better for me to devote more time to writing practice than to immersion with books and podcasts. A couple of native English speakers after seeing and correcting my English posts concluded that since I've achieved an intermediate level, it would be better for me to devote more time to writing practice than to immersion with books and podcasts. |
|
As they explained to me, from this point deliberate and longer writing practice will help me improve my writing more than listening/reading. A |
|
I still haven’t decided whether I should follow this strategy so I continue to postpone my decision. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
|
it would be great to hear more opinions and advice from other language learners. This sentence has been marked as perfect! |
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