Enjoyed the article. Definitely confirms my belief that the best way to learn languages is full immersion. I couldn't even tell that the article was written by a non native speaker until the author said, so hats off for fooling me. :)
At the beginning of the article the author states that he set off to Learn English and how he succeeded and you only realized that he was not native until the author said so? Really amazing.
The getting professors to fail you is such a great hack! But it's also really alien to me: In the UK, if you fail the first time, you can resit the exam so you can pass the module... but the exam mark is capped to the pass grade.
I also applaud his work ethic. However, when reading inspirational things like this, it often seems hard work is the only option. But working smart is also valid, and there's definitely a sweet spot of effort vs grade. I'm really not trying to diminish this guys work, quite the opposite. Keeping up with high achievers is (by definition) hard, and it's really easy to get stressed out. Getting top marks doesn't help too much in life (although it usually doesn't hurt) - especially if you don't intend to stay in academia. Other activities (working part time, hobbies) can also be really beneficial for their direct results (money, experience, balanced and healthy lifestyle) and indirect results (can also look good on a CV).
Finally, his English skills are awesome. My English skills also improved dramatically watching English TV and movies, and while frustrating at first, in the end it's a very fun route to improve one's skills.
Is there a site that ranks shows and movies on how easy they are to understand (e.g. how strong are the accents, how difficult is the dialog)? If not, it's definitely something I'm interested in starting!
Right, and on the flip side, when I was at Cambridge, if you failed you would be "sent down" (expelled) there were no resits. It's possible that the pass fail mark was really low though, because I did spectacularly badly in my first year and still managed to graduate
When I was at Cambridge I heard about people retaking the year, although if I understood correctly, those people are identified ahead of time, and don't actually sit the exam.
Well, you could choose to make your path being homeless, but there usually is less satisfaction in that choice.
I'm not sure if you read the article, but it talked about schooling, preparing the skills needed to meet goals that would match his dreams, thinking about those goals, seeking them out. It wasn't just, "Oh, I gotta go get paycheck." It might be unfortunate that we need money to live in our society, but nevertheless it is reality, so talking about how to make the best of it seems like a worthwhile discussion to me.
Most people aren't born in possession of everything they need to survive. So whether it's a traditional job or hunting/gathering you're likely going to have to work. Why see it as unfortunate if you don't have to? Sure, it would be great if we were post-scarcity but we're not. Work in some form is going to be a significant part of your life path. Go into it with the attitude that it's a fact of life and make the best of it. If you convince yourself it's unfortunate you're likely to experience it more negatively than necessary.
My job isn't my life, but it funds my reasonably comfortable life. While it's true that I spend 8 hours a day doing work for someone else, I also have 6 hours a day of time that is entirely my own, and my real life thrives there.
534 job applications over an eight month period seems like a lot. I don't even know if I can reasonably say that there are ~500 companies in my city who a) have a position open for what I do and b) I'd want to work for. And this guy in particular seems motivated where I would've been surprised if he would consider working at a company he was only somewhat interested in.
That aside, I have a sense based on personal experience that going to meetups related to your industry may provide a worthwhile parallel route to sendin job applications. The tech industry (I realize the author is in HR) is especially wonderful in this, as you can have a variety of consistent meetups ranging from programming languages, to AI, to civic and government engagement, to technical book clubs. Sure, you still need to have a skillset, but connecting with other people can increase the chance of serendipity.
As a counterpoint, my experience has been that this is only effective if you are looking for a position that is already in high demand. It's relatively easy to go to a meetup and meet other engineers who will recommend you at their company when it inevitably comes up that more engineers are needed on the team. In other positions like, say, marketing or finance, it just doesn't happen that way nearly as much. Postings will often get hundreds of applications within a few days and having a casual acquaintance from meetup-type groups is of little benefit compared to desirable brand names and keywords on your resume.
>I don't even know if I can reasonably say that there are ~500 companies in my city who a) have a position open for what I do and b) I'd want to work for.
That's about 2 applications a day, which isn't too crazy. The job market for software people is deep if you live in the right place, 500 is a lot but not surprising to me.
In fairness, it seems very unlikely that he only applied to jobs 1) in his city, 2) at companies that "have a position open for what [he does]".
He likely also applied to jobs that he wasn't super pumped up about, in case the job (or other factors regarding the job) turned out to be awesome.
Unsolicited advice: I'm not sure if you're actually looking for a job (or will be in the future), but try not to limit yourself so much before even starting. It feels like your comment had a lot of excuses/reasons why it won't work for you/your industry. It's not true: getting a job can be a grind. Sometimes that's just what you have to do. When you've applied to dozens of companies, or turned down dozens of offers, you'll have a much much better idea of what's possible what isn't worth the effort (plus you'll have a ton of very useful experience and skills because of it, to boot).
I have respect for the guy, the consistent determination spread over long term is something to admire.
That said this model would work terribly badly for me - I couldn't care less about performance in school, it was binary - doing/not doing it. It didn't seem to work wonders for him either. Real experience which companies look for (for very good reasons) can only be earned after school. Yet I have better employment than >90% of my class. Life is to be lived and enjoyed and this goal-oriented approach seems to go in opposite direction. But that's purely me.
Sidenote - working now in Geneva, Switzerland, I am unimpressed when somebody highlights that they work for UN. The org does some good work but it is extremely ineffective in spending money (I would expect less than 10% of cash coming in is spent on actual help/material to needy) and bureaucratic beyond belief. Plenty of people from all around the world make their lifelong careers on just being UN bureaucrats, having high Swiss wages, free accommodation in Geneva worth up to 10,000 USD/month etc. Red cross is better in this, and MSF (doctors without borders) tops even that. Now those guys and girls deserve some proper respect.
For what it's worth, I'll chime in with my personal experience as a white guy who learned Mandarin. 5500 hours is just under two years of consistent 8-hour days. In my opinion, spoken Mandarin is not actually all that difficult compared to other languages once you adjust to the presence of tones (there is basically no conjugation or changing word prefixes/suffixes on the fly, tense uses simple particles, etc.). After 500 hours of classroom study and about 4000 hours of immersion in Taipei and Beijing, I was pretty close to fluency in speaking. I think you probably could be as well.
However, even after all that time I was only able to read and write at an elementary school level. Reading, writing, and speaking any dialect of Chinese are basically three separate skills. You can easily know how to say words and have no idea how to write them, or know the meaning of a character, but not know its pronunciation, or my favorite - be able to easily read an entire sentence, but then only know how to write half the characters properly if asked to write it out 5 minutes later.
So, in my opinion, yes 5500 hours would get you to spoken fluency in Mandarin without too much difficulty. But unless you are really good at memorizing things (I'm not), don't expect to be able to read and write at a native level in that time frame unless you had exposure to written Chinese growing up.
My math was off. It is 550 hours.
That is much more reasonable.
Do you think it is still possible to be fluent in speaking?
The reading and writing part surprises me. Is that different from English? I don't remember what it was like to learn it in the first place so I don't remember if I initially had trouble writing something I had read.
Not in a normal sense. I know the DoD has immersive programs for training interpreters and SIGINT people to language proficiency as quickly as possible, but I don't think 550 hours is nearly enough for Mandarin. Even assuming 12 hours a day of full immersion, you're looking at fluency in 45 days. This is only feasible if you've already had a lot of exposure to the language. For example, many people outside the US are exposed to English movies, TV shows, ads, and grade school language programs growing up, which makes it easier to later learn English seriously. If you're not a Chinese American, this situation is unlikely for Mandarin.
Yes, most other writing systems, including English, use phonetic alphabets. If you learn the set of letters, you can at least sound out any word, and make a good guess at spelling something you know how to say. Chinese is a logographic writing system. There are thousands of "letters" that you have to learn individually, and there are generally only hints in the logograms about pronunciation or meaning, so you're basically memorizing how to read and write every single word individually. If you don't know how to write the character, you can't "sound it out" like you can in English. You're just stuck. This also leads to frustrations in even using dictionaries to look up word meanings.
I think that 10 hour per series, and 55 series means 550 hours. Usually people learning English use several resources to learn like books, podcasts, music, online tests for preparing English exams.
This guy's whole point was that not everyone learns language in the same way. For him, watching TV shows in English got him there. But for you, reading books or listening to radio or using flashcards might get you there.
I know this is meant as a motivational/instructional article for finding a career, but I found this says more about Greece's economy than anything else. The motivating part for me, is that here (in Canada) things aren't nearly as bad as they are in Greece. All my close peers (in Canada, States) never had to persevere as hard as this author did in order to find a job. Even a job like his.
Actually the BIS just had a report that put the Canadian banking sector as the riskiest, ahead of Greece. Most leveraged consumer in the world. I moved out; it's about to implode. If I was still there I'd raise some sheep. They're smarter than the legions of Govt educated 33x leveraged owners of the most expensive housing market ever.
Wow - harsh assessment! Yes its true that Canada's housing market is getting overheated, and it has been for a while. In sticking with our sheep analogy, may I ask which greener pastures have you've roamed to?
I'm kinda amazed at what's happened in Canada. They largely missed the 2008 meltdown because their banking industry was still well-regulated and didn't participate in shenanigans. So apparently they decided to deregulate their banking sector and engage in shenanigans? Because now they look pretty much exactly like the USA in 2007.
Unfortunately this is a buyer market globally because of the high supply from everywhere, so high that every open advertised position is going to end flooded by applicants in a short time. On the other hand, word of mouth still makes wonders locally so the quickest path to a job in a given place is asking relatives, friends and friends of friends.
Thank you for your comments and concerns. I indeed applied to positions in other countries even though I wanted to stay in my country for family reasons. Some of them were very targeted and indeed they called for an interview, some were more generic. The purpose of the article is to promote planning and putting goals, make choices and dont give up. The title as "finding a life path" was not mine and I do not consider finding work as a life path. However, in order to achieve and perceive your dreams, you need to work. And you need to work somewhere you enjoy. The path to achieve that is the one I writed.
Thank you for your comments and concerns. I indeed applied to positions in other countries even though I wanted to stay in my country for family reasons. Some of them were very targeted and indeed they called for an interview, some were more generic. The purpose of the article is to promote planning and putting goals, make choices and dont give up. The title as "finding a life path" was not mine and I do not consider finding work as a life path. However, in order to achieve and perceive your dreams, you need to work. And you need to work somewhere you enjoy. The path to achieve that is the one I writed.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 71.9 ms ] threadI also applaud his work ethic. However, when reading inspirational things like this, it often seems hard work is the only option. But working smart is also valid, and there's definitely a sweet spot of effort vs grade. I'm really not trying to diminish this guys work, quite the opposite. Keeping up with high achievers is (by definition) hard, and it's really easy to get stressed out. Getting top marks doesn't help too much in life (although it usually doesn't hurt) - especially if you don't intend to stay in academia. Other activities (working part time, hobbies) can also be really beneficial for their direct results (money, experience, balanced and healthy lifestyle) and indirect results (can also look good on a CV).
Finally, his English skills are awesome. My English skills also improved dramatically watching English TV and movies, and while frustrating at first, in the end it's a very fun route to improve one's skills.
Is there a site that ranks shows and movies on how easy they are to understand (e.g. how strong are the accents, how difficult is the dialog)? If not, it's definitely something I'm interested in starting!
I'm not sure if you read the article, but it talked about schooling, preparing the skills needed to meet goals that would match his dreams, thinking about those goals, seeking them out. It wasn't just, "Oh, I gotta go get paycheck." It might be unfortunate that we need money to live in our society, but nevertheless it is reality, so talking about how to make the best of it seems like a worthwhile discussion to me.
That aside, I have a sense based on personal experience that going to meetups related to your industry may provide a worthwhile parallel route to sendin job applications. The tech industry (I realize the author is in HR) is especially wonderful in this, as you can have a variety of consistent meetups ranging from programming languages, to AI, to civic and government engagement, to technical book clubs. Sure, you still need to have a skillset, but connecting with other people can increase the chance of serendipity.
That's about 2 applications a day, which isn't too crazy. The job market for software people is deep if you live in the right place, 500 is a lot but not surprising to me.
He likely also applied to jobs that he wasn't super pumped up about, in case the job (or other factors regarding the job) turned out to be awesome.
Unsolicited advice: I'm not sure if you're actually looking for a job (or will be in the future), but try not to limit yourself so much before even starting. It feels like your comment had a lot of excuses/reasons why it won't work for you/your industry. It's not true: getting a job can be a grind. Sometimes that's just what you have to do. When you've applied to dozens of companies, or turned down dozens of offers, you'll have a much much better idea of what's possible what isn't worth the effort (plus you'll have a ton of very useful experience and skills because of it, to boot).
That said this model would work terribly badly for me - I couldn't care less about performance in school, it was binary - doing/not doing it. It didn't seem to work wonders for him either. Real experience which companies look for (for very good reasons) can only be earned after school. Yet I have better employment than >90% of my class. Life is to be lived and enjoyed and this goal-oriented approach seems to go in opposite direction. But that's purely me.
Sidenote - working now in Geneva, Switzerland, I am unimpressed when somebody highlights that they work for UN. The org does some good work but it is extremely ineffective in spending money (I would expect less than 10% of cash coming in is spent on actual help/material to needy) and bureaucratic beyond belief. Plenty of people from all around the world make their lifelong careers on just being UN bureaucrats, having high Swiss wages, free accommodation in Geneva worth up to 10,000 USD/month etc. Red cross is better in this, and MSF (doctors without borders) tops even that. Now those guys and girls deserve some proper respect.
This was very interesting. For ease of numbers lets say that this means 20 episodes at 30 minutes per episode, so about 10 hour per series.
So, after 550 hours of Mandarin, would I be fluent?
And, in addition, did he watch it with subtitles or not?
Anyone on HN know of a study?
Edit: Didn't know about fluentu but someone beat me to it - http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/blog/2015/02/11/mandarin-chin...
Edit 2: Math correction
However, even after all that time I was only able to read and write at an elementary school level. Reading, writing, and speaking any dialect of Chinese are basically three separate skills. You can easily know how to say words and have no idea how to write them, or know the meaning of a character, but not know its pronunciation, or my favorite - be able to easily read an entire sentence, but then only know how to write half the characters properly if asked to write it out 5 minutes later.
So, in my opinion, yes 5500 hours would get you to spoken fluency in Mandarin without too much difficulty. But unless you are really good at memorizing things (I'm not), don't expect to be able to read and write at a native level in that time frame unless you had exposure to written Chinese growing up.
The reading and writing part surprises me. Is that different from English? I don't remember what it was like to learn it in the first place so I don't remember if I initially had trouble writing something I had read.
Yes, most other writing systems, including English, use phonetic alphabets. If you learn the set of letters, you can at least sound out any word, and make a good guess at spelling something you know how to say. Chinese is a logographic writing system. There are thousands of "letters" that you have to learn individually, and there are generally only hints in the logograms about pronunciation or meaning, so you're basically memorizing how to read and write every single word individually. If you don't know how to write the character, you can't "sound it out" like you can in English. You're just stuck. This also leads to frustrations in even using dictionaries to look up word meanings.
Let me do the math for you.
55 tv series 20 episodes per season 6 season per series 30 minutes per episode
3.300 hours of English, with English Subtitles most times. And I was teached English at school. I did not start from zero.
;)
Case in point: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/the-market/mortga...