Adam Wik's Blog, page 9

How Much Vocab Do I Actually Need to Learn?

Turns out you don’t actually need to memorize very many of these to have a conversation.

Externally one of the most imposing aspects of learning a new language is the thought of tackling all that vocabulary.

If you’ve ever seen an unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, you know just how vast a lexicon can be. Grammar rules and even exceptions can be memorized easily and tend to be finite, learning a new writing system only takes 15 minutes or so, but there are hundreds of thousands of words out...

Are You Learning a Second Language for Stupid Reasons?

Language learning, like architecture, requires a solid foundation if it’s going to stand the test of time.

There are a lot of reasons to learn a second language. These can range from the extremely practical (being relocated to a country for work that doesn’t speak your native language) to the extremely personal (you enjoy a good challenge and love to study new things) to comfortably in-between (you want to be able to make personal connections with speakers of another language or in another cou...

No One Cares Who You Are, Only What You Do

The world doesn’t care if you’re a nice guy, can you help these people or not?

Imagine for a moment that you’re walking down a quiet street minding your own business when a car driven by a distracted teenager veers around the corner and up onto the sidewalk and clips you (don’t text and drive kids).

You tumble through the air and hit the ground in a heap a few yards away and the teen speeds off. You’re a bloody mess, and are barely hanging on to consciousness when you see a stranger running tow...

Getting Away With Murder & Living 14 Lives

Post begins below this fantastic and relevant comic.

Read this, then go open up smbc-comic.com in another tab.

While all that business about every one of your cells being replaced every seven years isn’t entirely true, people do tend to go through major changes in their lives in cycles of seven years or so. Think about your own life broken down into 7 year chunks. How different were you at 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56 and so on?

Beyond the fact that we tend to change in tastes and personality e...

26 Lessons from a Quarter Century of Failures, Successes and Troublemaking

I’ve certainly more than 26 things in 26 years, but these are some of the more important ones.

I am 26 years old – and it terrifies me.

It terrifies me because I recognize that my life is at least a quarter over. Sure I might get hit by bus tomorrow, but even if I have a good run I can’t reasonably expect to make it much past 100. So I’m a quarter done. I’m a quarter done and that terrifies me because I feel like I should be further along in my goals toward achieving the life I want to live.

I k...

How to Recharge with the Caffeine Nap

A little bit of coffee and 15 minutes of sleep can work wonders.

We’ve all been there. You had a rough night and didn’t get nearly enough sleep – maybe it’s because you were out partying, maybe it’s because you were up late finishing a project, maybe you were up half the night with a shrieking infant – it doesn’t matter.

Now it’s about 1 p.m. the following day and you basically want to die. You’re miserable, exhausted and likely to tear the head off the next person who comes near you. You can’t...

Why ‘I Don’t Have Time’ Is a Bullshit Excuse

There’s some time, grab it!

Out of just about every excuse in the world, the one I most despise is also the one I seem to hear most frequently – I don’t have time.

I don’t have time to learn a new language, I don’t have time to workout and get fit, I don’t have time to start a business, I don’t have time to do this or that or anything else.

Bullshit.

Not only am I going to explain why it’s an inane excuse, I’m going to show you ways you can ‘find the time’ to do everything you could possibly want...

Five Ways to Mitigate Travel Mishaps

Ensure your time away is as good as it can be.

In a dream world, we could travel or go on vacation and have absolutely nothing go wrong. Nothing. No missing baggages, no unexpectedly awful hotel experiences; everything would happen on time and just as planned.

If you’ve traveled a lot though, you’d probably laugh at the thought. A trip where your expectations and hopes are met?! Crazy talk!

It is an unfortunate reality that something is bound to go wrong, but you don’t have to let that spoil you...

2012 to 2013: A Year in Review

Getting to Japan was one goal that we didn’t accomplish this year.

Being my birthday today, it’s time for another annual review.

It’s been a really long year this time around the Sun, and I plan on doing this review a little differently than ones I’ve done in the past, hopefully to dig in a little deeper and figure out what went well, what didn’t go so well, and most importantly what things I need to change moving forward.

Rather than focus so much on goals like I have in the past, instead I’m g...

Is Your Inner Monologue Helping or Hurting Your Success? Four Ways to Change Your Mindset and Be More Positive

“Thoughts become things.” – Buddha

Before you begin a task or attempt to learn something new, does it make sense to first insult yourself or the subject? To tell yourself that it’s hard or you aren’t smart enough to do it?

It’s not intentional, but often people do it anyway. It’s forgivable – our brains do appear to be wired for negativity, or we remember negative experiences more often than positive ones. However, it’s not inexcusable forever. As soon as you want to do something new or need to...