don’t feed the complaint, funnel it out.

[Complaints generally mask a larger underlying issue. Help them to get it all out by saying 'tell me more' and repeating until they're empty. Then guide them towards a solution with phrases like "How do you resolve this?", "What's the answer?", "How do you usually handle this?", "How have you addressed this in the past?"]

Not sponsored

(Puts on infomercial hat bought explicitly for this post.)

Ever wanted to learn Spanish or French? Brush up on German? Understand Greek?

Are you tired of language learning apps leaving you with little feeling of progress?

Or did you try private or group classes without being able to say much after several lessons?

Well, you'll probably appreciate what I'm about to share with you!

(Removes hat, reacting with some aversion.)

The project

It's amazing how much depth and potency one can chance upon inside what might be labelled "some random person's project on the Internet". I'm not sure who to credit for my discovery—perhaps a language-learning YouTube rabbit hole or Olly Richards' StoryLearning (which itself is a great alternative method for acquiring languages).

Mihalis Eleftheriou's Language Transfer / The Thinking Method claims that it's "only as hard as starting…" and promises:

an instant sense of progress, and an ensuing learning journey like none other!

I hadn't read those phrases before trying it myself, yet my conclusions are the same, and so I find myself completely fascinated with this method of speaking new languages mostly by listening and answering questions

My experience

My prior attempts at learning various languages include group classes, private lessons, flashcards, conversations, friends helping me and vice versa, reading books, watching television series' and movies, writing daily journals in the target language, developing my own app, making vocabulary tables, memory mnemonics, transcribing talk radio, learning song lyrics—I've tried many things… Yet, I've never encountered or experienced anything like this.

No writing? No memorizing? The teacher claims he can't really speak the language? How could this make sense?

The basic experience is: an instructor introduces certain concepts to their student as the conversation is recorded in audio; you simply listen back and when encountering a question: 1) hit pause, 2) take your time to respond with clarity in the target language, then 3) hear what their student said to compare with your response; it's important to engage in this more 'active' process of pausing and answering "so that you have your own learning experience, rather than just listening to someone else's". You do it on your own terms, at your own pace, and start speaking phrases from the very first lesson.

Of course, it's recommended to supplement your learning with independent immersion, but it's remarkable how much you can progress only by following the recordings. Trying this with languages where I already had some experience (Egyptian Arabic and German), it's not noticeable to me that he "doesn't really speak them" and feels like he actually knows quite a bit; perhaps a native speaker should evaluate instead.

My partner enjoyed the Spanish course without much experience learning other languages, which means for me that it's not necessary to be a linguistic nerd like myself to get something useful out of it.

I confess to having not tried this as a beginner, but, by comparing it to all the experiences where I was a beginner, it feels like it would have been a thousand times more helpful than whatever I was doing. With German and Arabic, it gave me the clarity to feel like I understand how the language works, that I can actually speak a bit, as opposed to considering it a giant incomprehensible cloud of confusion. Some of the framings, such as German "putting important information at the end to minimize interruptions", were enormously useful to constructing my own mental models, whether or not they're 'true' in terms of why the language is the way it is. I'm curious to continue with the languages I know, perhaps someday try Turkish or Swahili, and maybe even make my own course for Brazilian Portuguese.

Method

The process of 'invisibly leading the student by asking guiding questions', modeled after the Socratic method, supports the student by building and refining their understanding of how the language works, to eventually produce language by thinking for themselves: for this reason, it's also called 'the thinking method' or sometimes 'thinking slow'.

There's a lot of invisible work (described with detail in the book for teachers below) involved to streamline communication and the ordering of concepts, making the experience as simple and focused as possible for the student. Following this, an instructor can move from 'teaching information tables' (which can get dusty and dry real quick) to 'meeting the student where they are and helping them across the next step'. The conversation appears fluid and spontaneous but moves with awareness of a pre-written script (more like a route), which leaves room to handle interesting happenings: 'mistakes' for example, can become useful feedback to understand what's challenging so that instructors can find creative ways to anticipate and solve it in the future without the student even realizing.

Who's it for?

I now recommend this to everyone when they ask me about language tips, but it still might not actually be for everyone. With new languages, one might learn to read, write, listen, or speak: although it often seems 'nice' to do all of them, it's better to define your goals and focus on the specific skills that are relevant to your interests. Do you want to read stories or poetry? Get hired in a specific domain? Understand family members whose language you don't know? My objectives are casual conversation so that I can travel and make new friends, which means prioritizing listening and speaking, with a little reading thrown in; the Language Transfer method suits me because, while following the recordings, I am constantly 'producing' with my mouth, to the extent that the only sounds I make are in the target language; it's hard to overstate how rare that has been in most of my previous attempts at learning, even in schools that speak one hundred percent in the target language.

Listening to the recordings, one could criticize the approach as a form of control or manipulation, where the only expression from the student is in the form of answers to the teacher's questions—no questions of their own or other feedback; there's even a notion articulated somewhere of 'submitting' to the experience and perhaps 'trusting' the method. I can see how that might be scary for some, but personally enjoy the thoughtful simplification from removing superfluous details and distractions, as well as avoiding obsession with rules and formalities, and feel grateful that the more 'broadcast-y' lesson design guides efficiently and enables an audio version that I can follow from anywhere; perhaps in the live experience the students ask more questions that have been removed to shorten the recordings… Feels like the right amount of everything: repetition, correction, firmness, and flexibility.

Other noteworthy details

Experience the audio course as an app for Android or iPhone or a podcast, or find them on SoundCloud and YouTube.

The list of free courses includes English for Spanish speakers and even music theory.

The project is self-funded via Patreon, PayPal donations, or buying physical versions of free online material from the non-shop.

Wishing a bright, diverse, and dynamic future to this wonderful project 🙏🏽☀️.

---

Book for teachers

I was so struck by the experience that learning about the book got my inner pedagogue excited. There's documentation on techniques designed to mask repetition, inhabit the student's mental theatre, get around stubborn habits, and build their confidence: all of which seem like great techniques for any kind of teaching.

I found myself impatient with many devices to teach specific aspects of specific languages, preferring to trust my own intuition as an improviser to figure out interesting pathways to navigate someone else's learning; for that reason, I glazed through much after the first quarter, but the initial parts were super interesting, and part of what I read is in the notes below:

I have taken few steps to simplify [the book's] content, deeming any simplification a complication in waiting.

language

it is this thought that we must transcribe into our new language, rather than the base language itself.

[Languages don't exist: there are only dialects, and some of those get promoted as a vehicle for national purposes, which makes it a political event.]

learning and teaching

Writing words down creates an external loop that becomes part of your process and means you aren't building affordances to recall without it.

[Teaching a language vertically is quickly tedious. Nobody makes a sentence from only prepositions. Better to tie together various concepts to enable creating simple expressions.]

[Teach common words after the necessary knowledge to understand them, not at the beginning.]

[We often already know, without realizing that we know.]

pedagogy

[They only know what we tell them when we tell it to them.]

[Often what looks like one concept to someone with experience is really several concepts to a beginner. Make a list of all the elements involved and there will usually be one that can be learned in isolation.]

[The learner should rarely feel like something is missing. The teacher presents one idea at a time, and the learner tries to apply it feeling complete and resolved.]

[Maintain an optimum cognitive load normally and increase or decrease tension deliberately to create contours of peaks and valleys so that the experience feels dynamic and engaging.]

[Recaps can help ease tension contours after intense learning.]

status quo

As language methods often completely ignore the language of instruction, they tend to have an irritating habit of describing absolutely everything a language does. Learners are often forced to spend too much time trying to make heads or tails of grammatical descriptions provided to them for a new language, without ever realising that the target language functions in the same way as the base language, or indeed realising it when it's too late and the knowledge can do little to spare the learner any effort. What's worse, is that superfluous descriptions run the risk of becoming mental debris that the learner is unsure how to apply. They may lurk in the shadows and raise their ugly heads later on, interfering with other thought processes (often in fascinating ways, mind!).

In short, we don't need to describe everything the target language does, and what should remain unsaid will have much to do with the structure of the language of instruction. To describe certain things in the target language which are indeed the same in the base language (without a particular reason for doing so) would serve to make our learner feel less in control than they would have with less information. We will avoid burdening our learners with irrelevant observations they're not sure what to do with, and in this way we also cue that what we do tell our learners is important.

spanish

Está rojo is what we might say when referring to the state of a glowing hot piece of metal, while es rojo, as a characteristic, would be used to describe a painted piece of metal.

When it comes to importing vocabulary, we are almost always using the vocabulary for something other than learning a word. When Complete Spanish opens with -al words, it is not so we can learn legal, normal and metal, but so that we can begin dissecting what vowels sound and look like in Spanish, whilst raising the learner's consciousness of word stress, too. In the same course, when we access verbs through the pattern 'cancelation - cancelar, we do so to highlight the infinitive and its function, to then begin establishing the infinitive as a launchpad for building other tenses. The vocabulary conversion itself is secondary to these goals. Our learner will be taken aback by all the free words, of course, but our own focus as writers is elsewhere!

---

More quotes in the log.

Garlic + Honey = Magic for your health!

[Peel the cloves in a head of garlic filling about a third of a jar. Fill about three quarters with honey and seal standing upside down at room temperature. After about five dais it will start to bubble. Open every three days to 'burp' or release gas. After thirty days it should darken and reduce into a remedy you can take (one spoon a day) to fight cold and flu.]

Super cool ways to use onion peels!

[Many uses for onion peels. Soak in boiling water for fifteen minutes for a sedative tea that can help you sleep. Let sit overnight until the water turns amber and conserve in a spray bottle for relieving itchy skin. Dry and grind to a powder to use in your cooking.]

Principles for sharing on the Internet

[Your opinion has more credibility the better you can argue against your own points.]

[Social media systematically pushes you to ideological extremes.]

The more I pay attention to observations or notice where my attention is, the less effort it takes to have something to say.

How to take a lime seed and turn it into a tree!

[Soak the seed in water for six hours. Cut off the tip, peel the outer layer, and plant in half inch deep of loosely covering soil. Mist and cover with a shot glass to increase humidity until sprouting. When six inches tall with some leaves, transplant to a bigger pot

How to Upcycle those fallen leaves!

[Instead of throwing out leaves from a garden, wash and dry them, then break them down, and finally grind into a powder. The micro-nutrients enrich and fluff the soil for grass and plants to grow better.]

I'm not in the habit of documenting trips, especially sharing travel photos; I even used to avoid using my phone camera for some time, with an idea of 'being present instead'. Happy to see things differently now, but I notice that I take photos—capture, capture, capture—never re-visiting them much, even though it's often valuable for me to do that. This trip was special to me, so I would like to revisit what happened and create a nicely encapsulated memory for myself. I would like to generally share more about how I travel, as it's different from the way I usually see it happen and might even be interesting to some people. Perhaps this blog medium can break the 'photo album or stream' concept to share different kinds of things in context.

---

October 2023 was a busy month. I changed cities every couple days, knowing that I actually dislike travelling with that frequency, preferring instead to spend longer periods in places to go deeper. I explained my trip quite often as "I'm not here to see or do anything but rather to connect with my people", and it was a mindset that made bearable the hectic schedules and planning of bouncing around that much; 'attractions' visited can be counted on less than one hand, but there was an immeasurable quantity of diverse lenses into ordinary and everyday local life. With just my cabin-sized backpack weighing seven to nine kilograms, I was quite focused on going only where I felt called, connected, or welcome; this filled my experience with a sense of purpose, sometimes in completely unexpected ways.

2023.09.30 Winnipeg

My USA trip began in Canada with a visit to my cousin, who loves plants and lives in a small town near Winnipeg.

Then I headed south. I've had some anxiety about getting grilled at borders if I or my plans might seem strange, but I felt completely chill about showing up at pre-clearance without a return ticket. The agent actually seemed impressed with me 'not having a home address since 2019 as I often travel' and that I was 'planning to head to Brazil after maybe month in the United States'. "Let that guy in!" right?

2023.10.02 Minneapolis

Reef and I shared deep thoughts, Hamburger Helper, and lots of music.

2023.10.07 Chicago

I was hosted by a friendly stranger and made my signature oatmeal dish, called "Poor man's risotto".

2023.10.09 Ithaca

Not sure how else I would have ended up visiting a place like this without knowing Omar, one of several friends I've made from Interintellect. Also not sure how to describe the range of our many, many conversations; he's what I call a 'generator', with much to say about many things.

2023.10.12 NYC

I met Nathan again, and we talked about platforms, travel, and friendships. His room's walls are filled with cool posters.

I met briefly with Kaixi and Sruti, both of whom shared my residency experience at Moos, as well as Cristóbal, with whom I shared sentiments about Brazil, creativity, and computing.

For some reason, I met all of these people for the first time in Berlin last year.

2023.10.15 Fuquay-Varina

A small town where homes have front yards larger than public parks from most cities. I got to stand inside Jess' legendary office.

2023.10.17 Burlington

Life in April's co-op housing network, with many friends, groups, and projects passing through.

2023.10.20 Denver

I reconnected with Ted after many years, and stayed at Hearthstone Cohousing, where I had a fun jam with Danilo and Charlie.

2023.10.23 Oakland

What a dreamy place! I've never seen so many beautiful plants and home gardens in one neighborhood. Benji's father in Sausalito showed me the amazing "It's-It" ice cream sandwich. Zach, who I met at Proyecto Lingüístico in Guatemala, let me play his mother's Steinway piano for 7 minutes. My childhood friend Andrew and his wife invited me for a wonderful hang and where we were all treated to an excellent Punjabi dinner from his mother-in-law. Lots of chats with Jessica and Tristan about human development, technology, and life; we made homemade Migas.

2023.10.28 Los Angeles

First-hand experience of the sprawling car city of angels with Vivek, training capoeira with a local Mojuba chapter, Gujarati thali buffet, many jams and musical moments, a taste of Baileys and Coke (forgot it was supposed to be Dr. Pepper).

---

This was a journey of connection, generosity, experiences, conversation, Strolling, cooking, music, beauty, and transformation. Certain moments that relate to my presence there instilled me with a sense of greater purpose, such as: one person unexpectedly getting closure after meeting me for the first time; another feeling emboldened to take more chances when talking to strangers; someone else leveling up their Portuguese and feeling empowered while understanding and speaking a new language.

I think it's important to acknowledge how, despite some quite transformational moments for me and others, this all started as a vague idea that I thought about frequently for months—it just felt like a cool thing to do someday, maybe. I simply ran it by my friends as it occurred to me, and then again when the possibility felt tangible or within reach; perhaps that planted seeds which prepared everything for later. This ultimately happened because it felt like the right time and because people seemed to be open and available—everything manifested easily, and it was indeed magical.

---

Thanks (in alphabetical order) to Alice, Andrew (and family), April (and friends), Benji, Cristóbal, Despina, Douglas, Gatsby 🐱, Jess (and family), Jessica, Kaixi, LaJuana, Maitiu, Nathan (and roommates), Omar, Randolph (and family), Reef, Roshni, Russell, Sruti, Ted, Tristan, Vidhika, Vivek, Yatharth, and Zach, for being a part of this trip in some way and making it memorable.

---

If you want to hear some of the conversations from these times, sign up for the Strolling newsletter or follow me anywhere online to know when they're published.

How to prevent getting sick as often..

[Mix one teaspoon turmeric, half teaspoon ginger, one teaspoon vanilla essence, and half cup of honey into a syrup and stir in a pinch of pepper. Take one teaspoon daily as a natural antibiotic to help with cough, headache, cold, and flu.]

Let's talk about what peace will look like and news for the next generation....

[When the slogans that people shout are more important than the lives of a future generation, it guarantees the continuation of horror.]

[Peace in this conflict will mean heartbreak, rather than celebration, as authorities tell the families of victims that their cases will no longer be investigated.]

Birds Aren’t Real? How a Conspiracy Takes Flight

[The crisis of belief can only be addressed after the crisis of belonging.]

FFmpeg.app

Search for human friendly intents and run the resulting commands in the browser.

Callings & Roles for Collective Liberation

Abolitionist, favors the end of forced labor and carceral punishment

Advocate, holds a cause or series of causes to heart and carries them to justice

Analyst, applies critical and systemic thinking, maps methods to understand issues

Architect, plans, and designs new structures for collective liberation

Artist, inspires people to be in touch with their humanity

Communicator, tells stories and touch the soul of millions of people

Designer, works in service to create for collective liberation

Developer, contracts and supervizes the building of new structures

Engineer, invents designs, analyzes, builds and tests complex systems & machines

Healer, heals intergenerational wounds and provides a path forward

Inventor, invents a particular process, system, culture or device that are good for people & planet

Luminary, inspires people to rise beyond their expectations

Negotiator, comes to an agreement with someone else in favor of the collective

Problem Solver, engineers tangible solutions to real life problems

Researcher, carries out academic, scientific, or investigative research

Scientist, has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences

Strategist, skilled in planning action or policy especially in climate crisis, war or politics

Trouble Maker, isn't afraid to ruffle some feathers

Visionary, receives downloads from the Universe to guide people

Writer, writes books, stories, poetry, films, TV shows, articles, Op-Eds for new paradigms

Conflict is potential

[Reacting reduces potential in a conflict.]

[Presenting multiple perspectives of an argument says nothing nor does it engage with reason.]

[The underlying motive of proving one's experience as correct is to resist relationship with the other side.]

[Stereotypes and dogma confuse us into thinking there needs to be a winning side.]

[Focus on feelings, sensations, experiences over judgement.]

What Great Listeners Actually Do - A Visual Guide

[A good listener bounces ideas like a trampoline rather than absorbing like a sponge.]

[Good listeners: 1) ask questions that promote discovery and insight; 2) cultivate spaces to promote self-esteem; 3) challenge or disagree cooperatively, without making others defensive; 4) suggest open alternative paths in the conversation.]

[Levels of listening: 1) create a discussion environment safely; 2) remove distractions; 3) understand the substance and clarify or confirm with questions; 4) observe nonverbal cues, which may make up 80% of the conversation; 5) empathize with emotions about the topic; 6) gently encourage and help them to see the issue in another light.]

The Roads to Reaction and Response

[Doing 'something' as a reaction to moral injury isn't always the right move.]

[Hot takes feed the cycle of reaction.]

[Algorithms ensure everyone has an audience, no matter how small.]

[Your desire to 'just do something' will be co-opted by those in power to ends that aren't in your interest.]

time	section
00:00	opening questions
01:13	zero data
02:05	DXOS
03:20	zero data origin
07:23	apps as public spaces
10:19	diffuse supporting multiple backends
11:04	rosano's apps
12:03	adoption challenges
15:01	interfaces for multi-device recovery
18:15	using a remoteStorage app to teach languages
22:05	prove functionality to groups
23:42	invisible technology
25:37	cross-app interoperability visions
27:02	syncing a shared data substrate
29:46	group chat as a catalyst for interop
31:16	integrating with existing storage
35:45	credible exit and exit by default
38:18	owning your data without handedness
42:44	interoperability needs adoption
45:51	valuable technology comes from other purposes
47:16	open-source can live on
49:58	re-thinking funding apps
51:10	making space for contributors
52:48	old house versus old app
53:49	personal spaces and malleable software
55:30	being handy with houses and software
57:11	shrinking programs

Links

• Jess Martin
• DXOS
• "The Humane Interface" by Jeff Raskin
• "Credible exit" by Gordon Brander
• Zero Data

Daryl Davis on Reforming Over 200 ‘Ku Klux Klan’ Members - by Befriending Them

[Five core universal values underlie human interaction: to be loved, respected, heard, treated fair, and to want the same for one's family.]

[Treating neo-Nazism as a culture without justifying it enables you to approach the people as with any other culture.]

[Avoid focusing on destruction, hate, or fear as they are symptoms. The root cause of ignorance, cured through education and exposure, will get symptoms under control.]

[How to be offended by insults from someone who doesn't know you? They have no credibility.]

[Allow people time and space to marinate with ideas, avoid impatience. Even if they don't like you, they might give you a return visit, and that's what you want. Don't destroy your credibility by lying.]

[Find and build upon the commonalities.]

when is it valuable to post about something online if you're not the primary source?

[The voice of possibility doesn't need to immediately decide whether something is true, and can accept contradictory arguments simultaneously.]

[Propose to 'disagree and commit' when nobody will have the ideal information anyway, especially if reversible. Try to recognize misalignment and correct quickly.]

[Leader seek to have strong judgment and good instincts. They incorporate diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.]

[When resolving conflict, the voice of power uses force, the voice of reason uses systems, and the voice of avoidance uses inaction. The voice of possibility tries to make conflict productive instead, by facilitating learning, curiosity, understanding.]

[Depersonalize points of view so that people feel free to try out other ones. Plot them on a quadrant of agreement against potential to change.]