Language Learning Is A Never Ending Path

It’s okay to romanticise the small things about your day-to-day life. It’s okay to romanticise sleeping in, waking up to the sun tickling your skin. It’s okay to romanticise the texture of fingers against a page. Sometimes to save your day you need to romanticise sitting at a desk and working, or romanticise studying hyped up on coffee. It’s okay to picture yourself as if you were the mc in a movie. Watch yourself go through shit and know that it’s just the climax of your own story, and that while you sit in your room sobbing to sad songs, good things are just around the corner.

Sometimes to be okay or get through the day you need to romanticise the simple things.

How French people say « Truuuuue »

C’est vrai = It’s true

(to exaggerate, say « c’est vraaaaaaai »)

Pas faux = Not false

(to exaggerate, say it twice)

J’avoue = I admit

(personal fav)

(to exaggerate say « j’avouuuuuue ». We say it a lot)

Ah ouais = Oh yeah

(to exaggerate, say « ah ouaaaais »)

Grave = True

(not really translatable in english but teens say it a lot)

(to exaggerate say « graaaave »)

Expressing your opinions (Spanish)

for: @91silk

Sentence starters: 

It seems to me that …-  A mí me parece que …

 In my opinion, …-  En mi opinión, …

I am of the opinion that …-  Soy de la opinión de que …

 I take the view that …-  Soy de la opinión de que …

My personal view is that …-  Mi opinión personal es que …

In my experience …-  En mi experiencia …

As far as I understand…-  Por lo que yo entiendo …

 As far as I can see…-  Por lo que yo puedo ver …

 As I see it, …-  Como yo lo veo, …

 From my point of view…-  Desde mi punto de vista …

 As far as I know…-  Por lo que yo sé …

 From what I know …-  Por lo que sé …

 I might be wrong but …-  Puedo estar equivocado, pero …

 If I am not mistaken …-  Si no me equivoco …

 I believe one can safely say …-  Creo que se puede decir con seguridad …

It is claimed that …-  Se dice que …

I must admit that …-  Tengo que admitir que …

 I cannot deny that …-  No puedo negar que …

 I can imagine that …-  Me imagino que …

 I think/believe/suppose …-  Creo / creo / supongo …

 Personally, I think …-  Personalmente, creo que …

That is why I think …-  Es por eso que creo que …

 I am sure/certain/convinced that …-  Estoy seguro / seguro / convencido de que …

 I am not sure/certain, but …-  No estoy seguro / seguro, pero …

 I am not sure, because I don’t know the situation exactly.-  No estoy seguro, porque no conozco la situación exacta.

I am not convinced that …-  No estoy convencido de que …

 I have read that …-  He leído que …

 I am of mixed opinions about …-  Tengo una opinión mixta sobre …

 I am of mixed opinions about on this.-  Tengo opiniones variadas sobre esto…

I have no opinion in this matter.-  No tengo ninguna opinión al respecto.   

I believe that…- creo que…

I think that…- pienso que…

I think that…- opino que…

I think that…- me parece que… 

Questions:

what do you think about…?/ what’s your opinion about…?-  ¿Qué opinas de…?

what do you believe about…?- ¿Qué crees de…?

what do you think about…?-  ¿Qué piensas de…?

what do you think about…?-  ¿Qué te parece…?

Useful Phrases:

I like- me gusta

I prefer- prefiero

I love- me encanta 

I don’t like- no me gusta

odio- I hate

detesto- I hate

de acuerdo- alright

vale- okay, fine

estoy de acuerdo- I agree

no estoy de acuerdo- I do not agree

de ninguna manera- no way 

Adjectives that can be useful when giving your opinion:

Aburrido/a-Boring

Afortunado/a-Lucky

Antiguo/a-Old

Barato/a-Cheap

Bueno/a-Good

Caro/a-Expensive

Decepcionante-Disappointing

Desagradable-Unpleasant

Difícil-Difficult

Distincto-Different/distinct

Duro/a-Hard/difficult

Emocionante-Exciting

Entretenido/a-Entertaining

Espléndido/a-Splendid

Estúpido/a-Stupid

Extraordinario/a-Extraordinary

Famoso/a-Famous

Fascinante-Fascinating

Favorable-Favourable

Fenomenal-Great

Genial-Brilliant/great

Horroroso/a-Terrible/awful

Importante-Important

Impresionante-Amazing/incredible

Inseguro/a-Insecure

Inútil-Useless

Malo/a-Bad

Moderno/a-Modern

Nuevo/a-New

Posible-Possible

Precioso/a-Lovely/beautiful

Profundo/a-Deep/profound

Regular-Regular/average

Seguro/a-Sure/secure

Sorprendido/a-Surprised

Tonto/a-Silly/stupid

Único/a-Unique/only

Aceptable-Acceptable

Agradable-Pleasant

Apropiado/a-Suitable

Bonito/a-Pretty

Decepcionado/a-Disappointed

Desafortunadamente-Unfortunately

Diferente-Different

Divertido/a-Fun/entertaining/funny

Económico/a-Economical

Encantador-Charming/delightful

Especial-Special

Estupendo/a-Great

Excelente-Excellent

Fácil-Easy

Fantástico/a-Fantastic

Fatal-Awful

Favorito/a-Favourite

Feo/a-Ugly

Hermoso/a-Beautiful/lovely

Ideal-Ideal

Imposible-Impossible

Increíble-Incredible

Interesante-Interesting

Malo/a-Bad

Maravilloso/a-Marvelous/wonderful

Negativo/a-Negative

Perfecto/a-Perfect

Positivo/a-Positive

Preferido/a-Preferred/favourite

Raro/a-Strange

Ridículo/a-Ridiculous

Sencillo/a-Simple/modest

Típico/a-Typical

Tranquilo/a-Quiet/calm

Útil-Useful

Viejo/a-Old

Agreeing politely

¡Totalmente! — Totally!

Estoy (completamente/totalmente) de acuerdo — I (completely/totally) agree

Estoy contigo — I’m with you on that

Por supuesto — Of course!

Tienes razón — You’re right

Disagreeing politely

No estamos de acuerdo — I don’t agree with you

No lo veo (tan) así — I don’t (really) see it like that

No creo — I don’t think so

Saying you’re unsure or showing partial agreement

Estoy de acuerdo hasta un cierto punto — I agree with you up to a point

Tal vez, pero… — Maybe, but…

No estoy muy segura/o — I’m not really sure

Nunca lo pensé — I’ve never thought about it

No tengo la menor idea — I have no idea

If there’s any questions about any of this, let me know!

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

Korean resources masterpost updated

Online resources Korean Class 101 How To Study Korean Sogang Korean course Introduction to Korean (Futurelearn) First Step Korean (Coursera) Talk To Me In Korean Naver dictionary 90 Day Korean blog Intermediate College Korean Naver web novels Naver webtoons Pronunciation Korean pronunciation guide for IPA Forvo for typing in a word Articles, videos or posts Korean false friends Korean slang Easily confused Korean words Lingodeer app review YouTube Channels Natalia Garza (teaching Korean through Kpop) Korean Unnie TTMIK Go! Billy Korean Minji Teaches Korean Conversational Korean KoreanClass101 Shameless self promotion of my own channel  Other blogs Hangukdrama Shining Korean Korean Language Notes Korean Grammar Differently Meloncreme Podcasts, radio and music KBS World Let’s Learn Korean Stream Korean radio Podbbang KBS News app Red Book Cafe My Kpop playlist on Spotify My K-indie playlist on Spotify My K-Rap and Hip Hop playlist on Spotify

How I prepped for the academic job market

I am by no means an expert on academic jobs just because I now (miraculously?) have one. But I have been told that I am organized, and, yes, that is because being an anxious person sometimes means having a system for everything. So before I totally bury all memories of the academic job market, I thought I would put together a timeline of some of the things I did to get ready to search for academic jobs…

My to-do list started very informally in the first year of my PhD program. I know that sounds over-the-top-early but the job market takes a lot of work. Checking things off one at a time helped me to feel in control. Here’s how I prepared for the academic job market as a PhD student:

Year 1

Do research that excites you: Enthusiasm for my research ended up being my momentum through a lot of the hard stuff that came later. Try to set yourself up to do the research that you want to do right away. This might include some trial-and-error and trying out different topics until you find the one.

Read The Professor is In: My MA advisor insisted I read this the summer before I started the PhD and, as always, she was totally right. When I told other grad students I had read a book about how tough the job market is they either said “I don’t need to read that yet” or “I don’t want to know how bad it is.” Ummmm…denial is not a good strategy. Knowing what you’re getting into is a good strategy. Even though the information about prepping job market materials was not yet relevant, having a framework for what would be evaluated helped me to define my grad school goals.

Year 2

Write papers that help you figure out your research area: I was pretty bad at this in my MA (I wrote papers about everythingggg). It’s ok to spend some time exploring topics, but once I had a topic area, I tried to use grad seminar papers to narrow in on that topic. This involved writing some papers that ended up being duds, and some that ended up being important parts of my dissertation. This leads to…

Ask about publishing: In seminars, I tried to have meetings with professors where I told them I wanted an academic job and needed experience publishing. They were usually willing to help develop seminar papers that had (somewhat?) original arguments in them, which is necessary for publishing. I was also not afraid to ask for lots of publishing help–how does it work? where should I submit this? can I use a cover letter you have written as a template? Publishing is confusing and took me a while to get used to.

Network smarter, not harder: This was the year I realized that going to giant conferences and hoping to meet people who did similar things was just not working. I reassessed and submitted to several smaller conferences that had the explicit goal of having senior faculty mentor grad students. It was amazing! First, these conferences were genuinely helpful, second, they were genuinely…genuine. I didn’t feel that I had to do any super fake networking anymore because I was really there to have conversations that developed my research.

Year 3

Read job postings: If your discipline has a listserv, subscribe, if not, check out the InsideHigherEd job postings. Note any trends in hiring. I don’t think you can totally pivot toward every job (duh) but you can think about how to make your application more friendly to what everyone seems to want. In my case, people who teach organizational communication were often also being asked to teach several other classes, so I made sure to ask to teach one of those so it would be on my record before the job market.

Submit, submit, submit: This is the year I got the most journal submissions under review. Some got accepted, some got (mega) rejected. Most needed several rounds of hardcore revisions that took 12-14 months. Submitting in year 3 gave me time to do those revisions so that I could use the articles as writing samples on applications.

Year 4

Prep materials: I drew on as many resources as possible to prep my job market materials–career services helped with my CV, our graduate teaching program on campus helped me writing my teaching and diversity statements, I asked recent graduates for example cover letters, my advisor read and edited cover letters, my DAD read and edited cover letters (what can I say he loves helping with grammar). It takes a village. Use the village. Oh, now is also a good time to reread TPII book for tips on writing decent materials.

Get organized: I had a spreadsheet where I put all of the relevant job information, especially deadlines, keywords, and information about each department.

Ask your letter writers: I did this in August. I also made them all a “job application digest”–just a word document with all of the jobs I submitted to and some notes about what I had said in my cover letter, so they could tailor rec letters.

Throw yourself at your dissertation: Every interview asked how I was planning to finish the dissertation. Making real progress made this question much easier. I definitely lost myself to the job market for a solid month in November. Then, I realized that my dissertation was the only thing I had control over. So I got back to work.

And here are some other resources that I also enjoyed reading:

Thoughts on diversity statements: What the heck even are they?, plus thoughts on the hidden curriculum of college and designing inclusive teaching on campus (Ps don’t just use these to write a diversity statement use them to actually do work in your classroom and campus environment so that what you write on your diversity statement is genuine).

A breakdown on cover letters

Another great post on the job hunt

Campus visit small talk

This post originally appeared on my WordPress

---

a collection of some of my favorite jonghyun quotes

for anyone who might need him right now.

• “time goes by. it’s just slower when you are having a hard time. if you try to enjoy the time, everything will be alright.”

• “there’s no such thing as useless emotion.”

• “it’s fine if you hurt a little. it’s fine if you fall.”

• “even if you don’t gain strength today, it’s alright to gain strength even tomorrow. i wanted to say that it’s okay, even if you have been worn out and had a hard time for as long as a month. please gain strength tomorrow! it’ll be fine as long as you gain strength when you feel like it.”

• “i’ll make everyone a promise. when you’re sad, i’ll cry together with you. if you’re happy, i’ll be even happier for you. i will do anything using my small, little effort to stand beside everone.”

• “cry out loud once. look at the mirror and shake it off. i’ve cried like that before and others will have times like that too. cheer up, you’re not alone.”

• “i think it’s okay to feel lost in your life. i think it’s okay to not reach that final goal (in your life). you may earn things while being lost or could make something out of it through the emotions you feel. i think it should be your judgement. you don’t have to make someone else judge the satisfaction of your life. i hope that you don’t feel too anxious about feeling lost in your life.”

• “when your tears are falling, just let them shed. i wish you’ll think of it as if that weight inside your heart is getting out of your body drop by drop.”

• “is there anyone out there that is crying alone tonight? not crying out of pity for something or someone, but instead because they cannot help asking why they are living in the way that they are? is there anyone that is feeling sentimental or guilty, needlessly? don’t be like that. i hope that you believe that these bitter days of crying alone will prove to be the most beautiful days of your life. you’ll realize, with time, that your life is actually pretty alright. i promise you. in fact, i’ll write you a guarantee! the most beautiful thing in all the world is right now. this moment. you. don’t ever forget that.”

• “life is a series of encounters and farewells. i believe we grow in the process. for now, it is very sad but we will meet again. we can hope for that day to come soon, and we will be able to greet each other with (a) much bigger welcome.”

---

Boost your Spanish with more complex synonyms for words you already know

Here you have some words/expressions (in bold) that you can use to show off while speaking Spanish. A native will know them, but if you use these you will impress them. Also, in your writings these words will look quite good. NOTE: Some of them are quite formal and not used in conversations.

similar - semejante, afín, cercano, aproximado, símil, parecido (adj.) (similar)

parecerse - asemejarse, semejar, darse un aire, recordar a (to resemble)

divertido - ameno, entretenido (adj.) (fun)

difícil - peliagudo, arduo, espinoso (adj.) (difficult)

fácil - sencillo, factible (adj.) (easy)

empezar - emprender (to begin)

terminar - concluir, ultimar, finiquitar (to finish)

la misión -  la empresa, el cometido, la tarea, la labor, el quehacer  (mission, duty)

caro - costoso, prohibitivo (adj.) (expensive)

barato - asequible, económico (adj.) (cheap)

distraer, desentender, simular - hacerse el sueco (expression, lit.

to do the Swedish. To avoid doing something that you must do)

enfermo - aquejado, indispuesto, alicaído (adj.) (sick, ill)

la historia - el cuento, la leyenda, la fábula (story, tale)

el cotilleo - chisme, chismorreo, enredo (gossip)

aprender - cultivarse, formarse, educarse, empollar (to learn)

gustar - cautivar, embelesar (to like)

saber - estar al corriente, estar al tanto (to know about something)

siempre - perpetuamente, constantemente, continuamente (always)

malo - diabólico, maléfico, maldito, ruin, infame, sinvergüenza, insolente, maligno, malicioso, depravado, inmoral, pérfido (adj.) (bad, as in “a bad person”)

malo - nocivo, dañino, perjudicial, nefasto (adj.) (bad)

comprar - adquirir, obtener (to buy)

la tienda -el comercio, el establecimiento, el negocio, la botica (shop)

continuar -prorrogar, prolongar, preservar, aguantar, proseguir (to continue)

buscar - indagar, rebuscar, escudriñar, revolver (to search)

contestar - objetar, contradecir, rebatir, refutar, rechazar, disputar, discutir, argüir (to reply, as in refute)

abandonar - marcharse, desaparecer, largarse, ausentarse (to abandon, as in “to leave a place”)

feliz - radiante, contento, risueño, campante (adj.) (happy)

triste - afligido, apenado, desconsolado, abatido, entristecido, apesumbrado, desolado, deshecho, desamparado, mustio, taciturno, tristón (adj.) - sad

antipático - desagradable, enojoso, aguafiestas, pesado (adj.) (obnoxious)

la ciudad - la urbe, la localidad, el municipio, la población

 (city)

el país - la nación, la patria, el pueblo, el estado (country)

la familia - la estirpe, el linaje (family)

los padres - los progenitores, los ascendientes, los antecesores (parents)

la casa - el domicilio, la vivienda, la residencia, la morada, el inmueble, la edificación (house)

Your kindness should always include yourself.

in this house we do grandma activities