Languages
Listening in a language you are learning
Listening is the skill learners find hardest and practise least, and the gap has specific causes.
Mei-Lin Chow
27 articles by Chow
Languages
Reading in another language
Reading is the most efficient source of vocabulary available, and most learners do it in the way that works least well.
Languages
Keeping a language you already have
Languages fade without use, and maintaining one is a different task from learning it.
Writing
Writing that persuades
Argument on the page follows different rules from argument in conversation, and the main one is about what you concede.
Languages
Speaking a language badly on purpose
Waiting until you are ready to speak is the most common way to never speak, and there is a case for the opposite.
Languages
Choosing which language to learn
The wrong reason to pick a language is usefulness in the abstract, and the right one is more personal.
Writing
Writing to complain effectively
Complaints that work are calm, specific and state exactly what would resolve the matter.
Writing
Plain English
The case for plain language is practical rather than aesthetic, and the changes involved are a short list.
Conversation
Being interrupted
Interruption is unevenly distributed, and there are techniques for both ends of it.
Languages
Grammar and how much it matters
Learners over-study it and under-use it, and the research on how it is acquired suggests a different balance.
Writing
Editing someone else
Editing another person is a relationship as much as a craft, and most of the damage is done by editors improving prose that was fine.
Storytelling
Metaphor and when it helps
Metaphors do not decorate an explanation — they determine how the listener reasons about it, which is why the wrong one is expensive.
Conversation
Saying no
The difficulty is not the word but the sentence around it, and there is a form that works.
Languages
Translation and what gets lost
The idea that translation is word substitution survives contact with almost no actual translation.
Languages
Learning vocabulary that stays
Forgetting is the default and the methods that beat it are well established and mostly unused.
Writing
Writing under a deadline
The blank page problem is a planning failure rather than a creative one, and it has practical solutions.
Languages
Why adults think they are bad at languages
The belief that children learn languages effortlessly and adults cannot does not survive contact with the evidence.
Writing
Finding your written voice
Voice is not a decoration applied to writing — it is what remains when the borrowed habits are removed.
Writing
Reports and documents people actually read
Most business documents are written in the order they were researched, which is the wrong order entirely.
Storytelling
Explaining complicated things simply
A good explanation has a shape, and finding it is a matter of technique rather than talent.
Conversation
Interviewing someone well
Whether for a job, a podcast or an article, the skill is the same and it is mostly about the questions you did not plan.
Languages
Practising a language without leaving home
Immersion is a set of activities rather than a location, and most of them are available anywhere.
Writing
Writing for a general audience
The curse of knowledge makes expert writing incomprehensible, and the cure is specific rather than a matter of trying harder.
Writing
Emails that get answered
Most unanswered emails failed at the subject line or asked for nothing specific.
Languages
Learning a language as an adult
Adults have advantages children do not, and the methods that work are different from school language teaching.
Writing
Editing your own writing
The problem is that you know what you meant, which makes your own errors invisible.
Writing
Writing that people actually read
Most professional writing is skimmed at best, which changes what good writing means.