Friday Links

From the Web

Accent and empathy for other cultures – The Linguist is my favorite resource for language learning tips. Here, Steve discusses whether your accent is partially due to your empathy with another culture. More than just mouthing the words, speaking a different language involves adopting another way of speaking, and indeed, thinking about things.

In case you weren’t cynical about self-help already… – Maybe this is part of the reason I enjoy reading self-help blogs, but not as many self-help books.

Avoid advice from meta-careerists – Another entry from Ben. I completely agree, I don’t like listening to bloggers whose only successful blog is about blogging. I try to avoid the temptation of writing too much about blogging, writing or microentrepreneurship.

From the Archives

Don’t Confuse a Degree with Learning – “I’m worried when people start equating what degree they want with what they want to learn. To me this says that the major motivation in learning for most people comes from reaching some external benchmark. Although this may be a worthy goal, I think it drains away the intrinsic desire to learn.”