A little less than three months ago today, I arrived with my friend Vat with very limited Spanish, with the goal of not speaking English for our entire stay. The challenge was an experiment: would it be possible to get by with no English even though our Spanish was rudimentary? And more, how much could […]
How Do You Learn a New Language, Without Forgetting the Old One?
The biggest difficulty I had when learning Spanish was, perhaps surprisingly, speaking French. I had learned French to conversational fluency before learning Spanish. However, as my Spanish got better, I found it made speaking French much harder. The problem got so bad, that after only a week or two in Spain, I could speak better […]
Should I Have Done the MIT Challenge Over 4 Years?
One critique I got of the MIT Challenge was that I should have taken the classes over the normal four years, instead of twelve months. The naïve version of this critique was to argue that I should do the classes the way MIT students do—full time over a period of four years. But this criticism […]
How to Learn Boring Subjects
Last week I did a post on mistakes learners make. One of the biggest? Believing a subject is intrinsically boring. When you’ve decided something you have to learn is boring, that makes every attempt to learn it harder. You’ll want to study boring subjects less. Worse, when you do study, you’ll remember less. Our brains […]
I'm a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, podcast host, computer programmer and an avid reader. Since 2006, I've published weekly essays on this website to help people like you learn and think better. My work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, TEDx, Pocket, Business Insider and more. I don't promise I have all the answers, just a place to start.