It’s now been over a month since Vat and I returned from Korea and ended the year without English. Now is the most sensitive time for determining whether I can maintain the ability to speak Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese and Korean, so I wanted to share my plan. If you learn something quickly you also forget […]
Why Learn “Useless” Things?
Early on when Vat and I were learning Korean, he complained to me about a vocabulary list he was learning from. The list had intermediate-level words such as “technique” and “to brighten” to which Vat said, “when am I ever going to use these words?” The complaint was a fair one, we were still in […]
Korean Final Update
Last week, Vat and I left Korea and ended this year without English. I’ve already written an article summarizing the entire trip. I had hoped to put up the Korean final update first, but we had some delays processing the interviews (unfortunately only one is ready now, so the other will have to wait until […]
Looking Back at a Year (Almost) Without English
A few days ago I came back to Vancouver, marking the end of this project Vat and I started over a year ago. Together we lived in Spain, Brazil, China and Korea, all while trying to speak as little English as possible. In this post, I’m going to recap the successes and stumbles of the […]
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.