Often I get emails asking me how to learn better or be more productive. I can’t always give a good response. Presumably, if my articles failed to satisfy that curiosity, I don’t know how much better advice I can give to a stranger via email. But, I at least understand that desire—I write a lot […]
Fluency vs Mastery: Can You Be Fluent Without Being Good?
One of the things that surprised me the most during the year without English, was how quickly it became fairly easy and natural to live your life completely in a new language. In Spain, for instance, after a month of speaking only Spanish, it didn’t feel much more effortful than speaking English. However, after just […]
Should You Try Learning More Than One Thing at a Time?
How many different subjects should you try to learn at once? It’s obviously not impossible to learn more than one thing at a time—in school you often have to learn many different subjects simultaneously. Is there a compelling reason to stick to learning only one thing? Or will you learn more if you try to […]
Learning What Can’t Be Taught
The example most people think of for learning is school. However, I’d like to argue that many of the features of learning in school are the exception, not the rule. One example of this is that learning in school is almost always based on a standardized curriculum that teaches a heavily codified set of facts, […]