Prolific Living

language

Episode 74: Learning Foreign Languages with Mark Pentleton

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Welcome back to Episode #74 of The Daily Interaction podcast. Happy New Year 2013! How is the beginning of this year so far? I hope it’s been fantastic for you. Speaking of new beginnings, this episode kicks off our Interactive Interview Series where I interview people who have either improved their own communication skills so drastically that it has changed their lives – for the better of course! – or people who have contributed massively to the world of communication and for the rest of us. The interviews will air on every other podcast, and this is our first one! [Read more…] about Episode 74: Learning Foreign Languages with Mark Pentleton

10 Smart Questions to Ask before Choosing your Next Language

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Lost in Japan Kanji Signs
Learning is exhilarating. Learning is rewarding. Learning is the best path to discovering who we are. We do not realize this until much later in life and often when we are conveniently out of school and have placed ourselves inconveniently in a rat race for survival but thanks to Google and technology, we can learn anywhere, anytime and on any subject under the sun to our heart’s content.

Learning is at the foundation of cultivating zen habits and discovering our best self in the process. We learn, we change. We learn, we grow. We learn, we realize our mistakes. We learn, we appreciate. We learn, we can teach others. We learn, we do things better. We learn, we open to new experiences. We learn and only then do we live fully.

And we don’t learn, we age. We don’t learn, we slow down. We don’t learn, we fester. We don’t learn, we forget. We don’t learn, we lose excitement for life. We don’t learn, we lose purpose for living. So never, ever let the wheels of learning stop from turning.

Speaking of learning [Read more…] about 10 Smart Questions to Ask before Choosing your Next Language

A Transfer of Passion: How I Fell in Love with French

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French Dictionary Quote
Sometimes, a small action on the part of one can instill a lifetime of pursuit and passion on the part of another. The occasion may come about as ordinarily as is passing of the hours in a day and this transformation of grand measures may be as transparent as shining glass between the two people in question. Yet the powerful impact of this small action is undiminished. The small action on my mind is my grandfather’s last conversations with me in Turkey and this gift of a lifetime was the transfer of his love of that most exquisite language of all, French, to me.

During Iran’s better days, I had been admitted to the L’École Française in Tehran at the ripe age of 3 but then the 1979 Iranian revolution came about and put a damper on my education by shutting down anything foreign, civilized and educational. Revolutions of this kind are a master at ruining dreams and plans. It is thus that my mom’s dream of me learning to speak French early on with a Parisienne accent went up in flames overnight.

She may have managed to get over it. I did not. [Read more…] about A Transfer of Passion: How I Fell in Love with French