Learning Languages in Society with Gabi.
Learning Languages in society with Gabi is your podcasting and blogging go-to resource especially designed for advanced language learners like you so that you can feel better integrated in a new linguistic and social environment with the help of sociolinguistics.
By listening to this podcast you will:
1. Find useful tips to keep up the high level you have achieved in your favorite languages and brush up on your language skills.
2. Learn how to decode the linguistic and cultural intricacies of our societies so you can deepen your knowledge of the culture whose language you are studying and become part of that new society.
3. Learn about what the science of linguistics is and its different constituents.
4. Learn interesting facts about foreign language acquisition.
5. Listen to interesting interviews with multilingual guests and learn about their work.
6. Learn about the benefits of mindfulness meditation to learning and using a new language in public.
7. Learn about the medical benefits to learn new languages.
8. Learn about the migrations and history of people whose languages have had an influence on the local languages we speak today and realize you are also making history.
Don't forget to check the transcripts available of the podcast and the blog
https://learninglanguagesinsocietywithgabi.com/podcast-transcripts/
https://learninglanguagesinsocietywithgabi.com/blog
Learning Languages in Society with Gabi.
#007 - Can mindfulness meditation help you learn a language? Say what!?
#007 - In this short episode, Gabi explores a few ideas associated with concentration and mindfulness meditation. He explains this practice is all too relevant in order to learn a new skill. Don't miss it!
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Hi everyone! Welcome to my show. My name is Gabi and today we’re going to have a slightly different kind of episode. Today we’re going to speak about mindfulness and why it is relevant as a tool to learn a new language.
I, myself, have been practicing mindfulness meditation for about two years and a half.
Today, I posted a new article on my website about the topic of learning a new skill, in this case, a new language, with the help of a technique that is many times overlooked. We’re talking about mindfulness meditation practice.
I thought that it would be a good idea to clarify in a new episode on my podcast as well why I think it is a good practice to take into account in order to learn any new skill, including a new language.
There is a fuzzy concatenation of different concepts and ideas related to the world of mindfulness such as awareness, concentration, living in the present moment, awakening and so on.
People use these terms interchangeably and sometimes this could be confusing.
A bit of history here:
The Buddhist term we use in English as mindfulness has its origin in the Pāli term sati and in Sanskrit smṛti. This term could be roughly translated in English as remembering or recollection. In the sense that you collect yourself, your thoughts and ideas, and recall or remember what your own priorities are.
In the Satipațțhāna-sutta the term sati means to maintain awareness of reality, whereby the true nature of phenomena can be seen. the Satipațțhāna-sutta is one of the most celebrated discourses in the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism, which is, in turn, the foundation for contemporary vipassanā meditational practice.
Mindfulness is a kind of an awareness of what you are paying attention to. And attention is its own thing, attention is like a limelight you place on the object of consciousness you want. In mindfulness meditation we often speak about objects of consciousness which include the breath, sensations in the body such as itching or back pain, or the sounds you hear from the world around you, for example, the sound of birds chirping in the trees, cars outside in the streets, dogs barking out and so on.
As you make progress in the practice you start noticing that in fact you happen to be lost in your own thoughts most of the time you are awake. You happen to realize that the reality that you live in isn’t exactly real, but it is more a kind of dreamlike state of mind. An interpretation of reality. Your own bias. The glasses with which you see the world. Your past experiences, happy and sad moments, your traumas and dreams sculpt your reality.
However, if you take a closer look at those past experiences, you will soon realize that these are just mere thoughts. Mere attempts to explain the world. Imperfect attempts that is. Thoughts aren’t real in the sense that they are merely electric impulse from your own neurons. They simply aren’t objective reality. You start to realize that thoughts, as well as emotions, sensations and sounds appear in your mind by themselves. You do not create your own thoughts. They simply appear and vanish. This means that there is no thinker of thoughts. There is no one thinking them, they merely appear in consciousness.
As you practice more and more, you start becoming curious about this new world that is opening before your eyes. You get less and less distracted by thought each time. Your mind becomes very quiet, the sense of Self disappears, and consciousness starts to become alive somehow. You are no longer bouncing around in distress by your own thoughts, but somehow you merge with consciousness.
This discovery alone triggers great insights into the nature of consciousness and the concentration you start to have in order to achieve your own goals becomes greater each time and it starts enabling you to focus more and more deeply on your own studying of language.
This is just a short episode, but I thought it’d be good to include it here.
Thank you bye-bye and don’t forget to subscribe.