Blog

Chess Practice with Aimchess

Last April, I resumed my chess practice. This time, I decided to try Aimchess. It’s an impressive app that tailors exercises and training to your online games. By linking your accounts from platforms like Chess.com or Lichess.org, Aimchess analyzes your results and highlights areas for improvement. Even though this website is not as popular as Chess.com or Lichess, it has solid backing. Moreover, in 2021, Aimchess was acquired by Play Magnus Group, a chess company co-founded by former World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

I decided to practice throughout April and May, alternating a weekday training regimen with online Blitz games each week. In this two-month period, I played a grand total of 150 Blitz games. I won 60 games, lost 82, and drew 8. I’ll share more about my rating changes below 🤓♟️.

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Learning Thai: January-April 2023

By Walter Freiberg

This is what I wrote here four months ago (December 2022):

In December, I intend to continue working with the Thai Reading Exercises. After finishing the second book of BananaThai I will continue practicing with other similar easy readings for the rest of December. In January, I will start BananaThai’s Intensive Thai Course and after completing that, the Thai Listening Exercises. Then I would have finished all A1 and A2 resources provided by BananaThai (at the moment I’m writing this, December 2022).

What happened with my Thai studies in the firs quarter of 2023? Did I actually follow through as intended? Well… yes and now 🙃. Here’s a short summary of my Thai activities in the past few months:

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Training in Neurolanguage Coaching®

By Walter Freiberg

In December 2022 I decided to undertake a language coaching certification to continue learning and adding new tools as a coach. After researching the training options available online, I came across Rachel Paling’s website and her Neurolanguage Coaching® method. It combines neuroscience research and findings on how we learn better with principles and tools from coaching, in order to teach languages more effectively. The goal of the method is to create the best conditions for the learner to acquire a foreign language in a relaxed, efficient, and enjoyable manner.

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Your Language Learning Preferences

By Walter Freiberg

As language learners, we all have our own unique ways of learning and acquiring foreign languages. However, sometimes we may find ourselves struggling unnecessarily while learning or just feeling frustrated with our progress. In these situations, it can be helpful to take a step back and reconnect to our learning preferences to optimize our language learning journey.

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Performance-based Language Goals

By Walter Freiberg

The start of the year is our favorite time to set new language learning goals. After reflecting on the past year, we plan ahead for the next twelve months. We dream about where we’d like to be with our target language, one year from now. Most people set their goals according to the CEFR (Common European Frame of Reference for Languages). They tell themselves: ‘I’d like to reach a B2 level in Spanish’, or ‘I want to pass a C1 exam in French.’ I have set such goals for myself in the past with good results. However, this year I’m trying something different: I’m setting performance-based language goals.

When I think of language goals in terms of performance, I’m aiming at a very specific and individual result. At the end of the year, I want to be able to do X, Y, or Z in my target language. This can be more inspiring and motivating than a certificate. We will see! 😊

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Learning Thai: My Second Attempt

By Walter Freiberg

I always prefer to learn skills on the first try. But, sometimes, it doesn’t work like that. I may need a second, third, or even fourth attempt. That was my experience with the Thai language. I tried to learn it in 2020, put it on hold for a year and a half, and got back to it at the end of 2022.

When I tell others I started to learn Thai, one of the first things they ask, is: “Why are you learning Thai?”. A legitimate and important question. My short answer is: because I’m a Buddhist 🙂. Having clarity on your reasons for learning a certain language or skill turns out to be vital. And it’s not about having a good answer when others ask. It’s about you knowing why you’re doing it. What makes you want to do it? If we don’t ask ourselves why we learn what we learn, we may end up picking up languages or skills that are not entirely meaningful to us. Skills that are supposedly useful or good for us.

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