Why I started learning Spanish

In 2019, I sat down at a coffee shop and penciled out a two-year plan. My goal? To be able to converse fluently in spanish and travel to Central and South America. The original plan was to visit mexico this year, but with Covid, this was not possible – 2020 is nearly finished and I have hit the halfway point.

I am sharing my thoughts with you today on why i started learning, ways I am practicing and how you can succesfully learn another langauge.

How did i start?

I explored Argentina in 2019 and discovered that it was a wonderful place – a different culture to my home country and i felt handicapped because i could not speak spanish. And hence I could not fully comprehend the culture. It appeared that there was alot of latin america travel going on.

I believe that learning another language helps to create associations in your mind (neural pathways) between similar items. Nowadays I can often think of the spanish words instead of their english equivalents.

Recognised school vs Italki

From the onset my goal was to speak as much as possible. A school class costs ~$400 per term for 10 x 2hr lessons which equates to $20 per hour of contact time. However, please note that this time is shared between a class of say 5, so in reality you will only get 20% of this time with the teacher. Also note that if we take the time to travel to/from class ~say 30 minutes. We have spent 3hrs to get 24 minutes of speaking time with the teacher = 24/180 = 13%

Italki Spanish classes (amateur teachers from Colombia) cost an average of $13per hour. There is no need to travel ~ lessons are from the confort of your room. For a 1hr lesson, you are likely at 55minutes of contact time. This is a 92% return of time used to learn spanish.

The clear winner is taking italki classes – a school class is only beneficial if you are in need of making friends. We do not advocate doing language exchange because, even though it is free, it takes time to find a partner and then you need to do a 1:1 time exchange for english. So we take this as less than 50% return of time.

How to maximise your contact hours

We watched a spanish learning video from a ‘polygot’ and essentially what we want to be doing is communicating in our target language – Spanish. What do we mean by communicating? The other person understand what we are trying to say.

There is no point learning grammar etc because your vocabulary is so small that it handicaps you. Try saying I went to bed early in Spanish. You could use proper vocab or you could say bed (cama) and early (temprano) and then some hand actions. The other person would understand.

We want to be mimicking how a baby learns because that’s where we all get started. So pick up a magazine, look at pictures and start describing what is going on in the scene!

If you liked this post I have started up a website http://5percentaday.com/ . Click on the link to find out more!

I bought the Timbuk 2 spire laptop bag – and here are my 2 cents

I have had this bag for 4 months now, and I will share with you my thoughts. If you are on the look out for a new bag i would recommend. Here i list the main features and what i thought about it.

• the bag has a separate zip at the back for only your laptop. Very handy for travelling through security at the airport and quick access
• the roll top at the top with a single hook. Roll top’s are good in case it rains, protects the zippers from egres. They are also convenient if i had some bulky goods ie a jacket or neck pillow. I chose this bag versus the rougue laptop bag because it only had one hook while the rougue laptop has two. Double the work! The hook was easy to put on stayed in place
• material was good and the bag was waterproof
•  water bottle pocket. For me any new bag i have this is a must have. Makes carrying water so much easier without having to sacrifice 600mL inside the bag.
• front mesh – useful for adding that extra bit of carrying capacity. I have a D-ring hooked up just in case.

Finding my Teochew roots – My thoughts on visiting ancestral hometown Shantou

What to see

What to do

Where to stay??

One bag carry for backpacking

This post will detail my recent lessons learnt from my 2 week trip to Argentina and Brazil in September 2019 and Myanmar Vietnam in 2018.

First we should look at the requirements for multi-destination trips.

Considerations for multi-point trips

1. Weight (under 1.7kg)
2. Comfort (chest strap, waist strap)
3. Convenience (large space, laptop easy access, drink bottle, smaller)
4. Protection (Material thickness, waterproofing)
5. Aesthetics (does it look good)
6. Zippers (YKK)

Destination: Travel to Argentina and Brazil (Hot Weather)

Carry: 45L Carry-on roller  x  30L Timbuk2 Spire Laptop backpack

The idea for this combination was to put clothes etc into the roller and use the backpack for the expensive stuff. This was to be more free while travelling. Having a 46L backpack on your back is expecially restrictive, and since I was travelling to more ‘dangerous’ places I thought this would be better.

A cheap roller ($50 from Big W) and a new 30L Timbuk 2 backpack ($160)

Pros

Roller definitely lessons your load while in transit so you are not walking around with 15kgs on your backside. Problem is the whether the footpath is flat and even, which South American footpaths are not. I ended up carrying the roller most of the time.

Roll top on the Timbuk2 really a great plus, allowed me to store my neck wrest and jacket where required without adding to the bulk of the bag.

Cons

The biggest problem with this combination is weight. My carry did not come under airline carry-on policies. The general rule here on South American carriers is (GOL,AA, LATAM, Norweigen) is 10kg.

Suffice to say, my bags did not come under the travel limits. I packed my bags close to their volume and my total weight was approximately 8kg (roll on) + 7kg (backpack). This included a SurfacePro laptop. The problem with this is that the rolling suitcase minimum weights are going to be 2.7kg

• Ospray Fairpoint 40L = 1.4kg
• Timbuk2 Wander Backpack duffle = 1.7kg
• Timbuk2 copilot luggage roller 42L = 3.4kg
• Wandred HEXAD 40L = 1.8kg

Luckily for me, they did not weigh any of my bags and it seemed that there was fairly loose checking on the stewardess part. Just make sure you arrive at the gate early to get the space in the overhead compartment. I presume this is because the flights are not ‘budget’ airlines and were partial service (drinks were provided).

Air New Zealand (and generally Australian) carriers have a limit of 7kg for carry on. I have found that they do not generally weigh backpack looking bags but will weigh suitcases.

How about getting around? Most of the my travel from destination was with Taxi/Ubers so there was not alot of walking around point to point, like say you would in Japan. The footpaths in Brazil were not flat and it was difficult to roll at times. Argentina was a bit better but I encountered the same problems

Developing country = Back pack, Developed country = consider roller

Matching carry to the weather. The Spire2 Backpack selected was a bit too ‘heavy’ for the tropical destination and since it was black did not match the aesthetics. Much more suited for cold weather climates eg. Argentina

Destination: Travel to Myanmar + Vietnam (Hot Weather)

Carry: Osprey Porter 46L backpack  x packable north face side bag

Pros

One bag travel. Comfortable with chest strap.

Cons

Ospray Porter a bit too large and therefore looked too large on my frame. I am 6ft3 89kg. My friend was travelling with the 40L Ospray fairlight and that looked alot more suitable.

Northface packable side bag for those day trip. Easily fit a water bottle and any extras. I had decided with using this over a packable backpack in hot water countries due to sweat gathering on the back.

Ospray porter lacks a laptop compartment and drink bottle. Drink bottle is great to have as it reduces the space required inside the bag for a bottle.