There's that show The First 48 Hours where they say if detectives can't find a suspect in the first 48 hours, the chances of them ever finding the suspect goes way down. I've had this idea that if I'm not expressing thoughts and conversing in the first (insert amount of time), the chances of ever conversing goes way down. With that in mind, this video demonstrates one way to spend the first 15 minutes: asking ChatGPT to generate a question, and then breaking that question down into 'buttons' that let you 'play' the language like a keyboard. The language I'm using to demonstrate the concept is Bosnian which was a random request from a viewer, and works well because I didn't know anything about Bosnian. The idea here is that even if you're past your first "48 hours" in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, etc., it's not too late to start your first 48 hours over again approaching the language this way. The PDF version of the Bosnian 'control panel' is downloadable in this post to the right of the video.

Hoy es la festival del hielo en mi pueblo. Hace mucho frío pero hace soleado. En nuestros inviernos, el sol es poco frecuente. Aquí hay algunas fotos de mi esposa y yo y un breve video sobre la escultura en hielo. Hubo un paseo en carreta tirada por caballos y un juego de Cornhole. Cornhole es muy popular en Michigan.

Much as I love the French idiom l learned this week, it is not something I would ever say. In letting go of feeling I had to find some way I could use it, and staying true to myself, I created space in my brain to have a glooooooorious study fun time this morning. I have avoided "en" in French when it is used for "of it", "from it" or "about it." Why? Because I knew how much it was used and how important it was. Ohm. The brain sometimes! So, I played with Chat this morning to find ways I can use it in some of my language islands (subjects I would ask about and talk about, that mean something to me). And triple treats because, in doing this, I also learned "En profiter pour"- a fixed language chunk I can play with in multiple islands - and that when I first started French in June i avoided "Je souhaite". I would be too scared to say it because it looked so difficult; I am very aural so I didn't really like that it sounded like the English word "sweat"; didn't learn it, and ran away from it every time it appeared. It was a wonderful progress party wow moment this morning to see that, with more foundation and vocabulary now than I had when I started, I just embraced it like any other word in French. Woohooooooooooooooooo. You never know when the magic will appear.

This week I learned a French idiom meaning to make a big deal out of something, or blow things out of proportion etc. It is "En faire tout en fromage" which literally translated means to make a big cheese out of something. How cute is that? The richness of French culture in the idiom AND humour. Yes, please! I had an immediate image of a giant cheese with little legs. And I love the English idiom for the same thing, "Make a mountain out of a molehill" because I always visualised a little mole peeping over the top of a mountain. And this evening I thought I was a cake when an Italian woman said I was a "persona deliziosa". My native English brain took it literally. I can´t wait to say the same thing to one of my closest friends, yet I have to wait, because it is a surprise for her birthday that I will - hopefully - be speaking to her entirely in Italian on her birthday. She doesn´t know I am learning. One minute I am terrified, the next minute I am excited. In case I freeze and forget, I am writing the phrase down so I can at least read that to her from the page ... or just hand it to her and cry because, hey, gratitude for people makes me cry.

🇲🇽 ¿Cuál es tu juego de mesa favorito? 🇧🇷 Qual é o seu jogo de tabuleiro favorito? 🇸🇦 ما هي لعبتك اللوحية المفضلة؟ Answers in all languages are welcome.