Thursday, July 31, 2025

Started: Hero of Two Worlds by Mike Duncan


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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

William posted a new video: Comparing 'The Iron Heel' With 'Lord Of The World'


In his video, William references my own review of The Iron Heel. The Youtube version of that review is posted here.

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Music Reviews Index

(Explanation at the bottom of this post).

* A Change Is Gonna Come
* Benny Goodman - All The Cats Join In
* Boney M.
* Bullfrogs and Butterflies 
* Chinese Man Ft. Bionic Man Sound - Washington Square
* David Crosby

Explanation:
I've decided to subsume my Sharing Music I Like Index into a more general Music Reviews Index.  There are a couple reasons for this:
1) Labelling these posts as "reviews" helps fit the current theme of this blog, and allows me to list these posts as one of my Reviews Indexes.
2) It also allows me to include my posts about songs or albums that were a bit more on the critical side--e.g. here, here and here.

My other review projects are comprehensive (e.g. every single book I read or movie I watch has to be reviewed).  But in this case, obviously I'm not going to attempt to review every single song I hear.  I'll just post about music as I feel like it.


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My Own Language Studies


* The Current State of My Language Studies July 28, 2025

Currently Studying

Abandoned Language Textbooks

Previous Posts About My Own Language Studies
* February 3, 2022 Vietnamese Alphabet 
* February 6, 2019 Study Vietnamese Video
* November 27, 2017 Struggling to Study Vietnamese
* October 6, 2005 Not Studying Japanese and Me
* September 10, 2005 Learning Spanish in Japan

Studying Vietnamese Playlist HERE:


My Own Language Studies Playlist HERE: 

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The New Teen Titans Volume Ten by Marv Wolfman: Book Review


Started: July 16, 2025

(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.)




My reviews of Silver Age Teen Titans books:


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I was able to read this book thanks to the Michigan statewide state-wide interlibrary loan service called MeLCat, which may be in danger thanks to a Presidential executive order.  If you, like me, enjoy using MeLCat, contact your local representatives and let them know.  

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Monday, July 28, 2025

The Current State of My Language Studies

In one episode of the TELFology podcast (I forget which exact episode) one of the TEFLologists remarks that one of the dirty little secrets of the industry is that many English teachers are very poor language learners themselves.

Alas, c'est moi, mes amis.  Despite the fact that I've studied applied linguistics and second language acquisition, and have been working for the past 24 years as a language teacher, I've always been embarrased by my own poor track record with language learning. (*1)
If I were in any other profession, I would probably just give up and find another hobby.  But I've decided that for as long as I'm a language teacher, I should also be a language learner.
When I was living in Vietnam, I focused all my energies on learning Vietnamese (*2).  I at times flirted with trying to study other languages at the same time--like I mentioned here and here--but in the end decided that living in Vietnam was the perfect time to focus all my energy on learning Vietnamese.  If I ever left Vietnam, I told myself, then I would go back and try to consolidate all the languages I'd studied.
Well, now that I've left Vietnam, that time has come.  I'm still trying to learn Vietnamese, but I also want to start relearning the other languages that I once studied.
In addition to Vietnamese, my other languages are:
* Latin--which I studied for 3 years in high school, and 2 semesters in college, and
* Japanese--I lived in Japan for 8 years, and during that time studied Japanese both independently and  through organized classes. (*3) , (*4)

My initial idea was to just concentrate on Vietnamese, Japanese and Latin.  (Three languages should be enough to keep anyone busy.)  But after some thought, I eventually decided to add one more language to the mix--I'm going to try to learn some Spanish as well. (*5) As long as I'm working in ESL in the United States, it's probably going to be useful to know some Spanish.

So, 4 languages now: Vietnamese, Japanese, Latin and Spanish.
But, the kicker is that I actually don't want to spend all day studying languages.  I have a lot of other stuff I want to spend my time on.  I want to continue my project of reading through the classics, and also my reading for professional development.  I  want to keep working on my story.   I want to keep up my Youtube channel, which also includes finishing off my scripted reviews project.  I also have a wife I need to pay attention to, and two children I need to raise.  And as I've been discovering since I've moved back to America, there's endless amounts of things to sort out regarding life in America (school enrollments, insurance coverage, taxes, etc)

So, my goal is to come up with a system where I can study each language a little bit each day, but not have it take over all my free time.
Duolingo is the obvious choice, since this is exactly what duolingo was designed for.  And I have already started studying all 4 languages on duolingo--my target is at least one lesson a day for each of these languages.

However, as I've discovered, while duolingo is very convenient, it is not by itself sufficient to learn a language.  
So, for Vietnamese, I have long been supplementing duolingo with extra practice on quizlet.  I've been using this quizlet set to review all the Vietnamese vocabulary I learned on Duolingo.  And when it got full (quizlet has a limit of 2000 words for a vocabulary set), I started a second quizlet.  I also use a smaller quizlet of just 25 words to review vocabulary that I'm having a particularly difficult time with.  (I add and delete words from this smaller set daily, depending on which words I need to focus on more at that moment.)
And, because the Vietnamese duolingo course doesn't give grammar explanations anymore, I also decided to supplement my Vietnamese studies with a grammar book: Essential Vietnamese Grammar by Tri C. Tran--for this book I also make use of quizlet and the accompanying online audio.  

For the Latin course, Duolingo doesn't have any grammar explanation, so I have to study my Duolingo Latin studies with some textbooks.
I initially got Wheelock's Latin (which I've been studying on quizlet here), but when I found out that Wheelock's Latin was part of set of books, I purchased the others as well:
Scribblers, Sculptors, and Scribes (a companion to Wheelock's Latin), which I've been studying on quizlet here, and also the Workbook for Wheelock's Latin.

For Spanish, I've purchased Complete Spanish Step-By-Step which I've been studying on quizlet here.  

For Japanese, I'm only using Duolingo.  Japanese is the one language that I feel confident enough in that I don't need any extra resources.  Everything I've come across in the Duolingo course so far has been stuff I already learned. (*6) Maybe this will change when I work my way up into the more advanced levels of the Japanese Duolingo course, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

So that's my list of resources.  Now, how to make this all manageable so that it doesn't take over my whole life?
Well, here's my system at the moment.

On odd dates:
Vietnamese: Review one lesson of Vietnamese on Duolingo, study 25 words from one of the cumulative quizlets (here and here), run through my smaller focused quizlet set one time, listen to a youtube video at least once, and do at least 25 words from the quizlet, and do at least 25 words from the grammar book - quizlet and listen one time to the audio of the chapter I'm studying.
Latin: Review one lesson of Latin on Duolingo, and then use quizlet to review either the grammar or vocabulary or Proverbs and Sayings from Wheelock's Latin.  
Spanish: Do one review lesson on Duolingo, and one new lesson on Duolingo.  Study at least 25 terms from  Complete Spanish Step-By-Step on quizlet and listen one time to the audio.  Listen to a youtube video at least once, and do at least 25 words from the quizlet.

On even dates:
Latin: Review one lesson of Latin on Duolingo and study one new lesson on Duolingo, and then do at least one new page from one of - the - three Wheelock Latin books.
Spanish: Do one review lesson on Duolingo.  Study at least 25 terms from  Complete Spanish Step-By-Step on quizlet and listen one time to the audio.  Listen to a youtube video at least once, and do at least 25 words from the quizlet.

I've been keeping to this system the past couple months, and I usually manage to keep my language study time down to 40-60 minutes a day.  Which I think is reasonable.  I mean, I still grudge the time somewhat, because this is time that comes out of my reading time, and consequently means I won't get through as many reading projects this year.  But, as I said at the top of the post, I believe it's important for someone in my profession to dedicate some time to language learning.  So here we are.
This is also the minimum for each day.  If I have extra time, and I feel like it, I may sometimes study a bit more.  But this is what I force myself to do as a minimum.

Feel free to follow me on Duolingo.  My handle is: https://www.duolingo.com/profile/JoelSwagman

Footnotes (docs, pub):
(*1) I have the usual excuses for my poor progress.  This reddit post does a good job of summarizing the reasons why most TEFL teachers don't learn the local language, and much of this explanation applies to my case.

(*2) Unfortunately I did a very poor job of trying to learn Vietnamese.  What I should have done is enrolled in a Vietnamese language school (as some of my colleagues did) and gotten some proper instruction.  Instead I relied on Duolingo, Youtube videos, and poorly designed textbooks (here, here and here).  Mainly Duolingo.  Which I've belatedly realized is not a good way to learn a language.  
Once again, I have my excuses.  When I first arrived in Vietnam, I was focused on studying for the Delta, and viewed studying Vietnamese as a secondary priority.  After I got married to a Vietnamese woman I realized I would always be connected to Vietnamese, and that I should prioritize studying it.  But then, by that point we were having kids, and it was difficult for me to take Vietnamese language classes in the evenings because I needed to help with the child care.  

(*3) The Japanese classes consisted of night classes, which I've talked about before on this blog several times--e.g. here, here and here,  I also went to various language exchange clubs, and free tutoring sessions.  And at one point I was enrolled as a fulltime Japanese student at Beppu University.  

(*4) At various points, I've flirted with the idea of learning other languages, as I've described on this blog: Korean, French, Cambodian, and German.  But I never got far with any of those languages, so I'm not considering them as languages I've learned.
Part of me is tempted to write up a much more detailed account of my language studies--a sort of language studies autobiography, in which I would explain among other things why I started studying Latin, why I stopped, why I became proficient in Japanese, but never learned Cambodian, etc. But this post isn't the place to get into all that.  If I do decide to write that all up, it would be in a different post--which I might or might not write someday. 

(*5) As I wrote in a couple previous posts (here and here), I never actually learned Spanish in school, because I took Latin instead.  I did a couple years of Spanish club in 7th and 8th grade, but that's as far as I got.

(*6) Arguably what I should do is just skip ahead to a higher level in Japanese.  (Duolingo does actually give you that option.)  But, you know me, I like to do things systematically--start at the very beginning, and then work my way all the way to the end.  

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The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas (The 6th book in Three Musketeers series): Book Review


This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE: https://youtu.be/HgneyXvRI04  

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Sunday, July 27, 2025

Louise de la Valliere by Alexandre Dumas (The 5th book in The Three Musketeers series): Book Review



This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE: https://youtu.be/HgneyXvRI04  

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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Tofu--Interesting Random Facts

Recently, I've become aware through a few conversations just how little most Americans know about tofu.

It seems a lot of people think of tofu as some sort of meat substitute that came out of the California health craze in the 1980s.
In all honesty, I probably thought the same thing before I moved to Asia.  But I know better now, so I thought I'd help spread the knowledge.

Tofu isn't a 20th Century invention.  According to Wikipedia:
It originated in China and has been consumed in the country for over 2,000 years.[1][2] Tofu is a traditional component of many East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines;
...and although tofu is often used as a meat substitute in America, in Asia tofu is often used as a meat supplement--that is the tofu is often cooked alongside the meat, and takes on a bit of the flavor of the meat juices.
In other words, it's not considered a food only for vegetarians in Asia.

Tofu is originally from China, where it is called "dofu".  It is called "tofu" in Japanese, however, and it is from Japanese that it came into English.
Years ago, I knew a guy in Japan who was dating a Chinese student.  She was rather upset about the nomenclature.  "It's originally from China," she said.  "So you should use the Chinese name 
dofu instead of the Japanese name tofu.  Yet you say tofu in English.  Why is that?"
I told her I didn't know.
But I've looked it up on Wikipedia just now, and according to Wikipedia:

The English word "tofu" comes from Japanese tōfu (豆腐). The Japanese tofu, in turn, is a borrowing of Chinese 豆腐 (Mandarin: dòufǔ; tou4-fu) 'bean curd, bean ferment'.[7][8][9][10]

The earliest documentation of the word in English is in the 1704 translation of Domingo Fernández Navarrete's A Collection of Voyages and Travels, that describes how tofu was made.[11] The word towfu also appears in a 1770 letter from the English merchant James Flint to Benjamin Franklin.[12]: 73  The term "bean curd(s)" for tofu has been used in the United States since at least 1840.[13][14]

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Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin p.77-78--Commonplace Book

Quick set-up (taken from here): He is in the middle of racism central/Mississippi and has luckily found haven with a friend for the weekend -- His friend has compiled news clippings and propoganda for him to rifle through (1950's internet - ha)...

I left them around eleven and meant to fall into bed.  But the material P.D. had placed on the two bed tables fascinated me so that I studied it and made notes without sleeping until dawn.  It is perhaps the most incredible collection of what East calls "assdom" in the South.  It shows that the most obscene figures are not the ignorant ranting racists, but the legal minds who front for them, who "invent" for them the legislative proposals and the propaganda bulletins.  They deliberately choose to foster distortions, always under the guise of patriotism, upon a people who have no means of checking the facts.  Their appeals are to regional interest, showing complete contempt for privacy of conscience, and a willingness to destroy and subvert values that have traditionally been held supreme in this land.
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Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas  (The 4th book in The Three Musketeers series): Book Review



This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE: https://youtu.be/HgneyXvRI04  

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Friday, July 25, 2025

Starting: The Complete Dick Tracy Volume 18: 1957-1959

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Using Youtube Videos to Study Vietnamese in Context




A few months back, I posted that I had once again gotten to a point on the Vietnamese Duolingo course where I couldn't remember all the vocabulary, and I was (once again) going to delete all my progress and start over from the beginning.

This is multiple times now that I've gotten to a point where I felt that I couldn't remember all the vocabulary Duolingo was throwing at me, and felt that I had no choice but to start over and try to be more thorough about learning the vocabulary.

But no matter how thorough I try to be, no matter how much I try to be systematic about reviewing and consolidating old vocabulary, sooner or later I always seem to get to a point in the Duolingo course where my brain just can't remember it all.

At the same time, since we've returned to the United States, my daughter has started studying Spanish at school, and I've been helping her study by reviewing the numbers in Spanish and simple Spanish greetings.

Now, I never actually formally studied Spanish in school.  I joined Spanish club in junior high school, but that was as far as I got.  So I pretty much only know the numbers and the simple greetings.  But what amazes me is that they've managed to stick in my head all these years, even though I haven't been using them during the past 20 plus years I've lived in Asia.  (One seldom finds it necessary to use Spanish in Vietnam).  And yet, I still remember them after all these years, but at the same time, I can't seem to remember the Vietnamese that I'm actually trying to study.
Why is that?
It occurs to me that the reason I remember my basic Spanish after all these years is for a couple reasons.  First of all, we practiced it orally.  (We began every session of Spanish club by reciting the greetings.)  And secondly, I had a context in which I associated that language.  I can still picture in my head the room where we had Spanish club, and where we recited those greetings.
By contrast, when I studied Vietnamese on Duolingo or quizlet, I was just typing words on a computer screen.  No wonder very little of it was going into my long term memory.

The more I thought about it, the more this also seemed to be true of the other languages I have learned.  I barely remember any of my high school Latin, but the bits that I do remember are mostly the Latin songs that we learned, and the Lord's Prayer in Latin, which we recited many times over in class.  (I attended Christian schools.)
As for my Japanese, since leaving Japan 15 years ago, I've forgotten much of the Japanese that I once knew.  But I still remember a lot of it.  And in part, I remember a lot of it because I can still remember bits of conversations I had in Japanese.  For example, I can remember a joke I made in Japanese that got a laugh at a party, or I can remember an important conversation I had with a Japanese friend that sticks in my mind, etc.  And recalling those conversations helps me to remember Japanese vocabulary.  

So, the lesson is obvious.  Language in context is memorable.  Practicing vocabulary on a computer screen is not memorable.

So, to that end, I've decided to supplement my language study on Duolingo by trying to memorize some clips of Vietnamese conversation that I can find on Youtube.
The idea is to listen to the videos every day (to get them really stuck into my head), while also using quizlet to practice both the individual vocabuarly from those videos, as well as the full sentences.

The first video I'm doing in this series--Basic Vietnamese Verbs--actually doesn't fit this criteria exactly, because it's not a conversation.  However, I'm starting off with it for 3 reasons:
1) I started studying this video years ago, so I wanted to finish the job.
2) I thought it would be useful for me to learn all the basic Vietnamese verbs
3) The verbs are put into the context of sentences--so they are at least in some context.

For the subsequent videos I study on this project, I'll try to make sure that they are all conversations.

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The Vicomte De Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas (3rd book in The Three Musketeers series): Book Review



This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE: https://youtu.be/HgneyXvRI04  

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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Lynching of Mack Charles Parker--Interesting Random Facts

I'm rereading Black Like Me, and one of the points in the book is the "Parker lynch case"
At the shoe stand, Sterling did not give his usual cordial greeting. His eyes looked yellower than usual.
“You heard?” he asked. 
“No . . . I haven’t heard anything . . .” 
He told me the Mississippi jury refused to indict in the Parker lynch case. The news had spread over the quarter like a wave of acid. Everyone talked of it. Not since I was in Europe, when the Russo-German Pact of 1939 was signed, had I seen news spread such bitterness and despair. 

(This is from p.48-49, but the case also gets discussed a few more times later in the book.) 

Sounds like this case was a really big deal back in its day, but I never even heard of it.

It's strange.  You think that you learned all the major events in the Civil Rights Movement.  After all, I learned about Emmet Till,  The Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, The Scottsboro Boys, Medgar Evers, etc.  And I thought I knew it all.  But this is a reminder that there was a whole lot more stuff happening that never makes it into the history classroom--probably just because there's just way too much to talk about, so the teachers have to just choose a couple of cases to talk about, rather than try to include everything.

Anyway, if you (like me) had never heard of the Parker lynch case, you can read all about it on Wikipedia.  It's not pleasant reading, but it is American history.
Mack Charles Parker (May 20, 1936 – April 24, 1959) was a Black American victim of lynching in the United States. He had been accused of raping a pregnant white woman in northern Pearl River County, Mississippi. Three days before he was to stand trial, Parker was kidnapped from his jail cell in the Pearl River County Courthouse by a mob, beaten and shot. His body was found in the Pearl River, 20 miles west of Poplarville, 10 days later. Following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the men who killed him were released. Despite confessions, no one was ever indicted for the killing.[1][2][3][4] Historian Howard Smead called the killing the "last classic lynching in America."[5]

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Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas (The 2nd book in The Three Musketeers series): Book Review



This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE: https://youtu.be/HgneyXvRI04  

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Did you enjoy this review? Consider supporting me on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joelswagman

Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/JoelSwagman

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