Ed Powderham

@AmericanExpress a gift card someone sent me can’t be redeemed online. There’s a but where it asks me to put in the card details, which I obviously don’t know at this point.. Can you help me?

@RestIsFootball @MarcusRashford @FCBarcelona @GaryLineker @MicahRichards Someone get Marcus on Learn The Words to quickly improve his Spanish apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-t…

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠… @MarcusRashford 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿⚽️ Born and raised in Manchester, now the 2nd English player to join @FCBarcelona 🤩 Marcus joins @GaryLineker & @MicahRichards for an exclusive interview and gives us some insight to his incredible career... 📺 Full episode available on all Podcast Platforms & YouTube tomorrow

@SkyFootball Apparently he learnt it at learnthewords.app/spanish

Trent Alexander-Arnold speaking in fluent Spanish at his Real Madrid unveiling 🇪🇸

@vueling I'm within my 2 hour grace period but can't find how to cancel my flight either on My Trips online or via the phone. Please can someone help

@omnium Soc angles, i vaig fer una applicacio per ensenyar les paraules mes comunes en Catala. Si conoceu a algiuen qui volgi aprendre, comparta-ho. apps.apple.com/es/app/learn-t…

Més de dos milions de persones volen aprendre o millorar el català, però no hi ha recursos suficients. Fem que el català arribi a cada racó del país. Parla'l amb tothom, sense prejudicis pel color de pell o d'origen. És una prioritat de país.

Thanks for adding this to my home screen @Reddit

I'm making a spiritual successor to @memrise 's community courses at learnthewords.app.

@RevolutApp Apparently your Revolut Pro team can't handle spanish tax documents uploaded from a uk localised account? Can someone take a look?

@donvito At least letting us downgrade to another model would be a massive plus

@Powderham I really want to pay for it if not for the limits.

Immediately unsubscribed when trying #claude for this month. I've hit a limit on all models. Nothing ruins productivity like having to stop cold. "How would you feel if you could no longer use claude" "Annoyed'

cc @AnthropicAI

@what3words I loved using your app at a festival this summer. I forgot I had you installed I just received this notification and couldn't find a way to turn this engagement notification off without turning off product notifications Sadly i've deleted you until I need you again

Dear @coinbase. I deposited money 3 weeks ago, I didn't match the account name exactly so you rejected it and said you'd return the money. We're way past the already excessive 10 days. Can you look in to it/reach out to help fix

@lennyspodcast having only 21 reviews speaks to how little users rate the podcasts they enjoy

@tjack how would you differ your PMF framework for B2C products. I’d also love to increase odds/reduce role of luck, but keen to hear your thoughts on progressing through the levels.

@TFO_SOL I’m all in

@shridhargupta I wondered if you’d consider open sourcing street gyms? I’m in Brasil right now and there’s so many, but I can’t find one in Sao Paolo.

@mikegyi C1 confidence with B2 execution? 😅

@Powderham I think B2/C1. As in I I’d be able to pass the B2 exam and would have to study very hard to pass the C1 exam. So inbetween the two levels? Beginner C1? I don’t know. I’ve been wrong a lot! You?

How I learnt to speak Spanish (Part 2) A heavy hard-hitting realisation that I was indeed rubbish at Spanish is the theme of this post. The aforementioned Fake English Confidence was in full force when I arrived in Barcelona in March 2020. I thought I'd assimilate like a duck to water. I was wrong, again. During lockdown I was by myself in an apartment with my friend's dog Ruby trying to work out what @Town_Spot was. I did no Spanish learning, I thought I'd be alright. The only speaking I did at that time was when I left the apartment to walk Ruby and I'd stop and chat to people in the street in 2 to 3 word sentences. I was caught up in my own world, thinking I was "smashing it" with the Spanish. Post-pandemic I got a reality check as I tried to get every day life tasks done. I tried to get a leather sofa reupholstered (don't ask) and I was lost for words. It was mega frustrating. I'd hit a plateau and and the plain sailing of the initial beginners curve was over. I bumbled on, thinking "ahh, I'll just learn by speaking to people and eventually I'll get there". I had no idea where "there" was, and this was naive, to say the least. At a similar time, I was in Plaza Real in Barcelona having some drinks with fellow english natives and one of them overheard me speaking Spanish and told me bluntly: "Your Spanish isn't very good" Car crash feedback. I asked for examples and they couldn't give any constructive tips or feedback. Plus they were either a similar level or a bit ahead. It was super confusing, frustrating, and disorientating. Note to everyone reading this. When giving feedback to someone please give examples of what that person did and constructive next steps otherwise it can cause the frustrated feelings mentioned above. That being said, coupled with other experiences like telling a German guy that I "didn't care about grammar", it was the wake up call I needed. Being a tight Northerner I had never paid for Spanish lessons. Being sometimes stubborn, I thought I could do it all by myself...for free. I was wrong. Paying for lessons was the best thing I ever did. My friend @Powderham and I spoke about the positive and negatives of DELE language levels for Spanish and for some reason I was allergic to them. The levels rated from A0 to C2 and they're logical and help you progress further, learning grammar. Just TRY put me in a box. Well, I did get put in a box. In the B2 level box. I went to the fantastic @CaminoBarcelona for 11 weeks for 40 hours a week (career break) and, in reality I was a mixture of A1 to B2 levels, I was all over the place in terms of my knowledge of the language. Initially, I had signed up for 2-weeks fully immersive with afternoon conversation classes and thought that'd do the job. I was wrong again, silly little English boy. I extended to 11 weeks when I realised I was still totally lost. Looking back, I think self-learning tools like Duolingo can be a red herring. They're a great introduction and better than doing nothing, however nothing beats formalised learning. Sorry to disappoint. As I mentioned in part 1, there are no shortcuts. You've got to put in the hours. I'd say now that it's best to sit in a classroom with other students at the same level as you and practicing speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It was really hard, especially at the start. The first week I was putting the accents on letters the opposite way around. "That's Catalan!" said one of the teachers. I was hand-writing Spanish and felt illiterate. It was a funny experience and I felt like I was back in primary school. To give context, the classes at @CaminoBarcelona were fully immersive, no English was allowed. The teachers were top notch, friendly, funny and patient. My fellow B2 students and I made big strides in the time we were together. It was an amazing experience and worth every penny. We learnt all the grammar possible, and practiced, practiced, practiced with lots of exercises that came with the opportunity to soak up a stunning amount of vocabulary. I used Anki flashcards to capture and learn all the words, ending up with ~2,500 words by the end of the 11 weeks. The key thing here for English native speakers is to understand that Spanish is much more complicated than our basic English language. There are grammar concepts that don't exist in Spanish. I repeat, there's grammar in Spanish that doesn't exist in English so how are you going to learn if you don't know about their existence in the first place? English doesn't map to Spanish so perfectly. There's no wonder English has become a worldwide language, due to its simplicity. The teachers at @CaminoBarcelona would laugh at English natives because they knew our understanding of grammar was near existent. Thinking back to school we only got taught a "verb", "adjective", and "adverb", that was it. Whereas in other countries they have pure lessons dedicated to grammar in their language because it's complicated. I've heard Italians have grammar drilled into them at school as there are SO many rules. During my time at @CaminoBarcelona I felt like I was deconstructing everything I had learnt and rebuilding it from scratch. A very humbling experience to say the least. Most of the classes I was speechless, unable to talk out of lack of confidence or knowledge. In the conversation classes I'd say to one of the funny teachers: "Pedro, tengo una historia para ti!" He knew what was coming was long long short story full of frustrating "errrrs" and errors. He laughed a lot whenever he heard me say this. In the afternoons/evenings the school put on activities such as Paella classes, Wine Tasting, or tours around the pandemic deserted Gothic Quarter. It was a super special period and I was grateful that my economic situation at the time allowed for me to take a career break and go all in on Spanish learning. I finished at Spanish school in September 2020 and my friend Mick returned from his summer holidays saying he noticed a big difference in my speaking. Result!!! Was I finished there? Absolutely not. People in Barcelona were still switching to English when I would speak to them in Spanish. I was wandering through the INTERMEDIATE-PURGATORY-INFERNO-WASTELAND and I needed to get out. More on how I kept the ball rolling in Part 3 :-)

@Shpigford I have a todo.txt file in the project root

Solo engineering projects: What's your preferred method for keeping a list of everything to do on it? Github Issues? Linear? Text file? Your brain? Something else?