A very bookish gift guide

My first job was as the Saturday girl at my local independent bookshop, a role I wangled after my mum marched me in to very sheepishly ask if I could come in for work experience when I was 15. It was exactly as idyllic and odd as you would expect, filled with eccentric customers and frustrating requests (‘the book about the very old castle with a red cover’). Whilst this was a tad annoying at the time, it’s made me an excellent book recommender and gifter, a skill I thought I would pass on to you this festive season.

Books are, in my opinion, the perfect gift: easy to wrap, relatively inexpensive, thoughtful and fun. As a bonus, you also get to support great bookshops when you buy them! I’ve included links to bookshop.org below, but if you have a local bookshop, they’re really great at ordering things in for you, so please do that. And be nice to the Saturday girl.

For the sibling/friend/child who has recently left home

The Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer

I gave my younger brother a copy of The Roasting Tin when he was leaving for university and it went down a storm. It’s not a specifically student cookbook, which makes it appropriate for lots of different age groups and, in my opinion, much less patronising, but it is full of simple recipes that require only a roasting tin and often only a handful of ingredients. The wildly successful series contains many different iterations, including a vegetarian/vegan version, so you can adjust as necessary, and if you’re feeling really generous you can combine with an actual roasting tin for the ultimate gift.

For the friend who has already read everything

The Persephone Collection of Short Stories

Friends who love books are the hardest friends to buy books for because, inevitably, they have already read the book that you wanted to buy them. This collection of short stories from independent publisher Persephone solves that problem, as it contains short stories from a range of female authors, compiled by the publisher for this edition and listed chronologically. The grey cover is beautiful, and the range of authors means they’re bound to discover something new. Plus, if they already have the first collection, you can always buy them the second!

For the one going through a breakup

Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn

I feel a bit bad putting this under breakup books because it contains conversations on all aspects of all kinds of love, platonic, familial and romantic. I do think, though, that during a breakup is one of the main times that lends itself to serious introspection, especially with regards to relationships, which is the perfect time to read this. There are so many wise and intelligent people interviewed, you’re bound to find something that resonates with your particular situation and, hopefully, helps you to reflect on it.

For the one who loves Sally Rooney

You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here by Frances Macken

I haven’t included the new Sally Rooney book here (although if you haven’t read it I would highly recommend), but I have included this, which is one of my favourite books I’ve read this year. Frances Macken is a young Irish author, and this book also examines the complexities of human relationships, except this novel revolves around friendship rather than love. There’s also a hint of murder mystery which works strangely well with the tone of the novel.

For the Dad who sometimes reads

Taste by Stanley Tucci

I haven’t actually read this one myself but I’ve heard such good things I had to include it. This is Stanley Tucci’s life told via food, which sounds like the best concept ever. Even if your dad isn’t a huge Stanley Tucci fan, if he’s a foodie or a traveller, he should love this.

For the one who loves food

In the Kitchen

I just finished this essay collection of food and kitchen-related essays and, as someone who plans their days around food, found them deeply moving and often very funny. The cover is beautiful too, making it the perfect gift for the foodie in your life.

For the poetry-curious

Two Cures for Love by Wendy Cope

I’ve included this under poetry-curious rather than the avid poet because Wendy Cope is very popular and well-known, and if you have a poetry-loving friend they would definitely have already read a lot of Wendy Cope and may already own this collection. However, if you have a poetry-curious friend, someone who is prone to existential whimsy and occasionally reshares a poem on Instagram, I think this is a great gift. It has funny poems, sad poems, and love poems, and the style is easy to understand (i.e. you won’t have to spend two hours trying to figure out what the blue curtains represent) while still being deeply clever and meaningful.

For the small-ish child

Everything Under the Sun by Molly Oldfield

I don’t spend time with a lot of children, but those I do see ask a lot of questions. This book is a beautiful answer to that, with a question and answer for every day of the year. It’s also beautifully illustrated and will make a lovely keepsake as they get older.

For the one who loves a classic

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

A modern classic in my humble opinion, this novel follows a black man born in America who is determined to fly, literally and metaphorically. It’s a beautiful book with a beautiful cover, and would make a great girl for anyone, but especially those who love classics but haven’t read any of the more modern ones.

For the one who just wants a good story

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This is one of those books that everyone will enjoy, whether you read fifty books a year or one in a good year. It’s written like a script, and follows the rise and fall of a band in the 1970’s and 80’s. It’s really easy to read, an interesting concept and has some great characters too.

I hope this post gave you some ideas, for someone on your list or a treat for yourself.

What’s your favourite book to give as a gift? Let me know!

How to learn languages as an adult

When I tell people that my degree is in French and Spanish, without fail the response I get is “oh, that’s amazing, I WISH I could speak another language”. As well as being great for my ego, this also shows how valuable language skills are, not just in terms of employment and travel opportunities, but just for personal development. During the pandemic and all the free time the lockdowns brought with them, more and more people have taken up learning a language, and I’ve received quite a few questions about how to go about doing it, so I thought I’d put my advice in a blog post.

This mostly covers the self-study part of languages but obviously if you can get to a class that’s the best way of keeping your learning structured and varied (aka the teacher will make you do the things you don’t want to do). It’s also worth pointing out that my experience of language learning is European languages (French, Spanish, German and a little Portuguese), and other languages, especially those which don’t use a Latin alphabet, can be very different in their structure and the order you should go about learning them.

Find your motivation

Whenever you commit to a new thing, the most important thing is to nail down why you want to do it. Learning languages is fun but it’s also hard and part of it are kind of boring (see grammar below), so it’s helpful to have a clear goal to keep yourself going. This can be reaching a certain level of fluency, a holiday you have planned, or wanting to read a book in another language start to finish, just as long as it’s going to keep you motivated.

Learn how to use a dictionary

Online dictionaries are your friend. My personal favourite is WordReference, so see if it has your language. However, you have to be able to use them properly. Often words will have different uses in different contexts, so step one is figuring out if you’re even searching the right word. A great example of this in English is the verb “to get”, as it can mean a million different things. To get something can mean to fetch something, to receive something or to achieve something, and that’s without thinking about phrases like to get up, to get with, to get on with… you see my point. Other languages won’t necessarily have one catch-all word like that, so when you search it in the dictionary you’ll get several different translations and you’ll need to look through the definitions to figure out which one you want.

You could also have to consider regional variations; for example, if you’re looking up a word in Spanish you might get the peninsular Spanish word (with an ‘Es’ next to it) and the Latin American word (with an ‘AmL’ next to it). You can miss this kind of thing quite easily and end up mixing different variations, which it’s best to avoid if possible.

Get the grammar down

I hate grammar. When my German A-level teacher brought out the cases chart on the first day of my second year at sixth form, I dropped the subject immediately. Unfortunately, it’s very, very important. Grammar is the structure of the language into which you can then slip your vocab, and without properly understanding it, it’s really hard to fully express yourself. This is where Duolingo falls down, in my opinion; it teaches you lots of set phrases and vocab but it doesn’t go into the grammar (probably because it’s really boring), so by the end you can say certain phrases in a particular tense or pronoun, but have no idea how to alter it to actually speak spontaneously. This is fine if your goal is to go on holiday and be able to book a table at a restaurant, but not if you want to get comfortable in a language.

Generally, the hardest grammar points to get your head around in European languages are gender and tense, so that’s a good place to start. (NB: This can be very different in languages with a non-Latin alphabet – Japanese, for example, only has two tenses and no genders, but three different writing systems to learn). You can either get a textbook – for beginners it’s best to start with an actual textbook/workbook designed for teaching, rather than a grammar reference book – or follow along with lessons on BBC Bitesize, or other similar learning platforms. Oak Academy is designed for teachers and has some good grammar-based lessons for French, Spanish and German, although it is a little dry. Language-specific sites like Lawless French and SpanishDict also have great resources.

Vocabulary

The great thing about learning languages as an adult is that, so long as your goal isn’t to pass a specific exam, you don’t have to learn reams of vocabulary you’re never going to use like you do at GCSE and A-level. Instead, you’ll probably pick it up naturally as you go along and look up words that you need to use and ones that seem to come up regularly in readings and listenings.

I used to keep a running list of new words I came across and then make revision sets for them on apps like Memrise or Quizlet, which then make digital flashcards and games out of them for you to practice. You can also search for vocabulary sets other people have made if you want to revise a specific topic like sports or animals.

Putting it into practice (speaking and writing)

Practicing reading and listening usually comes pretty naturally when you’re learning a language, but producing language can require a bit more pushing. It’s so important to do though because that’s where the motivation comes from. You almost always know more than you think you do, and the feeling of actually being able to communicate gives you the push to carry on learning.

If you’re in a classroom this will probably be organised for you, but if not there are loads of websites like italki where you can organise conversation classes, or in-person conversation groups you can find through sites like MeetUp (in non-covid times). You can also look for language exchanges, where some of the group will be fluent in the language you’re trying to learn and you’ll be fluent in the language they want to learn, and you spend half the time speaking in each. These can be a great way of getting some speaking practice for free and with minimum embarrassment, as everyone there is also trying to learn.

Culture

The fun bit! Without a doubt the best part about learning a language is getting to watch Call My Agent and call it “practice”. Watching TV shows, films, listening to music, reading books and finding new podcasts are all great ways to practice your listening and reading. TV shows in particular will often introduce you to more colloquial language as it’s spoken by natives. If you’re just starting out you can watch with English subtitles, but the most useful thing is to eventually progress to subtitles in the target language. These will make it easier to understand, as most people find reading easier than listening, but also allow you to pause and write down or look up unfamiliar words. Basically, whatever you enjoy doing in English, try to do it in your target language.

Learning languages was honestly the best choice I’ve made in my life so far. It’s already given me so many adventures and memories, and I would highly recommend giving it a try if you’re considering it.

If you have any language-learning tips, leave them in the comments below!

Featured image by Vladislav Klapin on Unsplash

25 things I’ve learnt in 25 years

A few weeks ago I had my second official pandemic birthday, although this one was a vast improvement from the last. The sun was shining, and I sat in two different pub gardens with my family and friends, eating and drinking and opening some excellent presents. I felt very happy, lucky, and loved. 

Honestly, I’ve felt 25 for a while. Living in a pandemic for the last year and spending every evening wrapped in blankets in front of the sofa complaining about my back feels as if it’s sped up my ageing several decades, and the dread I’d have once felt at the quarter century mark has turned into a contented acceptance. I was worried that hitting this milestone would make me feel old, but I actually feel very young (which I know I objectively am), and slightly intimidated by all the life I have ahead of me. Still, I have picked up one or two things along the way, so I thought I’d try my hand at the classic blog post and tell you lucky people 25 things I’ve learnt in my 25 years on this earth. 

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Time by yourself vs time for yourself

It’s Sunday 11th April and tomorrow in the UK shops, hairdressers and outdoor dining are all reopening, our first major step out of the third lockdown and back towards whatever the new version of normality will be. As we’ve gotten closer and closer to this date, my diary has begun filling up with various pub bookings and (in the longer term) spa days and trips to see friends and family I haven’t seen in a year or longer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really excited about that and am desperate to see something other than the four walls of my bedroom. However, I have noticed another feeling creeping in when I look at my increasingly busy post-lockdown calendar, a feeling which I can best describe as apprehension and even, maybe, a little bit of fear.

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Lockdown lessons for life

It’s been a long three months but here in the UK tomorrow we are making the first tentative steps out of our third, and hopefully final, national lockdown, so I thought it was the perfect time to share the top five lessons I’ve learnt during lockdown.

I really, really don’t want to tempt fate – and if future me is laughing/crying reading this back, I’m sorry – but with the continuing success of the vaccine programme and the decreasing death rate, it’s looking hopeful that this will be our last period of extended confinement. With that in mind, I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learnt over the last year. For many of us, it’s been a period of intense self-discovery, unsurprising given we’ve had nothing to do for twelve months but sit inside and think. I’m turning 25 next month and honestly feel like I’ve aged so much more than a year. I find it difficult to relate to who I was pre-pandemic and, whilst a lot of that is unprocessed apocalyptic trauma, I also dare to hope that some of it might be hard-won wisdom. Here are my top five.

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Money in your twenties: the best resources and articles to get you started

A lesser-known aspect of my personality is that I love talking about personal finance. My dad is a banker, and so I grew up getting lectures about interest rates and pension plans over the dinner table which, whilst not appreciated by my 13-year-old self, has actually turned out to be pretty useful as I’ve gotten older and had to manage my own money (but don’t tell him that).

It’s still a faux-pas to talk about money openly, especially here in Britain where the stiff-upper-lip attitude is still very much in force. Surveys have shown that Brits would rather talk about sex than money and, whilst this may come as no surprise, it can mean that many of us are seriously undereducated on the basics of looking after our financial health, given there’s little to no guidance given on the subject in the education system. This can be especially difficult to navigate in our twenties, when most people will be managing a real adult salary – and real adult bills (council tax, anyone?) – for the first time in their lives.

Continue reading “Money in your twenties: the best resources and articles to get you started”

Feeling lost in your twenties

I recently read a blog post by The Yorkshire Dreamer called Feeling Lost At 24, and when I saw the title I felt like she had read my mind. I too am 24 (for two more months…) and feeling very confused about the direction of my life, which is an unfamiliar feeling for me and not where I expected to be at this stage of my existence.  

It wasn’t that I expected to have everything about my life sorted and wrapped with a bow by my mid-twenties. I don’t think 18-year-old-me really thought I would have got my dream job, my dream house, my dream boyfriend and my dream dog by this age, but I definitely thought I’d at least have a few, or be on the way to making them happen. Like, I might be living in a tiny bedsit in the outskirts of the city of my dreams but I’d at least know that one day I wanted to live in the big penthouse in the centre. In other words, I thought I’d have a direction. I’d know what I wanted and would be working towards it.

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How to host a lockdown birthday

We’re approaching the year anniversary of the pandemic, and here in the UK we’re in the middle of our third, and hopefully last, lockdown. Even those who thought they’d initially got away with it (I’m looking at you, January and February babies) have had to submit to the realities of a pandemic birthday, unable to indulge in the nights out, house parties and day trips we would usually pencil in our diaries to mark the occasion, and some are approaching their second pandemic birthday. Whilst things will hopefully begin easing soon, it’s looking unlikely that there’ll be any mass gatherings in our collective future, so how do you get away from the general monotony of 2021 life and bring a little bit of sparkle to the day? I’m here to help.  

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Authentic TV shows, films and YouTubers to help improve your French

Bonjour et bonsoir à vous, mes amis, wherever in the world you might be reading this from. Something you may know about me is that I studied French and Spanish at university and so am officially trilingual. To be honest, if you don’t know that about me you’ve done pretty well because it is my favourite thing about myself. As in, it’s right at the top of my dating profile. Yep.

Whilst I can definitely still string some sentences together in either language, I did graduate two and a half years ago now, and don’t have the opportunity to practice as much as I used to. This has led me to seek out fun things to watch, read and listen to in French, in an effort to hold onto my accent long enough to one day make the big move to Paris. If you too wish to follow in Emily’s footsteps and make your way over to the City of Lights – or, y’know, be able to order a pain au chocolat without the cashier rolling their eyes at you – I’ve compiled my favourites below.

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The Lockdown Blues and little rays of light

Last Monday was Blue Monday, aka the most depressing day of the year according to science, and OH BOY did I feel it. Not only are we contending with the same old January rubbish (no money, awful weather, haven’t eaten a proper meal since Christmas day), but, here in the UK, we’re bang in the middle of our third lockdown with the daily death toll still rising and no end coming in the foreseeable future. Bleak.

I’m not going to lie to you, I entered this lockdown feeling cocky. I handled the one in November relatively well, in my opinion, and I know what the deal is now: daily walks, daily yoga, weekly takeaways, long baths whenever possible, a lot of online shopping and Zoom calls (bleurgh), and we’ll be fine, I thought. I have lovely housemates and an exciting new job to keep me occupied, the vaccine is coming, and, if anything, I’m becoming a little too accustomed to the relative mundanity of life these days. I really thought I’d be able to take a few deep, cleansing breaths and hunker down for the winter, if not happy then at least neutral about the whole affair. I even bought myself a Switch for extra entertainment during this forced hibernation.

Continue reading “The Lockdown Blues and little rays of light”
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