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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • I would recommend using Language Transfer.

    It has courses for about 10 languages. All of them are sets of MP3 files, about 10 minutes each. You can download them from soundcloud, listen via YouTube, or install the simple but very effective app.

    I think you would be shocked at how natural and effective this system is. I have been using it to learn Spanish as my fifth language, and it is easily the best language acquisition system I have ever used short of living in the target country. It explicitly avoids and discourages memorization.

    It’s completely free, but the creator asks for donations to cover his expenses. Believe it or not, one man has created courses for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Swahili, and recently Japanese.







  • I also remember the 1980s. A computer with 64k of memory cost $300, about $1,000 in today’s money. In 1986 my company bought a 10 MB hard drive. I believe it was around $1,500, or roughly $5,000 today.

    My first modem in 1987 ran at 300 baud, slow enough that I could read incoming text as it arrived.

    When I went to Africa in 1988 as a volunteer, the only way to communicate with my family was by mail, and a letter typically took one month each way. Now that village in Africa has a cell phone tower.

    Moving to Japan in the early 1990s, telephone calls home cost $2.50/minute. I was using email, but almost no one I knew had it.

    Even cars, for all their faults, are tremendously safer, more efficient, more reliable, and longer lasting than they were when I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s.


  • gramie@lemmy.catoGreentext@sh.itjust.worksAnon lives on a budget
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    1 month ago

    I just ran the numbers through a tax calculator for my province (Quebec). It says that on a salary of $18,000, I would pay about $1,200 for the pension plan and employment insurance. $0 paid for taxes, and I would actually receive a $4,000 as a tax refund.

    And, of course Healthcare is free, Quebec has pharmacare so prescription drugs would be free, childcare is about $10/day if I need it, and since my salary is less than $90,000/year, I would qualify for free dental care.

    There would also be a few things like the GST refund that would be about $500/year in my pocket.

    Canada is not paradise, but I sure prefer living here.