Defining The Ceiling And The Floor In Language Learning

HOW TO TEACH YOURSELF LANGUAGES SUPER EFFICIENTLY

I write this bcz I’m a huge language enthusiast and I’m frustrated about the way most methods and language classes/courses approach the process of learning. I’m not a professional but I have a lot of experience in studying foreign languages: I have taught myself Lithuanian and reached the upper intermediate level (B2) in 4-5 years without much help from others, and in Spanish reaching the same level took me only 2 years bcz I simultaneously studied it at school and already knowing French helped me a little. I want to help everyone who wants to start a new language, does not have the possibility to join a language course or just feels frustrated of the stagnation they might experience in the early phase of learning a foreign language.

So, if you want to learn a new language, I suggest following tips:

• Immerse yourself from the beginning! This is really important so that you can get yourself familiar with the intonation and pronunciation of the language. Listen to radio or tv and try to read whatever you can (ingredient lists from the food packages, newspaper articles, whatever!) it doesn’t matter if you can’t understand much yet, it will come! If you start a language with a new alphabet learn the alphabet really well first thing.

• Get an overview of the grammatical structure of the language! This is often not properly done in language courses where you learn some vocabulary and greetings but after 60 pages of the textbook you still have no idea how many verb tenses or noun cases the language has. Take a look even at the “hardest” topics, bcz they might not be that hard after all. (for example the Spanish equivalent of past perfect is much easier than the present tense) 

 • With that being said, learn to recognise past tenses even when you are still learning the present tense! I find it absurd that most courses expect you to master present tense _perfectly_ before even taking a look at other tenses. Most of the time, in everyday communication, past tenses are used more frequently than the present tense + in some languages mastering the past tense can also help you to form the conditional. So, learn the past tense earlier than most ppl would recommend!

 • In general, study the easiest things first! If you find something particularly difficult you gain more confidence and knowledge if you first focus on what you find more interesting (however, you can’t postpone studying boring topics eternally, especially if you are preparing or hoping to prepare for an exam at some point) In Lithuanian, I taught myself a lot of grammar before learning how to tell the time… and it was ok.

• For material: usually the country’s universities have a reading list on their website which proposes what books one could use to study the language. These are often preferable to handbooks aimed for tourists and some language methods for beginners because those mostly focus on useless vocabulary you might only need when you rent a car or book a room in a hotel. The grammar is often also relatively poorly explained in those “tourist language books”, whereas books that are aimed at immigrants or university students usually focus more on the efficient language acquisition and are written by professors and specialists. If you are persistent enough and google all possible search words in both English and the target language,  you can probably find whole textbooks in PDF format, which you can then save on your laptop.

• Don’t get stuck on vocabulary! Remember that grammar is the skeleton of the language and that vocabulary is the muscles hair and eventually the clothes you use to dress up and embellish your apperance. Vocabulary is useful once you know how to use it. For me, learning vocab is the hardest part of a new language, especially bcz I like starting languages that are not really similar to any other languages I know (consider Lithuanian and Greek when I previously knew Finnish, English, French and Spanish) ofc you need to learn some of it to be able to form sentences but most traditional methods focus on that too much. My suggestion is to read a lot: start by children’s books and comics and gradually get more advanced material. When you read them, make notes!! Look up the words you don’t know and don’t be afraid of using unconventional, seemingly challenging ways to learn, such as buying a bilingual poetry collection and trying to decipher what the original poem says and compare it to the translation. 100% recommend, even for the beginner level + it’s a nice way to connect to the culture but still focus on the language itself, not on the way ppl make breakfast in that country. (That’s something that irritates me a lot in most Youtube’s language videos where ppl are just discussing the traditions of the country in English when you had come there to look for the explanation of grammatical structures or just to hear the language being spoken. smh.)

• A really important thing about vocabulary is to learn all the abstract words, such as conjunctions, really soon! For example, if you find yourself in a situation where you have to use the words therefore and otherwise,  it is almost impossible to try to explain those words without first translating them to another language. 

• Make vocabulary learning more interesting and deep by learning about the etymology of the words you learn. It can be mind-blowing and it helps you to remember the words better.

That’s it!

I hope these tips inspire you in pursuing your interest in foreign languages and facilitate your learning process. I might add more to this if I remember I have forgotten something of great importance. 

Super helpful Chinese grammar post! 😄

Chinese Grammar: Comparisons

My first grammar post! I hope there will be more to come. =}

Here are ways to compare things whether they be the same, or different, and also how something has improved/changed.

比 - bǐ: to compare/something is more ___ than something

我弟弟的个子比我的高。 (Wŏ dìdi de gèzi bĭ wŏ de gāo.) - My little brother is taller than me./ My little brother’s height is taller than mine.

我不比她高。 (Wŏ bùbĭ tā gāo.) - I am not taller than her.

…跟… 一样 - …gēn… yiyang: the same; as… as…

这本书跟那本一样长。(Zhè běn shū gēn nà běn yīyàng cháng.) - This book and that one are both long.

这个故事跟那个不一样好笑。 (Zhè ge gùshi gēn nà ge bù yīyàng hăo xiào.) - This story is not as funny as that one.

越来越 - yue lai yue: more and more

他的个子越来越高。 (Tā de gèzi yuè lái yuè gāo.) - His height gets more and more tall.

Now, with these types of comparisons, you never add 很 (hěn) before the adjective. Usually to really add depth or exaggeration to just how something is much more than something else, add 多了(duō le) after the adjective.

e.g： 他比我高多了。 (Tā bĭ wŏ gāo duō le.) - He’s much taller than me.

专心 (zhuan1 xin1) - to be attentive; focused

Eg. I have to be 专心 during my studies. Good luck back to school everyone! To be honest I’m actually pretty excited for the new semester.

两个人之间最坏的距离就是误解。

The worst distance between two people is misunderstanding.

🌼🌻study smarter🌻🌼

(here are some study tips straight from my psych notes)

1. interest: the brain prioritizes by meaning, value, and relevance so u remember things better if ur interested

find a study partner

do extra practice or research

teach it to someone else (this works so well!)

2. intent: be actively paying attention. very little learning actually takes place without attention

use a concentration check sheet (every time u get distracted, put a check on ur sheet. this is supposed to program ur mind to pay attention)

while u read, talk back to the author

ask questions during lectures (this is scary ik!! but do it!)

3. basic background: make connections to what u already know

preview and skim the material before u read it. or google it!

write out a list of vocab words before a lecture and leave some spaces between them to fill in during the lecture

read ahead of lectures

watch crashcourse tbh

4. selectivity: start by studying whats important

look for bolded words, graphics, pictures, chapter review questions in ur readings

listen for verbal clues like emphasis and repetition during lectures

make urself a study guide as u read and write down questions for urself to answer later as review (kinda like cornell notes)

5. meaningful organization: u can learn/rmr better if u group ideas into diff categories

apply vocab words to ur life

make flashcards and sort them (try not to have more than seven items in one category!)

use mnemonics

6. recitation: saying ideas aloud in ur own words strengthens synaptic connections! when u say something aloud u r forcing urself to pay attention

after u read, ask urself questions

talk abt what u learned w/ classmates outside of class

again, teach someone else

7. visualization: ur brain’s quickest and longest-lasting response is to images

convert info into a chart or graph

draw it out

make a mental video of a process

look at picture/video examples

8. association: memory is increased when facts are consciously associated w something u already know. memory = making neural connections

ask urself: is this something i already know?

9. consolidation: give ur brain some time to establish a neural pathway

make a list of what u remember from class

review notes at the end of the day, every day

stop after reading each prg to write a question in ur notes

make ur own practice quiz

10. distributed practice: we all know cramming doesnt work but we do it anyway! but yeah short and frequent study sections work better

make a daily/weekly study schedule

create a time budget/time tracker (track everything ur doing for a week and see how u can be more efficient w/ the time u waste)

divide the reading/vocab by the number of days before an exam and do a little bit each day (u can use sticky notes to divide ur reading)

other tips:

stop stressing! this sounds stupid and it isnt going to be easy, but anxiety causes u to lose focus. try ur best to think positively. sleep a lot. minimize ur caffeine intake. take a walk maybe

when u need to remember something, look upward or close ur eyes (when ur eyes are open ur using visual parts of ur brain that u might not need to be using)

find a rival! (like the person right above u in class rank) secretly compete w/ them (envy can improve mental persistence bc it makes u focus more intensely) but dont overdo it! 

walking and sleeping build memory storage in ur brain

eat flavonoids! (grapes, berries, tea leaves, cocoa beans make neurons in the brain more capable of forming new memories + increase blood flow to the brain)

obstacles force ur brain to try harder, so space learning lessons apart or create a puzzle to solve or change ur physical setting

真正的朋友愿意理解你的过去，相信你的未来，接受你的现在。

A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.

100 days of languages: day 10

day 10: learn 4 idioms

1. 如火如荼 rú huǒ rú tú like wildfire, unstoppable

他的生意如火如荼。

2. 大街小巷 dà jié xiǎo xiàng great streets and small alleys, everywhere in the city

每天晚上都有很多警察在全市的大街小巷进行查巡。

3. 赞不绝口 zàn bù jué kǒu to praise without cease, to praise to high heaven

游客总是对我们的优美环境赞不绝口。

4. 平易近人 píng yí jìn rén amiable and approachable, easy-going

好的领导平易近人。

《冲突》 “Conflict” 他们都说 They all say 我是个话很少的孩子 I’m a child of few words 对此我并不否认 This I don’t deny 实际上 But actually 我说与不说 Whether I speak or not 都会跟这个社会 With this society I’ll still 发生冲突 Conflict

许立志 (Xu Lizhi)

This comes from an article “The Poetry and Brief Life of a Foxconn Worker” which you should definitely look at the rest of, it’s really heartwrenching. Xu Lizhi was a 打工者 (dagongzhe), a factory worker who’d come in from his rural home in Guangdong to work in Shenzhen. He committed suicide when he was 24.

Shenzhen has a Special Economic Zone, so there is more or less a capitalist “bubble” where these huge factories are. Factories are supposed to mainly hire people in the same province because of China’s 户口 system of essentially population control, but in reality huge numbers of people come to try and get work since China has one of the largest rural/urban income divides. As you’ve probably heard, they work in terrible conditions—the whole system is a tangle of bringing in bodies and controlling them. If you’d like to learn more, Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace is a good book I’ve been reading for class (the vast majority of workers are women), or a crash course movie version Mardi Gras: Made in China (the narrator is clearly going for guilt but the actual footage is good). It’s easy to see these things and brush it off as sort of inevitable, but no, this shit wouldn’t fly in the states, how can we make that true everywhere. You can’t look at these individual stories and just decide that’s ok. 

(via tiantianxuexi)

我会继续跑下去，不管有多想放弃∼

I will keep running, no matter how much I feel like giving up.

Turns and Steps, Explained (1/2)

Okay party people, after jumps and spins, are you guys ready to take your figure skating watcher know-how to its next level with turns and steps?

To avoid indigestion and to keep the post within not completely outrageous length I’m going to divide and conquer ‘em this time. This first post will cover the turns. A second post will follow to cover the steps and some additional interesting tidbits.

Before we get down to business, there’s one topic we must go over as a primer. I’ve actively tried to avoid mentioning it in the previous tech posts because according to my experience, bringing it up is a surefire way to turn off any spark of interest new fans / casual viewers might have in a skating discussion. However with turns and steps we cannot, repeat, cannot, circumvent this topic. So, let us talk about edges.

Now there are only 3 possible states a skater’s skating blade can be in at any given time on the ice: inside edge, outside edge, or flat edge. In order to tell them apart you just need to answer this question: is the blade leaning toward or away from the center of the skater’s body? If it’s toward, they’re on an inside edge, if it’s away, it’s an outside edge, and if it’s neutral, it’s a flat edge. Once we’ve established that, the next step is to check out the direction of the skate, is it backward or forward? Combining these two answers, you’ll get to whether it’s a forward inside edge, a back inside edge, a forward outside edge, or a back outside edge.

(In case you’re still wondering why you need to know all this stuff, well that’s because a turn is, by definition, a move in which the skater changes edges or changes directions or both, on one foot. A step is basically the same thing, but with a change of foot as well.)

Here’s an example on how to “read” edges: Yuzuru’s triple Axel at Skate Canada 2015. He entered the jump on an outside edge (note that since it’s a spread eagle, his left foot was on a forward edge and his right foot on a back edge). He moved to a forward outside edge on his left foot to take off for the Axel, finished 3.5 rotations in the air and landed on a back outside edge on his right foot. He transitioned out of the jump into another outside spread eagle and then changed edge midway to turn it into an inside spread eagle - pay attention to that subtle shift in center of gravity at the edge change. (And that, kids, is how you get a perfect score for your triple Axel.)  

Here’s the jump and transition in all of its real time glory to get your eyes some practice: 

With that done, we can move on to examine the 6 types of turns in figure skating. They are: twizzle, bracket, loop, counter, rocker, and three-turn. 

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