Monthly Archives: April 2010
The Four Skills Flow
Yesterday I talked about input, output, and the four skills. Today I’ll teach you how to leverage that. Let’s review:
Reading
Listening
Writing
Speaking
Easy enough, right? Now, one of the cool things is how they flow together. Someone who reads a lot vastly improves their vocabulary range over someone who doesn’t, and as they get more and more familiar [...]
Posted in Language, Language Learning Techniques, Learning 48 Comments
Input and Output
Input and Output theories can tell you what`s next. You can leverage these theories in order to figure out general study strategies. Given that:
You can`t express what you don`t know.
The vast majority of words are learned through reading (this was true even in your native language, it`s why your parents and teachers wanted you to [...]
Posted in Language, Language Learning Techniques 45 Comments
Don’t Change that Dial!
Teachers are like TV stations.
What??
You heard me. TV stations.
If you`re only seeing one teacher, it`s like having a broken TV that can only show you one channel (and it`s usually the news). You don`t get to choose the content. You`re teacher does. He also chooses how you will be evaluated, what you will be doing, [...]
Posted in Language, Learning 18 Comments
Try Before you Buy – Grooveshark
Do you like music? I love it. As you may know, I was in chorus for seven years while I was in high school and middle school. I also have some experiences with some musical instruments as well. Now I just like playng Drum Mania in the local game center. I love to listen to [...]
Posted in Audio, Fun Stuff 6 Comments
My Odd Relationship with Heisig
I used the Heisig method. Except I also didn`t use it. I`ll explain.
My experience with Heisig was in fact a hybrid method that I used to memorize the kanji. My kanji list in my SRS had all of the kanji of Remembering the Kanji 1 complete with the readings as provided in Remembering the Kanji [...]
Posted in Getting Literate (Kanji) 9 Comments
The Compelling Reason to get Over Kanji
A little while ago, I put up a series of posts about learning through extensive reading, which I totally believe is the number one way to learn anything. Of course, it suddenly occurred to me that in order to do this, you would have to be literate in Japanese.
And by literate, I really mean off-the-wall, [...]
Posted in Extensive Reading, Language, SRS 10 Comments
Take Your Listening Everywhere – Podcasts
If you don`t live in Japan, practicing Japanese listening can be tough. So to compensate, one of the things I would do is get interesting podcasts on my iPod. There`s a couple of reasons why I like this idea:
You can listen to the same thing over and over again for comprehension.
You can also move on [...]
Posted in Audio, Language Learning Techniques 10 Comments
5 (+1) Ideas for Faster SRS Card Creation!
The SRS does just about everything for you. But creating cards can take some of the wind out of your sails if you don`t know how to deal with it. Here`s some of the things I do for fast card creation:
Freebie: I mentioned this before in my card creation video. Have a notepad file [...]
Posted in Language, Language Learning Techniques, SRS 15 Comments
Self-Study Materials
Hello Everyone,
I have a new page up there on the side now where you can peruse a whole bunch of materials for learning a language by yourself. I plan on updating it as I find more and as I remember many. I also plan to update it with some more entertaining sites as well.
Have fun!
Ryan
Share
Posted in Site Update 20 Comments
Play Hard or Go Home – Language Edition