Category Archives: Language Learning Techniques
Ask Ryan: Going Monolingual and Trusting Yourself
Today we have an e-mail from Alan, who has managed to get through what I think is the hardest part of learning Japanese: kanji. Now Alan is kind of worried about where to go from here. Here’s what he writes:
Ryan,
I’d be a liar if I claimed to be a long-term reader of your blog- I [...]
Also posted in Ask Ryan!, Getting Literate (Kanji), Japanese, Motivation 59 Comments
Learning Sound-Symbol Correspondence through DVD
So since I was forbidden by my loving fiance from doing anything outside a small radius of my bed (I tend to be an idiot and start moving at the first sign of feeling better), I holed myself up with my laptop and my new collection of Scrubs Season 4… in German.
One of the things [...]
Also posted in Learning German 29 Comments
Getting Personal with your Learning
So I need to thank my coworker Casey for this one. Casey came in to my office to talk about a pretty specific instance of a possible use of the SRS, but it generalizes pretty well.
At our work, like at most places where teachers teach, there are student evaluations of the teacher’s performance at the [...]
Also posted in Language, Motivation, SRS 14 Comments
Go Ahead, You Can’t Break it
You can’t break your language. I promise.
Seriously. If you’re sitting around wondering “I wonder if doing X will help my language studies,” then I highly encourage you to try it.
There are very few things that I can honestly say won’t work. Here they are:
You won’t learn literacy through romaji
You won’t learn to listen and speak [...]
Also posted in Motivation 32 Comments
Not for the Faint of Heart
Seriously. Don’t do this if you’re not ready for it. But when you are ready for it, give it a shot.
I’m seriously in need of some German learning material. I got a lot of Japanese stuff, but now I need to redo my environment so that I can be well-adapted to learning the German language. [...]
Also posted in Extensive Reading, Learning German, Motivation 9 Comments
25 Lifestyle Choices for Learning Languages
A little while ago, I wrote about my belief that it may be a better idea to cover the idea of language learning as a lifestyle choice. As a lifestyle choice, the greater the degree of contact per unit of time, the faster you will learn the language.
These are just some of the things I [...]
Also posted in Fun Stuff, Learning, Learning German, Motivation 49 Comments
Adventures in German – Day #9
Finally got a grip on the hundreds of backlogged German cards.
How, you might ask?
I’m a time-using machine (And if I were a time-machine, that’d be even better). I bring my computer with me to class because I use powerpoint often for presentations (which, if you ever need to do, I highly recommend going all Presentation [...]
Also posted in Learning German, SRS 18 Comments
Extensive Reading vs. New Cards
Doing some thinking today about priorities of someone going it alone in their language learning. There’s one thing that I feel is a given now, especially after a few years of trial and error (yeah, it only took me a few years):
Take care of your daily reviews before you do anything else.
I got my butt handed [...]
Also posted in Language, SRS 21 Comments
A Caution Against Using Other People’s Materials
This is a question I’ve grappled with for a while:
Is it better to use our own material or someone else’s material when studying?
This is a general trend I’ve noticed among people, who generally fall into two different camps. The first camp, of which I’m a part of, only uses [...]
Also posted in Language 11 Comments
When Your Listening and Subs Don’t Match