Articles published in December 2012

1. You can’t learn Chinese characters by rote

   

   My conclusion after years of learning characters is that rote learning is useless. Spaced repetition software is good, but it’s still not enough. If adult foreigners are going to learn to write Chinese by hand, we really need another method. We need mnemonics, we need active processing, we need to quit rote learning and stop using SRS mechanically.

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2. Have fun learning Chinese or else…

   

   Having fun while learning, or at least making the best of every situation, is essential. Learning a language requires a lot of time and if we don’t enjoy the process, we aren’t likely to invest the time we need to master a language.

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