Articles published in September 2014
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Learning to write Chinese characters through communication
How much of your character learning is done through communication? It should be a significant part, but I think this is very rare, both inside and outside classrooms. This article is about using communication to make character writing more fun, meaningful and effective.
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Focusing on communication to learn Chinese
Communicating is the essence of languages and the goal of language learning. In this article, I discuss bot the merits of focusing on communication, but I also explain why focusing too much on communication isn’t the best way of learning.
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Change your attitude to enjoy life and learn more Chinese
Attitude is one of the key factors when learning a language as well as for life in general. This article is about how a change of perspective can turn negative situations into learning opportunities and become a happier person overall.
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How long have you studied Chinese? 290 years or 58 992 hours!
This article is built on a survey of readers’ study time and shows clearly that counting study time in years is completely bunk. It also shows that most people greatly overestimate how much they actually study.
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About cheating, spaced repetition and learning Chinese
Have you even found yourself grading your answer slightly more positively than you should? Even though we all know that we shouldn’t, I think this is quite common. We shouldn’t do this! We’re only cheating ourselves and impeding our progress. In this article, I talk a little about cheating, spaced repetition software and some related consequences and theories.
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