Articles in the ‘Essential articles’ category Page 4
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Benchmarking progress in Chinese to stay motivated
When we set out to learn Chinese, everything we learn is new and we can feel that we improve for each day that goes by, for each time we are exposed to the language. We know this because, in relative terms, we’re learning so much. As we progress, this feeling weakens. In this article, I discuss benchmarking and how it can help us stay motivated.
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Achieving the impossible by being inspired
Teaching and inspiring are two closely related things. If you can see all superiors as sources of inspiration and knowledge, you will advance faster than if you view them as rivals or opponents. Similarly, realise that you have your own strong sides that inspire other people. Don’t hesitate to teach others if they want to be taught. Inspiration is cyclic in its nature and should flow freely in all directions.
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Using memory aids and mnemonics to make Chinese easier
Remember almost anything is a skill that can be learnt. In fact, some of the methods I talk about in this article have been known for thousands of years. Most mnemonic methods use the power of association to enable us to remember things. In this article, I discuss how we can use this to help us learn Chinese much more efficiently than if we rely on conventional methods.
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Goals and motivation for learning Chinese, part 1 – Introduction
I think everybody knows that motivation is something you need to succeed at any task. I’m naturally going to assume that you are motivated to learn Chinese (otherwise, why are you reading this?), but that’s not going to be enough. Do you know why you want to learn Chinese? Are you the ambitious entrepreneur? The curious student? The involuntary learner? The Chinese culture aficionado? The linguistics nerd?
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Spaced repetition software and why you should use it
Spaced repetition means that you review words you want to learn in certain intervals to maximise learning efficiency. Since this involves keeping track of much data, a computer program is needed to handle it properly. Spaced repetition software is very powerful and can be used for many things, but learning vocabulary and characters are perhaps the most important applications.
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