How To Learn A Language

How to learn a language

Tips from a language major:

•When learning new vocabulary write the meaning in your language once and the new word at least three times

•If you are learning a new writing style (I.e. Hanzi, kanji, Sanskrit, etc.) write the character at least three times, the meaning and the pronunciation once. -do not write the pronunciation above the character, write it to the side, otherwise you won’t even try to read it. -Learn! Stroke! Order!

•when reviewing vocab try to use the word in a sentence.

•do not pay attention to the technicalities of the grammar. Do not attempt to compare it to your own language. This will seriously mess you up for 80 years. Just pay attention to the sentence structure and make similar sentences.

•if you are learning a tonal language (I.e Chinese) or language that has sounds that don’t exist in your language watch videos of people pronouncing things and try to match their mouth movements.

•if all else fails on your tones just speak quickly.

•watch TV shows in that language and yes watch them with subtitles. But please be aware that may not be how people speak in real life (I’m looking at you, Japanese/Chinese/Korean learners)

•DO NOT BE AFRIAD TO MAKE MISTAKES of you mess up during a sentence just correct yourself and keep going.

•flash cards, flash cards, flash cards. Real and digital.

•spend at least an hour a day on it (OUTSIDE of class), if you’re trying to learn on your own you’re gonna need more time.

•talk to yourself in that language, take notes in it, set your phone to it. You probably look crazy but that is a-ok.

•listen to music in that language, while it probably won’t do much for your ability in the beginning it will help you distinguish sounds once you get pretty good.

•and lastly, don’t give up. It took you like ten years to grasp your own language it’s gonna take awhile to grasp another.

-How I learned 2 ½ languages at once.

Swedish Introductory courses

FSI Languages | basic swedish lessons with audio lessons and a textbook

Ikindalikelanguages.com | 45 short Swedish lessons

Ielanguages | basic phrases, vocabulary and grammar in 3 levels with 58 tutorials

Internetpolyglot | word vocabulary lists with audio pronunciations and English translations, with 44 categories

Swedish language course | 4 small lessons on the basics

OnlineSwedish | 7 lessons with a small exam at the end

Speaklanguages | basic vocab and phrases

Memrise | 1025 Basic swedish words to learn

Goethe-verlag | phrases, vocab and audio lessons

Learnalanguage | phrases, verbs, vocab, dictionary and culture

Loecsen | small lessons with quizzes

Mylanguages | literally so many different things

SayitinSwedish | 30 beginners lessons

SwedishPod101 | many, many different things

Wikiversity | 12 short lessons

Babbel | kinda like Duolingo I guess?

P.S. Many of these sites also offer beginners courses in other languages!

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sstellestudiess

2 years ago

#LearningFrench #sstellestudiess 2

FRENCH RESOURCES

Textbooks

French Grammar and Usage

Le Bon Usage

Verb Exercises (15 tenses + 3 other topics)

Lessons

France Université Numeratique (like Coursera)

Alliance Française on FUN [A1] [A2] [B1]

LanguageTransfer (excellent audio lessons)

FluentU on YT (advice on natural spoken French etc.)

Online Dictionaries

Larousse

Trésor de la Langue Française

Reading + Listening

RFI Savoirs* (current affairs in B1-2 level French)

FranceCulture.fr (very good radio + podcasts)

Passerelles (very nice podcast, intermediate level)

EuroNews

Arte (documentary + cultural television)

innerFrench (youtube channel)

CultureMag.fr

*link to English-language site; scroll down to access site in Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, or Arabic

Art + Literature

Wikilivres (free public domain books in French)

Film Recommendations (subjective!)

Bilinguis (bilingual translations of classics)

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sstellestudiess

1 year ago

This is a post about masterposts about resources and books for studying many languages. I made this since many people do not know about all the resources that have been posted.

Resources for Many Languages: thelanguagecommunity

General

Language Pile

Free Online Language Courses

Huge Language-Learning Collection

Language and Linguistics Resources

Language Families/Groups

Resources for West African Languages

South Asian Languages Resources

Classics Resource Masterpost

Online Latin & Greek Resources

Celtic Languages Resource List

Celtic Family Language Resources

Germanic Languages Resource List

Dutch, Afrikaans, West Frisian, Limburgish

Scandinavian Language Masterpost

North Germanic Language Resources

Resources for Finno-Ugric languages

Finnish, Estonian, Saami, Voro

Alien Languages of Star Trek

Afrikaans

Learn Afrikaans Masterpost

Afrikaans Masterpost

Ainu

Ainu Resources

Albanian

Albanian Language Masterpost

Amharic

Amharic Resources

Amharic Movies & Shows

Arabic

Arabic Learning Resources

Arabic Language Masterpost

Arabic Language Apps

Moroccan Masterpost

Free Arabic Resources

Armenian

Armenian Language Masterpost

ASL

American Sign Language Masterlist

ASL Masterpost

Azerbaijani

Azerbaijani Resources

Belarusian

Belarusian Resources

Basque

Ultimate Basque Resource List

Euskera Free Resources

Learn Basque

Bengali

Bengali Language Resources

Bulgarian

Bulgarian Resources

Catalan

Catalan Resources

Recursos per aprendre català

Resources to Learn Catalan

Cantonese

Cantonese Language Resources

Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese Resource Masterpost

Chinese Learning Resources I

Chinese Language Resources II

Chinese Pinyin Masterpost

Intermediate Chinese Resources

Ultimate Mandarin Resource List

Cornish

Cornish Language Masterpost

Crimean Tatar

Crimean Tatar Resources

Croatian

Croatian Resources

Czech

Czech Resources for Beginners

Czech Resources

Danish

Ultimate Danish Resource List

Dutch

Great Resources for Dutch

Dutch Resources

Dutch Resources Masterpost

English

English Online Courses

English Language Masterpost

Estonian

Intermediate Estonian Resources

Faroese

Faroese Resources

Finnish

Masterlist of Finnish Resources

Finnish Language Resources

Finnish Resources: Beginner

Finnish Learning Resources

Finnish Language Resources

French

Ultimate French Resource List

French Resources Masterpost

French Masterpost

French Review

Galician

Galician Resources

Free Galician Masterpost

Georgian

Georgian Language Masterpost

German

German Learning Tools

German Resources

German Masterpost

Gothic

Gothic Language Masterpost

Greek

Greek Masterpost

Ancient Greek Masterpost

Ancient Greek Resources

Greenlandic

Greenlandic Resources

Guarani

Guarani Masterpost

Hawaiian

Learn Hawaiian

Hebrew

Hebrew Language Masterpost

Hebrew Masterpost

Hindi

Hindi Language Masterpost

Hindi Audio & Video

Hungarian

Hungarian Masterpost

Hungarian Learning Resources

Hungarian Resources

Icelandic

Icelandic for Everyone

Icelandic Resources

Icelandic Masterpost

Indonesian

Indonesian Resources

Italian

How to Learn Italian

Italian Resources

Italian Masterpost

Italian Resource Masterlist

Italian Culture Masterpost

Irish

Irish Resources

Irish Masterpost

Japanese

Free Japanese Resources

Japanese Resources

Studying Japanese

Japanese Resource Masterpost

Japanese Language Learning Resources

Kannada

Kannada Resources

Kazakh

Kazakh Masterpost

Khmer

Khmer Language Masterpost

Kikongo

Free Kikongo Resources

Korean

Korean Textbook Masterpost

Korean Resources

Korean Resource Masterpost

Korean Language Masterpost

Ultimate Korean Masterpost

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz Resources

Latin

Learning Latin

Latin Resource List

Masterpost of Latin Video Resources

Latin Resources

Lithuanian

Lithuanian Resource List

Malay

Malay Resources

Maltese

Maltese Resources

Mongolian

Mongolian Resources

Nahuatl

Nahuatl Language Masterpost

Nepali

Nepali Masterpost

Norwegian

Norwegian Masterpost

Norwegian Resources

Norwegian Sources

Norwegian Masteprost

Norwegian Masterposts

Occitan

Occitan Resources

Old Church Slavonic

Resources

Pashto

Pashto Masterpost

Persian

Persian Language Masterpost

Where to Start Learning

Polish

Polish Self-Study Masterpost

Polish Resources

Polish Resource List

Portuguese

Portuguese Resources

Portuguese Starter Pack

Portuguese Resources

Punjabi

Punjabi Masterpost

Punjabi Resources

Romanian

Romanian Resources

Romanian Learning Resources

Useful Romanian Resources

Romanian Masterpost

Romanian Resources

Russian

Russian Learning Tools

Russian Textbooks

Some More Resources

Russian Masterpost

Northern Sami

Northern Sami Resources

Northern Sami Masterpost

Scottish Gaelic

Learn Scottish Gaelic Masterpost

Scottish Gaelic Masterlist

Serbian

Serbian Masterpost

Language Resources

Sinhala

Sinhala Resources

Slovak

Slovak Resources

Slovak Masterpost

Slovene

Slovene Resources

Somali

Somali Language Masterpost

Spanish

Spanish Resources: Oxford

Spanish Resources

Learning Spanish

Spanish Resources Masterpost

Swahili

Swahili Resources

Swedish

Swedish Resources

Swedish Resource List

Swedish Resources

Tagalog

Tagalog Masterpost

Tagalog Resources

Tamil

Tamil Masterpost

Tatar

Tatar Resources

Thai

Thai resources + books

Tibetan

Tibetan Resources

Turkish

Turkish Resources

Turkish Masterpost

Turkish Resource List

Ukrainian

Ukrainian Language Masterpost

Ukrainian Resources

Urdu

Urdu Masterpost

Uzbek

Uzbek Resources

Uzbek Mastepost

Vietnamese

Vietnamese Resources

Xhosa

Xhosa Resources

Yiddish

Yiddish Language Masterpost

Yoruba

Yoruba Resources

Zulu

Zulu Resources

**Last Updated: June 2019**

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sstellestudiess

2 years ago

Awww ♥️

My advice on Remembering the Kanji (RTK)

Before I share my learning routine and advice for RTK I would like to write about my personal experience first:

When I started to learn Japanese, kanji seemed incredibly difficult. They were just a complicated combination of strokes to me. Then I came across the book Remembering the Kanji (RTK) by James W. Heisig. Volume 1 presents a total of 2.200 kanji (including most of the Jōyō kanji).

I used the german version of Remembering the Kanji

The beginning was promising. I easily learned the first few hundred kanji. This experience was amazing. I never thought that this could be possible. But then I made the mistake of proceeding too fast. I saw forum posts of other RTK users who claimed that they “finished“ RTK in 3 months or even less. This motivated me and I tried to learn 25 kanji a day. Even though it was difficult to create memorable stories for this amount of kanji every day I moved on. After my first try to learn kanji with RTK, I forgot a great part of it after I “finished” the book.

I was not satisfied but I decided to move on and tried to read as much as possible instead. My idea was that I would make faster progress if I don’t learn kanji consciously. It’s not impossible to learn some kanji by seeing them repeatedly in context but it didn’t worked as well as I expected.

Kanji seemed not as complicated like before but because of the great number of kanji and a lot of similar looking kanji they were still a great obstacle for me. Then I noticed that I still remembered the meaning of a number of kanji I learned with RTK. When I came across these kanji in context, I was able to understand new words without looking them up. Knowing their (rough) meaning really made a big difference. This made me think.

Around this time, I gave RTK a second chance and learned from my mistakes. I realized that if I really wanted to benefit from RTK I need to think long-term. It’s not that you do RTK for only 3 months and you are done. What I needed were sustainable strategies.

I finished all 2.200 kanji (RTK volume 1) a while ago and I know most of them well now. By reviewing my RTK deck my recognition rate will further improve over time. My RTK knowledge helps me enormously with reading japanese books. I’m really happy that I gave it a second chance. That’s why I want to share my experiences and tips in this blog post. I hope that this post can be helpful for Japanese learners who struggled with RTK.

My learning routine

My usual learning routine looked like this (more detailed tips below):

1. Review

Every day, I used Anki to review my own RTK deck.

Read the keyword and (if in doubt) the hint

Try to remember the elements of the kanji and their positions and write the kanji in the air

Turn the card and check the kanji

If it was wrong, change the hint and/or improve the story

2. Adding new kanji

After reviewing I usually added around 10 to 15 new kanji a day. My cards contain not only keyword and kanji but also fields for hints, elements of the kanji and the story. Here’s an example (my original cards are in German so this is just a rough translation):

Hints: If the keyword was very similar to another kanji I added a hint to reduce the risk of mixing them up.

Elements: I also added the elements of the kanji. This is useful for two reasons: By writing them out I become more aware of the elements which helps to remember new or complex elements correctly. Plus, by putting them on the back side of the card I can refresh my memory during reviews without using the book.

Story: Instead of creating a story only in my head I added the story to my cards. The reasons are the same like for the elements (see above).

…

After adding 5 new kanji I made a small break, came back and reviewed the new kanji. Then I repeated this process for another 5 kanji.

I usually added around 10 to 15 kanji a day. This was my sweet spot. Since I work full time and because my main focus was on reading japanese books I hadn’t a lot of time for RTK. By not adding more kanji that I can handle I made sure that I remember them well.

Then I continued reading a book in Japanese and/or listened to something in Japanese. RTK was just a small part of my learning routine. My goal was not to finish it as fast as possible but to make sure that I remember these kanji as well as possible. Slowly but steady I learned more and more kanji. This gave me a noticeable advantage while reading.

RTK is not a race

As I wrote above, I made several mistakes myself but instead of blaming RTK I realized that I need to take the explanations in the book more seriously. It’s really important to make sure that the stories are memorable and that you pay attention to the details.

The most important lesson I learned was that RTK is not a race. During my second attempt, it was not my goal to “finish” RTK as fast as possible but to remember these kanji LONG-TERM because this makes reading and learning new words much easier.

By proceeding too fast, the risk of forgetting a lot of kanji is very high. When it comes to RTK, a high recognition rate is more important than speed, in my opinion. That’s why I created sustainable strategies that helped me to remember most of the 2.200 kanji long-term.

5 Tips on Remembering the Kanji

Tip #1: Don’t underestimate the power of writing

In the beginning, I used to write every kanji on paper. Now, I only write them with my finger (either in the air or on the table). This is much faster and easier.

Why writing them at all? Some people say, being able to recognize them is enough. Personally, I remember them much better through writing (even if I just write them in the air; the movement of the hand makes a great difference for me). In my experience, writing works much better than just looking at a kanji because through writing I become aware of every detail. Many kanji look pretty similar. Sometimes only one little detail is different. The risk of mixing them up is much higher.

I tried the “recognition-only approach” in the past and it didn’t work well for me. The ability to recognize and distinguish kanji just by looking at them has its limits. It’s not very accurate, that’s why I still mixed up similar kanji. 宇 and 字 or 烏 and 鳥 for example look very similar at the first glance. The original RTK method on the other hand helps to avoid that because you pay much more attention to the details.

Plus, writing in Japanese by hand is important to me. I love writing and kanji are very beautiful! That’s the reason why I want to be able to write in Japanese. But even if you don’t want to be able to write kanji, I recommend to write them in the air during reviews to reduce the risk of mixing them up. It may not seem like this could make a big difference but in my experience it’s really helpful. The power of writing should not be underestimated.

Tip #2: Add hints

When I repeatedly mix up kanji or when I can’t remember how to write them correctly, it’s a sign that the story is weak. I pay attention to the story and try to make it more memorable. Plus, when I confuse a kanji with another I add a hint to the card like “Don’t confuse with [similar keyword]”.

It’s also helpful to copy the definition of the keyword from a dictionary and/or a japanese word written in hiragana that contains this kanji and add it to the card. This way I have more context and this prevents me from confusing a keyword with a similar one (because the definitions are different).

Using little hints is a great way to make the learning process less frustrating. Over time, I need these hints less and less. Eventually, I remember difficult kanji correctly.

Tip #3: Take the time you need

It’s also very important not to rush. I barely added more than 15 new kanji a day. Most of the time, I only added about 5 or 10 a day. Since I work full time and because my main focus was on reading japanese books I hadn’t a lot of time for RTK.

During reviews I pay attention to the things I described above. Do I mix them up? Can I remember them correctly? Whenever I have trouble to remember certain kanji, I improve the story and/or add some hints. Some kanji may be more difficult than others, but over time you can learn every kanji by paying more attention to them. Paying attention to why you didn’t remember some kanji correctly and eliminating sources of error is really important. If a story doesn’t work don’t hesitate to improve it.

However, there’s no need to be too strict. You don’t need to nail them down to 100% before you move on. But I think it’s a good idea to give new kanji time to sink in a bit before continuing. That’s why I recommend to slow down the pace instead of rushing through the book.

Tip #4: Be creative

The meaning of some primitives chosen by Heisig are not optimal for everyone. It works much better if you choose something that has a strong meaning to you (like, characters from your favorite series). Just make sure that your personal meaning doesn’t conflict with later keywords or elements. Ideally, it’s as close to Heisig’s word as possible or it’s so unique that it’s impossible to mix it up with other words.

If a kanji is used as part of another kanji (like 青 in 請 for example) you don’t necessarily need to use it in it’s combined form if it’s difficult to create a good story. You can split or combine the elements of a kanji the way you like if it helps you to remember the kanji.

Tip #5: Combine RTK with reading

Some people recommend beginners to do RTK at the very beginning of their Japanese learning journey. The idea is, to complete RTK as fast as possible so that you can focus 100% on the language itself afterwards. However, I think depending on the person this can be counterproductive. RTK is probably more difficult for people who just started with Japanese because they can’t see the benefits of RTK yet. When you have no use for what you are learning it’s hard to stay motivated over an extended period of time. I think this is one reason, why people who tried RTK gave up.

When I started RTK I wasn’t a complete beginner of Japanese. I did RTK in addition to my other Japanese activities like reading books. This way, I often came across kanji I just learned. I saw them in context and they helped me to understand new words without looking them up. Experiences like these were a strong proof for me that RTK really pays off and this gave me a motivation boost.

So instead of doing RTK at the beginning and doing nothing else, I recommend to wait until you can read at least graded readers or easier novels, for example. Otherwise it’s probably too hard to stay motivated for so long.

…

I hope these tips can be helpful for someone. It’s sad when I read that some people gave up because they constantly mix up or forget a lot of kanji. There are also people who rush through RTK without creating memorable stories for each kanji and stop doing their reviews after “finishing” RTK. And then they claim that RTK is a waste of time and doesn’t work because they can’t remember most of the kanji — which is no surprise in this case.

While I absolutely understand that RTK may not work for everyone it’s not fair that people who didn’t take the explanations in the book seriously claim that it doesn’t work in general.

Learning kanji takes time. This is absolutely normal. It’s not a shame if you need more than 3 months or a year to complete RTK. In my opinion, if the goal is to remember these kanji long-term 3 months are very unrealistic for most people. Seeing people who “finished” RTK in a short amount of time creates false expectations. RTK is not about breaking records. To me, it’s much more important to make sure that you remember these kanji long-term. Every learned kanji is already a little advantage, that’s why speed is not so important anyway.

Without RTK learning kanji would have been much more time consuming and frustrating for me and the risk of forgetting and mixing them up would be much much higher. To me, there’s no real alternative to RTK and now that I finished it I’m very happy that I put in the work and time.

Maybe I will also learn the additional 800 kanji from volume 3 in the future. But for now I’ll focus on consolidating the 2.200 kanji from volume 1 and on other learning activities.

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