Not Only Langblr Music Resources

not only langblr music resources

people irl often ask me where the heck i find the music i listen to, so i figured i might as well make a handy resource masterpost!

Radio Garden: Listen to radio stations all over the world. You can save your favourite stations, explore radio playlists, and search for stations in specific countries or cities. Love this one. You can download the app (android and apple) or listen via your preferred browser.

Radiooooo: Lets you choose a country, a decade, and a 'genre' (slow, fast, or weird) to listen to. You can download the app (android and apple) or listen via your preferred browser.

Every Noise At Once: Sounds overwhelming - and tbh it can be. For this reason I personally prefer to look at 'Genres by Country', although there are many other interesting playlists to look at, such as 'We Built This City On' or 'The Sounds of Places'. You can find more if you scroll all the way to the bottom. Unfortunately, due to the layoff of the creator of this site, some features are not available anymore. This website is entirely based on Spotify.

Charts: Charts can be tricky if you're looking for music in a specific language due to the insufferable dominance of music in english in uh a lot of countries. It is nevertheless worth checking them out. Spotify charts or Top 40 Charts are your places to go.

Tunefind: Heard a song in a film or tv show that you enjoy but can't find it in the credits? This is the website for you! I use it when shazam fails me or when I'm at the cinema and can't use it or w/e. The songs sometimes come with a description of the corresponding scene for easy checking. Just very handy to have on hand.

Local events: Check for concerts etc. in your area. I know this is not an option for everyone for a bunch of reasons, but if it is for you, visiting local concerts can be a gold mine. I got like ten whole new songs in spanish and one in rapanui from one event I went to (it was like a culture fest with singing, dancing, and poetry). Also listening to live music just connects you differently to the art imo.

Friends & Acquaintances: Last but not least; sometimes my nosiness beats my social anxiety and I simply ask people what they like to listen to. If I'm being extra confident, I ask if they listen to music in languages other than english. Go forth and ask people about their music, go go go!!

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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sstellestudiess

2 years ago

#LearningFrench #sstellestudiess

bon matin! c’est tôt pour moi, hmm? today I’ll be sharing some online resources for learning french ranging from vocab lists to full on courses! i hope you find these useful - the internet really is precious when learning languages! <3

⁎⁺˳✧༚ frenchtoday.com

this website threatens to put me out of business and I couldn’t be more delighted! vocab lists galore, free lessons, tips to work on your pronunciation, articles on french culture and even stories and poetry. i haven’t looked at everything available on there, but from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty useful!

⁎⁺˳✧༚ frenchpod101.com

this is a free course you can take, with options for absolute beginners and those already a little familiar with the language. it looks to be good for conversational french and is an easy, no nonsense starting point for beginners, who i know from experience are often easily overwhelmed.

⁎⁺˳✧༚ coffee break french

this is one I’m not quite as familiar with but has come to me highly recommended. it’s a podcast that covers the basics as well as providing dialogues and example role plays. give it a try and let me know how you find it!

⁎⁺˳✧༚ innerfrench (chaîne de YouTube)

this is a really interesting channel! you get to learn french through a variety of different topical discussions and he speaks slowly enough for you to get most of what he’s saying even if you’re a relative beginner, which can make you feel super smart :)

bien, c’est tout! i hope these recs are alright, and I hope we meet again soon~ a bientôt!

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sstellestudiess

2 years ago

If anyone hasn’t been to the ocean in a while

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sstellestudiess

2 years ago

elderly women are so undervalued in society but they are some of the most amazing people in the world I think. we have a lot to learn from them

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sstellestudiess

1 year ago

#learningfrench

L’alphabet phonétique

Les voyelles

[a] open front unrounded vowel - cinéma (cinema, m); hat

[ɑ] open back unrounded vowel - château (castle, m); hot

[e] close-mid front unrounded vowel - clé (key, f); may

[ɛ] open-mid front unrounded vowel - père (father, m), chêne (oak, m); bed

[ə] mid central vowel/schwa - jeu (game, m); bird

[i] close front unrounded vowel - souris (mouse, f); free

[o] close-mid back rounded vowel - rose (rose, f); UK yawn

[ɔ] open-mid back rounded vowel - océan (ocean, m); thought

[ø] close-mid front rounded vowel - jeudi (thursday)

[œ] open-mid front rounded vowel - peur (fear, f)

[u] close back rounded vowel - chou (cabbage, m); boot

[y] close front rounded vowel - tu (you); UK few

This vowel diagram shows the inside of the throat from the left side (pronounce /i/ “eee” and /ɑ/ “aaa” to feel the difference). Antérieur: front, postérieur: back, aperture: opening of the lips.

Les voyelles nasales (when followed by a consonant except -h- or ending a word)

[ɑ̃] > am, an, (é)en, em, aon - temps (time, m)

[ɛ̃] > aim, ain, eim, ein, em, (i)en, im, in, um, un, ym, yn - pain (bread, m)

[ɔ̃] > om, on - ombre (shadow, f), bonjour (hello)

[œ̃] > um, un - humble, un (one, m); dying, turning into [ɛ̃]

N.B. When a nasal sound is produced, despite being made of two letters, they are to be pronounced as their own sound: in Bonjour, the /o/ and the /n/ shouldn’t be heard at all since they are followed by the consonant /j/, as opposed to the usual dragging of /o/ then /n/ like in Bonne journée.

Les semi-voyelles

[j] voiced palatal approximant - lieu (place, m); you

[ɥ] voiced labial–palatal approximant - huile (oil, f); wall

[w] voiced labial–velar approximant - oui (yes); witch

Les consonnes

[b] voiced bilabial plosive - bête (beast, f)

[d] voiced dental and alveolar plosive - déjeuner (lunch, m)

[f] voiceless labiodental fricative - faim (hunger, f)

[g] voiced velar plosive - gâteau (cake, m)

[ʒ] voiced postalveolar fricative - ange (angel, m); vision

[k] voiceless velar plosive - cadeau (gift, m)

[l] voiced apical alveolar approximant - lait (milk, m)

[p] voiceless bilabial plosive - pain (bread, m)

[ʁ] voiced uvular fricative - roi (king, m)

[s] voiceless alveolar fricative - sel (salt, m); nonsense

[t] voiceless denti-alveolar plosive - table (table, f)

[v] voiced labiodental fricative - violon (violin, m)

[z] voiced alveolar fricative - maison (house, f)

[ʃ] voiceless postalveolar fricative - chocolat (chocolate, m)

Les consonnes nasales

[m] voiced bilabial nasal - miel (honey, m)

[n] voiced denti-alveolar nasal - nez (nose, m)

[ɲ] voiced palatal nasal - montagne (mountain, f)

[ŋ] voiced velar nasal - connexion (connection, f); sing

Voiced sounds are those that make our vocal chords vibrate when they are produced; voiceless sounds are produced from air passing through the mouth at different points. Fricatives are consonants with the characteristic that when they are produced, air escaped through a small passage and make a hissing sound; plosives are a type of consonant produced by forming a complete obstruction to the flow air out of the mouth.

Movie: Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain - Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001

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sstellestudiess

2 years ago

#LearningSwedish #sstellestudiess 1

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

things to add to your journals

song lyrics for a specific mood

spotify codes for favourite songs

receipts from a trip

envelope for gifts from any small children you know

pages to press flowers in

ticket stubs

fortune cookie readings

daily three-card tarot pulls

watercolour paper for art

page cutouts

watercolours just in general

pressed flowers

other dried herbs

sketches (taped or glued in)

morning/evening routines

colour in the leftover paper backing from stickers and glue/tape it in

friendship bracelets that may have broken or come off

grocery lists or other shopping lists (glue in if written on other paper)

book quotes

block poetry (you'll have to take a page out of a book for this)

mental health goals

halloween: candy wrappers

fabric scraps

family recipes

different textured papers

stamps

coins

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sstellestudiess

2 years ago

#LearningFrench #sstellestudiess 3

📓 websites for french learning

Completely in French:

TV5 MONDE Apprendre le français - has a lot of good listening exercises

Le Point du FLE - redirects to a lot of good French content and comprehension exercises

RFI Savoirs - there are a few collections here that look interesting

Links I found on Quebec’s website:

Banque de dépannage linguistique (BDL)

Banque d’exercices de français (bank of French exercises)

For English speakers:

Lawless French - covers a large variety of basic subjects

Français interactif (from University of Texas at Austin) - includes a textbook

Tex’s French Grammar - grammar lessons and exercises with fun characters

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sstellestudiess

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Here to learn languages and to feel a little less alone on this journey :) 25 - she/her

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