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Study days 📚

YouTube video / Effectively reading and study notes

Prepare for study session

Basic steps to study effectively

Study tips every student should know

How to preview?

Appropriate reading and note taking strategies

What should good notes include?

the PQ4R study method

Spaced repetition

Common study problems and how to deal with them

Searching in databases tips

The Feynman technique

The power of visualization

Understanding study materials. Effective methods

Be productive ✍🏼

How to stay productive?

Apps for productivity

Creating the perfect study space

How to stay concentrated while studying?

Crafting an effective study schedule

The best time to study

Memory 🧠

Memory process and strategies

Improve your memory

Food to boost memory

Cognitive hacks for long-term retention

Mental and physical health 🧘🏻‍♀️

Signs and symptoms of burnout

What are the harmful effects of studying too much?

Apps for mental health

Antidepressant food

Herbal teas for stressful times

Essential oils for students

Will a nap make you feel better?

How to study effectively and maintain good health

Reasons to take up a hobby

Scents that stimulate brain work

#LearningFrench #sstellestudiess

Resources masterpost

Being exposed to French:

Websites, social media

Online courses in French

French subreddits

Fanfictions

Buzzfeed

Improving your:

Pronunciation

Speaking

Things to listen to:

Music

Podcasts

Radio stations

TED talks

Things to read:

Graphic novels/comics

News

Ebooks + quizzes (by me)

Short stories

Vikidia - kids Wikipedia

Things to watch:

Cartoons

Kids shows

Imago TV - free activist Netflix

The Simpsons the movie

True crime

TV programs - sci-fi shows, travelling, etc.

Youtubers

Extra:

Antidote 10 + BonPatron - Grammarly equivalents

Conjugation by le Nouvel Obs

Deepl - very good at translating sentences/expressions

Forbo - natives pronouncing things

Lexicity - about Ancien/Moyen Français

Lingolden - Chrome extension that teaches vocabulary

Linguo.tv (french videos + subtitles)

Reverso - very good alternative to Google translation (single words)

Wordreference - very complete translation website (expressions)

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.

To be clear, if Trump has won this election it is because of misinformation, electoral interference, corruption and mostly bigotry.

However, if you knew what was at stake and decided that you were willing to accept the possibility of a Trump victory rather than vote for Harris, you do not get to walk back an inch of that choice. You accepted responsibility at the ballot box, and now you get to own it.

soft reminder: don’t be so hard on yourself if you fall back into an old pattern!! habits are so hard to change especially when you’re not doing great. when we need the most comfort, old patterns seem like the quick comfort or relief. blaming yourself can make you feel worse and you don’t deserve it especially when you’re already suffering. as long as you pick yourself off the floor and try again, you’re doing good! keep trying until you feel at home in your new routines or habits (yes, it will happen). changing will take more time than expected, but that’s okay. you’re stronger than you feel and you can always try again tomorrow ✨

Apps/sites for learning Japanese

Can't believe how high quality these free resources are!

Last updated: 2025-01-05

コース

Minato

Free high-quality interactive self-guided courses. It also has live courses (I haven't tried it yet).

Preview

TUFS Language Modules

From Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

The English version currently only has the pronunciation and dialog modules, so I'm studying the Traditional Chinese version.

Features

Vocabulary list by topics (Chinese)

Dialog

Pronunciation guide

辞書

Kakimashou

Features

Stroke order

Tone

Preview

Jisho

Super clean interface

Features

Tone

Has JLPT tags

Lots of sentence examples

アプリ

Miraa

The Miraa app makes it easy to listen and repeat (the shadowing/echoing technique).

It has a paid version, but I find the free version to be good enough

Features

Can directly paste links from YouTube

Can ask AI for an explanation of words/sentences you don't understand

Has search built in to search for podcasts in Japanese

renshuu

Also available as a web app

その他(た)のツール

Google - Text-to-Speech AI

Useful for reading out my transcripts. It already sounds much more natural than I do, so I can import it to Miraa and shadow my writings.

10ten Japanese Reader (Rikaichamp)

This is a Chrome extension that I use. I used to use Yomichan and then Yomitan after Yomichan sunsetted. But I personally like 10ten's UI.

Preview

audio study methods

Still working on that 'lazy' study plan post, since I am just not satisfied with any chinese grammar guide summaries online enough to recommend them as a small grammar intro. If anyone knows of any good 'grammar overview summary' articles or sites for chinese grammar, please let me know. (I like AllSetLearning's Chinese Grammar Wiki but it is huge and in depth and not something I'd recommend a learner 'just read through' on month 4 of learning, and the grammar guide summary site I used as a beginner that was very easy to read through in a few hours... no longer exists)

So in the meantime. Not a grammar study tip, but a general 'lazy' option for language learners who (like me) can't focus on stuff like anki, or just don't want to. I go more in depth about using audio lessons and audio flashcards on other posts, and on the lazy study plan post i'm drafting, but the short of it is: you can listen and learn while doing your normal daily activities. That's what makes the study method so convenient. You don't have to squeeze in any extra time, or change your daily life schedule to make time for chinese, to use audio lessons and audio flashcards.

You simply find some times during the day when you'd either normally listen to audio in the background (like if you listen to music when commuting or shopping, or if you listen to podcasts when working, or if you listen to youtube while exercising or browsing social media). As usual, the more time the better as you'll make faster progress if you study 1-2 hours a day or more. But anything is better than nothing. So lets say you commute to work 30 minutes in morning and evening, there's your hour of studying audio. Or you go for a walk at lunch for 15 minutes, and browse tumblr for an hour scrolling (that's 1 hour and 15 minutes of study). It's very easy to fit 30 minutes of audio study into a day, and it's fairly easy to fit even 2-4 hours of audio study if you're so inclined. I usually do 30 minutes - 2 hours of audio study some days, since when I walk I decide if I feel like listening to a youtube essay or chinese or japanese stuff, when driving I decide which I feel like listening to, and I want to listen to something in english 2/3 of the time.

How do you use audio study material? Well, the easy way is you just press play on it, let it play in the background while you do other stuff, and that's it. If you tend to avoid studying new stuff (like me), then I recommend PRIORITIZING listening to NEW AUDIO every time, until you get into the habit of listening to NEW stuff to learn. Then you can re-listen to stuff sometimes, as review, especially when you're doing activities you have less attention on audio during. So for example: you'd listen to new audio on the commute or when walking (when you can mostly focus on what you're hearing), and then re-listen to audio as review while working or scrolling tumblr and reading english (activities where you pay more attention to other things besides audio).

What can you listen to?

There's audio lessons - which would be something like ChinesePod101 (Immersive Language Chinese in the Hoopla library app), Coffee Break Chinese, youtube videos where teachers talk in english and explain chinese as they teach it. These are good for study material, because you comprehend what you're learning due to the english explanations of every word and grammar point you hear. These are good for beginners, because you will understand everything you're listening to, and learn new words and grammar, thanks to the explanations. The drawback with audio lessons is they require the most focus.

There's learner podcasts like TeaTime Chinese and Slow Chinese, these are more often ENTIRELY in chinese. So these are better for practicing comprehension of stuff you've studied elsewhere, rather than for learning new things. You can learn new words and grammar from these, but if that is your goal then re-listen to learner podcasts a decent amount (5-20 times or more until you can't guess/figure out any more word meanings).

There's audio flashcards (which I love). These are sentence audio in english, then repeated in chinese. The order may vary, the chinese may be repeated more than once. These are good for beginners and upward, because you get a translation of every single thing you hear in chinese. You can pick up new words and grammar from audio flashcards. Audio flashcards require less focus than audio lessons, because you can learn from sentences while you pay attention and then if your attention drifts you can just focus again to the next sentence you hear and continue learning. The drawback is there are no explanations for which word specifically translates to what, some translations are not literal, and there's no explanation of why the grammar is the way it is. Audio flashcards require the listener to try and guess what means what by exposure to chinese sentences and their translations. So it's harder than audio lessons in terms of explanations, but easier than learner podcasts. Audio flashcards are the best substitute for traditional flashcards or SRS apps like anki, if you're trying to improve your vocabulary by hundreds of words ASAP. Audio flashcards are dense with new vocabulary (usually 1 new word or grammar point per sentence you can learn), so you'll learn more words than you would with an audio lesson that is paced slower with more english explanations or a learner podcast which would ideally be mostly words you know and only 20% or less new words.

There's Spoonfed Chinese Anki audio files (which I recommend since these start out very basic and increase in difficulty while also repeating words a lot so you can review, they're shared on reddit if you search, or ask me), if you search 'chinese english sentences' on youtube or bilibili (i've done this with chinese japanese sentences on bilibili) you'll find videos like this where you hear audio english then audio chinese. Old glossika cd files are basically this structure as well, which you can find the audio files of for free online or free in libraries (I'm using the new glossika app for japanese but I'm hesitant to recommend the modern app courses as there's significant errors in japanese so I'm not sure how good/bad the chinese one is). If you're a beginner, then the audio flashcard material you pick won't matter much as you need to learn a few thousand common words first which will be in most materials you find. But if you're an upper beginner, you may wish to prioritize finding audio flashcards with MORE unique words, more sentences, or may want to transition to using learner podcasts more for new vocabulary. If you aren't running into at least one new word for every 5 sentences you hear in audio flashcards (and ideally one new word for Every sentence), then that audio flashcard is way too easy for you and you know enough words to move onto new study material.

Audiobooks and audio dramas - use these like learner podcasts, listen to ones you can comprehend the main idea of, and then re-listen until you can't guess/figure out any more new words. If you're not very good at listening comprehension (like me lol), then you may want to listen to a given audiobook/audio drama file 3-5 times before deciding if you can comprehend the main idea (and use the material). When my listening skills are rusty, or just in general since my listening skills are bad, it can take me a few times of listening to recognize words I 'already know' and then a few more times of listening for my brain to put the words i recognize together into 'comprehending' what was communicated. So if you can read better than you can listen, you may want to listen 3-5+ times to a new audio file before deciding if you can follow the main idea or if it's too hard. And if you can READ the audio drama transcript, chapter text, but cannot understand the audio file? Then it probably IS at a good level for you to listen to, you just need a lot more practice hearing and recognizing the words you can read. So re-listen.

All of these listening study methods are good for:

Adding more study time into your day, since you can do them while doing other things.

Learning new words and grammar, when you don't have the time (or don't want) to spend time dedicated mainly to focusing on your study material.

Learning new words and grammar, if you don't use flashcards or SRS like anki but want the benefit of learning lots 'faster' than you would if you only picked up words during active study time (active study time being when you ONLY are focusing on study activities: like reading chinese, watching cdramas, chatting/texting people, and looking up words)

#LearningLithuanian #sstellestudiess

Hi! my name is Vance, and welcome to my blog. here you’ll find me obsessing about japanese, laughing affectionately at german, gushing over lithuanian, and simping for icelandic among others. languages and linguistics are my passion, and I want to share them with others! aside from languages, I also like to color, write stories, and play pokemon. it’s nice to have you here ^_^

Languages I Speak: English (C2), Spanish (C2), Japanese (N2), German (B2), Lithuanian (A2) Languages of Interest: Latvian, Icelandic, Polish, Old Prussian, Romanian, ASL 

Resources

my lithuanian A1 memrise | my lithuanian A2 memrise

latvian resources

lithuanian resources

language insight masterpost

Jei nebūtų mirties, gyvenimas mums neatrodytų toks gražus | If it weren’t for death, life wouldn’t seem as beautiful

Summary of my last post, just my personal suggestions (you can do whatever you want and do things differently), worded shorter:

Learn pinyin or zhuyin, learn how they're pronounced and how to type them. If you're following a textbook or class, just learn pinyin or zhuyin as the materials go over it. If you're learning on your own then do this for a while: the first time you learn new words, look at the hanzi, the pinyin or zhuyin, and listen to the pronunciation of the word. If you're learning with an anki deck then a lot of user made decks will already include this stuff. If you're using Pleco app then you can hear the pronunciation, see the hanzi, and pinyin, in any word entry. Google Translate will also provide sound, hanzi, pinyin.

Learn hanzi. By this I mean: learn to recognize the hanzi of new words, as you learn new words. When reading materials, practice reading the hanzi. Some learner materials will have pinyin text above/below the hanzi, some websites can display pinyin above/below hanzi you paste into the site. These pinyin aids are fine, and potentially necessary if you can't listen to audio as you read, since the pinyin will allow you to sound out the words aloud if you don't remember all the hanzi or if there's a new hanzi in the reading material. (For listening to audio as you read - if you have audio already then just listen along, or use Pleco 'dictate' text feature in the Clipboard Reader area, or Pleco 'speaker' feature to hear just the pronunciation of individual new words, or Microsoft Edge 'Read Aloud' or any other TTS). But you'll want to learn hanzi well enough to recognize them without pinyin aids or audio aids eventually, so you can read whatever you want. So practice reading hanzi on their own too. (Pinyin, audio, and TTS are tools you can use to aid reading, but you will need to develop reading skill of just hanzi if your goals include reading).