#japaneselangblr
If you’re looking for a new way to study Chinese, here’s a method that I have used to learn Chinese or any other language quickly and effectively. If you’re self-studying or self-learning languages, using tv shows to learn languages is a fun way to learn natural language in an enjoyable way. I’m going to start giving you guys tv show episodes and providing the transcript in the native language to help you in your studies!! The instructions are down below. Simply follow the instructions, watch and learn Chinese!
If you have recommendations for shows you’d like me to do next, leave them in the comments!
Watch and Learn Instructions: Please Read
Intermediate to Advanced: Watch first ten minutes without stopping (without English subtitles). If you are able to understand at least 50%, then re-watch the first ten minutes without English subtitles and only use the Chinese subtitles while looking up any words you do not know.
Beginner to Lower Intermediate: Watch the first ten minutes without stopping (without English subtitles). If you are unable to understand 50%, re-learn the first ten minutes with English subtitles so that the learning process goes a little faster.Look up and write down any and all words you don’t know.
Hey guys so I REALLY want to find more language study, travel and general study Tumblrs and bloggers so please comment down below with a link to your Tumblr, blog, and/or other social media link so I can follow you and create a Masterlist of blogs for my readers here on Tumblr and on my blog!
Quick update: First of all, let me apologize for not updating in a while. I have moved from China to the USA and from Boston to Virginia and have now begun studying for the LSAT. Whew! I’m back to a regular routine and you guys should see regular posts from me now!
If you’re self-studying or self-learning Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French or any language, there are so many reasons why a language learning method could fail that you could be completely unaware of. After all, there is no one identifying your shortcomings or problem areas in language study for you. You have to do it all by yourself. When I began to learn Japanese and Korean in high school I did not know this and it was pretty devastating. When things slowed down or I couldn’t remember Japanese words, I got so freakin’ pissed! Why wasn’t all my hard work paying off!? How long does this stupid crap take?! Why am I not fluent!? How do I learn Japanese faster?! I was rightfully frustrated, but at the wrong things. I was angry at everything else except how I was actually studying.
What I have come to understand is that the language learning method is just as important as the content you actually learn.
It’s the bane of every language learner that wants to self study or study at home. If you are one of these self-learning warriors them you know what I mean. You have to create your own study schedule and plan your own curriculum and it can be a real P in the A. There are so many things to consider, such as your level, available time, your study style (which you can learn about here) and the goal of your learning. HOWEVER, despite all these variables, I am here to help you create your own customized language learning study planner that is both efficient and effective for YOU. So if you want to become a master study schedule maker, keep reading!
Calculate Your Hourly Study
Before you create your schedule begin by looking at your regular schedule (work or school) and determine how many hours per day you can study. Then calculate how many hours per week that makes. This will determine how much material you will be able to cover and how fast you will be able to get through it. The fewer hours of time you have available, the less content you will be able to learn over the span of a week. There is nothing wrong with this at all. Just have to say this clearly so that you don’t expect to be fluent in a few months if you only study an hour a day for five days. Don’t expect miracles people!
My Suggestions
If you work full time, I would suggest only studying about 30 minutes to one hour a day with review on weekends.
For people who have more time to study, you will be able to cover more content in the same week. However, make sure you aren’t adding too many hours so you don’t burn out. For those with more time, I suggest studying between 2-3 hours a day with review on weekends.
TLDR: Count hours because just like a regular language course, the amount of hours a week you study dictates how intense the course is and how much you will cover in a semester.
Determine How Many Days a Week You’d Like To Study
This part is ENTIRELY up to you! However, whatever you choose to do, make sure you leave at least one day of break to avoid burn out. I am currently doing 5 days a week of study with weekends off.
Choose Some Material
There is such a wealth of materials on the internet that I don’t recommend that you purchase ANY textbooks until you search the web to see if it is available online in pdf or something. That’s what I did. If you would like some free Japanese textbook pdfs, you can visit my post about free Japanese resources. I did find online a list of the best textbook by language:
Best Advanced Spanish Textbooks
Also need:
Memrise
Cram
Fluent-U
Yabla Chinese
Chinese Pod
Japanese Pod
Written Chinese Dictionary
TLDR: Do some research to find some material that will be best for you. DO NOT RELY ON APPS. THOSE ARE ONLY FOR DOWNTIME PRACTICE.
Create a Semester and a Syllabus (Get Creative)
The big cons of self-studying languages is the lack of organization. You have to do it alllll by yourself and it isn’t a basket a roses, believe me. So to make it easier for you, plan your studies in semesters like college courses. That way, you have more concrete and plannable goals. If you just float throughout the year as one continuous study blob, you’ll get bored, burnt out, and more likely to give up since your progress is not as easily trackable. But if you study by semester, you can set concrete goals for the semester and what you’d like to cover every day, week, and month. This way, you are easily able to track your progress. This is the best way to study, if you want to see real progress.
The other thing you need to do is create a syllabus, so once you’ve chosen your textbook and materials, go ahead and plan the WHOLE SEMESTER of what you will cover on what days, what days you will have tests, what days you will review, etc. This will require you to go through your textbook or online program in advanced to plan your studies. Try to plan each week by textbook chapters, program units, or specific subject you’d like to learn (celebrities, music, fashion, animals, etc) If you create a week where you are studying a specific subject, you can use movies, books, articles, youtube videos, or music to learn that subject!
For example:
Week 1: Korean From Zero Chapter 1 and 2/ Wani Kani 1
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Week 2: Korean From Zero Chapter 3 and 4/ Quiz
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Week 2: Desserts – Ms. Panda and Mr. Hedgehog Viki Tv Show
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Get creative! Your study schedule is whatever you want it to be!! Don’t forget to mark down the goals for the semester and what you’d like to be able to do by the end of the semester.
TLDR: Create your own semester-based plan to create concrete learning goals and trackable progress. Create a syllabus to write down your goals and your daily and weekly material to cover.
Figure Out Your Study Style
There are essentially two, which I talk about in an earlier post. The Systematic Style and the Intuitive Style. To find out which one you are, visit my post. Essentially, a Systematic learner would rather learn the concepts first, then practice them. An intuitive learner (such as myself) would prefer to be thrown in to an immersive environment and learn while immersed THEN learn the details of the concepts. This GREATLY effects how you need to approach your language study because you will need to develop specific language study skills. For example, if you are intuitive, you MUST have audio/video based lessons with explanations and you may not need a textbook at all.
TLDR: Find out what your
is and implement this style into your study syllabus
HOW TO ORGANIZE AND PLAN MATERIAL
One of the biggest problems among self-taught language learners, is staying organized. You need to be having fun with your studies, but it needs to be organized. Take a journey with me into hypothetical land. Imagine that you wanted to use kpop lyrics to learn Korean. So to do it, you choose a song to start and then everyday you sing the song over and over and study more and more of the lyrics till EVENTUALLY you learn the whole song. Then you choose another and start again. This sounds normal doesn’t it? It’s shouldn’t be. It’s bad.
What you SHOULD do is determine exactly how long you want to take to learn the lyrics to the song. For this case, we’ll say five days (an entire work week). For each day, you need to determine how much of the song you want to cover. One verse? Two verses? Then you plan that the LAST day (the fifth) day of your studies, you review all the vocabulary words and grammar you’ve learned. On Saturday or Sunday, you test yourself on the material.
Voila!! You’ve just created an ENTIRE study plan for a week just around a single K-pop song!! Stick that in your syllabus and move it along!
TLDR: Organize. Organize. Organize.
Use Material You’re Interested In
Keep in mind that you DO NOT have to only use your textbook or language learning program. The internet is vast and so are the resources, so don’t limit yourself! If you would like to learn about fashion, sports, science, or whatever, then plan a week or two of study where you use online resources to do exactly that! You can use movies, shows, articles, music, or even books. Whatever you want in the subject that you want in order to make your language study as interesting and less brutalizing as possible. So it’s okay if you suddenly take a break from your textbook study to learn a kpop song or watch an anime. Do what you want!
TLDR: Mix in topics and subjects you’re interested in learning about into your language study to help keep you interested in your language study!
Conclusion
I hope this wasn’t totally overwhelming! I know it’s a lot, but if you want real language progress, you MUST be organized. It doesn’t matter if you want to know how to study Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, German or whatever. You can use these study tips to help you no matter what the language or what the level. Use these steps and you will become a master schedule maker in minutes! I hope this helps!! Good luck with your language study!!!
All Steps:
Calculate Your Hourly Study
Determine How Many Days a Week You’d Like To Study
Choose Some Material
Create a Semester and a Syllabus (Get Creative)
Figure Out Your Study Style
HOW TO ORGANIZE AND PLAN MATERIAL
Use Material You’re Interested In
“Everything is so hard! I just wanted to be an astronaut!” – A wise man (probably)
Learning a language isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s a living and breathing method of communication that isn’t always perfectly logical. In other words, it’s a HOT MESS and you’re going to have to learn your way through the dense and confusing jungles of someone else’s language. So naturally, you will reach roadblocks and will deal with things that will make you want to quit life and go back to bed. It’s natural! It’s life!
If you are a huge bump in your language learning journey, don’t panic. Don’t panic!! You being stuck is not a reflection upon you or your capabilities. Let me say that again. YOU BEING STUCK IS NOT A REFLECTION UPON YOU OR YOUR CAPABILITIES. It is a reflection of how the world works and how sucky it can be to learn languages.
While learning Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, I faced so many bumps in the road. So many. So many…. *clinches fist and closes eyes dramatically*. But I got through and so can you. In the steps I outline what you can do if you’re feeling stuck in your language learning or if you’ve reached a language learning plateau how to move forward. (So chill out on the “feeling in a rut” quotes from Pinterest cause they won’t help).
Remember Why You Started
This is super basic and you’ve probably heard it a million times, so I won’t linger on this tip. If you feel like giving up, just make a list of all the reasons you started learning this language in the first place. If you have no specific reasons, make some right now. Do some research and see what benefits your language(s) grant you! This will kick your butt into gear again, because now you remember the goal you’re chasing after and you’ll wanna reach it. Cause who doesn’t love reaching goals!?
Don’t Rely On Motivation
Motivation is so great for getting started on something, but once you’ve actually started to do something, you will find that your motivation often wains and all you’re left with is procrastination and guilt. You can’t rely on being motivated to do things everyday. You can try to motivate yourself each and everyday, but that is ineffecient because it takes up precious time and energy. Instead, build up your discipline or your ability to do things even if you don’t want to. Wouldn’t that be sick wicked awesome if you could consistently get things done even if you don’t want to!? That’s what discipline can do for you! The only way to grow it, is to practice doing it over and over till you build the muscle. Beautiful things take time and when you give it that time, you will see amazing results.
Pinpoint EXACTLY What the Problem Is
If you are feeling stuck, you need to try to pinpoint EXACTLY what the problem is. Are you having trouble reading, writing, formulating sentences, listening to natural speed? Pinpoint EXACTLY where the problem lies and then go deeper than THAT to see what is causing the problem. It is important to know exactly what is causing the problems in your studies, writing them down and then brainstorming the best way FOR YOU to address those problem areas. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.
For example, in my Korean studies I faced a HUGE issue. I could NOT formulate sentences to save my life or even my dog’s life! I could perfectly understand sentences, but I couldn’t make a single one. So I identified that I had trouble speaking. Then I identified that it was sentence formation. Then I needed to figure out why. So I threw myself into an immersive environment and realized it was because I was feeling overwhelmed by the grammar and was learning the material the wrong way.
Change Your Approach
Once you have identified the problem, you can begin brainstorming creative ways to deal with each and every problem
For example, in my Korean studies I could NOT formulate sentences! So I reviewed making basic sentences then adding complicated parts to them. I studied that grammar inside and out so that I knew EXACTLY what each word meant and how it contributed to the sentence to create it’s meaning.
I also realized that Koreans formulate sentences so bizarrely different from English so I needed to learn DIRECTLY from native speakers more often. In other words, I needed to shadow them. Then I was able to take sentences I learned to use them and modify them with my deep knowledge of the grammar.
Ask Someone For Help
Last but certainly not least, ask someone for help. It could be a teacher, a coach, another language learner (like myself) or a native speaker. Ask them to assess your abilities and help you determine what’s going wrong in your language studies. There is no book, blog or video that can supplement a human person’s personal interaction so look to others to help you where you are stuck and you will never be disappointed!
You can join language communities in:
Facebook,
Tumblr (you can ask me questions directly on my Tumblr page)
Instagram (Every week I hold a Q&A in Instagram Live)
Reddit (r/languagelearning)
iTalki
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram|Facebook|Twitter|Pinterest
Taken from: Lili Does Critical Languages
Despite the plethora of free printable language trackers out there, tracking language learning is not that simple. You can track how many days you study and how many hours you study, but that doesn’t actually MEAN anything if you aren’t studying efficiently and retaining information. It’s less important how LONG you study and more important HOW you study. Now, I’ve probably pissed some people off. “So how the hell do I actually track where I am and what I’ve learned?” you’re probably asking. Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?! So many people think they aren’t improving in their language study because they can’t see their progress. So, they quit. BUT I do have the answer, so don’t touch that dial!
As humans we love to see exactly how our hard work has paid off. Basically, if you put work into something you will find that you tend to want to see exactly how much closer that hard work has brought you to your goals. That isn’t as simple in language learning but it is possible if you set the right goals and know how to track your progress in them.
How To Set Goals?
DON’T SCROLL PAST THIS PART. I know that it’s easy to roll your eyes and say, “Dude, I know how to set goals…” but hear this, you may be setting goals incorrectly. (DUN DUN DUN).
People often don’t know how to set goals in language learning and that is one of their BIGGEST set backs. Because people see lots of flim-flam around about “how to learn a language in three months” or “how to learn a language super duper uber fast”, they set HUGE goals like “be fluent in X months” or “speak fluently to people in X amount of weeks”. Why? Because they have been told that those goals are realistic! Those, my good friend, are not a good language learning goals and will set you up for disappointment and failure.
The correct way to set goals is to be VERY specific. However, there are two types of goals you should have: main goals and smaller goals.
Main Goals
Obviously, the overall goal is to be fluent, but that’s too big a goal to include on your list. Instead, first write down main goals. Main goals are goals that are used to track your overall progress in a language that are based on topics or situations. When making main goals, make only goals for that month, then add new ones for the next month or continue with last months if you didn’t finish. To explain the concept more clearly, I have posted a picture of my main goals for Chinese. However, it doesn’t matter if you’re learning French, Japanese, Korean, Polish or Spanish. You can use this template for learning any language.
As you can see, I have the month at the top, then on the left I have a tracker for how many days I have been studying. As you can see, there is a gap around the week of the 9th because that was my birthday! Then on the left, you’ll see the key. There I assigned colors to the different components of my language study I needed to complete:
Vocabulary means I study at least 10 vocabulary words within the topic during that week.
Speaking means I practice what I learned with a native speaker (usually via iTalki)
Reading means I read something within the monthly topic within that week
Writing means I write a few sentences within the topic that week
Below all this you see the topic of each week. For one topic I chose Art, so that week I focused on learning about Art (using lists on Tumblr, random materials online and random Youtube videos I found). The next week I learned about politics (specifically how to talk about American politics) and then week three I will do fashion and week four I will do idols (as in celebrities in Korea and China).
Below all that, you can see exactly what I’ve learned. You can see how my language capabilities have grown and exactly what I can now express! Isn’t that cool!!! You should track exactly what you’ve learned to express and then at the end of the month, compare that to what you were able to express last month. But the difference is, you can see exactly what you can and cannot express and maybe identify holes in your knowledge. So one month, you can repeat a topic to fill holes in your knowledge or expand deeper on the topic.
Small Goals
Small goals are little things you’d really like to learn that are outside of your main goals. You can set small goals like finishing a certain book, learning a new song or understanding an entire movie. These goals you can also interweave into your main goals to make it easier to accomplish them.
Learn Topic by Topic
This is the best way I know how to track language learning progress is to learn topic by topic. The more topics you are able to talk about, the more fluent you will become, right? Well, tracking your progress in topics is MUCH easier than tracking every single thing you learn arbitrarily! Each week, pick a topic you’d like to study and find materials related to the topic to help you get as much done as possible.
Topics Are Endless and So is Language Learning
Be patient!! Keep in mind that there are SO many topics to learn because language is VAST and there are many things in the world you can talk about. So the more topics you are able to learn, the more fluent you will become. This absolutely doesn’t happen overnight and I don’t believe it will happen in three months either. But if you just keep going and are consistent, you will find yourself able to speak more and more and more. And that’s what language learning is all about, a continual language learning process where the goal is just to keep improving, because there is always room!
