If you’ve read the 20 rules for learning (and the write-up here), then you’ll know about interference. Interference describes the effect where two pieces of information conflict in your memory, making you struggle to recall either of them properly.
Category: Chinese Grammar
10000 hours of Chinese listening
How much Chinese do you listen to on a daily basis? How much time would you estimate you have spent listening to Chinese in total?
Sentence branching
You may already be aware of the technique of sentence mining and incorporating it into your daily studies. Sentence mining is great and should be a major part of most people’s Chinese learning. Sentence branching is a complementary technique to make it even better.
Delete your flashcards
Delete your flashcards! This isn’t me turning against flashcards. It’s advice about how to learn most effectively with when you’re using an SRS system.
Sentence mining
If I could only recommend one technique for learning Chinese more effectively, it would be sentence mining.
Understand before you learn
Here’s some advice about learning that sounds like it doesn’t make sense: understand before you learn.
Sharpening the saw and learning Chinese
You’ve probably heard the parable about sharpening the saw. There are two people who want to cut down trees. The first one sets to immediately with a blunt saw and no skills. The second person first spends time sharpening their saw and improving their knowledge. In the beginning, the first person gets ahead whilst the other one spends time improving their ability. But once the second person gets going, they quickly gain the lead with the improvements they have made.
How to Learn to Write Chinese: Introduction
Anyone can learn to write Chinese if they have the right knowledge and the right approach. Even with poor knowledge and a bad approach, it’s still totally possible for anyone to learn to write Chinese. In fact, I would say that most people do it with poor knowledge and a bad approach, at least at first.
Why Randy Hunt is wrong about flashcards
I recently came across this article by Randy Hunt arguing that flashcards aren’t just a waste of time when learning languages, but are actively bad for you.
A simple test for your Chinese study methods
How do you know if your Chinese study methods are good ones? It’s a simple question, and there are some intuitive answers. You might ask any of the following to gauge how effective your learning methods are:
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