OK, so Momoko told me that a lot of people might have trouble picturing what the sentence-picking process really looks like. And, now that I think about it, I agree with her. So here’s an example of how I went about picking some sentences just now. The example uses Chinese and Japanese, but I’m sure…
Sentences
Japanese TV Drama Scripts–Tiger and Dragon
by khatzumoto
Could life be better? I submit that it could not!! No, I know it could, but DANG…it’s pretty good right now. Why? Why, you ask? Because you can buy the entire script (yes, the actual text as spoken by each character, plus a little bit of scenario/stage direction for clarity) of Tiger & Dragon [plus…
On Input
by khatzumoto
Here is a really cool post about the need for input at bilingualmente. It’s right on the money with the problem of thinking in your base language instead of in your target language, and how to solve it. I was just discussing this with Momoko yesterday. Other than failing to systematically learn kanji in large quantity,…
The Expert Mind
by khatzumoto
There’s an article written a while back in the Scientific American that discusses what makes someone an expert in something. I found a lot of parrallels with learning sentences (these are the small chunks/quanta that the article discusses) and spaced repetition. You shouldn’t be reading English ;), but do check it out for some quick…
Why Monolingual Dictionaries Are Worth Your Time
by khatzumoto
A lot of you have posted various quite valid concerns about monolingual dictionaries. Perhaps you’re too slow with them. You have to look up words in order to understand the word you looked up in the first place.Et cetera. To me, all of that only underscores why we need to be using monolingual dictionaries. If…
How To Make the Transition to Monolingual Dictionaries
by khatzumoto
Of course, the main reason I’m learning Chinese is because I love Chinese characters; they’re logical, useful and beautiful. But there is another motivation for this project — it acts as a sort of time machine, taking me back, if you will, to when I was first studying Japanese; this helps me better understand how…