Articles in the ‘Beginner’ category Page 31
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Chinese immersion with Carl Gene Fordham
It’s widely known that immersion is an effective way of learning languages, but the details are less clear. How do you go about it? This article contains an interview with Carl Gene Fordham, who has many interesting things to say about how he learnt Chinese to an advanced level, as well as how we continued from there and became a translator and interpreter.
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Role-playing to learn more Chinese and avoid frustration
Focusing on meaning rather than form is usually a good idea. It allows you to communicate as opposed to just do drills, which is only useful in limited doses. However, caring too much about what you want to say rather than how you do it will sometimes make you unable to say much at all. In these cases, role play! You don’t need to answer questions truthfully in class. Exploring questions from different perspectives will not only help you learn more, it’s more fun as well!
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Review: The Geography of Thought: How East Asians and Westerners Think Differently… And Why
People often ask me about cultural differences between East Asia and West and if it’s true that people in different cultures really are all that different. I usually answer something along the lines of that the differences between individuals are bigger than those between cultures. After reading the book recommended in this article, though, I can say a lot more. Reading Richard Nisbett’s “The Geography of Thought” has helped me connect the dots and make sense of some of the differences between East Asia and the West. It’s an enjoyable as well as thought-provoking read.
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Improving your spoken and written Chinese by focusing on the process
Focusing on the process rather than the result has obvious benefits when trying to learn a foreign language. Does it really matter what number your teacher puts on the final version of your essay? No, what matters is what you learnt and what you will be able to improve until next time. Process writing is common enough, but this article extends the concept to speaking as well, which is a much neglected technique in language learning.
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Asking the experts: How to bridge the gap to real Chinese
Many students of Chinese think that it’s hard to bridge the gap from textbook Chinese to the Chinese used by native speakers in the real world. This article contains useful insights and hands-on advice from more than 20 language learners and teachers. The overall message is encouraging: the gap can certainly be bridged, you just need the right attitude and the right method!
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Preparing for rainy days and dealing with slumps
We all experience slumps in our learning, but there are many things we can do to reduce the negative effects of these slumps. The solution is three-fold: Preparing for the slump before it hits you, finding learning activities that don’t feel like work and paying attention to what you feel capable of at the moment. You will still experience slumps, but hopefully they will be less severe!
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Your slumps affect your language learning more than your flows
There are people who go on binges and study like maniacs for short periods of time, but then run out of steam and have slump lasting considerably longer. The problem with this kind of studying is that it really affects your average output. The best is to have a steady, regular performance that gives you the mileage you need without burning yourself out completely. This article examines this problem in greater detail and gives some suggestions for how to improve your slumps.
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What’s your next step to master Chinese?
Procrastination is a major problem facing anyone trying to learn Chinese outside class (which should include almost everyone because if you only do what you’re required to do in class, you won’t get very far). In this article, I share some ideas on how I handle big projects and intimidating tasks. The gist is that you need to break things down and you need to know what your next action is.
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5 websites to help answer your questions about Chinese
It’s not always easy to know where to go when you fail to find answers to your Chinese-related questions. This article gives some advice on how to ask for help online and also introduces five websites that offer help in various forms for free.
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Reading aloud in Chinese is really hard
Reading unfamiliar Chinese text aloud is very hard. This article sheds some light on why this is the case and what consequences it has for people who learn Chinese as a second language. In general, as a student, don’t feel down if you can’t read aloud well, because it really is very hard, and as a (native speaking) teacher, please understand that reading aloud in Chinese is much harder than you think.
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