Articles in the ‘Learning outside class’ category Page 24
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Using Lang-8 to improve your Chinese
Learning a foreign language, most people lack proper feedback from native speakers. Even if we have friends and teachers, always having to ask for help isn’t very good. In this article, I explain how Lang-8 solves this problem for you. Useful for any language, not just Chinese!
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Playing computer games in Chinese: Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2
If you like computer games, why don’t you start playing them in Chinese? It’s not a substitute for other types of studying, but it’s an excellent way of increasing your exposure to Chinese while having fun at the same time.
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Chinese listening strategies: Passive listening
After having looked at background listening in previous articles, the time has now come to discuss passive listening in more detail. In this article, I provide some thoughts on how to adjust passive listening to your current situation, making it less or more active.
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Chinese listening strategies: Background listening
Background listening is not a substitute for more active forms of listening practice, but it’s still very useful. Think of it as a way of filling your days with learning opportunities without requiring much extra time.
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Can you become fluent in Chinese in three months?
Can you (or Benny Lewis) become fluent in Chinese in three months? I think the answer is no, but instead of just being negative, I’ve tried to describe some problems and offer some help on how to solve them.
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Reading manga in Chinese for more than just pleasure
This article is about reading manga (comics) in order to improve your Chinese. Manga serves two important functions apart from being enjoyable in itself. Firstly, it gives us access to language we would otherwise hardly ever see in written form. Secondly, it lowers the threshold for reading books in Chinese. Reading manga just for fun is fine, but if you think about it, you’ll see that it can be very useful as well!
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How to find more time to practise Chinese listening
Listening is probably the most important skill when learning Chinese, and the more you practise, the better. In order to listen as much as you should, you need to stop thinking about listening as a study activity and start thinking about it as a part of life!
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Improve your conversations by listening to the listener
Listening to a dialogue, have you ever tried listening to the person who isn’t speaking? Try listening to the listener, it will teach you many small words and sounds that help you communicate.
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Spaced repetition isn’t rote learning
Spaced repetition might on the surface look like it’s rote learning, but I argue that it isn’t. Firstly, spaced repetition isn’t about learning as such. You’re supposed to use smarter methods to learn the words first and then simply review to keep the knowledge fresh. Secondly, spaced repetition won’t degenerate to rote learning if you are alert and avoid cramming of any kind.
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What native speakers know and what they don’t
I’ve come a cross enough examples of people overstating the importance of being a native speaker to lead me to think that it’s a general trend and not an isolated phenomenon. This attitude is so bizarre it left me baffled the first few times, but I’ve come across this so often that it can no longer be dismissed as coincidence: people really seem to think that native speakers know everything, although it’s obvious that they don’t. This also means that most native speakers over-estimate their own language ability.
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