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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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Hi everyone! I just finished the 100 Days Of Languages challenge and I wanted to do something new afterwards, so I came up with a challenge of my own! I’m calling this the Checkerboard Challenge because it’s an 8x8 grid. Along the top there are eight language-related skills, and on the side there are eight modes of learning, so each box contains a way to study a particular skill using a particular mode. I wanted to do that because exposing yourself to the same information in different contexts is so helpful for learning and I wanted to apply that to how I study Portuguese. The result is a list of 64 different ways to study languages, 71 if you include the alternate options listed below, each one versatile enough to be repeated as often as you want using different topics or resources and hopefully interesting and useful for your learning.

Ways To Use This Challenge

Complete all of the challenges on the table, in whatever order you want.

Choose a particular skill you’d like to work on. Complete all of the challenges in that column.

Choose a particular method of learning that works well for you. Complete all of the challenges in that row.

Use dice or a random number generator to pick a challenge to do every day, and see how long it takes you to get bingo or connect four or something.

Choose whichever of the challenges sound useful to you and incorporate them into your regular studying routine.

There’s no obligation to post anything you make; even when I say to record yourself doing something, that can just be for your own future reference. (It’s recommended for the collaborative tasks that focus on creating resources that would be useful to other learners or interacting on social media, but even then you can just write the posts/comments and not post them if you prefer) However, I would love to see anything you do want to share, or any updates on your progress, so you can post anything like that with the tag “checkerboard challenge” which is also where I will be posting the tasks I complete.

The tasks are listed below, with more detail than what would fit in the boxes.

Reading

(Visual) Read a comic book, comic strip, or webcomic in your target language. Depending on your skill level and the amount of time you have, you can choose anything from a single strip of a newspaper comic to a full-length graphic novel

(Auditory) Read along with a chapter of an audiobook, or another piece of writing with accompanying audio. Some language learning websites have articles with recordings of native speakers reading them. If you want, or if you can’t find anything else, you could even use a song and its lyrics.

(Hands-On) Option 1: Play a video game in your target language. This can be a computer or console game, or an app on your phone or even a little browser game. Check the language options on games you already have to see if your target language is available, or if not, many free games have lots of language options. / Option 2: Read and follow a recipe or another set of instructions, such as an art/craft tutorial, the rules to a board or card game, a DIY project or a magic trick.

(Logical) Solve riddles or logic puzzles in your target language. (Alternate: Read a short mystery story such as a minute mystery (or something longer if you prefer) and see if you can solve it before the characters do.)

(Collaborative) Talk by text chat with someone else learning your target language, or a native speaker learning your language.

(Read/Write) Read an article or a chapter of a book (or the whole thing) in your target language. It can be about any topic, and can be a children’s or adult’s book depending on your skill level and preference.

(Personal) Find and read a translation of a piece of writing that’s important to you, such as your favorite book as a kid that you feel nostalgic for, or a poem that resonates with you.

(Creative) Read story in your target language and illustrate what happens. The quality of the drawing isn’t important unless you want it to be; the important thing is to help you process what you’re reading.

Writing

(Visual) Choose a photo, either at random from a generator or by choice on a website like Unsplash, and describe it in as much detail as you can. Your description can focus just on describing visible details in the image, or you can make up contexts for and stories around the things you see, whichever you prefer. (Alternate: Do this with a physical object nearby instead of a photo.)

(Auditory) Try writing simple poems, focusing on the auditory features of what you’re writing such as rhyme and rhythm. You can use a rhyme dictionary to expand your vocabulary in an interesting way while you’re working on this. It’s not necessary to worry too much about the artistic quality of the poems unless you want to.

(Hands-On) Write instructions for how to do something you know how to do, such as recipe, a life skill, a game or sport, an art of craft project, or even your method of language learning.

(Logical) Create a persuasive piece of writing that logically argues a point. It doesn’t have to be about a serious or controversial topic. For example, you can defend your prediction for the next season of your favorite show, or what would happen if some fantasy or sci-fi concept were real (maybe a good way to practice the conditional tense if you’re studying a language that has one), or why your best friend is awesome.

(Collaborative) Use a language learning social media app like HelloTalk. Comment on posts and make your own.

(Read/Write) Write a summary of something you’ve read in your target language. You can either read in your native language and summarize in your target language, or do both parts in your target language.

(Personal) Write a journal entry in your target language, talking about how your day or week has been or what you are thinking and feeling. (Alternate: Write about one of your memories.)

(Creative) Write a small story in your target language. It can be about whatever you want, and it doesn’t have to be very long or detailed. You can (option 1) write it as prose, which could be better to practice description and narration or to focus on a particular verb tense, or in (option 2) a script style which could be better to practice conversational language.

Listening

(Visual) Watch a video with narration that describes it, such as a nature documentary, an instructional video such as a cooking video, or a video reviewing something.

(Auditory) Find an online stream of a radio station. Pay attention to both the music and what the announcers say.

(Hands-On) Watch a video demonstrating a craft project, recipe or other task and follow the instructions.

(Logical) Watch or listen to a mystery story and try to solve it before the characters do. This can be a whole movie or novel-length audiobook if you want, but it doesn’t have to be; even an episode of something like Scooby Doo should work.

(Collaborative) Exchange audio with someone else learning your target language, or a native speaker learning your language.

(Read/Write) Watch a video or listen to a piece of audio and take notes on what you learn.

(Personal) Watch a dub of a piece of media you are familiar with, such as your favorite childhood movie.

(Creative) Option 1: Listen to a story or other piece of audio and illustrate it. / Option 2: Listen to a song and make up a new verse.

Speaking

(Visual) Make a video of yourself showing something and talking about it, for example a tour of your home or neighborhood, a review of something, or a video about your pet.

(Auditory) Listen to a piece of audio and try to repeat what you hear. You don’t have to pause after every word and repeat it, it’s probably better to go at least sentence by sentence or with parts even longer so you can keep things in context.

(Hands-On) Explain to someone, or record yourself explaining, how to do something, possibly while demonstrating.

(Logical) Record yourself explaining, and possibly demonstrating, how something works, such as a science concept.

(Collaborative) Record yourself explaining a concept you’re learning, like a grammar topic or how to use a particular word.

(Read/Write) Read out loud and record yourself.

(Personal) Make a recording of yourself talking about something that’s important to you or a memory or anecdote you have. (Alternate: Make a vlog entry (even if you don’t have a vlog to put it on) talking about your day.)

(Creative) Record yourself telling a story, or tell one in person to someone.

Vocabulary (Most of these, with the exception of the first two, can be done with any vocabulary list you want.)

(Visual) Choose a page from a visual dictionary to study. One way you can do this is by studying the words and then covering the labels with sticky notes or whiting them out on a copy and trying to fill in the blanks.

(Auditory) Choose a song in your target language, and look up and study any unfamiliar words in it.

(Hands-On) Option 1: Use your vocabulary list as a scavenger hunt list. This works well if you have a lot of nouns and adjectives on the list. For everyday household items, you can look for the literal items on the list, while if they’re more obscure you can look for pictures or other representations of them. / Option 2: Act out the words on your list. This works well for verbs and adverbs, as well as more abstract nouns or adjectives like emotions. You can record video of yourself doing this and later look back at the video to try to guess the words.

(Logical) Option 1: Make a crossword puzzle using your vocab list. If you write the words and clues, there are tools online that will build the puzzle itself for you, or you can do that by hand on graph paper if you prefer. You can either wait a while and then solve your own puzzle to see how much you remember, or give it to another language learner to solve an ask them to make one for you to solve. / Option 2: Look into the etymological history of the words to find out why they mean what they mean and whether they have any connections to words in your own language.

(Collaborative) Create a vocab list post around a theme, including words you are studying as well as any related words you already know. Include any resources that you think would be useful to someone using the list, such as sample sentences, pictures, or whatever else you want.

(Read/Write) Try to write a small story or other piece of writing using as many of your vocab words as you can.

(Personal) Write a sentence about what you think of each thing on your vocabulary list.

(Creative) Try to write an interesting sentence using each word on your vocabulary list. (Alternate: Illustrate each word on your vocabulary list. You can do this on index cards if you want, to make illustrated flash cards.)

Grammar

(Visual) Create a color or shape coded system to classify a concept like verb tenses or noun gender. For example, you can read through a piece of text and highlight all of the verbs using a different color for each tense, or you can make flash cards with your vocabulary words and mark them with different symbols depending on the gender.

(Auditory) Grammar is a common topic for educational songs. Find a one intended for kids who speak your target language.

(Hands-On) Using words on sticky notes or index cards, build sentences that demonstrate grammatical concepts. If you have access to some of those little word magnets in your target language, those would probably work great for this, but if not (and I know I don’t) you can write various words, affixes, etc. on index cards or sticky notes, or use your existing flashcards if you have them.

(Logical) Create a table, chart, or diagram of a grammatical concept you’re studying.

(Collaborative) Write a post explaining a grammar topic you are learning.

(Read/Write) Read through a text, to find (and maybe highlight, circle, etc.) examples of a grammatical concept, then write more examples.

(Personal) Write about a part of your life that corresponds to the grammar topic you are studying. For example, for the future tense, you can write about your plans or hopes.

(Creative) Write a small story relying on the grammatical concept you’re studying.

Pronunciation

(Visual) Look up diagrams of how to pronounce sounds you struggle with. These can be found as images or in an animated form in YouTube videos, and usually show what your tongue, teeth, etc. are supposed to be doing when you pronounce the sound.

(Auditory) Find a recording of a native speaker, record yourself saying the same thing, and listen for differences.

(Hands-On) Try to pronounce some tongue twisters or other pronunciation-based challenges.

(Logical) Try learning the linguistic names of sounds you work with, and look into how they compare to other sounds. Wikipedia has articles about the different sounds that can exist in languages and tables showing how they are used in various languages.

(Collaborative) Record yourself reading something that contains sounds you struggle with and post it for feedback, possibly on an app like HelloTalk.

(Read/Write) Look at the written IPA pronunciations (these can be found on Wiktionary) of words you learn and look up what the symbols mean.

(Personal) Sing along to songs you like in the language, especially (for the personal category) nostalgic ones or ones meaningful to you.

(Creative) Write a tongue twister using words that are difficult for you to pronounce and practice saying it.

Cultural Context

(Visual) Explore a museum website in your target language. The museum should be located somewhere where your target language is spoken, but it up to you whether you want to look at an art museum, a science or history museum, or something else. Look at the exhibits and read the descriptions.

(Auditory) Create a playlist with traditional, classic and modern songs in various genres that either were invented in or popular in a place where your target language is spoken. Ideally using resources in your target language, learn about the songs and genres.

(Hands-On) Using resources in your target language, learn how to do or make something from a culture that speaks it. For example, you can look up a recipe, a tutorial for a dance style, the rules to a game, or how to make an art or craft project. (Make sure the thing you pick is being openly shared by members of the culture it came from.)

(Logical) In your target language, learn about a scientist / inventor / etc. from somewhere the language is spoken. Learn about their work, with explanations of what they invented or discovered, and if you want, find out other information about their life too.

(Collaborative) Comment on or otherwise interact with the blog/YouTube channel/etc. of a native speaker, after you read or watch it, of course. (You don’t need to receive a reply to check off this box, because that part is not under your control.)

(Read/Write) Try reading a significant work of (children’s or adult) literature in your target language.

(Personal) Learn about something relevant to your job/hobby from where your target language is spoken, using resources in the language.

(Creative) Read about artistic or literary themes, movements or eras where the language is spoken, and create something (it can be something simple) using those concepts.

[Image: The title “Language Learning Checkerboard Challenge” above a purple 8x8 table. The information contained in the table is repeated above.]

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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Let’s talk about studying foreign languages outside of a textbook, and how it can result in some weirdly specific skills.

For example, I’m heavily asthmatic, and lived in China for a period of time. I went to the hospital a lot for asthma related issues, and as a result I can use Mandarin to explain symptoms of respiratory distress in exacting detail.

I started learning German because I was into German language musicals. Because of this, I’m really good at explaining really fantastical and romantic story lines, but not great with practical stuff. I can also talk extensively about vampires and trains.

What weird areas of niche knowledge do you have in your target language? How did you come by it?

#langblr

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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thx duo where do you suggest I travel

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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2+ Months of Language Learning Prompts!

Sometimes it can be tricky to know what to learn if you are teaching yourself a language. Here are some ideas for what you can focus on learning each day for the first two months of learning a new language! I formatted it so there is the general topic for the day and then in parentheses are some ideas to get you started but you can definitely learn a lot more than what I’ve written down! These are just to help generate some ideas!

This definitely would move pretty quickly if you covered all this material in 2 months so you could definitely spend more time on each topic if you need! This would require quite a bit of time each day in order to learn it all. This could totally work for a 4 or 6-month challenge where you spend 2 or 3 days on each of the topics I listed if you don’t have enough time to cover each topic in just one day!

Polite phrases (thank you, please, yes/no, you’re welcome, I’m sorry)

Introductory phrases (hi, my name is, I’m from, I speak, how are you?)

Pronouns (I, you, he, she, they, we)

Basic people vocab (girl, boy, man, woman, person, child)

Basic verbs in present tense (to eat, to drink, to walk, to read, to write, to say)

Sentence structure (how to form some basic sentences)

Negative sentences (I do not __)

Question words (who, what, where, when, why, how, how to form questions)

Numbers (0-20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 1,000, 1,000,000)

Time (hour, minute, half hour, reading the time)

Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, appetizer)

Basic foods (apple, banana, rice, bread, pasta, carrot, soup, water)

More foods (beef, pork, fruit, vegetable, juice, coffee, tea, chocolate, cake)

Kitchen (stove, oven, kitchen, fridge, table, chair, bake, boil)

Eating supplies (knife, spoon, fork, plate, bowl, cup, glass)

More verbs (to make, to have, to see, to like, to go, to be able to, to want, to need)

Family (father, mother, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandmother, grandfather, parents, grandparents)

Transportation (car, train, plane, bus, bicycle, airport, train station)

City locations (apartment, building, restaurant, movie theater, market, hotel, bank)

Directions (north, south, east, west, right, left)

Adjectives (good, bad, smart, delicious, nice, fun)

More verbs (to give, to send, to wake up, to cry, to love, to hate, to laugh)

Colors (red, yellow, blue, green, purple, black, white, brown)

Emotions (happy, sad, calm, angry)

Physical descriptions (tall, short, blonde, brunette, redhead, eye color)

Body parts (arm, leg, hand, finger, foot, toe, face, eye, mouth, nose, ears)

Descriptors (rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, expensive, inexpensive)

Basic clothing (shirt, pants, dress, skirt, jacket, sweater, skirt, shorts)

Accessories (belt, hat, wallet, gloves, sunglasses, purse, watch)

More verbs (to keep, to smile, to run, to drive, to wear, to remember)

Animals (cat, dog, horse, cow, bear, pig, chicken, duck, fish)

More animals (turtle, sheep, fox, mouse, lion, deer)

Months (January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December)

Seasons (fall, winter, spring, summer)

Weather (sunny, cloudy, hot, cold, snowing, raining)

States of being (I’m hungry, I’m tired, I’m thirsty)

House (bedroom, living room, bathroom, stairs)

Furniture (bed, lamp, couch, door, window)

Electronics (phone, TV, computer, camera, radio, headphones)

Nature (tree, flower, plant, animal, grass, animal, outside, sky, sun, moon, clouds)

More verbs (to teach, to learn, to understand, to know, to listen, to hear)

School (classroom, elementary school, high school, college, student, class, grade, homework, test)

School subjects (math, science, English, art, music, chemistry, biology, physics)

School supplies (book, pencil, pen, paper, notebook, folder, backpack, calculator)

Classroom features (student desk, teacher desk, whiteboard, chalk, clock, bell)

Jobs (teacher, scientist, doctor, artist, dancer, musician)

More jobs (surgeon, manager, engineer, architect, lawyer, dentist, writer)

More verbs (to buy, to sell, to work, to ask, to answer, to dance, to leave, to come)

Comparisons (less than, more than, same, __er than)

Languages (French, German, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, English, Japanese)

Countries (France, Germany, China, Russia, Spain, Mexico, United States, Japan)

Religion (church, temple, mosque, to pray, Judaism, Christianity, Islam)

Past tense (I was, he ran, she wrote)

Hobbies (shopping, sports, soccer, chess, fishing, gardening, photography)

More verbs (to describe, to sleep, to find, to wish, to enter, to feel, to think)

Art (paint, draw, painting, gallery, frame, brush)

Morning routine (to wake up, to brush teeth, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, soap)

Future tense (I will run, he will write)

TV + internet (online, internet, to watch TV, TV show, movie, documentary, cartoon)

More verbs (to look for, to stay, to touch, to meet, to show, to rent, to wash, to play)

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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If you’re reading this I hope in 2020 you get

Language books

Cute stationery

New friends to practice your target languages with

To travel to the countries where your target languages are spoken

Fluency

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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Italki Tips

I’m a big fan of italki as a language learning platform. I’ve used it to take 192 classes in Mandarin, Spanish, and German. I’ve also been working on the website as an English teacher since 2017, and I’ve taught over 2500 lessons. I’ve seen some talk about italki while browsing the Langblr tag, a lot of it from people thinking of giving italki a try. As such, i thought I’d share some advice on how to get the most out of the platform.

In this post, I’m going to focus on how to asses your study needs and find a suitable tutor/teacher. In the future, I hope to write more posts on how to optimize your italki experience.

****ITALKI TIPS****

1. Figure out your language learning goals.

Before you go searching for a language teacher it’s important to put some thought into what you hope to get out of the experience. Most italki teachers try really hard to design their classes around your specific needs. If you have some idea of what your needs are and can communicate that to us, it makes our job easier. Here are some things to think of:

-Why are you learning your target language? Do you want to travel? Do you want to improve your job prospects? Are you learning for fun? Do you have to prepare for a major test? Naturally, a teacher is going to take a different approach to somebody who needs to pass a major test vs somebody who is learning because they want to watch movies in their target language.

-What skills do you want to target? Do you want to focus of grammar? Conversation? Listening skills? Character writing?

- What time frame do you want to accomplish your goals in? Do you have a strict deadline, or are you doing things on a more relaxed schedule?

2. Consider your learning style

If your previous language learning has mostly been classroom based, then you’ve probably had the experience of having to adjust your learning style to fit with the rest of the class and with your teacher’s teaching style. Since all italki lessons are one on one, it’s worth putting some thought into how you like to study. Do you like homework? How much? Do you want a teacher who will strictly correct all your errors, or are you happier if your teacher lets minor mistakes slide as long as they can understand you? Are you a fan of textbooks? Do you want the teacher to design the class for you, or do you want to design your own activities and have a teacher present for correction and advice? Do you just want to talk? What are your feelings on grammar drills? Do open ended questions make you nervous? Do you have topics you love? Topics you hate?

3. Take a guess at your current language level

This Wikipedia page can help you - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages

4. Search for prospective teachers!

The search function on italki lets you specify times you want to learn, prices, whether you want a professional teacher or a tutor, where you want your teacher to be from, etc. You can also search specific words or phrases. A few notes:

- If you’re a beginner or want to work on test prep or technical language skills, it’s usually better to choose a professional teacher. Generally speaking, you can expect more structure with a professional teacher, though this isn’t always the case, and very often the distinction between a tutor and teacher is very slight.

- While searching for teachers, the things that will appear most prominently are the teachers’ photos, prices, and availability. I highly recommend clicking through to read the teachers’ profiles, which will give you a lot more information about the kind learning experience they’ll offer you.

- You’ll also be able to see how many lessons a teacher has taught. If you pick a new teacher, you’ll get the distinction of being one of their first (and therefore most memorable!) students. Teachers usually raise their prices the longer they work on Italki, but it’s not unheard of for teachers to offer a special lower price for the people who they’ve been working with the longest. If you pick a veteran teacher with lots of lessons under their belt, you can be sure that the teacher is already well versed in how to go about teaching online, and on how to solve a variety of language learning issues.

- You don’t have to limit your search to native speakers of your target language. A lot of times non-native speakers will have some great tips and tricks about how to go about learning your target language, because they’ve gone through the learning process themselves. If you’re a high-level speaker of your target language it can also be useful to expose yourself to a variety of different accents, including those of non-native speakers.

5. Once you’ve found some people that you’d like to book trial lessons with, fill out their ”contact teacher form” (found at the top of their profiles). Tell them a little bit about yourself, your language level, and your language goals. You can also say something about what kinds of topics you enjoy discussing and what kinds of topics you would rather avoid. I know that being the first person to make contact can be anxiety-inducing, but it helps the teachers to customize your lesson.

- Another thing worth asking is that kind of video conferencing app the teacher likes to use. Skype is most common, but a lot of teachers prefer Zoom because it has more features. Teachers from China might prefer to use WeChat. Italki also has it’s own video conferencing classroom, but it doesn’t have a lot of the useful features that other video conferencing systems have.

6. If you’re under 18 (as I know a lot of Tumblr users are), it’s best to limit yourself to teachers who have specified in their profiles that they are willing to teach kids and teens. Any lessons will need to be booked by your parents, and ideally your parents should also be present during your first lesson, to make sure they’re comfortable with the individual who is going to be teaching you. As with any internet platform, practice basic online safety. Also, be careful of spammers or any kind of older person messaging you out of the blue to offer to teach you a language. If anybody makes you feel uncomfortable, report them to italki support.

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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Did anyone else feel super reassured finding out that Luca Lampariello is struggling with Japanese? There’s lots of sincerity and humility in this video and I love it. He also touches on the fact that we are always learning languages no matter how proficient we are, and how it’s normal for your level of proficiency in a language to go up and down depending on how engaged with it you are at any given time. It made me feel really good about Norwegian and now I feel less pressure to be so black-and-white about everything, because that’s not how languages are either.

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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How to strengthen your brain outside of school:

Maybe you’re not in school anymore, or you’re taking a gap year to save for school and you’re worried about keeping your brain fast and not getting too lazy. Well, here are a few helpful ways to make sure that you keep thinking:

Read books daily. Always have a book on the go. Reading keeps your brain active and it’s a cathartic activity. If you’re feeling up to it, read self-improvement books, or informative books.

Watch Ted Talks. Not only are these videos filled with so much great information, they are also inspiring.

Think about where you want to be in the future and start preparing for that. If this means that you need to spend hours of your life prepping the perfect resume so you can get a job or internship that takes you a step closer, then so be it. If you want to start your own business I’d highly recommend that you research the hell out of entrepreneurship.

Exercise. Exercise is important for the brain. It also keeps you happy, which in turn keeps you motivated.

Expand your vocabulary. Write down the words you don’t know in books and look them up, keep them on flashcards and memorize them. Big vocabularies are so important and they do come in handy.

Learn a new language. You can do this for free on apps like Duolingo or you can actually go and take courses somewhere. This could help you so much if you plan on doing University abroad or even getting a job there.

Watch documentaries. Netflix can currently teach you about the Vietnam war, World War II, the Earth, the global food trade etc. Learn.

Watch the news, listen to it or read about it. It’s important that we know what’s happening right now and memes can distract us, but try to be informed. Maybe you can make a difference.

Learn a new skill. It’s time to learn something you’ve always wanted to, whether it’s cooking, sewing, art, photography, yoga, mechanics etc. Teach yourself.

Do online classes to boost your grades for University.

Do online classes because you’re curious. Don’t stifle your curiosity. Curiosity is an asset.

Challenge yourself to do one productive thing every day. Don’t let yourself go to bed without mental stimulation for the day.

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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being a responsible adult (or even college student) in mandarin

appliances：

洗衣机 xǐyījī washing machine

烘干机 hōnggānjī dryer

洗碗机 xǐwǎnjī dishwasher

吸尘器 xīchénqì vacuum cleaner

冰箱 bīngxiāng refrigerator/fridge

炉子 lúzi stove

烤箱 kǎoxiāng oven

热水器 rèshuǐqì hot water heater

微波炉 wēibōlú microwave

加湿器 jiāshīqì humidifier

热水壶 rèshuǐhú kettle

面包机 miànbāojī toaster

chores：

洗衣服 xǐ yīfu to wash clothes

烘衣服 hōng yīfu to dry clothes

叠衣服 dié yīfu to fold clothes

挂衣服 guà yīfu to hang clothes

打扫 dǎsǎo to sweep

收拾房间 shōushi fángjiān to tidy up a room

吸地 xīdì to vacuum the floor

擦地 cādì to mop the floor

铺床 pūchuáng to make the bed

摆桌子 bǎi zhuōzi to set the table

擦窗户 cā chuānghu to clean the windows

洗碗 xǐwǎn to wash the dishes

喂狗／猫 wèi gǒu/māo to feed the dog/cat

other stuff：

脏 zāng dirty

乱 luàn messy, sloppy, disorderly

干净 gānjìng clean

整齐 zhěngqí neat, tidy, in order

正式 zhèngshì formal, official

随便 suíbiàn casual, informal

简单 jiǎndān simple

不行 bùxíng won’t do, be out of the question, be no good

洗衣房 xǐyīfáng laundry room

用 yòng to use

铺 pū to spread, to extend

愿意 yuànyì to be willing to, want to

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langblr-rose · 5 years ago

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Italki Tips

In this post, I'm going to focus on how to assess your study needs and find a suitable tutor/teacher. In the future, I hope to write more posts on how to optimize your italki experience.

****ITALKI TIPS****

1. Figure out your language learning goals.

-What skills do you want to target? Do you want to focus of grammar? Conversation? Listening skills? Character writing?

- What time frame do you want to accomplish your goals in? Do you have a strict deadline, or are you doing things on a more relaxed schedule?

2. Consider your learning style

3. Take a guess at your current language level

This Wikipedia page can help you - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages

4. Search for prospective teachers!

- Another thing worth asking is what kind of video conferencing app the teacher likes to use. Skype is most common, but a lot of teachers prefer Zoom because it has more features. Teachers from China might prefer to use WeChat. Italki also has its own video conferencing classroom, but it doesn't have some of features that other video conferencing systems have.

6. If you’re under 18 (as I know a lot of Tumblr users are), it's best to limit yourself to teachers who have specified in their profiles that they are willing to teach kids and teens. Any lessons will need to be booked by your parents, and ideally your parents should also be present during your first lesson, to make sure they’re comfortable with the individual who is going to be teaching you. As with any internet platform, practice basic online safety. Also, be careful of spammers or any kind of older person messaging you out of the blue to offer to teach you a language. If anybody makes you feel uncomfortable, report them to italki support.

#langblr #language learning #language exchange #italki #english langblr #german langblr #chinese langblr

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