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sorry to bother you, but here with a question:

what does 給我 in phrases like 給我沖， 給我滾， 給我回來 ， and 給我閉嘴 translate to in english or atleast, how is it that 給我 is used alot for the start of these sorts of phrases that seem very rude or atleast annoyed/emotionally charged 😅?

给 means "to give" and alone 给我 would be "give [it to] me", however in the context of the examples you gave, it becomes "for me", e.g, 给我冲, would be "charge it for me", if the context is filling a card with money or charging a battery, etc, and "charge for me" if the context—more likely, given your other phrases—is "Charge forth!".

However, for English translation, while it can be tempting to try and get as close to the Chinese as possible, doing a word for word translation is also clunky and will give you what I'd call a "translation accent" (I think I was guilty of this for a while in my early days of running this blog). It's better to leave off the 给我 and try to convey the emotion in another way, because yes, the 给我 in a phrase can often make it emotionally charged, as it places emphasis. That emotion can be annoyance or amusement—it just depends. For translation, it helps if there's vocal delivery context but even if not, you should be able to determine the emotional degree of the phrase based on what else is happening in the convo.

From your examples:

Chinese → Clunky literal translation → smoother translation options

给我冲 → Charge for me → Charge! / Rush forth! / Go! / Get them! 给我滚 → Roll for me → Get lost! / Take a hike! / Fuck off! 给我回来 → Come back for me → You get back here! / Come back here! 给我闭嘴 → Close your mouth for me → Shut up! / Zip it!

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worst thing about tumblr is the lack of chinese variety show fandom. yeah yeah c-dramas and actors but what about the mango tv stuff. what about detective academy. who can i talk to about my massive crush on guo wentao and pu yixing and qi sijun and zhou junwei and

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"Wishing you the wishes that matter" (by Cheeming Boey on Instagram)

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Alright, sound off! WHO is learning Classical Chinese?

I want to find friends to study with and complain to!!!

I have gotten back into it in a more serious capacity after a few years of nonsense, and am continuing (sigh) to work my way through Introduction to Literary Chinese by Michael A. Fuller.

Please reblog for greater sample size! Beginners or 古文大师 all please reply!

I know some people in HK, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, greater Sinosphere/diaspora might be also doing it or have done it as a school subject, and I'd love to hear from you guys too :D

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The known-ish words of intermediate Chinese, or: What does it mean to know a word?

We all have this intuition, especially in languages like Chinese, that there are words we 'kind of know'. These are the known-ish words. In the case of Chinese, most people would recognise at least three axes:

1) Do I know the meaning? 2) Do I know the pronunciation? 3) Do I know how to handwrite it?

You might answer yes to some, but no to others. Voila! You know the word - ish.

And then you can also add the dimension of passive and active knowledge:

1) Do I recognise this word passively? 2) Can I use this word actively?

Great. Even more ways of kind of but not really knowing a word. But that's far from all. There's also the different domains of listening and reading, writing and speaking.

So passively, that looks like:

1) Do I know the meaning when listening? 2) Do I know the meaning when reading? 3) Do I know the pronunciation when reading?

Once we add in the active dimension, it all starts to get a bit more complicated. This is far from an exhaustive list, but consider the follows ways you could define 'knowing' a word:

1) I can read the word out loud (but I don't know what it means, and I can't use it in a sentence) 2) I know what the word means, and I can use it in a sentence (but I can't handwrite it) 3) I can use the word in a spoken sentence (but I don't know how to type it, or which character it uses) 4) I can recognise the word when reading (but don't know how to read it out loud, and can only guess at the meaning) 5) I can use the word in a written sentence (but not a spoken sentence) 6) I can type the word and recognise the word (but I don't know how to handwrite it) 7) …

Okay. What else?

Chinese is a compounding language.

Have you ever had the experience that you can't recognise a character individually, but as soon as you see it in a familiar compound, you know what it means? So:

1) I can recognise the word individually 2) I can recognise the word as part of a compound 3) I can recognise the word as part of an unfamiliar compound

Chinese is also a language with a long and storied tradition of writing in Classical Chinese as a literary language and a lingua franca across the whole of East Asia - even two hundred years ago, people were writing in Literary Chinese. 'Mandarin' as a concept did not exist.

So often the meanings of familiar characters can be quite different in formal language or chengyu in the modern language, which uses more classical / literary structures and grammar.

Take, for example, the character 次. The first layer of meaning in modern Chinese - the most foundational layer - is its meaning as time, like 'I have been to Ghana two times'.

But its second layer of meaning is secondary, or next best, or just next. For example:

1) 次货 - substandard goods 2) 次子 - second son 3) 次年 - next year

And so on. Many common words have this kind of polysemy.

So we can add another dimension:

1) I recognise this word's common meanings 2) I can use this word's common meanings 3) I recognise this word's less common meanings 4) I can use this word's less common meanings

Add in the reading and listening dimensions, and things get even messier. I am familiar enough with this basic secondary meaning of 次 to fairly quickly be able to understand that it means 'next' or 'second' rather than 'time' if I see it in a written unfamiliar compound or chengyu. But I am most definitely not quick enough to do that every single time whilst listening to the news, for example!

And what about pronunciation? Once you know a fair amount of Chinese characters, you can often guess the pronunciation of new or unfamiliar characters. How?

Because of phonetic components.

For example:

请

清

情

Notice how these all have the same component on the right? This tells us that these characters belong to the largest group of Chinese characters, phonetic-semantic characters. That is - some part of the character gives a clue to the meaning, and some part gives a clue to the pronunciation. In this case, we know they are all pronounced some variety of qing.

But it isn't always that easy. Some phonetic components tell you the tone and pronunciation - some tell you the pronunciation, but not the tone (like qing above). Some phonetic components, to go even further, are only really decipherable if you have a particular interest in phonology or historical linguistics, or learn the patterns. Consider:

脸 - lian3 (face)

险 - xian3 (dangerous)

验 - yan4 (test)

剑 - jian4 (sword)

签 - qian1 (to sign)

捡 - jian3 (to pick up)

There are far more. If you look down the whole list on Pleco, they all show a similar pattern of variation. You can see some patterns, but also numerous exceptions - most end in the -ian final, except for those that are yan of various tones. All begin with l, x, y, j, q. Most are pronounced jian3, but that is far from a rule.

All this to say - you can see a character, and know vaguely how it is pronounced. If I know that a character is pronounced qing definitely, 100%, but don't know the tone - does that mean I know the pronunciation? Or would you only say that knowing it 100% means knowing it? And in that case - how can you account for the fact that learning a character when you already know 90% of the pronunciation is significantly easier than not knowing it at all?

Let me add just a few more scenarios. Bear with me!

1) A character has more than one way to be pronounced. For this word, you read it incorrectly (but you usually know it). 2) A character has more than one tone. Some people pronounce it always with one tone, and some alternate between the two pronunciations. You only knew it with one - but you're half right? 3) You make the same mistake that a native speaker would make with tone or pronunciation of a rarer character.

In some way, these are all more knowing than not knowing anything at all.

And none of this is even taking into account different writing systems, traditional and simplified.

Here are some more scenarios:

I recognise the character in traditional (but not simplified)

I can type the character in both, but I can only hand-write in simplified

I know the Taiwanese pronunciation, but not the Chinese

etc

And of course Chinese characters are used across multiple different languages.

So you could conceivably have these kinds of situations:

I know the pronunciation and meaning in Cantonese and Mandarin

I know the pronunciation and meaning in Cantonese, and the meaning in Mandarin

I know the pronunciation and meaning in Mandarin and recognise it in Cantonese, but know it means something different

I know the pronunciation in Mandarin, but don't know what the whole word actually means in Mongolian (Chinese characters used to transliterate Mongolian words)

Plus there's handwriting and calligraphy!

Personally, I can't read a lot of calligraphy and have accepted my happy illiteracy in many styles. All Chinese learners and heritage speakers know the feeling of sitting in a Chinese restaurant or museum and having a well-meaning friend say, 'Oooo, what does that say?' It's depressing! So let's add some more nuances to our known-ish characters:

I can read this character in common fonts

I can read this character in less common fonts

I can read this character when handwritten

I can read this character when handwritten quickly / by a child / by a doctor

I can read this character in grass script / seal script / etc

Then there's the question of naturalness.

I frequently add words to my Anki decks that I would be able to understand, no question, if I were reading or listening - but I probably wouldn't have thought to say it in that way. So:

I recognise this word, and would have said it exactly like this

I recognise this word, but would never have thought to say it like this

I can use this word, but didn't know you could use it in such a metaphorical way

I can use this word in a metaphorical way, but didn't realise it corresponded so closely to English / was so different from English in its meaning

And finally there's the simple question of memory.

I know I've seen this word before, but I can't remember it right now and I want to drown myself pathetically in the vast uncaring sea

I know I used to be able to use this word actively, but now can only use it passively

I can still type it, but have forgotten how to handwrite it

I can still use it in writing, but I wouldn't be able to use it in speaking

I can recognise it in set expressions, but wouldn't remember how to use it on its own

I can remember the simplified character, but not the traditional

…

So how many ways do you know a word?

I often feel embarrassed to post my vocabulary lists, because I feel that people will be surprised that I don't 'know' certain more foundational words. I think they will be confused as to why I have very 'advanced' vocabulary alongside 'simple' vocabulary. I feel a lot of pressure to be 'advanced' because of the amount of followers I have, but there's a lot of more basic characters I still don't fully know in a holistic way.

And the truth is that all of those characters and words are in Anki for different reasons. I might have a vocab list that looks like this:

略

松懈

星光

缕缕

薄雾

博览

I don't know any of these words in exactly the same dimensions as I know the others! Let's look at my reasons for including each in detail.

略 - lve4 - slightly. I have this word here because although I know it well in set expressions like 略有耳闻 'have heard a little about'，略有受损 'has suffered slight losses' etc, I wouldn't remember the pronunciation if I saw it alone or with another verb apart from 有. I would still know the meaning - but I wouldn't remember how to pronounce it. So even though I 'know' this word, it's still there in Anki.

松懈 - song1xie4 - to relax, lax, slacken. This is a rare example of a totally 'new' word - most of my Anki words aren't. I know 松 already well, but have never seen the character 懈 before: I didn't know its meaning, or pronunciation.

星光 - xing1guang1 - starlight. I know both characters, pronunciation and meaning, and I can easily understand this word. I just never would have thought to say it so simply. I want to use it actively, so I put it in Anki.

缕缕 - lv3lv3 - fine and continuous (i.e. rain, drizzle). I know 缕 already on its own as a measure word for sunlight, thin hair, gossamer, mist, smoke, fine threads etc - I often forget its pronunciation, but I know its meaning reliably when reading. But together the compound 缕缕's meaning isn't quite extricable from just knowing 缕, so I put it in here.

薄雾 - bo2wu4 - mist, fog. I know 雾 well, but hadn't come across 薄 before (or wasn't sure if I had or not). This is an example where I knew its pronunciation, because of phonetic components, but I didn't know the meaning of the character.

博览 - bo2lan3 - to read widely. I know this word very well. So why is this in there? Literally just because I remembered the pronunciation and meaning of 博览, and when I was racking my brains trying to see if I knew the 薄 in 薄雾, I thought it might be the same character. I looked it up, and it wasn't. So even though I know the word, the meaning and the pronunciation, I had to put it in - because I didn't remember which character was used for the bo2.

When you acknowledge all of the different ways of knowing a Chinese character, it makes sense that your learning after the beginning level is going to be full predominantly of known-ish words.

Accept this! Form your own relationship to it! For me, a huge part in my motivation to return to learning Chinese after a year-long break was just to accept that I was likely never going to 'fully know' most of the characters and words that I partially know.

But that's okay. Think about your native language.

If your native language is English or you speak it very well, consider a word like monadic. Could you say you knew this word? Fully knew it? Like me (I learnt this word in the context of Linguistics yesterday), you might have an idea that it has something to do with one - mono, monorail, monotropism, monologue, monolithic etc. But would you be able to use it in a sentence? Would you be able to explain it to a child?

Or let's say you're learning two new English words: lithology and dreich. (The latter is a Scots word, not English - you would hear it in Scotland frequently.) Neither word you completely know. Which one is going to take you longer to learn?

It's likely going to be lithology. You can form connections with words like monolith or paleothic or maybe even lithium - even if you couldn't say for sure what the Greek element lith means, you're passingly familiar with other words containing it. You also know -ology, and you know how to pronounce the word. If you learn that it means 'the study of rocks', that is probably quite easy to remember.

Dreich, on the other hand - what is there to tell you a) how to pronounce this, or b) that it means 'dreary' or 'bleak', as in, dreary weather? You can't form any connections with similar words at all, and the [x] sound at the end - like in German or Hebrew - might be unexpected to hear if you don't live in Scotland.

That's what Chinese is like in the beginning. All words are like dreich. But the more you learn, the more words begin to be like monadic or lithology.

Learning ten new words a day like dreich would be very difficult. But if you've seen monadic a few times over the last few months, know vaguely when to use it, know how to pronounce it - it's not so hard to imagine that you could learn ten of those a day.

I find all these known-ish words very overwhelming.

And I also find recognising the potential for overwhelm in the Chinese language - because of its unique properties - very helpful in letting me feel less guilty about my current known-ish words. I do know them - ish.

But when I finally get around to properly learning them, all that ish-ness will make them that much easier to remember!

Now I try not to stress out about these types of words. I recognise that, in many ways, they are inevitable. Unless you're a poet who composes out of thin air, you're not going to ever say a literary word for emerald green as frequently as you'll read it in descriptive passages in novels.

It's natural to know certain words in a spiky profile: to know them very well in some ways, but not at all in other ways.

The more you read, the more pronounced this can become.

So here's what I've learnt, and here's the message of all this big, long, rambling post:

Putting 'easy' words that you feel you should know into Anki isn't regressing. It's adding another dimension of knowledge to your understanding of the word. You shouldn't feel ashamed or frustrated when you find you don't know one aspect of an otherwise 'easy' word. I'm still trying to learn this.

Because -

Having lots of known-ish words is not a unique failing on your part. It's a reflection of Chinese as a language and its unique complexity -

And it's part of what makes it so uniquely beautiful.

Have a nice day, everyone. meichenxi out!

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Responding to common douyin hooks

English added by me :)

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hey can we talk. can we stop it with the white savior pinkwashing queer paternalism that white libs always seems to hold when talking about queer people/gender-nonconforming people from countries where gay rights isn’t a legislated reality (i.e. often developing countries/countries where the majority ethnicity is non-white).

you haven’t been on weibo, you haven’t ever been to China. you haven’t walked the streets of chengdu which is the unofficial queer capital in the country, you don’t know what slangs and jokes we use to talk about queerness.

you read whatever your war crime aiding and abetting news sources spoonfeed you because you never went out of your way to befriend Chinese people in real life, you accept whatever reality is easiest for you to stomach—that Chinese people, well, “the government and the mainstream social media” at least, are ontologically evil and are intolerant to a fault; that Chinese people are so different than you (who are so liberal and tolerant and queer and punk) that these “special few Chinese people who are queer” need YOUR approval and YOUR protection and YOUR help.

I’ve spent a good portion of my life living in China, I have family there. I have queer friends there. My parents had colleagues and friends who are officially or unofficially out at work. I met my first butch-femme lesbian couple in China. I met my first trans man uncle in China. A large part of my middle school friend group turned out to be queer and have found people who they care about and who care and protect them in turn.

I only pity your willfully ignorant way of living. you see Chinese people as a sexless monolith, you see Chinese people in any position of power as a threat to your “democracy” aka violent imperialism disguised under a neoliberal facade. give me a break.

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Hey so you seem pretty knowledgeable about learning languages! I’ve been looking for a way to learn kanji but I don’t have a huge interest in learning the languages that use it if that makes sense? Like I want to be able to read a sign and be able to tell what it says but I don’t need to be able to pronounce it. Is there a way to do that? Do you have any tips?

I've been thinking about how to respond to this because it is an interesting question for sure. I assume you mean you want to learn Chinese characters that are used in languages like Mandarin and Japanese. Mainland China uses simplified characters, Taiwan uses traditional characters, and Japanese kanji is very similar to traditional characters, but also it's own thing.

For learning them to read street signs (assuming very basic here like Stop/Go/Park/Bank) I think while there's a lot of overlap, they are separate languages. Japanese uses Chinese characters (kanji), but they don't use them as often and for the same things. Here are stop signs in China and Japan.

So learning characters to know signs in different places just doesn't work out in practice. You gotta know where you're going and what language is spoken there. I guess I do wonder why not just learn the pronunciation? If you're going to learn something you might as well put in the 10% extra effort to add the pronunciation (even if it's not ~native-like~!)

Sorry for not being able to help you out, but maybe this helps you find a more achievable goal?

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I’ve wanted to learn mandarin for a while but the language feels really overwhelming. do you have any absolute beginner tips? also is learning to write/read pinyin a good starting point or should that wait till later?

Hi! Sorry for getting back a little late, I've been a bit busy!

I totally get how it feels really overwhelming because it genuinely can be at times! If you want to start, you don't start with learning characters and vocab, but learning pinyin and tones. Training your pronunciation and listening skills is so fundamental, so it is always the first thing anyone learning this language learns—even native speakers! Pinyin uses the alphabet and tone markers to express the sounds of the language. The way they are pronounced can be different than what you may be used to, so remember that it is just a guide and not a totally phonetic equivalent.

I really recommend this video series since it's free and very comprehensive. It also links to their pinyin chart which will give you every single pronunciation you could ever hear. Chinese pronunciation is very consistent, so you can learn every possible combination of sounds relatively easily! After you finish that, then move on to learning vocabulary and grammar like any other language.

If you specifically want to learn Taiwanese Mandarin, they do not use pinyin, but zhuyin. It works the same way and teaches the same sounds, but does not use the alphabet, but it's own system of symbols. I'd recommend learning both pinyin and zhuyin in that case. Here is a video series on Zhuyin!

It can be a lot to take in at the beginning, but you've got this!

加油！

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hi! I'm trying to learn chinese but getting pretty stuck with the characters. I wasn't sure whether to learn how to read them first and then figure out how to write them, or do both at the same or something else. can I ask for any tips on how to learn them? (I'm currently using flashcards, but everything's just falling through my brain like a sieve)

Hi!

So the answer is you should learn three things at the same time: meaning, pronunciation, and how to write. Meaning and pronunciation are pretty understandable, but I think that while writing may seem less important (and as 99% of my writing in Chinese is done through typing nowadays there is an argument for that!), learning how to write characters is a great way to actually remember them! I'm going to break down the reason why and the method that I used that worked the best for me when I was having weekly vocabulary quizzes. (Unfortunately this post got super long, so the read more is necessary!)

So, since Chinese characters are made up of radicals, learning those radicals will help you not just break a character into easier to remember pieces, but also allow you to make educated guesses when you see unfamiliar characters.

Let's take 姐 (elder sister) and 妹 (younger sister). Both can be broken up into two radicals 女/且 and 女/未. The left half of both characters help give us a clue for meaning (女=woman) and the right half give us a clue for pronunciation (且qie=jie, 未 wei=mei). As you write you'll learn proper stroke order and really take note of what radicals make up characters. (Some people recommend learning radicals early, but honestly I think if you learn them as they come up you'll be fine.)

Okay methodology time. Lots of people struggle with flashcards since it's really common that you're learning the literal flashcard instead of the information on the card (brain is a little too good at pattern recognition). I talk a bit about why writing in general is just the best for memorization in this post, but basically writing on pen and paper is still the gold standard. It really engages your brain! So here's how I would utilize this:

I'd write my vocab on a white board (literally the $2 dorm memo type) with the character, pronunciation, and meaning. After I did that, I looked over it for a minute and then erased it. I'd make myself rewrite all of it to see what has stuck. Whatever sticks gets a break and I now only focus on what I forgot. I rewrite everything that I forgot, take a moment to memorize, and erase. Repeat until no words are forgotten. Now I start from the beginning and produce the whole list, including the vocabulary that has been excluded because I remembered it. It's a good way to check if the one that seemed easy to remember was just more recent in my memory. Repeat until you can produce the full list (all components!) out of order on command (To really test this I'd get a friend to read me random words, usually giving me the english since they didn't know Chinese, and I'd have to produce the character and pronunciation in Chinese). The erasing of any hints is really key here. You can do this with pen and paper, but make sure you have a blank page every time. Make sure you challenge yourself to produce the words out of order, we want to eliminate the chance that we're just remembering the pattern of words. This out of order production serves the same purpose as shuffling flashcards.

Finally, what I would've done differently is also learning some sentences so that how a word is used in context is also a part of what I'm memorizing. This can be helpful with remembering grammar patterns so you have an "example sentence" to work off of. These sentences can also be creative and memorable to again help reenforce your memory (this is the reasoning behind Duolingo's bizarre sentences, odd things are more memorable than boring things).

I'm sorry for the essay! I wanted to properly explain why learning writing is important as well as how I used it for memorization, so I hope this is thoroughly helpful! This method is definitely more interesting than standard "copy character x10/25/100" and you can really make a game of it!

新年快乐～

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When you’re just chilling and get hit with mouse/rat translation dilemma. Translation theory is truly inescapable

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Language Apps Suck, Now What?: A Guide to Actually Becoming "Fluent"

The much requested sequel to my DL post that was promised almost a year ago.

I'm going to address all of the techniques that have helped me in my language learning journeys. Since 95% of these came from the fact that in a past language learning mistake, they are titled as my mistakes (and how I would/did things differently going forward). For those that read to the bottom there is a "best universal resources" list.

Disclaimers:

"Fluency" is hard to define and everyone has their own goals. So for the purpose of this post, "fluency" will be defined as "your personal mastery target of the language".

If you just want to pick up a bit of a language to not sound like a total foreigner on vacation or just exchange a few words in a friend's native language, feel free to ignore what doesn't apply, but maybe something here could help make it a little easier.

This is based on my own personal experience and (some) research.

Mistake 1: Asymmetrical Studying

Assuming you don't just want to do a single activity in a language, or are learning a language like ASL, a language requires 4 parts to be studied: Speaking, Listening, Writing, Reading. While these have overlap, you can't learn speaking from reading, or even learn speaking from just listening. One of my first Chinese teachers told me how he would listen to the textbook dialogues while he was biking to classes and it helped him. I took this information, thought "Yeah that's an idea, but sounds boring" and now regret not taking his advice nearly every day.

I think a lot of us find methods we enjoy to study (mine was reading) and assume that if we just do that method more ™ it will eventually help us in other areas (sometimes it does, but that's only sometimes). Find a method that works for you for each area of study, even better find more than one method since we use these skills in a variety of manners! I can understand a TV program pretty well since I have a lot of context clues and body language to fill in any gaps of understanding, but taking a phone call is much harder—the audio is rougher, there's no body language to read, and since most Chinese programs have hard coded subtitles, no subtitles to fall back on either. If I were to compare the number of hours I spent reading in Chinese to (actively) training my listening? Probably a ratio of 100 to 1. When I started to learn Korean, the first thing I did was find a variety of listening resources for my level.

Fix: Find a variety of study methods that challenge all aspects of the language in different ways.

A variety of methods will help you develop a more well-rounded level of mastery, and probably help you keep from getting bored. Which is important because...

Mistake 2: Inconsistent Studying

If there is one positive to a language app, it is the pressure it puts on keeping a streak. Making studying a part of your everyday routine is the best thing you can do. I benefited a lot from taking a college language course since I had a dedicated time to study and practice Chinese 5 days out of the week (and homework usually filled the other two). Memorization is a huge part of language learning, and stopping and starting is terrible for memorization. When I was in elementary school, we had Spanish maybe a couple times a month. Looking back, it seems like it was the first class to be cut if we needed to catch up on a more important course. Needless to say, I can't even speak Spanish at an elementary level.

However, I'm sure many people reading this don't have the time to do ultra-immersion 4-hour study sessions every day either. Find what days during the week you have time to focus on learning new vocab and grammar, and use the rest of the week to review. This can be done on your commute to school/work, while you do the dishes, or as a part of your morning/evening routine. Making this as realistic as possible will help you actually succeed in making this a habit. (Check this out for how to set realistic study goals)

Fix: Study regularly (ideally daily) by setting realistic goals. Avoid "binge" studying since remembering requires consistent repetition to be most effective.

Mistake 3: Resource Choice

This is really composed of two mistakes, but I have a good example that will cover them both.

First, finding resources that are at or slightly above your level is the most important thing. Easy resources will not challenge you enough and difficult resources will overwhelm you. The ideal is n+1, with n as what you know plus 1 new thing.

Second, getting distracted by fancy, new technology. Newer isn't always better, and there are often advantages that are lost when we've made technological developments. I often found myself wanting to try out new browser extensions or organizational methods and honestly I would've benefitted from just using that time to study. (Also, you're probably reading this because of my DL post so I don't think it has to be said that AI resources suck.)

A good example of this was my time using Clozemaster. I had actually recommended it when I first started using it since I thought the foundation was really solid. However, after long term use, I found that it just wasn't a good fit. The sentences were often too simple or too long and strange for memorization at higher levels or were too difficult at lower levels. I think that taking my textbook's example sentences from dialogues into something like Anki would've been a far better use of my time (and money) as they were already designed to be at that n+1 level.

Fix: "Vet" your resources—make sure they will actually help you. If something is working for you, then keep using it! You don't always have to upgrade to the newest tool/method.

Mistake 3.5: Classrooms and Textbooks

A .5 since it's not my mistake, but an addendum of caution. I think there is a significant part of the language learning community that views textbooks and classroom learning as the worst possible resource. They are "boring", "outdated", and "ineffective" (ironically one of the most interesting modern language learning methods, ALG, is only done in a classroom setting). Classrooms and textbooks bring back memories of being surrounded by mostly uninterested classmates, minimal priority, and a focus on grades rather than personal achievement (imagine the difference between a class of middle schoolers who were forced to choose a foreign language vs. adult learners who self-selected!) People have used these exact methods, or even "cruder" methods, to successfully learn a language. It all comes down to what works best for you. I specifically recommend textbooks for learning grammar and the plentiful number of dialogues and written passages that can function great as graded readers and listening resources. (Also the distinction made between "a youtube lesson on a grammatical principle" which is totally cool, and "a passage in a grammar textbook" is more one of tone and audio/written than efficacy).

Classrooms can be really great for speaking practice since they can be a lot less intimidating speaking to someone who is also learning while receiving corrections. Speech can be awkward to train on your own (not impossible if you're good at just talking aloud to yourself!), and classrooms can work nicely for this. Homework and class schedules also have built in accountability!

Fix: Explore resources available to you and try to think holistically about your approach. CI+Traditional Methods is my go to "Learning Cocktail"

Mistake 4: Yes, Immersion, But...

I realized this relatively quickly while learning Chinese, but immersion at a level much higher than your current level will do very little for you. What is sometimes left out of those "Just watch anime to learn Japanese" discussions is that you first need to have a chance at understanding what is being said. Choosing materials that are much higher than your level will not teach you the language. It doesn't matter how many times someone at HSK 1 hears “他是甘露之惠，我并无此水可还”, they will not get very far. Actual deduction and learning comes from having enough familiar components to be able to make deductions—something different than guessing. An HSK 1 learner, never having heard the word 老虎 will be able to understand "tiger" if someone says “这是我的老虎” while standing next to a tiger. This is not to say you can never try something more difficult—things should be challenging—but if you can't make heads or tails of what's being said, then it's time to find something a bit easier. If mistake 2 is about the type of method, this is about the level. If you wouldn't give a kindergartener The Great Gatsby to learn how to read, why would you watch Full Metal Alchemist to start learning a language?

Side note: Interesting video here on the Comprehensible Input hypothesis and how it relates to neurodivergence.

Fix: Immerse yourself in appropriate content for your level. It's called comprehensible input for a reason.

Mistake 5: On Translation

I work as a translator, so do you really think I'm going to say translation is all bad? Of course not. It's a separate skill that can be added on to the basic skills, but is really only required if you are A. someone who is an intermediary between two languages (say you have to translate for a spouse or family member) or B. It is your job/hobby. In the context of sitting down and learning, it can be harmful. I think my brain often goes to translation too often because that's how I used to learn. Trying to unlearn that is difficult because, well, what do people even mean when they say "don't translate"? They mean when someone says "thank you", you should not go to your primary language and translate "you're welcome" from that. You should train yourself to go to your target language first when you hear the word for "thank you". A very literally translated "thank you" in Chinese "谢谢你" can come off as cold and sarcastic. I don't tell my friends that, I say "谢啦～". Direct translation can take away the difference in culture, grammar, and politeness in a language. If there is a reason you sound awkward while writing and speaking, it's probably because you're imposing your primary language on your target language.

Fix: Try as hard as you can to not work from your primary language into the target language, but to work from the structures, set phrases, and grammar within the target language that you know first.

Mistake 6: The Secret Language Learners Don't Want You To Know...

...is that there is no one easy method. You are not going to learn French while you sleep, or master Korean by doing this one easy trick. Learning a language requires work and dedication, the people that succeed are those that push through the boredom of repetition and failure. The "I learned X in 1 year/month/week/day!" crowd is hiding large asterisks, be it their actual level, the assistance and free time available to them, "well actually I had already studied this for 4 years", or just straight-up lying. Our own journeys in our native tongue were not easy, they required years and years of constant immersion and instruction. While we are now older and wiser people that can make quick connections, we are also burdened with things like "jobs", "house work", "school work", and the digital black hole that is "social media" that take up our time and energy. Everything above is to help make this journey a little bit easier, quicker, and painless, but it will never be magic.

I find that language learning has a lot in common with the fitness community. People will talk about the workout that changed their life and how no other one will do the same—and it really can be the truth that it changed their life and that they feel it is the ultimate way. The real workout that will change your life is the one you're most consistent with, that you enjoy the most. Language learning is just trying to find the brain exercise that you can be the most consistent with.

Fix: Save your energy looking for shortcuts, and do the work, fail, and come back for more. If someone tells you that you can become fluent in a ridiculously short amount of time, they are selling you a fantasy (and likely a product). You get out what you put in.

For those that made it to the end, here are some of my "universal resources":

Refold Method: I don't agree with their actual method 100%, but they've collected a lot of great resources for learning languages. I've found their Chinese and Korean discords to also be really helpful and provided even more resources than what's given in their starter guides.

Language Reactor: Very useful, and have recently added podcasts as a material! The free version is honestly all you need.

Anki: If I do not mention it, the people with 4+ year streaks with a 5K word deck will not let me forget it. It can be used on desktop or on your phone as an app. If you need a replacement for a language learning app, this is one of them. Justin Sung has a lot of great info on how to best utilize Anki (as does Refold). It's not my favorite, but it could be yours!

LingQ: "But I thought you said language apps are bad!" In isolation, yes. Sorry for the clickbait. This one is pretty good, and more interested in immersing you in the language than selling a subscription to allow you to freeze your streak so the number goes up.

Grammar Textbooks: For self-taught learning, these are going to be the best resource since it's focused on the hardest part of the language, and only that. If you're tired of seeing group work activities, look for a textbook that is just on grammar (Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar is my rec for Chinese, and A Guide to Japanese Grammar by Tae Kim is the most common/enthusiastic rec I've heard for Japanese).

Shadowing: Simply repeat what you hear. Matt vs Japan talks about his setup here for optimized shadowing (which you can probably build for a lot cheaper now), but it can also just be you watching a video and pausing to repeat after each sentence or near simultaneously if you're able.

Youtube: Be it "Short Story for Beginners", "How to use X", "250 Essential Phrases", or a GRWM in your target language, Youtube is the best. Sometimes you have to dig to find what works for you, but I imagine there is something for everyone at every level. (Pro tip: People upload textbook audio dialogues often, you don't even have to buy the textbook to be able to learn from it!)

A Friend: Be it a fellow learner, or someone who has already mastered the language, it is easier when you have someone, not only to speak to, but to remind you why you're doing this. I write far more in Chinese because I have friends I can text in Chinese.

Pen and Paper: Study after study, writing on paper continues to be the best method for memorization. Typing or using a pen and tablet still can't compare to traditional methods.

The Replies (Probably): Lots of people were happy to give alternatives for specific languages in the replies of my DL post. The community here is pretty active, so if this post blows up at least 20% of what the last one did, you might be able to find some great stuff in the replies and reblogs.

I wish you all the best~

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Queued!

It's happening! Draft is complete, but I'm resting on it for a day to 1: maybe build some hype, and 2: be able to actually catch typos this time.

Expect it very soon! If you liked the OG Duolingo version, make sure to share this one!

[ruhua-langblr]

It's happening! Draft is complete, but I'm resting on it for a day to 1: maybe build some hype, and 2: be able to actually catch typos this time.

Expect it very soon! If you liked the OG Duolingo version, make sure to share this one!

[ruhua-langblr]

English added by me :)

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soon™

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made this for studying my class vocab ໒꒰ྀི • ﻌ • ꒱ྀི১