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[steepedteastudies]

Hi! I'm in sixth form right now, and I'm a huge lover of languages. I have ADHD and languages are the only thing that can get me to actually sit down and study (which doesn't bode well for my other classes but ah well). The thing is, my ADHD makes it difficult to get started and stick to a proper plan, because I get bored very easily. Do you have any advice for studying a language with ADHD?

Hiii!

Ah, yeah, the good old 'I adore this thing but to do this thing you need structured study' problem. I have exactly the same problem! I preach about the importance of Anki and I know my languages would be better if I just stuck to the same routine every day, but I seem to be chronically incapable of forming habits, and as much as I try and be accepting of my own limitations, sometimes that's very frustrating. Here are some tips I have from my experience with languages and ADHD - some of these may contradict each other, and only speak from my own experience.

1) Their way of studying is not worthier

I don't know if this is causing you distress or not, but regardless: one of the first things to consider is simply that what works for them - a specific routine, self-motivated study - might not work for you. Study plans are not designed for people with ADHD. Any well-meaning advice your parents, friends or teachers give you might similarly not be meant for people with ADHD. What does this mean? That there is nothing intrinsically better about studying in one way if it doesn't work for you, so stop beating yourself up if you can't follow that. Stop worrying if you are not studying as efficiently or as effectively. If trying to study in a specific way - like keeping the same habits every day - is stopping you from studying at all, how is that more effective than studying in front of the TV or whilst jogging??

Ok, true, if I did manage to plan my studying weeks in advance and stick to that every week, my languages would be better than they are now. I know that 100%. But I also know that the longest I have ever successfully done any flashcards was about twenty days, and that if I plan what I'm going to study I just end up spinning around in my spinny chair for thirty minutes or gnawing absently on my hairbrush.

I have been struggling with trying to keep a routine with exercise, cooking, teaching, writing, learning languages, reading and talking to friends for years. And I've always felt so frustrated with myself and like a complete idiot for finding things like 'remember to shower' and 'clean your fucking room' so hard.

But I think I'm beginning to understand myself better now. I completed NaNoWriMo last month and it was life-changing - I have never stuck with a habit that long!! And I realised why: it's because during NaNo, I wasn't trying to juggle twenty different hobbies and interests every day (because that's how you're 'supposed to do it'), but just focusing on work and writing. Just one thing, intensely, for a month! For ages I have known that's how I learn best, but I've been unwilling to implement it because that's not the 'best' or 'most effective' way to learn.

You know what though? If it gets you learning, it gets you learning. There is no 'right' way to do it. ADHD often exhibits alongside anxiety and perfectionism, especially if you're used to being good at school, have never had to learn how to learn and have planned your life to the Nth degree because you can't function otherwise. If this is you, your brain may try and tell you it's not correct to learn in X way - but the advice that you find online literally was not written for you. Don't be surprised if following it feels frustrating.

At school you may not have the flexibility to work on something for an extended period of time, but my point still stands: any learning is a good thing, and you know yourself the best. Try and look at it that way, rather than focusing too much on what is optimal.

2) Try and implement external structure into your routine

Speaking of knowing yourself. I struggle immensely with empty days and nebulous goals - but at the same time hate structure. What the fuck brain. I don't know if you're learning for school or pleasure, but either way, try and tack your language learning habits on to habits that already exist. For example if you're walking to school - listen to a podcast. If you have to do homework every night - put on a playlist and do languages after that after your homework is done. If you're on the bus - do Duolingo. When you're waiting for your brother to come out of swimming - read fanfic in Spanish. Even if it's an hour of complete self-study, you can still tack it onto another habit that exists, preferably one that involves exercise or social interaction or something different. I know just how hard habits are to form, but this is one of the only ways that has been effective for me. I can never plan in advance what exactly I'm going to study, but I try to plan when I will study at least. 

The best kind of external structure, of course, is other people. Join a discord server where you can study together. Arrange to test each other on vocabulary every week with your friends. Get one of your friends to message you aggressively every week to check you've done your homework. Study with a friend who will literally take your phone and not give it back until you have finished.

3) It's not cheating to use software and technology to help

This is what I wish I had been told earlier. IT'S NOT CHEATING. If you have a problem with controlling your time, then don't let yourself have that problem. We live in the modern age!! Use technology to help you! Here are some I personally use and recommend:

- Habitica: this gamifies your to-do lists, and helps you earn points. This is great because you can put both things like homework on here as well as you know. Basic tasks like showering and tidying my room which I still find inordinately difficult.

- Discord study groups: these let you share your SCREEN!!! And because you're in a group full of random internet people you cannot go on social media unless you want to be axe-murdered. You just can't. In these groups you can also form little groups that keep you accountable every day - I was in a group of four who all studied at the same time every day online, and we shared both our cameras and our screens. You can't mess around when you have someone who is literally looking over your shoulder the whole time.

- Freedom: my saviour, my beloved, my one great love. This you do have to pay for but oh my god, it's the most worth-it purchase I have ever made in my life. You add blocklists and you can control what websites you can access when on your phone and your laptop, and they don't have to be the same. For example during my last year of university I only allowed myself access to Tumblr for 30 minutes a day, and it may have just saved my bacon.

- Chrome extensions: for example Pause, which makes you wait for ten seconds before going to any social media site. It still lets you go! But it stops that impulsive scrolling.

4) Utilise your special interests, and don't neglect input

The great thing about languages is that once you're at a certain level, you can do anything you can do in your mother tongue. What does that mean? FANFIC. Youtube. Music. Dnd. Tv programs. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE INFINITE. Of course there are times when you just need to study verb tables, but the majority of people fail at languages A-level or GCSE because they don't have enough input. You're still young; your brain is still spongey! One of the best things you can do, regardless of neurodiversity, is to pump it aggressively full of information. Bad at listening? After 300 hours of dnd...you'll get better.

And you, my friend, have an advantage the neurotypical does not: use your hyper fixations!! I had to speed-run my Spanish A-level in about three or four months for Reasons, and one of the reasons I succeeded without any teacher input was because I was hyperfixating on minimalism at the time. I listened to probably every single video on minimalism on Spanish YouTube. HUNDREDS of hours of podcasts on packing and lightweight travelling and minimalism and Marie Kondo...I haven't thought about minimalism in years, but at the time, that was what did it for me. Use them!! (Of course, if the language itself is your hyper fixation, so much the better, but you can't always control that...)

Please, for the love of god, if you have a tumblr and are a fan - read fan fiction. Hell, write fan fiction. Learning languages doesn't have to be boring!! I wrote pages and pages and PAGES of Silmarillion fanfic in German and look, now I'm applying to do a German-speaking Master's.

One final point here: Yes, random vocabulary about minimalism and packing cubes isn't going to help your A-level. But the sentence structures surrounding it, the constant listening practice, everything else will. So don't worry if your interests are niche or 'irrelevant'. I was obsessed with translations of Homer into German for a while and in my listening exam one of the points hinged on the word 'vanguard', so, you know. You never know!

5) Utilise The Scroll

Do you spend too much time aimlessly on your phone? So do I. Apart from just deleting all the apps from your phone and going cold turkey (which I did, apart from email and messenger, and it’s been pretty successful) there are two things you can do:

- Install social media / reddit / YouTube etc from the country whose language you’re studying. If you reach for your phone first thing in the morning to get into The Scroll, well, that’s thirty minutes of reading. 

- Let yourself watch and consume as much social media / Netflix / YouTube as you want, but try and restrict yourself to only doing so in your target language. 

- You can also buy a kindle! This has CHANGED EVERYTHING for me. I’m fundamentally a lazy person. I like scrolling and I like the dark and I like the shiny screen! But downloading books onto my kindle (from places like zlibrary *cough cough*) means that that’s the first thing I reach for in the morning - I literally sleep with it under my pillow, and I read for 30 minutes in the morning instead. I have made sure to download lots of fanfic onto there too for the times when I just can’t concentrate on anything longer; either way, it stops me scrolling through my phone. You can utilise this with languages too - download Harry Potter or the Little Prince or Lord of the Rings or anything you know well and love, or even fanfic, and read that instead of scrolling. It might not work for you, but I find I end up reading genuinely about 10 times more daily if I use my kindle rather than an actual book, because I can eat and read, lie down and read, jump around and read, walk and read...

6) Shake it up: incorporate movement and stimulus and PEOPLE

Most likely routine is boring!!! And most likely, at school, you are also somewhat bored!! Even if you’re a die-hard introvert like I am, talking to other people in your target language is the best way to stay motivated, and it measures real progress, not just vocabulary stats. Get an exchange partner. Join a discord server. Make friends with somebody in that country if you can. Organise a twice-weekly call.

Re movement: learning doesn’t have to be static. Listen to podcasts and audiobooks on the go - they will help your listening skills no end. You can go for a walk around the block every hour or so to get yourself moving, and whilst you do so, why not listen to American Gods in Spanish? Or whatever floats your boat. Do YouTube workout videos in that language. Anything which tricks your brain into realising that a language is a system of communication that real people use, not just for school. Of course, all of this is easier if you are somewhat intermediate at least. But there are plenty of beginner videos and podcasts too! Use a Youtube converter and download them onto your phone, and listen again and again as you go shopping or wait at the bus stop. 

7) Run a blog (no, seriously)

Just something to consider. It’s time-wasting, but also it builds a community of accountability and explaining things to people is fun! I personally make it a rule though not to post when I’m not studying too much - I think it’s hypocritical otherwise, which is why this blog sometimes goes quiet for a few months at a time. 

6) Understand if you are overstimulated or under stimulated, and adapt accordingly. Gamify your learning!

Habitica is good for for gamifying habits, but also basic things like washing up and cleaning. Memrise and Quizlet, whilst probably not as effective as Anki, are much more fun - I use them for that reason even though Anki is probably better, because I know I’ll actually USE quizlet. 

I don’t think any advice I can give you for being overstimulated or under stimulated is going to particularly help, since I’m sure you’ll know what works and what doesn’t for you. For me personally I’ve learnt gradually that if I’m really under stimulated VERY few things are going to be able to make me study - most of the time it’s just not worth pushing through. So I take a break and run around for fifteen minutes, or punch my pillow listening to insane loud music. That sort of thing. 

If I have to study in that state, though, learning languages is one of the few things that works. If you have quizlet or can test yourself online on verb conjugation, this is the PERFECT moment for it - it’s fast, it’s furious, you don’t actually have to think that much, but doing rapid-fire conjugation or translation whilst listening to repetitive, loud music is one of the only things that is even a little bit useful that I can do. 

Learning to recognise your own moods and tailoring your learning accordingly is hugely important, and probably the best thing you can do in the long run for your own mental health. Sometimes you just need to take a break - and that might not come at the same stimuli or with the same clues as neurotypical people. 

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Alright, I hope that’s somewhat useful! I apologise for the long, ironically non-ADHD friendly post (though it means I get to info-dump hehe). If you take anything away from this, I hope you can take away the idea that finding what works for you is better in every single way than trying to persevere with trying habits that you have never successfully built. 

A hard message, but - if it hasn’t worked so far, maybe it’s time to try something different. 

Best of luck with everything - learning languages is hard, and it’s even harder when your brain won’t shut up. Kudos to you for persevering!!!

- meichenxi out

[steepedteastudies]

a lot of you have asked how I actually use notion in my day to day life, so I’ve broken down my task manager for all of you! hope this helps :) happy notion-ing! 💖

my other posts on notion: goal setting 📚

edit: i’ve made my template available for everyone to duplicate here! happy notion-ing!

entire post below!

Keep reading

[steepedteastudies]

Learning a language

Learning a language is a long long process. But it can be made fun and easy.

Learning through apps

1. Duolingo

2. Memrise

3. Quizlet

idk any more apps now please do tell if you all know any

Online sites with language learning resources

1. https://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugation-portuguese.html

This is available for the following languages -

French

English

Spanish

German

Italian

Portuguese

Hebrew

Russian

Arabic

Japanese

2. XeFjord

(european, middle eastern, african, asian, oceanic, native american, etc. etc.)

3. Learn a Language

This site is full of lists of words, phrases, etc with meanings and pronunciation for a bunch of languages. I wish I had discovered it earlier, it is really helpful.

4. Lexicity

Filled with a lot of resources for ancient languages like Akkadian, Egyptian, Mayan, Old English, etc.For each language, it has dictionaries, grammars, texts and some other resources.

5. BBC language learning

This site is filled with courses and lectures etc. for about 40 languages! It also has handy lists like '12 essential phrases in so and so language'

6. Internet Polyglot

This site does not have a languages, but is really good for learning and understanding languages.

7. Ethnologue

this is not exactly a language learning site, but worth a mention. The site claims claims to have language information, language family maps, etc. for world's 7,139 known living languages. It also has your basic information relatied to languages, like the most and least spoken one, endangered ones, etc.

8. Native Language

quote from their site: Native Languages of the Americas: Preserving and promoting American Indian languages

A very good Google document with language learning resources for more than 100 resources is this (credit to reddit user u/chlebka)

Another very good folder is this (credit to the tumblr user @salvadorbonaparte)

If there is some language you want to learn but it is not available on any of the above sites, feel free to send ask me to look for resources for that language. I'm more than happy to help. Or you could message me at @life-gave-me-oranges (my main).

please inform me if any of the above links are broken

taglist: @starfleckedsky @kitkaf @addictedtocoffeeandsupernatural @impossiblepandahideout @un-deci-died

if you want to be added or removed from the tag list, please message me or send me an ask.

[steepedteastudies]

vaguely academic things to do to keep yourself entertained

go down a wikipedia research hole by clicking the first term you don’t understand

binge a crashcourse series end to end (personal recs: world history, history of science, big history, philosophy)

find free books on project gutenberg

download some western classics for free

borrow books and audiobooks from the libby app or borrowbox

start a commonplace book

take a khan academy course

browse MIT’s free online course materials

teach yourself to code

go on a google scholar essay dive

try the open access button to avoid some paywalls for academic media, or install unpaywall that does a similar thing

research the history of the place you where you live

tempt the wrath of the duolingo owl and learn a language

search for online streams of the local tv in your target language’s country and use as background noise for immersion points

print and scrapbook favourite poetry and literature quotes

improve your handwriting by doing handwriting exercises

learn philosophy with the philosophize this! podcast. actually just check out all the educational spotify podcasts there are many good ones

start a weekly club with friends to share new and interesting things you’ve learnt that week

clean and reorganise your study space, physical or digital

check out online museums

fave educational youtube channels that I adore: vsauce, crashcourse, smarter every day, kurzgesagt, school of life, tom scott, r. c. waldun, vsauce3, primer, mark rober, veritasium, asapSCIENCE, scishow, TED-ed

hopefully you’ll find something to enjoy! happy learning x

[steepedteastudies]

i decided to create a challenge about books for december (or whenever you want to do it, really)!

📚Why and how?

Sometimes i spend more time deciding what book to read than actually reading, so i wanted to make my book research easier. How? you might ask… Well, if people take part in this challenge, we only need to check the tag for book recommendations. Smart, I know 

I’ll be starting on the 1st December 2020, but you can start whenever you want to! 

There’s a 31-prompt list right after this introduction, the point of this challenge is naming a book that fits each day’s prompt

Some prompts are questions, some others are more abstract (ideas, concepts…)

You can name more than one book, that’s up to you

There’s no need to follow the order of the prompts, maybe you want to do this while reading your books and you can find the prompt to fit the book!!

If you decide to join, use the tag #name the book challenge so we can easily find your posts! 

📚Really important!!

Please, reblog this post so more people can join us! And feel free to let me know if you’ll participate so i can follow you

Keep in mind that you can take your time, don’t rush yourself, post as much or as little as you can/want

There is nothing specific you have to tell us about the book, you can just tell us the title and the author, or tell us as much as you want (keep it spoiler free tho)

There’s no such thing as “wrong answer” to any of the prompts

📚Prompts

1. What’s the first book you remember reading (that you actually enjoyed)?

2. What’s the last book you’ve read?

3. Technology

4. Who’s your favorite author? Name a book!

5. Time machine

6. Aesthetic

7. Do you have to read books for class? Name a book you’ve read for any of your classes! If not, name a book you would recommend if you were a teacher

8. Theater

9. Travel

10. Saga

11. Adventures

12. Have you cried while reading a book? Name the book!

13. Is there a book you’ve only read because of its cover/title?

14. Poetry

15. Broken

16. What’s the book that made you think the most?

17. Trilogy

18. Golden age

19. Novel

20. Do you bookmark pages with important content or quotes? Name the book with the most markers you have

21. Group of friends

22. Far away from home

23. Where are you from? Name a book written by an author from your country!

24. Seasonal

25. What’s the book you didn’t think you’d enjoy, but you read it and fell in love with it?

26. Strong main character

27. Fantasy

28. Do you have any book signed by the author? Name the book! If you don’t, name a book you would like the author to sign it

29. Foreign language

30. Tell me a book that didn’t fit in any of the prompts but you still want to recommend

31. New beginnings

If you have any questions you can always message me or send me an ask!

Seguir leyendo

[steepedteastudies]

✨ how i track my reading ✨

i wanna give full credit to the user litlistening on tiktok. i saw her video on how she tracks her books and i took her system and modified it slightly to meet my own needs

first i start by filling out my google form when i have finished a book. this gathers all the info i like to track and puts it into a google sheet for me

here is the google sheet that the data gets automatically entered into

the data then gets put into my stats sheet where everything is calculated and i can easily see everything i want to track

i also made one to track all the fanfic i read ahah but i kept that separate from my book one. i use the exact same tracking system just with a few alterations

—————————

that is the basic overview of my tracking system for this year. if you have any questions or want me to maybe make you one/a book spreadsheet template send me an ask or a message and i’ll gladly help :))

[steepedteastudies]

Productivity Printables

Hey everyone! The semester has kicked off for many of us already, myself included, and I just gotta say, it’s been pretty crazy. I wanted to share some tools that have helped me and hopefully can help you too in having at least some semblance of organization this semester.

A couple notes: The first preview will show both high and low contrast versions. Remaining previews will show high contrast only but there are low contrast versions available. I have no idea why but the reviews may look different on different browsers/screens. They should print out fine, though. Click images for better quality, or go straight to the download link.

Anyway, here are the printables!

Daily Printables

Daily View (High Contrast (left) | Low Contrast (right))

Attention Management (High Contrast | Low Contrast)

Energy Management (High Contrast | Low Contrast)

Weekly Printables

Weekly Overview - Monday Start

Blank (High Contrast | Low Contrast)

Task-based  (High Contrast | Low Contrast)  

Time-based  (High Contrast | Low Contrast)  

Weekly Overview - Sunday Start

Blank (High Contrast | Low Contrast)

Task-based (High Contrast | Low Contrast)  

Time-based (High Contrast | Low Contrast)

Monthly Printables

Undated Monthly Overview - Monday Start (High Contrast | Low Contrast)

Undated Monthly Overview - Sunday Start (High Contrast | Low Contrast)  

Misc

Einstein Matrix (High Contrast | Low Contrast)

Hope you enjoy them, and if you’re looking for any of my printables, they all can be found in my Study Drive. Have an awesome semester!

[steepedteastudies]

Follow @productive-tips for more tips and content like this posted daily! Handpicked and curated with love :)

[steepedteastudies]

what are some of ur fav ted-ed vids?

i’m gonna answer with more channels than just ted-ed bc honestly i love this sort of stuff, it’s great to watch while cooking or eating or doing household chores! hope y’all enjoy watching these

YOUTUBE MASTERPOST: educational videos

ted-ed/ted talks

the world’s most mysterious book

history vs. cleopatra

the neuroscience of imagination

rosalind franklin: dna’s unsung hero

who am i? (feat. theseus’s ship problem)

playlist of riddles

mary’s room: a thought experiment

the art of being yourself

planting seeds for happiness, the danish way

yuval noah harari on why humans run the world

crash course

perspectives on death (for someone who’s deeply terrified of dying this was super soothing)

actually watch all of the crash course philosophy playlist you’re welcome

crash course world history is cool too although i like overly sarcastic productions’ videos better on this topic

overly sarcastic productions

storytelling tropes playlist!

strong female characters

mary sues

realism

mythology playlist!

miscellaneous myths: atalanta

miscellaneous myths: fionn mac cumhaill

classics summarized playlist!

dante’s inferno + sequels

paradise lost

seriously if you’re studying any classic book ever they probably talked about it

modern classics too

world history playlist!!

alcibiades (what a legend)

historical models: double world wars

historical models: revolutions

xidnaf

are languages getting simpler?

how nazis stole the word “aryan”

proto-world and the origins of language

proto-indo-european culture

the linguistics of afro-american vernacular english

nativelang

does time work differently in different languages?

tonal languages

how long can a language last?

the hardest language to spell

taboos: the tribe that cursed too much

coffee break

how to ALWAYS win an argument

why the stories we tell ourselves matter

vsauce

mindfield: the greater good

when will we run out of names?

how people disappear

why do we kiss?

is your red the same as my red?

[steepedteastudies]

these are the five browser extensions (that aren’t momentum) i use the most as a university student! if anyone has recommendations for any other extensions, please drop them below :)

[steepedteastudies]

Tips for Surviving Online School

since most of us are online due to COVID-19, I decided to make a short infographic (thanks to Canva) on how to make online learning easier. I'm on the same boat too but I made online classes into a way I can somewhat enjoy. I hope this helps for anyone who needs it!

[steepedteastudies]

A small guide to anyone that’s feeling overwhelmed and want to clear out their mind. Hope this helps :) Stay safe and hope you have a lovely day/night 

[steepedteastudies]

i made an infographic for my educational psychology class!! i’m pretty happy with how it turned out :) after this requirement (my first ever infographic) i think i’ve discovered that i really do enjoy making infographics because it combines two of the things i love - research and design, although i’m not the best at both. i just really really like gathering information then presenting it in a visually pleasing format??

also on a more personal note, i’ve been very sad today because i didn’t do as much stuff as i would’ve liked, and the covid-19 situation in my country is getting worse, largely thanks to the government’s actions (or lack of it). yeah i keep trying to remind myself that i’m so much more than the tasks i accomplish each day, but it’s hard to actually manifest that, esp when i’m deeply dissatisfied with the person i am and think there’s so much more i can improve on. as for the covid-19 situation, i honestly don’t know what to do because i’m so angry yet i’m also tired of being angry and i don’t know how to channel this anger productively. i’ve been thinking of practicing art as a way to channel my frustration with the philippine government but i’m scared since i don’t think i’m good enough to do so,,,, ok i’m sorry for rambling that’s all,,, thank you for reading this far :”>

[steepedteastudies]

a few people have asked for a post on how i use onenote, so here’s a quick guide! also obviously not sponsored lol

[steepedteastudies]

An Overview of Note-Taking Styles

Note-taking is one of the most essential skills a student should master. It allows you to record and review information to be used in the future. But what’s the best way to do so? Here’s an overview of note-taking styles that can help you maximize your learning!

[steepedteastudies]

Here are some of my unusual ways of studying German! I hope this helps some of you out✨

Mentioned Blogs : @learngermanblog / @mutant-german / @ich-bin-der-baer / @myhoneststudyblr / @crazy-languages / @weltreise / @langsworldmemes01 / @productive-tips / @studyblr-support

[steepedteastudies]

2020 Summer Studying Challenge

16th July - Do you have a lot of work to do for school or university or your job this summer?

I am really lucky to have a job this summer when I know so many others do not. I work 6 hours/day, 5 days/week. However, its a very weird job and I spend most of that time sitting at a desk with nothing to do, meaning I can read or work on other personal projects. What I am mostly hoping to work on is making a dent in my reading for next year. I also am currently taking a free online psych course just because I find it very interesting and I need something to do.