#continuing to practice and learn

[dotsunflowers]

"My heart's okay." | Paul Strickland

(ID in alt; description also available below the cut.)

[Image ID: Digital fanart of Paul Strickland from 9-1-1: Lone Star, signed in the bottom left with a 'Dot [flower symbol] s' signature. Paul is wearing his firefighter turnouts; in this rendering, the tri-striped glow strips on the turnouts are in the trans flag colours. The heavy jacket of the uniform is unbuttoned, and Paul is holding one of the flaps in his hand, revealing his navy blue t-shirt and uniform suspenders beneath, as well as a golden heart (drawn in the anatomical style) which glows in the centre of his chest. Its glow radiates out, illuminating Paul's face and torso. /end ID.]

[susartwork]

He's joking, guys-

Idk what this is. I've had this comic idea in my notes for literally a year, so I used it for color practice XD

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Teehee! (Spritesheets your Wangxian)

[pushing500]

I've been letting Alistair help with the animals around the colony since he gained a minor passion for it after he awakened. He likes having strange conversations with our housekeeper cat, Macbeth. It's funny to watch.

The trend of things falling from the sky continues after the noctoliths that almost killed Ivy. Fortunately, this little guy didn't hit anyone on his way down, and I've set him to be tamed ASAP because he's adorable and I love him.

But in answer to Beau's question of "when will it stop"...

... please, Mr. The Void, I don't have enough hairstyle mods to accommodate new clones...

Phew! It's only a twisted obelisk. No risk of any new clones anytime soon, then. We'll just have to keep an eye out for fleshmass organs and strange tentacles, and perhaps our harbinger grove will expand. That's alright. We can handle that.

Told ya he has weird conversations with the cat. I wonder what the connection between authoritarianism and authoritarianism is? I can't think of anything they'd have in common.

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[clowningaroundmars]

so... i missed them ;_;

[nobleriver]

Michonne: A Color Study

[rthwrms]

lately when im doing things that are hard or difficult for me ive been thinking "i wish i was better at this" during or after finishing said difficult or hard task. or "i wish this was more fun" "i wish i could just do this thing" or similar neg thought spirals

ive been following it up with an "and i'm learning how to do that as we speak"

[likesdoodling]

This was an idea I came up with while doing Kanji copy work, and the character '悪' (warui) in the Kanji dictionary I've been using just comes with a whole lot of example words, all of which are negative. Which was when I was like, "I can so imagine Atsushi quoting this at Akutagawa" Also one of the pronunciations is 'Aku' which while a different Kanji from the one used in the name 'Akutagawa Ryuunosuke', is still kind of funny. Hence 'malice' being pronounced as 'aku-i' and 'evil deed' as 'aku-ji'

Didn't really know how to draw Rashoumon, but I ended up going with dragon heads. Cause I feel like I've heard it described similar to dragons somewhere, and it was fun.

Also, kinda random but-

Writing Atsushi and Akutagawa shouting at each other is hilarious.

:D

[afraidofchange]

Ilona is the chaotic latke enjoyer who will not just have applesauce or sour cream on hers, but both. At the same time.

[rigelmejo]

Something that always annoys me is the idea only 1 language learning method works. Which is not true. While it may be possible that, for a particular individual, only a few out of many study methods may work well enough for That Individual to make progress and stay motivated... that doesn't mean all the other study methods won't work for anyone else out there, or that those few methods will work for every other given person.

Obviously if you've been studying a while, then you already figured out what kinds of things work for you and don't. If you're a beginner, just wading into studying?

I would suggest you simply look for study methods that: 1. Teach you new things regularly, 2. Review and practice things you've learned, 3. Include studying things you need for your particular goals (for example if your goal is to read X book then the study materials at some point should involve reading practice and some words the book contains, if your goal is to talk about Y then the study materials should include some information about pronunciation and words you'll need to be able to say).

As you can imagine, a TON of study materials will meet these requirements. And you can study a given skill in a LOT of ways.

(Reading is my focus lol so just for reading, a beginner might: do vocabulary study with lists or conversations with native speakers or watching shows and looking words up or listening to dialogues with a transcript like in a textbook or graded readers or a picture book with word labels in the target language or a video game with labelled objects in target language, all of those things as long as your vocabulary is improving or reading practice is happening would help you make progress). So to improve reading skill as a beginner: you could study with a textbook, a podcast with transcript, a classroom or tutor with words written down in target language (like TPRS), a video game, a TV show and a translate app on your phone, a friend you talk with (who either writes words down or you look up words you hear with a translate app), a friend you text with, srs flashcards like anki (provided there's text) etc. As long as there's new words, and/or you're practicing reading, the study method may work. If it works will come down to if you can stay motivated doing it regularly, and make sure you regularly learn some new things and review/practice things you've already studied.

So consider those things when you see people selling a study method as a product (especially when it's costing you money). Consider if it teaches you NEW things, and are those new things related to your goals, and how MUCH new stuff will it teach you before you finish it? Consider if it provides review or practice, or if you can use it's materials to review on your own making up your own method, or if you'll need to do separate review/practice.

So examples:

LingQ. Can it teach you many new words? Yes, thousands, since you can import any texts you want when you get done with their provided material (I have no idea how much their beginner material covers though in terms of words... I would hope 1000-3000 words but that can be researched). Is your goal reading? It's suited to reading, so you will practice and review often with it. Cost? I think it was $12 a month when I last had it, and the price may have increased. Is it worth it? Depends on a learner's needs. I found it was wasting my money, so I chose to use free tools like Pleco and Readibu apps - since those apps are suited for Chinese learners and have better translations, Pleco has better paid graded reader material if I was going to spend money, and both Pleco and Readibu let me import texts so I can learn thousands of new words just like LingQ but free. Now that I'm not a beginner, I often use Microsoft Edge to read chinese... since I can still click-translate words easily (all my web browsers have that tool free), and Edge's TTS voice is helpful for pronunciation and sounds quite good. I read webnovels online so Edge works well. But it's translations aren't as good as Pleco or Readibu, so if I still needed translations more I would use them. So... is LingQ a good study method? Its certainly a study method marketed to buy. Well... the method is suited to improving reading skill, at least. It costs money, which is a negative, but it does offer a lot. However: everything it does regarding reading can be done free with other apps or sites or web browsers on their own. So if paying money motivates you to read... sure. LingQ does have a few word tracking features a learner may find worth the money, keeping in mind the actual read-to-learn method can be done free without lingq. (Also... while LingQ is a valid option for improving reading, if the learners goal is speaking then it would be important to think of what study activities the learner will do OUTSIDE of LingQ to improve speaking... because I've seen how LingQ is marketed as "how to learn a language" but it's only focused on some skills. It has vocabulary and grammar in some sense, since you'll read a lot and encounter new words and structures. But it doesnt have speaking or writing practice at least last time I was on it. Those activities would need to be worked on, on your own).

You can do that kind of cost/benefit contemplating with any study method material you see being sold. Amother example: there's a beginner Mandarin course called Mandarin Blueprint. It teaches like 800 words. Thats all. It may be worthwhile for a beginner... who still needs to learn 800 common words. But if you already know a few hundred words, the benefit of the course is less, you'll need to find a new material to teach you more new stuff soon. And the price was like a few hundred for the course... which for me personally was too much to spend, when I had already learned 800 hanzi from a book that cost me 12 dollars and 2000 words from a free user made memrise deck. The course claimed to get a person speaking, competent, but anyone not a beginner would say speaking basically with 800 words is nowhere near the level of working in Chinese or just doing a lot of daily life stuff, or reading/listening to media. (Although for the motivated beginner if you're learning 800 words on your own like I was, its definitely close to the point of jumping to learn more words and start reading kids and teenager books, and watching easier shows if you're willing to look new words up). So to me... Mandarin Blueprint felt like overselling some basic beginner materials. (Again when I know several other things that teach beginner stuff either more in depth so HSK test prep classes, and college courses, or that teach beginner stuff to the same depth as Mandarin Blueprint but free).

Some study materials aren't going to act like they teach everything. I've seen chinese courses just for learning to speak tones better and general pronunciation - probably worthwhile if your goal is to improve speaking and a teacher could help improve the issues your having. But a learner needs to be aware for that course that they'll need to study vocabulary on their own, its JUST a pronunciation improvement course.

[nobodymitskigabriel]

Feel like I did awful in my ASL final please pray for me y'all

[pidgefudge]

y'know what... im not so sure practicing and working at a specific form of art until i get good is my style... i think im more of a Let's Try Everything kinda guy (for example today i bought a bunch of cheap tempera paint and kiddie brushes and stuff to paint metal sonic because why not)

[monster-noises]

Anyone out there got a solution for when you're feeling really stuck with your art and everyone and their mother tells you the solution is to do studies and figure drawings and other such things but even just thinking about doing those things makes you Spiral and want to Kill Yourself?

[sandycodes]

day 8/100

life is just throwing me for an absolute loop these days, but im starting my adventure into javascript :) i didn't do a ton of coding today, but i learned about the history of javascript as well as 2 ways of running it in the browser, both in html files within the script tag and in an REPL (also one way of declaring a variable cause i think there are others but im not sure) <3

[vanyafresita]

do you care about him

[fromperdition4]

Oh shit - someone's on the balcony —

Stop making out, run!