#one day i will write my flashcards for english

[prettieinpink]

CREATING A STUDY SCHEDULE/ROUTINE 

PLANNING/SCHEDULING

LIST YOUR ACADEMIC STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES. This is so you can allocate time accordingly and avoid wasting any time. 

PRIORITISE ANY SUBJECTS. These may be subjects that will help you in your future career or just a subject you especially want a good grade in. Anything for these subjects then becomes the most important on your to-do list.

DIVIDE TIME EACH DAY. Not all days you are going to be able to sit down at your desk at the same time. Instead, according to your energy levels and planned activities, divide your time.

E.g I have cheerleading after school and I'm going to be so tired, so I’ll do my studying in the morning instead. 

ESTABLISH BREAKS. Depending on how long you can study for, place a suitable break in between. This helps make studying more productive, but only if your breaks are. 

CREATING

USE YOUR TIMETABLE. On days you don’t have a specific subject, dedicate more time to that one. 

CONSIDER YOUR LEARNING STYLE. This helps to be a bit more specific when creating it, instead of winging it and just doing anything. Having a consistent way of studying helps us learn better. 

E.g I’m a visual learner, so I’ll watch animations. I'm an auditory learner so I’ll watch a video of someone explaining it. 

KNOW WHAT YOU WILL DO DURING STUDYING. Do not just wing studying, it’s unproductive and you’re more likely to waste time instead of using it.

 Before you start studying, write a to-do list of everything you need to do during that session and how you will do it. Less time time-consuming and allows you to use time productively. 

SAMPLE – this is Lanny’s daily study routine without any upcoming tests, as an early bird, kinesthetic learner and needs breaks to think with clarity.

Morning

Review my flashcards in preparation for any test. 

Write/note any flashcards I'm struggling with. 

 Afterschool

Check seqta/school website to access my courses, in which I’ll write down which subjects I had. 

Do a few quick blurts on paper of everything I learned in those subjects with prior reading. I only do this for HASS, math and science + any electives that require it. (blurting method)

Then I recheck my blurts, add in anything that I’ve missed and correct with a different coloured pen. 

After, I push those papers aside but I do not discard them. I’ll then complete my online science homework + class workbook. If I happen not to understand anything I’ll watch a video on it and then complete some questions on that. 

I’ll take a break around now because, on an estimate, it has been around 20-40 minutes since I started depending on how my science homework is. I usually eat something and then get back to it. 

Math is next. I’ll complete any math homework, then I’ll practice doing math questions on my own. What I like to do is watch a math video, pause the question without the answer then watch to see if I got it. Effective because they explain it and I can see where I went wrong without analysing my working out which is rather time-consuming. 

I take another break. Math stuff usually takes around 20-30 minutes. 

I then do HASS, which is the easiest. I usually read an article or watch a video on hass then apply that knowledge by answering questions OR doing assigned chapter work. 

I do not study English after school, but I usually read an assigned passage/book and then try to apply any techniques/knowledge by taking that paragraph apart and analysing it. Sometimes, I write my paragraphs using any taught techniques and then mark them. 

Then, I redo my blurtings again but without prior reading then recheck and correct. Then I am finished for the afternoon!!

Evening

Review flashcards then watch a video/read an article on what I was struggling with in the morning but I do not do anything to consolidate this knowledge. 

That is all, please feel free to ask me about any questions about studying as I don't really post much about it, I'll love to help out any fellow students! 

#hot and educated #hot girl semester #pink academia #princess academica #study blog #study aesthetic #studyspo #study motivation #studyblr #study tips #studying #high school #pretty academia #pretty and smart #study #study inspiration #routine #time management #sc

[indigostudies]

What are those apps you usually post in your productivity updates?

hi! here's a breakdown of apps i use, as well as websites and other resources i've used/use for my learning (mainly chinese, though some of these resources can be used for other languages as well).

apps i use every day:

dot languages: this is a chinese-specific app where you select your hsk level, and then read articles at that level. there's a pop-up dictionary, an option to show pinyin, post-article vocab practice (audio, matching, translation, and writing), and the option to have your articles either in simplified or traditional.

TOFU learn: a blend between flashcards and writing, you can find decks for various things, including hsk level-specific decks, and you learn new vocab with the stroke order and then write each new term three times—once with an overlay (so the term is visible), and then two times from memory. there's also a review function, which helps you practice terms you've already learnt, and each term has audio that goes with it. i use it for chinese, but there's decks for esperanto, french, german, italian, japanese, korean, norweigian, portuguese, russian, spanish, swedish, and turkish.

the pleco dictionary app: my favourite chinese dictionary app; allows you to translate from english to chinese or chinese to english, has options for writing, radical, vocal, and keyboard entry, and has both traditional and simplified characters.

ankiapp: this one's not particularly complicated; it's a flashcard app, where you can make your own decks or download decks other people have made. it uses a spaced repetition system to help you remember terms—you rate yourself from worst to best on how well you remembered the term, and that determines how many times it'll pop up afterwards. it also gives you an overall grade for each deck, which is a nice way to measure your progress.

duolingo: probably my least favourite of all of the apps i use; the chinese course isn't the best, and now that they've removed the notes/grammar information option, there's no way for people who aren't already fairly familiar with the language and its inner workings to learn them if they exclusively use duolingo. it's okay for maintenance practice, though, but i'm already almost finished with the entire course and i would say it barely reaches to lower hsk 4, so i wouldn't say it's a good tool if you're more advanced.

apps i have but use less often:

readibu: this is sort of like dot in that it's an app for reading in chinese with a pop-up dictionary. however, that's where the similarities end; readibu has novels, short stories, and articles aimed at children, and each of those are further split into genres. readibu also lets you add your own web-pages and read them on the app, so you can use its pop-up dictionary with them. it's aimed more to intermediate and upper intermediate learners, with hsk levels ranging from hsk 4 to hsk 6. the only reason i rate dot above readibu is because dot has a larger range of levels (hsk 1 through hsk 6 i believe? but it may go higher) and exercises built in to help you learn the vocab.

the chairman's bao: also a chinese reading app, though if you use the free version, you only get one sample article per hsk level (hsk 1 - hsk 6). i believe that every so often you get a new sample article for each level, but i'm not sure what the interval on that is. it also has a pop-up dictionary and a flashcard option for saved vocab.

du chinese: another chinese reading app; it has articles divided into newbie through master (six levels in total, though they don't line up perfectly with the hsk in my experience), and new articles are free for a certain period of time before becoming locked behind a paywall. there's a pop-up dictionary and a vocab review/test option for vocab you save.

memrise: flashcards with audio, depending on whether you're using an official course or a user-generated deck. decent, but it can get repetitive.

hellotalk: not exclusively chinese, but i believe it started off mainly aimed that way. you set your language, and then your target language, and then you can talk to native speakers who have your language as their target language. potentially incredibly useful, but if you're like me and extremely introverted you may have a hard time using this app, since it requires a lot of one-on-one interaction.

slowly: i haven't actually gotten around to using this, but it's sort of like a digital penpal app, as i understand it. you can learn more about it here.

websites and other miscellanea:

this massive mega drive by @salvadorbonaparte (languages, linguistics, translation studies, and more).

this masterpost by @loveletter2you (linguistics, languages, and language learning books/textbooks).

this masterpost on chinese minority literature by @zaobitouguang

the integrated chinese textbooks by cheng and tsui, which are the textbooks i use for self-study—there's textbooks and workbooks, as well as character workbooks (though these can easily be cut out without suffering from the loss).

mandarinbean: graded readers, hsk 1 - hsk 6, with a pop-up dictionary and the option to read in traditional or simplified

chinese reading practice: reading, beginner through advanced (three levels), with a pop-up dictionary and some additional notes included on vocab and language-specific things non-native speakers might struggle with or not know.

hsk reading: graded readers, hsk 1 - hsk 6, divided into three sections (beginner, intermediate, advanced). does not have a pop-up dictionary, but does have an option to translate the text, post-reading quizzes, and notes on important vocab with example sentences.

my chinese reading: reading from beginner to advanced (four levels); has a pop-up dictionary, the option to play an audio recording of the passage you're reading, notes on key words, things that are difficult to translate, grammar, and post-reading comprehension questions.

the heavenly path notion website, which i would say is one of the best resources i've ever found, with a massive number of guides, lists of chinese media in a variety of forms, and general resources.

chinese character stroke order dictionary: what it says on the tin; will show you the stroke order for a given character.

hanzigrids: allows you to generate your own character worksheets. i use this very frequently, and can recommend it. the only downside is if you want to create multiple pages at once, you have to pay; however this can easily be circumnavigated by creating only one sheet at a time. you can download the sheet as a pdf and print it out for personal use.

21st century chinese poety: a resource i only came across recently; has a massive collection of contemporary chinese poetry, including translations; much more approachable than classical poetry, which can often be incredibly dense and hard to parse due to the writing style.

zhongwen pop-up dictionary: if you're reading something in chinese on a website that doesn't have a pop-up dictionary, this is a must. i've never encountered any words that it doesn't have a translation for so far, including colloquialisms/slang. i use it to read webnovels, and it's been a fantastic tool. you can also save vocab by hitting the r key when you're hovering over a word/phrase, making it easy to go back and add terms to your flashcard deck(s).

chinese reading world: a website put together by the university of iowa; split into three levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced), with thirty units per level, and ten modules per unit, as well as multiple proficiency tests per level. each module is split into three parts: a pre-reading vocab quiz, the reading with a number of comprehension questions based on it, and a post-vocab reading quiz. it also rates you in relation to someone with a native proficiency based on how quickly you read and answer the comprehension questions, and how many vocab questions you get right.

jiaoyu baike: an extensive chinese-to-chinese dictionary, put out by the taiwanese ministry of education. you can find an extensive write-up on it here, by @linghxr.

social media etc: see this post by @rongzhi.

qianpian: another chinese-to-chinese dictionary; @ruhua-langblr has a write-up on it here.

this writeup on zero to hero by @meichenxi; initially aimed at chinese learning, but now has expanded greatly.

music rec's: this masterpost by @linghxr.

tv/film: youtube is a great place to find chinese tv shows and films, and they often have english subtitles. if you can't find something on there, though, you can probably find it either on iqiyi or asianvote, which have both chinese and other asian shows and films (though you'll want an adblock if you're going to use the latter). i use these a lot to watch things, and have discovered a lot of media through these, and then novels through those when i went searching to see what they were adapted from.

polylogger: a website for logging the amount of time/type of language study you do. has a wide variety of languages, and the option to follow other people. still, it's a fairly basic site.

#chinese langblr #chinese language #chinese learning #langblr #chinese #mandarin #langblr resources #resources #汉语 #indigostudies #inbox #indigo ink

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[hannahssimblr]

The crying is relentless. All morning and well into the afternoon. It's not constant, but it is consistent, a cycle of heavy, self pitying sobs followed by these silences where I imagine she forgets what she's so sad about, or curses Evan out instead, which, if it were me, is what I would be doing. I can't understand why any person is really worth this much anguish, especially ones that don't wash their hair.

“Ah, Shell,” Jen mutters under her breath, “he’s just a stupid fucking boy, enough already.” 

The brilliant sunlight of early May streaks through the windows and over the pages of our textbooks and notebooks strewn all over the carpet. With the summer exams approaching I have accepted that it’s going to be like this all month, study, revising, shovelling snacks into our mouths and then studying some more until our eyes feel like shrivelled little raisins in their sockets. But I have nowhere else to be these days, so I am happy to spend them on my stomach in the sun with Jen, writing flashcards and highlighting entire pages about chemical erosion and igneous rock.

“Did you see him at school this week?” I ask around the pen jammed between my teeth. 

“Who? Evan?”

“Yep.”

“Unfortunately. With Carlie.”

“Oh, crazy. He moved on quickly.”

She tuts and shakes her head in disgust, “He’s horrible. He has no shame, full on knowing that Michelle can see him shoving his foul slug tongue into Carlie’s mouth, in broad daylight.”

“Mm, nothing good ever happens in broad daylight, does it?”

 There is a bang, crash and wallop as Michelle comes down the stairs and straight into the room. I steel myself defensively, waiting for, I don't know what, maybe for her to start giving out to me or screaming that I need to get the hell out, not that she’s done that yet, but there’s always a chance. I bet she would if she was feeling crazy enough.

But maybe we've caught her at a good time, because instead she looks startled to see me, while also appearing different, more vulnerable than I'm used to seeing her now that the makeup she usually rings her eyes with is absent for the first time since she was about fourteen. It feels risky to look directly in her eyes, but I can't really help myself. It's like some layer has been peeled away, and she's the girl who used to be my friend.

“Um,” she utters, voice cracked and hoarse from crying, and drags the heel of her hand beneath her still dripping nose, “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I can go.”

She hesitates. 

“Let him stay,” Jen grumbles, “He’s just studying, he’s not going to bite you, is he?” 

“Okay,” Michelle says in a voice just above a whisper, and hovers there for another few moments as Jen goes back to flipping through her geography book, no doubt taking nothing in.

“Did you need something?”

“Not really.”

“Alright.”

Flip.

Flip.

Michelle gently clears her throat, “Is it… is it for the summer exams? All the study, like.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll probably fail mine,” a feeble laugh, “and dad will be thrilled with me.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand, given the circumstances.”

“I don’t think so,” she comes a bit closer, her stockinged feet padding over the carpet, and I don’t move a muscle as she approaches us, afraid to make a nuisance of myself. She perches on the edge of the sofa and folds her hands in her lap. “I think I should probably study,” she comments absently.

“If you want to,” Jen says. 

“I have so much work to catch up on…”

“Well,” Jen spreads out her fingers and gestures to the mess of paper and books on the floor like she’s presenting a gourmet meal, “you’re welcome to join us any time, babe.”

I sense Michelle’s eyes on me but I deliberately keep mine fixed on my book. The last thing I want to do is put her off the idea and then, God knows, get blamed for any and all fail grades she ends up getting.

“Hm, maybe,” she says, and leans to pluck at the corner of one of the English book covers, “I honestly know nothing, I can’t remember any of King Lear, never mind the poetry…”

“All that Shakespeare stuff is Jude’s domain, actually all of it is his, I'm clearly the idiot in the room…”

I pipe up sheepishly, “If you need help going through stuff, you know, I can, but if not it’s obviously fine too.”

“Hm,” she says, and slides to the floor with us, “Maybe. I’ll see.”

Jen gives me a secret smirk. “She'll see,” she mouths, and just like the sneaky wink she follows it with, I have absolutely no idea what she means.

Beginning // Prev // Next

#lucky boy 2009 #SHE WILL SEE

[kagiura-akira]

my ASMR boyfriend

Rating: PG for Hirano's vocabulary

Words: 2100ish

Still a wip, so this is absolutely a placeholder title. This is likely going to be a long one-shot, so it'll be a bit before I properly post. But I wrote some stuff and wanted to share cause the kghr asmr AU has been plaguing my mind for a few days now and I had a productive write or die session this evening and I liked the sasawarano friendship interactions.

--------

Hirano Taiga has never been very good at thinking. Or rather, he's too good at thinking. Doesn't know how to stop. Now in his second year of high school, every possible thought plagues him late at night. What should he do about his paper due for English next week? He hasn't decided a topic yet. What is he going to write for his summer reflection homework? What would he even say? That he studied at the library all summer? It's not like he lives a particularly exciting life, despite how active his mind is.

Lying wide awake, thinking about school, life, his future, Hirano doomscrolls through his phone for probably a good hour or two before he decides he should try to get some sleep. It's just after midnight, and he has to wake up early to tutor Sasaki and Ogasawara tomorrow morning. So he lies there, tossing and turning, trying to shut off his brain, but all he can think about is everything he needs to remember to do in the morning.

Did he include everything he was supposed to in the flashcards he made for them?

Did he remember to pack his statistics notebook?

What about his summer break homework?

His mind won't shut up. Hell, he doesn't even think about the same topic for more than 30 seconds.

While he’s used to scrolling through his social media feeds endlessly, he doesn’t find anything particularly intriguing or thought provoking this time, so his mind starts to drift again. He can't concentrate on any one thing in particular, and he's not even conscious of the way he switches between apps — it’s just muscle memory. Twitter feed? Garbage. Instagram? Great for a few reels and not much more. Facebook? Nah, that’s mostly full of his relatives bickering or posting complaints about their neighbors. Without any real aim, he opens the Youtube app on his phone. Then, as he's scrolling through some random Youtube shorts, a handsome guy with brown hair and deep chocolate brown eyes to match catches his attention. He’s advertising a full length video for his channel.

"Can't sleep? Listen to this video to fall asleep instantly," the caption says, emphasis on the “instantly.” There’s a brief preview in the short, and Hirano is intrigued but hesitant. It seems kind of odd. Is this that ASMR thing he’s heard some people talk about? His classmates always referred to it like it was the most cringeworthy content in the depths of the internet, so his finger hovered over the link for a bit. Best case scenario, it’s exactly what it says it is, and Hirano falls asleep before 3 AM for the first time in weeks. Worst case scenario, it’s some weird video from a creepy dude on the internet and it doesn’t put him to sleep, but realistically, he’s not sleeping anyway, so giving it a chance seems like the right thing to do. What could possibly go wrong? Hirano doesn't know what to expect when he opens the full video, but it starts off simple enough.

"Hi, welcome back to my channel," the boy whispers into an expensive-looking microphone with a fluffy wind muff, gently cupping the side of it. "Tonight, we'll be reading the tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter," he says. He opens an old picture book with an English title and a couple of rabbits on the cover: a mother rabbit dressed in a full-length dress and apron and a little rabbit in a blue sweater and rainboots standing next to her.

‘Guess we’re reading a children’s book tonight, then,’ Hirano thinks.

When the guy opens to the first page, the text is in English, too. Hirano wasn't expecting to listen to an English bedtime story told by a Japanese Youtuber tonight, but realistically, he hadn’t expected to end up on this side of the internet at all.

“Once upon a time, there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter...”

Hirano gets the jist of the story if he closes his eyes, but he has to focus hard on the audio for even a vague understanding. There are Japanese subtitles, though, so rather than struggle to follow, he reads along with the captions. He’s fluent enough in English thanks to the fact it’s compulsory at their school, but he’s unfamiliar enough that he only catches key verbs and nouns without the subtitles.

The guy’s voice is soft-spoken, yet still animated — a sweet and mellifluous timbre with a slightly low pitch, but not any lower than Hirano’s own voice. Half asleep, he thinks about how aptly titled the video is. This guy really knows his stuff. He’s probably one of those professional voice actors or something that does the recording for audio books. His voice is nice enough that he surely has to be.

"Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the big fir-tree," he starts to round out the story. “He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the floor of the rabbit-hole and shut his eyes...”

It only takes the words “shut his eyes” for Hirano’s own to close, like he’s obeying a subtle instruction.

About thirty seconds later, he closes the story book, but the video doesn’t end there. Hirano is barely clinging to consciousness as the guy talks a little bit about the book and the four little rabbits, commenting on how naughty Peter was for not listening to his mother. While the reading of the story itself was somewhat formal in presentation (likely due to it being in English and being read by a narrator whose first language is probably Japanese), the talk afterward is incredibly candid. His voice is a little bit muffled by his mask, but he keeps his face close to the microphone, so while his voice isn't crystal clear, it’s still audible.

“The moral of the story is, ‘listen to your mother if you want blackberries and bread for dinner and don’t want to be sent to bed without food,’” he laughs softly. “I was a little scared for the rabbit, myself, since his dad had an accident in the garden. And it’s too bad he lost his little coat and shoes. They were so cute.”

He leafs through the pages of the book again to show his favorite illustrations as he talks about it, analyzes it a little bit. Maybe it’s a bit much for a story written for the sole purpose of entertaining a sickly child — there shouldn’t be too many hidden metaphors or intentional symbolism — but Hirano enjoys the rambling.

"I hope you enjoyed this story. It's one of my favorites," he says, starting to close out the video. Hirano can’t see him smile behind the mask, but his eyes are expressive enough that he can read his face well enough to know he is. The corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles sincerely. His voice is airy, like he’s mildly hypnotized by his own video. In the end, he’s just as relaxed as his viewers. Meanwhile, Hirano is somehow still awake, although just barely. He’s too fascinated by this boy and his voice.

"Good night," the brunette whispers over and over as the video gradually fades to black. And seconds later, Hirano's eyelids, heavy and tired, finally flutter closed. He drops his phone on the mattress next to his pillow, and just like that, he’s out like a lamp.

Probably the first time he'd slept more than five hours in a night, Hirano wakes up the next morning feeling more rested than he has for the last four years. He didn't have to walk too far to get to school, since he lives in the dorms, but he’s determined to leave early just in case, anyway. Not that Sasaki or Ogasawara would beat him there, but he has to get their notes and mini lectures ready.

If one didn't know better, they'd think Hirano was their teacher rather than a fellow classmate.

"Morning,” Hirano calls to Ogasawara as the latter pushes open the classroom door, dragging himself over to their desks near the window.

“Morning,” Ogasawara mumbles. “You're awfully chipper for 7 AM.”

“Guess I just slept well last night,” Hirano says. It’s just as Ogasawara says, though — he’s never been one for mornings, so to see him awake and not homicidal at such an early hour is a rarity.

"Sasaki’s on his way. Had to stop and take a piss since he didn’t roll out of bed till right before we got on the train," Ogasawara says with a yawn. "Thanks for doing this for us.”

Hirano laughs. "No problem. How long have I been helping you two now, anyway? I'm used to it."

“Yeah, I know, I owe you my life or something. Or at least, you can have Sasaki’s. I don’t want to think about what Eimi would say if I told her I sold my soul to you just pass my midterms.” Ogasawara shudders in response to a deeply buried traumatic thought resurfacing — a feeling that can only be understood by a fujoshi’s boyfriend.

Hirano pushes a stack of flashcards across the desk toward his friend, hoping it’ll keep him from going on about their latest fight. “Score above 80% and you can keep your soul,” he says, half-joking.

And when Ogasawara shuffles through the neatly printed and thoroughly organized deck of flashcards, he’s certain that he has, in fact, just made a deal with the devil.

“Let’s get to it, then.”

Later that night, as Hirano’s getting ready for bed, he opens up Youtube instead of his usual timelines. Looks up and down his suggested feed for the page of the guy he listened to last night, though he would easily find it if he would just look at the history on his phone. He’s surprisingly slow for someone with grades in the top 20 of his class — not exactly technologically savvy, despite his habit of looking through social media every night right before bedtime.

He scrolls through his feed, phone propped on his chest as it illuminates his face in the dark room. Desperate to find the channel, he searches, "bedtime rabbit story english japanese guy,” which does him no favors at all. Then, as if the algorithm gods have had enough of watching him struggle, it pops up as the first suggested video when he refreshes his suggested video feed for the 30th time that night. He makes sure to note the username, kgurbskt11. He isn’t sure how to read that, but at least he can’t forget such an oddly cryptic username.

First on the agenda: subscribe to the channel and bookmark it for later. He’d hate to have to go through all of this again next time he wants to watch his videos. Completely throwing caution to the wind, he scrolls through the videos for less than a few seconds before randomly tapping on one without looking at the title or thumbnail. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for — he just wants to hear something that’ll put him to sleep.

The random video is just a simple talking one, and rather than soft spoken, he spends much of the video whispering. The sound causes a tingling sensation to form at the back of his head, which then spreads over the rest of his scalp, and then down his spine. He jumps a little from the ticklish feeling it gives him, but once he’s used to it, he starts to unwind. The guy wasn't talking about anything spectacular, to be honest. Just the time he spends with his friends. There’s a story about his summer vacation and his younger sisters, and then a story about playing suikawari* at his family's estate with all of his extended family. He’s bubbly without being overwhelmingly energetic. A nice bit of rambling that has Hirano focused, but he isn't focused so much on the content of the story, this time, as he is on this boy's eyes.

Like last time, his eyes are expressive in a thousand different ways as he cycles through several emotions while recounting his summer vacation. The deep brown irises captivate Hirano, and soon he finds he isn't even listening or comprehending the words of the video anymore. And within 30 seconds of his eyes slowly starting to flutter closed, he’s abruptly awakened when he drops his phone on his face.

“Fuck,” he curses, rubbing his nose. When he returns his attention to the video, it’s a little easier to concentrate, but now he has to spend a little more time watching this channel now that he’s been awakened so abruptly. So he watches another video, only making it about five minutes in when he fell asleep for real (without dropping his phone on his face, this time).

---------

*Suikawari is a traditional Japanese game that involves splitting a watermelon with a stick while blindfolded

#hirano to kagiura #kagihira #hirano taiga #kagiura akira #hirakagi #my wips #hrkg asmr au

[inkichan]

First thing first · kana

(⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧ essential

It is a must, before you begin your journey in studying japanese, to be fully able to read, understand and write hiragana and katakana.

In my post I would hardly use romanji, since I think they're counterproductive. Even though my blog is beginner friendly (as myself!) I think it's essential to know how to read and write these two alphabets.

What is kana

Kana is essentially the Japanese alphabet. Each kana character represents one syllable. There are two sets of kana, which means there are two different Japanese scripts based on syllabaries: hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ). Both hiragana and katakana were originally derived from kanji characters. Hiragana and katakana are literally the ABCs of Japanese. They're the most basic types of Japanese characters and essential parts of the Japanese language. Learning these two types of characters is often the very first step to learning Japanese, too.

Why not romanji?

Romanization can indeed make one's learning process less effective. When you rely heavily on romanji, your brain tends to lean on the Latin alphabet that you're already familiar with, potentially hindering your ability to fully grasp hiragana and katakana. That's why I encourage minimizing the use of romanji in your studies, except when it's absolutely necessary. Making a conscious effort to read and engage with kana is a more fruitful approach.

Hiragana

Hiragana is the first writing system learned by Japanese children, and thus is often the recommended system for non-Japanese to learn first, as well. 

Katakana

Katakana may not be used as extensively as hiragana, but it provides an interesting advantage to English speakers. Gairaigo (外来語), or borrowed words, is primarily written in katakana so katakana characters are mainly used to write foreign names, corporate branding, western loanwords and onomatopoeic words.

Free resources

JOSHU - interactive tables, stroke order, audio, flashcards, practice sheets, practice quizzes.

Japanese Pod 101 - Kana eBook, video lesson (try 10 Days Hiragana Challenge and 10 Days Katakana Challenge) plus Learn Hiragana in 1 hour and Learn Katakana in 1 hour

Tofugu - I really reccomend check this article out, becaus it's a more in depth article with tons of other possible useful resoures!

App - there are several apps for iOS/Android, such as: Dr. Moku, Hiragana/Katakana Memory Hint, Write it! Japanese (and many more...)

Writing and Reading practice - I personally recommend this video from this playlist (also useful) for the reading practice and this one for the writing.

The Best Method?

There isn't, in fact, a "best method" to learn kana. As every other thing, you need to learn at your own pace and with the method that best suits you. My method was just writing kana endlessly and repetition, trying to hear words and write them and/or read them (as the last point of the free resources). But everyone is different, so I recommend to try different methods out! Don't hesitate to ask question, recommend other resources or simply interact!

またね～@inkichan

꒰ა ˚₊ ✧・┈・╴﹕꒰ ᐢ｡- ༝ -｡ᐢ ꒱﹕╴・┈・𐑺 ‧₊˚໒꒱

#japanese #nihongo #studyblr #learn Japanese #learning Japanese #japanese langblr #langblog #japanese studyblr #日本語 #japanese resources #resources #n5 #JLPT N5 #grammar #basic grammar #japanese grammar #n5 grammar #kana #hiragana #katakana #learn japanese #learning japanese

[studyzu]

my studyblr intro!

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮

⋆ ★ about me

✦ my name is zuri, i’m 15

✦ any pronouns

✦ british, living in the south of england

✦ interests: video games (fnaf, minecraft, phas), marvel (loki for life), music, dogs + sharks !!

⋆ ★ my study life

• grammar school -> now homeschooler

• currently in year 11

• studying for gcses: psychology, sociology, biology, english language + literature, further maths

• chosen a levels: psych, socio, bio, maths

• academic dream: study psych at york university

• long-term goal: becoming a psychotherapist!

⋆ ★ my goals

personal:

spend time with loved ones regularly

daily yoga/meditation

remember to listen to my body

work on my mental health

make new friends!

academic:

grade 6+ in language and literature

grade 7+ in psych, socio, bio

focus on essay writing skills

work through further maths this year

continue learning spanish

vary study methods

keep on top of flashcards + assignments

⋆ ★ other stuff

✦ i am kinda struggling with keeping motivated, so i’ve come to studyblr to try and work on that!

✦ reading books is so fun but hyping myself up to read a book is not fun

✦ i’m autistic + chronically ill so there always seems to be obstacles when trying to sit down and just study, therefore if i don’t look like one of those A* top grade students and don’t manage to post every day then burnout/flareups may be why 😭

✦ i have 2 adorable lil doggos who i love very much

✦ my fav music artists/bands are: taylor swift, harry styles (+1D), james marriott + lovejoy!

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯

i think that is all for now! thank you very much for reading and i wish you luck with your studies, friend! <3

#studyblr #study blog #gcse student #gcse studyblr #grammar school sucked so i dropped out #romanticizing school #cozy study #personal goals #academic validation #psychology #sociology #literature #english language #biology #maths #new to studyblr #chronical illness #actually autistic #mental health matters #lgbtqia

[madsmilfelsen]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @thenookienostradamus, quyanaa!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 22 :)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 237, 409, yeehaw!

3. What fandoms do you write for? Magic Mike (allegedly), Always Sunny (allegedly), Killer Joe, True Detective (season one, I get too weepy if I think about season four too long but someday!), Midnight Mass, Shadow & Bone, Tell Me Your Secrets, Loki, and I've got an original work snuck in there, too

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments? Typically! I have a habit of hoarding my favorites in my inbox so if I take a week or three months to answer you it's because I've been thinking about kissing you on the mouth. Comments really make my day so I do my best to show gratitude to those who take the time to make them.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Maybe Sinhound? I don't set out to write angst.................. ever, but ending with Mildred's funeral wasn't what I was expecting either.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? All of them :) I'm a sucker for love and happy endings :)))))

8. Do you get hate on fics? no and that gets more and more shocking each time I post a new work lately as my ao3 becomes a pit of depravity while I work through everything I can't put in my novel manuscript.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? hell yeah fuck yeah. I like playing in varying degrees of consent, unhealthy or unbalanced dynamics, girls who come too fast and have weird relationships with sex, yada yada. I have a really supportive husband who I am disgustingly, deeply in love with so a lot of genuine warm and fuzzy feelings for one old man in particular generates a lot of material.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I simply don't have the mind processes for it and admire those who can mix media like that.

11. free space / no question here, send me an ask with one instead please :)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of! would be awfully neat though.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Oh man, I had a fun star wars piece I was writing with my dear friend, Jess, when impostor syndrome struck too hard to finish-- I still have the embroidery she did of our title (the inverse must also be true) in my office hanging below my first rejection letter :)

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? every goblin couple that make out nasty style, so uh, rust/sugar :( they're so special to me and pulled me out of a Hellacious writer's block

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? My only wip is Sunday School Dropout because I sort of forgot where I was going with it, it'll come back with light voyeurism, blood drinking, virginity taking, the usual order

16. What are your writing strengths? I feel like this is question to really sell myself but honestly, hell if I know, creating place? mannerisms maybe? Beyond my general insecurities, some of the nicest compliments I've gotten are for things I did unintentionally so hard to say! I have crafted some fuckin nonlinear bangers I'll give myself that much.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I DON'T KNOW HOW TO MAINTAIN TENSE and I HAVE NO WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF SENTENCE STRUCTURES, which annoy me and are my father's biggest complaints so I can't take them seriously enough to consciously attempt to improve on them yet. Lately, I've been smoking weed and flipping vocabulary flashcards before bed because my diction feels stagnant, a bit repetitive across pieces like.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I can't even speak english well enough to write coherently I'm not going to fuck up further with google translate. I did some ballet au's a few years back that I know have some french in it but I think I did a firmly okay job with the sprinkles of dialogue-- I know damn well my terminology is correct.

19. First fandom you wrote for? technically game of thrones, I have a sansa/sandor reunion very angrily tapped out in my notes app when season eight skipped it. The first work I posted was Seduction of Odile after I saw a post here about the potential of a rey/kylo blackswan au, reached out and asked if I could give it a try and here I am 22 works and years later :)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? I'm going to be corny but I have a soft spot for every fic that connected me with other writers who are so talented and inspiring and force me to be better so I feel like I can talk to them lmao

tagging tagging tagging @the-heartlines @labyrinthphanlivingafacade @littleredwritingcat @abeadofpoison @teeth-ing @itstendereye @barbie-nightmare-house

#it's spring and there is rain on my metal roof and peepers peeping in the swamp #i'm v happy and the will to write is strong again :) #mads levshakoff

[olderthannetfic]

Oh yes, the advice on Japanese study materials please! If you're willing to share.

--

I'm just getting back into studying and seeing what products are still around, but here are my preliminary thoughts:

Once upon a time, I greatly enjoyed Lang-8, which was a site where you could correct people's blogs and get corrections on yours. The same people seem to have moved on to making an app/site called HiNative. I haven't checked that out yet. The thing that made Lang-8 distinctive back in the day was that they were based out of Japan, so they had a lot of Japanese people who wanted to learn English relative to most spaces that involve exchanging with other actual humans.

I'm going back through the vocab courses on iKnow, which is a paid service, but I really liked their example sentences and choice of vocab to include. All of the examples are read aloud at a natural pace by native speakers. Good vocab programs will put vocabulary in the context of longer sentences so you get some passive grammar practice at the same time.

Lingodeer is a newer app that I bought a membership to because they were on sale, but I haven't tried it much yet.

The way I learned kanji was by starting with hanzi and learning the principles via Learn to Write Chinese Characters by Johan Björkstén. I find that most Japanese textbooks fall down on this. They show you some basic kanji, but they don't teach you principles of stroke direction, order, radicals, etc., and that makes it hard to extrapolate or remember the complex ones.

A common pitfall I've seen is that people hate romanization because it's ~inauthentic~ yet want to just learn hiragana and skip everything else. But actual Japanese is not written like that. Even furigana won't really be sufficient because it's common to use incorrect furigana for artistic purposes. (An author will use some fancy-pants kanji and then the furigana for a more familiar word with a similar meaning or commonplace kanji with furigana indicating the characters are using the English or French or whatever word with the same meaning.) And, of course, if you read anything not aimed at grade schoolers, it won't have furigana most of the time.

So my advice is to divorce learning writing from learning listening and vocab as much as possible if the writing is hard for you. There's no sense in holding back one skill for another... but also to treat the reading/writing as one large task and not skimp on kanji learning.

These days, unlike last time I studied, you can find a lot of Japanese youtubers wandering around talking about their beauty treatments or what they think of Poland or whatever. (No, for real, there's some dude exploring Poland.) More than ever before, a learner has access to a lot of natural spoken Japanese by native speakers. Many of them also provide English subtitles.

For grammar, I like my old textbook, as I said, but the more traditional choice is Tae Kim's guide, which is online and free. I find it much more precise and useful than the usual undergrad textbooks like Genki. (I have used and dislike most of the big textbooks used in the US. Genki, Nakama, and Japanese for Busy People all suck, IMO. But it does depend on the learner. The resource that keeps you studying is better than the one that doesn't.)

If you want a manga to practice on, I think Yotsuba& is probably the easiest I've found that's also genuinely entertaining if you're over the age of 5 and not full of misspelled-for-dialect-reasons stuff that's hard for a learner.

Anki is a popular flashcard app. People used to make tons of themed Japanese decks for it. They probably still do.

The best Japanese-English dictionary, IMO, is WWWJDIC. They let you add entries (but vetted for quality and good citations), so it has a lot of geeky vocab. Outside of that, looking up "[word]とは" will find you definitions in Japanese.

For me, a formal class helped, but a lot of what has helped most is finding manga I'm obsessed with and trying to painstakingly figure out what it says.

Anyone have thoughts?

[kkulbeolyeonghwa]

My style of using flashcards ( ￣▽￣)

Yippee!

I've been using flashcards since elementary school and this is my favorite way of using them. I'll use Korean words to showcase my method.

Usually I'll have a main side and secondary side. I'll write the main side in large letters and use a fun color and the secondary one with black pen. Here I used green to contrast the black. Idk colors motivate me...

I'll have a few words from different categories every time.

Here's what I mean: a few categories with similar-sounding words and one with random words. I never exclusively do similar-sounding words as I remember better when there are only a few similar ones.

The secondary side has two definitions, usually either two writing systems or two languages (polyglot tingz) so I get as much out of these cards as I can. In this case, there's hanja and English!

I'll flip through a pack like this for a few days, usually 2-3. Then I'll make another one!

I'll take the pack out again in a month and if I don't remember a word, I'll add the word to my current pack! If old cards keep coming back, I'll stop making new ones and study the old ones until I remember.

#langblr #language #learning #korean #한국어 #studyblr #flashcards #new words #words #learning tips #hanja #한자 #한국어 공부

[solradguy]

hello solradguy! as someone who is interested in learning how to translate japanese, i was wondering what your approach was to learning japanese! did you go in knowing you wanted to translate writing, and focus your efforts on reading? or did you try to learn all aspects of it at once (ie audio recognition, speaking, pitch accent, etc)

I started learning it because, at the time (2015), I was still doing art in mostly analog formats and a lot of really good inking supplies came exclusively from Japan with fully Japanese packaging. It was really frustrating having to rely on machine translation to figure out things like replacing pen cartridges or pen nibs upkeep/maintenance. My focus then was reading and I never really shifted from that; I can't verbally speak it and my audio recognition is only marginally better haha

Translating Guilty Gear stuff sort of happened by accident, and improved my Japanese more than anything else I was using to study with (which was mostly Duolingo, Wanikani, and Tofugu articles 😬). I couldn't find anyone else that was actively working on getting stuff into English and there was a massive backlog of official literature that hadn't even been so much as scanned, so I was like "Well, if no one else is gonna do it..." lmao It later turned out that there was stuff that had been translated, it was just kinda stashed away on niche websites or Discord servers.

Artworks of Guilty Gear X 2000-2007 captions were my first non-Japanese workbook translation project and got me to really start taking my Japanese studies seriously. There weren't files of pretty much any of the illustrations in that book online that were in decent quality. It was actually faster/easier just scanning a page (at the time) than manually cleaning and upscaling one.

This was the very first Guilty Gear thing I ever scanned (March '22) and the caption that went with it:

They’re half-realistically drawn here. At the time, I wanted to pursue texture in my drawings and used many thick layers of Copic markers to try to achieve that. I don’t think it was pointless, but if it’s going to take too much time to do such things, acrylic paints would be better. - Cover of the August 2000 issue of Arcadia Monthly.

It's a lot clunkier than how I would translate it now haha I've improved so much since then...

I used to physically write out the captions and translate them in a notebook. Here's how the first pass of this caption went:

They were only half realistically drawn. At that time I wanted to pursue texture in my drawings, so I used a thick coat of Copic marker. I don't think it's "pointless," but if it's going to take too much time to pursue such things, I think acrylic would be better.

It's fun going through this notebook and seeing these old translations. Eventually I got good enough at doing it in my head that I stopped writing them out, but sometimes really long sentences still trip me up. Japanese word order.......

These days I get most of my practice by doing Renshuu flashcards/games and reading posts by my Japanese mutuals over on Twitter. Even though I'm still actively translating GG stuff, the projects have gotten much bigger and there isn't anything left that's like the Artworks 2007 captions that I could whip out in about an hour anymore, it's all long paragraphs or manga dialog.

I still don't have much desire to practice speaking or listening skills because I would never get any use out of them where I live in the Midwest USA—they'd get rusty fast if I didn't practice religiously. But I do handle Japanese text very often and am fine with focusing 100% of my study time on just reading/writing instead.

#asks #long post #That old saying that's like 'The best way to improve at something is to go insane for it' is 1000% honestly so super true lmfao

[sigmaleph]

Fiction, ~800 words

Warlock

She’d expected the eyes. Everyone knows what red eyes means, and she’d been ready with coloured contacts even before she’d done the deal. She had practice wearing contacts already, prescription, but she didn’t need that any more; it was a simple replacement to make.

The teeth had hurt like a motherfucker coming in, she’d been on painkillers for days, but after they were done they were not noticeable. Maybe if she smiled more, but how often do you notice the sharpness of a stranger’s teeth?

She’d started wearing her hair differently, fighting the ingrained habit of tucking it behind her ears. Since the ears had changed next.

When the horns came, she almost broke down crying. Because, again, they hurt, but also, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Only a few changes, everyone agreed. She’d triple checked that; nobody got horns from just a sixth. And yet they were there, growing on her head. She could wear hats? It was winter, maybe it would be fine to just never take her hat off indoors. And then summer would come and… she’d figure something out. Hats to keep the sun out your eyes were a thing. It’d be conspicuous, but…

She gave up when it came to her skin. Distinct blue tint. Getting more and more noticeable each day. There was no covering that, not without making it so fucking obvious there was something to cover up. It wasn’t illegal or anything. They couldn’t arrest her for it. But. Well. She’d wanted it to be her secret to keep for a while longer.

It wasn’t supposed to happen, she kept muttering to herself. Not this much.

***

Three months earlier

The circle was not painted in blood, of course. She didn’t have that kind of money, and bleeding herself seemed unwise. It was red, though, because they sell magically conductive paint in any colour you want, and why not? She also hadn’t painted it on her floor. She wasn’t some kid who just downloaded the ritual off the internet and hadn’t thought it’d be them cleaning it up later. She had this big sheet she could roll up and reuse.

The devil was standing right in the middle of that sheet.

“Human.”

“That I am,” she said. ”Do you have a name you are willing to share?”

“Shrenthrez”.

She had a notebook in her hand. “That’s shay-re-eb…?”

It corrected her spelling, casually. It didn’t seem offended, but she was definitely self-conscious about it. She had a flashcard deck for Infernal, she’d practised for this, but her ear wasn’t accustomed to the sounds. Every devil she’d talked to spoke English, anyway, it was just the names.

“You were looking to deal?”, it said, when she finished writing its name down.

“I am. One sixth of my soul, in exchange for magical potential.”

“How much were you hoping to get?”

“I have an offer for fifty-five units. Are you willing to do better?”

It stood silently for long seconds. Stared at her intently, like it had been pretending not to, before. Examining her soul.

“...I have an offer, on two conditions. The first is a precondition to hearing more.” It waited, and she nodded. “First, I want assurance that you will not discuss the details of my offer, with devil or human.”

“Absolute secrecy, or obfuscation of detail?”

“Obfuscation will do. You may say it was for more than fifty-five and conditions apply. You may say secrecy was involved.”

She thought for a moment. She was not agreeing to much, here, just not to discuss details, but one always carefully considers any agreement, with devils. It might make future negotiation slightly more inconvenient, but…

“Agreed.”

“One hundred and twenty productive units of magical potential. For one sixth of your soul, and an agreement that if you sell any further fraction, you’ll give me the right to hear any other offer you have and a chance to outbid it. You have my name already, you know how to call me back.”

She could not believe the number, at first. She’d been told to expect forty, been pleased when she had an offer of fifty, been amazed when she had managed to get the last devil to offer fifty-five. One hundred and twenty.

“I. um. Fair best efforts clause on that. I’m not giving you a permanent veto on selling my soul if you choose not to show up.”

“Acceptable. Three attempts to summon me, spaced at least a day apart each, before you can consider you’ve given me a fair attempt at hearing your offer and you can move on. I can say I do not intend to waste that option, but I am not swearing to that, of course.”

“Write it down?”

It produced a tablet from somewhere, and started carving into it with a claw. In English, thankfully. The Latin alphabet was not designed for devil writing mechanisms, but the devils seemed to manage. Certainly better than almost any human at learning their language.

She considered it. She pondered the written contract in front of it. She imagined trying to get something better than that, while complying with the precondition.

“Agreed.”

#fiction

[wqnwoos]

im not the same anon as earlier but help ur grades are amazing 😭😭 im sitting psych and english in october and can i ask what ur study schedule or method is like? how early did u start studying + what did you do?

HII thank you soo much!! i worked my arse off for those stupid grades 😭 i’ll put the tips under a cut, i really hope they help, and good luck for october!! u got this <3

find out what time u study best at!! i somehow trained myself to become a morning person (naturally i am nocturnal LMFAO) but during study season i usually wake up 4-5:30 or something. it feels so much better getting to 10am and u have the whole day in front of u and you’ve done most of the things u need to do, but that’s just me!! i have friends who worked best from like 11pm - 4 am

pomodoro technique — excellent for my adhd ass brain. i genuinely thought this technique would never work for me, avoided it like the plague, and then used it during a study group session w friends and Love it. (i use the flora app btw!! i feel too bad to kill the little plant so i always study to the end 😭) i recommend the usual 25 mins, 5 min break but it’s up to u <3

FLASHCARDS!!!!! i cannot stress this enough flashcards genuinely saved my ARSEEE especially for psychology!! i always phrase mine like a question, so that if you get something similar in the exam it kind of jogs your memory? anyway. for psych i do not recommend remaking notes, i went straight from class notes and the textbook to flashcards, and repeated them All The Time

past paper questions!!!!! unfortunately the education system is fucked and doesn’t want us to learn for the sake of learning, they want us to be parrots so!!! really recommend past paper questions.

for english literature (i’m assuming you’re taking literature and not language?? idk anything about language past gcse level i’m sorry 😭), i wouldn’t recommend writing out essay after essay; plan a bunch of past papers, write maybe one paragraph per past paper question. ummm idk if u guys have to include context and critical interpretations because i believe that differs with exam board, but we did, and i used flashcards for those too!! (also. please make sure u know the text 😭 even vaguely knowing quotes helps so much bc searching for them in the exam takes so much time)

for english my friends and i also used to time ourselves — fifteen minutes per paragraph so that you weren’t going on too long about one point, and you weren’t wasting all your time on one question.

study groups!! this is ONLY if u work well with other people if u know ur gonna get distracted then please don’t do all the time 😭 also for things like english study groups r sooo helpful because a lot of the time, other people will bring points to the table that u have never thought of (and u can do the same for them!!)

EAT WELL!!!! SLEEP WELL!!!!!!!!!!!! i’m so serious . if u don’t do this then nothing will go well. idgaf what time u sleep because maybe you’re more productive at 1am - 4am, but make sure ur getting ENOUGH sleep. and don’t skip meals. pleaaaaseee don’t skip meals.

i also used to use a lot of mindmaps for english, for themes / characters / context!!

for psych i also used to do blurting — writing as much as i know about one topic, going back and adding everything j missed in a different colour <3

OKAY that is allllll i can think of right now!! if u need anything else pls slide into my dms or jump back into my inbox i am happy to help !!! good luck with exams bb i know ur gonna crush them 💗💗💗

#asks #anon #study tips #sorry idk how helpful this was because. exam boards differ and stuff. #OBVIOUS DISCLAIMER this is what worked for me it might not work for everyone

[haruharuz]

Hey (: i am the one korean learning asker. Thank you so much for your advice!

Another question i have: do you have tips for learning Korean vocabulary? Especially for people that somehow find it hard to remember vocabulary?

Thank you and have a wonderful day!

Hiya hiya ! Yes i actually do! I have PLENTY of advice because Korean vocabulary is difficult for me, too.

The first thing I recommend is following THIS video to cram vocabulary in. I'd say try to do this method once or twice a week if you like learning quickly.

One of the most important parts of doing pretty much anything in life for me is that I need to see IMMEDIATE pay off, reward, or progress. Otherwise, I lose all interest and become forgetful and just kind of.. stop. The method I showed you above is wonderful for that. You're going to see QUICK pay off! (Make sure you follow the next step using that vocabulary, too)

Next you need to seal all of the vocabulary in your mind for long term use, not short term. You can remember a lot of things short term but over time this will fade and you'll forget.

Step 1: Flashcards

You can do this manually with writing out flashcards (which is very helpful, actually) but I also highly recommend having some sort of digital component to help speed the process of things up.

The number one recommendation here is anki. Anki, is by all means a learning god. It uses a system of filing that sorts the flashcards by how quickly you recognize them and how accurate you do so. You just press a number to decide how well you remember the word/phrase/sentence.

I used to enjoy quizlet but they're idiots and decided to make people PAY for their own flashcards. Use something like knowt instead if you'd like!

Step 2: Phrases, Reading, Listening

Very important! The more phrases and sentences you learn in Korean, the easier it will be to figure out grammar and vocabulary. So instead of just learning the verb "to want", try learning sentences using that verb.

Oh! I also saw your other ask (which i'll be responding to next!). Since you enjoy BTS, do yourself a favor! Watch their vlive's with english subtitles, then korean. When you watch the korean subtitles, a really really good exercise is to write down the korean and use naver to find the vocabulary & grammar! Then you can play it back and use the audio as reference for pronunciation/listening practice!

Read Korean lots and lots! It helps so much. Start with things like children's books or shows with subtitles and slowly read it, sound it out in your head and outloud. Eventually you'll get faster at recognizing it.

And that's all! You just need to keep going with your vocabulary as much as possible and USE it! Look around your room and name every single object in Korean. Then say something in a sentence about each object (e.g. 'my desk is brown but my bed is black'). Things like that help a lot

Lots of love! <3

#return to sender #korean #korean learning #korean vocab

[gretheresa]

Hey could share some tips abt learning new Lang you seem to have good grasp by now and I m willing to start Korean so maybe some advice would really help I g.

Have a grt day :))

I would love to! My advice won't be too structured so please bear with me 😭💕

New Script

First things first your target language has a different script. Since you've written your ask in English I understand that you're familiar with the Roman script. Please understand this, when you're learning a language and it has a script you're not familiar with, drop everything and familiarise yourself with the script first. A lot of students tend to develop a tendency of relying upon the script they already know to be able to read the text of their target language(hereinafter mentioned as TL). I'm in my third year of studying Japanese. Japanese has 3 scripts. Students who didn't familiarise themselves with the Japanese scripts still rely on writing the pronunciations of words in English. The learning of the Korean script is not just limited to memorising the letters, but as far as I can remember, the positions of the letters also matter. Essentially, you need to know the script like the back of your hand. Since the Korean language has gained a lot of traction in the past few years, there are now a number of apps for you to practice writing the script and provides flashcards for you to retain the script.

Gather Study Material/Make a Study Plan

If you're planning on self studying, do extensive research, on YouTube, Tumblr, find other people who are learning the same TL as you are, ask them what resources they use. As far as a beginner is concerned, most platforms provide basic learning material for free. If you need to get a basic framework or a goal to work towards, look for the proficiency test of your language and if it is conducted in your country. For Korean it would be the TOPIK test if I'm not wrong. The lowest level is 1, highest 5. Jot down the syllabus or print it. And start researching on gathering the material to cover that syllabus. This way you won't feel like you're arbitrarily studying whatever you can get your hands on. It'll give you a goal to work towards. For TOPIK level 1, I believe you'll easily find free resources online.

Understanding Sentence Structure

Grammar structure that is whether your TL is a Subject+Object+Verb(eg. Japanese, Hindi, Korean) or a Subject+Verb+Object(eg. English, Chinese). If you already happen to know a language that has the same sentence structure as your TL, take that language as your base language to learn the TL.

Input vs Output

When you're learning a new language, there's two things happening. One is Input, the other is your Output. Input would include reading and listening and output would be writing and speaking. Please understand that it might be a while before you can fluently create output. When you're starting out, a great amount of input is needed to "create" output in your TL. And by create I mean being able to create sentences in your TL as opposed to creating a sentence in your native language and then translating it to your TL. Being able to intuitively, effortlessly create sentences, or think in a new language takes a LOT of input. Think of how long it takes babies to speak because they don't have a base language from which they can translate. They gather input for such a long time before they can string two words together. So don't feel disheartened when you sit down to write something in your TL but words just won't come to you. It's fine. Put your focus into gathering a lot of input.

Kind of Input to Look For

An important thing to consider when you're in your quest for gathering input, is to gather such input as would be useful to your level of understanding of the TL. Imagine if a lawyer started talking to a baby to increase the vocab capacity of the baby. it won't work. Find materials suited to your level. If you're a beginner read children's books, watch children's cartoons. The good thing about being an adult is that we can learn faster than a baby, so naturally we might progress on to intermediate level more easily than a kid but that doesn't mean we can skip the part where we have to read kid's books.

Overcoming the Intermediate Level Boredom/Lack of Motivation

The true problem arises when we're at a lower intermediate level. So now we know more than just the basics, but not enough to be able to understand our favourite shows or read the novels or comics we'd like to read. The solution is to remind yourself again, that lower intermediate level requires reading and listening to content of that very level. This is the one place I've seen so many students give up because language does get progressively harder from here. And most people who are relying purely on studying grammar and cramming vocab from a boring list tend to feel super burnt out. The solution is to read and especially read fiction. Fiction will naturally create interest in finding out what a particular word means. I've never managed to learn vocab from a list. It's tedious, boring and I always run the risk of ending up hating my TL. So read, and always read the stories suited to your level of understanding.

Same goes for listening. Immerse yourself in podcasts, youtube channels of your TL. Again at the level that suits you. Being able to understand something in your TL gives a confidence boost and motivates you to study more to be able to understand even more complex grammar, which is why I'm focusing so much on gathering input that is suited to your level of understanding of the TL.

This got a bit too long than I had planned😅 I hope this helps. I might add something later on. I'd love it if other langblrs would like to add to this.

Learning a new language is soooo exciting but you must MUST know that it requires a tremendous amount of patience. When you're starting out and feel frustrated that you're still not able to understand movies or books in your target language, remind yourself that you're the equivalent of a 6-7 year old student when you're studying the language and be kind to yourself as you would be to a kid. I hope I was able to help you out, sending all the love for your language learning journey💕

#langblr #a guide to language learning #how to study a new language #studyblr #studyspo #study community #langblr community #japanese langblr #hangeul #language #languages

[albeckett]

spanish, 2 months in

so i've been learning spanish for 2 months or so now 🥳 i know that i'm still in that honeymoon phase where im acquiring a lot at once and every small victory feels like a huge thing, but overall i'm really enjoying it. anyway, i wanted to write up a little post because i think in a few more months or years i'll be interested in seeing how i started learning, as well as what did or didn't work out for me.

fwiw, here's what i'm personally doing. everything is free btw:

daily flashcards - i'm using this anki deck for general vocabulary, and i also have a custom deck that i add slang or rare words to. i also plan to start this one to drill verb conjugations. this is probably the biggest time sink, i do it every day for ~25-30 mins.

grammar textbook - i print out and do the pages by hand. the only thing that sort of sucks is that i'm doing the exercises in order, and they introduce conjugations at like the midpoint, which probably could have helped me earlier on? fabulous book so far though! it's all in spanish, but the examples are very clear, and you pick up more vocab/sentence structure this way imo

language transfer spanish - i'm about 4/5 through this and definitely recommend it for general grammar/listening practice. it's not a traditional language course where you learn how to say "hello/goodbye/my name is" in the first lesson... it really guides you into naturally constructing language instead of just memorizing it and spitting it back out. there are a lot of little tricks you learn too, like how english can be "converted" into spanish using their shared latin roots, the host has a ton of linguistics knowledge so it's really rather fun!

audiovisual/written input - this is the part where i get to WATCH STUFF yay!!!! but then i actually have to pay attention to it, boo. i do actively learn from 31 minutos since i have dual subtitles, but otherwise i kinda just vibe and try to learn from anything i'm into that happens to be in spanish... so other shows and song lyrics, etc. im also verrrryyy slowlyyyy reading this introductory bilingual reader, and i try to pick up things from posts on spanish-speaking subreddits like r/mexico, r/argentina, r/chile, etc... i find reading contemporary posts online is a great way to pick up slang and usually if i find a word i don't know i'll put it in my custom anki deck so i learn it 👍

so where am i at after all of this? UM well it's hard to say but i feel comfy saying i'm advanced beginner... i know most of the simple verb tenses (present, future, perfect and imperfect past, conditional, subjunctive) and maybe like 1000-1500 words? and i definitely have a sense now of what parts of speech should look like. i don't explode anymore when seeing se/me/te before a verb either. i think i could communicate with a (patient) native speaker without losing my mind -- my reading is way better than my listening or speaking, but i think this is somewhat common.

some areas that i could improve on:

i don't get nearly enough listening practice sighhhh like i do want to watch stuff but moving has made it very hard. hopefully i can work on it in the winter

same as above, i need more speaking practice... i am actually doing all this for a reason (going on a trip to a spanish-speaking country next year) so i don't really want to be put on the spot. i might try to find some local clubs or cultural exchange groups for this?

i know it's a meme but i can not roll my Rs very well. it's bad out here

one last resource: if you would like to learn a language but are totally overwhelmed by what to do or how to do it, i heartily recommend this guide. it's entirely about how to learn a language, but it doesn't have tips for specific languages, it can be applied to anything. it's also free, open-source, and pragmatic in its approach, which i like. that's all i got for now but thanks for reading 🙇‍♂️ hopefully i return to this post in a few months with more progress!

#this was originally 'spanish 1 month in' and then i had to revise the entire thing because it sat in my drafts and i progressed a lot #so now im posting it NO MATTER WHAT 🔫 #ennisposteando

[melverie]

if you get this, answer w/ three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs. anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog! (sorry if you already got this!)

Sorry it took a bit to answer anon. College and work have been killing me these past few days^^;

01 - I speak five languages (German, French, English, Japanese and Korean) at varying levels of proficiency. I actually had my Korean final yesterday and I'd say it went pretty well 👀 Also I learned Italian for a while, though I only remember some basic phrases, how to say one idiom & how to flirt

02 - Ever since the Sins of Flesh update I've been SO obsessed with Cult of the Lamb again. These past few days the game icon just kept staring into my soul while I was trying my best to stay strong and focus on studying Speaking of being obsessed over games, once the new Professor Layton game releases I'm going to be SO annoying. Those games were my childhood :)

03 - When planning out a story, I have the habit of writing the plot details out on flashcards and putting them up on my walls. I get embarrassed over it whenever someone other than a select group of friends come over though, so when someone else visits I usually end up taking them down only to hang them back up once that person is gone lol

Bonus fact!

This one is probably going to MASSIVELY wrap everyone's view of me, but I feel like half of the more creative school work I submitted ended up being fandom related:

In eighth grade, we were supposed to write a two page long story about a murder case, and I just made it a Professor Layton x Phoenix Wright crossover. I even took one of the cases from Phoenix Wright as the base for my story, and I only barely changed the names, so you could EASILY tell that it was fanfiction

I got my English teacher to watch Assassination Classroom because we had to give a 3 minute presentation on something we liked. That's the same teacher that made one of his tests entirely about Batman btw, he was great <3 I also got my math teacher to watch the anime AND read the manga because I asked him about one math problems from it that I just didn't get. He wrote down the solution and literally programmed a little something to help me better understand how to get there. Another great teacher <3

Had to write a three-word story (you're given three words as prompts and have to built a short story around them), except one of the words was "chinchilla". I ended up writing about a "killer chinchilla" which is just the nickname my sister gave Minccino

I once ended up the state winner in a nation-wide art competition with a Pokémon ORAS-themed watercolor drawing I did (that piece was graded, so I'm counting it toward school work)

We were tasked with drawing a picture inspired by a song. I took My Hero Academia's first ED and made the drawing itself about My Hero Academia as well. Burnt through way too many pencils for this one. They hung it right next to the teachers' room, idk if it's still there tho

That same year we were also tasked with "building a creative trash can", and so I decided to make a little Korok that collects paper waste in a little bag. I also learned how to sew in order to make the bag, so that's cool (pic below!)

I somehow convinced my teacher to let me write my seminar paper on My Hero Academia

In elementary school, my friend group came up with a play set in Animal Crossing, and I ended up writing the entire thing (as in literally writing it so that you could act it out in Animal Crossing itself). That wasn't school work by any means, but regardless, I still very much did print it out just so I could give it to my homeroom teacher, so there's that

Also not school work, but once again in seventh grade I wrote an Animal Crossing New Leaf fanficiton (???) where you could vote what would happen next on the end of every chapter. A good portion of my class read it and I also made my PE teacher read the first chapter

That's by far not all of it but those were the first few things that popped into mind. Anyway, here's the pic of my little Korok paper waste collector!

#thank you for the ask anon!! and again sorry it took a bit^^; #the voting system for the acnl fic was a super fun writing experience #that's smth you guys could give a shot if any of you ever feel like trying smth a little different with how you approach your writing #if you want to take it a step further you can also have the first few readers of a chapter be the ones that decide the voting options #it's an interesting concept because on one hand you're losing a lot of control over your story #but on the other you also re-learn how to approach working on your fics. imo at least #also the reader engagement i got because everyone looked forward to getting to shape the story alongside me. loved it so much #it's obviously not everyone's cup of tea but it definitely works with an ANIMAL CROSSING FANFIC of all things #ask tag