Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
A recent article in The Guardian features the founder and creator of the Pinyin system we've all come to know and love . Pinyin turns 50 this month, but incredibly, the creator of Pinyin, Zhōu Yǒuguāng 周有光, is still alive and kicking (well, writing at least) at the age ...
Posted in General | No Comments »
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
In addition to the endless hours of fun and instruction we can get from anecdotes of other foreigner's mistakes, some careful listening and a little intuition can turn your Chinese friends' English mistakes into hot Chinese-language tips.
Chinese people often speak English as if it were Chinese, but with English words. ...
Posted in General | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
If your goal is to learn a language without making any mistakes, I've got bad news for you: I couldn't and I've never met anyone who could.
Since making mistakes are an inevitable part of this complex, tricky, and often magical process of learning to speak in a different tongue, what ...
Posted in General | 13 Comments »
Sunday, November 18th, 2007
Ok, that may be a little harsh. Let me rephrase that and say goals can be bad. Specifically, when learning a language, goals can torpedo your motivation.
Learning a language is not like learning other things. It's a far more complex and sometimes even magical process that takes ...
Posted in General | 3 Comments »
Monday, November 5th, 2007
For adults learning a language, there's really no escaping the fact that we have to memorize vocabulary. There are various ways to make the process more efficient or enjoyable (like flashcards, or labeling your house), but in the end, it's still memorizing. So, given our limited time and memory, ...
Posted in General | 3 Comments »
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