Flashcards - the full collection of articles

It was back in 2011 that I wrote my first post dedicated to the use of flashcards for learning Chinese, entitled "Flashcards: Just do it". And this remains my strong recommendation for anyone who isn't yet an "advanced" student of Chinese (or any language you might be learning).

Since then, I have written a number of posts dedicated to the use of flashcards, and this article brings all such posts together into a full compilation - to make it easier for you to find them all ...

• Flashcards: Just do it (I don't think I could be more explicit about how important flashcards are if you really want to accelerate your language learning)
• My long romance with flashcards (This post is about how I got into flashcards - after first trying and failing and giving up - to finally doing it properly)
• The 'redneck' guide to flashcards (A humorous look at "You know you should be using flashcards if ...")
• How many flashcards does it take to change a lightbulb? (Here I give you an early insight into my actual flashcard deck, with lots of stats about its content and my usage, with some early and some recent examples of cards added)
• Getting sentenced in Chinese (In this article I talk about why I had moved to learning sentences and not just words, and how to 'roll your own' sentences)
• A clever butcher uses a cleaver (As you can see from the heading, you can actually create really clever sentences which link words, making them much easier to memorise)
• "Write on!!" - reviewing Skritter for iOS (Here I reviewed the Skritter iOS app, coming to the conclusion it's a great flashcard-style system for reading & writing Chinese)
• The one flashcard I review more than any other (A little tongue-in-cheek article about vocabulary :)

The above articles are specifically about flashcards, and the number of articles will grow over time. I make many other references to flashcards in articles, especially those in the Heisig series, as well as in terms of 'dragon tattoo' posts and 'Charlie Brown' posts and 'flexible' posts and 'snake' posts and 'boat' posts and 'horse' posts (and many others) where I include sentences that can easily be copied-and-pasted into your own home-grown flashcard pack.

And for those who are wondering, I have been using the Anki flashcard software (originally on Windows, then Mac, now mainly on iOS) - it's fantastic software, for many many reasons.

And, just to make my point clear, there is one post you really should read: Flashcards: just do it!

Eye shit

The other day I was speaking with a Chinese friend, who thought she might be getting sick, because when she woke up her eyes had been filled with "eye shit". She said it so matter-of-factly, as if that was the official name for the gunk that collects in one's eyes while sleeping.

Well, it turns out that in Chinese, it is!

It is written 眼屎 and pronounced yǎnshǐ - the translation given by MDBG.net is "gum in the eyes".

The first character 眼 is 'eyes' - that's easy'. And according to the same online dictionary, the translation for 屎 is 'excrement, shit, dung'.  So yes, "excrement from the eyes" is a more palatable translation.

But I definitely think that "eye shit" is the winner here today, folks.



PS. In English I call it "sleep in my eyes" - what do you call it?

Don't kiss while learning Chinese!

I read an article in The Guardian yesterday, entitled 'Eating popcorn in the cinema makes people immune to advertising'.

Simply reading the heading, even before I reached the article, made me think that eating popcorn is probably just distracting for the viewer, and so the advertising would be less effective. But when I actually read the article, there was one paragraph that caught my eye ...

The reason why adverts manage to imprint brand names on our brains is that our lips and the tongue automatically simulate the pronunciation of a new name when we first hear it. Every time we re-encounter the name, our mouth subconsciously practices its pronunciation. However, according to the study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, this "inner speech" can be disturbed by chewing, rendering the repetition effect redundant.

That immediately got me thinking about how we learn Chinese, and how a fair amount of learning (vocab, tones, 'flow' ...) is tied into this subconscious pronunciation that takes place while we're learning. Of course this affects all languages, but I wonder if it's even more marked for Chinese, given the tones that have to be mentally practised while learning too.

So, to avoid interfering with your "inner speech", don't occupy your mouth while you're learning Chinese.

No popcorn. No chewing gum. And certainly no kissing.

Your past (probably) equals your future

Like many people, my favourite personal development blogger is Steve Pavlina - and if you haven't read his stuff then I recommend you do.

Learning a language is one of the many ways people choose to improve themselves. And with all the other aspirations people have, so many decide they are going to learn a language, few actually begin, and fewer still get to much of a meaningful level.

When I read Steve's blog, it is easy to work through an article on vegetarianism and to simply replace that goal with learning a language - and the lessons are directly applicable. The same applies for getting fit, losing weight, making more money, starting your own business, etc.

I recently re-read an article of his from 2010 called "The Past DOES equal the Future". It takes on a different stance to what Tony Robbins usually says, and there was one section that I found really good!

So I'm quoting that portion below, and encourage you to take some time to think about the bigger picture of learning a language. Not the details of whether to use flashcards, or whether you should choose the Simplified or Traditional character set ... No, think about the bigger picture of your goals & aspirations, but most importantly, your habits.

Enjoy ...



To Change the Future, Change the Past

Consider two scenarios.

Bill and Ted both want to have written a book within the next year. Neither has written a book before.

Bill has no habit of daily writing. But he has a clear written goal/intention for his book. He knows what kind of book he wants to write. When people ask him what he’s working on, he tells them he’s writing a book. In the past 30 days, he has spent a lot of time thinking about his book. He’s even jotted down some ideas for it, but mostly at random intervals.

Ted has no written goals, intentions, or plans for his book. He hasn’t told anyone he’s writing it. He’s not even sure what the chapters will be. But for the past 30 days, he’s gotten out of bed every morning at 5am, and he’s worked on his book till 7am before having breakfast. He has averaged about 2 pages of potentially usable content per day. He’s been working only on his book during that time and nothing else. He’s done this every day without fail. Nothing has come up in his life during that time that would disrupt this habit or indicate that it’s likely to be disrupted.

If I told you that only one of these two gentlemen finished their book within that year, which one would you bet on? Which approach do you believe is more likely to lead to a completed book within a year?

Which approach are you betting on in your life right now?

How’s that approach working for you?

Is your success predictable? Is your lack of success predictable?