Here is a masterpost of MOOCs (massive open online courses) that are available, archived, or starting soon. I think they will help those that like to learn with a teacher or with videos. You can always check the audit course or no certificate option so that you can learn for free.
American Sign Language
ASL University
Arabic
Arabic for Global Exchange (in the drop down menu)
OMG I missed your blog so much!!! Welcome back 💕 I'm looking forward to see your future posts 😊 (I just started this studyblr, but I used to follow you from another account)
Awww!! Thank you so much!!! I’Welcome to the Studyblr community!! 😊
What do you think about French? Have you ever pursued this language, will you ever pursue it? No pressure, I just am interested in what you think about this language.
I actually did study French for two years in college! I really enjoyed it but I stopped studying it since I haven’t been able to use it. :( I still do love French music though!
Firstly, I’M SO SORRY FOR BEING AWAY SO LONG!!! If I can keep it 100 with you, I went through ALOT I went to China and came back and struggled to secure a new job. It was the WORST. I was so upset, stressed and drained from everything that I could tell my mental health was plummeting. I’m happy to report that I’m in a stable place now. I moved to my own apartment and have returned to blogging UNDER A NEW NAME! I have rebranded to Lili Critical Languages for simplicity’s sake! So as you’ll notice my username is now lilicriticallanguages!! Woooo hooo!
LET’S LEARN KOREAN, CHINESE AND JAPANESE!!
I’m ready to go on a new adventure in language learning with you as we delve deeper into our critical languages!!! Please let me know what you guys would personally like to learn about and what you really want to know about Korean, Japanese or Chinese! I am also happy to answer any questions you have at all!! ^_^
Happy New Years, everyone!!!! I can’t thank you guys enough for your support since starting my new blog. There have been some hiccups along the way, but I’m learning and always growing thanks to you all! One of my resolutions this year is to be more transparent with you guys and really let you into my world and into my mind more, no matter how crazy it is! I have an insane mind but it’s full of ideas and tips for you, so I’m going to try to open it up to you guys more. I hope that you all had a good New Years! Look out for the masterlist of language learning blogs and Tumblrs! I’ll be posting it soon!
Feel inferior? Yeah, I do too sometimes. While it’s totally natural to feel inferior to others sometimes, it can really feel like fat crap. What should you do about these feelings? Should you give up? Hate the person you feel inferior to? In this post I share my personal experience with feeling inferior to other language speakers (not native speakers of my target language) and real practical advice about what to do and how to deal with these feelings.
My Experience
When it was time for my evaluation at my summer language intensive at PIB. Only a day after arriving (they did not mess around at this program), I found myself in front of the evaluators jet lagged, tired, hungry and incapable to forming words. Twiddling with my thumbs instead of producing sentences because I was unable to control my nervousness. There was a panel of roughly seven teachers staring at me blankly from across a round table with me at the end facing them directly. It felt like I was on trial or worse, my entire worth being judged like meat at an auction. I ended placing with the 2nd years, which is the lowest level they offered and I felt crushed at first, but I didn’t let it get to me. Then I met the others,...
Hi! I was reading some of your posts about learning Chinese and I was wondering why you were so adamant about removing the association of a character with its pinyin. Wouldn't it be better to associate a character with the pinyin pronunciation rather than your native language (in my case English), so that you're trying to think in your target language? Not trying to criticise, I was just wondering why the disassociation between the two.
Great question! And no criticism taken! It’s a little more complicated than that. When I write notes, I write the character and then the tone above each character. Then the English and the pinyin with no tones on the farrr right. The reason I do this is because I don’t want to become reliant on the pinyin to read Chinese. I don’t rely on the English because I’m just passed that level so I’m okay with putting English definitions after the Chinese.
HOWEVER, I have stopped putting the English definition for words beside new vocabulary and just putting the simpler Chinese definition from the dictionary. If you really want a challenge you can try that!
I can see the concern about being reliant on English. If it helps, you can move the English to the middle of the page and then the pinyin to the far right. That way you can fold the page and cover both the English and the pinyin so that you are only reading the character itself! That has worked well for me!
Hope that helps! If anyone has questions about language learning, feel free to DM me!! :)
Unfortunately for language students, language learning is not at all straight forward or linear. In fact, there is very little in your language journey that you share with another language learner. Yes, you could both be learning Spanish, but your language study processes could be drastically different. In addition, when you first start learning, there’s a lot of grey area around what is the best material for you, how long you should be studying per day, how much material to learn, and what goals to set. You may have bought a fancy new language learning planner and have no idea what to put in it! It can be so overwhelming that it can drive away self-learners within weeks or days!
Never fear! I’m not here to scare you (because I ain’t good at it). Instead, i’m here to learn how to learn Korean, Spanish, French, Italian, etc as efficiently as possible and provide study tips for you!
Why should you create language learning goals?
There is no teacher, so you need to decide what you want to learn and by when
Keeps you organized
Keeps you motivated
Helps you tell whether or not you are improving
Helps you become more efficient with your time
You’ll learn faster
You MUST set goals as a self-study language learner. Period. How to do so however, can be the struggle. So here I lay out two major ways to track your language learning to insure faster progress! Here we goooo!!
Hey guys!!! Hope your school year and language studies are going well! I just wanted to introduce something that I want to start doing and see if you guys would be interested in it.
So I want to start using tv shows (kdramas, chinese shows, japanese anime, etc) to help you guys learn languages. So, I would write a post with the video to the show itself, provide the transcript of the show in the native language and point out new vocabulary, and then at the end of the post I will give you a list of the vocabulary. I want to call it the Watch and Learn Series! If you guys are interested in me doing something like this long term let me know by liking this post, sending me a dm or commenting down below!!
Also big thank you to those of you who shared your blogs! I’ll have a masterlist up soon!!!
Watch and Learn: Use TV Show ‘Pretty Li Hui Zhen’ to Learn Chinese Part 1
If you’re looking for a new way to study Chinese, here’s a method that I have used to learn Chinese or any other language quickly and effectively. If you’re self-studying or self-learning languages, using tv shows to learn languages is a fun way to learn natural language in an enjoyable way. I’m going to start giving you guys tv show episodes and providing the transcript in the native language to help you in your studies!! The instructions are down below. Simply follow the instructions, watch and learn Chinese!
If you have recommendations for shows you’d like me to do next, leave them in the comments!
Watch and Learn Instructions: Please Read
Intermediate to Advanced: Watch first ten minutes without stopping (without English subtitles). If you are able to understand at least 50%, then re-watch the first ten minutes without English subtitles and only use the Chinese subtitles while looking up any words you do not know.
Beginner to Lower Intermediate: Watch the first ten minutes without stopping (without English subtitles). If you are unable to understand 50%, re-learn the first ten minutes with English subtitles so that the learning process goes a little faster.Look up and write down any and all words you don’t know.
Calling ALL Language, Travel and Studyblrs and Bloggers!!!
Hey guys so I REALLY want to find more language study, travel and general study Tumblrs and bloggers so please comment down below with a link to your Tumblr, blog, and/or other social media link so I can follow you and create a Masterlist of blogs for my readers here on Tumblr and on my blog!
Someone left a comment that changed me! I won’t say their name in case they’re shy, but someone suggested that I create a page so that my readers and adoring fans (lol) can donate to my cause! And DUN DUN DUN DUN (those were supposed to be triuphant horns)! Here it is!! My snazzy new Patreon page! So become a Patreon so I can give you awesome stuff!!
When I reach $200 I will give all my Patreons a guide to learning Korean based on YOUR favorite V-Live video! My guide will contain a link to where to view the video, Korean, English and romanji subtitles, a complete list of vocabulary and grammar so that you can follow along and learn, all the content separated into ten minute segments (as I suggest), and a mini-quiz at the end of the guide to test yourself! Watch your favorite idols on V-Live and learn Korean with my customized guide that I will give to all of you!!
Once $200 is reached, I send out a poll and you get to pick which celeb V-Live you want to use to learn Korean!
So support me on Patreon so I can keep this website going and the content flowing! You can find my page here!!
Note: Hello, language learners! Just want to first apologize for a very late post! A lot has been going on since my move from China and it has been a doozy. Excuses aside, here is a fresh of the press post for your language learning needs.
Grammar Is a Nightmare
Grammar is always a nightmare for language learners. It doesn’t matter what language you’re learning, grammar is simply not always a basket of roses. It’s actually never a bucket of roses and the sooner you accept that,the better whole language learning process will go. Why is grammar such a nightmare for those of you who are bright eyed bushy tailed and new to language learning? Here’s a list:
Because there are ‘rules’ to grammar, but there are ALWAYS exceptions.
Sometimes the grammar itself makes no sense at all when explained in your native language
You often forget them right after
They may have specific usages that you must know of in order to avoid sounding like a plebe
There are a million and get more and more complex as you progress
What Is Grammar
Stop your scrolling! This is important!! I’m not going to explain the complex intricacies of the concept of grammar or even try to simplify it because if you speak a language, any language, you know what grammar is. HOWEVER, it is important to remember as you study grammar is that it is the written expression of how a group of people understand and synthesize the world around them. It is also how you learn more about the culture of the language you are learning. So take care to learn grammar thoroughly.
So how do you get through this total nightmare with your sanity intact? Fortunately for you, I’ve been studying languages for ten years and can tell you EXACTLY what to do. So before you resume or begin studying, here is my recommended step by step guide to studying grammar.
Quick update: First of all, let me apologize for not updating in a while. I have moved from China to the USA and from Boston to Virginia and have now begun studying for the LSAT. Whew! I'm back to a regular routine and you guys should see regular posts from me now!
If you’re self-studying or self-learning Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French or any language, there are so many reasons why a language learning method could fail that you could be completely unaware of. After all, there is no one identifying your shortcomings or problem areas in language study for you. You have to do it all by yourself. When I began to learn Japanese and Korean in high school I did not know this and it was pretty devastating. When things slowed down or I couldn’t remember Japanese words, I got so freakin’ pissed! Why wasn’t all my hard work paying off!? How long does this stupid crap take?! Why am I not fluent!? How do I learn Japanese faster?! I was rightfully frustrated, but at the wrong things. I was angry at everything else except how I was actually studying.
What I have come to understand is that the language learning method is just as important as the content you actually learn.
Self Study Guide: How to Make a Customized Language Study Schedule
Source
It’s the bane of every language learner that wants to self study or study at home. If you are one of these self-learning warriors them you know what I mean. You have to create your own study schedule and plan your own curriculum and it can be a real P in the A. There are so many things to consider, such as your level, available time, your study style (which you can learn about here) and the goal of your learning. HOWEVER, despite all these variables, I am here to help you create your own customized language learning study planner that is both efficient and effective for YOU. So if you want to become a master study schedule maker, keep reading!
Calculate Your Hourly Study
Before you create your schedule begin by looking at your regular schedule (work or school) and determine how many hours per day you can study. Then calculate how many hours per week that makes. This will determine how much material you will be able to cover and how fast you will be able to get through it. The fewer hours of time you have available, the less content you will be able to learn over the span of a week. There is nothing wrong with this at all. Just have to say this clearly so that you don’t expect to be fluent in a few months if you only study an hour a day for five days. Don’t expect miracles people!
My Suggestions
If you work full time, I would suggest only studying about 30 minutes to one hour a day with review on weekends.
For people who have more time to study, you will be able to cover more content in the same week. However, make sure you aren’t adding too many hours so you don’t burn out. For those with more time, I suggest studying between 2-3 hours a day with review on weekends.
TLDR: Count hours because just like a regular language course, the amount of hours a week you study dictates how intense the course is and how much you will cover in a semester.
Determine How Many Days a Week You’d Like To Study
This part is ENTIRELY up to you! However, whatever you choose to do, make sure you leave at least one day of break to avoid burn out. I am currently doing 5 days a week of study with weekends off.
Choose Some Material
There is such a wealth of materials on the internet that I don’t recommend that you purchase ANY textbooks until you search the web to see if it is available online in pdf or something. That’s what I did. If you would like some free Japanese textbook pdfs, you can visit my post about free Japanese resources. I did find online a list of the best textbook by language:
Best Japanese Textbooks
Best Chinese Textbooks
Best Advanced Spanish Textbooks
Best Korean Textbooks
Also need:
Memrise
Cram
Fluent-U
Yabla Chinese
Chinese Pod
Japanese Pod
Written Chinese Dictionary
TLDR: Do some research to find some material that will be best for you. DO NOT RELY ON APPS. THOSE ARE ONLY FOR DOWNTIME PRACTICE.
Create a Semester and a Syllabus (Get Creative)
The big cons of self-studying languages is the lack of organization. You have to do it alllll by yourself and it isn’t a basket a roses, believe me. So to make it easier for you, plan your studies in semesters like college courses. That way, you have more concrete and plannable goals. If you just float throughout the year as one continuous study blob, you’ll get bored, burnt out, and more likely to give up since your progress is not as easily trackable. But if you study by semester, you can set concrete goals for the semester and what you’d like to cover every day, week, and month. This way, you are easily able to track your progress. This is the best way to study, if you want to see real progress.
The other thing you need to do is create a syllabus, so once you’ve chosen your textbook and materials, go ahead and plan the WHOLE SEMESTER of what you will cover on what days, what days you will have tests, what days you will review, etc. This will require you to go through your textbook or online program in advanced to plan your studies. Try to plan each week by textbook chapters, program units, or specific subject you’d like to learn (celebrities, music, fashion, animals, etc) If you create a week where you are studying a specific subject, you can use movies, books, articles, youtube videos, or music to learn that subject!
For example:
Week 1: Korean From Zero Chapter 1 and 2/ Wani Kani 1
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Week 2: Korean From Zero Chapter 3 and 4/ Quiz
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Week 2: Desserts – Ms. Panda and Mr. Hedgehog Viki Tv Show
Day One: Blah blah
Day Two: Blah blah
Day Three: Blah blah
Day Four: Blah Blah
Day Five: Review Day!
Get creative! Your study schedule is whatever you want it to be!! Don’t forget to mark down the goals for the semester and what you’d like to be able to do by the end of the semester.
TLDR: Create your own semester-based plan to create concrete learning goals and trackable progress. Create a syllabus to write down your goals and your daily and weekly material to cover.
Figure Out Your Study Style
There are essentially two, which I talk about in an earlier post. The Systematic Style and the Intuitive Style. To find out which one you are, visit my post. Essentially, a Systematic learner would rather learn the concepts first, then practice them. An intuitive learner (such as myself) would prefer to be thrown in to an immersive environment and learn while immersed THEN learn the details of the concepts. This GREATLY effects how you need to approach your language study because you will need to develop specific language study skills. For example, if you are intuitive, you MUST have audio/video based lessons with explanations and you may not need a textbook at all.
TLDR: Find out what your
language study style
is and implement this style into your study syllabus
HOW TO ORGANIZE AND PLAN MATERIAL
One of the biggest problems among self-taught language learners, is staying organized. You need to be having fun with your studies, but it needs to be organized. Take a journey with me into hypothetical land. Imagine that you wanted to use kpop lyrics to learn Korean. So to do it, you choose a song to start and then everyday you sing the song over and over and study more and more of the lyrics till EVENTUALLY you learn the whole song. Then you choose another and start again. This sounds normal doesn’t it? It’s shouldn’t be. It’s bad.
What you SHOULD do is determine exactly how long you want to take to learn the lyrics to the song. For this case, we’ll say five days (an entire work week). For each day, you need to determine how much of the song you want to cover. One verse? Two verses? Then you plan that the LAST day (the fifth) day of your studies, you review all the vocabulary words and grammar you’ve learned. On Saturday or Sunday, you test yourself on the material.
Voila!! You’ve just created an ENTIRE study plan for a week just around a single K-pop song!! Stick that in your syllabus and move it along!
TLDR: Organize. Organize. Organize.
Use Material You’re Interested In
Keep in mind that you DO NOT have to only use your textbook or language learning program. The internet is vast and so are the resources, so don’t limit yourself! If you would like to learn about fashion, sports, science, or whatever, then plan a week or two of study where you use online resources to do exactly that! You can use movies, shows, articles, music, or even books. Whatever you want in the subject that you want in order to make your language study as interesting and less brutalizing as possible. So it’s okay if you suddenly take a break from your textbook study to learn a kpop song or watch an anime. Do what you want!
TLDR: Mix in topics and subjects you’re interested in learning about into your language study to help keep you interested in your language study!
Conclusion
I hope this wasn’t totally overwhelming! I know it’s a lot, but if you want real language progress, you MUST be organized. It doesn't matter if you want to know how to study Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, French, German or whatever. You can use these study tips to help you no matter what the language or what the level. Use these steps and you will become a master schedule maker in minutes! I hope this helps!! Good luck with your language study!!!
All Steps:
Calculate Your Hourly Study
Determine How Many Days a Week You’d Like To Study
“Everything is so hard! I just wanted to be an astronaut!” – A wise man (probably)
Learning a language isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s a living and breathing method of communication that isn’t always perfectly logical. In other words, it’s a HOT MESS and you’re going to have to learn your way through the dense and confusing jungles of someone else’s language. So naturally, you will reach roadblocks and will deal with things that will make you want to quit life and go back to bed. It’s natural! It’s life!
If you are a huge bump in your language learning journey, don’t panic. Don’t panic!! You being stuck is not a reflection upon you or your capabilities. Let me say that again. YOU BEING STUCK IS NOT A REFLECTION UPON YOU OR YOUR CAPABILITIES. It is a reflection of how the world works and how sucky it can be to learn languages.
While learning Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, I faced so many bumps in the road. So many. So many…. *clinches fist and closes eyes dramatically*. But I got through and so can you. In the steps I outline what you can do if you’re feeling stuck in your language learning or if you’ve reached a language learning plateau how to move forward. (So chill out on the “feeling in a rut” quotes from Pinterest cause they won’t help).
Remember Why You Started
This is super basic and you’ve probably heard it a million times, so I won’t linger on this tip. If you feel like giving up, just make a list of all the reasons you started learning this language in the first place. If you have no specific reasons, make some right now. Do some research and see what benefits your language(s) grant you! This will kick your butt into gear again, because now you remember the goal you’re chasing after and you’ll wanna reach it. Cause who doesn’t love reaching goals!?
Don’t Rely On Motivation
Motivation is so great for getting started on something, but once you’ve actually started to do something, you will find that your motivation often wains and all you’re left with is procrastination and guilt. You can’t rely on being motivated to do things everyday. You can try to motivate yourself each and everyday, but that is ineffecient because it takes up precious time and energy. Instead, build up your discipline or your ability to do things even if you don’t want to. Wouldn’t that be sick wicked awesome if you could consistently get things done even if you don’t want to!? That’s what discipline can do for you! The only way to grow it, is to practice doing it over and over till you build the muscle. Beautiful things take time and when you give it that time, you will see amazing results.
Pinpoint EXACTLY What the Problem Is
If you are feeling stuck, you need to try to pinpoint EXACTLY what the problem is. Are you having trouble reading, writing, formulating sentences, listening to natural speed? Pinpoint EXACTLY where the problem lies and then go deeper than THAT to see what is causing the problem. It is important to know exactly what is causing the problems in your studies, writing them down and then brainstorming the best way FOR YOU to address those problem areas. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.
For example, in my Korean studies I faced a HUGE issue. I could NOT formulate sentences to save my life or even my dog’s life! I could perfectly understand sentences, but I couldn’t make a single one. So I identified that I had trouble speaking. Then I identified that it was sentence formation. Then I needed to figure out why. So I threw myself into an immersive environment and realized it was because I was feeling overwhelmed by the grammar and was learning the material the wrong way.
Change Your Approach
Once you have identified the problem, you can begin brainstorming creative ways to deal with each and every problem
For example, in my Korean studies I could NOT formulate sentences! So I reviewed making basic sentences then adding complicated parts to them. I studied that grammar inside and out so that I knew EXACTLY what each word meant and how it contributed to the sentence to create it’s meaning.
I also realized that Koreans formulate sentences so bizarrely different from English so I needed to learn DIRECTLY from native speakers more often. In other words, I needed to shadow them. Then I was able to take sentences I learned to use them and modify them with my deep knowledge of the grammar.
Ask Someone For Help
Last but certainly not least, ask someone for help. It could be a teacher, a coach, another language learner (like myself) or a native speaker. Ask them to assess your abilities and help you determine what’s going wrong in your language studies. There is no book, blog or video that can supplement a human person’s personal interaction so look to others to help you where you are stuck and you will never be disappointed!
You can join language communities in:
Facebook,
Tumblr (you can ask me questions directly on my Tumblr page)
Instagram (Every week I hold a Q&A in Instagram Live)
Reddit (r/languagelearning)
iTalki
Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
