We have already established that studying on your own is best, but what’s the optimal way to dive into a completely new language? The secret lies in attacking the language from many different angles. This is not an original idea. In fact, I borrowed it from a personal hero of mine, Barry Farber. His method works! Apply …
The Multi-Front Attack for Conquering a New Language Read More »
As far as I’m concerned, Assimil is one of the best kept secrets in language learning. They offer materials for a number of Asian languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Thai. I was first introduced to Assimil by Professor Arguelles, who claims to have extensively used their courses to achieve a grounding in a multitude of languages. …
Assimil Review: An Underrated Gem for Asian Languages Read More »
If you are anything like me, you like to get value for money when you buy something. Whether it is for groceries, electronics or flights abroad, I tend to shop around and select the best deal. For most of us, this is just a reality of living within financial limits. Language learning is no different. …
(Updated April, 2019) Until recently, Korean was a rare language for Westerners to learn. But thanks to the rapid economic development of South Korea, and increasing interest in Korean culture in recent years seems to have led to more Korean learning materials being made available (I’m lookin’ at you, Korean Dramas and K-Pop). Unfortunately, there …
When preparing for the JLPT, one of the biggest problems learners face is the large amount of Japanese vocabulary. If you live in Japan or at least get enough Japanese input then the listening section of the exam is easy enough. You can cram on the grammar and learning kanji intelligently will greatly ease your pain. With …
App Review: i-Sokki Japanese Vocabulary for JLPT Read More »
“To have another language is to possess a second soul.” – Charlemagne Learning another language can be a lonely and frustrating process. Sometimes we need a gentle push to give us a break and boost our motivation. In this post, I am going to introduce a couple of books that serve as inspirational and practical …
Do you ever feel like all your time and effort studying your target language hasn’t amounted to much? Ever feel frustrated with your progress? Well, join the club! Once you pass the intermediate threshold, it gets harder to judge your growth in the language. You are entering what I refer to as intermediate fatigue. It’s …
It all adds up! (Or how to master a foreign language) Read More »
I recently bought the Wisdom 2 iOS app because I had heard good things about the previous version and found a great deal for it on the iTunes store (Apparently it has been reduced to $11.99 from around $30 until the end of this month). I have been using the dictionary for the last couple of weeks and …
App Review: The Wisdom 2 English-Japanese Dictionary Read More »
After several false starts, I have finally begun to learn Korean seriously. During lunch breaks, I have been listening to Pimsleur Korean to ease myself into a daily study regime. Pimsleur isn’t perfect by any means. As I wrote before about Pimsleur Japanese in my Japanese books post, the lessons in the third series got …
EDIT: The situation has greatly improved since this post. Please read this update on how to find good Japanese content for the Kindle. Happy New Year everyone! I don’t know about you, but the New Year has got me motivated to get back to studying languages and reading more Japanese. I also plan to take …
The Kindle Paperwhite: A godsend for Japanese learners (if you’re in Japan) Read More »
