“For much of this book I have described my vision of the road to mastery―you start with the fundamentals, get a solid foundation fueled by understanding the principles of your discipline, then you expand and refine your repertoire, guided by your individual predispositions, while keeping in touch, however abstractly, with what you feel to be the essential core of the art.” ―Josh Waitzkin

There are many great books about learning out there, but one of my favorites to date is The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin. The book shares core learning principles that have allowed Josh to master multiple diverse disciplines, including:

• Chess. The movie Searching for Bobby Fisher is based on Josh’s childhood, during which time his impressive chess skills led to him being called a “prodigy” (a word he doesn’t particularly care for as it discounts the massive amount of practice, effort, and psychological tactics he relied on to win eight National Chess Championships).

• Taiji Push Hands (太極推手, tàijí tuīshǒu). Josh has won a number of medals in the sport, the World Champion Title in 2004, and went on to coach others to victory themselves.

• Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Josh holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu which he obtained training under Marcelo Garcia, considered to be one of the world’s best practitioners and teachers of the art.

So what do chess and martial arts have to do with language learning? Quite a bit, actually. Mastering any skill requires that you travel down the same basic road. Whether you are learning the Japanese language or a Japanese martial art, you will encounter many of the same challenges, pitfalls, and joys on your journey. And, many of the same metalearning techniques can be applied. Here are few key learning principles that Josh shares in the book that can be of big help in reaching fluency in a foreign language:

Growth Requires Discomfort

“The key to pursuing excellent is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of comfort or safety.”

One of the most common causes of slow progress in a foreign language is spending too much time on safe, comfortable tasks like reading, flashcards, memorizing rules, etc. and avoiding what many learners find most uncomfortable: communicating with native speakers. The former allows you time to think, look things up, and keep things under control. The latter affords you little time to think, no time to use a dictionary, and little control. But if you want to reach fluency in a Japanese (or any other language), you absolutely must speak. There is no alternative. Passive input activities like listening to podcasts and reading books (albeit it important components of a balanced language diet) will not give you the active communication skills you desire.

This is not to say that all learning will be uncomfortable all the time. You can and should have lots of fun along the way. Do things in the language you enjoy. Discuss topics that interest you. But don’t let fear of discomfort or ambiguity stop you from getting mission critical face-to-face (or at least Skype-to-Skype) communciation practice.

I suggest prescheduling a few weeks worth of tutoring sessions on iTalki so you’re more likely to stick with the habit. As Tim Ferriss puts it in Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers:

“Schedule (and if possible, pay for) things in advance to prevent yourself from backing out… Make commitments in a high-energy state so that you can’t back out when you’re in a low-energy state.”

Make Peace With Your Discomfort

“When uncomfortable, my instinct is not to avoid the discomfort but to become at peace with it. When injured, which happens frequently in the life of a martial artist, I try to avoid painkillers and to change the sensation of pain into a feeling that is not necessarily negative. My instinct is always to seek out challenges as opposed to avoiding them.”

Learning a language will entail tolerating lots of ambiguity and uncertainty, making heaps of mistakes, using the wrong word or a given word incorrectly (often leading to much unintended comedy at your expense), accidentally committing social faux pas, etc. But such experiences are only as embarassing and uncomfortable as you let them be. You can instead choose to not take yourself so seriously, laugh at your blunders, and gain valuable (and highly memorable!) lessons about how the language works.

And just as Josh avoids painkillers to mask the discomoft of injuries, I don’t recommend that you use alcohol to drown out the potential awkwardness of communicating with native speakers. Yes, booze is a powerful social lubricant and can indeed help you communicate more smoothly by lowering inhibtion and second guessing. But this is not a crutch you want to rely on in the long run unless you want to be drunk 24-7… Moreover, since alcohol negatively impacts memory, the progress you make under the influence will likely fade away like your memories of the night itself.

Be Present & Don’t Dwell on Mistakes

“When we are present to what is, we are right up front with the expansion of time, but when we make a mistake and get frozen in what was, a layer of detachment builds. Time goes on and we stop. Suddenly we are living, playing chess, crossing the street with eyes closed in memory. And then comes the taxicab.”

A surefire way to slow your Japanese conversations to a crawl, bore your interlocutor to tears, and ultimately hinder your progress in the language is to get caught up in the moment on speaking perfectly and avoiding (or trying to fix) mistakes. Yes, it’s important to constantly refine your language skills and fill in gaps, but the focus in the moment should be on communication and flowing practice, not grammar and vocabulary. If speaking with a tutor, I find it most helpful if they keep track of my mistakes as we talk but then only review them afterwards . This approach helps prevent the “affective filter” from going up (i.e. affects on langauge acquisition caused by negative emotions like fear, embarrassment, etc.) and keeps the conversation flowing more naturally (something that is far more enjoyable for both parties).

Numbers to Leave Numbers & Form to Leave Form

“By numbers to leave numbers or form to leave form, I am describing a process in which technical information is integrated into what feels like natural intelligence. Sometimes there will literally be numbers. Other times there will be principles, patterns, variations, techniques, ideas. A good literal example of this process, one that does in fact involve numbers, is a beginner’s very first chess lesson. All chess players learn that the pieces have numerical equivalents―bishops and knights are worth three pawns, a rook is five pawns, a queen is nine. Novices are counting in their heads or on their fingers before they make exchanges. In time, they will stop counting. The pieces will achieve a more flowing and integrated value system. They will move across the board like fields of force. What was once seen mathematically is now felt intuitively.”

This is precisely like internalizing the syntax, grammar, patterns, and collocations in a foreign language. At first, you will have to consciously decode and produce phrases. It will be a slow, tiresome process. But with enough exposure and practice, you will eventually develop an intuitive, subconscious ability to quickly construct grammatical utterances. This is the stuff fluency is made of.

Play Like a Child While Harnessing Your Adult Advantages

“I think a life of ambition is like existing on a balance beam. As a child, there is no fear, no sense for the danger of falling. The beam feels wide and stable, and natural playfulness allows for creative leaps and fast learning. You can run around doing somersaults and flips, always testing yourself with a love for disocvery and new challenges. If you happen to fall off―no problem, you can just get back on. But then, as you get older, you become more aware of the risk of injury. You might crack your head or twist your knee. The beam is narrow and you have to stay up there. Plunging off would be humiliating. While a child can make the beam a playground, high-stress performers often transform the beam into a tightrope. Any slip becomes a crisis. Suddenly you have everything to lose, the rope is swaying above a crater of fire, increasingly dramatic acrobatics are expected of you but the air feels thick with projectiles aimed to dislodge your balance. What was once light and inspiring can easily mutate into a nightmare. A key component of high-level learning is cultivating a resilient awareness that is the older, conscious embodiment of a child’s playful obliviousness. My chess career ended with me teetering on a string above leaping flames, and in time, through a different medium, I rediscovered a relationship to ambition and art that has allowed me the freedom to create like a child under world championship pressure. This journey, from child back to child again, is at the very core of my understanding of success.”

While the stakes in language learning are rarely as high as they were for Josh in international chess tournaments or martial arts competitions, they can definitely feel that way. I remember feeling an immense amount of pressure (most of which I put on myself looking back) when I was tasked with interpreting for visiting delegations during my work for the Japanese government. I thought that any mistakes or translation blunders would send me straight down into the flames of shame and embarassment. In reality, most of my mistakes were not even noticed. And those that were picked up were easily brushed off with a self-effacing joke. It took me far too long, but I finally learned to have fun while interpreting and translating, even when there were words I didn’t know and concepts I didn’t understand. I learned to play with the language like a child tinkers with Legos. The less I cared about perfection, the better my Japanese became and the more fun I had along the way. I hope you can discover the same realization.

“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty.”

This is definitely true of language acquisition. The safe, predictable, highly structured nature of classroom-based academic language study does not prepare one for the messy interactions that one will encounter in the real world. To reach fluency in a foreign language, one needs randomness, not a lesson plan. Or as Taleb puts it:

“I don’t know anyone who ever learned to speak his mother tongue in a textbook, starting with grammar and, checked by biquarterly exams, systematically fitting words to the acquired rules. You pick up a language best thanks to situational difficulty, from error to error, when you need to communicate under more or less straining circumstances, particularly to express urgent needs (say, physical ones, such those arising in the aftermath of dinner in a tropical location).”

Like me, Taleb places great importance on mistakes, ambiguity, and discomfort in language learning, all essential ingredients of effective second language acquisition that textbooks and interpreters destroy:

“One learns new words without making a nerd-effort, but rather another type of effort: to communicate, mostly by being forced to read the mind of the other person— suspending one’s fear of making mistakes. Success, wealth, and technology, alas, make this mode of acquisition much more difficult. A few years ago, when I was of no interest to anyone, foreign conference organizers did not assign to me the fawning ‘travel assistant’ fluent in Facebook English, so I used to be forced to fend for myself, hence picking up vocabulary by finger pointing and trial and error (just as children do) —no handheld devices, no dictionary, nothing. Now I am punished by privilege and comfort—and I can’t resist comfort. The punishment is in the form of a person, fluent in English, greeting me by displaying my misspelled name at the airport, no stress, no ambiguity, and no exposure to Russian, Turkish, Croatian, or Polish outside of ugly (and organized) textbooks. What is worse, the person is unctuous; obsequious verbosity is something rather painful under the condition of jet lag.”

Taleb goes on to share what he believes to be the most effective language learning strategy of all―being jailed in a foreign country:

“My friend Chad Garcia improved his Russian thanks to an involuntary stay in the quarantine section of a hospital in Moscow for an imagined disease. It was a cunning brand of medical kidnapping, as during the mess after the end of the Soviet rule, hospitals were able to extort travelers with forced hospital stays unless they paid large sums of money to have their papers cleared. Chad, then barely fluent in the language, was forced to read Tolstoy in the original, and picked up quite a bit of vocabulary.”

I wouldn’t wish a jail sentence upon any of you no matter how effective it might be for language learning, but hey, when in Rome…or rather, “when in Russia”.

My “Book Battle” with Benny at his signing in Seattle.

Benny Lewis, also known as the Irish Polyglot, is one of my heroes. Not only has he demonstrated that it’s possible to reach conversational fluency in a matter of months, not years as most believe, but he lives his life as a full-time traveler, language learner, and technomad, and has managed to build the most popular language learning blog on the planet along the way. Benny’s philosophy on self-guided immersion is right in line with my own, as exemplified in the following quote from his new book:

“…where you are isn’t what decides whether or not you’ll be successful. Attitude beats latitude (and longitude) every time. It’s more about creating an immersion environment, exposing yourself to native speakers, and doing everything you can in that language.”

Listen to the Show

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Show Notes

In the interview, we discuss:

1) The release of Benny’s new book, Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World.

2) Benny’s language study plans for the coming year.

3) Benny’s favorite places to find native speakers (including iTalki and Couchsurfing).

4) 5 common language learning myths and destructive attitudes (of the 20 detailed in his book) that hold would-be learners back:

• “Aren’t Adult Language Learner’s at a Disadvantage?”
• “I Don’t Have the Language Gene”
• “I Don’t Have the Time”
• “Language Programs Are Expensive”
• “I’m Waiting for the Perfect Language Course”

5) How Benny juggles multiple languages.

6) “Immersion Without a Plane Ticket”

7) Useful language learning hacks:

• Using modal verbs + infinitives
• Using melodies to better remember phrases
• Using mnemonics to better remember words, phrases & Chinese characters

Mo’ Info

If you haven’t already, make sure to check out Benny’s award-winning language and travel site, Fluentin3Months.com, as well as his comprehensive resource toolkit, Fluent in 3 Months Premium.

The season of giving is upon us! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Saturnalia, The Gregorian New Year, The Lunar New Year, or just TGIF, here are some gift ideas to help spread some love to those you know trying to learn a foreign language.

And don’t forget to pamper yourself a bit, too: if you’ve diligently put in the study hours this year, reward yourself with a little something something. Or if you’ve struggled to stay the course, perhaps it’s time to try out some new methods and materials. Here now are ten gift ideas for the language lovers in your life:

1) iTalki Credits

I have said it many times before, but I will say it again given its importance: you cannot learn to speak a foreign language unless you actually practice speaking it! It sounds obvious, I know, but so many would-be language learners spend all their time reading and listening, and rarely if ever apply what they’ve learned in real, human-to-human interaction. I know it can be really scary to speak with a native speaker, especially in the early stages when you hardly know any words or structures, but you must overcome this fear to succeed. There are many ways to find native speakers to practice with online, including hundreds of different language exchange sites, but my favorite by far is iTalki. They have a much larger collection of high-quality tutors than most similar sites, include tutor rankings so you can figure out if someone is likely to be a good fit for you before committing to a tutor session, and probably best of all, they have a really good scheduling tool that automatically factors in your time zone and that of your teacher so you will both be online at the right time (I have been stood up, and sadly, stood up other learners, many times because one of us got the time conversion wrong).

2) Lonely Planet Phrasebooks

While blogs, comics, books, etc. may be more fun to read, phrasebooks are a better way to focus on just the high-frequency, everyday vocabulary and structures you will need to travel, live, and work abroad. They also tend to be small and portable, so you will always have some foreign language material handy when “hidden moments” arise throughout your day for language study. There are many excellent phrasebook publishers to choose from (and the best of the best varies a bit from language to language), but in general, I find Lonely Planet’s phrasebooks to be the best designed, have the most useful vocabulary, and go to the trouble of including phrases in a colloquial English translation, in the local script (e.g. in kanji), and in a phonetic transliteration (e.g. romaji or pinyin).

3) Premium Dictionary Apps

Save your loved one’s backs and budgets and get them a good digital dictionary for each of their target languages. There are heaps and heaps of good free dictionary apps, too, but the extra features and larger databases offered by paid dictionary apps is well worth their reasonable price. Here are a few of my favorites:

 4) Amazon Gift Cards

Books can be wonderful gifts, but finding the right book (one they haven’t read, one that fits their part interests and learning style, etc.) can be quite hard to do. Skip the guesswork and let people buy the language books they really want. While giving cash can seem a little tacky (though probably appreciated!), an Amazon gift card is a good middle ground that gives your loved ones freedom to choose without giving the option to waste the money on beer instead of books!

5) A Plane Ticket

This may be a big ticket item (ha ha, see what I did there?), but if you have the means, there is no better gift for a language learner than a chance to go visit a country where the language is spoken. There are oodles of sites out there that sell cheap airline tickets, but I find Kayak to be the easiest to use.

6) iPod Touch

If you know someone without a smartphone, one of the best tools you can give them for language learning is an iPod Touch. With this single multipurpose device, they will be able to download foreign language dictionaries, use the free Skype app to speak with tutors, listen to podcasts, watch foreign language films and videos, and much more. Best of all, an iPod touch (as opposed to an iPhone) doesn’t require a data contract. The cheapest option is looking for previous model year devices on Amazon.

7) Membership to a Premium Online Course

Though language learners can find gobs of free language learning materials online, many of the best materials are hidden behind paywalls. This is especially true for those wanting to go past the beginner level in a language, and for those wanting to use a single solution instead of cobbling together a piecemeal collection of tools. Here are a few excellent membership sites that offer high quality language content, a variety of study tools to make the most of your time and money, and at least some content for free so you can “try before you buy” to see if these tools are a good fit.

8) Pimsleur or Michele Thomas Audio Course

Getting your ears and mouth used to a new language is one of the new learner’s most challenging obstacles. But as I’ve said before, proper pronunciation is by far the most important skill you can develop. Learning proper grammar and amassing a big vocabulary is great, but it’s all for nothing if people can’t understand the words coming out of your mouth. While just listening and speaking a lot everyday will help you gradually improve your pronunciation, I highly recommend using an audio course from Pimsleur or Michel Thomas to master pronunciation from the very beginning. They are also great tools for internalizing basic language patters and high-frequency vocabulary.

9) Fluent in 3 Months (the book!)

If you know anyone who is just starting their first foreign language, has been studying for a long time without making any real progress, or who will be moving to a new country soon and needs to reach a functional level in the language in an extremely short amount of time, I highly recommend getting them a copy of Benny Lewis’ new book Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World. It provides just the right the balance between motivation and practical application to prevent paralysis by analysis and get you learning from day one. And you may notice a familiar name in the Acknowledgements section: I was very honored to be asked by Benny to help out on the Japanese section of the book as he had just started learning the language during the editing stage of the book.

10) Good Headphones

Last but not least, here is a recommendation that may not seem immediately relevant for language learning. But trust me! Good headphones can make a huge difference. Not only do they make it that much easier to enjoy foreign language listening input as one goes about their day, waiting in line, doing chores, etc., but they also make it much easier to hear one’s language learning tutor when speaking on Skype. Trying to communicate in a new language is hard enough; don’t let poor sound quality make matters worse. I also recommend getting headphones that include a good microphone: this makes voice quality that much better, and also allows folks to discretely record conversations they have in a foreign language for later review.

Spaced Repetition Systems (or “SRS” for short) are flashcard programs designed to help you systematically learn new information—and retain old information—through intelligent review scheduling. Instead of wasting precious study time on information you already know, SRS apps like Anki allow you to focus most on new words, phrases, kanji, etc., or previously studied information that you have yet to commit to long-term memory.

Why Should You Use Spaced Repetition in Language Learning?

Because We Forget New Information REALLY Quickly Unless Reviewed

In 1885, a German psychologist named Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909) put forth a paper titled “Über das Gedächtnis” (“On Memory”) in which he codified something every school student already knows: New information is forgotten at an exponential rate unless reviewed immediately. He plotted this rate along what he termed the “forgetting curve”.

As you can see, Ebbinghaus observed that he forgot new information almost immediately, with over half of the target information lost in just the first hour! Though his experiment was conducted only on himself (i.e. an N=1 study), his basic findings have been reproduced in more scientific studies since his time, and it’s generally agreed that we forget the vast majority of new information we encounter (as much as 80%) within 24 hours.

Because Spaced Repetition Lets Us Hack the Forgetting Curve

The good news is that we can use strategic repetition schedules to hack our memory and help control what sticks and for how long. Each subsequent re-exposure, if properly timed, can help push information we want to remember further and further into long-term memory.

This memory-boosting method was first popularized in language learning by Paul Pimsleur (1927-1976), the man behind The Pimsleur Approach. His particular brand of spaced repetition was dubbed “Graduated Interval Recall” (GIR), which he detailed in a 1967 paper titled “A Memory Schedule” (published in The Modern Language Journal). His proposed review schedule was as follows:

• 1st Review: 5 seconds
• 2nd Review: 25 seconds
• 3rd Review: 2 minutes
• 4th Review: 10 minutes
• 5th Review:  1 hour
• 6th Review: 5 hours
• 7th Review: 1 day
• 8th Review: 5 days
• 9th Review: 25 days
• 10th Review: 4 months
• 11th Review: 2 years

Modern SRS apps and software use even more complex scheduling, but lucky for us, all the math is done automatically by algorithms like SuperMemo’s SM2.

How Spaced Repetition Systems Work

Most SRS apps rely on self-ratings of difficulty to schedule reviews. For example, in Anki (one of the recommended apps I discuss more below), you will usually have 3 or so levels of difficulty to choose from:

• Red button: Used for “new” or “difficult” cards that you want to be shown again very soon.
• Green button: Fairly easy or somewhat familiar cards that you want to see again in a little while.
• Gray: Easy card that you don’t want to review for a while.

The exact interval of minutes, days, or months that each button represents will vary depending on how many times you have previously reviewed the card. For example, if this is your first time seeing a particular card:

• The red button will probably be labeled “1m” (i.e. 1 minute until the next review).
• The green button will probably read “10m” (i.e. 10 minutes until the next review).
• The gray button will probably read “4d” (i.e. 4 days until the next review).

How to Get the Most Out of SRS

Grade Yourself Honestly, But Quickly

A lot of learners get hung up on how to rate themselves, worrying they are giving themselves an overly generous score when they don’t really know the material or being too harsh on themselves when they were close but not perfect. Don’t fall into the trap of spending your valuable time deciding what you know instead of actually expanding what you know. When in doubt, just grade yourself in the middle and move on to the next card.

Use Complete Sentences & Clear Contexts

Avoid creating cards with just a single word or Kanji on the front and the reading or meaning on the back. These are boring and do little more than expand your declarative memory; procedural memory is what we are going for and that is only developed when seeing how words are used in context. Therefore, use complete sentences or even entire paragraphs.

Use Interesting Content

This may seem obvious, but I am constantly surprised by how many learners spend years forcing themselves through boring material. When you are assigned material by a teacher, you may not have a choice, but remember, this whole guide is about self-guided immersion: the choice is yours. Read and listen to content that excites you, topics that you would spend time with even in your native language. Then take chunks of this text or audio content you love (but perhaps don’t quite grasp entirely) and put them into your SRS deck.

Don’t be Afraid to Delete Cards

If you come across cards that are too easy, boring, or just annoying, delete them from your deck. Don’t think about it too much. If you find yourself wanting to delete a card but are unsure if you should, just delete it and move on. You won’t miss it. As Khatzumoto of All Japanese All the Time puts it:

“When your SRS deck starts to become more of a chore than a game, bad cards are most likely your problem.”

Recommended SRS Tools

There are loads and loads of apps available today that incorporate spaced repetition. Here are a few of the best:

Anki

Literally meaning “memorization” in Japanese, “Anki” (暗記) is one of the most popular SRS tools for language learning, and for good reason: 1) it has as heaps of useful user-generated decks, 2) it allows for extensive customization, and 3) it works on every major platform:

Anki Web (free) Anki Desktop (Mac, PC & Linux; free) AnkiDroid (Android, free) AnkiMobile (iOS, $24,99)

If you’re curious why three of the four platforms are free, while the iOS version costs 25 buckaroos, read Anki creator Damien Elmses’ justification:

“Taken alone, AnkiMobile is expensive for an app. However, AnkiMobile is not a standalone app, but part of an ecosystem, and the $17.50 Apple gives me on each sale goes towards the development of that whole ecosystem. For the price, you get not only the app, but a powerful desktop application, a free online synchronization service, and mobile clients for various platforms.”

Once you install your app of choice, make sure to download some of the shared decks created by other Anki users. There are heaps for most major languages, with lists for reviewing Chinese characters, practicing high-frequency words, etc.

Flashcards Deluxe

A good low-cost, high-quality, user-friendly alternative to Anki is Flashcards Deluxe from Orange or Apple. The app, available on both iOS and Android for $3.99, allows you to either create your own multisided flashcards (complete with audio and photos) or import pre-made decks from Quizlet.com and Cram.com.

Thanks go to Olly of IWillTeachYouaLanguage.com for recommending this app to me.

Flashcards Deluxe (iOS, $3.99) Flashcards Deluxe (Android, $3.99)

Skritter

Instead of the potentially problematic self-ratings used by most SRS systems, Skritter employs “active recall” (i.e. requiring us to actually write Chinese characters on the screen of our mobile device) to confirm which we know by heart and which we simply recognize but cannot yet produce from memory. Read my complete review of Skritter here.

Sign up for Skritter Japanese Skritter (iOS, free) Chinese Skritter (iOS, free) Android Public Beta

Memrise: Learning, Powered by Imagination

Memrise is arguably the best designed SRS tool on the block, but the site and apps offer much more than just a pretty user interface:

• Sound science. The entire Memrise experience is designed to optimize memory through the use of “elaborate encoding” (each flashcard includes community-generated mnemonics, etymologies, videos, photos, and example sentences), choreographed testing, and scheduled reminders (i.e. spaced repetition).
• Fun methodologies. Memrise points out that “we’re at our most receptive when we’re at play.” To that end, they have made efforts to incorporate gaming principles into their system. For example, they use a fun harvest analogy for learning (perhaps taking a page from the FarmVille playbook), breaking the learning process up into three phases: 1) Planting Seeds, 2) Harvesting your “saplings”, and 3) Watering Your Garden.
• Community. Perhaps the greatest benefit of Memrise is access to community generated “mems” (i.e. mnemonics), including a number of clever animated GIFs for Kanji.

Study Online (free) Memrise for iOS (free) Memrise for Android (free)

Massive-Context Cloze Deletions (MCDs)

Popularized by AJATT’s Khatzumoto, MCDs (“Massive-Context Cloze Deletions”) represent a simple—albeit extremely powerful—method for creating far more effective SRS cards. Instead trying to memorize (and test memory of) lots of information on your cards, MCDs focus on one single bit of target information at a time, may it be a Japanese particle, the meaning or pronunciation of a particular kanji, etc. In Khatz’s words:

“Learning—which is to say, getting used to—a language used to be like climbing a mountain. With MCDs, it’s like taking a gentle flight of stairs. Everything becomes i+1, because we’re only ever handling one thing at a time.”

Surusu

Another product of “Great Leader Khatzumoto”, Surusu is a free online SRS tool that works hand in hand with the MCD approach. It works on all major web platforms (Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Mobile Safari), the only requirement being an active web connection (sorry, no offline studying folks).

Midori’s Bookmark Flashcards

Midori, my recommended Japanese dictionary app for iOS, gives you the option to study your saved words using spaced repetition:

• Click “Bookmarks” and choose one of your bookmark folders to study.
• Tap the share button (the upward arrow) and select “Flashcards”. Choose “Spaced Repetition” for the order.
• I recommend activating “Show Meanings” to test yourself on producing the Japanese word from an English prompt (it’s much easier but less valuable to test yourself on producing English meanings from Japanese prompts). You can always change this during a study session by tapping the share button and then “Options”.
• If you want to review the entire card and see example sentences as you review, pinch out on a flashcard. To return to the flashcards, tap the back button in the upper left.

Pleco’s Flashcard Module

The Pleco dictionary app for iOS and Android is by far the most powerful mobile Chinese dictionary available. The basic app and standard dictionary databases are free, but there are a number of paid add-ons to expand its functionality, including an excellent spaced repetition flashcard system for ($9.95).

Pleco for iOS (free) Pleco for Android (free)  Browse Add-Ons

If you haven’t tried Skritter yet, now would be a good time as you can get a 3-week trial instead of the 1 week they usually offer. The offer is valid for new accounts activated before August 31, 2014.

Here’s what to do:

• Sign up for an account through the website (not through the app).
• Click “Alternate Payment Methods”, “Use a Coupon Code”, and enter androidbeta3w in the box.
• Download the Android beta app following these step-by-step instructions. Note that if you don’t follow the instructions exactly, the app will not function.

I’ve already written many tens of thousands of words about how to learn Japanese using modern online tools, so it’s time to let someone else share their point of view on the subject. In this guest post, Saravanaa Vijay from Lang-8 (which happens to be one of my favorite online language learning tools!) discusses the advantages and disadvantages of learning languages online, and why Lang-8 should part of any language learner’s online arsenal.

Take it away Saravanaa.

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With the abundance of online tools available to assist you in learning a language, I’d like to share my experiences in learning Japanese online. To start off with, I’ll go ahead and say that after a period of roughly a year of learning Japanese, along with traveling through Japan, I am now not quit fluent but at least conversational in Japanese.  That is to say I have enough Japanese to get around. I may still draw a few perplexed looks occasionally, but I can make myself understood.

I have pretty much self-taught myself Japanese. I haven’t really signed up for any formal taught courses, with the one exception being a Japanese course back at University (which I dropped out of after 3 lessons, so I’m not counting that!) I have instead learnt Japanese mainly through the use of various online tools; this piece consists of my thoughts on the tools and websites that I have come across and the ones that have worked for me.

First of all, I am a big believer in context. You instinctively know what sounds right in your native language and if you can get close to that in the language you’re learning, you’re pretty much there. But to get to that point, context is key. This is particularly the case when it comes to vocabulary: there is barely any point in sitting down and learning a list of words; you need to learn words in context. If a word has several meanings, you need to learn it multiple times, once for each way the word can be used – that it is to say, with the word in an example sentence and its translated form so you can see how the word is used. At first, most of these sentences will mean nothing to you, but as you progress, you will turn from only understanding one word in a sentence to understanding every word in the sentence.

Flashcards and other similar software seem to be quite popular for this and I’ve found websites such as Memrise can be great for learning vocabulary; not only do you get words in context with example sentences, but you also get tips on how to memorise words. In learning French, I found Memrise great, but when it came to Japanese, I found Memrise lacking in places.

First of all, I made the decision early on that I wanted to learn Japanese words along with their Kanji at the same time. The logic being that I could learn all the Japanese words I wanted to with the romanized spelling but it would be useless when it came to actually using it in practice: no Japanese newspapers print in rōmaji and nowhere in Japan except maybe for Station signs and Place names will you find anything written in rōmaji.

But back to Memrise, the way that you were introduced to the Kanji versions of Japanese words for me, was incomplete. It was fine for French as I was still using an alphabet and writing system I already knew, but with Japanese, I would go through a section and find that I had not actually remembered any of the Kanji that had been put in front of me. It was at this point I went looking for something else and found iKnow.jp, a website is similar to Memrise but geared towards Japanese and Mandarin (and at the time a little over a year ago, it was definitely more polished than Memrise).

Unlike Memrise where you can pick and choose the courses you follow, iKnow was slightly more rigid – there was one overall list of words to learn and this was split into smaller modules. For someone starting from scratch like myself, I suggest just going through the course in order. But there was also a placement test for those who already had some ability in Japanese. This was quite different to the multitude of different courses available on Memrise; whilst it was good to get that choice, working out which course to pick quickly turned into an excuse to while away time browsing the courses and getting myself confused with the choices on offer rather than actually getting on with learning any words.

So for me, iKnow.jp had me covered for vocabulary, and to a surprising extent grammar as well. As I mentioned above, context for me is key and iKnow excelled at this: you would get at least one new sentence for every word you learnt. This may not sound like a lot, but after 1,000 words this really adds up. And hearing these sentences repeated every time you learn these words, things really start to sink in after a while. Japanese particles are a good example of this. Although I had flicked through an About.com article on particles and used a few Google searches to clear up any issues I had, nearly all my understanding of Japanese particles such as no (の), na (な), ga (が), wa (は), and ni (に), and most importantly, how to use them, all came from seeing how they were used in these example sentences and all the other Japanese media I was exposed to. iKnow ended up being the only tool I paid for – I know there are a lot of free flashcard apps out there, but I ended up paying for the course based on the structure, especially the order and way words were introduced, and the availability audio clips for every sentence. After trying the trial version I was convinced it would be worth it and a year on – I would still say it was definitely worth it.

For Japanese speaking and listening practice, there was no one tool I found that could really help me much, but with the abundance of Japanese media available online, it isn’t too hard to get started with this. Developing my listening skills was based most on a steady accumulation of Japanese media seeping into my head over the course of a year. I watched probably an absurd number Japanese TV shows, films, and YouTube videos, all with subtitles on – and it paid off.  I would recognise words I learnt by rote using iKnow, and other words I picked up through the subtitles. 

Speaking Japanese was (and is) quite hard. I don’t think I will ever lose the London twang no matter what language I speak, but in the end, practice makes perfect, and when you are trying learn a language, or in fact trying to do anything, practice is everything. I found mylanguageexchange.com to be a good site for meeting others trying to learn a language, but unfortunately, you either had be approached by a premium member or get premium membership yourself to even begin talking to others. Due to this drawback, I probably ended making more friends through Lang-8.com to practice with by displaying my Skype name on my profile even though Lang-8 is primarily useful for reading and writing.

At this stage, I probably should post a disclaimer. I now work for Lang-8, so I may be a bit biased! But I found this site long before I started working there, and I do really believe it’s a very useful site. I only wish I had found them during my University or School days, as it would have made my homework assignments a lot easier. In essence, Lang-8.com is a site to improve your writing and reading abilities with and it does it quite simply, instead of relying on algorithms or automated translators Lang-8 connects native speakers with each other, making it a social network geared towards language education.

Lang-8 works through a system of reciprocal corrections. For example, Jim could be learning Japanese, so he posts an entry in Japanese that is corrected by Misaki, who in turn is learning French, so she then posts an entry in French that is corrected by Anne, and so on. Users are encouraged to correct others journal entries through a points based system, which awards points on the number of corrections provided and the helpfulness of the corrections. More points means that your own posts will be displayed more prominently for others to correct.

One drawback of Lang-8, however, is that the corrections will only be as good as the person making them. But for someone learning a language, in almost all cases a native speaker will be more than able to help you out. The system of points and thanks points also help to maintain quality. And of course, you can always pose questions, such as which word sounds more natural in a particular in context in your posts to clear up any issues you come across.

But Lang-8 is more than just a language correction website; it is a social language platform that allows you to add friends, join any of hundreds of interest groups, meet native speakers, and chat with others looking to learn a language. This social aspect in particular is one of the main reasons I really liked Lang-8. The lack of social interaction is where most tools normally fall down in my opinion, especially considering that all of us are learning a language to discover and communicate with other people and cultures.

It was this basic idea of connecting native speakers that Lang-8 that drove founder Yang Yang when he first started the website in Tokyo in 2007.  As a bilingual Chinese and Japanese speaker, he took the idea of connecting native speakers learning a different language and his own experiences in languages and programming to start and grow Lang-8 into a global community with over 750,000 users in 190 countries.

However, it has to be said that Lang-8’s focus on journal and diary entries means that it is suitable only for writing and reading practice. Such practice by itself will obviously not get you fluent in a language, but at least the free online tool will help you practice writing without having to pay for corrections.

In the end, no one tool will teach you a language by itself, at least not cheaply. Instead, you can mix and match tools and websites to get yourself fluent. After you have figured out what works best for you, it is surprising how much you can learn in a relatively short period of time. Provided, that is, you put in the hours and have the motivation to keeping going.

To finish up, I’ll share a piece of advice that helped get me started in Japanese:

Stop procrastinating!

Sign up right now for one of the above tools and see if it works for you. If none of them fit the bill, figure out what’s lacking and search for something that will fill the gap. There is a huge choice of online language learning tools out there today; at least one of them should come close to what you need. But remember tools are an aid in learning a language; you still need to put in the work, practice the language, and meet actual people!

Social Media: A New Way of Socializing

Social media serves as a medium for socializing and exchanging information, both of which are a critical aspect of learning a language. Social media tools like Skype and Google Hangouts can be used to acquaint yourself with fellow language learners or native speakers, and you can even join existing language learning groups on Skype or Google+ (use Google Hangout for voice and video conversations).

Verbling, a language-learning website, shows an example of how Google Hangouts can be utilized for language learning. Verbling offers several languages (such as French, Spanish, English), using Google Hangouts as their virtual classrooms. There are up to 10 users from different countries in a class, allowing members to learn a language together and share information about languages. Apart from that, Verbling also has a feature that allows users to practice with random native speakers via video chat.

Change the Language Settings

The option to change the display language has great power for language learning. Often found at the top corner or bottom panel of a webpage, many users often miss it. YouTube has more than 55 available languages while Facebook has more than 65. The availability of foreign languages in social media has made the competition even higher than before. Thus, it is common to see websites providing several language services. You may immerse yourself by using different languages for different social media tools, such as Esperanto for Facebook, Spanish for YouTube, and Mandarin for Skype. You will expand your vocabulary as you use them.

Without realizing it, the “language settings” feature can provide exposure to numerous words in foreign languages for which you may already grasp the meaning before checking the dictionary. The position of the words gives you an idea about the meaning, for instance “Timeline”, “About”, “Photos”, “Friends” and “More” in your Facebook profile page will always be in the same position, even though they are translated into foreign languages.

Download Social Media Language Apps

You will find an abundance of language apps when you search in the app store, such as iTunes store or Chrome store. Numerous apps offer only lessons and others offer dictionaries. Language learning has become easier than before, thus, developers will not miss this opportunity to gain market share and profit. One example of this is the language app Lingapp, a Mandarin-learning app start-up company in Taiwan that has recently hit the news, after the co-founders ran around Taiwan promoting their language app.

Most of the language apps work by providing a set of courses for different levels of learners both online and offline. You may leverage your language learning by discussing these courses with fellow language learners in your society or practicing the phrases that you have learned on the street with locals (if you live in the country of the foreign language).

Conclusion

Social media has served as a new way to communicate in recent years, becoming an integral part of the modern lifestyle. Since it occupies so much of our time, especially for the younger generation, why not utilize it to facilitate your language learning journey?

Skritter.com has been on my radar for quite some time, but the need to sit at a computer and draw characters with my mouse is not what I consider an ideal learning experience. The developers were quite aware of this limitation, and have been burning the candle at both ends to create not one, but two iOS versions of Skritter. With the release of their Mandarin app on June 12, 2012 and their Japanese app on September 2, 2012, Skritter’s innovative approach to learning (and actually remembering!) Chinese characters has finally been given the modern, mobile, touch-based format it deserves.

Who Created Skritter?

Skritter was first created by George Saines, Nick Winter, and Scott Erickson, with Jacob Gill and Chris Clark joining the party later on. According to the Skritter website:

“George Saines, Nick Winter, and Scott Erickson roomed together at Oberlin College, and upon graduation in 2008, they decided that high-paying jobs suck, rice-and-beans startups rock, and there’s no reason why Chinese and Japanese should be harder than French. While Nick was waking at 3AM from a fever dream in Beijing and saw an insomniac friend scratching out surgical strokes to perform ninja combat surgery in a Nintendo DS game, he had an idea for a new, stroke-based handwriting system for learning Chinese and Japanese. Skritter happened. They realized that this was a bit silly, because who wants to write with a mouse or buy a Wacom tablet just to use Skritter? Well, thousands of dedicated users, it turns out, but still that’s always been a barrier for many people. You want to write directly on the screen, when you’re out and about! So they’ve spent the last year and a half making Skritter Chinese and Skritter Japanese for iOS, pulling in everything they’ve learned about learning these languages and making it better than ever.”

After putting both the Mandarin and Japanese apps through the paces, here is a rundown of what I liked best and what I feel can be improved going forward.

The Good

Unlike many language apps that look like rough drafts of an incomplete idea, the good folks behind Skritter have obviously spent a lot of time thinking their product through.

Free, Well-Designed iOS Apps

While Skritter is a premium service, they were kind enough (and business savvy enough) to offer the apps free of charge. The apps come in two flavors (Mandarin Chinese and Japanese), both of which are attractive, intuitive, and feature rich.

Excellent Spaced Repetition System

Any language app or system worth its mustard should incorporate “spaced repetition” (intelligently scheduled repetitions that help maximize retention by re-showing you information right before you are about to forget it), and Skritter delivers the goods. Unlike competing spaced repetition apps which rely solely on self-reported difficulty scores, Skritter requires you to physically write target Chinese characters on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to demonstrate that you actually know them. This is especially important when learning kanji/hanzi since it is far too easy to self-report that you “know” a character when you have simply reached a level of passive recognition but not true mastery.

You can learn more about the specifics of Skritter’s spaced repetition system here and here, but in a nutshell, a given character will be shown again sooner if you struggle to write it correctly, and put off for a longer period if you produce it without any challenge.

“The problem with most spaced repetition systems is that they have no idea whether you remembered an answer unless you tell them. Many of them ask you to grade yourself on a 0-5 scale after each prompt, so that they can adjust your interval accordingly. Not only is that distracting, but it doesn’t have active recall built in. Active recall is the key to long-term memory: you have to come up with the answer yourself, rather than just see the answer on the flip-side of the card. Existing programs are spaced repetition for flashcards, not characters. That’s why we made Skritter.”

Ability to Test Writings, Readings, Tones, and Definitions in Isolation

There are heaps of Chinese character flashcard apps these days, but most are simply digitized versions of paper flashcards that only drill passive knowledge (sorry, simply switching from atoms to bits doesn’t automatically solve the problem). Moreover, two-sided flashcards only allow you to isolate two variables, usually with one side showing the character and the other side listing both the meanings and readings. Often times, you may find that you know the meaning of a character but not the readings, the reading but not the writing, or the writing but not the meaning or readings. With traditional flashcards, there is no good way to indicate which of these variables you struggled with. Not so with Skritter, which tests these three components separately, prompting you to write, pronounce, or define a character/word depending on which particular card you’re confronted with.

Non-Intrusive Handwriting Guidance

Skritter’s elegant handwriting recognition system not only checks whether your stroke order is correct, but also if you are writing a particular stroke in the proper direction and with the required “hooks” seen in some characters. If you are completely lost, simply tap in the center of the screen to be shown the next stroke in blue.

“With Skritter, you write, not trace. Skritter gives you immediate stroke-level feedback.”

Automatic Syncing & Ability to Study Offline

Whether you are learning on board your flight to Japan, trying to avoid data overages, or rocking an iPod touch and don’t want to have to stay glued to a WiFi hotspot, the ability to study offline is a must for any good language learning app.

Everything you do within the app is synced back to the Skritter server, meaning you can start studying on the website while at your desk and finish on your iPhone during lunch. Though I prefer studying via the app, I can foresee situations (such as when at work) where twirling away on your phone looks like slacking while discreet study on your computer can be taken for hard work on those TPS reports.

“No internet? No problem. Learn offline, automatically sync when connection returns.”

Vocab Lists From Popular Text Books

While it’s good to have the option to create some custom lists, having to create all your own study lists is a “pain in the app”, wasting valuable energy and time that would be better spent learning the characters themselves. With Skritter, you can simply download one of the many pre-made textbook decks, including my recommended character books for Japanese and Mandarin: Remembering the Kanji (original and 6th edition) and Remembering the Hanzi.

Ability to Customize Cards and Lists On the Go

You would think this level of customization would be found in most apps, yet I am often surprised how many apps require you to use the desktop version to create or edit flashcards. Skritter allows you to not only create custom lists within the app, but also edit the content of flashcards, change/add hints, and suggest corrections if you come across mistakes.

Full-Featured One Week Trial

Good copy and pretty screen shots can make any app seem like the greatest thing since sliced bread, but you won’t know if something is truly a good fit for you until you actually get under the hood and try it for yourself. Smart companies like Skritter allow you to try ALL their features during the trial, instead of showing only a “lite” version of the product. The idea, of course, is that you get hooked on the product and sign up as a paying customer once the trial ends. Given how well Skritter works, I have a feeling that many users will do just that.

Users can currently choose between four different payment plans (offered as in-app purchases):

• $9.99 per month (cancel anytime)

• Prepay $39.99 for a 6-month membership (=$6.67 per month)

• Prepay $69.99 for a 12-month membership (=$5.83 per month)

• Prepay $119.99 for a 24-month membership (=$4.99 per month)

And even if you decide to not pay for a membership, the good news is that you can continue reviewing previously studied characters for free (adding new words requires an active subscription).

“Web subscriptions work in the app and vice versa, but we can’t use conveniently auto-renewable subscriptions in the App Store, so we’re offering in-app launch sale prices on longer subscriptions up to two years. These are just in the app, not on the site, but if you want to grab the sale price outside the app, just email us. These sale prices won’t last forever.”

The Bad

Truth be told, there aren’t very many things to criticize about Skritter. Here are the only weaknesses my team of highly trained nitpicking squirrels could find:

Cost Prohibitive for Some Learners

At $9.99 a month, Skritter may be out of reach for some cash-strapped learners. This of course is true for any paid service, but it would great if there was a cheaper (or perhaps free) version with less bells and whistles. Then again, from a business point of view, I agree that it’s best to keep things simple (having too many price points has actually been shown to reduce not increase conversions).

If you are a truly starving student, consider asking your school to sign up for an institutional subscription.

Overly Picky Stroke Recognition

While Skritter’s stroke recognition system is generally quite impressive, there were times when it failed to pick up strokes despite being written in more or less the correct direction and location. Fortunately, the system shows you exactly how/where it wants you to write a particular stroke with its blue stroke hints, but this can cause a somewhat frustrating delay when you are already intimately acquainted with a character but simply fail to use proper penmanship (or should it be called “fingermanship”?).

My Verdict

I dig Skritter. I like that it was created by a small team of dedicated language enthusiasts, not a faceless corporation who cares more about pleasing shareholders than users. And while it’s certainly not the cheapest Chinese character study option, I feel it’s well worth the investment given the myriad benefits I listed above.

As Charlie Sheen would surely describe it:

“Other Japanese learning apps are cute kittens. Skritter is a fierce tiger.”

What do you think of Skritter? Give the app a try and share your thoughts in the comments.

Want 30% Off a Skritter Account?

My Master Japanese guide includes discount codes for many of my favorite Japanese language learning sites and products, including:

“I concentrated so hard that I stopped feeling pain.”

“I contemplated the untapped reserves of the human mind. The great hidden depths of the brain. I learned from it.”

After World War II, Michel moved to Los Angeles where he began a language school, continuing to refine his language teaching approach. Given his location and growing reputation for fast and effective language teaching, he went on to teach many Hollywood stars, including Woody Allen, Sofia Loren, Emma Thompson, Doris Day, Barbara Streisand, and Mel Gibson. But his star-studded résumé is not what impresses me; it is his inspired attitude toward learning that earns my respect:

“Learning should be excitement. Learning should be pleasure. And one should experience a constant sense of progression. And one would want more. That is learning to me. And a teacher is somebody who will facilitate and show how to learn.”

How the Michel Thomas Method Works

If you visit the Michel Thomas Method website, you will see a simple, only mildly marketing-esque slogan:

“No books. No writing. No memorising. Just confidence fast.”

This sums up the method fairly well. Much like the Pimsleur Approach, the Michel Thomas Method is completely audio-based. The learner is encouraged not to overtly memorize words and phrases; the brain should automatically internalize them if the teacher (in this case Michel) breaks the language down into sufficiently small chunks and then puts them back together in a sufficiently intuitive, logical, step-by-step approach. And that is exactly what The Michel Thomas Approach promises.

The Good

There is a lot to like about the Michel Thomas Method:

Available for Most Major Languages

The following Michel Thomas courses are currently available:

Now Available in iOS App Form

For those wanting to learn using 21st century tools, there is now a free Michel Thomas Method app for the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad. Though the app and one lesson is free, you have to buy subsequent lessons via in-app purchases. This can actually be a benefit since you can pay as you go instead of shelling out money for the whole shebang at once.

The Bad

Even the best course has its downsides. Here are few elements of the Michel Thomas Method that I don’t care for:

Other Learners Can Slow Things Down

Although I liked learning Spanish alongside the other beginner students, it was sometimes a bit annoying when I was ready to move on and they were still struggling to get things right. This is one of the same reasons I don’t usually like taking formal classes: they move as fast as the slowest student.

Audio Only Has its Limitations

While I like the fact that course gets your ears and mouth used to the language first (many learners start with and get trapped in the written language), it would be nice to be able to go back later (only after completing each course) and see the words and phrases written out. Listening and speaking are definitely the foundation of a language, and Michel is right to prioritize them, but most learners will want to read and write the language as well. To help foster reading skills but without going against the method, perhaps the words and phrases from the course could be used in a fun, fictional story that reinforces what has been learned without trying to present them in a traditional, dry approach.

Cost is Prohibitive for Some

Although I think the courses are reasonably priced, especially alongside the inflated prices of Rosetta Stone, I know many learners who will have a hard time laying out the cash for these courses even at the steep discounts offered on Amazon.

Lots of Time Spent in English

Given how the method works, this is an inevitable downside, but it is a downside nonetheless. I have this same criticism of many language programs, courses, and classes, in fact, but unlike most courses, the positive results of the Michel Thomas Method far outweigh this limitation.

My Verdict

If you can afford the course or get a copy from your local library, I highly recommend using the courses for your target language or languages. I discovered his method far too late in my language learning journey and only wish I could go back in time and give myself this course.

The Language Master, BBC Documentary

The documentary shows Michel in action, teaching French to a group of British high school students who had either no previous exposure to French, or who had tried and failed. You will also learn more background about his experiences in World War II, and his failed attempts to get his method used in public schools and universities.

More than Words – The life and Work of Michel Thomas

Here is another documentary about Michel Thomas brought to my attention by a Language Mastery reader (thank you, Acutia!) It is audio only, but I think you will find it quite moving even without the visual component.

Common Misconceptions

Argument 1:

Chinese characters are really, really difficult; it’s easier to learn how to speak first.

Argument 2:

Chinese and Japanese children learn Chinese characters more easily than foreign adults because they already speak the language and therefore have more to attach the characters to.

Argument 3:

Most adult learners can get by without reading and writing; it is the spoken language that matters most.

Argument 4:

Most signs in China and Japan have Romanized Chinese and Japanese (i.e. Pinyin and Roumaji), so foreigners can get around without knowing Chinese characters.

Argument 5:

It takes a really, really long time. If it takes native Chinese and Japanese children all the way through high school before they learn all standard use Chinese characters, it will likely take non-native adults even longer.

Okay, on to the shredding…

Rebuttal to Argument 1

Chinese characters are not difficult if you go about learning them in an un-stupid way that exploits (instead of ignores) the adult brain’s full potential for creative thinking and association.

Rebuttal to Argument 2

Chinese and Japanese children don’t learn Chinese characters easily. They learn through pure rote memory (the same method Japanese teachers and textbooks expect us to use), arguably the most painful and inefficient way to learn just about anything. The difference is that Japanese children don’t really have a choice. Learn Chinese characters or fail school, let your parents down, and end up an unemployed looser drinking cheap baijiu or Ozeki One-Cup saké by the train station…

Rebuttal to Argument 3

The spoken language is indeed extremely important. And yes, many learners (especially the Chinese and Japanese themselves) focus entirely too much on the written word at the expense of their oral skills in foreign languages. But I cannot tell you enough how important literacy is in Chinese and Japanese:

• Reading opens up a massive pool of potential language learning material, including some of the world’s best literature.

• It allows you to read the transcript of things you listen to, a practice that creates new connections faster than a media whore on Facebook.

• Being able to read and write Chinese and Japanese makes you far more employable than only speaking the language.

• And hey, nothing impresses the Chinese and Japanese more than foreigners who can read and write Chinese characters. You shouldn’t let it go to your head of course, but you can channel that positive energy into acquiring more of the language.

Rebuttal to Argument 4

Pinyin and Roumaji are false friends. Yes, it may help you take the right exit off the highway or get on the right train before your Chinese characters are up to snuff, and yes, they are what you will likely use to type Chinese and Japanese on your computer or mobile device, but they are not a replacement for learning Chinese characters. Knowing at least the meaning and pronunciation of Chinese characters will allow you to read real Chinese and Japanese, live and work in China or Japan with greater ease, and darn it, just flat enjoy learning the languages a heck of a lot more.

Rebuttal to Argument 5

If you use the efficient, adult-friendly method I recommend below, you can learn the the meaning and writing of all standard use Chinese characters in a matter of months, not years or decades as is usually the case with rote memory.

How to Learn Chinese characters

So now that I have hopefully convinced you that learning Chinese characters is both worthwhile and not as impossible as often thought, let’s get into how to learn them as quickly, efficiently, and enjoyably as possible.

Use “imaginative” not rote memory.

Despite it’s common use, rote memory is a terrible way to learn Chinese characters, especially for adults who have better tools at their disposal, namely, what is called imaginative memory. The method, used in James Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji and Remembering the Hanzi, involves creating unique, vivid, emotional, altogether wacky stories that help you remember the meaning and writing of each and every Chinese character. Instead of trying to remember a more or less arbitrary slew of strokes (ridiculously difficult) you just have to remember whatever story you created (waaaay easier). This may seem like an extra step to those just starting out with Chinese characters, but believe me, it will end up saving you heaps of time and frustration in the long-run.

Use spaced repetition.

Back in the 1960s, cognitive psychologists, linguists, and memory researchers proved what every elementary school student has long known: we forget new information really freaking fast unless it is repeated. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we remember information for progressively longer and longer periods of time upon each re-exposure. With this in mind, a number of language learning systems and flashcard tools have been developed (including Anki which I discuss below) that repeat target words, phrases, and yes, Chinese characters, in increasingly longer intervals. Just when you are about to forget a Chinese character, boom, the spaced repetition system puts in front of your face, urging your brain to store it in ever longer memory.

Study Chinese characters right before bed and upon waking.

Studying new Chinese characters right before bed is ideal because our brains consolidate new information while we sleep. Whatever you see or think about right before this neural housekeeping session has a better chance of sticking. Furthermore, I find it to be a rather relaxing practice that actually calms my mind and helps me fall asleep. Studying first thing in the morning not only solidifies what you learned last night, but also ensure that you get in some study time that day no matter how crazy your day becomes.

Take it slow and steady.

As in all skills (and tortoise-hare parables) slow and steady wins the race. You may be tempted (especially in the beginning) to rush through as many Chinese characters each day as possible. But you will soon realize that studying more kanji or hanzi everyday does not automatically equate to actually learning more. Take your time with each character. Make sure you have truly committed its meaning and writing to memory before moving onto the next.

Be consistent.

Pick a set number of chracters to learn every day (I recommend 10 in the beginning moving up to 30 as you get into the flow of things), and stick to this goal like super glue. Make a deal with yourself that you can’t go to sleep until you’ve learned your daily dose. Or allow yourself that special naughty delight (beer, chocolate, an episode of Dexter) only once you have reached your daily chracter goal.

Take it bird by bird.

It is all too easy to get intimidated (and depressed!) by Chinese characters when you focus on how many you still have to learn. The key is to focus not on the distance between here and your final goal, but just one (and only one) character at a time. This psychological tool is put into words best by Anne Lamott in her must-read book on writing and life, Bird by Bird:

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

Recommended Materials and Tools

Last but not least, here are my recommended Chinese characters learning tools. Before spending any time or money on any of these, however, make sure you are properly motivated to learn. Even the best tools in the world matter not if they sit on the shelf unused.

Remembering the Kanji 1

If you get only one Chinese character learning tool, this is the one to get. The subtitle to James Heisig’s kanji classic reads “A Complete Guide on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters”. And that is exactly what the book does; it provides a systematic, adult-friendly way to learn the the basic meaning and writing of all 1,945 standard use characters plus 97 additional characters for common people and place names. By design, book one does not teach you how to pronounce the kanji, a comparatively more difficult task covered in book two. This is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Remembering the Kanji system, but Heisig defends his approach well:

“One has only to look at the progress of non-Japanese raised with kanji to see the logic of the approach. When Chinese adult students come to the study of Japanese, they already know what the kanji mean and how to write them. They have only to learn how to read them. In fact, Chinese grammar and pronunciation have about as much to do with Japanese as English does. It is their knowledge of the meaning and writing of the kanji that gives the Chinese the decisive edge.”

$34. 460 pages. Available on Amazon.

Remembering the Hanzi (Simplified or Traditional)

For Chinese learners, you can choose between two options depending on whether you are learning traditional or simplified Chinese characters. Regardless of whether you study traditional or simplified characters, keep in mind that there are two books, each covering 1,500 characters (for a total of 3,000).

$29 for each book (pages vary). Available on Amazon.

Remembering the Kanji 2

Once you have learned the meaning and writing of all standard use kanji, it’s time to tackle their myriad readings. Contrary to popular belief, this component of Japanese is far more arduous than learning to write the kanji themselves, but again, Heisig comes to the rescue with his second book, Remembering the Kanji: A Systematic Guide to Reading Japanese Characters.

Most Japanese kanji have two kinds of readings: those of Chinese origin called on-yomi and those of Japanese origin called kun-yomi. Kinder kanji have just a few readings, while other less friendly characters have dozens of variant readings, each with their own unique meaning. I’ve looked far and wide for alternatives, but this book still represents the most efficient way to learn all these various readings without going crazy or pulling a wakizashi across one’s gut…

$27. 397 pages. Available on Amazon.

Remembering the Kanji 3

For the eager beavers who complete books one and two and are still hungry for more, check out Heisig’s third book, Remembering the Kanji 3: Writing and Reading Japanese Characters for Upper-Level Proficiency. This volume goes through the meaning, writing, and reading of 1,000 additional characters needed for university study and specialized academic or professional pursuits.

$32. 430 pages. Available on Amazon.

Skritter

This is one of my favorite new iOS apps. Check out my review to learn more.

Remembering the Kanji iOS app

Until this app came along, I used to recommend James Heisig’s Kanji Study Cards, a complete (but enormous) set of cards designed for reviewing all the information covered in Remembering the Kanji 1 and 2. But no longer with the introduction of this life (and back!) saving app, which covers all the same ground and then some.

$4.99. For the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Available on iTunes.

Anki

Some people love flashcards, others think they are the root of all evil and should be banished to the whatever level of hell holds Hitler. I personally find them a useful addition to (not replacement of) authentic content like podcasts, blogs, television shows, etc. And when it comes to Japanese flashcards, there is no better tool than Anki, a name which literally means “memorization”.

Free for Mac, PC and Android. $24.99 for iOS. Download here.

Now Go Get “Kanjing”

Alright folks, you now have the tips and tools you need to kick kanji’s keister. Now get out there and accomplish in a few months what usually takes foreigners and Japanese children alike over a decade. Happy Kanjing!

Spanish is one of my next target languages and I was quite excited when Amanda Moritz of Brainscape asked me to do a review of their new Spanish language learning app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

There’s no better excuse to study a language and play on my iPod touch than doing a product review!

What I Liked

Truth be told, I am not a huge fan of flashcards. I much prefer to just listen, read, and speak. But Brainscape does an excellent job with what can otherwise become a rather boring aspect of language study. Here are some of the app’s best features:

In App Training

The first time you use the app, it will help guide you through how to use it. For example, here is what pops up when you rate your first card:

You rated this card a 2. The higher your confidence, the less often you will see this card. Also, tips will occasionally pop up showing you how to get more out of the app.

Audio Files for Each Flash Card

One of the biggest problems with most flashcard systems (both paper and digital) is that they only focus on one skill: reading. With Brainscape, however, you can actually hear each word or phrase every time your review a card. This not only helps improve your listening and speaking skills, but also improves retention (brain research shows that the more senses you employ during study, the better your memory becomes).

From Words to Sentences

The app’s “Spanish Sentence Builder” does a good job of slowly building up your vocabulary from individual words into phrases that include a combination of previously studied words.

Excellent spaced repetition

As noted in The Science of Brainscape:

Repeating an easy concept too soon risks wasting your time, while repeating a difficult concept too late risks your having to learn it all over again. By employing user-controlled spaced repetition intervals, you can ensure that less familiar language is repeated more often, while better knows words won’t be repeated as often.

Usage Explanations on the card

Many flashcard systems only show you the key word and its meaning or pronunciation. Brainscape Spanish! cards also provide usage notes so you actually know how to use the new word or phrase.

Ability to delete cards as you go

You’d think that this would be an obvious feature, but I’m surprised how many flashcard apps don’t allow you to delete cards as you go, if at all. Brainscape also makes it easy for you to suggest an edit if you find any mistakes or missing information.

Specific topic decks

In addition to all the basic words you will need in daily life, the Brainscape Spanish! app also includes specific decks on a variety of topics, including business, food, medicine, transportation, technology, and geography.

Ability to sync the app with your brain-scape.com account

Apps are a great way to review languages on the go, but if I am at home or the office, I prefer the increased screen real estate allotted by a computer.

What Could Be Better

The following additions would be nice, but both represent rather costly endeavors, so I can understand if they doesn’t happen anytime soon, if ever…

Pictures

As noted in Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, “vision trumps all other senses”. Adding stock photography to the flashcards would not only improve retention but also make study more inherently more enjoyable. This would also require less translation, allowing the student to spend more of their study time within instead translating to and from the target language and English.

Sample Sentences on All Cards

Although I like Brainscape’s sentence builder approach (gradually progressing from individual words to more complex phrases), it would be nice to have example sentences even in the very beginning so you can start getting used to a wider range of Spanish vocabulary and structures. While you might not understand much beyond the target phrase or construction, I find that having this extra input speeds acquisition and improves enjoyment.

Like any language learning tool, the key is balance: if used in combination with other sources of language input and output (listening to podcasts, watching Spanish television programs, reading blogs, speaking with friends or a tutor, etc.), Brainscape’s Spanish! iPhone app is an excellent addition to your your language learning arsenal.

Brainscape Spanish! Press Release

iPhone app teaches you Spanish using “smart flashcards” and brain science

Brainscape’s researchers from Columbia, Yale, and MIT have developed a novel language-acquisition approach they call Intelligent Cumulative Exposure (ICE).

NEW YORK: When we think of using flashcards to study Spanish, we usually think of putting simple one-word questions and answers like “apple” and “manna” on 3×5 index cards. Not Brainscape. This small team of educational technologists out of Columbia University has leveraged the power of the iPhone to combine grammar, sentence construction, and audio pronunciation into an incremental and comprehensive language-learning experience.

Brainscape Spanish works in three simple, repetitive steps:

Brainscape asks you to translate a particular sentence (e.g. “I have two siblings”) into Spanish where the single underlined word is the only concept that has not yet been introduced in previous flashcards.

Brainscape reveals the correct translation (Tengo dos hermanos) on the back of the flashcard, and explains or annotates the new concept in smaller text. (e.g. Although the word hermano usually means “brother” when singular, the plural hermanos could mean either “two brothers” or “a brother and a sister”.)

Brainscape asks you, on a scale of 1-5, “How well did you know this?” which determines how soon that flashcard will be repeated. Cards rated a 1 would repeat often until you report a higher level of confidence, while 5’s are very rarely repeated.

The process continues to repeat one card at-a-time (with AUDIO accompaniment), at gradually increasingly levels of complexity, with previous cards being repeated on an as-needed basis, according to Brainscape’s machine learning algorithm. Interspersed with these sentence-building exercises are simple vocabulary enrichment and verb conjugation-practice flashcards which also employ a confidence-based repetition technique.

Brainscape’s founder Andrew Cohen has written an entire white paper about why the new method (which he calls Intelligent Cumulative Exposure) works so effectively. “The Input Hypothesis, the value of Active Recall, and the importance of Metacognition have been known for decades,” says Cohen, “but much of the advancements toward applying these principles have confined to laboratories. Brainscape is the first company to make these language learning advancements so absurdly convenient.”

Brainscape Spanish is currently a $40 iPhone/iPod Touch app but is available to try free on Brainscape’s website where you can also find other flashcard-based courses and even create your own smart flashcard decks. As of this writing, Brainscape has over 120,000 members, and it plans to create a web/mobile learning community that eventually encompasses the world’s entire body of knowledge as well as just languages.

Who Contributed to The Polyglot Project?

This tome of language learning awesomeness contains over 500 pages of advice, tips, and success stories, with contributions from 43 authors, including:

Who Created The Polyglot Project?

The book is the brainchild of Claude Cartaginese of Syzygy on Languages, who also edited the work. In his own words, The Polyglot Project is:

“a book written entirely by YouTube Polyglots and language learners. In it, they explain their foreign language learning methodologies. It is motivating, informative and (dare one say) almost encyclopedic in its scope. There is nothing else like it.”

Where Can You Get the Book?

The Polyglot Project is available as a free PDF or as a physical book via Amazon. You can also download a PDF of just my section if you prefer.

With fluency in so many languages, most would immediately claim that Steve is simply a natural at language learning and that they themselves have no hope of learning 11 foreign tongues, let alone one. But having learned 5 of those languages after the age of 55, he lays waste to the myth that only children can acquire a language well along with other common beliefs in his popular Pick the Brain article: 7 Common Misconceptions about Language Learning.

In the interview we discuss what Steve believes to be the 7 most common misconceptions about language learning, how to learn Mandarin effectively, and the role of a good teacher.

Listen to the Show

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Read the Transcript

John: So what I’d like to pick your brain about is the article you posted on Pick the Brain: “7 Common Misconceptions about Language Learning.” I think that has a lot of good stuff in their to help my listeners get started with Mandarin and avoid the most common pitfalls that most language learners encounter.

Steve: Alright then. Well, the first one that I hear so often is that language learning is difficult. We hear that particularly here in North America. I think we hear it in countries like Japan. And the problem normally is that the person isn’t sufficiently motivated.Language learning is not difficult; we all learned our first language. And I think it’s also made difficult because of the way it’s taught in schools, where people are forced to try and perform in the language at a point where they have no chance of performing in the language. If we learn in a natural way, mostly listening and reading, and if we enjoy doing it, it’s not difficult.

The second misconception is that you have to have a gift for learning languages. I speak 10 languages, so people just say, “Oh, well you just have a gift.” I don’t believe that and I’ll tell you why. If you go to countries like Sweden, Holland or Singapore, everybody speaks more than one language. It’s not a big deal there. I don’t believe that Singaporeans or Swedes have some kind of a gene that makes them more gifted for languages.

I’ve also noticed that here in North America where we have foreign athletes, such as Russian hockey players, after a year or two, the Russian hockey player speaks English much more fluently than the average teaching assistant that we have from Russia at our universities who no one can understand! And the point is that the hockey player is in with his buddies. He’s in an environment where he just has to communicate. He’s happy. He’s just doing it. Where as the college professor is more, you know, academic and probably a little more inhibited. And I don’t believe that hockey players have a gene that makes them better language learners than college professors.So I don’t think that you need to have a gift to learn languages.

What is true is that having the right attitude can help, and just being willing to let go, and listen and communicate.

And the more languages you learn, the better you get at it. Me learning my tenth language, Russian, I’m a better language learner at 63 than I was at 16, 17 when I wanted to conquer French.

John: Alright. Number 3?

Steve: Yeah, well people say that if I only lived where the language is spoken, then I’d learn it, or I could learn it. Of course it’s an advantage to live surrounded by the language, but it’s not a condition. I learned Mandarin in Hong Kong, which is not a Mandarin speaking area, and in fact, when I lived there in 1968, 69, you didn’t hear Mandarin anywhere, just about. So I learned it despite the fact that I wasn’t surrounded by the language. And on the other side of the picture, I lived in Japan for 9 years, and most North Americans, Europeans living in Japan did not learn Japanese. And we’re all familiar with immigrants who live here in North America for 20 or 30 years and never learn to speak English. So it can help to live where the language is spoken, not living where the language is spoken doesn’t prevent you from learning the language, and there’s no guarantee that if you live where the language is spoken, that you’ll to speak it.

John: Yeah, I can attest to that. There are hundreds and hundreds of foreigners I encounter here who have been here many years and can barely get by in the language. And I would say that it just reiterates what you said in points 1 and 2: they think it’s difficult, so they don’t even try, or they think that they’re not good at languages, so they don’t try.

Steve: Exactly. And the thing is, today with the iPod MP3 player, you can literally carry your immersion around with you, and you can listen all the time.

John: Oh yeah, I’m plugged in 24/7. They’re fused into my ears now.

Alright, number 4.

Steve: Well, this was about that you have to be a child, that there is a critical period, and all of this. I think that there is a critical period for your native language, when native language forms, but there’s all kinds of research that shows that our brains retain their plasticity. Adults who suddenly become blind can learn Braille, which is a language.

Children have some advantage in that they’re less inhibited. But children don’t have as wide a vocabulary as adults. I mean here I am, I’ve learned Russian in 3 years; I can read Tolstoy essentially with no trouble. I don’t think a 3 year old child could put in 3 years into Russian and learn to read Tolstoy.

So children have a number of advantages, mostly that they are not inhibited; they’re not afraid to be childish! The educated person is reluctant to speak another language because they think they sound like a fool because they can’t express themselves. And children don’t worry about that. So I think that’s not an issue; you can learn a language at any age.

John: Alright, well, the next one is one of the most important and one of the hardest, I think, for those of us who are teachers ourselves, to accept. But I do completely agree; hopefully my listeners will as well.

Steve: Well, the thing is that the classroom has a lot of advantages. One of things about the classroom is that it’s a social place: people get together with the teacher, with the fellow students. It’s a place where the teacher can inspire the students, can push them, give them assignments. There’s lots of things that can be done in a classroom, but you can’t learn in a classroom in my opinion.

A classroom is a place where you mobilize people and encourage them. Or they encourage each other. But the learning, the language learning, has to take place outside of the classroom. But the role of the teacher is to make the student inventive, and make the student so fired up, or so afraid, one of the two, that they’ll go and do something on their own.

So if you want to learn and if you are motivated enough on your own, you don’t need the classroom. Unfortunately, that’s a small percentage of learners. Most people need the classroom in order to be motivated, disciplined and stay on the task. The challenge for the teacher is how to use that classroom effectively so that for every hour in the classroom the student puts in 3 outside the classroom.

John: OK, perhaps we can expand on this a little bit. What advice do you have for teachers who perhaps agree with these seven misconceptions and are trying to structure their classrooms in a way that doesn’t demand immediate output, isn’t relying on testing and memorizing grammar rules and all these things?

Steve: You know, it’s hard for me to say because I have not taught in a classroom. However, when I see the results of classroom instruction, and I often quote this extreme example in New Brunswick here in Canada. New Brunswick is a bilingual province. 1/3 of the population speaks French. In the English language school system, they have French 30 minutes a day for 12 years. And they surveyed the graduates after 12 years, and they found that the number who could achieve what they call an intermediate level of oral proficiency in the French, was 0.68%! After 12 years of 30 minutes a day, zero point six eight percent achieved an intermediate level of proficiency! They might just as well not have bothered. Because I am sure that number would have done it anyway.

There’s a Center for Applied Linguistics in the United States that did a survey on the impact of instructional hours on immigrants learning English. In some cases it went down! Now it didn’t go down because of the classroom; it went down because the classroom is irrelevant! Over a period of time, people will improve in their English. And if they had tracked other factors like: Where does the person work? Does he watch videos at home in his native language or in English? Who are his friends? What is his attitude? All of these things would of had a much bigger impact than classroom instructional hours.

So I think the teacher has to begin by realizing how relatively ineffective classroom instructional hours are from an instructional point of view. OK, so what’s the classroom for? The number one goal of the teacher is to motivate the learner. And the number of people who will really improve is limited. You want to increase that number. The number that will really improve are the one’s who are motivated.

How do you get them motivated? I think if I ran a classroom, I would do what we do at LingQ. I would have either individual students or groups of students choose what they want to learn from; choose content to listen to and read. And spend most of their time with content that’s of interest to them. Maybe you do it in groups. Here, groups of five. Here are ten subjects. Divide yourselves up and go to the subjects you like. Listen to that, read about it.

And then work on vocabulary. It’s words over grammar. You need words. The grammar can come later in my opinion. Once you’ve got enough vocabulary that you can actually say something. And say it wrong a few of times. Or don’t say it! Just listen and read. If you have enough words, you can understand what you’re listening to and reading. And listen, listen, listen. Eventually you’ll want to speak.

So I think I would have more freedom in the classroom, and then groups can talk about themselves, about the subject that they’re studying. If they’re saving words and phrases as we do at LingQ, they can exchange lists of words amongst each other. They can write using these words. But I would break it up in that way. If they’re interested in sports, if they’re interested in gossip, move stars, whatever, just let them. Get at the language. There shouldn’t be this requirement to cover certain items on the curriculum.

John: Alright, so getting back to the seven points here. Number 6: “You need to speak in order to learn.”

Steve: Yeah, I mean at some point you have to speak. I mean that’s the goal; everyone wants to speak. But you can go a long time without speaking. And in the early stages I think it is more productive to do a lot of listening. And especially, initially, repetitive listening. And a lot of listening and reading to build up your vocabulary. So that when you go to speak to someone you actually have some words and you don’t just say, “My name is so and so. It’s a sunny day today” over and over and over again.

There will come a point where you have so many words that you’re ready; now you want to speak. And at that point, then you need to speak a lot. Because you’ve accumulated this vocabulary, you’ve got this tremendous potential ability to speak the language. You’re going to speak with lots of mistakes, with lots of hesitation, you’re gonna have trouble finding your words. Now you need to get out and speak. But that point is not right at the beginning. That point is at some point later on that will vary with the learner and with the language. It could be 6 months later; it could be 12 months later. Whenever you’re comfortable. And there shouldn’t be, in my opinion, this pressure to speak. And nor do you need to speak.

And a lot of learners are lazy. They say, “Oh, I just want to have a conversation.” Well, even in that conversation, if you’re not very good at the language, the most useful part of it is when you’re listening to the native speaker. Because you don’t have much to say if you don’t have enough vocabulary. People sort of say, “Well, I’m embarrassed to go out with people who all speak Chinese. I don’t understand.” You don’t have to speak, just sit there with them. Pick up a little bit here and a little bit there; it’s good for you.

John: I think as long as you can put aside that desire to know right now everything going on around you.

Steve: That’s the key thing. People want to know right now. You can’t know right now. I always say that a language leaner has to accept uncertainty.

The next one was, “I would love to learn, but I don’t have the time.” And we hear that all the time. Make the time if you’re interested. You make time for other things that you like to do. But that’s really where the iPod MP3 players come in. Because when I was learning Mandarin, I had these great big open-real tape recorders. And today I carry a little thing with me that has hours and hours and hours of stuff on it, that I replenish everyday. So there’s no excuse. The main activity is listening, simply because it is so portable. You can have it with you everywhere. And I listen an hour a day. 15 minutes here, half an hour there, I get in my hour. So you have the time if you want to and if you go about it properly.

Mo’ Info

For more information, check out Steve’s blog, try out LingQ, and get a copy of Steve’s book, The Way of the Linguist: A Language Learning Odyssey.

LingQ focuses on listening and reading tasks, following the same input-based method Steve has used to learn foreign languages. But output is certainly not ignored. Using one’s LingQ points (which can be either purchased outright or earned by tutoring others or sharing content you’ve created), users can speak with tutors and get their writing corrected by native speakers. The tutors I have talked with were excellent.

Users can choose between 4 different levels:

The Good

After using LingQ for quite some time now, here’s what I’ve come to like best:

Automatically Saved Words

After spending years highlighting new words and phrases in magazines and then manually typing them into Excel sheets or online databases, this feature makes LingQ a huge time saver. Some other sites allow you to also save and review new words this way, but they don’t allow you to import your own content the way LingQ does.

Yellow Highlights

When you save words and phrases using the LingQ button, these items appear highlighted in yellow in all future texts you study. To quickly remind yourself of the meaning or pronunciation, you simply hover over the LingQ or click (depending on how you configure the settings).

Flexible Hints

When you want to LingQ a word or phrase, you can choose between popular hints, add your own, or copy and paste from the integrated multilingual dictionaries. I find that the act of creating (or at least editing) the hint or definition helps increase retention and deepen my understanding of new words and phrases.

Spaced Repetition Emails

After creating some LingQs on a given day, they will automatically be emailed to you following a spaced repetition schedule (that is, gradually longer and longer intervals between each email). You can then quickly scan through the words and hints to both refresh your memory and decide which items to review further.

Good Variety of Content

There are heaps of lessons covering a wide range of abilities and interests, and you can always import your own as I discuss next. You can browse lessons from the library by topic or level, or you can click on individual lessons to see how many new words it presents (all words not yet LingQed or marked as “known” will show up in blue).

Custom Lessons

Perhaps my favorite feature of LingQ is the ability to import and LingQ your own content. For example, I recently imported an e-mail I received in Chinese and then had a Taiwanese friend record the audio. Voila; instant content that is interesting, relevant, and perfectly tailored to my learning needs. And of course, words I had previously LingQed in other lessons automatically showed up in yellow.

The Bad

Even the best language learning system always has room for improvement. Here are few weaknesses that I hope to see fixed in the future:

Wonky Word Boundaries in Japanese and Chinese

While this issue has been significantly improved since earlier versions of LingQ, I still come across a number of Japanese and Chinese words that are improperly parsed. This tends to be more of a problem in imported texts.

Browser Glitches

When LingQing new items or hovering over existing LingQs, I sometimes run into problems getting the window to pop up. When this happens, I simply refreshed the browser and the problem went away. Not a big deal but a little annoying when you are immersed in a dialogue or story.

A Few Unreliable Tutors

Most tutors on LingQ are members themselves, and enjoy tutoring as much as they enjoy learning languages. However, I had one experience where a tutor failed to show up for a scheduled session and didn’t reply to follow up emails or messages on their wall. Fortunately, I was able to get a refund for the points I spent for the no-show tutor.

My Verdict

LingQ faces competition from quite a few online language tools with far larger marketing and development budgets, but it’s focus on effective methods, authentic content, and community help LingQ continue to survive and thrive despite comparatively fewer bells and whistles. There is no perfect system out there (nor will there ever be), but LingQ offers driven, independent language learners one of the best resources I have found to date for learning multiple languages in a natural, input-based way. Those more accustomed to formal, highly structured language programs, however, probably won’t like LingQ very much. Of course, such folks wouldn’t agree with most of what I have to say anyway…

Update

LingQ 2.0 has just been released. Myriad useful improvements to make creating and reviewing LingQs that much easier. This Apple-esque video covers what’s new:

Want 20% Off a LingQ.com Account?

My Master Japanese language learning guide includes discount codes for many of my favorite sites and products, including: