Richard.H

I mean, yeah sure...but this is such a slow way of doing things. You'll make so much faster progress by actually studying the language at the same time. Not to mention the true meaning of the words will probably elude you, you'll know when to use them really well, and based on that you will probably get a decent idea of what the word means....but a few years later you might find out that you've completely misunderstood. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but I definitely "mislearned" a lot of words this way. Thinking they mean one thing but in reality they mean something else. Maybe you were close, but not quite. Which is something that could cause problems later if you'll get serious with the language. It's relatively easy to learn something right, but it's much harder to unlearn a mistake/error and relearn the correct thing. Not to mention you might pick up some really rude things without realizing it, and should you use it with other natives....ouch I don't know maybe I'm dumb and the only one in the world who experienced this... Either way, as a supplementary thing to help you progress - awesome! Much recommended! As the main/only studying method? Eeeeeeeeeh, no thanks. To each his own I guess

Hahaha, why being skeptical? I mean, even if it's payed site there is usually a free trial - just try it and see. Skepticism is ok, but it won't bring you answers whether something is good or not. Everyone is a little different, what might be a good method for one may not be so great for another. So the best thing you can try is to give it a shot and see for yourself. Welkom gave you a nice list of things you could try out, so go ahead and give it a shot!

Funny I should find this thread today! I made a video on this very topic for my blog just today, feel free to check it out here: http://richardheiney.com/how-to-stay-motivated-when-learning-a-new-language/

I 100% agree! I just can't do it if I don't love the language. I the past I tried to learn Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French, Thai, and Tagalog. Only the first 3 stuck with me. The other 3 I dropped after the first lesson as I immediately realized it was simply not for me. I always say "have fun 51% of the time, and work hard 49% of the time"; I believe it does not concern only language learning though. Be it work, sport, or anything really, I think you should enjoy it. Because if you enjoy it then you can really do it well, because your heart will be in it

I started with English already in pre-school. So I don't really count that has that being my choice As for the other languages... The next one was Japanese, in 2008. I was preparing for my school-leaving exam. Not 100% sure what those are called, but basically the final exams before you graduate from high school. Back then I was super dedicated student so I was preparing really hard since the beginning of the school year. Well, understandably, by the end of the school year I was really really sick of studying and preparing for it the exam. It was so bad I was willing to study something else just as long as it wasn't school-related (after I did all my laundry and sorted out my socks 3 times of course :)). So I was like "hey, how about I learn another language? You know, just for fun, see what's it like." Little did I know how obsessed I would become in the coming years. Adding Chinese and Korean to my Japanese studies. And FYI, I chose Japanese simply because I was watching a lot of Anime at the time and I figured "hey, that's kinda cool language, and like nobody speaks it around here (meaning Czech); that's the perfect language for me!"

Kind of yeah. It's not nice, but hey. It's like being too fat or too skinny. It's one of those things that can be changed. So if it really bothers you so much you can go to the US / the UK / Australia for a while to get your desired accent. I've become comfortable with having less than perfect accent. In fact I like it now. So I really don't mind that much. Of course having somebody trying to insult you in your face because of it sucks for sure. But if that's the case then the real question is, why the hell are hanging around with that sort of people?

Hahahaha! Good one! Well, I've completely converted myself from my native tongue - Czech - to English. I rarely even think in Czech. So no I do not have this problem (not with my native and new native tongue), I feel perfectly capable expressing myself in English when I'm upset. I would find it hard to do that in Czech if anything. For the record. I've never lived in an English speaking country. However, for my other languages - Japanese, Chinese - I find it really hard to express myself when I'm upset. All the words come up in English. So if I'm really upset I just revert to English. I can't even bring myself to think in another language. So yeah I know what you mean. But it doesn't really concern my native language but rather all the languages besides English.

Thanks man! Appreciated!

Thanks Regarding "stroke order" vs radicals... If you think about it, to write correctly you need to know the stroke order. To write radicals you need the stroke order first. Otherwise you'd be writing incorrectly. And when you write complicated characters you'll probably reach into your memory of the radicals of that particular character. One way or the other, when you learn a character you inevitably learn both stroke order and the radicals. So it's not a thing of stroke order VS radicals. (PS sorry for the late reply, haven't check in while - got my wisdom tooth pulled out....nasty business...still on painkillers :/)

I finally figured out how to study Kanji/Hanzi. I used to be unable to get past 200 characters, the more I learned the more I forgot. Now I can read and write both Japanese and Chinese! How did I get there? Actually it's funny I would find this post today - I just made a video about this and posted it on YouTube today! For anyone interested: click here to watch the video

I don't know about the whole study...(I admit I skimmed it - sorry I'm not much of a reader! ) But to me it makes total sense that you like the sound of somebody's voice. Can't say for sure how huge of an impact it has on the relationship and the likelihood of the people staying together, but it definitely has a huge impact on attraction. As for me, there are girls I simply cannot stand based on the tone of their voice, and there are girls I feel crazy attracted to - again based on their voice. Again, I'm talking about "attraction", surely there is more going on between two people in a relationship than the sound of their voice. That being said, having the right voice should improve the chances of the relationship surviving, right? If even by just 1%

"where there is a will, there is a way" If you want something bad enough you'll make it happen no matter the obstacles. So the real question isn't how do we deal our schedule, the real question is how will you deal with your schedule. I understand you're fishing for ideas here and that's good, and this is my advice to you - just figure it out! Sometimes we already know the answer to our problems, we just don't listen to our "inner-self" / gut / call it whatever...you know what I mean. Don't let excuses blind you!

Hey guys Haven't been posting much lately! Been super busy making a Comprehensive Japanese Hiragana & Katakana course! Just launched it recently and already have over 1000 students from all over the world (78 different countries! sorry it's really exciting for me! :D)! So I wanted to invite people from my favorite linguistics forum as well! Together with my friend (native speaker), we've made a full blown course with about 5 hours of content, teaching both Hiragana and Katakana and some Kanji as well! You'll be getting the exact instructions on how to write the characters PLUS practice sheets you can print out and use for your practice (Riko-chan, the native speaker prepared those, she used to do calligraphy so they came out really well!) Also over 300 vocab building words are included so you can practice the characters in context! When I was doing research for this course I encountered some really interesting stuff about how Hiragana and Katakana came to be, stuff you won't find in textbooks! I made a video about it: http://www.richardheiney.com/digging-out-the-dirt-the-secret-history-of-japanese-writing/ You'll find more info about the course there, as well as a discount coupon ! Please note that the coupons are limited so don't wait around if you're interested! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! Richard

1. Japanese (various dialects, e.g. Osaka, Kyushu) 2. Chinese Mandarin 3. Korean 4. (considering) Cantonese So total of 6 languages. Then I either kick the bucket or I might add another one! Who knows

For me the most boring part is studying things I'm not interested in. Like when I have to learn a name of a vegetable - ugh, I don't even like those! LOL And always, the least favorite topics are numbers and family. Not that counting is not important, nor that I don't like my family...but I generally find these words boring. Especially when in Chinese you have a different word for EVERY single family member (meaning older sister X younger sister; uncle that's older than your father X uncle that's younger than your father - it can be a bit insane sometimes!) or in Korean you have a totally different set of numbers for different things (money has different numbers than objects, etc). Japanese does this too, but it's only a few numbers, Korean goes way overboard! Luckily Chinese has only one such number!