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Category Archives: review

Collecting Sentences or Learning Japanese?

It’s become popular of late to “collect sentences”.  As though this is a goal unto itself. There have even been a few discussions on the interwebs. Some have even blossomed into organized efforts with semi-elaborate controls on copyrighted works.  I did my own experiment with these a while back because I thought this was a [...]

Posted 08 July 2008 † Khalid § burnout § sentences ‡ Comments ° Tagged: , , , ,

What is an SRS, Really?

An interesting post over on the All Japanese All The Time blog, revisiting Spaced Repetition Systems, or SRS. Khatzumoto is making an observation about how certain knowledge makes its way into our long term memory that I would like to extend:  Why do you remember your own name? Because your mother sat you down one [...]

Posted 19 May 2008 † Khalid § ‡ Comments ° Tagged: ,

Which Comes First: Study or Play?

A quote from a discussion over at Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar Forum: What can I do to review Japanese at this advanced level? Reviewing grammar is painfully boring now — heck even have most of the guide and the grammar books that I read memorized –, and the only other option for any [...]

Posted 26 March 2008 † Khalid § studying ‡ Comments ° Tagged: ,

Burnout and Language Learning

Burnout is the greatest enemy of learning any language. It takes a goal like fluency that motivates you, that drives you, and turns it into something you hate. I think most of us have had that moment when we’ve worn ourselves down trying to memorize as much as we can in as little time as [...]

Posted 16 March 2008 † Khalid § burnout § studying ‡ Comments ° Tagged: , , ,

What does it mean to “know” a word?

What do you get when you review a word with flashcards or a spaced repetition system? When you can go through a list and give all the correct answers, what have you accomplished? Do you know the words or are you simply adept at reciting answers? What does it mean to “know” a word? At [...]

Posted 18 December 2007 † Khalid § studying ‡ Comments ° Tagged: , ,

What Did Your Last Test Teach You?

I’ve never been a fan of tests or reviews for the simple reason that they are rarely used to move you forward. Did poorly on a test because you had difficulty understanding the material? That’s nice, the class will be moving on now. Reviews, Tests, Quizzes and the like are typically used to determine what [...]

Posted 05 December 2007 † Khalid § ‡ Comments ° Tagged: , , ,