a study blog for collected references, advice, and inspiration
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Latest Posts by swirlspill-study - Page 2
14/03/19 - Some more technology notes and diagrams. A slow but productive day today!
what tips would you give to someone who wants to learn a new language, or continue learning a language over the summer break?? any apps or websites, or ways to stay motivated?
Learning a new language or continuing learning is honestly something I struggle with simply because of my experience with bad teachers, BUT I can still give you some tips on what I’ve done to stay motivated so far.
Find a language you are passionate about!! If you’re burnt out on what you’re learning, find a new language to learn. It’s not ideal to start back in square one, but it’s okay to do so!
Make flash cards! Everyone recommends this, but you can make a game out of what you’re learning. If you’re on the go, I recommend downloading Tinycards. Since it’s owned by Duolingo, they have sets premade for your target language.
Watch videos. This has helped a lot with learning a new language for me. You can either watch educational videos where you’re being taught grammar or vocab or you can watch videos of people speaking in your target language.
Interact with the language! Watch movies, listen to music, etc. Find different genres you might not enjoy in your native language and try them your target language! You never know what new content you come across that you enjoy.
Google Translate is not your enemy. It’s okay to use it. It’s not what people want to hear, but it’s ok to use if you’re struggling with how to pronounce a word or if there’s a word you simply just don’t know.
Pace yourself. Work on your target language at least 15 minutes a day especially for new learners. It sounds daunting, but practice makes for motivation.
Some apps/websites I recommend:
Duolingo
Tinycards
Memrise
YouTube (Use this to learn the alphabet and numbers. Duolingo seems to not understand “beginner” means you’re a beginner.)
Leo
Google Translate
Spotify/Pandora
Netflix/Hulu
These are all pretty standard tips that I’ve seen, but I fully stand by all of them. More tips can be found at my Langblr @ess-tset under the tag #learning. I hope this helps!
i can not and i mean i can not stress this enough… make a bibliography as you do your research. i mean, make a fully formed, correctly cited bibliography as you work. just do it. i know i know you’re being lazy or you hate making citations or you’ll just get to it later or you don’t want to get distracted etc etc etc
whatever your reasons just make the fuckin bibliography
and while im at it… put the footnotes in properly as you are writing. just… do it. for future you. please. for your sanity. do it.
Generic
Lessons learnt from this summer by @minijournals
Tips and guides
Selfcare guide
Self care by @kimanoir
Self care tips for students by @theorganisedstudent
12 steps for self care
Self-care to do list
Some little self care things by @irinastudies
Self-care guide by @thetrevorproject
101 self care ideas by @microstvdy
Self care by @littleredstudies
Finals self care by @rubypolar
Instruction manual by @hufflepuffwannabe
Some self care tips by @lovefulls
Self care by @lazyhermione
15 self care ideas by @kaleylearns
Little self care things by @flowerais
Self-care by @mlstudies
Self care by @likelyhealthy
A very brief guide to selfcare by @ejlandsman
My favourite selfcare tips by @rubynerdy
26 selfcare activities by @sheisrecovering
Little habits/things to do more of by @heyrosiebee
Sleep
Guide to sleep by @educatier
Balancing sleep & education by @brbimstudying
Perfect night sleep
How to go to bed early and actually fall asleep
Water
How to drink more water ft printables
Hydration masterpost
Breaks
Take a break
Types of study breaks by @samsstudygram
Tips for getting better rest
Treat yourself
Simple ways to treat yourself by @anitastudy
Guide to treating yourself by @pennyfynotes
25 No/Low cost self care acts by @gaygirlhustle
Feel good
How to feel better by @bbangstudies
Feel good by @librarystudies
7 ways to feel better by @p-antarei
If you are having a bad day by @theblacksiren
Destress
Easy ways to destress by @parisgellerstudy
Stress relievers by @noteology
How to deal with stress by @studywithclover
Apps to help you destress by @gracelearns
Tips to manage stress by @fairy-studies-blr
Burnout
How to deal with study burnout by @eintsein
Avoid education burnout by @neuroticmedblr
Mental health
Saving your grades from a crisis by @smartstudy
Chronic illness + studying by @studysenior
Coping with mental health by @overstudies
Studying with depression by @rannedomblr
Anxiety
Anxiety distraction games by @peachou
Anxiety masterpost by @dotgrids
Relaxing doesn’t help anxiety by @merrybitchmas91
Meditation and focus
Study sounds
Others
What to do with notebooks by @tbhstudying
Podcasts for students by @studyquill
Period masterpost
Dealing with eye strain by @studylikeaslytherin
Listen by @studyblr
50 things you can do without looking at a screen
How to live a better life by @wilstudies
Fitness & health for student by @abby-studies-art
Friendly reminders taken from @cwote
Your mental health is more important than your grades
You are good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, and strong enough
Don’t just be good to others, be good to yourself too
Embrace all that is you
You will be okay
Just breathe. It will be okay.
Be proud of yourself for how hard you’re trying.
Be nice to yourself
Don’t beat yourself up. You are doing the best you can.
Be gentle with yourself, you’re doing the best you can.
Better things are coming.
Loving yourself is the greatest revolution.
Remind yourself, you deserve to be happy
Respect yourself. Don’t let others tell you who you are.
Learn to say no to people and things that make you unhappy.
Enjoy your own company.
Forgive yourself.
Never apologise for how you feel
Give yourself some credit. You’ve come pretty far.
Mental health is just as important as physical health.
Surround yourself with good vibes
Stop worrying about people who aren’t worried about you.
If you find you are surrounded by toxic people… Cut. Them. Out.
Trust yourself. You’re smarter than you think.
college advice from someone who’s been on both sides of it
So I’m finishing up my Ph.D. and preparing to depart for the real world (no, just kidding, I’m going to be in school forever, only in a different capacity) and I thought I’d put together a list of some college tips to share with you all. I graduated with my B.A. in 2012, magna cum laude, with 2 majors, 1 honours thesis, 2 on-campus jobs, and 3 music things. Since then, I’ve gone to grad school and also taught six semesters of first-year seminars. Now I’m going on the job market for teaching positions. All of this means that I’ve seen both sides of the college experience, as a student and as an instructor. There are a lot of great & useful college advice posts going around studyblr this time of here, and I wanted to add my own. I hope it’s useful. So here we go, with a “read more” because it’s long (sorry if you’re on mobile):
academics
find your classrooms ahead of time (profs’ offices too)
figure out how long it will take you to walk between places
figure out where your best seat will be & claim it
say hi to the people next to you, learn their names
take notes in class
take advantage of extra credit
try your best not to fall asleep in class (and if you do fall asleep, apologise to the prof afterwards)
bring your glasses if you need them, don’t be stubborn about it
check out the library, wander in the stacks, talk to the librarians
figure out how & where to print
buy used books/textbooks, or rent them, but be careful with ebooks (some profs don’t allow them)
plan breaks into your class schedule, or block everything together, whichever works best for you
work out the pros & cons of 8am classes and/or night classes
plan ahead – have a planner, put things in it, do them
fake deadlines are a thing (write down earlier deadlines, trick yourself into meeting them, bask in satisfaction)
grades won’t be what they were in high school
keep in mind GPA values: a 3.5 will see you graduating with honours
be nice to the departmental administrative staff, thank them for helping you (even with small things)
office hours versus emailing profs: both will get your questions answered (probably) but if you can go and talk in person, do it
profs & TAs are people too, they have lives, they have bad days
if something comes up, talk to your prof, be honest but don’t overshare, just show them you’re trying
on that note, try
Keep reading
Academic writing advice inspired by Umberto Eco’s ‘How to Write a Thesis’:
Planning
Determine primary sources/bibliography.
Determine secondary sources/bibliography.
Find title.
Brainstorm a table of contents with as much detail as possible (with chapters, sections and even paragraphs and sub-paragraphs - see How to Write a Thesis’ own table of contents as an example at the end of this document) (if the first drafted table of contents is good enough, it will not be necessary to start the writing from the beginning).
Do a first draft of the introduction.
Note-taking and research
Use Google Scholar to make sure you do not miss important sources.
Keep the table of contents in mind when researching and take notes of which sources could go where.
While note-taking, differentiate which parts could be used as quotations from the ones that are simply important for the argument.
Eco underlines the importance of what he calls reading sheets, which can be understood as your notes on your readings. According to him, these should contain:
information about the author if he is not a well-known figure;
a brief (or long) summary;
they should mostly consist of quotations (accompanied by all the corresponding page numbers)
any commentaries you might want to add;
an indication of which part (or parts) of your table of contents the information mentioned belongs to.
Keep reading sheets on primary sources (which should be the longest) separate from those on secondary sources (which should only be 1-2 pages long).
In the end, re-read the notes and color-code all the different parts according to where they would fit in your table of contents.
Writing and editing
A good place to start would be by redrafting the introduction.
Define every key/technical term used/mentioned unless indisputably obvious.
General writing tips:
keep sentences short;
do not be afraid to repeat the subject twice (ex: Roberta went to the shop (…) Roberta bought carrots and tomatoes);
avoid excessive details;
avoid subordinate clauses (orações subordinadas);
avoid vague language;
avoid unnecessary adjectives;
avoid the passive voice.
While drafting, write everything that comes to mind. Leave the editing for the end.
Use your tutor as a Guinea pig. Make them read your first chapters (and, progressively, all the rest) well before delivery is due.
Ask for as much feedback as possible. Ask colleagues, friends and/or family to read your work. They will provide you with more diversified feedback, as well as allowing you to know if your writing is clear to anyone.
Stop playing ‘solitary genius’.
Don’t insist on starting with the first chapter. Start with what you know best and feel more comfortable writing about, then fill in the gaps.
Leave time for editing and try to take at least a one or two days long break in between writing and editing.
Do not forget to fill in the gaps. When you revisit your writing, go through it with all these writing tips in mind as well as a conscience of what your most common mistakes are.
Use Hemingway in the final editing phase.
Quotations and footnotes
Since there are two kinds of sources (primary and secondary), there are also two kinds of quotations: either we quote a text which we will interpret, or we quote a text which supports your interpretation.
Some quotation rules to know:
“Quote the object of your interpretive analysis with reasonable abundance.”
“Quote the critical literature only when its authority corroborates or confirms your statements. (…) when quoting or citing critical [aka secondary] literature, be sure that it says something new, or that it confirms authoritatively what you have said.”
“If you don’t want readers to presume that you share the opinion of the quoted author, you must include your own critical remarks before or after the passage.”
“Make sure that the author and the source of your quote are clearly identifiable.”
“When a quote does not exceed two or three lines, you can insert it into the body of the text enclosed in quotation marks. (…) When the quote is longer, it is better to set it off as a block quotation. In this case the quotation marks are not necessary, because it is clear that all set-off passages are quotes, and we must commit to a different system for our observations. (Any secondary developments [like the quote’s reference] should appear in a note.) (…) This method is quite convenient because it immediately reveals the quoted texts; it allows the reader to skip them if he is skimming, to linger if he is more interested in the quoted texts than in our commentary, and finally, to find them immediately when need be.”
Some footnote rules to know:
“Use notes to add additional supporting bibliographical references on a topic you discuss in the text. For example, ‘on this topic see also so-and-so.’”
“Use notes to introduce a supporting quote that would have interrupted the text. If you make a statement in the text and then continue directly to the next statement for fluidity, a superscript note reference after the first statement can refer the reader to a note in which a well-known authority backs up your assertion.”
“Use notes to expand on statements you have made in the text. Use notes to free your text from observations that, however important, are peripheral to your argument or do nothing more than repeat from a different point of view what you have essentially already said.”
“Use notes to correct statements in the text. You may be sure of your statements, but you should also be conscious that someone may disagree, or you may believe that, from a certain point of view, it would be possible to object to your statement. Inserting a partially restrictive note will then prove not only your academic honesty but also your critical spirit.”
“Use notes to provide a translation of a quote, or to provide the quote in the original language.”
very confused by Master’s students in one of my module who seem to freak out at the idea that they be forced to use a citation style they are not used to (forcing them to use either MLA, APA or Harvard) … Don’t people use Zotero, or Mendeley ?? or any tool to which you just say which style you want to use??? The the smart smart computer does its thing ??? Do they FULLY WRITE ALL THE REFERENCES BY HAND ??? INCLUDING THE BIBLIOGRAPHY ??? I AM WORRIED
Writing a commentary or essay on a text you’ve never read before in exam conditions can be daunting, but with the proper approach to it, you can ace your way through it with little to no stress!
Before the exam
Familiarise yourself with how we read and find meaning in any text.
What are the effects of different types of structure, narration, rhythm, action, diction, sound, setting, characterisation, figurative language, tone, atmosphere, imagery, subject, themes, ideas, etc.
Knowing the common devices authors use to create meaning allows you to identify them more easily in any given text.
Practice, practice, practice!
Find any past exam papers available, even if they are for a different type of certificate, and practice them under exam conditions.
Take excerpts out of a random book and practice, whether it be from a library, or your own personal collection.
The more you practice critically analysing a text, the easier it will become. If you don’t have the time to sit down and write out a complete essay, even planning how you would structure your essay and the ideas you would discuss is beneficial. This really cannot be over stressed, the more you write on unseen texts, the more comfortable you will be tackling another in a serious exam situation.
If the essay must be handwritten, this will also give you an opportunity to ensure your handwriting is legible and you are used to writing for prolonged periods of time.
Compare ideas in a group.
I always find working in groups for English to be highly effective. By discussing a text with a group of friends, someone will probably express an idea you had not considered before and you’ll be more open for alternate interpretations and more likely to recognise them in your own time
Critique your past essays.
Whether they were prepared or unprepared essays, identify areas where you need to work on to improve your essay writing.
Recognise your strengths as well and make an effort to try and include them in all your future essays!
During the exam
Read the text several times.
Before reading it, look for anything that immediately sticks out. For poetry, is there a distinctive shape? For prose, how is the text separated - one block of text, or several paragraphs?
Your first read should simply be for initial impressions. Is there anything that strikes you as important? What is the main idea of the text after only reading it once? What is its tone?
The second reading should be for content. What ideas are at the forefront? What is the author trying to communicate? Underline and note aspects in the text about this. Colour-coding your annotations can be helpful here!
In your third reading, you should start noting the style. What stylistic features are prominent? There will likely be a lot on imagery, syntax, diction, structure, etc. Focus on the most important ones and their impact. Is there more to it than meets the eye?
Deconstructs the question if you are given one so you fully understand what it is asking you to do.
Probably stating the obvious, but it is so important to understand what the question is asking you to write about. Understanding the question can mean the difference between a standard essay and an amazing one.
Don’t just identify a familiar word in the question and use it to write about whatever you want. Make sure what you’re going to write about addresses all parts to the question. If you’re asked to write about how and to what effect something has had an impact on the reader, don’t just write about how; you must write about to what effect as well! I usually underline the most important parts of the question so I don’t forget to write about them.
Define relevant key terms that are important to the question. How is a character made interesting? What is meant by unreliable? Try to subtly integrate these into your introduction.
Plan your essay.
An examiner will usually be able to tell the difference between a planned and unplanned essay. Planning gives your essay structure, coherence, and makes it easy to follow.
You can take a linear structure, addressing aspects of the text line by line. Alternatively, you can take a conceptual approach - discussing narration in one paragraph, imagery in another, etc. In my experience, the conceptual approach usually scores higher, however it is really up to the text you are analysing and what you are comfortable writing with!
If you aren’t given any prompts or a guiding question, make sure your argument is really clearly outlined in your introduction, or else you’ll leave the examiner guessing as to what you’re writing about.
Make sure to include important quotes and examples in your plan so you don’t leave them out when you write it.
If you are stuck as to what your line of argument should be, I usually like to address how various techniques are used effectively to communicate the theme. It’s a general and open ended question that will fit any kind of text, so long as you identify the techniques and devices!
Essay must-haves:
Include a macro sentence as the first sentence of your introduction. Draw the reader in with a statement that broadly covers the ideas you are going to cover.
Every paragraph must start with a topic sentence and end with a concluding sentence that links it back to the aim of your essay. This also ensures that you actually address what you set out to talk about.
Integrate quotes and examples smoothly into your arguments. Small phrases and individual words especially give your arguments concrete evidence, and allow you to work the detail of the text.
Proof-read your completed essay.
There is nothing worse than to come across a simple grammatical mistake that was overlooked in a really well organised and argued essay. Try to read your essay through twice before handing it up to try and identify these stupid mistakes we all make under pressure.
Sorry for such a long post! This turned out a lot longer and more in-depth than I thought it would be, but hopefully it will be helpful to those of you who have any unprepared texts to tackle. Let me know if anything is unclear or if you have any questions here :) xx
Hey! Im thinking of doing computer science in uni next year and I wanted to know if my computer will be sufficient? Got any recs?
Hi there! While I am a huge tech nerd, and would love to recommend cool devices for your use during your degree, I honestly think that most of the basic laptops are sufficient to complete a Computer Science degree. The flashy added features are mainly for aesthetic and are mildly time saving. You are rarely actually going to build projects that make use of all of your excessive RAM space or multithreading capabilities. The most of your degree is just going to be pulling up PDF’s and using your internet browsers. A lot of schools allow remote connection to stronger servers if you need a heftier processing power anyway. All that being said, here are my top tips when deciding on a device for your Computer Science degree:
Focus on battery life and keyboard comfort (for your hand size and typing style). You are going to be typing a lot, and you don’t want your device dying on you randomly in class. *shudders in lost code*
Invest in the largest solid state drive (SSD) that you can afford. Avoid hard drives as internal storage. Please. Your computer will constantly scream if you don’t. SSD’s are so much faster.
Good screen quality helps, especially if you play games and watch videos on your device like I do
Invest in an external monitor (or two!). The extra real estate is a life saver when coding, as you can pull up documentation, stack overflow, and multiple tabs in your IDE all at once. Really helps optimize your workflow
If your thirsty for cool tech, a dedicated GPU helps (but it will hike up your price a lot). It mostly comes in use if you are doing a lot of video editing, gaming, animation, machine learning or data science tasks. Don't really need it otherwise
If you try and get a good deal on a setup that provides most of the above, you'll be golden. Don’t stress too much! You don’t spend as much time on your computer in this degree then you think you might.
Fractures:
Depression: Broken bone portion pressed inward; skull fractures.
Comminuted: Bone breaks into many fragments; common in the elderly.
Simple/Closed: Clean break, bone doesn’t penetrate skin.
Compression: Crushed bone; spinal fractures.
Compound/Open: Bone penetrates skin.
Greenstick: Bone breaks incompletely; common in children.
Impacted: Broken bone ends forced into each other; results of blocking a fall.
Pathological: Results of disease and degeneration of bone tissue.
Spiral: Ragged break as a result of twisting forces; common sports injury.
did some review for our botany quiz on monday! i accidentally fell asleep throughout the entirety of our teacher’s three-hour lecture, but thank the heavens for powerpoint presentations aaaa
120319 The circulatory system has consumed my last few days and I’m actually not mad about it. Paperless note-taking is getting better and better. The possiblities are endless, and mixing different elements is making me learn a lot more. look at that juicy musculus papillaris.
IG: nerdysophie
hi chelsea!! i'm an undergrad student right now, considering a career in academia. my adviser and all my professors tell me i have a lot of potential and i love the idea of spending my life teaching and doing research, but i've read so many horror stories about people trying to find & keep jobs and eventually leaving academia. i was wondering if you had any insight or advice, maybe even places where i could find a more positive & encouraging (but still realistic) perspective. thank u!!
i’m not sure i’m in a great place to answer this for you! the realistic picture is just… not encouraging. finding someone who’ll say “of course you’re going to get a job!” might make you feel better temporarily, but that person is lying to you, and the lie is going to come back around and hurt worse in five years or so.
in other words, the horror stories are ubiquitous because the experience is ubiquitous (and tbh, though quit lit has def blossomed over the last few years, there’s still a far greater number of people leaving academia than are represented in those accounts–many people see leaving as “washing out” or admitting defeat, and don’t talk about their decisions to go).
this is not to say that you shouldn’t go into academia. but as i tell my own mentees, you should not go into academia with the expectation of getting a job at the end. i went into grad school because i liked doing the work, and because i did some self-assessment and concluded that even if i didn’t leave six years later with a tenure-track teaching job, i wouldn’t regret taking the time & doing the work to get the doctorate. then i sat down and had a little chat with myself two-ish years ago and decided that yes, i was going to Go For It, which has meant avoiding quit lit for my own mental health and focusing on the positives (your professors! those are the extant examples of people who got the kind of research & teaching job you want!). asking your advisors about this directly is a great place to start; you can also read karen kelsky’s the professor is in, which i’ve mentioned here a few times, for a fairly realistic description of what the market is like at the moment.
hi! i'm in my undergrad currently taking a food history course and i'd like to write about medieval food and its intersections with medicine.... somehow (broad, i know.) do you have any essential scholars/articles to get me started at looking at medieval food and medicine?
christopher bonfield’s got a fabulous essay in a festschrift for carole rawcliffe from… 2017? called “the first instrument of medicine,” which i highly recommend! you may also want to check out melitta adamson’s food in the middle ages (and any of her other cookery work), as well as wendy wall’s recipes for thought (technically about EM recipes but really useful for thinking through domestic epistemology & household practice) & cm woolgar’s food in medieval england, which is explicitly about nutrition :-)
this is a dumb question, but how on earth does one get an interpretive thesis? everything I've come up with just sounds like it's describing stuff that happened, and I'm starting to think I'm just not cut out for writing this stuff....
oh man, okay, here is how to write an interpretive thesis:
find a but.
the easiest way to make your thesis interpretive is to have a “but” moment. It’s where you set up a particular picture of what other people might think is going on, and then you point out why that picture is incorrect, because X.
like my friend’s thesis which was “you may think that bioethics came into being in the wake of the the nuremburg trials, BUT the tuskegee syphilis experiments showed that these standards had yet to permeate the wider scientific culture”
or my thesis, which was “because of the way medical ethics developed as a discipline, it tends to focus on medicine through the lens of the clinical encounter BUT in our changing healthcare system, that is no longer a valid approach to take on the question of ethical practice”
it’s helpful if you find a lot of scholarship, or an influential scholar who you can disagree with; if you’re pushing back an established view within your field, or general knowledge. Most theses begin with a disagreement of some kind, and it’s a very fruitful place to begin.
I would also say there’s nothing wrong with….not writing a “but” thesis? One of my friends wrote his thesis on the intersection on current brain research, education, and those online services that claim to boost your brainpower. There’s not a lot of research in that specific area, so his was an exploratory thesis, suggesting a theory of its own based on what he had found. If you’re already in a well-trod field with lots of literature around your topic, though, that might be harder.
Talk it over with your advisor! They should be able to point you in the right direction, or at least suggest some more avenues of research.
do you have any learning materials for learning chinese?
Are you learning Mandarin or Cantonese or another Chinese dialect/language cuz I’m not sure which resources you want? I can give you some resources for both Canto and Mandarin but I don’t have any resources for other Chinese dialects / Chinese languages
Mandarin Resources
PDF’s (it contains PDF files to learn Mandarine.)
Mandarin Resources / Rec Post
Free Resources For Learning Mandarin Chinese
Chinese Grammar Wiki
yoyochinese
chinesehulu
memrise
Tips on learning Mandarin Tones (Check this post for tips on learning Mandarin Tones. I learnt Chinese tone naturally so I don’t have anything to recommend so I just link you this blog post.)
Chinese Pronouns
Youtube
Learn Chinese Now
Lenguin.com Language Lessons
Vocabulary Videos
How to Speak With Numbers in (Mandarin) Chinese (In the West, we use acronyms for online chatting and texting such as BRB and LOL. For the Chinese, we use numbers! This video will help you learn how to speak with numbers in Chinese.)
Chinese Family Tree
11 Crucial Chinese Phrases
How to Curse in Mandarin Chinese
Textbooks
Integrated Chinese 中文听说读写
Links to watch Chinese (Mandarin) Dramas
DramaFever
Viki
Cantonese Resources
My first language is Cantonese so I’m not learning it from any materials but I’ve found a few site that looks quite interesting and looked quite helpful that you could try.
PDF’s (it contains PDF files to learn Cantonese.)
Apps Rec
Teach Yourself Cantonese
Cantonese Dictionaries
Cantonese Grammar
Cantonese Pronouns
Youtube
Cantonese Tone
iCANTONESE
Cantonese Bad Swear Words
Vocabulary Videos
How to Speak with Numbers in Chinese - Cantonese Version
Chinese Family Tree - Cantonese Version
CarlosDouh (This is helpful to learn some slang and how and when they are used in Hong Kong.)Cantonese Slang (Another clip with a list of some commonly used Cantonese slang)
Sites to watch Hong Kong / TVB Dramas
newasiantv (with subs)
icdrama (without subs)
Watching dramas/films/shows will definitely help you learn and improve your Cantonese.
Chinese Reading & Writing / Character Resources
Chineasy (They also have books you can buy on amazon or on here)
3000hanzi (A site dedicated to help people learn to read Chinese)
Chinese Poems
To improve or learn Chinese characters, try to watch some Chinese dramas and/or shows with Chinese subtitles, it will help you learn and improve your Chinese reading.
Some Info about Chinese Languages / Culture
Cantonese Vs Mandarin (This video tells you the difference between the two.) There is another link you can try here)
Chinese Culture Topic Videos (You should check out their channel, they talk about many other things about Chinese Culture / China.)
The Chen Dynasty
Taiwan vs. Mainland Mandarin Chinese
Blogs / Blog Posts
language-obsession
Chinese resources
tips for classics majors
from a second-year classics major. i’ve acquired these tips from my seven years of being a latin student and one year of ancient greek.
this post can be helpful for classics majors or people interested in self-teaching the classics. my concentration within my major is language and literature, so my tips will revolve around latin and greek. but if you’re studying any other ancient or modern language, my tips may still apply to you :)
~ make word associations. this is a BIG one. there are many nuances to this tip, so to start, i’ll explain why associations are useful, and then i’ll give several examples with different variations to cover the nuances.
since many english words, prefixes, and suffixes are derived from both latin and greek, take the time to figure out one or two english words that come from each new word you learn - these can either be normal everyday english words or pop culture references. (also, latin is semi-derived from greek, so you can make associations between the two languages as well). if you learn any kind of word association, it will make remembering the word so much easier.
examples:
pop culture: pane, which means bread in latin, is related to The Hunger Game’s city of Panem (panem is the accusative singular of pane). food insecurity is a big theme in The Hunger Games, therefore Panem is an appropriate name for the city that the series takes place in.
latin/greek to english: in latin, vicina is an adjective meaning “close, neighboring,” and its english derivative is “vicinity.” in greek, παιδευω means “i teach” and its english derivative is “pedagogy” - aka “a method/practice of teaching.” κριτης means “judge” and its english derivatives are “critic, criticize” and “critical.”
greek to latin to greek: sometimes it’s tricky to find out which word came from which language first, but usually it’s greek to latin. example: dea (“goddess” in latin) comes from θεα in greek.
think of those word associations as you learn your ancient language vocab. it will make recalling a word’s meaning so much easier.
anD DON’T FORGET TO LEARN THE GENDER AND THE GENITIVE SINGULAR OF EACH NOUN YOU LEARN BECAUSE IT HELPS WHEN DECLINING THE NOUN AND MATCHING IT UP WITH ADJECTIVES LATER ON OH MY GOD thiS IS SO IMPORTANT
~ make a concentrated effort to remember lots of different sentence constructions. there are so many i literally don’t remember them all and i’ve been doing this for years. the major categories i can think of off the top of my head are subordinate clauses, conditionals, and indirect discourse, and, more generally, learn the difference between the primary and secondary verb tenses.
~ every so often, brush up on as much grammar and vocab as you can. i’m saying this because i’ve procrastinated reviewing greek all summer and i barely remember anything beyond the basics :/ pls don’t tell my professor.
~ learn authors’ common themes and literary/rhetorical devices. for example: in the elegies of propertius, a roman poet, he used emptiness and unfulfilled wishes as motifs. learning words associated with emptiness and learning how to recognize the introduction of a wish made translating faster. i’ll confess though that i never really brushed up on the use of the optative subjunctive (the device used in wish statements), so i couldn’t recognize how exactly to translate certain sentence constructions. if i did review, it would have made translating in class a breeze. but hey, it was my first semester in college and i had no idea what i was doing at that level. please learn from my mistake!
~ learn the political, cultural, and historical context of each piece of literature you read. it will make the experience richer. if you know the context of a fiction piece, whether its poetry or prose, you will understand so much more about it. for example: the aeneid, vergil’s masterpiece (and arguably one of the best works in latin literature), is an ode to augustus. augustus commissioned vergil to write the aeneid and to make comparisons between himself and the protagonist aeneas. he wanted people to see him like they saw aeneas - kind, pious, loyal, determined, and in charge. knowing that bit of information makes many parts of the aeneid clearer. you can apply this tip to any piece of literature, no matter the language.
this is also important in terms of non-fiction writing. i took a class on roman letter writers and i would’ve been completely lost if my professor didn’t share anything historical with us. these letter writers typically vaguely referenced local gossip because messengers often read letters that were meant only for the recipient’s eyes. my professor filled in a lot of what was missing from the letters themselves.
~ have fun with it. learning languages is supposed to be fun!! of course languages enrich your mind and bring you into close contact with other cultures and ways of life, but it is supposed to be fun too. example: propertius once wrote a whole poem about knocking on his lover Cynthia’s closed door while she sat inside… and the door was a metaphor for her vagina…. which means propertius was h0rny on main!! and he published that in a poem!!1! for people all over rome to read!!!!
in terms of plays, my friend read one in latin by plautus about a prostitute who subverts the traditional roles associated with customer-prostitute relationships. he absolutely loved it bc the main character was a bad b!tch… and bc it was a comedic play.
there are lots of metaphors and jokes written within latin and greek literature, so don’t be afraid to laugh :) it makes learning that much more enjoyable
~ when reading a work of literature, ask yourself what this reveals about the author’s culture. (suicide tw: mentions of su*cide as a plot point in tragedy) this tip is kinda related to the cultural context one, but different in that it looks for culture within literature, rather than looking at literature as a product of culture. and like the previous tip, you can apply this to any piece of literature no matter the language it is in. it’s important to think deeply a piece of literature as well as enjoy it for what it is. example: i’ve read most of sophocles’ plays and i can tell you that the greeks were very comfortable with suicide as a plot point. while murder is also common, suicide is much more common no matter the tragedy. the fact that this theme occurs throughout so many plays tells me that greeks viewed suicide as a tragic occurrence that affects people deeply, but also as a common way to die. it raises questions: what percentage of deaths were attributed to suicide in ancient greece? was it viewed as honorable or shameful? etc.
and going back to vergil yet again (he’s my homeboy fr), when writing about dido and her people building the city of carthage, he specifically mentions that they are building the theaters first before almost any other building - and these few lines implicitly state that the arts were very important to carthage’s culture as a whole.
~ to sum it up: as a classics major, if you are intentional about learning the languages and truly engaged with the literature, the process will be that much more fun and you will gain that much more out of it. (<- and that sentence has a future-more-vivid construction by the way hehe)
how i use notion #1: mega assignment list
i promised i would update this from last year, and decided to do a walkthrough for @sleepanon!
i’ve taken my school bujo-ing digital for the past year, so i’m going to create a mini-series of how i’ve tinkered with notion to make it work for me! there’s a fair learning curve to it, so my inbox is open for questions if you have any from my posts (not notion in general. ..i’m not an expert lol).
step 1: start a new page! under database, select table
step 2: rename the labels to assignments and class (leave Files alone) for now. you can also title the page and add icons/covers
step 3: select the files label, then under ‘property type’ change it to ‘date’ (this is for deadlines–i start with my official syllabus dates)
ALSO a part of step 3, but after changing to the deadline property, add another one! click that next label, and follow the same menu as above, but select checkbox to give you an option to ‘complete’ your tasks:
step 4: in the ‘class’ row (the first blank after the label), type in a course name to create a tag. once you do so, you can select the tag to edit it or change colors // you can repeat this step as many times as you need to for your assignments. i like to do my entire semester at once since i work ahead of the syllabus, but it might be good to take it month by month!
step 5: now, let’s add the calendar view. on the lefthand side, ‘add view’, name it, then select calendar (not just highlight like me, but click it!)
step 6: you should now see your assignments on the calendar. on the right side (top) of the calendar, click ‘properties’ and turn everything on!
you can also filter the calendar to only show completed/non completed tasks or by class:
and you can click on any assignment to open it, and add further properties:
again, if you have any questions about this, please let me know!
How to Really Comprehend a Scientific Paper
**credit to my research advisor, she’s an amazing mentor and I aspire to be just like her someday :)
Read the abstract. Write down what the paper says it is going to be about.
Read the introduction. Write down what the paper says it is looking to accomplish and how.
Read the conclusion. Write down what the paper actually did accomplish.
Go through and find all the pictures, graphs, or diagrams. Write notes explaining these images to yourself.
Read the whole paper start to finish. Write a summary of the paper as though you are explaining it to a layperson, and then another summary as though you are explaining it to a colleague.
Throughout all of the above steps:
If there are words you don’t know google them and write down the definitions
If the paper defines a formula, law, variable, etc in a certain way write that down
If there are references to or recommendations of other literature write those down. After the last step if there’s anything you’re uncertain about or would like more information on look to that list for further reading
An Overview of Note-Taking Styles
Note-taking is one of the most essential skills a student should master. It allows you to record and review information to be used in the future. But what’s the best way to do so? Here’s an overview of note-taking styles that can help you maximize your learning!
general language learning resources
dictionaries:
wordreference - has spanish, french, italian, portuguese, catalan, german, swedish, dutch, russian, polish, romanian, czech, greek, turkish, chinese, japanese, korean, & arabic
reverso translation - has arabic, chinese, dutch, french, german, hebrew, italian, japanese, polish, portuguese, romanian, russian, spanish & turkish
bab.la - has spanish, arabic, chinese, czech, danish, dutch, finnish, french, german, greek, hindi, hungarian, indonesian, italian, japanese, korean, norwegian, polish, portuguese, romanian, russian, swedish, swahili, thai, turkish, vietnamese, & esperanto
digital dictionaries of south asia - has dictionaries for assamese, baluchi, bengali, divehi, hindi, kashmiri, khowar, lushai, malayalam, marathi, nepali, oriya, pali, panjabi, pashto, persian, prakrit, rajasthani, sanskrit, sindhi, sinhala, tamil, telugu & urdu
resources for learning words in context:
reverso context - has arabic, chinese (in beta), dutch, french, german, hebrew, italian, japanese, polish, portuguese, romanian, russian, spanish & turkish (in beta)
linguee - has german, spanish, portuguese, french, italian, russian, japanese, chinese, polish, dutch, swedish, danish, finnish, greek, czech, romanian, hungarian, slovak, bulgarian, slovene, lithuanian, latvian, maltese, & estonian
for learning different writing systems
omniglot - an encyclopedia with literally any language you could think of including ancient languages
scripts - an app for learning other writing systems with a limited amount for free (you can do 5 minutes a day for free) - has the ASL alphabet, Russian cyrillic, devanagari, Japanese kana, Chinese hanzi, & Korean hangul
Wikipedia is also helpful for learning different writing systems honestly!
pronunciation
forvo - a pronunciation dictionary with MANY languages (literally an underrated resource i use it all the time)
a really helpful video by luca lampariello with tips on how to get better pronunciation in any language
ipachart.com - an interactive chart with almost every sound!! literally such an amazing resource for learning the IPA (however does not include tones)
another interactive IPA chart (this one does have tones)
language tutoring
italki - there’s many websites for language tutoring but i think italki has the most languages (i have a referral link & if you use it we can both get $10 toward tutoring lol) - they say they support 130 languages!
there’s also preply and verbling which are also good but there aren’t as many options for languages - preply has 27 and verbling has 43
(obviously these are not free but if you have the money i think tutoring is a great way to learn a language!)
getting corrections/input from native speakers
hellotalk - an app for language exchanges with native speakers & they also have functions where you can put up a piece of writing and ask for corrections - honestly this app is great
tandem - language exchange app but unlike hellotalk you can choose multiple languages (although i think hellotalk is a little bit better)
LangCorrect - supports 170 languages!
HiNative - supports 113 languages!
Lang-8 - supports 90 languages!
verb conjugation
verbix - supports a ton of languages
Reverso conjugation - only has english, french, spanish, german, italian, portuguese, hebrew russian, arabic, & japanese
apps
duolingo - obviously everybody knows about duolingo but i’m still going to put it here - i will say i think duolingo is a lot more useful for languages that use the latin alphabet than languages with another writing system however they do have a lot of languages and add more all the time - currently they have 19 languages but you can see what languages they’re going to add on the incubator
memrise - great for vocab! personally i prefer the app to the desktop website
drops - you can only do 5 minutes a day for free but i still recommend it because it’s fun and has 42 languages!
LingoDeer - specifically geared towards asian languages - includes korean, japanese, chinese & vietnamese (as well as spanish, french, german, portuguese and russian), however only a limited amount is available for free
busuu - has arabic, chinese, french, german, italian, japanese, polish, portuguese, spanish, russian, spanish, & turkish,
Mondly - has 33 languages including spanish, french, german, italian, russian, japanese, korean, chinese, turkish, arabic, persian, hebrew, portuguese (both brazilian & european), catalan, latin, dutch, swedish, norwegian, danish, finnish, latvian, lithuanian, greek, romanian, afrikaans, croatian, polish, bulgarian, czech, slovak, hungarian, ukrainian, vietnamese, hindi, bengali, urdu, indonesian, tagalog & thai
misc
a video by the polyglot Lýdia Machová about how different polyglots learn languages - this video is great especially if you don’t know where to start in terms of self study
LangFocus - a youtube channel of this guy who talks about different languages which is always a good place to start to understand how a specific language works also his videos are fun
Polyglot: How I Learn Languages by Kató Lomb - this book is great and available online completely for free!
Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner (on pdfdrive) - another great book about language learning
Anki - a flashcard app (free on desktop for any system & free on android mobile - not free on ios mobile) that specifically uses spaced repetition to help you learn vocabulary, it’s got a slightly ugly design but it’s beloved by many language learners & is honestly so helpful
YouTube - literally utilize youtube it is so good.
Easy Languages - a youtube channel with several languages (basically they go around asking people on the street stuff so the language in the videos is really natural) & they also have breakaway channels for german, french, spanish, polish, italian, greek, turkish, russian, catalan & english
there’s also the LanguagePod101 youtube channels (e.g. FrenchPod101, JapanesePod101, HebrewPod101) which are super great for listening practice & language lessons as well as learning writing systems!
dropbox containing linguistics textbooks
contains 34 textbooks including etymology, language acquisition, morphology, phonetics/phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, & translation studies
dropbox containing language textbooks
contains 86 language textbooks including ASL, Arabic, (Mandarin) Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Modern & Ancient), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh
dropbox containing books about language learning
includes fluent forever by gabriel wyner, how to learn any language by barry farber, polyglot by kató lomb
if there’s a problem with any of the textbooks or if you want to request materials for a specific language feel free to message me!
26.12.20 / i wore this knit cardigan yesterday and got reminded of fuminori nakamura’s books on account of the red color. i highly recommend his books if you’re into crime fiction. anyway, how’s your saturday? i hope the holiday season has been kind to you this year ♡
9 points about language learning and how I’m learning 20+ of them
I’ve had a few requests to write about how I learn my languages. To different degrees, there’s currently 20+ of them and I don’t see myself stopping yet. The thing is, learning languages comes really easily to me and I want to share, maybe it will be helpful to somebody else.
First, I’d like to have a look at first versus second language acquisition. I’m a linguist and I’m super interested in Child Language Acquisition. That however, has a critical age of 14 (or so I was always told) and is then no longer possible and any language learned after that age will never progress as quickly or can’t be learned perfectly. Well. I disagree. The simple difference is - first language acquisition is how you acquired your first language(s) as a child. By imitating, finding patterns, etc. Second language acquisition is what you know from language courses. Vocabulary, irregular verb tables, endless exercises. Now that we got some of the terminology off the table, let me see how I actually learn languages: 1) I utilise elements of the first language acquisition rather than second language I’ve only studied vocab a couple times at school, when I put them into Quizlet or when someone forced me to. I’ll get back to it in another point. I don’t learn patterns. I know there is one and I let the input do its magic of slithering into my head. Again, more on that in point 2. You always get told you’ll learn a language better when you’re thrown into the country where they speak it. And it’s so true because of the processes behind it. Because input and immersion are the keys and that’s how children learn, too.
2) I don’t cram languages. I process them.
Around langblrs, I keep seeing all the ‘crying over verb tables’, ‘trying to learn a 1000 words this week’ and the like. That may work for you, sure. But I’ve never done that. I did learn a few irregular verb patterns for German in class, but while I could recite them, it wasn’t helpful. In Irish, I sometimes still wonder which verb ‘An ndeachaigh tú?’ comes from. The thing is, you’re able to process language. You know this word is probably irregular. If you come across it and don’t know what the irregular form is, look it up. After you’ve looked it up for the tenth time, you’ll probably remember by then. Same with anything else. Don’t try to learn things by heart when it comes to languages. 3) Vocab?? Same rule applies here. I’ve only learned vocab at school and then a handful of times when I wasn’t too lazy to put it into Quizlet (which is fun and I learn something, but it’s more of a useful pastime than anything). When you read, just skip the words you don’t know and only really look them up if you can’t tell by context. NEVER translate vocabulary. I mean, sure, look up what it means, but don’t connect it to the word itself. Connect it to the meaning. Pictures work better. As for abstract words, imagine the concept. Just try not to bridge the meaning of the word with your native language. Languages in your brain are meant to be two separate units. Unless you’re working on a translation piece, they shouldn’t be ‘touching’. 4) I use example sentences for everything.
Grammar guides are useful but rather than learning all the rules at once, take it one step at a time and remember some example sentences and let them guide you through the grammar rule you need.
5) Input is everything. Output is hard, but you’re basically imitating input and utilizing patterns you know (or think you know). Let me give you an example. Let’s say I’m writing a piece on my daily routine, for example. I make use of the example sentences and try to tailor them to my own needs. Trial and error, if I make a mistake, it’s okay, if somebody points it out, I probably won’t make it next time. As I progress, I will gradually remove the mistake. Same goes to new words and new verbs. Use the input you’ve got. Does this verb sound like some other verb you’ve heard before? It’s might have a similar conjugation pattern. You can check it, you don’t have to.
6) Learning languages should NOT be stressful! I never stressed over learning a language. Sure, I’m frustrated that after a year and a half of learning Irish, I’m not 100% fluent, but I’ve never stressed over it. I’ve never cried over it. I’ve never cried over a language (I only cried after a French oral exam which I thought I failed). Don’t be hard on yourself and try learning through a method that’s not stressful. Watch videos for children. Read books for children. Write down cool things in your target language(s). 7) You’ve learned a language before. Why wouldn’t you be able to learn it now in a very similar way? This is basically me saying that I have little belief in the efficiency of pure second language acquisition. Maybe a few individuals can reach fluency by cramming a language, the thing is, I think that if we concentrate on processing instead of remembering, just like we did when we were children, we can reach better results in a shorter amount of time. Also, if this is your third or fourth language, compare to languages you already know. 8) I don’t start with basics. I start ‘somewhere’.
Delve into the language the second you’ve started. Are you overwhelmed? That’s fine! You’ll find your way around it. Start with word meanings, finding out what kind of sentences those are and then build your way around it. Don’t start saying ‘hello’ and ‘I’m from’. Those are cool, but usually, they are used in a different way when you actually go out and speak. You’ll get them along the way.
9) Don’t rely on instructions (only). Rely on yourself.
This is just my two cents. I’ve pieced this together trying to remember how I’ve learned what I’ve learned and comparing it to how others around me learned. Please, let me know if it makes any sense. I may edit this and post this again later if I have any more ideas. Feel free to contribute or to bombard me with questions. I’m happy to answer.
I need advice. I've always had a problem with my grades. I've failed a lot of classes, not because I don't understand, just because I'm so depressed I can't find the motivation to do a single thing. I know that this year I NEED to get good grades. Report cards are almost out. Im more depressed now then ever. I have bad grades at the moment. I just recently learned that I have to put my cat down, and that is making it hard for me to even speak, let alone get stuff done. Any advice
/hugs/ I’m so sorry to hear that you’re going through a rough time. Especially with your cat.
First thing is first: take time. From what you’ve written, it doesn’t sound like the content of your classes is causing you trouble. Rather, it seems like there’s external factors that’s preventing you from studying - circumstances which are triggering your depression etc.
Studying with depression is difficult. Consider professional help as an option. Rely on your support network. Learn to forgive yourself for not performing at your best because of your mental illness. Remember - it is something to be managed; not a barrier to your success.
I’d also consider speaking with your faculty/ advisor etc. There may be formal avenues of review or adjustments to where/ when you take your exams and/or deadlines that may help relieve the stress in the interim as you get back on your feet.
Here’s some tips re: motivation
Five Practical Study Tips to Keep Motivated in School by @nag-aaral/ @sadgirlstudying (working link by @pas-au-talent)
Motivation by @areistotle
Motivation masterpost by @elkstudies
Motivation masterpost by @artkidstudies
Tips for avoiding burnout and staying motivated by @coffeesforstudiers
And for dealing with failure:
Dealing with Failure
Shit Grade? Feeling better after a terrible exam
This response
And this one
And this one here
On Bad Semesters by @post–grad
This Masterpost by @areistotle
How to Fail by @psychstudyblr
Good luck - give yourself time. Focus on “how” (not just a demand - ‘need’) to get exams. Celebrate your victories - not matter how small. Because it’s going to be a slow process. But you’ll get there. It may not be the ‘perfect’ solution or the perfect ‘result’ you want - but hell, we’re human. It keeps things interesting.