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ChristianKl comments on Language Learning and the Dark Arts. - Less Wrong Discussion

8 Post author: Lemmih 06 April 2015 11:33AM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 06 April 2015 12:01:34PM 7 points [-]

Why do you want to learn Mandarin in the first place? Why is it worth the enormous amount of time to require the language? If you are clear about the reason your prospects for motivating yourself are better.

Comment author: Lemmih 06 April 2015 03:01:01PM 6 points [-]

Hm, I like this. Perhaps an automated email, sent once per week, saying something like:

My goal is to pass the Chinese proficiency exam by 2017. I have X days left. In the last week I've spent X hours practicing.

I want to learn Chinese because:

  • I want to work in Singapore/China/Taiwan after I finish University.
  • I want to prove that I can learn a foreign language.
  • I want to speak with my SO in her native language.

I fear that I would start ignoring the emails after a few weeks. It feels similar to Tony Robbins' advice to keep telling yourself why you do what you do everyday. Sounds good on paper but I can't for the life of me implement it in my daily routine.

I'll give the emails a try and see what happens. Thanks.

Comment author: ChristianKl 06 April 2015 03:18:09PM 6 points [-]

Instead of once per week you could send it whenever you drop below X hours of studying.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 April 2015 03:11:36PM 2 points [-]

Those are good reasons (especially the last one). Keep it up.

Comment author: Vaniver 06 April 2015 04:02:05PM 1 point [-]

It feels similar to Tony Robbins' advice to keep telling yourself why you do what you do everyday. Sounds good on paper but I can't for the life of me implement it in my daily routine.

I suspect some of the value of these sorts of affirmations is to identify which goals you get tired of, and which goals actually excite you. (But I also don't seem to like daily habits of that variety, so it may be a personality thing.)

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 08 April 2015 12:03:30PM 0 points [-]

I want to speak with my SO in her native language.

Should you be including some work on hearing and speaking Mandarin as well as reading and writing?

Comment author: Lemmih 08 April 2015 07:43:34PM 0 points [-]

I'm heavily constrained by what I can test/grade. Writing code to grade the correctness of my Mandarin pronunciation is hard.

Listening exercises are easier to grade and they are definitely on my TODO list.

Comment author: Aleksander 12 April 2015 05:12:29AM 0 points [-]

Can't you ask her to tutor you?

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