Comments on: Learning how to learn Chinese through self-experimentation

By: Are mnemonics too slow for Chinese learners? | Hacking Chinese | Hacking Chinese

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 06:57:46 +0000

[…] mnemonics can be quite personal, and what works for one student might not work for another. Thus, you should experiment a lot and try to come up with your own mnemonics, rather than rely on those created by others (see for […]

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Tue, 17 Apr 2018 16:14:22 +0000

In reply to ChristianPFC. When conducting experimental research, it's important to keep as many variables as possible constant, i.e. only allow one variable (the one you want to study) to vary. I don't see any problem with the sentence you quoted. There are many variables and it's hard to keep them constant when conducting research!

By: ChristianPFC

ChristianPFC — Tue, 17 Apr 2018 13:05:22 +0000

Great blog! Mostly very well written, both contents and style, but this one is inelegant: “…because variables in a real classroom are hard to keep constant.” Something can either be variable or constant.

By: Erik

Erik — Fri, 23 May 2014 09:55:29 +0000

Hi,

I love this article! Because I’m a big fan of improving by self experimentation I want to add two things here that confused me in the beginning. Maybe it helps someone else as well.

1. How to get from the question to a hypothesis and how to formulate a meaningful prediction? Here is where other science comes in. Instead of doing what some newspapers do, who take the truthfulness of research for granted, the smart scientist reads a lot of other information, summarizes it, verifies it, and uses it to formulate his own hypothesis and prediction. If you don’t have any hypothesis yet or can’t argue about it based on other texts, then you probably haven’t read enough about the topic yet. Of course with this method you don’t have to limit yourself to scientific material. For most self experiments normal blogs, books, videos etc are also fine. They are just the sources and past experiences of others you use to improve your experiment.

2. Measuring: Although measuring all the time can be counterproductive (as is mentioned in another blog post on this website as well), when you do an experiment it’s very important. Doing an experiment to check whether method A makes you “more fluent” can’t be verified objectively enough. It is better to formulate a goal like “after learning with method A for two weeks (specific!) I will be able to speak 10 minutes with my girlfriend in her mother tongue compared to the 2 minutes I can manage now.” This is a S.M.A.R.T. goal and you can easily check how successful your experiment was.

By: Neil Keleher

Neil Keleher — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 05:53:22 +0000

Glad to have found your site. I apply a lot of self-experimentation ideas to teaching and doing yoga. And I’m trying to do the same with learning Chinese (since I live in Taiwan.) Nice to find someone who can explain it so well.

By: What research can and cannot tell us about learning Chinese | Hacking Chinese - 揭密中文

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 16:51:42 +0000

[…] If the participants, the situation and the subject is similar to what you’re doing, then the results can be very interesting indeed, but if not, well, then you might be better of doing your own research, conducting experiments on yourself. […]

By: Language links - May 2013 More Vietnamese | More Vietnamese

Language links - May 2013 More Vietnamese | More Vietnamese — Thu, 30 May 2013 12:21:51 +0000

[…] Learning how to learn Chinese through self-experimentation Why and how you should evaluate your language learning techniques. […]

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Tue, 28 May 2013 03:05:53 +0000

In reply to nommoc. I'm sorry, but I'm unable to find your comments. I have looked through the spam filter, too, and I can't find anything. Did you use the same e-mail and name as for this comment?

By: nommoc

nommoc — Mon, 27 May 2013 19:48:09 +0000

Olle,

I thought this post was pretty interesting and sent through two replies on it… both pretty in depth… however don’t see them here or your response… did you receive them ok? Hope so! ; )

By: John

John — Mon, 27 May 2013 14:00:36 +0000

Olle,
The other experiment I’m thinking about is memorizing dialogs. My Bengali friend, who speaks about 6 languages, said he learned languages by memorizing text.
He would be given a short story. He had to be able to write and speak this story from memory. Once he could do that, he was given another story. He just kept repeating this process over and over.

I noticed that when I try to speak spontaneously I only have the words and expressions that I know really well.
I think that I know several thousands of words (passively) but they don’t come to mind when I’m speaking.

Maybe memorizing dialogs is the way to get more words available for speaking.

What do you think of this experiment?

Thanks,
John