My language study methods
Below I describe how I studied
- German
- Russian
- Japanese
- Hebrew
- Chinese
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German
German was the first language I studied. In the traditional fashion: In an overcrowded university room studying grammar tables. Relatively easy to learn because its phonetic and similar to English.
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Russian
Most of my progress with Russian was in the kitchen of my landlady in St. Petersburg. I have fond memories of winter nights talking for hours (I understood half the conversation) beside a flaming natural gas stove, drinking strong black tea and studying my Russian-only dictionary.
Russian is phonetic (written like it sounds), and in many ways like English. The grammar is supposed to be complicated, but there is a certain logic to it.
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Japanese
I just spent one year in Japan. But I studied a lot. The writing system includes letters, making it somewhat easier to learn.
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Hebrew
I spent a great deal of time reading a Hebrew-only dictionary and watching 5 different children's DVD ("Bob the Builder", "Pinnochio", "The 3 Bears", "Around the World in 80 Days" and "Thomas and Friends".
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Chinese
Quite a challenge to learn for several reasons:
1. Characters, no letters.
2. Chinese dont want to speak Chinese with me. They want to learn English.
3. Most people in China don't speak Chinese.
My current study method:
1. nciku.com
Simply the best way to study Chinese.
My activity at http://www.nciku.com/terry_taylor/activity/studyDetails.
2. xinhua.net
I download (using VLC media player; RealPlayer downloader refuses to work on my PC)
the Xinhua news program daily from http://www.xinhuanet.com/video/xhsspzx/zdbd_more.htm.
I delete (using AVS4YOU video editor) unintelligible mumbling and foreign audio
and then save in a format for my iPodNano.
I copy to iPodNano (using CopyTransManager; iTunes has a bug and will not startup on my PC,
even if you following Apple's workaround directions).
The subtitles are in text format, making it easy to look them up using drag and drop to nciku.com.
3. DVDs
I probably watched "Lord of War" in Chinese over 100 times. :)
I have about 10 DVD's that I used during my early studies.
4. pps.tv program "Natural Code" (ziranmima).
The pps.tv software must be installed on your PC.
This is a daily nature program in Chinese with Chinese subtitles.
5. Military technology http://cctv.cntv.cn/lm/junshikeji/index.shtml
I have studied every program on this site.
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