Interviews

What are the wrong reasons to learn a language?

The worst of all is the showoff. "I will learn this language so people will think I'm smart." "I will learn this language so people will like me more." "I'll be able to pick up girls." "I just want to get an A on this exam, so that I get into this university."

If you think like that then it's not going to work. What you really do need is a passion for that language, for the culture. You want to really speak that language inherently for those reasons, of how fascinating that language is. That's going to motivate you to speak it.

How to get motivated to learn the language?

Try and embrace the culture, try and spend time speaking with other human beings.

Why do children tend to have more of an advantage in learning languages than adults?

Children are not as much perfectionists, like adults, children are okay with making mistakes.

Don't give yourself _________________________, because they will come true. There'll be a constant feedback loop, and you'll "confirm" your suspicions. "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." - Henry Ford

self-fulfilling prophecies.

Examples of Self-fulfilling prophecies. (For Language learning. Switch it up sometimes to, can be for women, learning, discipline, etc)

"I'm too old to learn a language now." "I don't have any time." Make the time. "This person has had it easy, they must've had rich parents who paid for their whole tuition their whole life." "They must've been blessed to have the right DNA to give them the language learning gene." "They must've had it so easy and stumbled across native speakers and had a perfect situation." This is simply not the case. Each language learner has had their own challenges to go through.

Should you visit a country solely for learning a new language?

Definitely not, you'll lose out on the enjoyment of it. Learn the language in advance via the internet, so that when you're in the country you can experience the culture.

When you are failing to see results in language learning, instead of quitting, you should just

try different techniques. When you're learning something and it's not working out, that doesn't mean you're not a good learner it just means you're using a system that doesn't work for you.

Try to use _________ when learning specific words of a language.

mnemonics; Table is Tisch in German. So, you could picture a table made out of tissues in your head to lock in this association. Can use www.memrise.com

Just because someone else has done it before doesn't mean that when you do it, you're not being ________.

Creative; It may not be creative for the world, but when we talk about what's unique for you, and what has value to you, then that satisfies the criteria for creativity.

Leadership is the ability to disguise

panic. Only through repeated experiences can you learn to better handle with criticism and discomfort.

There are 5 factors in personality traits and they make the acronym OCEAN. Creatives tend to positively correlate with ________ and negatively correlate with _____________.

Openness; Agreeableness. Openness to new experiences is associated with great achievement. People who are less agreeable or more disagreeable tend to show higher creative achievement. This is a facet of nonconformism. Those who tend to challenge the status quo, challenge models, and don't believe things just because other people have said them.

When learning, a few techniques Robert Bilder finds useful are

language and words, maps and visuals, and lastly using powers of ten. That means zooming out on the exercise at a higher altitude, stepping back from the problem and asking yourself "Why am I doing this?" "What's the bigger picture?" But also zooming in on a lower altitude on the individual facets and details.

This type of thing may actually spontaneously occur after being in the diffuse state.

Another technique to engage your diffuse brain is

mind mapping (or clustering); take a piece of paper and turn it sideways, that is essential, it liberates your brain. Keeps you from right a list or an outline. Then write the topic on the middle of the page and draw a circle around it. Then just write whatever springs to your brain. Connecting those ideas with more circles and lines. Vomit on the page indiscriminately. Do not edit while you write. "Hey that's terrible but that's the way it is, it's going to come out on the page terrible." You may even be surprised later that it's not as terrible as you thought.

what had helped Dr. Norman Fortenberry study and learn most effectively?

To be a part of a group. A team. Making connections.

What helps Dr. Fortenberry with intimidation?

1. To work with a team.

2. To focus on the objective.

When learning something new, Scott Young likes to put himself in a position where he's

wrong as soon as possible. Test yourself as frequently as possible.

What is self-explanation?

Taking a blank piece of paper and writing as if you're trying to teach someone else what this idea is all about or what this process for solving this particular type of problem is all about or what it means.

When you get to somewhere where there is friction, or it's too vague and not as exact or precise as you want it to be those are the things you usually don't understand. So go back to your notes and look up that exact spot to figure it out.

How can you develop a passion for learning perhaps even in subjects you don't have a passion for?

Getting better at it. You get better at it by taking on little steps, little mini projects. Once you complete that project you build more confidence, you can do more things, you can understand more things and it becomes interesting.

How to go about developing your own projects for self-education?

Always have a mission. Make concrete projects that are exciting to you.

"I'm going to just learn this, and I don't really have any concrete goals, with no specific motivation." This just doesn't cut it. Eventually it tapers off and you don't learn much.

If you want to learn but there's no MOOC for it, try

MIT OpenCourseWare. It has such a huge volume of courses.

How Scott Young learns more by studying less?

Studying 3-4 hours a day highly focused on testing and feedback. Using Anki for flashcards, One-on-one conversations with a tutor.

The things are not only efficient but also very intense. The benefit is that you have more time and can relax longer outside the sessions.

Nelson Dellis says his insane memory was

trained.

Any memory technique involves 2 things,

One is visualization (turning whatever you want to memorize into a mental picture, that's filled with associations that mean something to you), the other is to attach it to a location.

You can't stress the importance of

backing away. Sometimes, especially when it something difficult, it is important to focus on it, as it is to be able to back away from it and then come back later with a fresh perspective and fresh mind.

Keith Devlin has never solved a difficult problem while

sitting at his chair, thinking about the problem. And he's not sure it's possible to do that. If a problem requires something new, applying all of your conscious thinking by definition can't solve it, because you're looking for something new.

If you take the human brain and you put it into a problem, into a domain and you set it free,

it loves what it's doing, it doesn't want to give up and it sure doesn't want to be distracted. So, you don't distract it and let it do what it does.

Being able to teach a material will

humble you a lot about what you really understand, but will also lead you to deeper understanding of the material, bringing you to mastery. When you find clear ways of explaining difficult concepts, it reinforces your understanding.

Dr. Richard Felder learns by

doing. Doing until he doesn't need to refer back to anything. And then to reinforce that understanding, it's explaining it to someone else.

A lot of students fear

asking questions because they're afraid of looking incompetent in front of their classmates. And so, they don't utilize their resources to their fullest capacity.

The best way to get over the illusion of competence is to

just do it. Nike. Only when you can reproduce a solution completely by yourself, then it's not an illusion of competence.

Dr. Rebecca Brent says one of the things you can do to make sure you're thinking about all the aspects of the subject you're trying to learn and understand is to

set it up. Look at a complex system that might be used in your text and then just think about it. "What are the things that a teacher might ask me to do with this system?" And in working through that, you begin to think about all the elements that need to be put in place.

Great way to get past the illusion of competency. You also might uncover somethings you don't know as well as you thought you did.

You'd be surprised how many people have

imposter syndrome. And this isn't just in learning, it could be in any area of life.

How do you get power over imposter syndrome?

Naming it. "Oh, it's the imposter." Once you realize that that's what you're doing, then it diffuses a lot of the power. Just remind yourself, "Okay this is something new, but I can do this, I can. I've met challenges before."

How Dr. Richard Felder and Dr. Rebecca Brent deal with procrastination.

1. Breaking a task into smaller pieces. Setting easier targets for yourself.

2. Make appointments with yourself. Work on something for a certain amount of time and stop when the time is done. (Ex. If you're a morning person set time aside at 10:00 - 10:30 to work)

Writing teacher says it is better to think about _______ more than you're thinking about _____.

objects; ideas. Of course, it's important to write about ideas, but it's easy to express ideas in terms of objects. Goods writers think about objects.

Ex. If you're writing about a pregnant woman needing good nutrition, nutrition being an abstract idea. Go down the latter to the world of objects and things and use words like oranges and apples instead of nutrition.

_________ switch from the focused and diffuse modes very frequently.

Creatives.

How do writers switch from the 2 modes?

Turning from your work and talking to a friend about what they know about the topic you're writing about. Shift and do a bit of reading. Maybe some research on Wikipedia for 5 minutes. Switching from typing to paper and pen. Switching from sitting down to standing up. Walk around the block.

Writing well is a matter of choosing a good

style. And style is basically the choice of what kind of words you're going to write with, what parameters are you going to have control over. So, after putting in objects, which is very important, put in active verbs. These are verbs that make something happen on the page.

When writing also put in

people. How do you put people in a piece if writing? You name them. Full name or nickname, names of people, put them in your writing.

Use _____ words when you can instead of ____ ones.

short; long. And use short sentences. It's often important especially for beginning writers not to let their sentences get out of control for too long. When in doubt, write it short.

When you decide to edit, after writing,

print it out on a piece of paper and edit it there, then move your edits to the computer.

Is there a special technique of reading that'll improve your writing?

Reading closely to people you admire. If they have works that inspire you read them. If you want to write short stories, read short stories you admire. If you like sci-fi, read sci-fi or read your favorite sci-fi author's work. Study what they did.

Studying an inspirational writer.

Looking closely at the openings of papers that you like. Perhaps copying the opening paragraph down longhand (handwriting). Underlining words that they use that you might not use but you can consider using. Study their sentence length. Look for a sentence that they wrote that you "could never" write because it's not in your nature and then go and write that sentence out longhand a couple of times.

Good writers are always thinking of their

readers. "How's my reader going to understand this?" "What is my reader going to see in his head when he reads my words?"

How to deal with having "too little to say".

This means that your imagination is probably too narrow. Often, it's because you decided to write about an abstract topic and just kept focusing on the abstraction. Shift your focus. Minds maps, Diagrams, list objects. Slow down and brainstorm wildly.

Stop focusing on trying to say something important and just try to

say something simple and clear. Cover several pieces of paper with ideas and sketches. Talking to a friend, taking a walk to get there. Another thing you can do is to write some questions down for yourself. You don't have to be an expert on what you're writing about, you just have to be clear. "I am confused about X." "I am puzzled on how X relates to Y."

Questions to ask yourself when completing a writing.

1. What am I trying to say? Did I say it clearly?

2. What must I not leave out? Is there anything I must make sure not to leave out?

Barbara Oakley says that she often learns something in the best way when she attempts to

write about it.

It is also important to work alone because it

retains your independent thought.

Summarizing ideas helps you

chunk them more easily. It also helps you know yourself more and how you view other ideas.