Hoe overleef ik

Wizardrynet’s Advent Calendar: Day Two

Hi

I actually studied Korean at university, so I am definitely of the opinion that formal, structured classes are the best way to learn a language (that and moving to the country for a while). But there are plenty of online resources you can use, as well as apps to help you study alone.

Here are some websites:

TalkToMeInKorean (from lower intermediate to advanced)

Dom&Hyo (from beginner level to intermediate)

HowToStudyKorean (from beginner to advanced)

QuickKorean (from beginner level to intermediate)

Here are some apps:

Memrise (this is a link to the website, but the app is super handy to have on your phone. Can work for absolute beginners who want to study hangeul, up to advanced vocabulary)

Gaon Hangul (total beginner level - I actually used this to learn hangeul - ANDROID ONLY)

Hangul Punch (a game that helps you learn hangeul in a fun way)

Duolingo

Another useful app to have would be Naver dictionary, which is free and easy to use. I use it all the time if I’m unsure on words. 

Other resources:

Fun Fun Korean 1 These books are published by Korea University and used on their Korean language courses. I used Fun Fun Korean 3 in my intermediate level classes. They are pricey, but you can find pdf files of them online if you look hard enough :)

Elementary Korean & Continuing Korean These were the official textbooks for my first year of Korean. Kinda dry at times, but packed full of long and extensive vocabulary lists and exercises. 

Korean children’s books! They’re great practice when you’re still at a basic level, and also they’re kinda fun anyway. There is also this bilingual collection of kids books on Amazon by Shelley Admont. 

You can also try streaming Korean TV online as listening practice.

Also, for paid language resources, I know Rosetta Stone have a Korean course. 

Korean Unnie 한국언니: Korean Unnie has many YouTube videos helpful for those learning Korean, including beginners. Every Monday and Friday at 8am KST she uploads videos to her Fun & Easy Korean series. Each Wednesday at 11am KST she streams a live Korean lesson. In addition to those videos, she has a series where she breaks down k-pop song lyrics. 

Talk to Me in Korean: Along with their textbooks, Talk to Me in Korean provides lessons through YouTube. Their lessons are great for everyone, especially beginners and intermediate level learners. They have Q&A videos, a series called Korean Buzzwords, a series called One-Minute Korean, ASMR style lessons,videos for pronunciation, and much more!

Learn Korean with KoreanClass101.com: Learn Korean with KoreanClass101 has many useful listening comprehension videos. These videos are categorized for absolute beginners, beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners. They have a series that teaches you how to read and write the Korean alphabet. Learn Korean with KoreanClass101 also streams live lessons every Thursday at 1pm KST.

Jolly: The next few channels I share are not necessarily lessons, however, they are mainly in Korean and most offer both Korean and English subtitles. One of my favorite channels is Jolly. In one of their series, Josh is teaching Ollie Korean through the Talk to Me in Korean books. They also post other types of videos, some are related to Korea(n) and some aren’t, but they all have English and Korean subtitles. 

데이브 The World of Dave: Like Jolly, The World of Dave videos offers both Korean and English subtitles. They often compare words and other things between languages such as English, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. He also interviews many people, including Korean celebrities. In addition to those videos, there are also vlogs. 

Hello! I’m sorry I took some time to respond. I’m currently travelling and my Internet and free time are very sporadic, I hope I’m not too late. I think it’s hard to make a general language plan as different languages need attention to different areas. If you want a plan for immersion, however, here’s something I think that could work in most languages. I have to exclude grammar, because it’s different for each language. 

1. Stay in the language for most of your day. If you cannot, try at least 5-6 hours at the time.

2. Do everything in your target language. Talk to yourself, try to think in it, write a couple journal entries/essays, pretend you’re on a cooking show, etc. 

 3. If you’re watching a film/YouTube/Netflix watch it in your target language. Major languages are a massive advantage here. 

 4. Change your phone settings (if possible) to your target language.

 5. Join a discord server in your target language. You don’t have to participate, you can only read, but you should! 

 6. Read the news in your target language in the morning, then try to write up a short summary. 

 7. Try to learn at least 20 new words a day. Whether it’s essay phrases, scientific words, communication phrases or grammatical words. 

 8. Try to get a teacher/tutor/advanced course. It’s always hard to progress quickly on your own, so I’d suggest to invest in a course. 

 9. A trial visit to the country, if money and time allows for it. 

 10. If resources are scared, try to get in touch with a local school. You can also use this to get a head start. 

みなさん、こんにちは！i think a compilation of the resources i used to start learning japanese will be a good introduction for this blog. it’s not an exhaustive list but it covers the ones i found most helpful! most of the resources listed here are online and free, but a few are print or require purchase.

kanji & kana

realkana : a useful hiragana and katakana quiz. you can select which characters you want to practice as well as a variety of fonts.

yoshida institute : demonstrates how to write different kana and kanji. the kanji are separated by jlpt level!

nihongo ichiban : a resource for studying for the jlpt! kanji, vocabulary, and grammar are separated by level.

kana invaders : a cute game to help you memorize hiragana and katakana!

kanji learners course : a kanji dictionary to help you learn 2,300 kanji and a lot of vocabulary! this one is a print dictionary that you have to buy, but imo it’s worth it.

vocabulary

jisho : an online dictionary that you can use to find out the meaning of unfamiliar words, look up words, and look up kanji. i use this a lot!

a lot of my vocabulary a learn from the other resources listed here (textbooks, online resources, langblrs, learning kanji). reading is another great way to learn vocabulary!

grammar

punipuni japan : has a lot of cute notes and videos on grammar and vocab.

maggie sensei : an online resource with a focus on every day japanese over textbook japanese

learn japanese adventure : a website with some useful grammar made by someone who passed the jlpt 1 after 4 years!

tae kim’s guide to japanese : an online guide for learning japanese

textfugu : an online textbook that costs money but has a lot of resources and may be worth looking in to! you can pay for a subscription or for life and you can also try the first lesson for free.

genki : the textbook series my school uses. there is genki 1 and genki 2, which cover basic japanese. i find the pacing a little slow but it is very descriptive and in depth!

japanese expression dictionary : a dictionary of grammar expression! i recently bought this book and i love it already, i definitely recommend it!

langblrs

@nihongokudasai

@nihongogogo

@japanese-revision

@kanji-a-day

Tips for Studying With a Computer

Why use a computer? Is it useful for me?

I suffer from attention problems and learning disabilities. Writing things on paper is not suitable for my thought process. Rather, I jump around and write different things at a time, then continue a previous thought process. On paper, this might involve a lot of erasing, re-writing, and arrows, and I end up with a very difficult-to-navigate mess. Typing it out allows me to write out my thoughts while maintaining a sense of coherency.

It’s very fast once you get going. With a good typing speed, knowledge of keyboard shortcuts, and a relatively fast computer, it’s a lot faster and easier to format than writing things down. 

As a very visual/artistic person, I spend a lot of time trying to make my notes and handwriting neat. I also can spend a lot of time drawing diagrams, especially studying biology. On a computer, I can easily create tables and copy and paste diagrams (or sometimes create diagrams) with little effort.

These are just my personal reasons, and if you can relate, I highly suggest trying to use a computer. It’s important to have proficiency in computers, so you can Google tutorials, take a class, or ask around. This guide assumes you have reasonable proficiency in computers.

Resources

Download your textbooks.

Note-Taking

OneNote is my program of choice due to its versatility and automatic syncing across many devices. Here is my post on using OneNote for university. 

Evernote is also a great note-taking program and comes with a built-in document scanner camera which I frequently use. 

OpenOffice is a free alternative writing program very similar to Microsoft Office.

Notability

Notepad++ (for coding)

Organization & Time Management

Google Calendar / Google Keep

iCalendar

Habitica

Plan

Todoist

Lanes

Study & Projects

Anki

Quizlet

paint.NET

Prezi

Audacity

Mind Maps

Bubbl.us

XMind

Freemind

Research

Bibme

Google Scholar

Research notes: If your university/institution offers a paid research citation program for free (Mendeley, Refworks, EndNote, etc.), use it. Otherwise you can use a spreadsheet program like Excel.

Take advantage of study playlists / ambient sounds.

Use online resources.

Your teacher may discourage against Wikipedia, but use it to gain a broad overview of a topic you may be unfamiliar about and check its sources when doing research.

Google topics. Don’t use them as sources, but they’re great when you have a quick question. Google can also function as a calculator.

General

Khan Academy

Crash Course

Learn a new skill

Educational YouTube channels

Science

Free science books

Dynamic Periodic Table

ChemWiki

Coding websites

@study-well: Biology / Chemistry

Math

Wolframalpha

Symbolab

Math is Fun

Undergraduate Mathematics

Productivity

Learn keyboard shortcuts. If you’re going to be typing a lot, you can save yourself a lot of time by memorizing certain keyboard shortcuts.

The very basics you should learn is Ctrl+C / Cmd+C for copy, Ctrl+V / Cmd+V for paste, Ctrl+X / Cmd+X for cut, and Ctrl+A / Cmd + A for selecting all text. 

In browsers, Ctrl+W / Cmd+W closes a tab, Ctrl+T / Cmd+T opens a new tab, Ctrl+Shift+T opens a previously closed tab.

In Windows, Alt+F4 closes a program and Alt+Tab switches through your open tabs.

In many text-editing programs Ctrl+B / Cmd+B is to bold text, Ctrl+I / Cmd+I is to italicize text, Ctrl+U / Cmd+U is to underline text, Ctrl+- is to strikethrough text, Ctrl+Shift++ superscripts text, and Ctrl++ subscripts text. 

Look it up in your program/OS, as each has its own set of keyboard shortcuts.

Google efficiently. Here is an article about Google tips for students.

Sync across multiple devices. Use software that is available online and across multiple platforms to sync files on your laptop, on your phone, and online. 

Symbols can be tedious to copy-and-paste if they cannot be typed on a keyboard. If you have a numpad, on Windows you can memorize certain codes to quickly type symbols. On Word, under Insert > Symbols, you can find symbols and recently-used symbols to insert. However, I suggest in work that requires a lot of symbols (mathematics and physics, chemistry, computer science, etc.) handwriting in this case is the superior option.

Use a drawing tablet (personally, I use Wacom and it has lasted me years) or a tablet with a pen such as the Apple Pencil or Microsoft Surface to handwrite notes in programs and back them up automatically. Of course, these require money and it’s up to you if it’s worth the investment. 

Limit yourself to certain symbols based on what your keyboard provides for you.

Instead of an arrow symbol, I use a dash and a less than or greater than symbol like -> or <-.

Instead of a degrees symbol, I use a superscript o.

Write a placeholder for symbols (such as (d) for delta) and replace with symbols after taking notes.

Write out your notes and type them out later when you have time, ensuring you write down symbols.

Cut the distractions. The biggest fault I find when using a computer for school is the endless possibility for distraction.

Create an alternate account on your computer that doesn’t have administrator privileges purely for study. This can limit your access on the computer and hopefully to distracting programs.

StayFocusd on Chrome to block distracting websites after a certain allowed time. (Protip: enable it in incognito mode and block “chrome://extensions” to prevent temptation to circumvent it.)

Cold Turkey (PC) / Self-Control (Mac) to block distracting programs and websites.

Ommwriter for writing in a distraction-free interface.

10 Websites to Stop That Will Help You Stop Procrastinating For Good

Health

Do not stare at the screen for too long and right before bedtime. Computer screens disrupt your sleeping cycles. Turn off your computer 1 - 2 hours before you go to sleep.

Change your writing program background to a pale colour, rather than white.

Use f.lux, which changes the blue-light of your computer screen to orange light.

Stop staring at your screen and take a break from it. 

Suffering from Carpal tunnel? Look at these exercises.

Maintain your computer’s health.

Keep it on hard, flat surfaces as much as possible and avoid keeping it on your bed for proper ventilation. Try to turn it off every night.

Security-wise, ensure your data is backed up, encrypt your sensitive data, keep your passwords strong, and ensure you have an antivirus and firewall. + more basic security tips

My rule of thumb is that when my computer runs into a problem, it is more likely I will break my computer further by trying to fix it. Unless you absolutely know what you’re doing, take it to get repaired, whether at a Best Buy/GeekSquad, Apple/Genius Bar, computer mechanic, etc. Do not touch it and save yourself some grief.

Back up your files! I cannot stress enough the importance of backing up notes and assignments on a regular basis. It’s safe to use at least two or three methods of backup to ensure you won’t lost your files.

Email attachments to yourself. Depending on your storage space for your email, this could be very useful. Main advantages include it being very easy, universal, and the ability to sort versions of a document by data.

Use online services such as MediaFire. Mediafire comes with 10 GB free.

Sync your files.

Use Dropbox. You start with 2 GB and can earn more space on a free account, which is plenty for me for a semester of work. Dropbox syncs files across multiple devices. This works for most students aside for those working with large files, such as media studies.

Use Google Drive. Google Drive comes with 15 GB space free, which makes it more advantageous than Dropbox for free users. Furthermore, it comes with browser built-in text editor/spreadsheet tool/presentation tool that you can collaborate with others on. It’s a very useful tool for group projects.

Use OneDrive. You get 5 GB free and comes with every Microsoft Office copy.

Use physical means.

A USB key is very handy and portable, if easy to lose. I suggest tying it to a lanyard or attaching it with your keys. Put your name on it and email in case someone finds it.

disclaimer - i’m not a career coach. this is just advice based on personal experience. as a business/marketing major i interviewed with companies like google, nike, philips, and am now interning at microsoft. these tips will not guarantee you a job and some things might not work in your country/industry (but hopefully they will help you along the way!)

1. your resume

 this is your ultimate marketing tool. make it work for you. i personally prefer resumes that are limited to 1 page.  it’s true that recruiters only glance at your cv for just a couple of seconds, so make yours stand out, yet keep it minimal/simple.

for each job, list bullet points and make them result-driven (and make your first bullet your best bullet).

(i will share some example layouts soon)

2. the application process / preparing for your interview

you have nothing to lose. see a job that interests you? just apply! even if you don’t meet all the requirements, it’s worth a shot. what’s the worst that can happen? you might think “but i’m not good enough for this job” - lemme tell ya, that mindset is not gonna land you ANY job at all. 

don’t wait until the application deadline. 

prepare a pitch about yourself and memorize this so you’re good to go when the interviewer asks you to tell something about yourself.

there are many websites out there that list basic interview questions. make sure you prepare for these. just google (common/top) interview questions”. make sure you have an answer in mind. 

it’s okay to indicate some of your weaknesses, but either conceal them with a strength or tell them that you’re working on improving yourself. no one is perfect. show that you’re eager to learn and grow. 

study the company. don’t just look at what they sell, but also study their mission, history and what they do “behind the scenes” (e.g. philanthropic initiatives). also have an answer to why you would want to work for this company (and why you choose them instead of their direct competitor).

ALWAYS prepare questions for the interviewer, too. one question that i like to ask is “what is one thing you DON’T like about working for this company?”. i have asked this to managers at google and microsoft, and some didn’t have an answer for me hehe. surprise them. 

3. the interview

BE YOURSELF! i can’t stress the importance of this enough.it’s totally ok to be nervous, but try to relax anyways!

practice a firm handshake.

always be prepared to elaborate on your cv and job experiences. this shouldn’t be a problem as long as you don’t lie on your cv lol. 

dont worry about awkward silences when the interviewer asks you a question. take some time to compose your answers rather than simply trying to bridge the silence by blurting out something . some companies also like to hear your think out loud.

take some time to get to know the interviewer. if s/he doesn’t do so already, ask the interviewer to tell something about themselves.

dress accordingly (some companies require you to dress smart, others are fine if you show up in a casual outfit). if you don’t know what the dresscode is, don’t be afraid to contact the recruiter about it. 

didn’t get the job? don’t be so hard on yourself. you tried your best, so consider your interviewing process a lesson and a training. 

4. on the job

networking is important. schedule coffee with your teammembers so you can get to know them better one on one (maybe you’ll even make some friends along the way). are you interested in what other teams or departments do? don’t be shy and get to know them too. 

iif another intern is onboarding you and showing you the ins and outs, always take notes. you tell yourself you will remember everything, but trust me; you won’t. write down any instructions you receive and you will thank yourself later. 

never ever be afraid to ask questions.

don’t be afraid of new challenges.  

if you have any q’s, shoot me a message. got any additional tips? feel free to send me those and i’ll add them to my list (ofc i’ll credit where due).

You don’t need amazing grades to be a studyblr- when i started most of my teachers didn’t think i was even going to turn up to the exams

You don’t need a pretty backdrop to be a studyblr- i don’t have a fancy desk because i know i will never use it

You don’t need a macbook/mildliners/moleskin to be a studyblr- if it’s out of your price range thats okay get cute stuff from the stationery section in the supermarket, just because the majority of studyblrs have them doesn’t mean you should

If you are scared to post your own pictures- be brave, no one is gonna make fun of you 

Hey there, cherubs! ♡ As most of you know, 2016 was a very hard year for me; I was diagnosed with aggressive cancer and for that reason, all my plans and dreams had to be put on hold. But tomorrow, I have the scan which will tell me if I am in remission or not - and I am ready to get back on track and chase my dreams. Like many of you, I have some big plans and I wanted to hare my tips for making the best of it all and also achieving what you wish to achieve. ♡

SET CLEAR GOALS (AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE)

Goals are important and help us work hard, so it’s important to have something to work towards.

However, it’s okay to not know exactly what you want to do!

“I want to be happy and have a job I love” is just as good as “I want to be a linguist who went to this university and…” You know what I mean?

Goals help us keep moving forward. Even if you only have short-term goals, that’s better than having no goals at all!

BE PREPARED TO WORK HARD

Dreams don’t come without effort. There’s no two ways about this!

Motivate yourself by looking at your goals and get your head down.

But remember, its okay to take breaks and relax - You need to find a balance that keeps you focused, but also keeps you healthy and happy.

BE POSITIVE. (NO NEGATIVITY ALLOWED!)

Okay, I’m kidding. We all have times when we’re feeling low and that’s okay! Don’t feel guilty just for feeling down. It happens!

However, your self doubt needs to go out the window as much as possible. Sometimes you have to look at yourself and make the conscious effort to smile and think, “I am worth all of this and I will go far”

You’re the only you there is, and you should strive to be the best version of yourself you can be. Self love and healing doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a slow process but when you find yourself and love yourself, your dreams become that little bit easier to catch. You are the key to achieving your dreams.

FIND INSPIRATION

Look around and let yourself be inspired. Find quotes you love - people you admire - let the world inspire you. It really is an amazing place!

My favourite quote is “Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures”. Find a quote you love and stick it above your desk!

SHARE WHAT YOU HAVE

Make people smile. Give to the homeless. Tell people how pretty they’re looking today. Compliment strangers. Offer support.

Life is about giving and sharing this love and kindness.

It will help you move forwards in life - believe me. You will meet amazing people through simple acts of kindness.

FAILURE OR SETBACKS ARE NOT THE END OF THE WORLD

You will get there. 

If you aren’t doing as well as you’d hoped, do not beat yourself up.

Work hard, push yourself, and live happily. Don’t let the world change your smile, but let your smile change the world.

Don’t give up! (Unless you want to.)

It’s okay to give up and to change your path. But don’t let anyone dictate it; Only do what you want to do. If you feel this isn’t the right direction for you, then take another path. You have years to find your path.

DREAM BIG. BE THE BEST YOU CAN BE. NEVER GIVE UP.

how do you guys feel about these? i have a web development course i’ve been trying to get through for like, a year and i just can’t bring myself to do much of it.

TLDR; Treat this course as if you have deadlines with it. Create a schedule for your learning and give yourself the structure that you’re used to so that you can get it done!