Studyblr

— july 2018 — ramen page :з

Your brain has no word limit. “Memorise every word you encounter” That’s not a requirement, that’s an impossible goal you should set for yourself. Learning vocabulary is like a plate that slowly turns into a bowl the more water you pour in it(weird metaphor I know but bear with me). You can learn 100 words and you’ll quickly forget a lot of them. You can learn 10 words and you’ll quickly forget some of them. But learning 30 words out of 100 is much better than learning 8 out of 10(you feel me?). The plate will overfill regardless of how much water you pour in there, so just pour as much as you can and turn that sucker into a bowl.

Simply put: The more you learn, the easier it gets to learn. 

There’s no such thing as a useless word. Vehicle. Spaceship. Run. Skedaddle. Are all important words. Never ignore a word because you think it’s useless. It’ll come to you, maybe in the next test, maybe in a conversation with a stranger, maybe written in scary red paint on the wall of a sketchy neighbourhood telling you to skedaddle. You need it.

Speak your target language*duh*. *Imagine if you will, you’re in France with little to no vocabulary. You walk into a hotel, worried as to how you’re gonna communicate with the person at the desk. As soon as your eyes meet he greets you saying in the most fluent english accent “Hello there! How may I help you?” You sigh a sigh of relief, however you remember that you’re in France, you’re committed to learning the French language. You take a deep breath and respond with “Salut! je maple Timothy je want une casa” Now obviously there’s so much wrong there. But it’s so much better than speaking english because you’ll learn what a room is, and you’ll even learn a word in Spanish. 

You’ll embarrass yourself in conversations.  No advice here just telling you a fact. A Chinese guy once asked me if I understood something and I simply replied with “I am bread” So yeah good luck.

Idioms. Learn them. They’re awesome. 

Think in target language. Weird I know. But seriously if you know how to think a sentence in your target language, do it. You’ll be more comfortable saying it and you’ll revise what you’ve learnt. As well as discover what you forgot.

Lie. When it’s harmless. Try telling a taxi driver you’re Sri Lankan see where that takes you. Unless you are Sri Lankan in which case you’re Cambodian. Say you married an Austrian pilot, or own a pet rock, or maybe related to the queen. You’ll have much more fun and useful conversations.  (P.s. If you’re half-Sri Lankan half-Cambodian you are officially Martian.)

Helpful Apps: 

HiNative: Allows you to ask native speakers what something means, how it’s used, whether your sentence is correct, or simply any question you have about said language or even culture. 

Flashcards: Pretty self explanatory. Make your own flashcards, one side in your language, one side in target language. Perfect in revising words. You can also download decks that other people have created and made public. Obviously you can use it for other subjects too. 

HelloTalk: Texting people of target language who want to learn your native language.  Help each other learn each other’s language and has great features for correcting sentences and grammar. 

I don’t think you can be a student at any level of education today without having to use at least one app to aid your learning! Whether it’s on your phone or tablet, these apps to help students are becoming more and more popular. Unfortunately, there are a lot of really rubbish ones so I thought I would do a post on my favourite apps to help you guys get some inspiration!

1. 24me (free with a pro upgrade)

Every student needs a calender app of some sort to keep track of everything. I’ve tried quite a few different ones including the normal Apple Calender and Google Calendar but this is the one that I’ve found suits me best. What’s best about it is that it isn’t just a calender, you can also put all your different tasks in it. This is really useful for me to be able to keep track of all my homework from different subjects. As it says above, it is free and even though there is a pro subscription, I honestly don’t think that you need it and I’ve managed completely fine.

2. Forest (paid)

This is a really popular app in the studyblr community and for good reason. This app is really useful to get rid of distractions when you are studying. It also has the added benefit of being able to help you track how much studying you are doing and when. What is really motivating about it is actually being able to see your first build up as you study more! A free alternative is Flat Tomato. Its a bit different and focuses a lot more on the pomodoro technique but it is still great!

3. GoodNotes (paid)

This is another popular one in the studyblr community and again it is obvious to see why. This app is so useful to take really beautiful notes. It is really user friendly and absolutely everyone I know who has tried this app has found it incredibly easy to use on the first go. There are so many different functions on this app that truly makes it heads and shoulders above all the other note taking apps.

4. Google Drive (free)

This app is one I’ve only just started using but so far I’ve found it really useful to have all my documents- from school and at home- all in one place. I also think that it has made it easier to send and transfer my documents between accounts, which before I got it, was a bit of a pain to do.

5. Word

I’ve been using Microsoft Word since I started school so I’m pretty used to it by now and for me it is an absolute essential. I have it on both my iPad and on my MacBook and I honestly couldn’t do my work without it. I have to say that it is a little less user friendly on the iPad version but otherwise I can’t really fault it.

6. Quizlet (free with pro upgrade)

This app is one of the most important apps for any student. You can find flash cards for so many different subjects and courses and you can creates sets and classes to group these together with fellow classmates. For example, in my school, someone uploads the words for vocab tests each week so everyone can access it easily. But it’s not only good for vocab but in any subject in which you need to memorise stuff. The only thing you need to consider is that the vast majority of the flash cards are made by students so there might be a few mistakes so always check!

7. Khan Academy (free)

This app is absolutely great for learning any sort of science or maths topic. The videos are really great and help explain it in a really easy way - in fact this app is how I leart to balance equations after being hopelessly confused in lessons. An important thing to note is that this is an American app so so of the courses may be a bit different to what you are actually studying if you are not American but it’s great for getting the basics.

8. Photomath (free)

This app is a lifesaver! I honestly don’t think I could live without it. I use it in order to help me out when I get really stuck on a particular maths question. What is so great about it is that it doesn’t just give you an answer it, it goes through each step, with explanation, until you get to the answer. You can use the photo function to put the equation in or manually type it out. It really is very useful to anyone studying maths even if you just use it ever now and then to help on that one question that you just can’t figure out.

9. Google Translate (free)

This app is very helpful for anybody learning a language. Of course you can’t rely on it for everything because it most definitely isn’t perfect but it can really help. For example, I often use it in German, not to get words, but just to check that I’ve got the word order correct. It also has a really useful camera function that roughly translates a piece of text. This is useful to get a rough idea of what’s happening in a piece of difficult text before going into it in more detail. However, I definitely would not use it as a dictionary, for that I would suggest Linguee (free) which is probably the best dictionary I’ve ever found for translating other languages and I would highly recommend. I would also recommend Duolingo (free with pro upgrade) for any language learners as this app helps you to learn grammar and phrases a lot more.

essays - make each essay you write better than the last


 small assignments - aim for 100s, expect 100s, get 100s


 homework - pretend they’re assignments


 homework that’s not graded - pretend! they’re! assignments!


 tests - study for 100s, expect less


 long term projects - act like it’s due in four days -even when it’s not- until you’re done with it


 group projects - do not get angry


 presentations - pretend you’re obama

16.02.19