Skip to main content

Method Bashing

When starting off on your language-learning journey, and even long after it's ended, it's easy to get caught up in methods and what methods work the best. Now, on this site I endorse every method, whether you're a university student or a self-learner; whether you eat, drink, and sleep textbooks, immerse yourself into the language, or speak your way to fluency. I don't care because I know that everyone learns differently.

That's why I hate it when people out there try and make it sound like there's only one good way to learn. I've come across people who look at input methods and say, "Whatever happened to hard work! Is this some new age cult of language learning!" and I've come across people who bash on the output method saying, "You know you're still not good at it!" These people are ignorant, and I don't use that word often or take it lightly.

You see, there's a lot of ways to learn a language, and I myself use different methods depending on what my language goals are. There's nothing wrong with wanting to feel like you're working harder than anyone else by using textbooks and taking classes, but there's also nothing wrong by feeling like you're learning naturally. It's not a weird cult, and it's not a fad that will pass, for people are getting results.

Learning is a process that's different for everyone. Some people are hands off, some are hands on. Some people need visual cues, others audio. Are any of these wrong?

Sorry for the short post, but I just had to get this one out there because too many people right now are hating on other methods of learning.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dragonball Evolution - Ugh!

I'm sure many of you have probably already seen the trailer, but in case you haven't, here it is: I was inspired to do this by the live-action Avatar movie coming out. Like pretty much every animated show to get the live-action treatment, Dragonball doesn't look so great. Now, I'm going to admit that I'm not the franchise's biggest fan, but after years of being forced to suffer through episode after episode, I can safely say that I'd rather watch any episode of Dragonball, Dragonball Z, or Dragonball GT rather than this movie. First of all, it looks like it's going to utterly kill the story, and there wasn't too much of that to begin with. In fact, this looks like it's going to be a coming-of-age, keep your teenage sons busy for a night kind of movie. As far as Goku goes, well, he probably shouldn't look like a little skinny guy. He's a big, buff fighting dude whose hair turns blonde when he gets all pumped up. I mean, even those Ember

Valentine's Day in Japan!

It's a holiday, and I'm taking a break from an article I've been working on for my other blogs in order to have some fun. It's Valentine's Day, and I thought I'd let everyone know how it works in Japan, because it's not like it is here in America. Firstly, only women give chocolates in Japan. Traditionally speaking, women were supposed to be shy and all around not very good at communicating their feelings, thus Valentine's Day was a perfect way to help them out. Women give out chocolates on Valentine's Day not only to their friends and lover, but also to pretty much any man they know. When the giving of chocolate is obligatory, as is the case when a woman gives chocolates to her boss, coworker, etc., it is called giri-choko (ぎりーちょこ). This means that if you're visiting Japan and a girl you may kind of sort of know gives you some chocolate, don't think it means your advances have worked! She might just feel obligated to do so. The Japanese feel

Review for Rosetta Stone

I told you I wasn’t gone for good! Today I’m going to be mostly bashing Rosetta Stone’s language learning software. This review goes for Rosetta Stone whether you’re learning Japanese or any other language that this software purports to teach. It purports to teach because Rosetta Stone is particularly bad at teaching anything, except how to look at pictures and repeat words. It’s aimed mostly for travelers, but doesn’t really get you conversing, and it’s expensive to boot. Really, there’s only a couple things it does well, but this isn’t enough to make up for all the failing this software does. If anyone from Rosetta Stone actually reads this, please use the criticism to improve your software! You probably already know that Rosetta Stone teaches you language easily, right? I mean, that’s what the advertisements always tell us! What Rosetta Stone tells us and what it actually does are like night and day, but if you really don’t know much about Rosetta Stone, here’s what allegedl