A very short example for beginners. In less than 5 minutes of your time you read and write around 3% of all Chinese characters used in any text.
The easiest character in Chinese is the character for Number one.
一 (one stroke) .
Number two in Chinese writing will be 二 (two strokes).
And how would you write the Number 3 in Chinese ?
三 (three strokes).
Summary: To learn to write the first three numbers it is only required to learn one stroke. If you write the numbers in English with letters you will need to learn the words: one, two, three.
The first stroke, which resembles also a chinese word and character:
Let’s continue.
How to write ten ? You just need to use a vertical stroke to cross the stroke for number one. So ten looks like this: 十 in Chinese.
What is the meaning of 十一 ? It is number elven.
And how would you write 12 ? 十二.
I think by now I do not have to tell you how to write the number 13.
If I put the two 二 before the ten 十 I get twenty 二十. How would you write thirty ?
Can you tell me how to write twenty-one ? Yes, it is written 二十一.
Twenty-two is 二十二 and twenty three ?
How would you write thirty-three ? 三十 三. And now again the challenge for you to write thirty-one and thirty-two in Chinese.
If you cannot figure it out please send me an email.
Summary: With one more stroke that you have learned you can write this amount of English words in Chinese characters: Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two and thirty-three.
The second stroke:
And not only does every Chinese in China understand you but as well every person in Japan and even in Korea or Vietnam.
Tell me: how long did it take you to learn these two strokes and to write the numbers in Chinese ?
We don’t stop here. If you learn just another 4 strokes you will add several words to your newly acquired Chinese reading and writing capabilities.
Think of the half moon . 月 is the Chinese Character for moon. It is also the character for month. One way to remember this character is to think about the number two (2 Strokes 二) and then to add the shape around the number two strokes. If you want to write January in Chinese, it is 一月. February will be 二月. And what will be the characters for March ? 三月.
You already know how to write ten in Chinese. Therefore also October will be easy for you – it is 十月. And November ? 十一月. Well, December I won’t tell you, I let you guess it….
Summary: With just 4 more strokes you can now write seven more words: Moon, Month, January, February, March, October, November and December. Are you still not convinced that Learning Chinese Writing can be much faster than learning English ?
Okay, if you are still in doubt I will add another example. Another 4 more strokes to remember. So far you have learned 6 strokes which make up 5 Chinese characters and which gives you 23 English words.
Think of the sun with one big sun spot in the middle . In Chinese it is written nowadays like this 日. It is the literal meaning for sun, but usually it is used for the word day. You could also remember the character by thinking of the number three 三 to which the vertical stroke from the number ten in Chinese is added to the left and right side.
If you read a Chinese newspaper on the front page you will find the Chinese character for moon/month and the Chinese character for day/sun. Guess what is 三月三日 ? It is March 3. March 2 is 三月二日. And what March 1 ? Clearly February 2 is 二月二日. And November 12 ? 十一月十二日. Okay, I won’t tell you January 1, December 13 or any other dates you now could write in Chinese.
Summary: With four more strokes you can now write: sun, day, January 1,2,3,10,11,12,13,February 1,2,3,10,11,12,13,March 1,2,3,10,11,12,13,October 1,2,3,10,11,12,13,November 1,2,3,10,11,12,13, December 1,2,3,10,11,12,13.
At least you when you come across any Chinese newspaper you know what date the article or the newspaper was published.
And without telling you anything, you can probably guess what this means 2013 年 三月三日 ? March 3, 2013. And what is the meaning of the character 年 ? …..
Do you really want to stop here ? I will give you more convincing examples that Chinese can be so easy and even fun.
Another four strokes: See the 5. See the Number 5. The Chinese Characters looks very similar: 五 for 5. Not much difference really.
Actually all of the strokes you more less have seen before. The stroke for one 一, which is used at the bottom and the top of the character. The half-moon stroke 月 used on the left side of the character and the right and down stroke used in the middle of characters which is the same used in the sun character 日.
Now that I have shown you how to write 5 in Chinese – how many more words can you write now ? Plenty, isn’t it. First five, then fifteen 十五, twenty-five 二十五, thirty-five your take, and fifty-one 五十一, fifty-two you do,fifty-three 五十三,fifty-five you know, what about May 五月 and what about May 5 ? ….Guess….Yes….Now….Okay…五月五日. Wow, so many more words with just one more 4 stroke character whereby you have learned all the strokes of the Number 5 before.
Another Summary:
- You have learned 5 types of strokes – see Chinese writing strokes - or Chinese Character Dictionary
1. The stroke heng (horizontal) 一 for the Number 1
2. The stroke shu (vertical) 丨 for the Number 10
3. The 2 strokes tóngzìkuàngr to write the moon
4. The stroke hengzhe (horizontal stroke with a vertical turn) for Sun
With these 5 Strokes you now can write 6 Chinese Characters 一 , 二, 三, 月, 日, 五
which represent 78 English words.
What happens when you bring the sun 日 and the moon together ? You will get the character 明, which means bright. Isn’t it brighter if you see the full moon and the sun during morning hours ?
What happens if you add a dot on top of the sun 白 ? The dot looks like the drop of a paint. Written like this 白, this characters stands for the color white.
Now what do you get if you use the character for bright 明 together with the character for white 白? These two characters together 明白 represent the meaning of to understand or to realize.
Summary: Just one more stroke, a little dot on the sun 日 and the combination of characters you already have learned, presented you three new words: bright, white and to understand.
You have come so far now. Did you notice how interconnected the above characters are. Isn’t this magic. Well, if there are still sceptics left….
I add one more . 了 – two strokes. 明白了 means ”I see!” Your first grammar. The character 了 is used behind verbs to show that the action has finished, that the action was completed. So with high probability if you see the character 了 the two Chinese characters before will be a verb.
This character alone will represent 1.1% of all Chinese text.
Are you convinced now ? If not I will continue….
I am reading the book of Katharina Saalfrank – Das Ende der Erziehung (the end of education). She takes a new look on upringing of children.
In the book she favours a more systemic approach – where she advocates a move towards a more relationship (Beziehung) based upringing rather than on the assymetrical power relationship (education).
Lately there is a tendency towards a more traditional approach of punishment and disciplinating, which she demonstrates leads to unwanted results.
I took one of the stories and read it to my children (6 and 9 years of age) without telling them the context or the intention of the story:
It goes like this:
On the street
On a sunny spring day a mother is taking her one year old daughter to the playground. The girl is sitting in her baby carriage and is curiously observing the environment. The cap she is wearing is slipping and covers her eyes. So the girl takes the cap off her head. As the mother is concerned about the protection of her daughters ears she covers again the head of her daughter with the cap. This leads to a continuous struggle between the girl pulling off the cap and her mother putting it back on. With every second both become more and more unhappy with the situation. Finally the mother says: “If you do not stop pulling off your cap, I will have to hurt you. If you do not want to listen, you have to feel the consequences.” She hits one time with assertiveness the hand of her daughter and puts back the cap on her daughter’s head while the baby starts crying.
What were the first reaction when they heard the story:
6 year old: a one year old cannot understand why it should put the cap back on to cover her ears, too young
9 year: The mother should have immediately returned home or accept the daugher’s decision – this is horror what the mother did.
When I asked them if I should read another similar story they both immediately said, no not again such a horror story….
Since many years I am involved in change management. The major concern everyone involved in change talks about is the resistance to change and how to overcome it. Change is considered to be negative, that people do not want to change and would love to continue as is. It needs a sense of urgency, a melting ice block, in order to get people moved and behave differently in the future.
But honestly how often have you wished to change some of your habits? How often have you heard your friends, your family members or colleagues talk about “New Years Resolutions”. There are so many private change initiatives out there where people embrace the change, where they see the benefit, the urgency to change, but yet sooner or later they fail during their change journey. Statistic shows that only 10% of all weight loss change initiatives lead to a sustainable success where the person keeps the aimed new weight over a period of 12 months stable.
What is it that always throws us back to point zero even with all our best intention at the start of every change journey ?
There is a simple answer – we work with the wrong part of our brain.
We need to incorporate our intuition, our longtime memory our emotional brain in the change. To often we only rely on our rational brain, our short term memory, our working memory.
The rational brain works well, when we read a new book on the latest diet, the best way to manage our time (stress) or how to optimize our taks at home or at work. It also works well when we join workshops and within this “safe” environment learn new methods, tools or systems.
But how often is it, when we are back in our “normal” environments that even with our best efforts we fail to implement our new tools, methods, system or processes ? Most of the time the excuse I get is – “well I wanted to, but than I did not have the time nor the energy and there were suddenly other priorities to deal with….
Over the years I have experienced a number of change methods and read the latest research on change.
Change has to do a lot with learning new things, relearning and unlearning.
Like learning a new language change takes time and if you do it well it can be playful, fun, exiting and a wonderful journey. It does not have to be hard, painful and teeth-byting discipline.
The best way to start any change journey is to view it as an expedition into the unknown. Why ? Well, would you start an expedition to the unknown immediately? Would you just run off and see how you end up in the unknown ?
Probably most of us would first like to prepare before we embark on such ambigious journey. Preparing means learning, learning where we wish to go, what it will take us to get us there, what we will do when we encounter barriers on the way, face risks or unexpected events. How much resources and knowledges would we need in order to arrive at the place of our desired destination. Clearly the conclusion is if you prepare well, you probably already have increased your chances of success from 10% to 50%. Yes, without having gone through any major painful exercises or change in diet, you have achieved 40% of your change goal.
Preparation Period: Every advisor in the field of change would recommend to start with a clear vision, with a well defined goal. But do you have one ready at hand ? Most of the time people won’t have a clear vision and if they have one is it really theirs ? Was it their true inner self who decided to lose 20 pounds ? Before visoning I recommend a reflection period. There are many ways to help you find your true vision your ultimate specific goal. Most of the time people start with a very high level objective, like loose weight. So before making it more specific I recommend you to do a few reflection exercises. The best way of course is if three people team up together in these exercises, but still you can do it in pairs or even alone.
In the first reflection start with your strength. Have you ever experienced a moment where you accomplished a succesful or even sustainable self change? This could be anything from stopping to swear in public, to quit smoking or loosing weight. Tell this success stories to others and let them play back to you whatpersonal strength they noticed in your story you had applied and what tactics you used to successfully change one of your habits. If you are on your own write your story down and then go through it by yourself or send it to someone to read and play it back to you.
In the second reflection start to think of a situation when you for the first time experienced change – it could be a positive experience or a negative experience. Ask yourself some open questions to get you talking about your experience or if you are in a group or pair let the other(s) pose these questions to get you talking. Key is that you talk freely and are only interrupted by questions that get you talking more and more about the experiences. Key is for the others to listen and note down your behaviour during this change and then feed it back to you again.
In the third reflection speak more about the as-is situation. If it is for example about loosing weight, don’t talk about loosing weight, reflect about what is about your weight that made you decide to reduce it. What is disturbing you now, what are the factors that made you come to the conclusion, that you want to change.
Equipped with the results of these reflections the true visioning becomes much easier and clearer and you understand much better what a realistic goal could be like and why you want it in the first place.
While you prepare for your ultimate change journey you can do it like all the successful explorer do – practice. If you are keen to try a new diet, do it, but see it as a practice. Do it for a short time and notice how you felt about this diet approach.
It is important to have a clear and realistic goal rather than being overconfident. That is why an extensive preparation phase will increase your chances. The reason is simple as overconfidence quickly leads to frustration.
But the most important output in this reflection and preparation phase is to uncover your intrinsic motivation. It is the intrinsic motivation that will lead ultimately to a successful sustainable change.
To often we are motivated by external motivational factors. It can be a partner that would like us to loose weight, the mother who wants us to stop smoking, the norms in our society and any other authority around us. Clearly we need to find our inner intrinsic motivation and identify all the external influences before we ever embark on our change expedition.
All of the sustainable change programs I have come across so far share several common themes – they help you define a realistic goal, they emphasize the intrinsic motivation – the true reason and purpose for your change and they also let you set a realistic time frame. They talk about several months instead of quick instant change within hours or days. Usually 6 months is the time you should consider for a sustainable transformation of your habits. And also these journeys are guided or coached by an expert.
Still, there are some more steps to take before you can embark on your expedition. The key questions is how do you get there ? What do you need to do in order to arrive at your destination ? Now you have a clear goal, understand your intrinsic motivation and you have a time frame set. Equipped with these information you need to calculate the ressources you need for your expedition. Start with the most important categories and strictly go through by categories when you plan. For an expediton one of the key category will be water or fluid. How much will you consume per day, will you find some on the way, how much will you need to carry and how long will the quality last, etc.
With the metapher of the expedition how will you translate it into your self change expedition. Marie Kondo discovered that if you want to become an orderly person and have a sustainable clean house or appartement the best is to take a 6 month period of time and go through your belongings by category and not by room. She recommends to start with your clothing. Collect all your clothing from all the different storage places in the appartement and go through by subcategory. Key in her method is to touch every piece of clothes and see what your true emotional reaction is to this item. She recommends only to keep all the clothes you really feel an emotional not just a rational reason for keeping it. The rest of the clothes you will let go.
A note on the side: The method of touching and feeling helped Steve Jobs to identify the best design of the apple products – from ipod to ipad.
If it is about weight change – start with all your liquids that you drink. Collect all the liquids from water to beverages in your household and go through each of them and decide if you truely like this liquid or not. Do not follow outside advise, instead discover your own inner connection to each of the different type of drinks. Besides keeping water, any drink you keep but you are not attached to it put it in the bin or put it in a remote location of your storage if it is there for a visitor. Only surround yourself with things that matter to you and decide when you will consume them and in which quantaty. This is what every expedition does to decide how much and when it will consume their supplies.
An expedition can only begin once you know if you have sufficient ressources available. Erika Toman has devlopped a method to see when you are ready to embark on a change journey such as weight change. She uses a method called ReLaZ – it is an abbreviation of Re = Ressources La = Barriers (Lasten) and Z = Goal (Ziel). Reference: ReLaZ
With her ReLaZ approach Erika Toman has helped many people to sustainable change their body weight.
Her method is based on the latest scientific research which confirms how important the environmental factors are and their impact on our change journey. Before starting any diet Erica Toman works with her clients to calculate if they have enough Resources to successfully start their diet expedition. See: ReLaZ
The idiot guide for dads. After extensively searching the net for a quick, easy and dad optimized tutorial on how to play Pokémon (pocket monster) cards with my son I have to come to the conclusion there is none yet. I need a manual that walks dads like me carefully through every step in the game. In absence of this easy to learn and follow guide I have to do my own for the time being. (Dear Reader in case you know a good resource please do not hesitate to recommend it in the comment section of this post.)
Despite the fact that 5 year old kids begin to play Pokémon it is a highly complex strategy trading card game. The way to learn it is to start at a very basic level and to slowly work yourself up to the more complex level of understanding the game. In the following the basic questions and answers will guide you to play your first game with your child at a basic level. To advance you will need to learn more and more details about the rules of the game and the cards.
Basic Level (all what you really need to know for your first game)
#1: How many players in this trading card game ?
The game has two player – in my case one is dad (no cards and no idea yet) and on the opponent side is my son with a large collection of Pokémon cards but a very personal idea of how to play this game. It seems the rules always favour him….
#2: How many cards does one player need?
Each player needs 60 cards. You handpick and decide what cards to take before you start the game. This is then your card deck.
3#: What type of cards should I choose for my 60 cards deck ?
There are three type of cards:
1. The Pokémon (Pocket Monster)
2. The Energy Card (without it the Pokémon cannot attack)
3. The Trainer Card
A dad if he wants to impress his child should choose 20 Pokémon cards, 25 Trainer cards and 15 Energy cards. Therefore in the following there are a few exercises for the beginner dads:
First exercise for dads – card sorting #1: I took the card collection of my son and sorted the cards into the three categories: 1) Pokémon 2)Energy 3)Trainer.
The Pokémons look very similar to insects, small animals, dragons or small robots and have fantasy names associated to their appearances. Satoshi Tajiri the inventor of the game was a passionate insect collector in his childhood.
The Pokéman fight each other, always one by one. To prepare them for the battle they have a trainer (trainer card). To fight they need energy (energy card).
For your first game just choose Pokémons with the same color. This means you need to go through your second exercise:
Second exercise for dads – card sorting #2: Now select only the Pokémon cards (not the trainer cards and not the energy cards) from the first sorting excercise and seperate them into piles with similar colors. Each color resembles a different type of energy that the Pokémon belongs to – additionally the energy type is indicated by a symbole in the right upper corner of the card. Depending on the content of the card collection of your child you will end up with different number of piles. The card collection of my son includes ten different types of Pokémon.
#5: What types of Pokémon with similar energies should I finally select ?
The recommendation is to have 20 Pokémon cards with the same energy tpye within your 60 cards deck. In the following video this boy explains how he selects Pokémons with the grass energy (green color cards) for his deck.
Were you able to follow ? Now very slowly and a short step by step explanations for the ultimate beginner.
Within the group of Pokémons of similar energy there are again three sub-types.
1) Basic cards
2) Stage 1 cards
3) Stage 2 cards
Third exercise for dads – card sorting #3: Select one group of Pokémon cards from the card sorting exercise #2. They should have the same color and belong to the group of Pokémon with the same type of energy. Now sort the cards into 3 categories: 1)Basic 2)Stage 1 3) Stage 2.
For your first game I would recommend you to only select the basic type pokémon. Stage 1 or Stage 2 cards I would get into after you have played your first game or first few games.
#6: What type of energy card should I select ?
In the next step you need to choose your 15 energy cards by doing another exercise.
Fourth exercise for dads – card sorting #4: Now take the pile of the energy cards and separate them into piles related to their energy symbol and color. How many types of energies did you find ?
In my son’s card collection there are just 5 different types of energy cards.
As mentioned before my son’s collection contains 10 different type of Pokémon cards. Green (grass energy) Pokémon have the most cards. Now should I choose the green Pokémon with the grass energy ? The answer is a straight no. In this card collection there are no green energy cards (grass energy). This means no energy available for the green Pokémons to attack. A much better option for dad is to go for the blue (water energy) Pokémon cards and take the blue energy cards.
One more thing you will need to understand about energy cards. Do you see the colorful energy cards with the star (bottom right in the picture above) ? These are universal energy cards called “colorless energy card”. As you might have guessed these work with any type of Pokémon cards independent if they are green, blue, yellow, and so on. If you also take some of those this would do no harm.
Guess what you are not yet done with the card sorting exercises . What else is left to sort ?
Fifth exercise for dads – the final card sorting #5: Now do the same with the trainer card pile. And how many types of trainers do you have identified ?
I have come up with three main categories – item, supporter and stadium.
#7: What trainer cards should I choose for my deck ?
To select your 25 trainer cards I would not go into much thinking yet. For your first game just choose one stadium trainer card, two supporter trainer cards and twenty-two item trainer cards.
Summary : Card Deck for your first ever Pokémon game with your child:
20 Pokémon Basic Type cards with the same type of Energy
15 Energy Cards that have the same color as your chosen Pokémons and some colorless energy cards (Cards with multiple colors on it and a star)
25 Trainer Cards of which are 22 Item Trainer Cards, 2 Supporter Trainer Cards and 1 Stadium Card
—————————————————————–
For the Advanced Level 1 dads (not needed for your first game of Pokémon):
#8: What is the difference between a Pokémon Basic, a Pokémon Stage 1 and Pokémon Stage 2 ? Well they belong together first of all, they are a family. A Stage 2 Pokémon evolves out of a stage 1 Pokémon and a stage 1 Pokémon evolves out of a Basic Pokémon. Each time they do it they get stronger and stronger. So guess what who is the strongest in this family ? The Stage 2 Pokémon.
#9: What is the difference between item trainer card, a supporter trainer card and a stadium trainer card ?
In this video from the expert Jodi Serge I have learned how to setup the card game:
Important advice to dads: Also shuffle the deck of your opponent!!
Summary Step by Step:
1) Shuffle your card deck 2) Take the first 6 cards and put them face down on your table (see picture). These are your prize cards.
3) Select 7 more cards from the top your card deck. Do not show the cards to your opponent and hold them in your hand
4) Place the rest of your card deck in a pile on your table as well.
Now I am all set to be beaten…
———————————————————————-
#11: How to start the game ?
This video by Jodi Serge below explains how to start the game:
Summary Step by Step:
1) Choose 1 Basic Pokémon from your seven cards and put it face down on the table. This is your active Pokémon that will go into the first battle.
2) If you have more Basic type Pokémons put those face down on your so called “bench” on the table.
Key Rule to remember: The Bench can have maximum five Basic type Pokémons at any time.
In my example in the picture I have one active Pokémon and two on my bench. What do I still hold in my hands ? I have three energy cards of which one has an universal (colorless) energy and one trainer card.
3) Flip a coin who is the first to start the game or decide the oldest (youngest) one of the two players will begin the game.
————————————————————————–
#12: How to play the first round ?
Before you start to play the game become aware of your true role. You are the trainer of the Pokémons that go into battle. The story of Pokémon is based on Ash Ketchum, a ten year old boy, who has the desire to become the best expert trainer for Pokémons in his life. The first Pokémon he befriends with is called Pikachu. And if you have 22 Minutes I would recommend you to watch the first Pokémon episode – I will choose you.
The video below explains what happens when you take your first turn in the game
Step by Step Summary of the video:
1) Both players:
Flip over your basic Pokémon cards that you have chosen as your active the ones on your bench so your opponent can now see these cards.
The player that goes first:
2) Draw one card from your pile
3) If it is a basic type Pokémon card and you have less than 5 basic type Pokémon cards on your bench, then add this new Pokémon card to your bench
3) If you have an energy card in the cards that you hold in your hand see if you can add it to your active Pokémon. You can add only one.
4) If you have a trainer card(s) in your hand see what it says and see if helps you to add more energy cards, or do some other useful tactical moves to enhance your battle power.
In my example (see picture) in step 2 I drew a basic type Pokémen card which I placed on my bench. I put an energy card next and below my active Pokémon card. Now this Pokémon card is ready to go into battle. And I used my trainer cards which allowed me to go through my whole pile of my card deck and take out two more energy cards which I now hold in my hand. My trainer card will now go into the discarded cards pile. I cannot reuse it again in this game.
5) Next is the turn of your opponent to do the same steps 2-4 above.
Your First battle:
Summary Step by Step: Now it is time that you understand more details about your Pokémon card. Below the picture of the Pokémon you find the name and descriptions of the attacks this Pokémon can do. In this case Basculin has one energy card attached which will allow you to use the Flail attack.
At first with the Flail attack willdo 10 damage points to your opponent.
As soon as Basculin received some damage points during the fight the damage points of the Flail attack will increase by number of damage points Basculin has collected. (see picture below)
To use the Final Gambit attack of Basculin you would need at least one blue (water) energy card attached which is the case already in this example. Then you would need additionally two more energy cards. These can be any type of energy card. The symbol next to the attacks will tell you what kind of energy card you need and how many. If you see the star (colorless) energy symbol this mean you can attach any type of energy card.
It will take at least two more rounds to activate the Final Gambit attack of Basculin. You can only add one energy card per round if you have one.
Now Basculin recieved two damage points coins (20 Points). His maximum HP Hit Points was 80 Hit Points when you started the game. You see the HP Points on the right upper corner of the Pokémon card. Now Basculin has 60 HP left after the attack.
As he has two damage points the next time you use the Flail attack, Basculin will now do 10×2=20 damage points to your opponent.
Once Basculin has collected 80 Damage points he will be discarded together with the energy cards attached from the play field. These cards cannot be used anymore in the current game.
Your opponent will collect one of his prize cards as your Pokémon Basculin has been knocked out.
#13: What can happen during a battle – Weakness and Resistance ?
In this video the Pokémon Expert Mom Jodi Serge explains what else you need to be aware of during your battle:
#14: What can happen during a battle -Pokémon special conditions ?
This is another impact on your Pokémon that can be inflicted by your opponent’s card.
#15: What happens when your Pokémon was finally beaten?
When your Pokemon has no more HP (Hit Points)left and therefore is knocked out, all cards attached to it (including the energy cards) go into the discard pile.
Additionally your opponent can now draw one prize card from his prize cards on the table.
#16: When is the game over and who is the winner?
Once a player has collected all his 6 prize cards the game is over and he has won.
——————————————————————–
And below some examples what more advanced players know about the game and why it is good to start at a very basic level first. The more you know the more complex strategies for your game which heavinly depends on the card deck you choose you can develop.
For the more advanced players:
Advise: Choose a few trainer supporter cards that let you go through your deck to find other cards or possible discard your opponents cards. Reference: How to build a winning Pokemon deck
Once you advance with your knowledge and move towards mastery. This is what the highly advanced players do when they build their decks. Deck Building Guide
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to learn any new language almost “effortless” in a very, very short time, even within hours while having fun ? What is the latest wisdom on accelerated language learning ? A very short answer up front: Yes, it is possible! Please find below a summary of the latest insights and methods collected from outstanding teachers and experts in the field and based on my 20+ years experience in accelerated learning & development where I have helped over 300 000+ People globally learn faster and better.
Not only did Tim introduce his approach to accelerated language learning but yet he attracted comments from very knowledgeable readers and experts. With over six hundred comments this is now a treasure trove for language learners and teachers. Additionally to the wisdom shared in this place I have added further methods that have emerged in the learning & development & change management research over the last years.
KEY INSIGHTS
A) Motivation before Confidence
For any type of learning the key is first of all motivation and then confidence. If you are not convinced about learning a particular language none of the following methods will work for you.
Motivation can be stimulated by external factors (extrinsic). Examples are your employer asks you to learn a new language or you move to a new country for work. Having your own dream to be competent in another language or your objective to read one of your beloved authors in the original language are examples for internal motivational factors (intrinsic).
Usually intrinsic factors will be more sustainable than extrinsic factors and might keep you more likely on track . Try to identify at least one intrinsic factor for learning the new language.
Intrinsic motivational factors can be categorized and vary from person to person. This is based on the Harvard Approach of Negotiation 1) Security: example: understand and have access to information in local language, can ask for direction when travelling 2) Livelihood: example: will help generate income, do need to get a job 3) Belonging: example: can talk to people in their local languages, can have local friends 4) Reputation: example: local business partner respect me more when I know some words in their language 5) Self-determination: example: I can navigate myself through the foreign country, I can visit places where no foreigner has been yet, ..
What also helps for those who had already tried and fail to learn a new language is to analyze what has derailed you from learning the new language in the past. Was it the teacher, was it because you had to or was it the method, … ?
And often in our educational school systems we are forced to learn a new language, we have no choice. Nobody will investigate what our personal intrinsic motivational factors are nor would anyone explore what methods would work best for us individually.
B) Have a clear vision about your goal
What do you see when you close your eyes and think about learning the new language ? Do you see yourself reading a highly sophisticated book in this foreign language, do you see yourself writing a business contract, are you watching a television show or are you standing at an ice cream stand at a beautiful foreign beach asking for your favorite ice cream in the local language ?
Get clarity for what you want to use the new language for. The amount of learning, the method and the effort differs if you just want to find your way when travelling through a foreign country or become a student at the local university or even work in a local company in this foreign country.
In his book the 4-Hour Work Week Timothy Ferris has shown in the chapter “D is for Definition” how to make your personal dream more specific. His example: If your dream is fluency in Chinese this is still quite broad. Try to make it more specific to the level as: “My dream is to have a 5-minute conversation with a Chinese co-worker.” It can be even more specific: “I want to talk in these 5-minutes about what I did last week-end and what movie I saw and what restaurants my co-worker would recommend…”
Recommended action: write down very specifically how your ideal state would look like
The clear vision about your objective will help you to identify your personal threshold. It will indicate how much vocabulary do you really need to learn and to which extend do you need to understand the grammar, the number of characters if it is a pictorial language, etc…..
In the Chinese fluency example you would not need to read or write any Chinese characters. All what you would need is to speak and understand your co-worker about daily life leisure topics. (Movie, restaurant, leisure time activities).
Recommended action: like in the very specific example above write down in your native language what you would like to talk about with the other person. What questions would you ask and what answers you would give. Whatever your specific dream is try to write a story board for it. If it is for example to present to a local audience in a business context than try write the presentation you want to give in your local context. If it is to sign a contract than use the contract in your local language. The idea is to get a physical grip on your dream. Once you have a text, a story board, a contract or a presentation then put this content into google translate and see what kind of output you get in the target language. Then take the result and have google translate it back to your native language. Analyze the results on what difference there are to your original text.
Finally rate your objective on what effort it is for you to reach it. Use a scale of 1-8. An 8 I would rate if it is comparable to hiking up Mount Everest the highest mountain in the world. A 1 would be a stroll along a beach, a short walk with a friend through a forest. A 3would be walking up a mountain with 6000 feet in altitude. Relatit to what effort it means to you. If you are like the famous alpinist Reinhold Messner hiking up Mount Everest would be then just a 4. To sum it up it should be a relative rating and not absolute.
Would you like to get feedback from others by sharing what language you would like to learn, what intrinsic motivation you have, what your specific visions looks like and how you rate the effort to get there in the comment section of this blog post?
C) Learning Environment and Approach
Identify your personal learning barriers.
1) First Barrier: Mental: The Inner Game: Tim Gallewey
The game your mind plays with you before you embark on any new project such as learning a language. That is this little voice in your head that sets in once your exitement is over. The voice comes up latest after the 4th day (old Japanese Zen wisdom) you have decided on or started your learning expedition.
It could go like this: “Hohoho, I told you, you have no talent in learning languages“. “You will never reach your goal, you do not have the time for it”. “You have no discipline, forget it.” “You do not like to sit down and learn all these words by heart, that is boring.” “You have more important things to do in life”. “Everybody is learning English now, why should you learn a foreign language.” “You have never have the budget to travel there anyways” “A new language in a few hours, you are crazy, it already took you 5 years to learn Spanish and you are still nowhere perfect” …
The Inner Game in more detail.The relaxed concentration or flow state is important. This happens when your inner voice is silent. Highly successfull sportsman always talk about it. Example is the world leading tennis player Roger Federer.
It won’t help if you fight it. Also the content is not decisive. If your inner voice would say instead “You are the best language learner that has ever walked this planet” or “I will succeed” or “I am so happy to learn this language” it might boost your energy but not get you into the relaxed concentration mode.
How to overcome this first barrier ?
The inner judgemental voice can be directed and focused on the task at hand by giving it a new neutral observative task.
Example:
- Technics shared by Professor of Linguistics Alexander Arguelles who speaks now 50 languages
- Read each new word out loud and listen to your voice
- Write on a piece of paper: The first rule is not to force yourself to remember or learn this word. Just enjoy. (see Michel Thomas)
- Focus your mind on the point below your navel – the so called lower dantian (used in QiQong practices)
- Sing the word
- Breath in when you read silently the new word and breath out afterwards and focus on the breath not on the learning of the word
- Hit a gong before you read the word
- Stand up read the word and sit down
- Superlearning uses also relaxation technics see research
- any more suggestions please leave in the comment section below…
Tim Gallewey demonstrates how he uses the Inner Game approach to teaching to non talented beginners tennis in an extreme short time
What I also do is to acknowledge in a nonjudgemental way what my inner voice creativly comes up with. I write it down in my diary. This will empty my head and eventually shut down my inner voice.
There is also the outer voices that I collect in this manner. Everybody will have an opion on how to do things and what you are capable off. Your mother, your father, your teacher, your best friend, the television, the newspaper, the next best-selling author on language learning, the language learning schools and platforms who use a certain methods, experts, professors, etc. The outer voices are a nightmare for sportsmen and famous team coaches. Roger Federer lately had to overcome this challenge. When he wasn’t successful in tennis the media started to talk about his age and suggested him to retire. Luckily he was able to overcome these voices and is now again the No 1 in tennis . There must be plenty more examples. Looking forward to your comments.
Some further evidence through scientific research is showing acceleration of learning as well as how relaxed concentration or mindfulness reduces stress:
Prof. Dr. Klaus Jantke showed in a research by one of his PHD Student Anja Hawlitschek that learning through games work best if students are not instructed up front. Just ask them to enjoy the game versus the benchmark group who was told to focus on the learning in the game. The first group of school children performed better in the post test.
Prof. Jon Kabat-Zinn on Mindfulness and the impact on health at the Google Academy
Beware also not to turn it against you by thinking that you only learn when you are in this relaxed concentrated state of mind. You always learn, but in this state learning it is just accelerated. As soon as you recognize conciously “Oh, now I am in the flow state” – it will be gone. It just happens, you cannot force it.
2) Second Barrier: Environment
Have you been told that the only place to learn is at your desk ? If you look at Michel Thomas approach in methods below you will see that the best place to learn is where you feel comfortable and do not think about that you must learn now. It can be your most comfortable chair, it can be when you are lying in your bed or if you enjoy driving your car than this is a good place as well. First advice: learn whereever you are comfortable and have your learning material available. Do not put environmental barriers up. Do not choose only to learn in the language school that is 20 km away from where you live or have your learning material stowed away in a cupboard where you have to move other things first in order to get to it. Professor Theresa Marteau shows how little details in our setup of our environment have a huge impact (Video) on us such as our health behaviour. This counts as well for many other habits and for sure for our learning behaviour.
3) Third barrier: Time
Are you programmed that you only learn when you spent at least an hour with a teacher on the subject? Even if it is just 30 seconds do it. A quick glance in your material, a question to a friend how to say such and such a word in the language you are learning, etc. Remove any barrier that tells you that you need to have a minimum of minutes per day to learn your new language. Also it puts you under pressure when you did not find the time for it.
It is the net time spent on learning the language that counts not the quantative amount per day combined together. If you just learn when you have 30 seconds up to a few minutes this still can add up to a net time spent of one hour or more per day and it could be even more effective. Second advice: Drop your fixed time spent on learning assumption
4) Fourth Barrier: Money
There you are. You have just got the tip of the best language teacher alive, the best method that someone just recommended to you or the best place to travel to learn the language of choice fast and well. The only thing you are lacking is the money. You have the motivation, you would have the time and shute you do not have the funds.
Wait, there are so many others way to start to learn your favourite language just now while at the same time you start saving the money for the extradordinary opportunity that was recommended to you. Third advice: No money is no excuse. There are methods that are free to use, there is material that costs you only a few bugs.
D) Methods
Yes there are methods that will accelerate your learning versus pratices that will slow it down or get you off track. Key for all effective methods are they need to strenghten your confidence. My example is how kids learn to ride a bicycle or swim. Kids that use small bicycles with two additional stabilizing wheels when 5 years or younger will take much longer to learn to ride a bicycle without these stabilizers. They cannot build their confidance in balancing the two wheel bicycle. Kids that have a so called training bike which they need to walk with will learn how to be confident on a bicycle with two wheels early on. At the age of five they switch effortless without training to a normal kids bike. The same is with swimming. Children with swimmies will not build enough confidence in swimming without this support. Therefore in swimming classes swimmies are not used. To teach little kids to swim the modern swim schools have develop lots of small fun exercises that slowly build their confidence.
Fourth advice here: do whatever that is easy for you now while you investigate which methods are most effective and efficent for you. Latest research (HBS Working Knowledge) has shown that performance is better of those that do things related to their objectives that are easy to do and can be done immediately versus those who only focus on the analysis first and undergo a thorough selection process of identifying the best methods before implementing those.
Fifth advice: use the learning practices that you enjoy and have fun with even if they might slow you down. Applying the language more important than the method itself.
There are plenty of methods available and they can be combined at your degression. Some are targeted at the first novice learner of the language and some can be added once you reached a certain level in the new language. Listening to the local radio station in the new language could be quite a challenge for the beginner.as an example. To summarize it into the Sixth Advice: Use of Multimethods is better than applying just one single method at a time.
In 1986 my best ever interpreter for my negotiations in China had learned English in one year from scratch. I asked her how she made it in such a short time to such a professional level. Besides having this intrinsic thrive to connect to the outside world and grap the new opportunities she had used a multimethod approach. As soon as she got tired with her textbook, she turned to an audio casette, then switched to television or radio, or tried to find other fun exercises to practice English. At a certain level she looked for any opportunity to have a conversation in English, mainly with foreigners. This way she would spent the whole day learning English by switching the methods as soon as she got tired with them during the day. She had build a total immersive learning environment around her. And on top of it her accent even though she started English in her 20s for was perfect. I could not hear her Chinese background.
In my many years of experience I noticed the following tendencies when people learn. There is preferrence or dominance of intuitive learning over analytical learning, social learning (learning with others) over autodidactive learning, face to face learning over virtual learning and immersive learning over detached learning and contextual learning (in sentences) over object modular based learning (learning the vocabulary and grammar rules) and repetitive learning versus associative learning. But once again the seventh advice is: An as well as approach is better than an either or. You do not need to avoid any of the learning “styles” above. Add them all if you can. Besides feeling for example very comfortable with the intuitive approach this should not stop you using an analytical method from time to time. What will really slow you down is to focus on just one single method or on a few methods and apply those in a sequential order. There is no better way to fail then to apply a cascading approach. Industry at large and project management in particular have moved away from it. Today agile development is used and this is also the more effective and efficent system for your language learning project.
Daniel Tammet – The Boy With The Incredible Brain [5/5]
In 2009 Daniel Tammet a memory champion or so called savant demonstrated how to learn a new language in just one week. In the video he demonstrated this capabiliry with the Icelandic language. It is an immersive approach supported by language teacher who acts as his coach during the week. He will use his mnemonic technics while participating in daily life and leasure activities. He is not sitting at a desk nor at a quiet remote place to acquire the new language. And what will your inner voice say if I tell you that with the wisdom collected in this blog post you could do the same as David in less than three days ? Looking forward to your comments!
Why these menomonic technics are so powerful is shown here with the Baker/baker paradox and loci-method Reference: How to train your mind to remember anything
In the Baker / Baker paradox research psychologist showed a photograph of a person with the name Baker to the research participants. One group was told the name of the person and the other group was informed instead about the profession of this person is that of a baker. A few days later when they showed the photograph of Mr. Baker again to the different members of the two groups, the one group who was told about the profession members were much more likely to remember the name of Mr. Baker. To quote the world memory champion Joshua Foer: “If you want to make something memorable, you first have to make it meaningful.” Reference.
Immersive, associative and conversational confidence learning: Michel Thomas: Michel Thomas, The Language Master Pt 1 of 3
The key objective of the Michel Thomas method is to build conversational proficiency in a very short time. The first rule he tells his students is not to try to memorize or to take any notes. He wants his students to be relaxed and concentrated. He teaches in a living room style setup. The students sit in comfortable arm chairs in a circle. I have used “Stuhlkreis” (Gestalt) settings myself. They support the energy within a group for long periods of time. So it is no surprise that students who spent 8-10 hours a day with Michel Thomas still find it enjoyable and exiting. Michel is not using any material nor a blackboard. It is a highly interactive conversational environment. Whereever helpful he will use associative technics and he is building up slowly and systematically the complex structure of the language. It is a coaching approach as he will also encourage the student to find the correct solution. This also strengthen the confidence of the learner. And to no surprise if you watch the above documentary you will still learn some French without any effort.
Watch how Tamil only speaking children between the age of 8-12 years taught themselves Biotechnology in English with the help of a computer and passed a test with the same results as a group of children at a private school who had a teacher in biotechnology. Sugata Mitra discovered self organized education of children with the help of the internet in 1999 in New Dehli. You will see that this is a universal capability of children. In whatever country he applied this approach it would lead to the same results, independent if it were in UK, Italy, Bangladesh or South Africa.
It started out as an experiment with kids in a slum of New Dehli and how they would use an open space computer without instructions. The children achieved in this so called self organized learning environments fascinating and amazing results. In this social learning setting Sugata Mitra discovered that while 1 child is using the computer the four other children will give useful adice. Additionally these 5 children are surrounded by 10-15 more children who will also throw in their tips and hypotheses. When you test those groups of children in a pre and post test it will show that all the children will have learned. It even became more effective with a coach who did nothing else as to encourage the children and ask them open questions such as “how did you do that”, can you show again what you have done ?
Other examples for social learning is Toastmasters. There is no instructor in Toastmasters. It is the combined effort of a group of people to advance their communication and presentation skills. I have started a company Toastmasters club and have witnessed and was amazed myself how highly effective it is to help people to become confident public speakers and communicators in a very short time.
Tim Ferris: Watch Tim Ferriss: Accelerated Learning in Accelerated Times
http://f4a.tv/wvXSxs
In the video Tim introduces his Deconstruction Process to Learning anything from Languages to Tango Dancing , Swimming or Body Building.
He has developed a guiding process which he calls: DieSEL’s FaCE
1. DEconstruction (minimal discrete units (look for anomalies and extrems) - plus Pareto 80:20 principal)
2. The Opposite of Best Practice
3. SELection (elimination first)
4. Sequencing (in what order to do the minimal descrete units identified in Step 1)
5. Frequency
6. Compression (one page)
7. Encoding (mnemonics)
Plus the Rules of Behavioral Change
In the video above Tim talks about Linkword Language method and how it accelerated his language learning. It is an associative method. Free examples on the site will introduce you to the method.
Professor Alexander Arguelles uses an autodidactive approach. To learn a new language he starts with language learning books and materials from Assimil. It is a phased process where the learner slowly moves into the new language. The aim is to stop the learner from translating back and force and become competent to learn in the new language only. The method uses bilungual books and is sentenced not word based. Grammar is explained but very lighty at the bottom of each text. Professor Arguelles explains in the video the process to apply to the learning material. The final state is when you can say the sentences while writing them down. In the step before the learner will read out lout the sentences in the new language while listening to the recorded speaker. To get to this level of practices the students has to take several steps before. It is a repetitive autodidactical approach. A quick method to build up structures and pronounciation in a new language. A good method for those who do not feel comfortable in groups and enjoy autodidactical learning. I still would recommend the method to all learners to include it in your curricula.
Dr. Kató Lomb (1909-2003) spoke 16 languages. Born in Hungary she learned the first English when she was at the age of 24. She is also was one of the first symultaneous interpreters in this world. In this free pdf ebook she describes how she learned so many languages. Key for her was to have fun with the material. Instead of choosing a language learning course book she chose to read books in the target language that fits her interest. In her words “The traditional way of learning a language (cramming 20-30 words a day and digesting the grammar supppied by a teacher or a course book) may satisfy at most one’s sense of duty, but it can hardly serve as a source of joy. Nor will it likely be successful”. Her saying was “One learns grammar from language, not language from grammar”. Polyglot Tim Ferriss in his blog post “How to learn any language in 3 months” recommends the exact same thing.
Sir Richard Francis Burton Method (1821-1890): learned 25 languages and understood 72. Sir Richard Francis developed his own method to accelerate his language aquisition. He is more systemic structuralist similar to Tim Ferriss. Key in the learning is to understand the basic grammar rules very early on and then fill it will vocbulary. The maximum time he spent learning a language per day was 15 minutes. Longer period he said is tiring for the brain.
Other methods that are now well known to the broader audience are Berlitz, who used total immersion learning from 1950s onward. EF who organizes language learning vacations and Pimsleur who starts conversational without grammar. And well known is Rosetta Stone who use Multimedia (Computer) for language learning.
E) Experience
My personal experience with language learning.
I commute every day at least 60 minutes in one direction. So now my car became my study place. Not only does this make my commute more fun at the same time I add new skills to my profile and become more attractive to my employer.
The best way I learn a language is to listen to others. Same as kids do before they start to speak.
I found this wonderful example for learning Russian and it costs nothing.
It is in German and the teacher is a Russian lady who teaches her husband a German in Russian. It is downloadable also through itunes. Details on the Russlandjournal.de website. I have downloaded the lessons to my iphone.
I have tried other tapes and casettes from other more known companies in this area but none has been so effective to learn to speak Russian than this one for me personally.
For my French I just listen to the news and discussions on the radio. The jackpot for me is when they talk about social media and learning. I can get an update on the topic or a new view point while enjoying myself and improving continously my French.
What method do you use ? What is your recommendations ? Looking forward to your comments.
As I have kids myself, I have just recently looked for fun, easy and playful methods for my young children to learn a few chinese characters in their past time.
The ambition was not too overload them with more schooling, nor was the objective to get them to speak chinese up to a certain level in a set time frame. Clearly my ”hidden” goal was to stimulate their learning agility by exiting them about calligraphy, about writing and reading chinese characters for fun.
My own motivation in this area is based on my own experience. When I was studying Chinese at university in my early 20s I noticed an impact on my learning agility in other fields such as a better and faster understanding of other foreign languages and even mathematics. Since then I have followed the academic research in this field to see if my personal observations were valid. Also Chinese reported the same observations when they studied a phonetic language such as Portugese or English. The same effect on the other hand did not occur when I had learned English, French and Russian previously.
I came across three research projects that showed a link between learning chineses characters and an increase in the Intelligence quotient IQ, an improvement of mathematical skills and a support to children in second grade with reading problems (see the list of scientific research at the bottom of this blog post). Yet I have not come across any research that would confirm the personal observations of my chinese friends. The unanswered scientific question remains if the learning agility of a chinese child will increase as well when learning a phonetic language?
Besides having fun it is important for children to build confidence. In the first warm up I show them three characters, that are quite easy to remember.
It is the number 1: 一 yī. Then I ask how would a chinese child write the number 2 and I show it: 二 èr and then I let them guess how to write the number 3: sān. Additionally to help them remember the pronounciation you could tell a very short story. One day a little girl walked to school and on her way suddely she saw a monster. The little girl shouted ”eehh“(yī) and the monster said “errrr” (èr). But when the “sun” (san) came out the monster ran away.
Example: Speed Learning Chinese in 5 Minutes - 3% of all Chinese Characters used in any text – learn 5 Strokes, which make up 6 characters and represent 78 English words. This builds quickly the confidence and shows that it is not so difficult and complex as it people in the West are saying.
Speed Learning Chinese
The story telling element is based on the research findings on the Baker / Baker paradox and builds as well on the technics used by the world memory champions.
In the Baker / Baker paradox research psychologist showed a photograph of a person with the name Baker to the research participants. One group were told the name of the person and the other group instead were informed about that the profession of this person is a baker. A few days later when they showed the photograph of Mr. Baker again to the different members of the groups, the one who were told about the profession were much more likely to remember the name of Mr. Baker. To quote the world memory champion Joshua Foer: “If you want to make something memorable, you first have to make it meaningful.” Reference. This demonstrates why stories about chinese characters work so well for children.
The second time I will read the story and I will not show the characters again. Instead I will have all the chinese characters of the story shuffeled as cards on the table.
Now I ask the children based on the relevant part in the story to pick the right character. Astoundingly in one event a five year old boy selected all chinese characters in the correct order.
What I also like to do is a short association guessing game. If I show them the chinese character for tree, what would three trees in a chinese character stand for ? Answer should be forest.
What is also working with younger children as well is to give them the chinese characters in the correct order in the way they were introduced in the story and ask to them to retell the story.
For children who are comfortable in painting I introdue the loci-method (memory palace). I let them draw their favorite house, room with whatever they put inside or related to the story I have just read. In order to memorize the characters I let them place the characters on the picture. This is a fun exercise once they master more than 50 characters.
From time to time I also show them one character and ask them to describe the character and build their own little story to remember the character.
For older kids I have more challenging options. I let them in a group of maximum 5 children come up with their own mind map of the characters in the story or of the 152 character list. For them to identify characters that are similar is like playing a puzzle.
The other challenge is to ask them to try and form short sentences out of the chinese characters in the story. They can use google search to validate if this combination exits and use google to translate it.
Further I give them new not known chinese characters which are similar and have them come up with their own chinese characters stories.
After a few session I introduce the Chinese Radicals. I let them first analyse some more complex characters and ask them identify smaller parts that made up the character and also if they have seen this subpart somewhere else used as a character.
When they are more advanced and know the radicals I ask them to construct their own characters out of the radicals. We then look these constructed characters up in the dictionary and see if they exist.
The other question I give the older children is to think about, why chinese characters do not use triangles and circles and what are the basic strokes they can identify and why we use the alphabet instead and who invented the chinese writing. I let them explore with the help of the internet in groups of maximum 5. This is based on the minimum invasive education approach by Sugata Mitra. See Self Organized Learning System.
Once they know at least 100 characters I let them read chinese children song and textbooks. The characters they do not know they can look up via google and the wiktionary.
The key of the activities is to have fun and never ask them to learn, just to enjoy the activity. This is where Gallwey and the research of Prof. Jantke come into play. Never should there be a goal or objective to how many characters they learn in the period of the activities nor a test how many they learned. This will build gradually their confidence and increase their motivation.
I also would ask them once they are quite comfortable with Chinese characters to come up with their own little games and what else they could do to have fun. This is then using the so called swarm creativity (Peter Gloor) of the kids in the room for new types of activities.
If you had any other fun activity and method to share in the comment section, this would add to the swarm creativity of how best to learn chinese characters in a fast, fun and easy way. Thank you.
I just found another great example of a fast and easy way to learn Chinese.
“Learning Chinese in 7 Minutes” Ted Talk by ShaoLan. Linkedin Profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/heidihsueh
Example that ShaoLan shared with the audience. Fascinating.
My kids (9 + 5 years) just learned eight characters in 2 Minutes.
First Row: 1) Fire 2)Tree 3)Sun 4)Moon
Second Row: 5)Human Being 6)Mouth 7)Door 8)Mountain
Ted ShaoLan Chineasy Ted Talk on Youtube:
Ted ShaoLan Ted Talk: Learn to read Chinese … with ease! http://ted.com/talks/view/id/1736
Excellent discussions below the talk on Chinese Characters and how to learn.
Further stories:
b) The story of the sun
d) The story of the tree
d) The stroy of the heart
e) The story of the roof
f) The story of the mouth
….
If you have created similar stories would you like to share the link to your story or even guest post. email to: petepalme@gmail.com . Thank you.
Example on Youtube:
The Story of Chinese Character : 卜
Scientific Research:
(1975) Alan Watts in Tao, The Watercourse Way, page 11: Rozin, Poritsky and Sotsky University of Pennsylvania showed that school children in the second grade who had reading deficits could learn to read and write simple chinese sentences in just four weeks time. Reference: Rozin, Paul, Susan Poritsky and Raina Sotsky: “American Children with Reading Problems Can Easily Learn to Read English Represented by Chinese Characters”. In: Science, 26. March. 1971.
(2005) “Learning to read 2,500 pictorial symbols, as Chinese students do in grade school, yields a 5-point advantage on IQ tests, compared with the scores of Westerners whose languages are based on alphabets.”
Andreas Demetriou of the University of Cyprus, Nicosia led the greek and chinese reserach team. Reference
120 greek and 120 chinese children with equal gender distribution and family backgrounds took part in the research. “The two groups showed roughly equal intelligence at eight years old. By twelve years old, however, the Chinese children tested significantly higher for spatial problems.” Reference
(1987) Irene Miura, lead psychologist. Research on mathematical learning agility between US children, chinese children and koren children. Reference.
(2005) Further research shows that the capability to write chinese characters is key in learning to read chinese and is therefore different to learning to read alphabetical languages.
“Here we show that the ability to read Chinese is strongly related to a child’s writing skills and that the relationship between phonological awareness and Chinese reading is much weaker than that in reports regarding alphabetic languages.” Reference
(2013) Dyslexics children: parents report to Shaolan Hsueh how learning chinese characters helped their dyslexics children see facebook “chineasy”
If you aware of any other similar research results or individual observations please share in the comment section of this blog post. Thank you.
Materials:
James Heisig discovered the fastest way to learn chinese characters – Shaolan Hsueh’s approach is similar.
See: Remembering the Hanzi
A very similar approach as the one of Shaolan Hsueh was develop in 2007 by Jakob Hirzel. See Lenaia. This sites has over 1200 pictorial mnemonics and also teaches chinese grammar in an engaging way.
Using visual stories (mnemonics) to remember chinese characters - Turbo Chinese - saurabh sharma: (Example on Youtube)
Tuttle Learning Chinese
Uses stories children can relate to. This book covers the 800 most common Chinese characters that are necessary for the HSK Level A exam.
Stepping Stones at Clavis Sinica
If you want to study the 300 most used commen chinese characters using simple text and poems go to Clavis Sinica: Stepping Stones
Kaiming Guoyu (开明国语)
This is the best seller in China to teach Chinese Children to read.
More details here
Wow, so impressive how our brain can decode text even if it is totally fuzzy. This text was send to me in an email. I do not know the originator of this example. Please contact me if you are the creator of this amazing test.
An example in English:
“On the oethr hnad, Eglisnh rqiuers far lses acucrcay. As lnog as the fsrit and lsat lerttes are crorcet, raeedrs kown waht you are tyrnig to say.” Reference
It is in German:
Ehct ksrass! Gmäeß eneir Sutide eneir Uvinisterät,ist es nchit witihcg, in
wlecehr Rneflogheie die Bstachuebn in eneim Wort snid, das ezniige was
wcthiig ist, das der estre und der leztte Bstabchue an der ritihcegn Pstoiin
snid. Der Rset knan ein ttoaelr Bsinöldn sein, tedztorm knan man ihn onhe
Pemoblre lseen. Das ist so, weil wir nicht jeedn Bstachuebn enzelin leesn,
snderon das Wort als gzeans enkreenn. Ehct ksras! Das ghet wicklirh! Und
dfüar ghneen wir jrhlaeng in die Slhcue!
Und als absolute Steigerung dieses hier:
D1353 M1TT31LUNG Z31GT D1R, ZU W3LCH3N GRO554RT1G3N L315TUNG3N UN53R G3H1RN
F43H1G 15T! 4M 4NF4NG W4R 35 51CH3R NOCH 5CHW3R, D45 ZU L353N, 483R
M1TTL3W31L3 K4NN5T DU D45 W4HR5CH31NL1ICH 5CHON G4NZ GUT L353N, OHN3 D455 35
D1CH W1RKL1CH 4N5TR3NGT. D45 L315T3T D31N G3H1RN M1T 531N3R 3NORM3N
L3RNF43HIGKEIT. 8331NDRUCK3ND, OD3R? DU D4RF5T D45 G3RN3 KOP13R3N, W3NN DU
4UCH 4ND3R3 D4M1T 83G315T3RN W1LL5T
Skillshare is a similar to Udemy. Most courses charge enrollment fees: www.skillshare.com.
Lore
http://lore.com/ is another type of plattform to create free online courses. The focus of this plattform is on the community and the social networking between students.
Coursites
http://www.coursesites.com/ by Blackboard is another free web-based course platform to attend courses or setup your own.
Video Lectures online from reknown universities and other sources such as BBC.
Ted- Ideas Worth Spreading: www.ted.com
The latest in key research projects, findings and insights in less than 20 Minutes introduced in a compelling speech supported by presentations and media. Great resource to learn new things in any academic field.
First of all I have seen many examples where a group of learners is smarter about the topic to study than just the teacher alone.
Social learning also accelerates the personal learning and is more effective than self study alone. And it makes learning more sustainable.
If used with Web2.0 it can be turned into a continuous learning journey, where each learner can stay on the learning journey as long until the personal learning goal is reached. On top it is a highly flexible learning, where participants spend the time they can invest during the days, weeks, months as they wish.
I am just testing such a social learning environment in a free course on Linkedin Profile Best Practice at http://www.udemy.com:
http://ude.my/uWKNlR .
This also offers me a practical way to learn and study more about social learning environments and journeys. It gives me first hand insight about learners using it and what works best and what does not.
I have created a course on Linkedin Profile – Best Practice Link to course.
In this course you will learn how to optimize your Linkedin Profile to attract more leads or job offers. Also you will get an insight what the key vital behaviours are to increase your success on Linkedin.
LA-Lacombe, As a member of the senior leadership team, this position reports to the CEO of our integrated delivery system and is responsible for planning, directing and administratively coordinating the human resources activities across the system. Qualified candidates must be able to strategically evaluate and implement HR related programs and initiatives i […]
MN-White Bear Township, Pentair is 30,000 employees strong. We work around the globe to deliver industry-leading products, service and solutions for our customers’ diverse needs in water and other fluids, thermal management and equipment protection. Our inventive thinking, collaborative spirit, disciplined work ethic and breadth of experts allows us to deliv […]
CA-Downey, Job_Other_Compensation: Up to $80000.00 Job Description: This Human Resources Manager Position Features: ? Large Company ? Great Benefits ? Learning Opportunities ? Great Pay to $80K Rewarding position as Human Resources Manager for stable organization. This Food and Beverage Production company offers large company, great benefits and learning opp […]
NJ-Voorhees, Why do people love working at Virtua? The Virtua Experience It's a culture of respect, support and continual learning that ensures an exceptional environment for our employees. and our patients. Our warm, patient-focused culture has developed through very specific values that are well understood and reinforced across our organization, day i […]
PA-Harrisburg, Senior Manager of Human Resources Job Summary: Ollie's Bargain Outlet is one of the fastest growing retailers on the East Coast! We have an immediate need for an experienced HR Generalist to lead the Human Resources support to our stores and distribution center with a focus on employee relations. This position facilitates the application, […]
OK-Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City Exploration Company seeking a Human Resource Coordinator. The ideal candidate will have at least 1 year of Human Resources experience and be familiar with the Onboarding process. Someone Bi-lingual in Spanish and English would be preferred. Other requirements include flexibility, attention to detail and strong multi-tasking ca […]
CA-San Francisco, Ajilon’s top Health Care client in San Francisco is seeking a Human Resources ? ADP Specialist on a temporary basis (four to five weeks). If you are a self-motivated, positive HR professional with ADP skills, then this may be a great opportunity for you! Responsibilities Include: ADP related projects: Upload Stock Option and Contractor info […]
OH-Westlake, * Are you Fun? Fashionable? Goal-Oriented? * Then this is the career that’s designed for you. The Human Resource/ Recruiting Assistant Manager is responsible for helping Accsell, Inc. find talented, motivated individuals to work within the organization. This professional has numerous routes to choose from when it comes to advancement. Responsibi […]
TX-Waco, Job Title: Human Resources Director Job Category: Administrative Location: Corporate Office Travel Required: Possible on occasion Level/Salary Range: Based on experience Position Type: Full-time Contact: sherrysmith@ratliffreadymix.com Date posted: June 19, 2013 End posting: July 1, 2013 External posting URL: Applications Accepted By: Fax or E-mail: […]
CA-Thousand Oaks, Job_Other_Compensation: Up to $31.00 Job Description: A very strong and stable company in Thousand Oaks, CA is hiring for a "People IMPORTANT TRAITS/SKILLS DESIRED- Full spectrum HR knowledge needed to include but not limited to: Understanding of HR Laws, worker's compensation, writing job descriptions and policy and procedures, t […]
It’s with pride, amazement and excitement that we enter LinkedIn’s fourth internship year. Just over three years ago, we launched our first formal internship program at our Mountain View headquarters. With grassroots efforts and sheer determination, we worked day and night to hire 45 brilliant interns within four months for our engineering and data science […]
It was about 15 years ago when the concept of “balance” started making the media rounds. After reading yet another article about the importance of establishing this magical equilibrium I took the concept to my office. I walked the halls asking the very question that was making headlines, “Are you balanced?” The responses ranged from, [...]
Once a month, we set aside a Friday for employees to think creatively, work on innovative projects, and invest in their careers. We call this InDay. Today, our InDay theme reinforces a philosophy we live and breathe every day at LinkedIn, Members First. Everything we build at LinkedIn is dedicated to furthering our mission of [...]
Whether you’re an active tweeter or just a consumer of hashtag content, now you can get the most out of Twitter on LinkedIn. Add your Twitter account to your profile, use #in and #li to send your tweets to LinkedIn status, quickly scan what people are tweeting about your company with Company Buzz, and more. [...]
Now it’s easy to follow contributions from your connections and share your own activity across groups. Following certain individuals lets you explore their best contributions across the groups you share on LinkedIn. Start following your group connections »
Social entrepreneurs -- those who try to tackle major social problems such as poverty and disease while generating revenues -- are often well-meaning people. But in their desire to make a difference to society, they sometimes fail to subject their ideas to rigorous tests. Ian MacMillan, a professor of management at Wharton, and James Thompson, who leads the […]
Some of the holes in the global financial system's risk-management defenses have been patched since the financial collapse five years ago, according to panelists at the recent Wharton Global Forum in Tokyo. But bankers are still overpaid, and the needs of customers and the real economy are often still overlooked, speakers said. The panel also questioned […]
Consumers are turning to social media and mobile technology to accomplish an ever-growing list of tasks, from finding a doctor to turning on an air conditioner. These changes have left many industries ripe for disruption by companies willing to change their business models and marketing practices to fit a new generation of customers, according to experts who […]
Ben Jealous was appointed president and CEO of the NAACP at a time when its membership was in decline. Jealous, however, has spent the last five years reversing that decline, increasing the number of donors and focusing on current hot-button issues like elimination of the death penalty. What's important, he said during a Wharton leadership lecture, is t […]
When you overhear a person five spots ahead of you at the coffee shop ordering a mocha light decaf no whip one pump, it might be enough to make you abandon your place in line and walk out of the store. But what if the context is different, and the issue at stake isn't a hand-crafted drink, but your health? The factors influencing people who face this di […]
As more companies adopt an open-space design philosophy to encourage more conversation and collaboration -- along with cost savings -- some question whether the resulting loss of privacy and frequent interruptions could end up hurting productivity.
Since becoming CEO of Yahoo a year ago, Marissa Mayer has undertaken a far-reaching effort to turn around the beleaguered search company. She has refreshed Yahoo's homepage, made changes to core sites like Flickr and completed a series of acquisitions, including the popular micro-blogging site Tumblr. So far, Yahoo's financial performance under May […]
In a confrontation that made headlines in May, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report claiming that Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple has been using a "complex web of offshore entities" to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes. How do companies like Apple minimize their taxes without breaking any U.S. laws? Why d […]
Global organizations operating in the contemporary business landscape need to tightly link financial rigor and strategic insight. Increasingly, senior financial executives are playing influential roles in strategy development and implementation, working closely with the CEO and the board to creatively assess and design growth opportunities. The question is: […]
Almost two years ago, Netflix seemed to have bottomed out. The streaming and DVD rental company raised its prices, resulting in a mass exodus of subscribers, while also launching an ill-fated attempt to separate its two businesses. Yet the firm seems to have bounced back, emerging as the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 index during the first quarter […]
Global organizations operating in the contemporary business landscape need to tightly link financial rigor and strategic insight. Increasingly, senior financial executives are playing influential roles in strategy development and implementation, working closely with the CEO and the board to creatively assess and design growth opportunities. The question is: […]
January can be a good time to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. Whether you want to become a better leader, motivate your team to achieve greater productivity or learn how to think differently about recurring problems, this book report, featuring seven author interviews and two book reviews, offers ideas and advice on how to address the challenges that li […]
The Wharton School recently lost two of its most talented and respected faculty members, individuals whose accomplishments shaped the future of their respective disciplines. Emeritus professors Paul Kleindorfer and Paul Green died near the beginning of the academic year -- Kleindorfer on August 24 and Green on September 21. Both are praised by friends and co […]
Many of us long to escape during the summer, whether to a beach, an exotic faraway island or into a captivating novel. For others, vacation means having the time to read about current business topics covered in creative ways. Our latest book report offers some examples, ranging from how to break the 24/7 smartphone habit, to how to prepare the next generatio […]
Spring cleaning offers an opportunity to go through our bookshelves -- virtual and otherwise -- to find old favorites and make room for new ones. In our latest book report, we offer reviews, interviews and excerpts that touch on trends that are changing the way we do business.
For insights into the ethics, values and competencies required of today's global leaders, Knowledge@Wharton recently coordinated a Wharton Executive Education roundtable discussion with four fellows from The World Economic Forum's Global Leadership Fellows Program. The program allows participants to work full-time at the World Economic Forum while […]
In recent years, GE has faced severe business challenges -- the company's $200 billion market cap is half of what it used to be. Still, an area of enormous strength is the way the company identifies and builds leaders. Much of the credit goes to GE's corporate learning programs, executed through a learning facility in Crotonville, N.Y. As business […]
Raghda Shaheen, who works for the Dubai International Finance Centre, recently completed a four-week business and legal fellowship program at Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania law school. The program, funded by the U.S. Department of State Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and supported by America-Mideast Educational and Training Services (A […]
In the mid-1990s, a new C-suite title was born when General Electric CEO Jack Welch dubbed Steve Kerr the company's "chief learning officer." Since then, CLOs have sprouted up at major firms in several industries. But what does this new breed of "learning leaders" bring to the table that traditional human resources departments and em […]
"One thing that makes my heart beat is the smell of drywall," says Pastor T.L. Rogers, whose Maryland-based congregation once turned a strip mall into a church complex. Having completed that renovation, his church is now thinking about even bigger projects. But for Rogers, whose advanced degree is in Bible studies, meeting with bank executives can […]
Ben Jealous was appointed president and CEO of the NAACP at a time when its membership was in decline. Jealous, however, has spent the last five years reversing that decline, increasing the number of donors and focusing on current hot-button issues like elimination of the death penalty. What's important, he said during a Wharton leadership lecture, is t […]
Beth Comstock, a senior vice president and chief marketing officer at General Electric, thinks everyone should embrace change, accept challenges and never fear failure. It is advice that has helped her continue to grow in her career at NBC, CBS and now GE, where, among other things, she convinced the CEO to support a new slogan for the company: "imagina […]
READ Global, an international non-profit that uses community libraries as a platform for creating social change in rural villages throughout India, Bhutan and Nepal, is the winner of the second annual Barry & Marie Lipman Family Prize awarded to an organization that is creating social impact through leadership and innovation. Wharton administers the priz […]
GE CEO Jeff Immelt runs a $240-billion company that operates in 160 countries. He recently sat down for a candid discussion about leadership with Wharton management professor Michael Useem at the Wharton Economic Summit 2013 in New York City. Their conversation covered themes such as competitive advantage, global risk management, public policy, mentorship, g […]
Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie once said that he who dies leaving behind many millions will "pass away unwept, unhonored and unsung." That philosophy took root in much of the last century, with major philanthropists giving vast fortunes in their later years to institutions devoted to the public good. But donors today aren't taking any chances. […]
Mark Shapiro got plenty of lessons in negotiation while growing up in Baltimore, thanks to his father, Ron, a sports agent. During a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture, the elder Shapiro and his son, now president of the Cleveland Indians, talked about the qualities important for successful negotiations -- listening, learning, loyalty, respect and the willing […]
In a world focused on increased productivity and instant gratification, it's hard to imagine that businesspeople have much time for meditation. But huge corporations -- including Google, Monsanto, Hearst and National Grid --have discovered the benefits of meditation at work, including improved teamwork, more effective decision-making and lower levels of […]
The current debate over why too few women have achieved leadership positions in business and government focuses on two alleged culprits -- women who don't try hard enough to promote themselves, and organizations that don't provide workplaces supportive enough of women's needs. But the issue, say men and women alike, is not that black and white […]
Named one of The Wall Street Journal's top 10 nonfiction books of 2012, Steven Ujifusa's A Man and His Ship: America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the SS United States brings William Francis Gibbs' story to life. Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor G. Richard Shell recently sat down with Ujifusa to lear […]
Every year, hundreds of thousands of new graduates enter the business world, eager to climb the corporate ladder. Their progress on the early rungs of that journey will often be determined by qualities like hard work, determination, knowledge and technical proficiency. But Alan S. Berson and Richard G. Stieglitz, authors of Leadership Conversations: Challeng […]
One thing certain about the flu is uncertainty, according to Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and a prominent authority on the spread of infectious disease. The rise and rapid spread of H1N1 flu virus, known as swine flu, has kept Lipsitch busy in recent months. An expert in computer modeling of disease dynami […]
A new online journal developed by students at Harvard Law School (HLS) aims to shed light on the area of sports and entertainment law. Students received approval for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law in August and will release the inaugural issue of the annual online publication in the spring of 2010. Within the next couple of years, the jo […]
Jack Szostak, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), has won the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for pioneering work in the discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that protects chromosomes from degrading. The work not only revealed a key cellular function, it also illuminated process […]
A report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers has found that as much as 50% of all food produced around the world never reaches a human stomach due to issues as varied as inadequate infrastructure and storage facilities through to overly strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free offers and consumers demanding cosmetically perfect food. read more
The current report effectively portrays a detailed view of the retail industry’s adoption of sustainability programs. Specifically, authors asked the largest retail companies about the indicators they use to assess the depth and breadth of their sustainability programs. read more
Start: Sep 17 2013 - 00:00 End: Sep 18 2013 - 00:00 Timezone: Etc/GMT From March 2010 until March 2013, the “Impact Measurement and Performance Analysis of CSR” (IMPACT) project will break new ground in addressing these questions across multiple levels and dimensions. Based on an overarching conceptual framework it will combine four empirical methods -econom […]
Start: Oct 15 2013 - 14:00 End: Oct 17 2013 - 17:30 Timezone: Etc/GMT In what ways represents the transition to a globally sustainable economy both challenges and opportunities for the financial sector? To what extent requires the unique combination of risk factors a different role and approach of the financial sector? Are business schools preparing the new […]
Start: Apr 15 2013 - 19:00 End: Apr 15 2013 - 21:00 Timezone: Etc/GMT What role will NGOs play over the next few years? How can they make a greater impact on society in a changing context?What will they need in order to channel social causes? In what direction is their capacity for innovation going?
The European Commission (EC) has developed a "CSR handbook for small business advisers" which is designed to act as a reference when making decisions on how to adapt business to current CSR guidelines. read more
Results of the study found that nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of employed U.S. adults who take part in environmental and social responsibility efforts at work are more likely to make sustainable choices at home as a result. read more
This project evaluated, compared, and contrasted process models, impact assessment methods, and performance indicators used by water utilities in North America, Europe, South Africa, and Australasia to evaluate their energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. read more
Whatever you expected when you entered the degree programme, it all looks different ten years hence. An INSEAD case study draws lessons on career success and personal fulfillment from the lives and work of the MBA class of 2002.
Globalisation has meant urbanisation, and by 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities. What should we do to survive and thrive in this brave new world?
London has the talent and the tradition to remain a world financial centre in tomorrow’s expanding business world...can its infrastructure and city planning rise to the challenge?
Italy’s state broadcaster looks to the private sector to haul itself into the 21st century. But can Luigi Gubitosi create programming; update technology and replenish the coffers? He thinks so.
Can companies influence communities to their advantage? The answer is yes, if they engage the community and demonstrate mutual benefits at an early stage.
Since going public in 2011, the professionals’ social network has gone from a networking site to a must-have tool for recruiters. Will adding content and big data enhance its professional value?
Whatever you expected when you entered the degree programme, it all looks different ten years hence. An INSEAD case study draws lessons on career success and personal fulfillment from the lives and work of the MBA class of 2002.
Globalisation has meant urbanisation, and by 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities. What should we do to survive and thrive in this brave new world?
London has the talent and the tradition to remain a world financial centre in tomorrow’s expanding business world...can its infrastructure and city planning rise to the challenge?
Italy’s state broadcaster looks to the private sector to haul itself into the 21st century. But can Luigi Gubitosi create programming; update technology and replenish the coffers? He thinks so.
Can companies influence communities to their advantage? The answer is yes, if they engage the community and demonstrate mutual benefits at an early stage.
Since going public in 2011, the professionals’ social network has gone from a networking site to a must-have tool for recruiters. Will adding content and big data enhance its professional value?
WTO members and its new Director General face an uphill struggle to revitalize the organization. Carlos A. Primo Braga highlights four areas that require immediate attention
Businesses today operate in two time frames: the immediate, and the very long term. IMD Professor Thomas Malnight, Tracey Keys and Kees van der Graaf examine how business leaders can balance short- and long-term pressures
Most family businesses are not very good at handling a succession. IMD professor Joachim Schwass explains how business schools can help resolve potentially messy handovers at family-run firms.
IMD Professor Jacques Horovitz presents ten strategies that can sharpen the thinking of business leaders, equipping them to make smarter, more informed decisions in their fast-paced environment.
Venkatesh Iyer saw a big opportunity to sell affordable, clean, ethnic fast food to lower-income customers in India. Professor Anand Narasimhan and Aparna M. Dogra explain how he seized the chance
mPedigree is a company that checks the authenticity of medicines. IMD Professor Stuart Read tells the story of how one young activist turned his idealism into a lifesaving business
People who feel poorly managed, unrecognized, under-utilized or frustrated can be lost to the competition. IMD Professor Preston Bottger and Jean-Louis Barsoux explore how to best value talent.
Few Chinese companies have been as successful as Haier. The company’s story has lessons that should be valuable for managers in any industry and any market.
It’s no laughing matter that organizations spend over $200 billion on learning each year. IMD Professor Shlomo Ben-Hur explores what works and what doesn’t in the world of corporate learning.
Cranfield University has awarded five honorary degrees to distinguished figures that are selected for their major influence on the business sectors in which the University specialises.
Comments at last week’s National Manufacturing Debate 2013 hosted by Cranfield University. This fourth national debate focussed on whether a national manufacturing strategy is needed and if it could achieve a 20% GDP by 2020, something that Professor Rajkumar Roy, Head of the Manufacturing and Materials Department at the University believes is possible, but […]
Cranfield student Chidi Ofoegbu has been named by The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in partnership with the Schmidt Family Foundation, as one of eleven students, along with their academic mentors, selected for this unique and important Fellowship.
A solar cooker able to harness the sun’s energy to cook food and purify water has been developed by Cranfield University and COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad. The cooker will significantly improve the quality of life for rural communities in the developing world.
A new remote-controlled ‘boat’ being developed at Cranfield University for the Environment Agency could assist in the recovery of fish populations in UK rivers by improving migration routes and access to vital food and breeding grounds.
Cranfield University has joined forces with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Imperial College and London Business School in developing a global programme for postgraduate students to develop skills and innovative thinking required to map out a more sustainable economy.
Cranfield will be collaborating in a newly announced UK Centre which will be looking at innovative ways of using lasers in UK manufacturing, to replace 'conventional' tools.
The longlist for the third Warwick Prize for Writing is announced today, Wednesday 19 June. The list of 12 titles sees novelists and poets pitted against non-fiction authors including a theoretical physicist and an academic psychologist. Each stands to win the coveted prize of £25,000.
Youngsters will be able to enjoy remote-controlled robots and get the chance to make their own racing car at a free event at the University of Warwick this month.
The QS table of the world’s top 50 universities that under 50 years of age is published today, Tuesday 11th June 2013, once again ranks the University of Warwick as 3rd in the world (making it the highest ranked European university in this table).
As part of their support for the new WMG Academy for Young Engineers, engineering company Bosch helped Coventry and Buckinghamshire school children get a taste of the latest engineering technology at WMG at the University of Warwick.
The Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, visited WMG today to launch a £10 million simulation technology engineering research programme and to see how WMG’s research is helping Midlands SMEs.
The Monash-Warwick Alliance has made its first three joint research appointments as part of a drive to tackle the global challenges of the 21st Century.
WMG at the University of Warwick is building a £2.3m centre to enable the West Midlands’ automotive supply chain to exploit the opportunities offered by lightweight vehicle technologies.
At LinkedIn, we are constantly looking for ways to improve the security of our members' accounts. All LinkedIn accounts are already protected by a series of automatic checks that are designed to thwart unauthorized sign-in ...
I first met Ankit Gupta, one of Pulse's founders, at a technology innovation competition in India many years ago. I keynoted at the event and had the pleasure of meeting Ankit, who went on to win the competition. We spent that ...
Further bolstering the presence of third-party social networks in iOS, Apple is testing deep LinkedIn integration for the upcoming release of iOS 7, according to code-based references found inside of the first beta of iOS 7.
In September, LinkedIn launched a new feature called endorsements, that allows people to validate certain skills you have on your profile. But LinkedIn needs to figure out how to make these lightweight features more relevant.
Apple hasn't announced the feature, but if it does get turned on, that means LinkedIn will work with iOS like it does with Facebook and Twitter. Users will sign in once and be able to easily post content to LinkedIn through iOS ...
Our mobile audience has greatly evolved over the past year. Today, our mobile professionals span across the globe and represent a broad spectrum, from executives to young professionals and from road warriors to desk ...
We know that LinkedIn members are some of the most engaged professionals online. After all, you are involved in millions of conversations across LinkedIn day after day. That's why we want to make it even easier for you to ...
Have you ever wished for a personal assistant who reminds you when your colleagues are celebrating new jobs or birthdays? Or have you wanted to quickly pull up the last conversations you had with people before you head ...
A developer working with the beta version of Apple's overhauled mobile operating system has found evidence to suggest the tech company may be considering deep integration of social network LinkedIn into iOS 7 when it ...
Google's current homepage option, iGoogle, is retiring in November 2013, and it looks increasingly likely that Google Now is being groomed as a replacemen.
Many teachers use iGoogle as a personalized learning home page that was giving at-a-glance access to key learning information. One of the key features of iGoogle was the gadgets where students were able to organizes ...
I love iGoogle. I've had my page set up for years. It has everything I want on it: my blog feeds, my bookmarks, my Flickr feed, Google Reader, my calendar, and the weather. Oh, and funny cat photos because…well, why not?
With the upcoming demise of iGoogle (see image above), I've decided to explore better options for what used to be the “Learn Chinese” iGoogle Page. The best new thing I've found is NetVibes. So I'm very happy to announce ...
To be honest I don't like uStart.org as much as iGoogle. But it was the only startpage I could find which has got a somewhat minimalistic look and a calculator function at the same time. The calculator comes in handy when I'm ...
http://www.protopage.com In the beginning, Google created Google Personalized Homepages- and they saw it was good. Next they improved upon it and created.
Do you use iGoogle? I don't. I played around with it once. I dragged a few widgets around the screen and thought, that's kinda neat. Now, what was I searching for again?
The news of Google shutting down iGoogle (November, 2013 for existing users) has left people scrambling to find alternative start page services on the web. One alternative to iGoogle that I tried last fall is MyLinkCloud.
James Gandolfini, Vince Flynn, TWA Flight 800, Paula Deen, ...
James Gandolfini Vince Flynn TWA Flight 800 Paula Deen Mexico vs Brazil Selma Blair Juneteenth George Zimmer Slim Whitman Jeep recall Russell Brand conundrum Christina Aguilera NBA Who won The Voice Cher Hunter Hayes Aaron Hernandez Michael Hastings Bruno Mars
* Nikkei down 0.7 pct, Topix off 0.6 pct * Real estate shares down * GS Yuasa soars on battery JV with Bosch By Ayai Tomisawa TOKYO, June 20 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share average fell on Thursday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke confirmed market fears that the U.S. central bank could trim its bond buying programme later this year, but a we […]
TOKYO, June 20 (Reuters) - Asian shares deepened losses on Thursday after U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke confirmed market fears that the Fed would begin reducing its stimulus later this year as the economy improved.
SHANGHAI, June 20 (Reuters) - Chinese newspapers available in Beijing and Shanghai carried the following stories on Thursday. Reuters has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
June 19 (Reuters) - Ebix Inc said that it and an affiliate of Goldman Sachs Group Inc decided to cancel their planned merger after U.S regulators started an investigation into allegations of misconduct at Ebix, an insurance software provider.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 19 (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc on Wednesday downplayed concerns that its plans to recycle inactive user IDs could leave users exposed to hackers, saying only 7 percent of those IDs are tied to actual Yahoo email accounts.
SAN FRANCISCO, June 19 (Reuters) - Concerns about security in the cloud are flaring anew after recent revelations about government data-mining, likely spurring new technology to protect corporate and consumer information, according to a panel of cloud experts.
TOKYO, June 20 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share average fell on Thursday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke confirmed market fears that the U.S. central bank could trim its bond buying programme later this year. The Nikkei dropped 1.1 percent at 13,100.86, while the broader Topix shed 0.8 percent to 1,097.75.
June 19 (Reuters) - Ebix Inc said it will not be bought by a Goldman Sachs Group Inc affiliate after the insurance software provider received a letter from a U.S regulator regarding an investigation into allegations of misconduct.
Capture On June 6th 2013, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Ann Arbor Chapter of ASTD, facilitating a discussion entitled Social Media and Social Learning for Learning Professionals. This blog post is being set up a ...
Last week I was in New York City where I gave the keynote at the International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace. The title was Social learning; the changing face of workplace learning. Embedded below is the ...
Bandura's Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. The theory has often been called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it ...
Last week I was in New York City where I gave the keynote at the International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace. The title was Social learning; the changing face of workplace learning. You can find the slides and ...
Put Social Learning Tools on Your Map. June 13, 2013 | posted in Learning and Development Today | by David Wentworth. If you wanted any more evidence of how social elements can enhance an already robust technology solution, look no ...
So any formal social learning experience shouldn't focus on the use of social media tools to perpetuate the command-and-control training model, but on enabling a deeper “social learning experience” – and to do this it needs ...
Social learning in recent words can be explained as the use of collaboration to make sense of the new ideas. Today is the age of technology and society is more.
Social Learning: Watching and observing how others use alcohol and drugs influences our decisions to use. For example, if you notice attractive people drinking or smoking at a bar, and you watch them being rewarded for ...
Alban Jarry. Partage d'actualités financières (Asset Management, Assurance, Economie, Solvency II, AIFM) et d'informations sur les Réseaux Sociaux Professionnels. Jérick's Blog. Partageons, de l'échange vient le Progrés !
Epigogy, Inc is presenting a training this weekend on using Curatr to enhance social learning in the classroom. Go to this site for the clickable version: index · https://magic.piktochart.com/output/8bc8e7a7-756d-478b-be41- ...
Corporate directors identified talent management as their single greatest strategic challenge. In our survey, conducted in partnership with WomenCorporateDirectors and Heidrick & Struggles, we asked over 1,000 board ...
Consortium members met in Raleigh, NC in May of 2013 to explore Talent Management, Cross-Organizational Resources, and People Profiles. Greg Oxton with the Consortium opened the meeting with some thoughts around ...
Following on from my recent post on strategic workforce planning, the related theme of talent management seems to be a top concern for HR directors (photo by miggslives). Fortunately, I haven't had to do a lot of research to ...
So, how can the average company even begin to think about the prospects of total talent management? Well, it's not so cut-and-dry; in fact, there's no cure-all solution or an official guidebook on the matter (at least, not yet).
Asia Pacific news, jobs, directory, events for the cleantech & green business community. Clean energy, carbon, CSR, green buildings, water, waste, eco-cities.
Collectively, within an organization, HR executives, directors and managers are now considered a “strategic partner” that helps drive and deliver on the overall goals of the company through talent management best-practices.
While one might expect organizations to seek out innovative approaches to talent management using the type of nuanced, analytics-driven decision making common in market or capital planning, many companies still take a ...
BEIJING (Reuters) - Activity in China's vast manufacturing sector weakened further in June to a 9-month low as new orders faltered, a preliminary survey of purchasing managers showed on Thursday, reinforcing signs of tepid economic growth in the second quarter.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp CEO Kazuo Hirai said on Thursday that the electronics firm's board will consider hedge fund Third Point's suggestion to spin-off the electronics company's profitable entertainment arm.
(Reuters) - Lazada, the Southeast Asian online retail company founded by Germany's Rocket Internet Gmbh, has secured another $100 million from investors in its bid to lift the region from its status as an e-commerce backwater.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Eccentric software pioneer John McAfee is back in the spotlight - lashing out at the anti-virus software that bears his name in a profanity-laced video.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Euro zone finance ministers will decide on Thursday when and how their bailout fund can invest in a bank to save it from failure, laying a cornerstone of the banking union seen as vital to restore economic growth.
(Reuters) - SandRidge Energy Inc's board of directors removed the energy company's founder and chief executive, Tom Ward, on Wednesday after a months-long struggle with activist investors who accused him of strategic mistakes and self-dealing at the expense of shareholders.
(Reuters) - SandRidge Energy Inc's board of directors removed the energy company's founder and chief executive, Tom Ward, on Wednesday after a months-long struggle with activist investors who accused him of strategic mistakes and self-dealing at the expense of shareholders.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A high profile sex discrimination lawsuit in Silicon Valley should be taken private via arbitration, lawyers for venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers argued on Wednesday, but the plaintiff, former partner Ellen Pao, wants the chance to tell her story before a judge.
TOKYO (Reuters) - A proposal by Sony Corp's top investor to partially spin off the Japanese company's lucrative entertainment business will be the elephant in the room at an annual shareholders meeting on Thursday.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp should consider raising its offer price for Clearwire Corp or risk being saddled with a contentious relationship with Dish Network Corp, controlled by feisty billionaire Charlie Ergen.
. 月 is the Chinese Character for moon. It is also the character for month. One way to remember this character is to think about the number two (2 Strokes 二) and then to add the shape around the number two strokes.
. In Chinese it is written nowadays like this 日. It is the literal meaning for sun, but usually it is used for the word day. You could also remember the character by thinking of the number three 三 to which the vertical stroke from the number ten in Chinese is added to the left and right side.
to write the moon
for Sun
