Episode 139 Episode 139 Check out my Chinese Learning Journal - Top Ten Tips to Enhance Yours

Today we're going to look at my Chinese Learning Journal. Although mine is in Chinese I think there are a lot of principles that work for learning any language. Key things to remember when choosing a journal: 1. Choose the right size 2. Choose the right paper 3. Make it colourful 4. Use pictures to help you remember vocabulary 5. Use your own language to help you identify and remember sounds 6. Put boxes around important information 7. Number your pages and create a Contents page or Index so you can quickly find things 8. Use different sections of the book for different things (Vocabulary at the back, lessons in the front, for example) 9. Use Post-it notes or similar to identify important pages quickly (such as Classroom English) 10. Don't worry about how it looks, what's important is how it works for you! I hope you found that helpful. Additional Vocabulary tidal lake - tides come in and go out, so a tidal lake is one that goes in and out with the moon phases. Most Lake District lakes are too small to be affected by the moon, instead they go in and out depending on how much it has rained. hazy - when there is a think fog in the sky so it's not very clear or easy to see distances Please, please, oak trees, save me! - knock on wood - idiom, I was sitting too far away from the trees to use the usual 'knock on wood' or 'touch wood' phrase so I adapted it. This is a superstition, that if we say something ominous, if we knock on some wood it will stop the bad thing from happening! something to bear in mind - something to remember but don't go overboard - don't get too excited or do too much I didn't stick to a thing - I didn't continue to do a particular, specific thing I kept running out of colors - idiom - run out of means we don't have enough left new vocabulary that was popping up - something comes up or appears suddenly Pinyin - this is the roman alphabet that is used by Mandarin speakers to write out the sounds or pronunciation of Mandarin words.