Over the past month as made my way through the phenomenal guide Remembering the Kanji, I’ve learned some interesting things. Not only am I writing all the Joyo kanji with an accuracy I could only have dreamt of before RTK, but I’m starting to recognize some of the systematic aspects behind the post WWII [...]

Looking back, it kind of amazes me that I’ve just this month truly discovered James W. Heisig’s landmark work, Remembering the Kanji. Back in 2001 and 2002, I heard Heisig’s name pop up a couple of times while I was studying Japanese at UC Boulder. I think my very first Japanese teacher may [...]

I’ve made a Firefox extension that converts pinyin with tone numbers into pinyin with tone marks. The specifics of the conversion process are identical to those of the online pinyin converter I wrote earlier.
After installing the extension, a blue square will appear on the right side of the status bar at the bottom of [...]

Anki is a free software program designed to help people remember what they have learned. It’s a flashcard program, with support for a variety of media, including text, sound files, mathematical equations (using Latex) and even images. My use of it so far has been restricted to foreign language learning. Anki runs [...]

I’ve had a passing interest in the concept of spaced repetition ever since I read the Wired article about Piotr Wozniak’s fantastic human experiment.
Twenty years ago, Wozniak realized that computers could easily calculate the moment of forgetting if he could discover the right algorithm. SuperMemo is the result of his research. It predicts the future [...]

I caught this off of John Biesnecker’s recently resurrected blog*.

This is pretty impressive. He definitely got a boost from his post-hockey drinking, though.
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Chinese Perakun is one of my favorite tools for reading Chinese online. It’s a Firefox plug-in for Chinese learners. When it’s enabled, it displays a pop-up with an English translation a pinyin pronunciation and larger version of the character. Below is an example, in which I hovered the mouse over the phrase [...]

One of the really great teachers I’ve worked with before has put up what appear to be training videos for new teachers at his school. Ross’s school could be the best 1st and 2nd grade English program in Taiwan.

It’s about time Brendan got some love for his skills! When he showed me around Beijing the summer before last, I was amazed at his Chinese. To me, he sounded completely indistinguishable from a native Beijinger. Admittedly, coming from Taiwan, the Beijing accent is a bit hard for me to judge, but [...]

I recently received this email from a high school teacher in Florida:
I came across your textbook reviews online and they all seem to focus on college level chinese and traditional characters.
I just started teaching high school Chinese and I’m looking for a textbook that will allow me to focus on tones, simplified characters, and pinyin. [...]