laurieg

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511.
by laurieg 10y ago
Does anyone have any advice on how to hear the distinction in sounds that aren't in your native language? For example an English speaker learning Chinese tones or a Japanese speaker learning L and R differences. It seems like this is
512.
by laurieg 10y ago
That is a wonderful video. The gibberish she speaks in Each language sounds pretty convincing, although I noticed my relationship with each language affected how it sounded a lot. French and Spanish: I've heard them around but never s
513.
by laurieg 10y ago
I share the same experience in Japan. Once a blue moon someone will just not be able to process a white face speaking Japanese. I think it's because languages are all about expectations. If some piece of information has primed me to
514.
by laurieg 10y ago
I don't know if you're a native speaker or not but for non-natives I think English Grammar In Use is great for initial study and then reference later. It covers almost all patterns that are actually used in English without gettin
515.
by laurieg 10y ago
Looks excellent. What was your biggest difficulty/hurdle in this project? How did you solve that problem?
516.
by laurieg 10y ago
That is correct. It has some downsides. A recent piece of research into racism recently assumed that all Japanese nationals were ethnically Japanese so did not survey them on their experiences with racism. Considering around 1 in 50 child
517.
by laurieg 10y ago
I think less reliance on clock time would be a good thing for the modern world, but I don't think getting rid of time zones would achieve that. It's amazing how much of modern life is unnecessarily affected by the time on the cloc
518.
by laurieg 10y ago
Many small streets in Japan mix pedestrians, bicycles and motor vehicles [1]. They may have a white line to indicate the difference between pavement(sidewalk) and road but it's really just a suggestion in practice. Cars on these road
519.
by laurieg 10y ago
Prawn is wonderful. I used it to make a worksheet generator for teaching and was blown away by what I could do.
520.
by laurieg 10y ago
As someone who loved playing music I would suggest you avoid brass or woodwind instruments. It is maddening to spend years and years practicing and not even be able to play all of the notes (individually) on a 'standard' piece of
521.
by laurieg 10y ago
Black Mirror tackles one of the hardest problems about technical: How society changes around it. We spend such a long time talking about the latest cutting edge hardware, new algorithms, new problems that can now be solved, but it's to
522.
Ask HN: How to recover from a career false start?
4 points by laurieg 10y ago|2 comments
523.
by laurieg 10y ago
The problem with story problems is, as the article states, that they are never really presented in the open ended way they claim to be. You almost always teach a class a fixed operation, multiplication for example, and then give them a bun
524.
by laurieg 10y ago
I encountered this in real life in a completely different field. As a schoolboy I studied the trumpet. My teacher was an excellent trumpeter. He gave me exercises every week and said "Just play these for an hour a day and you'll
525.
by laurieg 10y ago
Demographically speaking, I think Japan would be the perfect place to test the basic income: A largely homogenous society where there is almost no one from the outside to be seen as a "freeloading", collectivist values forming st
526.
by laurieg 10y ago
That depends on what country you're in. In Japan it's very standard to include date of birth, gender and a photograph on CV's. On the whole I hate the practice, but you have to consider cultural norms when doing the job-hunt
527.
by laurieg 10y ago
Teaching programming with test driven development is like teaching French to absolute beginners. In French. Over the phone. Absolute beginners have trouble looking at foo = bar; and understanding that variables do something different on ei
528.
by laurieg 10y ago
Probably a pragmatic choice. High school kids schedules are absolutely packed with focused study for exams and then more after school homework and cram schools. If you told parents and students they were going to have less study time to g
529.
by laurieg 10y ago
Actually in Japan, I could easily see students being mocked for correcting the teacher. A little story from a Japanese friend who was fluent in English: He, of course, had to take elementary English in school. The teacher was teaching fam
530.
by laurieg 10y ago
Not all children will grow up to be programmers, but more and more will be information workers that will need to know what kind of tasks can be solved with programming. In a previous company the requests from non-developers ranged in comple
531.
by laurieg 10y ago
The assistant language teacher programme has to be blamed in part for these teachers. For those who don't know, Japan imports lots and lots of young people to be assistant language teachers for 1-5 years. They provide them with very
532.
by laurieg 10y ago
Japan is a strange case. On one hand, if you ask an average person a simple question in English, something like "What did you do yesterday?" they won't be able to parse the question let alone produce a response. On the othe
533.
by laurieg 11y ago
Very interesting. I've toyed around this idea myself and come to the conclusion that coloring on part of the speech level is not that useful for the educational aspects I'm interested in. If you could take this to the next level
534.
by laurieg 11y ago
Congratulations on taking the dive! I've met lots of digital nomads and starry eyed entrepreneurs in Japan but the slog and paperwork of getting things set up often puts them off. Let me know if you make it to Fukuoka and I'll bu
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by laurieg 11y ago
I absolutely would. When I studied CS at university one of my coursemates was blind and he managed to work very well with his limitation. I would make it clear right from the start of the application process. Anyone who turns you down (fr
536.
by laurieg 11y ago
I find it fascinating how we can often consider our own native language the "obvious" way of doing things. I once had a frustrated student talk to me about a Japanese colleagues pronunciation. He said words like "fight"
537.
by laurieg 11y ago
I have to say that, as a man, 0 investment in the interaction from the start is the only real way to play the game. The chances of any given person getting back to me on tinder is so low that I actively try to avoid reading profiles and ge
538.
by laurieg 11y ago
Great to see your language learning website! I'm developing similar ideas all the time, but I'm having trouble earning the first dollar. A few questions: Do you feel trying to do every language is effective? Do you have trouble w
539.
by laurieg 11y ago
Any chance of more esoteric payment methods like convenience store payments?
540.
by laurieg 11y ago
I agree whole-heartedly. Copying foreign innovation for the Japanese market is a common business model in Japan, but it usually falls down on the details.

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