Learning how to learn, Barbara Oakley, Coursera.
By far and away the best learning course I've taken in my life as well, I wish it had been available before I had completed my formal education.
By far and away the best learning course I've taken in my life as well, I wish it had been available before I had completed my formal education.
Self-taught Japanese, Chinese, etc. Course changed me. Wouldn't be a programmer without it.
Sidenote, there's no PM function here, but my email's in my profile. Shoot me a note if you want any tips on Japanese etc. Got decks of anki flashcards for daaaays.
1. Taking the coursera course probably a valuable use of time, alongside more general "meta-learning" about personal psychology. Books such as "How to Win friends..." "Power of Habit..." "Wherever you go, there you are..." etc
2. Use "anki" or "ankidroid" depending on platform. Get public decks "Hiragana with stroke diagrams and audio," "Kana (katakana)," "Core 2k/6k optimized Japanese vocabulary," and use following youtube video to then create forward/backwards cards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnbKwHEQ1mA
3. Use this resource for japanese grammar and complete exercises: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar
4. Use this to practice listening skills: http://www.nhk.or.jp/radionews/
5. Create and write down a clear reason for learning Japanese, and potentially book a flight (well ahead of time, and if economically viable) to set a concrete timeline for learning.
EDIT: By the way, the "Core 2k..." cards have example phrases for every word. I don't recommend trying to memorize these, but I do recommend reading the sentence out loud for every card. Muscle memory, further familiarity with grammar, helping sort whether a given verb is a ru- or non-ru verb, etc.
I own the book and have half-read it twice, it’s very underwhelming. At no point am I thinking “that’s going to change my way of doing X”
You shouldn't expect some direct instructions about "how to do/achieve X" in this course/book, I would say. It's more like Brain 101 - A layman's guide on how to use it efficiently. I say "layman", because as you go through the course you realize how little you know about your own brain. It teaches you how to treat the brain, basically - it was the case for me at least (e.g. the real need for sleep, for one). It's not a some kind of deceptive self-help book (course), after all.
Besides, Barbara Oakley is not the only instructor of the course. Terrence Sejnowski[0] is also involved, who is an important figure in his field - Computational Neuroscience. He appears in some videos.
Last but not least, maybe following the video lectures would be more fun for you too. Barbara Oakley, such a lively and nice lady. I wrote her a "thank you" e-mail stating my appreciation for the course and not surprisingly, she replied kindly. I'd like to meet and have a conversation with her some day - but I'm thousands of kilometers (0.621 miles:) away.
[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Sejnowski
My two cents.
Most of the "techniques" are stuff you pick up in middle school.
Also I find the teaching style, with those cute cartoons and sounds, extremely patronizing.