"Design for how People Learn" is pretty good book on helping people learn.
Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
31–40 of 92 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#32So, I've spent the last 7 days working on a new feature to help people set and work towards goals. The concept goal: Learning Japanese! (I've been 'learning' for 3 years now). Here's a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/afAW49V.png . Basically it's a moodboard that combines a timer, todos, insights, notes, images and links. 'How does that help me learn new things better' you ask? The challenge with goals - as I see it -…
I've been leaning towards learning Japanese as a 2017 goal, so this or any other tips would be very much appreciated!
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#33Practice and persistence. It's as simple as that. You won't learn much unless you make time for it. Don't focus too much on learning perfectly the right way, just get started and keep at it.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#34So, I've spent the last 7 days working on a new feature to help people set and work towards goals. The concept goal: Learning Japanese! (I've been 'learning' for 3 years now). Here's a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/afAW49V.png . Basically it's a moodboard that combines a timer, todos, insights, notes, images and links. 'How does that help me learn new things better' you ask? The challenge with goals - as I see it -…
This sounds good, I'm going to look out for it.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#35Spaced repetition is very effective, although again it does require flash cards, but optimizes (i.e. minimizes) the frequency at which you have to review them based on how you are learning.
Anki[0] is an excellent, free spaced-repetition app if making paper flash cards isn't your style.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#36Block out your calendar to learn a specific task. Don't overthink. Just do it. And after a few months of trying and reading the process will get better automatically. Key is to just start and be regular.
Agreed. Unless you're doing barbell squats it's far more important in my experience to just get started.
Waiting to start until you have the perfect equipment or technique or form or strategy raises the starting friction and prevents me from doing a great many things I should be doing.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#37If you want to learn a language, find a cheap immersion school in a country and spend 3 months there. Guatemala is great for Spanish. I hear Montreal is good for French.
Drawing... well, I'm not having much luck with that. Did 6 months of drawing 1 hour a day last year. Think I got a little better. Reddit has a couple of useful groups to follow:
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#38So, I've spent the last 7 days working on a new feature to help people set and work towards goals. The concept goal: Learning Japanese! (I've been 'learning' for 3 years now). Here's a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/afAW49V.png . Basically it's a moodboard that combines a timer, todos, insights, notes, images and links. 'How does that help me learn new things better' you ask? The challenge with goals - as I see it -…
This sounds good, I'm going to look out for it.
+1 on that. Sounds like potentially great app. Please post the name/url in here so we can keep a watch out for it.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#39Check out Beyond Brilliance-a book that was just released out of UC Berkeley designed to teach you how to learn. www.beyondbrilliance.org
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#40I enjoyed duolingo (https://www.duolingo.com) for learning Swedish. I liked the game mechanics, honestly. Here's why:
* Positive reinforcement: cheerful noises and visual progress once I completed a section.
* Negative reinforcement: if I didn't practice at all that day, I would get a notification at 11pm. If I ignored for a while, they were super passive aggressive, saying things like "These don't seem to be working. We'll stop sending them". I felt guilty and would start agin.
* I wanted to keep my daily streak going. It made me feel like Jerry Seinfeld with his "write a joke a day; put an X on the calendar" technique.
* I liked the concepts of experience (exp) and levels; it let me feel like I was making concrete progress, even if I was totally incompetent. I indulged my gamer side while still being productive!
* duolingo works just as well on browser as mobile
* Training sessions were short enough that if I only had a few minutes of downtime, as long as I had my phone on me, I could actually be productive. This made subway rides that much better.
* duoolingo offers a practice mode where I could work specifically on my speed if I had longer chunks of time and wanted to dive deeper.
And today, I can totally speak intelligible Swedish [1]. It worked.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxoXe5FDIkA – some phrases are off (I should've said "hur man sköter marknadsföring själv") and pronunciation is off.