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Ask HN: What do you want to learn in 2017?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you want to learn in 2017?

#182
post #170

Sales. I have a computer science degree and learned software development isn't for me so I'm switching to sales this year. I'm looking forward to having both the technical skills and sales skills under my belt.

I've been in sales 15 years now. Check out these resources and they will give you a GREAT foundation: Read the challenger sale: https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conv... and read SPIN selling: https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/00705111... Listen to the advanced selling podcast: https://advancedsellingpodcast.com/ Cheers

Thanks for the tips! I read and enjoyed SPIN Selling.

I love podcasts so I'll give that a listen.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to learn in 2017?

#185

I have been reading alot about Machine Learning and I want to get into the practical application of it. So I will begin with learning Mathematics and then some Machine learning code for training a basic model for NLP or Facial Recognition :) Any suggestions on how to go about learning Mathematics requires for Machine Learning is more than welcome

Assuming you know the basics of calculus: learn lots of linear algebra, lots of probability theory, mathematical statistics, and optimization.

But you don't have to wait to learn all the math to get going

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to learn in 2017?

#190
post #95

I'd like to learn Japanese. I'm hoping to travel there in June after I graduate from college, and I figure it would help if I could talk to people (or try, at least). I'd also like to get better at Rust. I've written a few small projects in it at hackathons, but I've yet to get to the point where I'm comfortable writing in it. I'd like to get close to that. I'm taking a class prior to graduation in abstract algebra,…

Couple of quick pointers wrt Japanese. First, human languages take a long time to get good at. If we think that children learn faster than adults (which I think is not actually true, but it's a widely held belief), then it will take you 5 years to talk like a 5 year old, 10 years to talk like a 10 year old and 15-20 years to talk like an adult -- minimum. If you study very effectively, I think you can double this speed, but no more than that. Adult level proficiency is 15-20,000 word families. Ignore anything that tells you that you can be proficient with 2,000 words of vocabulary (even a 4 year old has more than that!)

Specific advice about Japanese: forget polite form and learn plain form from the beginning. If you are in dire need of sounding polite, just put "desu" at the end of every sentence. It will be grammatically incorrect, but nobody will fault you for it (it's what children often do). The mapping from plain form to polite form makes total sense. The opposite is not true and complex sentences require that you master plain form, so this will reduce your effort considerably.

Also, learn to read. This is especially true if you are coming to Japan. Hiragana and katakana will take you a few weeks. Try to learn at least 100-200 of the most common kanji as well. This will take you only a month or so and it will make your life dramatically easier.

Learn full sentences and ignore grammar for the most part. I got to reasonable conversational level simply by memorising the example sentences in Tae Kim's grammar guide: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar. Use spaced repetition to help speed it up.

Get the JLPT N5 and N4 vocabulary lists and memorise them. Even N3 is useful. These are words that map pretty much directly with English without a lot of nuance, so memorising them is efficient. Otherwise learn vocabulary in context by reading. I recommend manga because it will give you conversational Japanese. There is no description in comic books -- only conversation. They are perfect.

Finally, get a phrase book and memorise some set phrases -- just to help you a long. Keep in mind, though, that a lot of phrases are regional and wherever you are going, they might say things a bit differently. Generally speaking you should be fine if you stick with common phrases, though.

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