Even if you're a self-taught person, you don't have to learn everything that way, rather than (for instance) taking a class or otherwise going through a course of study. Not necessarily a university class; check out your local community center, or seek out a local artist that also teaches on the side.
Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
11–20 of 92 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#12What works for me is to integrate the thing I want to learn into my lifestyle and do it everyday. If I have a day where I am inspired or particularly creative I just funnel that energy into the topic. Along the way I give myself small project goals that emerge from exploring the activity.
The ideal scenario is to become immersed so the topic becomes "part of you".
I also give myself a two year gestation period of incremental learning to see results and build muscle memory. I did this with programming and once you do it with one topic, you will build the confidence that it will come to fruition with anything else you decide to do.
I'm not a fan of peddling the idea that anything worth learning can be learned "fast". It may work for some people, but I think they are the minority. it's been my experience there's usually a fair amount of self deception involved in "fast" learning....or "fast" anything for that matter. This works for some people - I'm not one of them.
If you want to learn a new language then walk around with headphones listening to people speak it. When you talk to people in English in your head ask yourself how to say the same thing in the alternate language. etc....
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#13I find learning more motivating within the context of a project, although that is more relevant to drawing or tech knowledge. Also, I built a search engine for lectures, which has a lot of talks from tech conferences, which I find helpful for learning about software development topics - https://www.findlectures.com
Thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed looking around the site. What do you use under the hood for searching and faceting, Solr?
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#14Maybe just throwing it out there as an additional resource: Coursera has a "learning how to learn" course, which includes lots of references about the theory of learning but many hands-on tips too. It's not too time consuming and doesn't cost anything, so probably can't hurt to look at it. I liked it and try to apply some of the ideas when learning.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#15I've not done this, but intend to, if you want to learn Japanese I've had many people recommend this to get started: http://store.steampowered.com/app/438270/
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#16I've not done this, but intend to, if you want to learn Japanese I've had many people recommend this to get started: http://store.steampowered.com/app/438270/
You don't need an app to learn Hiragana. I studied Japanese in college and started in a summer class.
Learning hiragana was a requirement before starting day 1.
To be honest it only took a few hours and all we had to do with was a few pages of photocopied writing pages with some mnemonics. Now you can just download the equivalent, or even get a full guide with videos: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/
Seriously, hiragana/katakana are one area where you don't need a hack. For learning how to actually understand the language, then you'll need to buy books/CDs/Podcast subscriptsions/classes/etc...
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#17I was learning with his method, works perfectly https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/portrait-challen...
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#18The first time I learned a new language I didn't use these tools and I failed miserably. Looking back, I'm thinking "Why did I use 300 hours and spend $X of cash?" without taking the time to learn about learning.
This is especially true with languages, unless you can be fully immersed, but I still recommend it. Look into metacognition and spaced repetition. You'll need a system that works for you but look for techniques backed by research.
Specifically, Fluent Forever is a fantastic book on learning how to learn languages and Scott Young's blog mentioned is great. I second the art recommendation "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#19I was learning with his method, works perfectly https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/portrait-challen...
What have you learned with it so far?
Re: Ask HN: How to learn new things better?
#20Maybe just throwing it out there as an additional resource: Coursera has a "learning how to learn" course, which includes lots of references about the theory of learning but many hands-on tips too. It's not too time consuming and doesn't cost anything, so probably can't hurt to look at it. I liked it and try to apply some of the ideas when learning. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/
I too was going to mention this course.
It is absolutely fantastic, IMO. Going through every week/lecture of it, I keep saying myself it must be an obligatory course for every freshman. We are surrounded with so many distractions in our ordinary daily life and most of us are terrible at habit formation. Procrastination and irregular sleep pattern are our most-common "habit". Long story short, IMHO, this course is a must for whom wants to form a habit, learn how to avoid procrastination / about the importance of sleep / how to avoid distractions and other relevant things.