The Language Mastery Blog
150+ Free Articles & Resources to Help You Reach Fluency Anywhere in the World
How to Apply the “Minimum Effective Dose” Approach to Learning Kanji
Question: What do boiling water and learning kanji have in common? Answer: Just as you only need a certain temperature to boil water, you only need to know a finite number of high-frequency kanji to read blogs, manga, books, magazines, newspapers, etc. This is the minimum effective dose (MED), a powerful tool to save you lots of time and effort in your Japanese language learning journey.
Progress, Not Perfection, is the Goal
I almost didn’t write this blog post. Why? Because I am currently driving with my wife back up to Seattle from LA and only have about 30 minutes available to write. My inner perfectionist almost talked me out of posting anything at all, arguing that it’s better to do nothing than do something less than perfect. Fortunately, I’ve learned to resist the siren call of such irrational perfectionism (and you can, too!) thanks to what I learned reading “Better Than Before” by Gretchen Rubin.
How to Spot Linguistic Bigotry & Discrimination
“Linguistic discrimination”, also known as “linguicism”, is one of the darkest corners of sociolinguistics, but also one of the most fascinating. Though it’s a complex and highly controversial topic, in simple terms, linguicism is defined as: The unfair treatment of an individual based on their native language, dialect, accent, vocabulary, word choice, syntax, etc. Sadly, this form of discrimination can be found in every corner of the globe. As I’ve traveled the world—and even different pockets of my home country—I have witnessed countless cases of people being treated better or worse based on their native tongue or regional dialect.