Mastering Vocabulary Learning: Routines

Before I started university, I had no system for learning vocabulary efficiently. I would usually just write down a list of words and their translation, and hope for the best to magically memorize them. This lack of a system soon turned out to be insufficient for my studies, and so I tried out several techniques to find one that helped me. Not too long ago, I finally found a method that works well for me: digital flashcards.

Prior to making flashcards, I analyze the words I need to study thoroughly: I look up explanations, synonyms, common collocations and, most importantly, example sentences. My favorite tools include Vocabulary.com and the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, and for further collocations, I have recently started using COCA. Unfortunately, collecting all this information is very time-consuming, which is definitely a drawback. However, in the long term, I benefit from it immensely, as I really get to know the contexts the words are likely to appear in and therefore get a feeling for how to use them properly.

Based on this analysis, I put together digital flashcards in a computer program called anki. It works just like physical flashcards: you put one piece of information on one side of the card, and put its definition on its on the other side. I usually type in collocations or phrases, rather than a single word, on the front side, and use synonyms or English explanations for the flip side. For words I don’t know how to pronounce, I also insert audio files, most often taken from the online pronunciation guide Forvo.com. After having typed in my list of words and their explanations, I can start studying these cards right away.

There are several reasons why I prefer anki over other flashcard programs. Firstly, anki exists both as a computer program and as an app, and will synchronize changes and learning progress across the devices it is used on. It also lets you modify the way you review cards: you can either simply look at the answer after guessing it in your head, or force yourself to manually type in the answer and compare it to the original solution. However, what I like the most about anki is that after answering a question, you have to rate how well you actually knew the answer. Based on these ratings, the program will ask you cards you were not so sure about more often and cards you knew for sure less often. It generally restricts the number of cards you revise per session to a realistic amount, but also provides a “cram mode” for emergencies. I think all these features really make a difference as I feel I am learning more efficiently now than before I started using anki.

In my experience, what really counts when learning vocabulary is discipline. It’s the true key to success. It is crucial to start studying early enough and to do it regularly; otherwise, there is simply not enough time to get it into your long-term memory. Unfortunately, discipline is not something a computer program can provide me with, so this is one factor I still have to work on. However, if I keep my motivation up, I think I will get better in learning vocabulary, especially now that I finally have an efficient method of doing it.

What Good Bloggers Do

About one year ago, I wrote a post about my rather unsuccessful blogger-career in my first semester as an SUK-student. Although I already had some blogging experience at that time, I was a bit overwhelmed by the task of writing a blog for a wider and more public audience. Luckily, things seem to have changed and I have become a more successful blogger in the meantime. I don't hesitate to share my opinion about something anymore and I realized how much fun it is to write about your own interests and to share your thoughts and knowledge about something.

Especially the sharing of knowledge is something I really grew fond of, because the process of writing about a topic I am enthusiastic about forces me me think of the best way to convey what you want to say in a clear matter, instead of writing "GUYS, THIS IS AWESOME!" in capslock. You have to organize your thoughts and make it easy to understand (and, naturally, also interesting) for people who don't know anything about that very topic. It is not about explaining the whole topic to the audience, but to explain what is interesting or cool about it and why you are interested in it. And maybe also why it could be interesting to the readers as well.

Naturally, not every topic somebody is excited about is automatically interesting to other people as well. But if you learn something new from a post about a topic you know not much about, then the blog (or rather the author) did everything right. That's also something I think most of the Top 10 Bloggers from the last semester did right: they managed to offer clear insights into topics that were interesting to them and mostly new to us. Some of them also used catchy post titles, funny pictures or a background story to catch the readers attention. But still: the post itself must be interesting to read as well.

What I also really liked about most of the top bloggers was that they stuck to one or two main topics in their blogs. Some wrote mostly about traveling, other focused on American history. That they were so consistent with that without becoming boring was something I was really impressed by. This way, you knew almost instantly what you can expect from their blogs and also if you might be interested in their future posts. I, on the other hand, posted about things that just came to my mind with no connection to the other topics I was talking about. Don't take me wrong: this can also work absolutely fine! But I decided that I also want to stick to one or two main topics so that people get a feeling about what I might be posting about in the future.

There are also two further things I want to change about my blogging behavior: firstly, I want to post more frequently and secondly, I want to read more blogs by others SUK-students and (okay, that makes it three things) leave more comments on their posts. This way, we might inspire each other to post about certain topics and consequently will also get motivated to post more as soon as we realize that people do read our blogs. Wouldn't that be great? I think it totally would.

B.A.R.F. or: How to Feed Your Cats (and Dogs) in the Most Natural Way!

Deep inside I am a crazy cat-lady. This does not necessarily mean that I have hundreds of cats, but the well-being of my two cats is very important to me. That's why I have been reading hundreds of articles about the ideal diet for cats in order to help them having a happy and long life. 

Well, to cut a long story short: industrial food for animals is said, to contrary believe, to be really really bad. It makes a whole lot of sense if we keep the reputation of industrial food for human-beings nowadays in mind -- artificial, full of additives and unhealthy -- just that the quality of animal food is far worse. The animal food industry uses similar tricks to deceive pet owners and even the pets themselves. For example, they use include flavor and color enhancers to make the food smell and look better, just as in human food.

Although cats are carnivores (pure meat-eaters), canned cat food often contain less meat than cats need (vegetable ingredients often substitutes as meat as it is cheaper) and contain meat that is considered inedible for human-beings. So what else is left to feed then? 

The solution to all cat-ladies' problems is called B.A.R.F: Biologically Appropriate Raw Food. It basically is about feeding cats (and dogs) raw meat. With industrial food, you can never be sure what's really inside. With B.A.R.F. though, you yourself prepare the meals for your pets on the basis of what your pets really needs. Luckily, there is a lot of literature and online guides for that which are based on what animals would eat in their natural habitat. Just take a look on the most common prey of a cat: birds. It consists of feathers, skin, flesh (the part with the muscles in them), organs and processed food inside the organs. Each part of this serves an important purpose in the cat's body: the feathers and the food inside the organs help with the digestion, the skin, flesh and organs contain the fat and vital vitamins. Therefore, crazy cat-ladies buy meat and organs at the deli counter or at the butcher, and, if necessary, mix them up with vegetables which serve as a substitute for the stomach contents. Some things such as minerals or certain vitamins are substituted with oils or powders. 

All of this might sound a bit odd. Maybe because many people think that putting that much thought into the diet of animals is way out of line, especially if these pet-owners don't live healthy themselves. I think the difference between humans being able to choose what to eat and pets being dependent on the choice of their owners is crucial here. Well, there are cats who don't want to eat raw food, most likely because they are already used to industrial food. But that's okay too. At least they made their choice then, you could say. In crazy-catlady-jargon.

I'm no big expert yet and my cats still eat some industrial food inbetween. But I am convinced that this diet highly improves their life quality. Surprisingly, preparing the meat is not that disgusting as I had thought it would be: it doesn't smell bad (if it is fresh) and it feels cleaner than the mashed meat-mixture my cats usually got before. 

For those interested now, they are even workshops in Graz about this very topic. I even attended one yesterday and it was really informative and also very nice. If you are interested, don't hesitate to contact me. I'm glad if I can help!

American Civil War: How 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' Can Teach You Something About the Civil War

My all-time-favorite movie, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, is settled in the time of the American Civil War. However, the war itself is not the center of attention in the storyline. But the protagonists take advantage of certain situations relating to the war by pretending to belong to one party. The first time they do that is when they put on uniforms of dead soldiers to get treated in a nearby military sanatorium after having suffered wounds during another story. After their recovery, they head to a cemetery in which a treasure is supposed to be buried. However, on their way, they come across other soldiers:

Until this scene, I hadn't realized that each side of the Civil War had different colored uniforms and what these colors meant. So for the rest of the movie, there were only the "blue ones" and the "grey ones" for me. I looked them up: the two sides are the Confederate soldiers and the Union soldiers, as we know from the chapter War of Northern Aggression. If I understood it correctly (it seems there were various uniforms in various colors), the Confederate soldiers are those in the gray uniforms, thus soldiers of the Confederate States from the South. The Union soldiers are those in the blue uniforms from the North, who are taking Tuco and Blondie as prisoners of war.

In this movie, before having been taken prisoner, Tuco (the one with the fake eye-patch) says three things that should prove the soldiers that he is a true Confederate soldier. The first is "To hell with General Grant!" that refers to the most successful Union general Ulysses S. Grant. He continues, with a bit of help from Blondie, "Hurrah for General Lee!" that refers to Commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virgina Robert E. Lee. The third claim to make the approaching soldiers believe that he is a Confederate soldier, is the sentence "God is with us because he hates the Yanks too!" -- Yanks (the singular form is Yankee) is, according to Wikipedia, an informal term for the Union soldiers or Northern Americans in general. So basically, Tuco did everything right, except that his audience was the wrong one.

As you can see, there is not only superb storytelling and tough gunslinger-action, but also historical accurateness in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". But I had expected nothing less from director Sergio Leone. Did I already mention that this is my all-time-favorite movie? If not, now I have.

Register: "Hallo, Du!" or "Grüßgott, Sie!"

Marianne wrote an interesting post about the usage of "Du" and "Sie" (the formal and informal "you") in the German language, in which she is wondering why people in Austria are more and more skipping the "Sie" when talking to strangers. This made me think: do we Austrians actually know why and when we do that?

Personally, I often struggle with the question whether I should address a stranger with "Du" or "Sie". If people are younger than me, my age or only slightly above it, I address them with a simple "Du". However, at work -- I work at a very popular fashion store on Saturdays -- I try to avoid addressing customers directly at all because I am not sure about which "you" to choose. Normally, I go with a "Du" for young people and people up to about 40 years who seem open-minded and friendly by their appearance and/or behavior. However, people in suits and grumpy people get a "Sie" instantly. There are mixed versions too though which often leads to me switching between both "Du" and "Sie" during the whole conversation, which is sometimes quite awkward. It might be really superficial, but to me it seems that it works most of the time.

Another choice between word that goes with that is also the difference between "Hallo" and the Austrian "Grüßgott". At work, this often seems to be the bigger issue because you can sometimes avoid addressing customers directly and thus also the Du-Sie-question. But greeting in retail and customer service is crucial to leave a good impression, especially at the cash register. Sometimes people feel offended when they get greeted with a simple "Hallo". I even experienced a young girl a bit younger than my age insisting on me saying "Grüßgott" to her instead of "Hallo", which I found quite ridiculous because, to me it seems that "Hallo" is a rather neutral greeting and not really offending.

Maybe it is just me and in truth there is a clear rule for when to use "Sie" and "Grüßgott" and "du" and "Hallo". At work, however, I will still stick to  my superficial analysis of people's appearances. And when it comes to greeting, I simply say "Hallo-Grüßgott" to almost every customer. As for my greeting system outside work, I can't really tell. I guess it is mostly a "Hallo", except, of course, for far older and/or respectable people. That's probably how most of young Austrians handle the politeness-versus-friendliness-situation. We all might not really sure about when to use what.

What is your approach on that?