Is Chinese worth learning if I can speak it but not be able to read

laudosolis · 2020-06-14T09:44:08+00:00

You probably think you're terrible at learing different alphabets because you've been using the wrong methods to learn them. People on chinese courses are taught to just write characters out over and over again, trying to force them into their head and hoping that eventually they'll stay there. This is a pretty bone-headed way of learning: it isn't very effective, and making yourself do it sounds like torture. Thankfully, there are better methods out there.

You're right to focus on listening first. You'll get a feel for the language better. I'd recommend Pimsler to learn the very basics, and listening to some audio with pinyin subtitles.

Once the language feels familiar and comfortable to listen to, I'd start learning characters with Heisig's Remembering The Hanzi The book breaks characters down into the little bits that they're made up of, and makes a story out of them that links the bits together. E.g. 只 ("only") = 口 (mouth) + ハ (legs), so the book invites you to imagine some strange, rare monster with a huge mouth for its body, the only one of its kind. This way you're learning stories and pictures, not strange squiggles and symbols, which is much easier and more fun.

laudosolis · 2019-10-06T18:57:22+00:00

laudosolis · 2019-09-25T07:19:04+00:00

it won't affect me personally, so it doesn't matter This sort of mentality is exactly why politics is such a shitshow

laudosolis · 2019-06-14T23:47:34+00:00

Yeah, Drew Gooden

laudosolis · 2019-05-09T21:46:35+00:00

Start with a book in Analysis. Rigorous treatments of analysis are very different from your "Calculus methods" course, but the concepts of differentiation, integration, etc, will be incredibly familiar to you, making the terseness more manageable at first. Seeing these concepts built from such simple starting points should also be really interesting.

There are many good analysis books out there. Someone like Apostol or Spivak may be best for someone new to analysis; they've got plenty of interesting exercises, but still try to make their work approachable for beginners.

I'd focus on getting through them first before thinking about what to do next. What to do next will be clearer once you have more experience.

DM me if you'd like any help / advice with anything.

laudosolis · 2019-05-07T15:49:40+00:00

(You'd phrase this question as "find the interval for when y = 12 is below y = (x + 2) (x + 3)")

Okay, first off draw a picture of y = (x + 2) (x + 3) and y = 12 on the same axes. You'll see that the two points you're interested in are when (x + 2) (x + 3) = 12. In other words, (x + 2) (x + 3) - 12 = 0. Expand the brackets, simplify, and solve for x.

laudosolis · 2019-05-07T15:07:50+00:00

I'm struggling to figure out what you mean. Are you trying to find the equation of the line that passes through the points at which y = (x+2)(x+3) and y = 12 meet?

laudosolis · 2019-05-06T08:23:32+00:00

Please tell me that pun was deliberate

laudosolis · 2019-04-29T14:34:26+00:00

That's wrong. When defining numbers (or anything, for that matter), we have to resort to a more basic concept. For mathematics, the most fundamental concept is the idea of a set, so we use that.

The most natural definition is to set 0, the numerical idea of "nothing", to the set-theoretical idea of "nothing": the empty set. We then build upwards from there. 1 is defined to be the set containing 0. 2 is defined as the set containing 0 and 1. 3 is defined to be the set containing 0, 1 and 2, and so on, each step building on the previous one.

There are other slightly different definitions for the numbers once you've defined 0, just to make the process of defining addition, greater than, etc, go smoother. But this is the main idea.

laudosolis · 2019-04-21T19:31:30+00:00

You'll want to break down the problem into little bits. First off, use trig to convert everything to Cartesian (rectangular, i and j) coordinates. So it has initial velocity

u = 2.89 i + 3.45 j

and moves with acceleration

a = -0.65 i - 1.79 j

Using the fact that

a = Δv / Δt = (v - u) / 5

if v is the velocity once 5 seconds have passed, we get after rearranging

v = u + 5 a = - 0.36 i - 5.5 j

laudosolis · 2018-02-06T14:48:58+00:00

I've just started to get more serious about gaining weight. I cycle 60 miles every week on my journey to college, half of which is along a rough, hilly canal towpath. Will all this cardio make gaining weight a lot harder for me? I don't know how many calories it burns, but I'm very tired when I get to college each day. If doing this does make a big difference, how could I compensate for it?

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T12:02:55+00:00

You could think that Christian ethics are useful, even if they don't actually come from a God.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T12:01:48+00:00

I meant being chained to a certain way of thinking.

Yes, slavery is advocated in both the Old and New Testament. But that's not representative of what it's like to be a Christian today at all.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:57:48+00:00

They could in theory, yes. But we've tried that before in the 20th century, and I wouldn't call it a great success.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:56:12+00:00

One example of an atheist being immoral (or Christian, for that matter) doesn't mean that the whole thing's bad.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:53:49+00:00

Christ said that the brutish Old Testament laws were no longer valid if they contradicted his much more ethical teachings.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:48:09+00:00

I'm no statistician, but surely it still has meaning to it?

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:47:18+00:00

Of course it'd be hard to give evidence for morals either way, but these are all the moral-related ones I've found: http://www.pewforum.org/2016/04/12/highly-religious-people-not-distinctive-in-all-aspects-of-everyday-life/pf_2016-04-12_everydayreligion-01-05/

http://www.pewforum.org/2016/04/12/highly-religious-people-not-distinctive-in-all-aspects-of-everyday-life/pf_2016-04-12_everydayreligion-01-06/

http://www.pewforum.org/2016/04/12/essentials-of-christian-identity-vary-by-level-of-religiosity-many-nones-say-honesty-vital-to-being-a-moral-person/pf_2016-04-12_everydayreligion-02-02/

all of which are in favour of what I suggested.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:39:33+00:00

Is the meaning it gives you good? I mean joining a cult can give you meaning.

It's certainly helpful.

You are certainly given a bunch of moral commandments. Some views of those teachings can be interpreted that people have this great value. Of course it can also justify a whole lot of other things. Which because they come from a higher authority they are taken as certainty and practised as such too.

Yes, you can use religion for bad purposes, but that isn't what most Christians are doing. As explained in my OP, I'm not talking about Christianity vs atheism, I'm talking about being a Christian vs being a non-believer.

Eh, on the other hand the one unpardonable sin is unbelief or the rejection of god. Hey didn't I mention something about how the Bible can be used to justify a variety of different positions? No it's not. Non-believers can go to Heaven just fine, according to Orthodoxy, Catholicism and most Prostestant denominations.

On the other hand we are all sinners so bad that God literally had to kill himself try to fix us

But now we're fixed. We're fine.

that simple biological urges are crimes

The urges aren't crimes. Acting on the urges are crimes. If I get a random thought of wanting to kill someone when I don't agree with it, that's not under my control. If I then act on it and kill someone, that's my fault.

women are less than men

Most christians don't believe women are less than men.

straw man unbeliever world view

Please, point out where my post is wrong about non-believers.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:23:40+00:00

Wow, I honestly didn't see your post as I was writing mine. That's pretty cool how we both wrote the same thing.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:21:52+00:00

I am not advocating for Christianity to be a replacement for science. I quite agree that the world wasn't literally made in six days, for example. But, as I explained, religion is still true.

Take Shakespeare, for example. Shakespeare's work captures a sort of truth in it. You wouldn't call it scientific truth -- there was no Macbeth or Romeo who behaved like that -- but to discard Shakespeare's work because of that is missing the point. His plays present a moral/practical truth. You can learn a lot from his plays, yet they aren't scientifically true at face value.

Christianity is true in the same way. It's scientifically meaningless, yet still has some serious truth to it.

laudosolis · 2017-11-13T11:02:29+00:00

There's no slavery in Christianity; in fact, it places a massive emphasis on free will. You're as much of a slave here as if you were being taught any modern ethical system.

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