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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 289 of 740 18 September 2010 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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One of the problems I've been running into is learning things well enough to use in conversation, but then forgetting due to disuse. I suspect that if I were overseas in China that would be less of an issue. Anyhow, one of the good things about the older DeFrancis and Yale Mirror Series materials is the deliberate reuse to reinforce what was already learned. The SRS should be doing this but it doesn't seem to be quite enough. So I'm looking at www.chineselearnonline.com again and thinking about PreMack'ing myself to use it.....probably something like doing one of their lessons and THEN working with Harry Potter or my animated movies.
My kids have a friend who is now in Beijing, studying Chinese. They've been talking via Skype. While many of us would love to be immersed overseas, I don't envy her getting 30 new characters every single day. After 2 weeks, she was expected to know 300 characters and scored poorly on her exam. This 30 characters a day is consistent with the experiences mentioned by some of my Taiwanese friends. Edited by Snowflake on 18 September 2010 at 9:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 290 of 740 25 September 2010 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am mulling over the idea of paying someone to transcribe one of my movies. I'd like the final result to be characters in an electronic form, like MS Word.
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| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5669 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 291 of 740 27 September 2010 at 2:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Snowflake,
I enjoyed reading through your blog. I'm interested in what you thought of chineselearnonline. I went through the first 10 lessons, I like it so far. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 292 of 740 28 September 2010 at 4:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Hkboy,
Thanks for the kind comment about my log. Re: chineselearnonline.... You're asking at a time that I'm doing a lot of head banging and mulling through additional changes in my routine. I've also been using chineselearnonline for a relatively short time. So far I like the progressive aspect. I've been considering using the main dialogs for shadowing (probably minus the brisk walking). The dialogs are slow enough, the language current and the material relevant. One of my concerns is that since I generally find language learning material to be rather boring, would the shadowing attempt kill my motivation? Of course I could just pay for one PDF set, individually download the audios myself and try shadowing. That wouldn't be a bank breaker. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 293 of 740 28 September 2010 at 5:07am | IP Logged | ||
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In case anyone is wondering about the idea to pay someone to transcribe one of my movies vs shadowing chineselearnonline material.....I'm concerned about the cost of having the transcription done. I talked with my husband about having the work done and he suggested first paying someone for say one hour of work and seeing how far that gets into the movie. Anyhow, so the movie dialog can be echoed. Another idea that is floating through my head is using the Studium Biblicum (Catholic translation of the Bible). I have the audio New Testament and text. If anyone wants the links for those, I can repost them. A friend confirmed that it is written in a very conversational style.
Edited by Snowflake on 28 September 2010 at 5:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5669 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 294 of 740 28 September 2010 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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I decided to purchase the Level 1 lessons. Back when I came to Hong Kong, everyone said to learn Mandarin. I have dabbled around with it but I've really been putting my efforts into Cantonese. My Cantonese still needs a lot of work but I've decided to put some effort into Mandarin. I've also been trying to read and write. I think I read in your blog where you were using Heisig. I've been using it and I'm up to about 350 characters. It's a struggle. How are you getting along with that? Keep at it and good luck.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 295 of 740 29 September 2010 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I got to around 900-950 characters using Heisig and then had to give something up due to my schedule. So reading and writing are now low priority in my studies. I was happy with the Heisig approach and still am. I think though that regularly being in situations where native Chinese speakers read out loud makes a big difference. Without that regular contextual usage, I can see where other people could have difficulties associating words with the characters in a reasonable amount of time.
On chineselearnonline, I’m now thinking of buying a level so as to use the dialogs in chatting. I have one chat partner for which I prepare short stories which we go over during our sessions. Many weeks I’m at a loss as to what to write about. Edited by Snowflake on 29 September 2010 at 6:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5224 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 296 of 740 29 September 2010 at 6:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Snowflake, I thought I'd drop in and give you a little encouragement. I always like to read your posts and see how you're doing. You mentioned having to put reading down to a low priority. Try not to put it down too low. I made that mistake some time ago and paid dearly for it when my study materials dropped pinyin. I then had to become real good friends with an anki deck and lost a lot of time. And, if I'm reading your post correctly, it sounds like you were able to learn about 900 characters. This is a very respectable accomplishment and I'd hate to see you lose that.
Keep up the good work and remember that there are a lot of people here interested in seeing you accomplish your language goals. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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