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Mandarin Journal, after 1 year | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5140 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 9 of 107 11 December 2010 at 11:21am | IP Logged |
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Today I reviewed units 11, 12, and 13 (pimsleur mandarin 2), along with re-writing the Chinese characters
from a few Zhongwen book stories. For my writing practice, I find this a lot of fun...it is kind of like a meditation that also reinforces my learning. So now my way of practicing my writing has changed a little. This is what I used to do when I was working through Rosetta Stone--and it helped a lot! I would find about 10-16 new characters that I was unfamiliar with. First, I wrote each character about 8 times--as much from memory as possible. Then I started over and wrote each character 4 times, then 2 times, and finally 1 time each. Once again, this was all from memory. By the time I got to the last phase (writing each character from memory one time each) I knew which characters I needed more help with. On the next day, I would study more rosetta stone, write down about a dozen unfamiliar characters, and then add a few of yesterday's difficult characters to this new study list. And now I am finding it helpful to write characters as full sentences and full word structures. ANKI is especially helpful after I have used the 8-4-2-1 method :) Now it is time for me to sleep a little before my last Chinese class for the semester. Or I could also just review pimsleur mandarin 2's unit 14, or start the new unit 15 :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5140 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 10 of 107 14 December 2010 at 10:12am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I reviewed Pimsleur's level 2 unit 14 and 15, then i studied unit 16. And now I just finished Pimsleur's
level 2 unit 18. However, before I review 16 and 17 again today... I gotta say... unit 18 was tough!! AND I'm getting sick of having this vocabulary and sentence structure without knowing how to write what I'm saying. Even though I can probably write about half of what I'm saying....being able to write ALL of it will make me feel much better. Overall, I honestly have no idea how many characters I can write. I like irrationale's method of doing a Pimsleur unit once while listening/speaking, and then another time listening/writing. (If that wasn't his exact method, please correct me here...I might need to read his guide again!) Sooo... I'm going to learn any unknown characters for Pimsleur's level 2 unit 18 and start writing down what i hear :) I'm going to start that now! Annndd I'm going to start up FSI again :) I'll try to keep my daily routine AT LEAST something like this... 1) 1 hour of pimsleur -- 30 min speaking, 30 min writing. If i don't do a new lesson, i'll just review one. 2) 30 minutes of FSI 3) Limit myself to 30-45 minutes of playing with ANKI and WRITING everything. 4) I'll start ripping the audio from movies that have Mandarin audio tracks. These should be fun to listen to while I'm laying down to sleep :) On second thought...im gunna go lay down and read Snowflake's mandarin log :) and maybe my daily routine plan will change after reading the log. For now, study continues tomorrow... Edited by aerozeplyn on 14 December 2010 at 10:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5727 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 11 of 107 16 December 2010 at 1:20pm | IP Logged |
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Pimsleur (and especially Rosetta Stone) isn't really useful, at least if you want more than a quick introduction to the language. The stuff in there comes up all the time anyway, so it's redundant to actively study it. I'd suggest you just get a good dictionary (pleco, wenlin, nciku.com) and just start reading interesting stuff :) 哆啦A梦 would be a good start, though you'll have to search for it, I don't know if they sell it anywhere outside of China.
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| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5140 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 12 of 107 18 December 2010 at 6:58am | IP Logged |
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@Pyx
It sounds like you're suggesting that I just study from a dictionary--is this what you really mean? I am looking to speak Mandarin fluently, and studying from a dictionary scares me...a lot. So far Pimsleur has had a big effect on my listening and speaking ability. I really like nciku, so if there's a productive way I can use that site to learn mandarin fluently...or if there's a method you used with nciku that you'd like to tell...please share :D And please let me know what you mean by "just start reading interesting stuff". I'm thinking it means, "just read some cool definitions in the dictionary :D", but something tells me that I'm just not reading your reply correctly lol. Thanks for your reply :D I greatly appreciate it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5140 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 13 of 107 18 December 2010 at 7:18am | IP Logged |
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I am now past Pimsleur Mandarin 2 Unit 20 and FSI Module 1 Unit 2.
At this point...I am feeling happy with my Mandarin progress :) From also reviewing Pimsleur, sometimes I have been also doing more than 1 hour worth. Also, sometimes I do more than 30 minutes of FSI--which I REALLY like a lot! I can see why everyone talks about FSI now. Everytime I say Xian1sheng now, I'm always thinking about where my tongue is in my mouth!! However, even after about a year of studying Mandarin, I am least confident with the chinese (pinyin) "H" sound. With some speakers it is course, and with some speakers it is soft...I'll probably have to just get used to that >[ Since my skype friends from China are in a COMPLETELY different time zone, I really need to find a local study buddy :) As for writing...I am nearly done writing all of the characters used for Pimsleur 1 into a "Gold List". I have been using a PDF that has transcriptions of Pimsleur 1 Mandarin...very sveeet :D Soon I think I'll pick up New Practical Chinese Reader since others have found it very useful. One thing that didnt happen this week: I did not get the chance to rip the DVD audio from Mandarin movies. Does anyone else out there recommend a free DVD audio ripper? ...for the Mac? I don't have a PC, but for the worst case scenario I'm sure I can borrow someone's computer for some time :) Actually, I could also just buy a DVD audio ripper to support Mac software developers... Edited by aerozeplyn on 26 November 2011 at 10:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5727 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 14 of 107 18 December 2010 at 2:23pm | IP Logged |
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Of course I'm not suggesting you study from a dictionary, that would be silly. I suggest you find an interesting book/blog/comic/... (such as the aforementioned 哆啦A梦) and start reading it. If you come across a character or a word you don't know, you look it up (that's where the dictionary comes in) and then put it into Anki or whatever you're doing.
Also, I think the NPCR is terribly boring. Then again, if you actually liked Pimsleur, maybe you'll even enjoy the NPCR... The DVD ripper that most people use is 'Handbrake'. I personally also like "Audio Hijack Pro" very much (but that's not free). It's much easier to use and you can use it for literally everything, not just DVDs. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5140 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 15 of 107 20 December 2010 at 9:35am | IP Logged |
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Thanks Pyx, I had a feeling you were suggesting more than that :) And thank you for the suggestions...I greatly appreciate it! and 666 posts eh? ;)
PROGRESSION LOG ================= As I have recently finished FSI Module 1 Unit 2, I am pretty happy with FSI. The audio drills are quite difficult for me, and they "feel" much more thorough than any audio tapes I've used before. I have been looking for a little more of a challenge...so I will keep more focus on FSI. Today I had to redo Pimsleur Lvl 2 Unit 20 since that was also pretty difficult--or maybe I was just having a bad day? Some of the vocabulary isn't sticking quite as easily. And I believe this has a lot to do with me not being as relaxed lately--there has been a little more stress in my life. There's a type of qi gong that i haven't been practicing as much lately... it's a shengong called "Pangu Shengong". It is quite awesome when combined with studying new information, it almost seems like you grasp the information quicker. This upcoming week I'm going to also resume practicing the shengong. It is times like this--when i'm not doing the shengong regularly--where i REALLY feel the lack of efficiency in retaining my study materials. i'm not saying that my retention is bad, but i remember such a huge difference in retention and performance when pangu shengong is in my regular routine. My past week of practice, as noted on my physical language log: ============================================================ ==== Dec 13- Pimsleur Level2 Unit 18. Dec 14- Reviewed Pims Level 2 Unit 16 and 18. FSI Mod 1 unit 1C. Dec 15- FSI Mod 1 Unit 1 (all), Pimsleur unit 19. Dec 16- FSI Mod 1 Unit 2C. Did more writing practice. I had some sleeping issues, and kind of slept all day :) Dec 17- Pimsleur unit 20 (i had a hard time with this). Also reviewed units 17 and 19. Dec 18- FSI Mod 1 Unit 2 (drills are difficult) Dec 19- Re-did Pimsleur unit 20 Even though i'd like to do another FSI unit tonight, it would be better for me to finish my 25 gold-list entries today, do the pangu shengong exercise for my health, and then get some rest. If i did study FSI unit 3, since it is Dec 20th at about 3:25 am, i would still record these study actions as Dec 19th ... i usually log the study items by the day that i had been mostly awake :) For the next week, I plan on: ============================== 1) FINALLY ripping some mandarin language DVD content onto my iphone. 2) Getting another 175 vocabulary words and Kanji characters into my Gold List. (I am now doing 25 a day... and I have already done 7 pages of 25 entries, altogether a total of 175 vocab words.) Next week will start my first distillations ;x 3) Only doing 1 pimsleur unit a day (no reviews) so that I can buckle down and spend more time with FSI. 4) Oh ya, I'll continue to passively listen to episodes of "Radio Free Asia Mandarin Podcast" as well :) But what is all of this work for? I must remind myself... I am looking to hopefully attain a basic level of fluency by the end of 2011. Oh yes, but this week is Christmas... well, i can still dedicate a small portion of that day to study :) maybe at least 30 minutes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5140 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 16 of 107 22 December 2010 at 8:20am | IP Logged |
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Today I had a "date" with my language exchange partner. She speaks Mandarin (of course) fluently, and she is working on her English. We took turns, and she helped me with a lot of information... but one really cool point: we played a game of chess. I quickly realized how awesome this was for our language learning--or at least for my language learning--because during the time where we were only speaking Mandarin I was forced to explain a lot of things to her! Examples...
1) Are you sure you want to make that move? This is why you don't want to... 2) If you do this move, then I can do this and that and that... 3) What are the conditions for King castleing? Basically, my head hurt after the chess game. Surprisingly I won the game even though my brain was fried from my little experience in speaking Mandarin. Lesson learned: next I'm going to look for the classic board (kind of) game: "Guess who?" Hehehe! Lots of nice language usage here... and I think playing board games will be a language learning tactic for me with Mandarin. The best part is that this whole occurance boosted my Mandarin speaking self-esteem. A LOT. I still have to think more than I would like to while forming a sentence, although I now use much less thinking for many smaller phrases within those sentences. With a little help, I could express my thoughts very well--this felt great :D Other than that, I wanted to log a LONG term goal of mine: to work towards stuffing 5000 kanji characters into my long term memory. I am using the Gold List method for this, and I'm already writing down the 200th-225th new characters into the Gold List. Basically, every day I am picking 25 new kanji characters that relate to new vocabulary words or short phrases; however, I only pick 25 new kanji characters every day for up to 6 weeks, followed by 2 weeks of catching up with my distillations. With this 2 week "catch up" period after every 6 weeks, I will never do more than 54 written vocabulary words / short phrases within 1 single day. Kanji alone takes a long time for me...since I am often tempted to double check my stroke order using an online dictionary. I would say it takes about an hour total to do 25 characters...but I'll get an exact time to log into here later :) http://www.nciku.com http://www.chinese-learner.com ...btw, these sites have been AWESOME for finding stroke orders :D And getting these 5000 characters to a "matured" Gold List will only take 9 months :D w00t! Edited by aerozeplyn on 22 December 2010 at 8:27am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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