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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 5090 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 57 of 107 07 November 2011 at 8:05am | IP Logged |
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Well, I have an idea for my FSI study plan, but I'm not exactly sure if it will work well. I guess I just need to jump in
and try it--I am kind of doing this study plan with the FSI Biographical module. With the study plan, so far it seems like I could comfortably cover 1 module a month, but I think I'll need to mix actual speaking and communicating in with that study. I'm not sure, honestly, but I do know the more the merrier. I also heard from a past Chinese teacher of mine that the new location I moved to also has a Mandarin school...and I must find this place! Here are my current thoughts for different plans to study throughout FSI. For each month and each module: Week 1: Listen to ALL C-1, C-2, and Drill tapes throughout the entire module. Also create C-1 and C-2 audio flash cards for ANKI throughout the week. Most audio flash card phrases should be about 1 sentence long, and rarely as much as 3 sentences. Week 2: Study and perform the materials of the Production 1 (P-1) tapes. Of course, continue working through the ANKI cards. Create audio cards for the Drill tape and P-1 tape. Week 3: Study and perform the materials of the P-2 tapes. Continue with ANKI. Perhaps focus more on listening to the C-2 and Drill tapes? These seem pretty good for listening. Week 4: Re-study drill tapes and notable production tapes. Perform the Review tapes and Test tapes. I'm pretty sure my plans will alter as I complete more FSI units, especially since FSI seems to work the same for each module. If anyone has any tips on working with FSI, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Sometime soon I'll also check out "irrationale's" language learning log....as I remember he had some good info in there on working with FSI :) As for my Mandarin progress, so far I am working on... FSI Biographic Module: listening a lot, and practicing the speaking drills and audio flash cards for Unit 3. Tapes 3C-1 and 3C-2 I made into audio flash cards, and I am studying those almost every day. This unit, like most FSI units, is pretty tough and gets me to really stretch and exercise my ability. I love it :) FSI's ANKI audio flash card deck now totals 99 cards. As for my Pimsleur 3 ANKI cards, I am at a point where 417 cards are remaining to be studied. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5090 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 58 of 107 11 November 2011 at 10:25am | IP Logged |
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I am now in San Francisco, and there was a good amount of travel time to work on my study :)
After some hard work for the past couple of days, I created audio flash cards from all P-1 tapes of FSI's Module 2 (biographical material). That was a lot of hard work! Also, from this experience re-studying a module of FSI that I last studied months ago--before I decided to do FSI again--I have learned some things, found more patterns, and in-general I realized that my FSI study plan will probably be good for reviewing Module 2. However, for future FSI modules that will be completely new to me, this study plan is not compatible with my actual amount of extra time. So here is a more-realistic, future study plan for the next FSI modules: Week 1: Listen to all C1/P1 tapes constantly, and create all C-1 audio cards. It might not be necessary to create C- 1 audio flash cards, but I'll probably realize this by module 3. My listening to C-1 tapes will have at least 1 active listening session, and of course the following sessions will be passive. Week 2: Do first half of drill tapes. By first half, I mean that if a module has 8 units, I will do the drill tapes for the first 4 units during this week. If I have not finished creating all C-1 audio flash cards, I will finish creating them during the beginning of this week. While performing the drills, I'll also find time during this week to create audio flash cards for all P-1 production tapes. Of course, I will also perform the production tapes. Week 3: Do second half of drill tapes. If any P-1 cards haven't been created, I will use this week to also finish creating P-1 audio cards. Most of my focus will be creating Drill audio cards, which will live in their own ANKI deck called "FSI Drills" or something :) Week 4: Try to do C-2 tapes every day. If a module has 8 units, I may have to just do 2 units in a day or spend a little over a week to do this. If I haven't finished creating drill tape audio cards, this process will be finished this week. Week 5: Try to do P-2 tapes every day. Week 6: Review tapes, finish any audio cards that I didn't finish from the previous weeks, and do the criterion test tape. The above plan probably won't work for FSI modules that have only 2 tapes per unit, but I'll figure out my strategy by then. For now, I just can't wait to finish Module 2!!! I feel like I have been on this module forever; however, there is a lot of good material that I really need to master in order to reach some form of Mandarin fluency. This current period of my learning would also be a great opportunity for me to meet and talk with as many Mandarin speakers as possible--especially since I am in San Francisco! I can easily sneak all sorts of biographical material from my current FSI module into these meetings...hehe. As for future modules...I still need to speak more. Much more. It's the only way... And by the way, my ANKI Pimsleur 3 deck is down to around 330 cards. Looking back at Pimsleur, I am glad that I studied all 90 lessons (level's 1, 2, and 3 combined). While these were great practice, not to mention I had fun with them, I have a feeling that if someone made audio cards from all FSI materials, they might not need to work with Pimsleur at all. FSI's orientation and resource modules are just freakin' awesome... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| JasonUK Triglot Newbie United Kingdom learnalanguagein1yea Joined 5198 days ago 29 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Thai, Spanish | Message 59 of 107 12 November 2011 at 8:38pm | IP Logged |
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Great language Journal you have here. I've been learning Mandarin roughly the same amount of time as you. I've
been learning 1 year and 8months and i've been using the same materials as you. Currently I listen to an intermediate lesson on chinese pod. i do one a week but keep listening and reviewing the same lesson each day until the end of the week, and I review flash cards on Anki. I also have one hour lesson per week with a personal tutor. I highly recommend this. Find a tutor that lives near you and use them. I'm definitely learning faster because of it. I did the same with my french and it became much better as a result. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5090 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 60 of 107 13 November 2011 at 9:14am | IP Logged |
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Thanks Jason :) I do really like chinese pod as well. Soon I will have to find the local tutor, and I will definitely write
an entry about it when that day comes :) I am also very happy to hear that you are finding enjoyment from my log. I just finished going through all of the production tapes for FSI's biographic module. Of course, I didn't do all tapes today, but throughout the week(ish) as I planned. The rough plan that I am perusing is the one I wrote about a week ago, Nov 7th. But there is a very slight difference: I "extracted" audio for my audio flash cards as I performed each unit's P-1 tapes. This Module 2 of FSI is basically an "extended review" for me anyways, and I really can't wait to finish this module!!! However, I also want to finish the module with a good foundation of the material :) So for the next week, and perhaps a few extra days, I will focus on just the drill material. Maybe I will also create an FSI Drill deck for ANKI, but at the moment I am unsure of the value this will have verse the time I will have to spend creating the audio cards. I might just do the drills without creating an ANKI deck. This process is also helping me determine and adjust my future study plan for FSI :) Also, I am meeting many Chinese friends while I am in San Francisco, and of course getting some speaking practice! I have a simple and limited, but developing, conversation ability. I was able to describe my study process (for ANKI cards and audio tapes) to a Chinese lady, which was fun. Many Chinese here tell me that my pronunciation is very good and very accurate; however, I still feel that I have a lot of room to grow with my speaking technique. During conversation, I feel that my vocabulary is my new weakness. As I've studied Mandarin, I have focused on improving my pronunciation, phrase muscle memory, basic language construction, speaking ability, listening skills, etc. Now I feel like my language ability will have great benefits if I also focus on vocabulary. So what am I focusing on and actively exercising recently? I guess it is still my speaking ability and--with iMandarin Pod's 2-star podcasts--my language construction. Soon I will need to integrate vocabulary, and from reading irrationale's Mandarin log mixed with my own experience, I am pretty sure I will use "New Practical Chinese Reader" for this :) For my reading benefit of long-term character recognition--and possible for learning related vocabulary- -I may be whipping out my Gold Lists again :) So much to organize... Time to go to sleep...I cannot wait to listen to some Mandarin podcasts as I sleep :) And I especially cannot wait to be finished with FSI's Biographical Module 2!!! Edited by aerozeplyn on 13 November 2011 at 9:17am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5090 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 61 of 107 17 November 2011 at 6:33am | IP Logged |
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Traveling back to Florida from San Francisco was a complete mess. Lots of lost time for studying. However, I still
don't want that to hold me back, so here's a goal that I will share with the community: to finish FSI's biographical module before the end of Friday December 2nd !!! That's a bit soon I guess...but at least it can be done :) Also, my Pimsleur 3 deck has less than 250 cards due :) Edited by aerozeplyn on 20 November 2011 at 7:41am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5090 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 62 of 107 20 November 2011 at 7:50am | IP Logged |
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I yawn a LOT while doing FSI drill tapes. I could be wide awake, and as soon as I need to respond for a drill tape I
will yawn. This is pretty annoying, but I thought it was interesting :) Either way these drill tapes are great: unlike most of Pimsleur's production style where I can recite things from memory, FSI's drill tapes force me to actively listen and respond appropriately. Even if you don't use FSI for your Mandarin study, or you don't really like FSI because it is not your style for some ungodly reason: I HIGHLY recommend FSI's drill tapes! http://www.fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Chinese 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5090 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 63 of 107 22 November 2011 at 6:13am | IP Logged |
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Some positive news on some FSI progress! I just finished FSI module 2's drill tape 5. Only 3 more drill tapes to go. I
wrote down some notes on these drill tapes as well... Drill Tape 1: i yawn a lot. Drill Tape 2: yawning. these are once-again harder than i thought. Drill Tape 3: HARD. maybe create a drill deck? Drill Tape 4: good challenge! and kinda hard =[ Drill Tape 5: not bad :) the easiest one so far. @ 11:00 what is this phrase?? @ 13:00 and 14:00 = good challenge :) I might make some audio cards later, but I am undecided at the moment. Also, I have finished going through all of the new FSI ANKI cards I made recently. I am being pretty strict with myself here; unless I am confident, quick, and comprehend the audio card, I will hit the "Soon" button to show me the flash card again within that practice session. I am down to 76 cards remaining in my Pimsleur 3 review :) Also, I noticed something about Pimsleur that I guess is true with nearly every study plan I have--and possibly will- -run into: the phrases I am given are typically not a phrase that I would typically say. For example, "the weather is warm in shang hai, isn't it?" I would probably never ask this in real life; however, that should not stop me from expanding this unrealistic phrase into an additional 2 phrases, such as, "will it be warm today?" or, "have you heard if it will be warm today?" I guess this may need some extra guidance from a knowledgeable teacher :) Another example: "I was born in 1939." Well, of course I wasn't born in 1939, but I can easily expand this phrase to "I was born in 1984," or "My mother was born in 1950-something", or "My older sister was born in 1970-something", etc. Of course, in that example expansion phrase, I actually do have an older sister. If I only had a brother, I would probably use a phrase "My brother..." and so on. I will try to keep this approach in mind so I can have confidence with sharing people facts about myself or another individual. I especially have this in mind because I've been chatting over Skype with good Chinese acquaintances. I realized this about a year ago, and even now this realization is very fruitful: I have come back in touch with my natural ability to start a small conversation and learn about another person...and to learn about another person is really a lot of fun! I don't remember the last time I asked someone (or cared) for what their favorite color was, or how tall they were, etc. I am truly having a lot of fun, and the more fun I can discover, the better I will learn :D And now it is bed time. I am feeling quite confident about squashing this module before Dec 2nd :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JasonUK Triglot Newbie United Kingdom learnalanguagein1yea Joined 5198 days ago 29 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Thai, Spanish | Message 64 of 107 22 November 2011 at 8:05pm | IP Logged |
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It sounds like to me that you are not enjoying these FSI drill tapes. Don't you think this will hamper your learning?
Otherwise your learning will be almost passive learning and you're only going to learn a fraction of what you would if you liked the course. I also did these modules. but i did them in order of C-1 D-1 then P-1 etc. Modules 1-3 are easy then there is a jump up on module 4 and an other jump up with modules 5. I got a little bit bored with module 5 so I stopped there and learned from other resources. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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