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Lorinth’s log - 劳伦的博客 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 121 of 408 08 August 2013 at 10:36am | IP Logged |
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ZH
On NDTV, watched a news item according to which 美国下令也门大使馆内的所有非必需人员全部 撤离也 门。 Also, I've discovered I could download NDTV videos to watch them later on my phone and convert them to mp3. As they also offer the transcript, combined with Pleco reader, that's yet another fantastic resource for studying full speed spoken Mandarin. Great stuff. As I had a 1-hour "drive" (traffic jams really), I looped through the 1'30'' mp3 file of the same news item sentence by sentence (I use ASC for Android for that purpose) until I could understand most of it. Read some more of 《小二黑结婚》. Vocab: vocab collected while reading (Pleco), HSK and Cloze deleted sentences (Anki), characters (Skritter). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 122 of 408 19 August 2013 at 10:19am | IP Logged |
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ZH
Finished reading 《小二黑结婚》. Overall, a very good read. The author's (赵树理) agenda is all too obvious, the ending and the celebration of the reforms brought about by the communists look rosy, and some of the main characters are cartoonish. And yet, the description of the rural society is very interesting and the author is at his best when characterising the two lovers' father and mother, anchored into the superstitions of the old society. To sum up: Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending thanks to Mao. Started ChinesePod lesson about the 中东地区, and another one about 手机充电器。 On NDTV, watched/listened to/read a news item about 被美国以间谍罪起诉的斯诺登. Watched Travel in Chinese, episode 3. Due to lack of time, I didn't comply very strictly with my vocab routine this past week: I faithfully cleared my Anki queue every day, but I added very few words to my vocabulary lists in Pleco and used Skritter very irregularly to study characters 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 123 of 408 20 August 2013 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
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ZH
Watched Travel in Chinese, ep. 4. In a book called 中国民间故事, started reading the story of 孟姜女. Read an article according to which 欧盟威胁重估对埃关系. With the ChinesePod lesson about 手机充电器, did the written part of my ChinesePod routine, i.e.: I copied the text while reading aloud, translated the lesson literally into FR, retranslated orally into ZH (and checked against the spoken version) and, finally, retranslated in writing into ZH. The difficult parts were added to my Anki deck. I went through the usual vocabulary drills. I'd really love to replace part of the SRS procedure by some handwriting (either a GoldList or a set of lists as recommended by Iversen), if only I could solve the mobility problem, i.e. the fact that a paper notebook is not practical when most of my vocab routine happens in the metro or in the bus. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 124 of 408 21 August 2013 at 9:20am | IP Logged |
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ZH
I finished the ChinesePod lesson about the 三星充电器. I have studied 15 intermediate lessons these last 3 months. That's a little over 1 lesson per week. As the ChinesePod site recommends studying 120 lessons before moving to the next (upper intermediate) level, that would take over two years in my case. Hm... I should probably change gear. Of course, I don't limit myself to ChinesePod stuff, so I still hope I could tackle upper intermediate podcasts before that. But still. I should take a ChinesePod test one of these days, to see where I stand. In practice, though, I know that (lower) intermediate podcasts are about right for me, as they are almost never immediately transparent, and yet with a bit of study and repetition, I find they are not overly complicated. So I started a new lesson about a girl suffering 中暑 but I changed the routine a bit: I listened to the dialogue first (not the podcast with all the comments and explanations). My comprehension at first hearing was perhaps 60%. After listening several times, it went up to maybe 66%. Then I listened once to the first part of the expansion audio file (where key words are translated orally). Then I listened again to the audio file, and my comprehension was much higher, I'd say at least 95%. I still haven't listened to the podcast itself, with the comments in EN and ZH by John and Dilu. I think that's the way I will be working from now on. -- Finished reading the story of 孟姜女. Read parts of two articles about the situation in Egypt and one about a case of child abuse in China. On NDTV, I watched a very short news item about Egypt. It was unusually easy in that I had to listen only 3 or 4 times to understand most of it. Truth be told, there were only three (repetitive) sentences and I'd read some news about the same subject before. So it was the perfect setting. NDTV Usual vocab drills with Anki, Pleco and Skritter. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 125 of 408 22 August 2013 at 9:05am | IP Logged |
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ZH
Read an article about 斯洛伐克和土耳其的联系, and also two articles about the situation in 叙利亚. I also read the beginning of a longer, very interesting article about 中国海归的五次浪潮 (the fifth wave of Chinese returnees). As luck would have it, in the morning, I had begun reading an abridged version of the novel 围城, by 钱锺书, in which the first scene happens on a ship coming from France, with a group of 留学生 returning home from Europe. The article. Listened to the ChinesePod podcast about a girl suffering 中暑. Usual vocab routine with Anki (words), Pleco (words) and Skritter (characters). Though studying flashcards with Pleco is more convenient, I keep on using both programs because it's easier to create all sorts of weird cards (two-way, Cloze deletions…) with Anki. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 126 of 408 22 August 2013 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
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ZH - About ChinesePod
Here is the routine I've been putting in place for ChinesePod lessons. LISTENING (and reading) 1. Listen to the "dialogue" audio file a few times, until I feel I won't understand much more just with repeated listening. 2. Listen to the first part of the "review" audio file (where the interesting vocabulary is translated). 3. Listen to the "dialogue" again a few times, until I feel I won't understand much more just with repeated listening. 4. Listen to the "lesson" audio file (the full podcast with explanations and comments). 5. If necessary, listen to/read each sentence of the dialogue separately until everything is clear (audio files are provided for each sentence, read by another actor). 6. Listen to the full "expansion" audio file, to review vocabulary and listen to more sentences. 7. If the "expansion" is not 100% clear (it's never been 100% clear for me up to now), listen to/read each expansion sentence until everything is clear (yes, separate audio files are provided for those sentences too). SPEAKING 8. Shadow and/or parrot the dialogue, sentence by sentence first if necessary. 9. Using the "Accuracy" tool, record myself speaking each sentence separately. WRITING (and speaking) 10. Copy the text of the dialogue while reading aloud. 11. Translate the text literally. 12. Retranslate orally, sentence by sentence, and check against the audio file. 13. Retranslate in writing and check against the transcript. REVIEWING 14. Do the written "exercises" suggested by the ChinesePod app. 15. Feed difficult items into Anki (characters, words or sentences); use simple cards, two-way cards, Cloze deleted cards, whatever seems most useful in each particular case. It looks like it's a lot of work, however many of those steps take no longer than a few minutes each. In fact, much more could be done: there are parts of the ChinesePod application that I never use (Grammar, Classes, Task…). Finally, the above is just the ideal process. I'm always tempted to miss out some steps, especially the last ones. Whenever I've been stuck for a few days, I believe it's better to move on than to force myself to comply with the programme. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 127 of 408 23 August 2013 at 9:22am | IP Logged |
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Read another short article about 叙利亚, and then another about 埃及. In addition, I continued reading the abridged version of《围城》. As I've finished reading the first chapter I'm considering doing an exercise that has proved useful last year: I had first read an abridged version of a short story (刘庆邦's 《遍地白花》 in "Graded Chinese Reader 2") and then I had read the full version of the same short story. I'm tempted to try that method with chapter 1 of 《围城》 and see what happens. Watched Travel in Chinese, episode 5. On NDTV, watched a news item about 美军士兵曼宁, and read the transcript. NDTV Finished the ChinesePod lesson about 中暑. Usual vocabulary routine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 128 of 408 25 August 2013 at 10:05am | IP Logged |
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23/8
Took the ChinesePod intermediate test, scored 74% for the 50 written, multiple choice questions, and 52% for the dictation (25 sentences), overall result is 67%. It's more than I feared: during the dictation, I had the impression that I didn't understand much at all. Among the 25 sentences, there are only 2 or 3 that I had understood on first hearing. For the written part, I relied heavily on guess work and elimination. Although the result is higher than I feared, it's also disappointing and humbling, as I had scored 40% on the same test almost *two* years ago. Of course, I'd stopped using ChinesePod in the meantime. But I'd done plenty of other activities. Progress is soooo sloooow. -- Started reading the transcript of a show about some 一种奇怪的广告。 The show and the transcript are available on the dedicated website: here. The show is also available on Youtube: here. Usual vocabulary routine. These last few days, I have taken the time to use pen and paper in addition to Pleco, which tends to improve my retention rate, quite unsurprisingly. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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