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A2, 200 study hours b4 China | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| obsculta Newbie United States Joined 5806 days ago 36 posts - 83 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 6 26 March 2015 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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There's a strong possibility that I'll be going to China in August or September for
close to a year. I'm looking for ideas to optimize my linguistic progress in my limited time before my trip. Goal: Become as functional as possible within my time restrictions, and use my time in China to set the foundation for a lifelong enjoyment of the language. Current level: Elementary. I can read graded readers of 500 words (but I struggle at 1,000). I know about 500 characters. I can have very basic conversations with patient speakers. Time restrictions: About 200 study hours over the next four months. I know that's not much, but it's what I've got. About an hour and a half a day, and a little more on weekends. I hope I can do more, but I want to be realistic and honor my other commitments. This doesn't include podcasts in the background and that sort of thing. Obstacles I've tried Tuttle's Hanzi book, learning characters in Anki, and memrise, and it's really a struggle. Also, in other languages, reading is a huge part of my method, which is obviously considerably more difficult with characters. I wonder if a 'scriptorium' style method of listening to sentences and writing what I hear from Assimil and other learners' materials might be effective. Materials Used to Date: The two Assimil volumes, the New Practical Chinese Reader v. 1, some Chinese Breeze graded readers (levels 1 & 2) and the Zhongwen Red website. A few informal classes with Chinese teachers. The Advice I Want: If you were me, how would you spend your 200 hours? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5003 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 2 of 6 26 March 2015 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know what do you put into being functional ? For me this means first understand spoken language, next be able to speak a few words (you will see if you are understood) - reading and writing will come later. The only situation where both these last skills will come first is if you are going to communicate with chinese through emails and keyboard chat - no needs to go to China for that.
Do you include podcasts in the foreground into the "sort of thing" like podcasts in the background ? Because I think they would be your best option. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4430 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 3 of 6 26 March 2015 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know a lot of expat Chinese living abroad who learn to speak Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) at home but
do not have the formal education to read & write. Otherwise their fluency is very close to the native level. You'd probably be able to go further by focusing on conversation first and pick up the characters as you go along. I know 2 people who are fluent in spoken Cantonese but cannot read. They would go to restaurants and ask for the daily specials from the kitchen or common items by asking "Do you have this or that" to avoid reading the menu. Personally I was educated in an elementary school in Hong Kong. Otherwise, I picked up a lot of characters on my own. I can read up to 90% of an article in a newspaper but I prefer online editions of the news because I can Cut & Paste characters to a computer dictionary easily. I don't expect to be able to read everything. Once in a while I would pick up a new character from a newspaper. Living in this part of the world I am not usually around native speakers. I basically reworked my schedule to include certain number of hours watching TV programs online from China, Taiwan or Singapore with/ without subtitles and listening to the radio. If I come across a new word /phrase, I would look it up phonetically by typing in the Pinyin. There are 2 TV programs I found which are easy to follow including: 1. 中国达人秀 - the Chinese equivalent of "America's Got Talent" available on YouTube. The format is basically the same with each contestant introducing themselves and where they are from followed by what they are going to perform, the judges comments and finally response from the audience. 2. 大耳朵图图 - a cartoon series where involving 1 family (father, mother & son) with some funny adult discussions through the mind of a child. You can get tips from Chris Parker (a British national who lived in Beijing): How to learn to speak fluent Chinese 1 How to learn to speak fluent Chinese 2 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| obsculta Newbie United States Joined 5806 days ago 36 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 6 27 March 2015 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the advice from Michel and shk00design. My preoccupation with reading was due
to so many didactic materials being written purely in Hanzi after the beginner level. A good recommendation from the Chris Parker videos was the DimSum tool (offline freeware pop-up dictionary and character analysis which, happily, runs on linux) which renders many materials (podcast transcripts, etc.) accessible without excessive focus on the characters. So I will turn my primary focus to oral/aural skills, as per your suggestions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4693 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 6 28 March 2015 at 6:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Focus on the spoken language. As someone who currently works in China, I can tell you
that this is essential. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| day1 Groupie Latvia Joined 3878 days ago 93 posts - 158 votes Speaks: English | Message 6 of 6 28 March 2015 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I could not agree more! If characters are a problem, just put the reading/writing part on hold and do more intensive listening/speaking. In the long run, of course, you should NOT ignore the hanzi, but for a few months - that will not be a problem. Your spoken communication needs will be the foremost ones, once you arrive in China (Pleco OCR addon or WordLens will translate the signs for you). Michel Thomas Chinese might still be a good option, even though you have been learning fro a while. Change NPCR for another textbook. NPCR is not too practical in terms of vocabulary you'll be needing once you arrive. Choose "Chinese Made Easier" (Shaanxi University Press) instead, their topics are much better chosen, much more of immediate use, also, this textbook relies on you learning characters much slower that learning the communication. Grammar is also explained much better than in NPCR. Usually that book is not my book of choice, but for living in China that is probably the best choice out there. Highly recommended! For simple listening, maybe try "Gateway to Chinese" podcasts: http://podcasts.coerll.utexas.edu/collection/chinese-dialogu es/ or any other podcasts. Some other books heavy on audio materials include the latest wonder by Living Language (something "complete" or "total" or "advanced" or something, but with a lot of audio input, also a dedicated website), TY has "telephone Chinese" and possibly some other audio based course, then there used to be an 8 CD Total Immersion Chinese course, also to be used without a textbook. See what ever you can get easily, if not, any podcast will be fine.Try watching Chinese teleseries with English subtitles! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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