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Mandarin - Assimil - 2+yrs w/ ILR results | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5235 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 97 of 107 27 December 2014 at 7:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Expugnator and Geoff!
A few days ago I spoke with a Chinese person for the first time in probably four months. Over this period I've just listened and read rather casually, maybe an hour a day. The conversation was great. I didn't even feel rusty or anything, especially after the first few minutes. I found myself using words I haven't used since I was in China (10 months ago). The only time I really felt like I was struggling was when I forgot how to say "divination", and instead had to make a work around using the word "predict", for which I remembered two or three words so I just used them all in case the first were in the wrong context. Anyway, I'm happy with my "minimal output"-based method and improvements so far. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5235 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 98 of 107 26 January 2015 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finally got around to making a little update video. I still think the solo video is less
demonstrative than a video of real conversation. I'll have to get the software to record a skype conversation. One note too, I've only spoken a few times in the last couple months. I'm probably averaging once a month over the 6 months. The fluency of my speech would be better, I think, if I spoke more. That said, I don't feel like I've forgotten anything at all. I'm still reading/listening everyday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUMaqr557K0 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4688 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English* | Message 99 of 107 27 January 2015 at 10:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Great video mate. If you could start all over again, what material and methods would you use? Is there
anything you wish you did different and is there anything you wouldn't do or use this time? Thanks for the videos 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5235 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 100 of 107 27 January 2015 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great questions Jay, and thanks for the compliment!
Here is what I wish I would have done (in order): 1. Finish Assimil. 1A) Don't follow instructions to the "T", instead just read and listen for meaning. 1B) Remember some phrases, repeat them. 2. Finish Linguaphone (80's version) 2A) Same modifications as 1A and 1B above 3. Starting using native-level content immediately. 3A) Find audio books and accompanying texts online. 3B) Use a pop-up dictionary to see the meaning of unknown words in the text. 3C) Read, listen, rinse and repeat. There isn't a lot of talking about exactly how to go from textbooks and learning material to high-level content. At the beginning, you don't know if what you are doing is going to "work". If it's your first language, you have less perspective on the long-term process. It also takes a lot of work. It took me an hour to get through a few paragraphs at first. Because of these difficulties it took me a long time to let go of textbooks completely and really jump headfirst into native content. I started on native content after about a year and a half, but went back and forth between textbooks and real content for a while after. I'd urge beginners to take this jump sooner than I did. I would have been prepared after Assimil and Linguaphone to make the difficult leap if I had had more faith and understanding in the process. 6 months would have been a plenty long introduction, at which point native stuff should become primary. Even sooner than 6 months is probably better. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4688 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English* | Message 101 of 107 29 January 2015 at 8:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you Bobby for your reply. I've been on off with my learning and know some basics but want to knuckle
down and get further into it. It was hard for awhile with other commitments but now I've got time again to spare I feel I can pick it back up. I have assimil and some other things, but what native material and audio books can you recommend? Is it easy to find the text and audio online for the books that are correct? Is there certain sites to use? Thanks again Bobby 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5154 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 102 of 107 29 January 2015 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi JayR9, I recommend you to try the teaching TV series with doubtle subtitles from CCTV:
Learn Chinese 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5235 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 103 of 107 29 January 2015 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not sure what you're level is so I'm going to assume navigating Chinese websites requires some guess work... My favorite audio book websites are pingshu8, xtsw, and tingbook. Go to baidu.com and search there for these sites. I would browse their selection. Once I found a title I thought looked interesting, I copy and pasted the name into baidu along with “在线阅读” or "txt". TXT doesn't necessarily mean it will be in .txt format, it's just a common search term Chinese use for online books. If the first page of results doesn't lead me to an online table of contents with links to each full chapter, I pick another title until I do find that. Honestly, it's been rare to find audio and text that didn't match up once I actually find the text. Also, some of the above sites will list the most popular audio books. These texts are almost always easier to find. Also, there are phone apps, such as 懒人听书, 酷我听书，爱听 that contain audio books, stories, comedy skits, radio shows (I think). Sometimes I can find text online for the audio there too. 凤凰卫视 is a Mandarin language only Hong Kong-based TV station, their website provides transcripts for the most recent episodes of a number of their shows, and most of their shows are also on youtube. My favorite show is 《锵锵三人行》 and it is phenomenal for learning authentic conversational Mandarin. The show consists of three people simply carrying a conversation about social/political issues in China and throughout the world. They're funny and smart people, so I'm a pretty big fan. Go to their website (link below), look in the playlist and the most recent two episodes always have a link called "详细", click on that to go to the transcript. I'll copy and paste the date or title of the episode from the transcript into youtube and use a youtube to mp3 app to download it straight to mp3 on my phone for listening. There are online apps for PC too. I just use MandarinSpot or Pleco's Clipboard reader to read through the transcript. The show airs daily so you'll never run out of material. The host is always the same, he has a northern accent, uses 儿话音 but speaks very "standard". The other two hosts are usually from Taiwan or Hong Kong, or elsewhere in China, so you get to hear and accustom yourself to very different accents. This is the best resource I've found! They're really intelligent people and they talk about such a variety of subjects it never gets old for me. Here's the link. http://phtv.ifeng.com/program/qqsrx/ Finding resources can be a huge time-sink. Let me know if you find yourself wasting to much time and you'd like some links to more stuff. I also recommend listening to Xiangsheng... there are transcripts everywhere for xiangsheng skits. They are hilarious IMO. If you'd like direct links to audio and matching text I've used, I can post them up too. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4688 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English* | Message 104 of 107 30 January 2015 at 7:54am | IP Logged | ||
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Oh wow, thank you very much for all this. I will check this out and see if I can do it once I get home. Thank
you for taking the time to write all this. I really appreciate all the help. I will see how I go with this and let you know if I need any help or any other links. I am looking forward to trying these. Thank you again and thank you too Expugnator, I will also check that out. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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