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Ziel HSK 3 - Target Mandarin | ||
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| LangWanderer Diglot Pro Member Australia digintoenglish.com Joined 4538 days ago 74 posts - 97 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 41 of 84 27 February 2014 at 6:46am | IP Logged |
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I will be able to share my opinion on the second volume of Assimil in a few weeks - if you still haven't decided by then - because I'm at lesson 42 at the moment. I bought the one-volume French version so I didn't have to fork out twice the amount for the English translation. It's a shame that the English version is twice the price of the French version for what I gather is exactly the same contents.
I find Assimil most useful for graded listening material, all in Mandarin, that can be taken anywhere. If you can get the same thing from the HSK books more cheaply, then those might be a better option, especially since the Mandarin Assimil doesn't have the trademark 'Assimil humour' as an extra selling point. In any case, passing HSK2 after only a few months would be a very impressive achievement, so keep up the good work! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 42 of 84 27 February 2014 at 9:39am | IP Logged |
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Hi LangWanderer!
yes, I remember now you got a good price with the French version! If Assimil weren't so comprehensive I wouldn't pay the high price, but I've enjoyed using Assimil for French and my short stint with Turkish. I'm enjoying the Mandarin too, even though the hanzi in my printed version are tiny and a bit washed out -- but I'd read that in the customer review before I bought it, so I can't complain too loudly^^. The HSK preparation books are awesome. I will say again that I could not even imagine taking this HSK2 if I hadn't used the two books I have, "Vorbereitung HSK Prüfung" and "Success with New HSK, level 2; (publisher "Beijing Language and Culture Uni. Press).I'm continually amazed how much one is able to communicate with such a small amount of vocabulary (only 360 words). There's a huge advantage to hearing the same 360 words over and over in different sentences/contexts. Everything sinks in rather quickly! About the Assimil humour: Have you gotten any humor out of the lessons? I think most of it is probably in the cartoons, although it's nothing to really make me chuckle. Maybe the humor is over my head, or I'm concentrating so hard on the Mandarin that I don't get it he-he. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LangWanderer Diglot Pro Member Australia digintoenglish.com Joined 4538 days ago 74 posts - 97 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 43 of 84 27 February 2014 at 1:09pm | IP Logged |
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I find it frustrating that they put the pinyin in bold and not the hanzi. Try as I might to concentrate on the hanzi, my eyes are always drawn back to the pinyin!
It's very good to know that the HSK preparation books are useful. I'll keep them in mind. I haven't found any humour at all in the Assimil dialogues. In other courses, there usually plenty of jokes, even if they're mostly groan-inducing (but pleasant) ones about stepmothers and the like. Regarding the cartoons, some of them are funny, but I would be very hesitant to show them to a Chinese person - a few too many buck teeth and Fu Manchu moustaches, I think! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 44 of 84 16 March 2014 at 4:11pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I made it back from my HSK2 test. It was harder than the six practice tests I took, but I think I passed. There's some things I'm going to do to prepare better, though. Because I'll be starting to work towards HSK3 (^-^)b
Next time I'm going to use the answer sheet in the back of the HSK pracice book. Mine had some to use as practice, but I just ignored them. Apparantly this answer sheet is the most important part of the test. All of the answers must be penciled in with a 2B pencil (most of us only had HB and that wasn't good enough. The administrator had to let us borrow some 2B pencils). The machine that's used to read the answer sheets in China must be pretty sensitive (or not sensitive enough). Anyway, it's important to fill out this sheet during the test. We were given about 5 minutes in between the listening and the reading sections to fill out the answer sheet, but at the end of the reading section we weren't given any extra time at all. Some of us were really scrambling to "2B" those tiny rectangles. I hope I got all of them! We were allowed to make notes in our test book (the test book goes to the shredder after the exam) but we weren't allowed to make any additional marks on the answer sheet itself. I had a few seconds between questions and I was able to write a hint or two in the test booklet to help me remember not to confuse words like shouji with shoubiao -- which is what I was accustomed to doing during the mock listening exams. 'Don't know if it helped me to think any faster, but it didn't hurt. I'm also going to need to advance my reading one level higher than the test level. For HSK3 I'm going to have to read at level HSK4. The reason being that the reading section was much harder than my HSK2 practice book. The HSK tests are notorious for having vocabulary not on the official lists, and this test was no exception. I got so flustered that I spent way too much time on the first 2 pages and only had 10 minutes to complete the last two -- yikes. Those were the hardest ones too. It was so close to times-up and I was just connecting sentences if I saw they had the same hanzi in them. Not good. OH well. We'll see. Another mental note to myself: I really need to tank up before I leave home. I got as far as Nauheim and thought I was going to have to turn around and drive back. Geez. I'm not used to driving long distances with my inefficient car. Thank goodness for that pitstop in Wetterau. I made it *whew* One thing I was really pleased about was that the book I used with the mock exams was really close to the exam I took today, at least format-wise. The reading was harder. I already tried looking for "Success with New HSK (Level 3)" here in Germany because I want to use it again, but it's out at the moment. I'll have to order elsewhere. The female voice for the listening section was exactly the same. The male voice was unfortunately very nasal and rather irritating, but I don't think it was too much of a distraction. Oh that reminds me. I'll stop using headphones/earplugs when taking the mock tests. The actual test had speakers. I think this was also the case for the other exams (levels 3-6) because I could hear level 5 when I was in the corridor before my exam. I must say it was really hard to get around that nasty speaker-echo. I guess it would be too much for the administrators to supply everyone with headphones? I won't be able to see my results for 4-5 weeks and I'll only be able to see a "passed" or "not passed" on the chinesetest.cn website (no lovely, self-evaluating percentages). I left a self-addressed stamped envelop for the test center to send me my certificate. I HOPE that stamp will come to good use! So, enough nail-biting! I think it's about time to move on! I'll be starting back with Assimil tomorrow! I'm really looking forward to studying without this exam hanging over my head. Edited by Sunja on 16 March 2014 at 8:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 45 of 84 17 March 2014 at 10:37am | IP Logged |
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John Pasden's Chinese Grammar Wiki is awesome stuff. I don't ever need a grammar reference with him on the job. I've started one of my "Chinese Breeze" books for the 300-level, and while I recognize -most- of the words, I can't pronounce them and the grammar makes the reading a bit hampered -- but like I said. I love Chinese Grammar Wiki.
I've developed a plan this morning that I'm really excited about. It's a lot but I think I can manage. I'm also planning to take on more German courses with the SGD but I don't think that's going to slow my Mandarin down. I think my work load will stay like it is for now and summer is coming so that means I won't be tutoring as much. So I'm really motivated and ready for the next hurdle! Spring-Summer Plan to Reach LEVEL 3! I have two Chinese Breeze books and I think I'll order the third one this week. I'm hoping to get through one book per month. I read them, look up the grammar, listening (lots of that) so you know -- typical morning routine. I'd like to finish Assimil book one before April, but I'm having to review from lesson 35, so hmmm, 15 lessons in two weeks is pushing it. It's probable that I'll have to stay with it in April a bit. Then I can move on to my new Assimil book 2. I think listening to Chinese Breeze MP3 files will make Assimil go slightly faster. That is, Assimil will seem slower...er ... okay, I'm a bit behind on my vocabulary work that I've just started. I'm not quite finished doing 100 words -- can I finish my March challenge?? I'll try! If I can learn 100 new words / month from the HSK 3 list that would be excellent. Vocabulary work doesn't take up much time, but it takes a lot of discipline to keep repeating them. -- So that's my three-pronged attack. I've got a bunch of other stuff going on which could slow me down, but I've gotten pretty good at juggling so as long as I can keep it up this plan should work. Let's go \(^-^)/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LangWanderer Diglot Pro Member Australia digintoenglish.com Joined 4538 days ago 74 posts - 97 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 46 of 84 17 March 2014 at 11:45am | IP Logged |
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Congratulations on finishing the HSK! It looks like your hard work is paying off.
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| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 47 of 84 17 March 2014 at 12:17pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you LangWanderer! I'm not sure if I passed but it doesn't really matter. I keep telling myself if I didn't then I'll be beyond that point soon enough!
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5865 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 48 of 84 17 March 2014 at 6:52pm | IP Logged |
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You'll probably be beyond that point before you even get your results back ;)
Anyway, good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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