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Midlife Mom’s Mandarin Log: TAC Team 唐 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5116 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 73 of 149 17 March 2011 at 2:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the encouragement, Jimbo. Though I am still ashamed of my slow progress and will try to do
better, I did as you suggest and looked back through my log. In addition to doing 30 more Pimsleur lessons since then, I have also gotten more comfortable with speaking, due to hours of blundering through my uni class. So that's something, I guess! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6287 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 74 of 149 17 March 2011 at 3:56am | IP Logged | ||
No shame, no gain. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5116 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 75 of 149 20 March 2011 at 2:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I don't know if the shame of my slow progress did me any good because . . . I CHEATED ON
MANDARIN! That's right. I have been debating which language to study next, AFTER I am much more advanced in Mandarin: Spanish or French. In my Mandarin doldrums, I started surfing around and came upon language/">this post from Randy the Yearlyglot, which helped me to decide that Spanish is what I want to do next. I love French, but in the US I have had, and will continue to have, so many more opportunities to practice Spanish. Randy's point that Spanish is the first or second language in every country in North & South America, excepting Canada, is so true. (Oh, but I've loved Canada on every visit I've made, and have a good friend living there . . .) And even though I've studied French more and loved it, I have still had many more Spanish-speaking friends, have travelled to more Spanish-speaking countries, have had occasion to communicate with workers in the US who speak only Spanish, and have used Spanish in two of my four novels. Anyway, having come to a sort of decision about Spanish being next, I went to iTunes and downloaded Pimsleur's Spanish, Lesson One, and listened to it. Bad, bad me. I am not to flirt with other languages. I don't have time to learn more than one language. Any work I do on Spanish will subtract time from Mandarin, and since I'm traveling to China in less than four months. . . And THEN I remembered my major problem with Spanish, an inability to roll R's, but because of this forum, I decided not to give up, but to look at YouTube videos of how to roll R's. This, you understand, took tons of time when I should have been studying for Monday's oral exam in 中文 。 。 。And GUESS WHAT: I made some serious progress toward being able to do it! I was actually lying on my back in my study laughing out loud as I trilled (lying on your back is a key step in one of the videos I watched, and it really works). So here's the upshot. I am madly excited about studying Spanish, and I can only hope I can restrain myself at least until my return from China in August. That would give me one full year with just Mandarin. It would be a lot better to stick to Mandarin only for even longer, but I've never been good with extended periods of abstinence. Until July's trip, I am rededicating myself to Mandarin. I dutifully bought Pimsleur III and will start in after my exam on Monday; meanwhile, I'm reviewing a few earlier lessons. I studied tonight for my test and did some SRS. But it can't hurt to practice trilling those R's once in awhile . . . 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5116 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 77 of 149 21 March 2011 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Not so sure about that, paranday, but thanks for the support!
Goals for this week: Pimsleur 3, Lesson 1, 2, 3, twice each Pass my oral exam on Monday! Study Chapter 7 of Integrated Chinese and listen to dialogues several times Study vocab 15-30 minutes per day Do some more fun stuff like watching TV shows, listening to music, or reading Keep track of study hours, aiming for 2 hours per day A fun thing: I wrote my first email entirely in Chinese to my professor. Hope she can understand at least part of it! Edited by Li Fei on 21 March 2011 at 10:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5669 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 78 of 149 21 March 2011 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm still watching your progress. How long have you been studying now. I believe your log started in Dec. of last year but as I recall you had already begun studying.
Keep up the good work! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TRENDY Diglot Newbie Spain Joined 5155 days ago 14 posts - 14 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 79 of 149 23 March 2011 at 10:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello everyone, i`m enjoying reading your post Li Fei, i am currently studying Chinese and i can relate a lot to you since i am doing the Assimil course and i`ve recently started the second part. I am spending around 1:15 a day on it since i work full time and don`t have too much time available.
I`d like to know if anyone there have any thoughts on what course i might be doing next, Li Fei, since you`re doing Pimsleur, would you recommend it after Assimil or does Assimil cover almost everything that you will find in Pimsluer?, i also heard about a course named "Teach yourself Chinese", would it expand the knowldge on Assimil and therefore be a good option?. By the way, i`m glad you chose Spanish as the next language to learn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5116 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 80 of 149 23 March 2011 at 11:55am | IP Logged | ||
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@HKBoy: Thanks for reading my log. You're right: I've been studying since August 2010, so seven months now.
Hope your studies are going well. @Trendy: Welcome to the forum, and good luck with your Mandarin studies. If you complete Assimil, I don't think you will have any need for Pimsleur; it's very basic and you'll already know all the vocabulary and structures it teaches. It's good for pronunciation, but you'll probably be fine with that too after Assimil. I don't know anything about the Teach Yourself books. I'm going to restart Assimil after my university course is over in May. Speaking of which: I got a 96 on my oral exam! I think my teacher was being kind. We all sounded pretty bad. I am keeping track of my studies this week and so far, averaging two hours per day. I feel like I'm back on track. But last night, trying to read a kid's book, I was frustratingly aware of how much I forget. I was looking at each character thinking, I KNOW that . . . or rather, I KNEW that. So it's back to the flash cards to review characters and words. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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