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Midlife Mom’s Mandarin Log: TAC Team 唐 | ||
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| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6287 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 65 of 149 20 February 2011 at 7:00am | IP Logged | ||
Looks like you will soon be all set for the Chinese-through-Karaoke-method. That combined with the I'm-hooked-on-Taiwanese-soaps are two winning strategies. 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 66 of 149 21 February 2011 at 3:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Tee hee, Jimbo--I definitely need to get more bad Chinese TV into my life! Irrationale, thanks for visiting--wish
you could pass along some of your rapid-Manderin-learning motivation along with your well wishes. So I've decided to stop putting pressure on myself to do Assimil. Right now, I think it's more important that I work on pronunciation and tones and basic vocabulary. I feel like I have a good start on all of those things, but plenty more work to do. I want to finish Pimsleur and do my Integrated Chinese along with the class, since both are very helpful with conversational Mandarin. I've been reading Gethin and Gunnemark's "The Art and Science of Learning Languages," and it's reinforced my desire to focus on getting a central vocabulary down very well, with good pronunciation. (I recommend the book highly, by the way--lots of great ideas about independent learning.) I realized that I've forgotten some of the basic vocabulary, or I didn't learn the tones well, so I figured out how to get that back into my SRS rotation to review. I also want to keep learning fun and not too much drudgery. So, here are my goals for the upcoming week: Pimsleur 25-27, 2X each (30 minutes per day) Listen to dialogues and study grammar and vocabulary from Lesson 6, Integrated Chinese SRS, 15-30 minutes per day Watch an episode of my fave silly Chinese show OR listen to some music each day Pleasant Goat and Very Big Wolf is the name of the TV show, BTW--thanks again to Whitefish for pointing out this show. Edited by Li Fei on 21 February 2011 at 3:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6043 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 67 of 149 21 February 2011 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Really? You seem quite motivated to me! I'm sure will reach your goals because you seem to have a steady daily routine and are taking it step by step.
I am not an expert by any means, but I can tell you that from my experience, if you are talking about getting fluent in a language fast, you want to be conversing with natives, as soon as you possibly can. I realize that when you first start this simply isn't possible, but at least going in with the mindset that you will as soon as you can, or at least try to shove the words out of your mouth, even if you sound like an idiot, which I did, or don't know how to say basic things (you just ask them tons of questions）. As long as you say it correctly or get corrected. Even simply saying "how was your day？" and other such things will get the ball rolling and get you used to speaking (correctly of course). The anecdote you related about talking to the waitress in Chinese is a perfect example of this. Maybe you can harass her in Chinese on a regular basis and give her a larger tip? Haha, just kidding....sort of ;) I suppose I am in a different school of thought than the "wait until it's right" people in terms of speaking. I side more with Benny from "fluent in 3 months" and others. Anyhow, I do agree that input is more important overall, and you are already getting great input (TV shows) which was something I waited too long to do. By the way, what do you plan to do about the characters? I did see anything here about a plan to learn them. I apologize if I missed something... Edited by irrationale on 21 February 2011 at 5:51pm 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 68 of 149 23 February 2011 at 3:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Irrationale,
Thanks for the encouragement. I agree that it would be great to have regular conversations in Mandarin. That seems daunting in my small city with few Mandarin speakers . . . and yet that is really just an excuse. Some ways I could have regular conversations, if I could force myself to commit to it, are: converse with me instead of teaching the class In any of the above, take my outgoing Chinese daughter along as a major icebreaker. It is definitely a matter of getting motivated and convinced that it's important. I do think it's important to converse--probably the most important thing of all--and yet I am not sure I'm ready to do so. I don't have the confidence in my abilities yet. But maybe you gain that confidence by diving in, eh? As for characters . . . I work hard on learning to read them in my SRS study and my course I'm taking. I also do a little reading on the side, kids' books and graded readers. But I am not doing any writing at all. It seems like the aspect of Mandarin I can do without, because I can type characters as needed; and it's just so time consuming to learn to write correctly. If something has to go, it's going to be writing by hand. And I think given my job and family commitments, something does have to go. I'd welcome any suggestions from anyone who's overcome shyness and found ways to converse successfully. I also welcome anyone who wants to convince me that writing characters is really important and something I shouldn't neglect. 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 70 of 149 06 March 2011 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||
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It's been awhile since I've posted. Travel, doctor's visits, work, etc. have kept me busy and messed with my
motivation. Where I am: Pimsleur 2, Unit 28 (almost done!) Integrated Chinese, Chapter 6 SRS, still doing 15-30 minutes per day Watching some TV, listening to and reading Chinese Breeze graded readers as possible Habits are great things; even though I have a lot of other stuff on my mind, I'm in the habit of doing 15 minutes of SRS in the morning before I get out of bed, and of listening to Pimsleur when I'm driving or walking. That keeps me moving ahead, slowly but somewhat steadily. And my class has me talking a fair amount and listening to a native speaker at close to native speed. Edited by Li Fei on 06 March 2011 at 1:51am 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 71 of 149 15 March 2011 at 2:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Still creeping along in my Mandarin studies. My uni class is moving at a snail's pace, FINALLY moving on to a
new chapter today after several weeks on one chapter. Honestly, I think there's more material in one Assimil lesson than in a whole chapter of Integrated Chinese, and yet we're plodding slowly through each chapter. The good news is that I'm getting a lot of speaking practice and corrections on tones, so I will try to appreciate that. At the same time, I feel like the class is slowing me down. But it's not just the class's fault, it's me. I'm on Pimsleur Wave 2 Lesson 30--finally--but when I look back more than a week ago, I was on Lesson 28 then. Really, 8 days to do three Pimsleur Lessons?? And I have no one to blame for that but myself. Truthfully, I got caught up in some of my other interests, primarily fiction writing, and haven't been as excited about my language study lately. I am still working, just not as much each day. Maybe that's a necessary transition . . . maybe the honeymoon's over . . . maybe now is the point where studying Chinese just becomes an ordinary part of my life, like running or writing. 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 72 of 149 16 March 2011 at 3:43am | IP Logged | ||
Still moving forward though. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Just try to keep at it. Review some of the stuff you did back in mid December and note how far you've come! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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