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East Asian Wanderlust TAC 鶴 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| BloodyChinese Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4365 days ago 39 posts - 61 votes  Speaks: German*, EnglishC2 Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 17 of 21 28 February 2013 at 9:00pm | IP Logged |
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+ 700/2275 漢字
I've realised how useful character study is when it comes to learning new words. Often times, Chinese words consist of two characters whose combination leads to the actual meaning of the word. Or both characters are duplicates in terms of meaning. This is not always true, but when it is, it tremendously helps with memorising new words. With most languages it is probably not a good idea to study things in isolation. You normally need context for an effective learning environment. But I think Chinese is an exception in this regard. While it is also a good idea to switch to sentence decks and contextual learning as soon as possible(which is what I'll do as well), isolated character study does pay off in that the majority of characters could be considered words even when they're not used in that fashion. There is often an implied meaning in the radicals and where such information is missing, another part of the character usually contains information about the pronunciation of the respective word. The more characters you know, the easier it becomes to absorb new words and meanings. I probably know far more than these 700 漢子, which I am just tracking because I have started to use a new website/method to learn them(again). But the process is becoming easier and easier. The greatest problem with this cramming method is the actual retention of the characters once I have hit my temporary end goal(around 3000 漢子). This will become a hellish task, even with the help of SRS, but one I will gladly accept since it will speed up the process of learning new vocabulary(which is my main weakness at this point and the one thing that prevents me from consuming native materials effectively) I have found a steady source of motivation in myself so that it will no longer be necessary to use gimmicks such as a daily journal in order to keep up the momentum. However, I am devising a new system of short term and long term goals(in the vein of the Super Challenge) for which I will need a blog to track things effectively. Edited by BloodyChinese on 04 March 2013 at 8:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5650 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 18 of 21 01 March 2013 at 1:31am | IP Logged |
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I'm sorry for being about a week late, but I had a big group project to do where I was just one of two members doing the majority of the work, so I had to neglect your request.
Nell - Time Spent Walking Through Memories Loveholic (lead vocalist left) - Mirage Jisun (former lead vocalist of Loveholic) - Goodbye My Heart Rumble Fish - 으라차차 Taru - Love Today Hot Potato - Rain Tears Glen Check - Racket 안녕바다 - 악마 Clazziquai Project - Love Mode (ft. Tablo of Epik High) Park Jung Hyun ft eAeon (eAeon is the indie singer and the male in the song) - You Don't Know Me Leessang ft Guckkasten (Guckkasten is the indie band. Leessang is the hiphop group) - Wild Goose Chase 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BloodyChinese Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4365 days ago 39 posts - 61 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2 Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 19 of 21 02 March 2013 at 8:48pm | IP Logged |
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No problem and thanks for the links!
+ 850/2275 漢字 Edited by BloodyChinese on 04 March 2013 at 8:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BloodyChinese Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4365 days ago 39 posts - 61 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2 Studies: Mandarin, Korean | Message 20 of 21 03 March 2013 at 9:20pm | IP Logged |
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+ 1000/2275 漢字
Changes Seeing as I might depend on scholarships in the near future and the fact that I will be in Beijing in around 14 months, I might shoot myself in the foot if I commit myself to studying Korean seriously right now. I think it is entirely possible to learn both languages well but the current situation demands that I focus my concentration entirely on one, namely Chinese. To make the most out of my time in Beijing, I need to get as far as possible with Chinese within the next 14 months. To that end, I need to alter my current plan a bit. I initially planned to take up the study of Taiwan's most famous series of textbooks, the Practical Audio Visual Chinese, in addition to the one we're using at University. This might not be such a smart move, considering that this series of books is rather dry and focuses on exercises. This might be fine given enough time and access to a native speaker willing to review these exercises, but it doesn't seem to be worth it, considering that I can focus on much higher levels of input and output through shadowing podcast material and audio sentence decks. While I have been raving about character study for a while now, I feel that the time has come to study natural content in effective small bits. I have come to this conclusion because, when I scouted for manhua(Chinese Manga) and dramas today, I realised that I understood very little of what was going on, mainly because I simply haven't seen many words in their proper context enough already. I was also surprised at how many characters(almost every third character) I couldn't read. Those guys who said that you can start making sense of native materials when you know how to apply around 5000 words in their proper contexts based on around 3000 characters weren't kidding. I am far below that count, even though I have begun to not care about numbers anymore. I am obviously interested in three skills, seeing as writing Hanzi is a pretty useless timesink given my goals(even though that pesky University course demands it): - Spoken and Listening Comprehension(in non-technical speech) - Reading Comprehension(regarding everyday topics) Heavy Podcast Listening and Shadowing will help with developing the former, while Sentence Decks and Graded Readers will help with the latter. I am not much of a fan of learning Grammar in isolation(which they love to do at University) and lean heavily towards a Khatzumoto approach. It's kind of comical to me that I have basically gone full circle and am returning to the exact same collection of learning materials I intended to begin my study with. But that's learning through trial and error, right? The actual materials I will use now are the following: Podcasts:
I will pull audio sentences from these five sources and add them to two decks; an audio sentence deck and a word deck. I need the latter mainly to check if I am adding a word I am already supposed to know. Chineselearnonline has the advantage that their lessons build on each other instead of presenting random bit of information based on themes. There are also Taiwanese speakers on the team, which is nice for me since that is the direction I'll ultimately head to. Popupchinese is probably the best source for Beijing centered material, which is where I will go come this time next year. The other three are thrown in for variety. The Real CZ has also reminded me of two very useful websites I had bookmarked months ago but never gotten around to actually make use of: CCTV and the Zhongwen series. CCTV has a variety of shows for each level of proficiency, ranging from beginner to advanced material. Since transcripts are provided, this will make a good source for listening and shadowing practice. Then there's the Zhongwen Series and the Smart.fm Core decks. These are mainly interesting for me because someone went to great lengths to make a well-made Anki deck of all sentences, complete with images and audio. You can find the download links here This is about as close as you can get to the Famous Japanese Core and Sentence Decks. Finally, there's the John deFrancis Reader series which is I hope to get through as fast as possible since he ingeniously used repetition of learnt words in a way that doesn't force you to SRS random and rarely used words all the time. I obtained a scan of the first two, and the rest is in my University library(they are damn expensive) Due to the demands of my University, I will also have to memorise the HSK wordlists up to Level 6 as soon as possible. I've come to dislike rote learning out of context words but I think that for once, University requirements might help me with my actual language learning, seeing as the words and characters covered by HSK 1-6 get me pretty damn close to where I need to be in order to start having fun learning with easy native material(5000 words/2,5k characters) This line-up sounds like a lot, but in reality, I am narrowing down on what I actually need to cover within the next 14 months. It should be possible given that I am investing almost all of my time into Chinese and wish to work with actually interesting and fun material as soon as possible. It is a very good feeling when reading books and watching dramas naturally reinforces what you are learning and SRS becomes less important. But until you get to that point, SRS is king. Edited by BloodyChinese on 04 March 2013 at 8:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| oefirouz Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4480 days ago 4 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 21 of 21 03 March 2013 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
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If I'm not mistaken you mean: 漢字 (characters) not: 漢子 (man, fellow, husband).
Anyway, good luck, I also study Mandarin and am starting to pick up Korean too. Korean sounds really pleasant to me, I can't explain it. And I have found something similar to what you point out: SRS is very useful for getting over the initial hurdle of learning. The more words I learn in an SRS, the more words I hear when listening to native media. And I think an SRS/rote memorization out of context is useful for 'carving out' a spot in a shelf to put the word. For example, you learn 姑娘 means a young lady. Then as months go by, you notice that it has a provincial connotation. That connotation 'sticks' to the simplistic out of context memory. And I would add that Chinese grammar is fairly straightforward. You can grasp a lot of meaning without a lot of explanation, so I think you can do well without explicitly learning grammar for the most part. But sometimes things come up, and you'll need grammar/a translation/ a native speaker to interpret what they mean. E.g. 最愛你的人是我 = most love you of person is me. It means I am the person who loves you most, and I've seen the pattern in other places: 最懂你的人是我 = I am the person who knows you best. A word-for-word translation is pretty ambiguous there. And in other cases, it's much worse: 又不是這樣就不孤獨 = again not is this then not alone. But it means something like 'it didn't stop me from being alone'. Edited by oefirouz on 03 March 2013 at 10:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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