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Next adventure: Mandarin - 鹊 TAC’14

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Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5883 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 81 of 128
16 August 2013 at 2:28am | IP Logged 
For the first time so far, I haven't found a grammatical explanation in "Yufa".

Actually, it seems somewhat weird, because I haven't found anything about the seemingly important word 离 (lí, to leave / to part from).

On the other hand, both "Modern Madarin Chinese" and "Basic Patterns" have good explanations, the latter even better and more related to the subject discussed on Lesson 15 of Méthode 90.
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Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5883 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 82 of 128
20 August 2013 at 3:45pm | IP Logged 
The average number of new characters per day that I've been learning so far is about 8. I'm finishing each lesson from Méthode 90 in about 2-3 days, with 20-30 new characters each, which means that this 8 new characters per day average seems feasible to keep for a while.

It should be added that some of these characters are those necessary to "build" the characters that really appear on the lessons. It must be said that since many of these building blocks haven't appeared by themselves, it makes their memorization slightly harder.

Anyway, for the time being, my rate of correct answers is about 83%, but my mature cards rate (Anki users know it) is about 95%. Mnemonics are wonderful, I'm sure that I wouldn't remember these characters not even close to this rate otherwise. Of course, other people have different methods, preferences, personal traits etc.

Edited by Flarioca on 20 August 2013 at 3:46pm

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Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5883 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 83 of 128
28 August 2013 at 1:24am | IP Logged 
I've indeed tried some lessons from Chinesepod and although they are ok, at this beginning level they aren't better than my Méthode 90 lessons. So, at this point, there's no place for them on my normal schedule. That said, I've cancelled my membership. Maybe I'll try it again at a more advanced level.

Lesson 18 from Méthode 90 finished, which means 20% of the lessons, but hopefully much less than 20% of what there's to learn from this wonderful method. If (ok, when, if health helps me) I start a new language learning project in the future (after 2015, at least) I'll repeat the same main sequence I've done here: MT + phonetics -> Méthode 90 (+ Anki, grammar, etc., of course).

PS: Yes, I know that maybe this Mandarin course is a good one (for me, other people may hate it) and it doesn't work in other languages. We all know that quite well. Anyway, I'll try!

Edited by Flarioca on 28 August 2013 at 1:41am

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Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5883 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 84 of 128
29 August 2013 at 3:34pm | IP Logged 
Once more I'm glad of having more than one grammar book, but I'm also more sure that none of them will be enough and I'll need something else in the near future.

This time, my so far favourite grammar book, "Yufa", didn't answer both my questions.

The first one (differences among 知道/认识/会, forms of "to know") has been answered in "Basic Patterns", which I'm starting to like more and more.

The second one (list of classifiers) has been found in "Modern Mandarin" which, in spite of been possibly the most complete, I still don't like much.

However, even this list of classifiers in MM isn't very complete, because, for instance, the use of 只 is linked to animals in MM, while "Méthode 90" tells us that it can also be used for pairs, some vegetables, fruits and even some objects.

Anyway, about classifiers, I'm already very happy to know that in most (every?) cases, if you don't know the correct one, just use 个. Mandarin grammar is tops!

Edited by Flarioca on 29 August 2013 at 3:37pm

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Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5883 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 85 of 128
01 September 2013 at 10:48pm | IP Logged 
I've also been SRSing Mandarin words with Pleco, but I'm not even studying it everyday, because, so far, it has been very easy. Amazing how when characters come in pairs/triples, at least so far, for me, it's much easier to remember their meaning.

I'm sure, however, that it must become the hardest part of Mandarin learning in the future. Anyway, it's nice to see how things change as time goes by.
1 person has voted this message useful



Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5883 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 86 of 128
10 September 2013 at 4:18am | IP Logged 
Today, I've decided to verify how much time it takes to build my Anki deck with mnemonics.

The measured time includes everything from the moment to verify which are the new words in the new lesson, find out how to construct the characters from previous ones based on Matthewes and Matthews (sometimes, as in this case, also on Heisig), choose the pictures on internet, save the chosen pictures, build the cards, save them on Anki, synchronize, delete useless files.

Each card includes the Chinese character, the Portuguese translation, pictures from the previous characters that are the base for the new one, pictures for the initial, final and tone.

The conclusion from today's measurements is that it takes me about 6 minutes to prepare each card.

I really believe that this is time well spent, not too much to make it much easier to memorize these characters later on, and the process itself helps me to think about each character, its meanings, connections etc.
1 person has voted this message useful



Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5883 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 87 of 128
11 September 2013 at 3:39am | IP Logged 
Thanks to a HTLAL thread about Music in Mandarin I've searched for Song Zuying and found this nice song.

Besides the beautiful music, there are Mandarin subtitles, which allowed me to understand part of the music, because it seems to be a very simple kind of lyrics, but I'm very happy about it anyway!
1 person has voted this message useful



Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5883 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 88 of 128
14 September 2013 at 5:46am | IP Logged 
For the last lessons from Méthode 90, I've needed 3 days and it seems that this pattern is not going to change in the future.

Indeed, I don't even want it, because this is the only way, for me, to try other Mandarin activities, which, to tell the truth, I haven't done much lately, like reading "Susan you mafan" and "Empire of Living Symbols".

I'm decided to find more free time to read more often the last one during the next months. I'm sure that it'll be a great way to deepen my Chinese characters knowledge.

Anyway, the number of characters from Matthews and Matthews book is close to its halfway. Since I'm still on lesson 23, this also means that Méthode 90 leads us maybe to a level very close to HSK5 (B1, according to some serious German group analysis), in terms of number of characters and words known.

Of course, I don't believe that this course alone would let most people (possibly no one) that far. But, it certainly let you learn enough characters to be able to read very close to that level. Beyond that, you'll "only" need to know how to listen, write and speak at this same level ...


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