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鹊 (què) - TEAM THREAD - TAC’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4252 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 161 of 266 16 February 2014 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks, and nothing bad, just enjoying playing around in some other languages for a bit, and being pretty content with the results of my slow and steady Cantonese study routine so far. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| js6426 Diglot Senior Member Cambodia Joined 4518 days ago 277 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English*, Khmer Studies: Mandarin | Message 162 of 266 16 February 2014 at 5:42am | IP Logged | ||
You learn 100 characters every 4 days?? That's really impressive! Is that just reading or writing as well? Can I ask what method you use to learn them? I found that I am able to learn to write about 15 characters a day, but after 4 days I need a day or two off or they stop going in! I haven't focused on characters at all this year, but I should probably get back on with that, and maybe I can steal your method :-D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 163 of 266 16 February 2014 at 7:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Just reading. For writing i add around 10 characters a day to a special writing deck in Pleco as well as write out answers to my lessons, which generally amounts to about half a notebook page's worth. I decided learning to write the characters wasn't as important as being able to recognize them, so i put it on the backburner. What i really want is to be able to communicate and read, though i do really enjoy writing the characters.
As for a method, i just use Pleco's HSK lists. I'm currently about 2/3rds of the way through the HSK5 list. I think one of the best things you can do is to keep encountering the words you study, whether in reading, watching TV, or chatting online. Also, when i said characters, i really meant words. I didn't find studying characters in isolation that effective as there were different pronunciations and tons of seemingly unrelated translations and trying to cram them all in just wasn't working. For writing, i was using Skritter, which was great, but my Wacom tablet got left in China so now i just write the characters out on the screen in Pleco and check them myself. If i'm unsure about stroke order, i'll check the dictionary entry. I'm not quite sure where you are with your studies, but i've found learning new characters gets easier as you go. You start seeing the radicals, you have a general idea of the "shape" of the sound, etc. I still have a long way to go, though... My focus this year has been on vocabulary, as i really want to start being able to read in Chinese and understand more in Chinese TV shows. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 164 of 266 16 February 2014 at 8:52am | IP Logged | ||
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That's some really good insight into the different stages of learning vocab! I often wonder how I'm going to manage when I start taking on more words!
Now I just have a very controlled set of 360 -- that's nothing compared to you guys! I imagine the next step will be to learn how to write them from memory (HSK3). Then there will be "the set that I know how to write", the "set that I can read and recognize when I hear it" and the "set that I can only recognize". When I was learning Japanese it was all confused. I didn't master anything except the most basic A1-level words, and I always adding on from multiple sources. I wasn't learning the words enough and I would learn, forget, learn, forget. I know better now. Do you guys find you have to take a break from adding new words or is it important to keep a constant stream of input? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 165 of 266 16 February 2014 at 9:19am | IP Logged | ||
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It depends on the rate you add them and how well you remember them. I've been adding 25 words a day for the past few months, but most of the words weren't new. Pretty much everything from HSK1-4 was a review, the last 600 or so cards have been much more difficult and reviews are starting to pile up.
I think starting now adding 5-10 words (for recognition, writing is a whole 'nother beast) is definitely sustainable in the long run. It's also nice to know that you're always progressing. 5 words a day is 150 a month, which is a nice little boost. I would recommend that you start trying to add at least 5 words/characters a day. You'll have to learn them eventually, and i feel like 5 a day is a relaxing enough pace that it won't get in the way of your main studies. The HSK 6 list is about as large as the other 5 lists combined..! As for writing them, i honestly think it's easier to learn how to write them when you've already got that character down pretty well. I started off learning how to write every new character i learned, but i think that ended up just slowing me down. Now going back to learn how to write the old characters that seemed so hard is much easier. Generally i just break it down into radicals or other characters that i know, for example there are tons of characters with 青 in it. For 醒, i just picture 酉 and 星. Before, i had to remember all the strokes. Now i just remember other characters until it becomes ingrained, too. I'm still at the intermediate stage, though. I'd be interest to hear what someone who's at a more advanced level than i am has to say. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 166 of 266 16 February 2014 at 9:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello, Crush, it's also been my experience that, in certain respects, learning new
words becomes somewhat easier in the long run. Words that seemed impossible just click into place, somehow, probably because they find a new place in a net of accumulated knowledge. I find it interesting that you specified that your rate was 25 *words* a day, not characters. Learning 25 characters a day is easy for a few days but then, when reviews start piling up, you're in the situation where you want to fill a bucket full of holes. Unless, maybe, you can devote 12 hours a day just to study characters, or you're übermegamighty gifted, which I'm not :-( However, - even if that subject has probably been discussed to death before - there's a case to be made for learning characters (and components) in isolation, especially in the beginning stages. After all, when you're learning the vocab for, say, HSK1-5 or any equivalent, the vast majority of the characters you learn are used in several words and/or in many cases on their own. So, it's often a good investment to learn their basic meaning (even if, you're right, it's sometimes a fuzzy target) and their most frequent pronunciation. After that, when you come accross a new word, you sometimes have the satisfaction of undestanding it immediately without opening a dictionary. And, if you do need to look up that word in a dictionary, most often, you will go: "Ah, yes, of course, that's the meaning. I should have guessed it, because 索 really means something like "thread"!" and it will be set in your memory for ever, hopefully. Learning the core meaning of isolated characters also happens with repeated exposition to words, granted. But learning isolated characters (and components) is also the most important reason why learning new words can become somewhat easier with time. Now, once you've learnt the 2000-2500 most frequent characters (there's nothing scientific to these numbers, it's just for the sake of the discussion), learning characters in isolation may become useless because lots of them are used in 1 or very few words. On the top of my head, there's no point in learning 尴 alone, because you'll never see it outside of 尴尬 (except maybe if you intend to teach yourself some ancient Chinese, but that's another story entirely). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| js6426 Diglot Senior Member Cambodia Joined 4518 days ago 277 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English*, Khmer Studies: Mandarin | Message 167 of 266 16 February 2014 at 10:23am | IP Logged | ||
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@Lorinth and Crush. Thanks guys, really helpful stuff. I have been learning characters in isolation for the most
part, but I was learning to write them also. I am at just over 1500 characters, and taking on board what both of you have said I think I am going to focus on reading for the time being as it will be less time consuming, in particular with my anki deck for characters! When my listening, speaking and reading have improved more I can come back to writing, as for me I think it is the least important right now, especially with pinyin input on the computer! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Yaan Triglot Groupie France Joined 4072 days ago 61 posts - 88 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 168 of 266 16 February 2014 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Seems the post is quite active last few days :)
Sorry for the delay, I joined the 鹊 Team about two weeks ago, but didn't have time to start my log and being active here. However, I'm following the discussions on daily basis. So here is my log, I will keep it updated as regularly as possible: Yaan’s Language Learning Log "Suggested by Crush: pick a song and analyse/translate it, or pick any character and exlpain it. Your choice!" +1 for the febrary challenge As for the characters or words someone knows, I'm wondering if there is a way to measure that. Is there a standard way to measure how many Chinese characters and words someone knows? Edited by Yaan on 16 February 2014 at 6:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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