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Hitchhiker’s guide to the Chinese Galaxy

  Tags: Mandarin
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outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 4960 days ago

869 posts - 1364 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 105 of 230
28 July 2013 at 7:28am | IP Logged 
Special entry 11

Hanzi learned @ 7.27.2013 = 900

801-900


旧 舊 (S / T)
历 歷 曆 (S /T1 /T2)
响 響 (S / T)
娜   
丁    



陆 陸 (S / T)

陈 陳 (S / T)

杨 楊 (S / T)

习 習 (S / T)


厅 廳 (S / T)
宿

系 繫 (S / T)


花 華 (S / T)

聪 聰 (S / T)







剧 劇 (S /T )







杂 雜 (S /T)
庄 莊 (S /T)
总 總 (S /T)
责 責 (S /T)
绩 績 (S /T)

负 負 (S /T)
团 團 (S /T)








场 場 (S /T)
汤 湯 (S /T)
扬 揚 (S /T)




极 極 (S /T)
愿 願 (S /T)

专 專 (S /T)

长 長 (S /T)






属 屬 (S /T)

贺 賀 (S /T)

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outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 4960 days ago

869 posts - 1364 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 106 of 230
28 July 2013 at 7:43am | IP Logged 
So it is definitely getting harder not so much to learn new characters, but to keep
them all sorted out without confusing one for another. When I did not have that many
characters I would not have as many problems confusing them, but now I am always
confusing one character for another. To add to the confusion is the increasing number
of synonyms or near-synonyms which add another layer to the plot. I guess it is part of
the phase as you start getting into the 1000s of characters (I'm nearing 1/4 of the way
through "literacy" which most people pan at 3,000 characters).

I certainly tend to remember characters better when exposed to them in a word... now of
course many here will jump and say "then learn new characters from now on in word
contexts"! Two problems, one very minor the other not so:

Minor: I have already gone through nearly 1000 characters just through sheer brute rote
memorization and other techniques like story making, association of two similar
characters, etc. I'm not going to stop now until I cover the 90% of Chinese characters
in frequency, as I had set to do.

Major: I may remember characters better with words, but I remember WORSE how to write
them, or the details. When one learns a new word, is easy to forget to focus on one of
the characters and see how it is written, the radical, and other matters.

As dull as rote can be, the characters in isolation help me to analyze it and explore
it, so I can hang myself to any part of it to make a story in order to remember it
better. That facet may be "lost" if I learned them as a part of a group of characters
forming words or phrases.

Reviewing is tough with so many characters, but I have done a rather good job recently.

Next batch of 100 gets me to 1,000.

wow.

Edited by outcast on 28 July 2013 at 7:46am

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Soggycakes
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 4588 days ago

7 posts - 15 votes
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, French

 
 Message 107 of 230
28 July 2013 at 11:01am | IP Logged 
outcast wrote:
So it is definitely getting harder not so much to learn new characters, but to keep them all sorted out without confusing one for another. When I did not have that many
characters I would not have as many problems confusing them, but now I am always
confusing one character for another. To add to the confusion is the increasing number
of synonyms or near-synonyms which add another layer to the plot. I guess it is part of
the phase as you start getting into the 1000s of characters (I'm nearing 1/4 of the way
through "literacy" which most people pan at 3,000 characters).


I've been over the 3000 range for a while, but I almost never confuse anything. I found it harder in the beginning actually as you didn't have enough exposure to the Kanji. I find that focusing on how and when a particular Kanji is used is often more beneficial than the meaning alone. Have you started using a Mandarin-Mandarin dictionary yet or stick to Mandarin-English? If you're only using the English one that may be where a problem is steming from though until you internalize it. :D

outcast wrote:

As dull as rote can be, the characters in isolation help me to analyze it and explore
it, so I can hang myself to any part of it to make a story in order to remember it
better. That facet may be "lost" if I learned them as a part of a group of characters
forming words or phrases.


I have two decks in Anki for this. One is just the Kanji so I can recall the meaning and how to write it. The other I take the Kanji and find vocab with them in sentences and learn them that way. It's much easier to learn the pronunciations in vocab than it is on an individual basis, at least for Japanese... Mandarin and Cantonese you could probably get away with learning them like that most of the time, but I'd still highly recommend it. It's like knowing 蟋蟀 which is cricket, but the Kanji themselves are read as しつ(shitsu) and しゅつ(shutsu). 蟋蟀 is actually read as こおろぎ(koorogi) though, which is so unintuitive.
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outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 4960 days ago

869 posts - 1364 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 108 of 230
29 July 2013 at 8:22pm | IP Logged 
Right now I feel that my head is going through some major overhaul (ever had that
feeling in your head that last for a week or two, where it almost feels that your head
is a major construction project?), so that's also probably why.

I think my mind is starting to internalize some aspects of chinese or the characters,
and out of this period I will be much sharper in all the pertinent tasks.

No way I can use Mandarin-Mandarin. Way too soon for that, since I can't even read that
well yet, much less have enough vocabulary.

I have not used cards much yet so I will keep your suggestion in mind if/when I create
some. Right now I'm just relying on brute rote force for the first 1000-1500
characters, since I don't use time of my day to read Mandarin yet. Thanks.
1 person has voted this message useful



outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 4960 days ago

869 posts - 1364 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 109 of 230
29 July 2013 at 8:39pm | IP Logged 
Weekly Progress Entry 19
7.26.2013

Ok so I did accomplish my 100 characters, a day or so late. I also did go through
lessons 9 and 10 in NPCR, also a day or so late. Unit 6 I am currently finishing off.
So in all, it took me a couple of days extra to do all the things I wanted to do by
friday. It's OK, I have a really heavy workload with all my languages at the moment,
and I have been "fighting" something.

This last week or so I've had the feeling that my mind has not been receptive to
learning for whatever reason. Like I'm not "totally in it", or my mind is somehow
distracted by something else. I have had to put extra effort to learn new material, and
that has compensated good enough. But I had troubles at times mustering the mental
energy to speak French and German to the same level as the week before. It could be
fatigue, I don't know. I also did study Chinese many hours and review hundreds of
characters, so that could make not only me fatigued, but also leave me with all these
things floating in head which interfere with other tasks.

As an optimist, I keep thinking this feeling is due to my brain doing some major
renovations to accommodate the new language (Chinese), and that it's like a
construction zone: everything is messy, some parts are off limits, and the rest is not
operating so smoothly, but once the work is done, things will "click" again at a
superior level.

I am getting to the point in Chinese where I can with enough effort formulate my first
original sentences using the vocabulary I know and the grammar I have internalized. On
my own that is not TOO hard, since I have all the time in the world to think what I
want to say, and I'm sure 50-50 the sentence is intelligible but not 100% "correct
chinese". If forced into a conversation though, I still am way too slow and the word
order still trips me a lot. I am trying to find exercises and ways to improve this now
that I need or can start creating my own independent, very basic Chinese output.

So getting the word order right in speech has rapidly become my main concern. The
grammar is still easy for me.

The characters are continuing to accumulate and it is more challenging to review them.
I will reach 1000 global characters sometime next week, taking away the duplicate
traditional variants that would leave me at about 775 (since about 22% of the
characters I have learned have a traditional form). Thus, I am roughly 200-300
characters away from reaching the point where most frequency lists and other sources
state I should be able to read 90% of standard, non-technical Mandarin texts (since the
1000 most used characters compose 90% of written Chinese). As most people know 90%
coverage (whether characters or vocabulary) still leaves still much too in the form of
gaps to understand globally any texts, but should at least open the door to begin some
very painful reading, if anything to reinforce the character retention in another way
than just rote or flashcards.

Right now I feel quite honestly a little humbled by all my target languages, there is
so much to review, so much to learn, and so many nuances to grasp. It really is more
than a full time job, it's like two full time jobs at the moment.

This week I will start Unit 7 BSC do lesson 11 NPCR, and at least get 30 new characters
in my pile.

I feel I am thick in the center of the middle of the beginning. :)

Till the next WPE on 8.2.2013!!

Edited by outcast on 29 July 2013 at 8:45pm

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outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 4960 days ago

869 posts - 1364 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 110 of 230
30 July 2013 at 4:46pm | IP Logged 
Unit Completion Entry 32

Unit 6 Lesson 4 Basic Spoken Chinese
7.30.2013
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outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 4960 days ago

869 posts - 1364 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 111 of 230
01 August 2013 at 4:32pm | IP Logged 
Unit Completion Entry 33

Cycle Two (Lessons 7-26)

Book 1 Lesson 9 New Practical Chinese Reader
7.26.2013
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outcast
Bilingual Heptaglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 4960 days ago

869 posts - 1364 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 112 of 230
01 August 2013 at 4:33pm | IP Logged 
Unit Completion Entry 34

Cycle Two (Lessons 7-26)

Book 1 Lesson 10 New Practical Chinese Reader
8.1.2013


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