Hitchhiker’s guide to the Chinese Galaxy (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Hitchhiker’s guide to the Chinese Galaxy
Tags: Mandarin
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Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log

230 messages over 29 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 15 ... 28 29 Next >>

kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4858 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese	Message 113 of 230 02 August 2013 at 5:51am \| IP Logged
	First of all... Nossa! Estou muito impressionado com a sua dedicação e disciplina. Continue assim! Second... You and a lot of people here at HTLAL use tutors, and I'm just curious about what exactly happens when one goes to a paid tutoring session. Do you just go and talk in your target language, while the tutor makes corrections? Do you ask questions about the language that you've gathered since the last time you met? Or does the tutor come with a lesson ready to teach? The only similar experience I have is when I first came to Japan, and I took advantage of a free Japanese tutoring program that my city had. I was a total beginner then, and I had no idea how to study a language, either, so my volunteer tutor would teach me simple question-and-answer patterns, maybe bring in a few pictures to talk about, and I learned that way. I wonder if a paid tutoring session is like that, and what the benefits are. Obviously, it helps to speak to native speakers of your target language, but I'm curious about what having a tutor gives you that you can't get from regular contact with native speakers, textbooks, etc. 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 114 of 230 04 August 2013 at 2:20am \| IP Logged
	Thank you Kujichagulia. All of the above in my case. The tutor has exercises prepared (in my case she does from the Teacher's manual and then in "conversation" she freestyles it), and I have questions and doubts, and we converse to reinforce output. But really the major advantage is that the tutor has experience so he/she can be much better at suggesting how to approach difficulties, but also at my very basic stage of Chinese, it is not practical to find a native and just talk to them. Not only is it rather impractical since I would have little to say, but there are VERY few natives who would do that gratis, but more importantly have the patience it requires. They would simply get bored and frustrated. I did not use tutors for French, German, or Portuguese. I taught myself the pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, expressions, syntax, and reading/oral skills. I talked to myself to practice speech. All that allowed me to reach a level where I could "go out" and talk to natives without forcing them to switch to English which would defeat the purpose, to be able to understand them without having to say "repeat" every other sentence (I never need repetition in German or French now, except when I was just not paying attention at all), and to have enough command of grammar and vocab to have interesting things to say and the means to express them. THEN the possibilities with natives open up drastically, when it is a two-way conversation and not just the poor native sitting there waiting for me to get through a basic sentence and me having to request repetition of all he/she says. Only this year did I start attending meetings and one-on-ones with natives to speak. They don't prepare anything for me, they don't teach me anything, they simply talk to me and we chat as if it was a normal conversation. I just need to develop output fluency at this point. With Chinese, I felt it was important to have a tutor from the start, for all the reasons above but also because I wanted to start speaking right away, and to have pronunciation and tone mistakes corrected early before they ossified and became much harder to correct. So my approach in this language is different from the other three, where I did massive input and silent periods before beginning to speak in any great form. 2 persons have 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 115 of 230 04 August 2013 at 4:08am \| IP Logged
	Weekly Progress Entry 20 8.2.2013 While this log officially began on March 13th, I had already practiced and learned Chinese phonology before, so if you assume the first two weeks of March would have been spent solely on pronunciation, then I'm now into my 6th month of Mandarin learning, thus the half-year mark will come at the end of this month. I almost feel like doing some taking stock of the road so far, but I think I will leave that for the One Year Mandarin anniversary. This week was copasetic in my Chinese studies. Though it began in the complete opposite fashion: I met with my tutor last Monday since she had been on vacation the prior Friday, day when we normally meet. Well, the connection either on Skype or DSL was utterly useless, so very little work got done. That was the first time that happened, which is the down-side of online lessons. I was not very pleased with the situation. But after that, it was quite productive. While in terms of my work load I did not do any extra lessons or the like, I worked very hard at the lessons I did. I forced myself to think and manipulate the language like I had not before. I did the drills, transformations exercises of BSC and the practice skills of NPCR fully but also twisted them afterwards to make utterances of my own. I'm starting to produce my own sentences with the grammar and vocabulary I know, but I don't dare try to say something I have not seen before in an example, in other words, I don't freestyle it if I don't know a precise Chinese way of saying something. So I'm still rather limited, but at least I am no longer limited to just memorized expressions. I have enough basic vocab and confidence in the grammar that I can put some simple stuff together as long as I am certain it is correct Mandarin. I am now into Unit 7 lesson 1, close to finishing it really. In NPCR I am almost through lesson 11. I will try to complete both my afternoon Monday. And then my Friday session with the tutor was flawless, and not just the connection. I understood more of what she said, and I saw a sensible increase in my output, albeit still all basic phrases or incomplete sentences, and lots of set expressions ("That's great"), but at least it is slightly more two-way now. But the real differences was that my response time to commands and questions posed to me in Chinese was notably better: I put the meaning together of whatever was said to me more quickly. Characters was the only area where I was a bit sub-par, as I only have learned 15 new ones since finishing the last 100 batch. This is because I was too lazy to write down the list on paper to take with me. I will definitely do this tomorrow with a full day off from work. Goals for Friday are finish through lesson 2 BSC, and lesson 12 NPCR. And for sure get 50 new characters into my world. Till the next WPE on 8.9.2013!! Edited by outcast on 04 August 2013 at 4:10am 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 116 of 230 05 August 2013 at 12:29am \| IP Logged
	Unit Completion Entry 35 Unit 7 Lesson 1 Basic Spoken Chinese 8.4.2013 1 person has voted this message useful
kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4858 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese	Message 117 of 230 05 August 2013 at 2:45am \| IP Logged
	outcast, thank you for the detailed reply to my questions about tutors. That was very helpful. 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 118 of 230 10 August 2013 at 1:04am \| IP Logged
	Unit Completion Entry 36 Cycle Two (Lessons 7-26) Book 1 Lesson 11 New Practical Chinese Reader 8.8.2013 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 119 of 230 10 August 2013 at 1:05am \| IP Logged
	Unit Completion Entry 37 Unit 7 Lesson 2 Basic Spoken Chinese 8.9.2013 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 120 of 230 10 August 2013 at 1:23am \| IP Logged
	Weekly Progress Entry 21 8.9.2013 I have had an average week in mandarin. Nothing great to report, but also nothing bad, just one of those weeks that in the long run you appreciate for having stuck to the routine, because those hours of practice eventually add up. I basically did all my goals, I'm into lessson 3 Unit 7 BSC, and almost done with lesson 12 Book 1 NPCR. My meeting with my tutor today was ok, but not as productive as last week's, it just felt a bit flat, but I still got some good work done. I'm up to probably 70 characters so I'm only 30 or so away from 1000. The current Unit of BSC contains an equal mix of grammar, expressions, and vocabulary explication. One of them is the 吗 used as a "flavoring particle" of sorts, not as an interrogative. It is clear that this is a tricky aspect, since you need to use intonation over the entire sentence to distinguish this "ma" from the question marker "ma". The question "ma" is higher pitched itself, but also the entire sentence is slightly intonated higher. It is still a bit tricky for me to get both the tones correctly while giving a slight interrogative intonation to the entire phrase. That is something I will have to get lots of input to be able to mimic more accurately. Overall, just a solid "foot soldier" week, nothing really exciting just plugging along. This week I hope I can complete Unit 7 of BSC, and I should complete Lesson 13 NCPR. Sometime early next week I should reach 1000 Hanzi. I still forget quite a bit of them, but for the most part I know that I have studied them when I see them, so at least I do recognize them. Review, review, review. As so many before me doing this project have said, but I may be saying for the first time, Chinese: what a language! (different, thus "hard"... i.e, can't learn this languge the "lazy" way!) Till the next WPE on 8.16.2013!! Edited by outcast on 10 August 2013 at 1:37am 1 person has voted this message useful

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kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4858 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese	Message 113 of 230 02 August 2013 at 5:51am \| IP Logged
	First of all... Nossa! Estou muito impressionado com a sua dedicação e disciplina. Continue assim! Second... You and a lot of people here at HTLAL use tutors, and I'm just curious about what exactly happens when one goes to a paid tutoring session. Do you just go and talk in your target language, while the tutor makes corrections? Do you ask questions about the language that you've gathered since the last time you met? Or does the tutor come with a lesson ready to teach? The only similar experience I have is when I first came to Japan, and I took advantage of a free Japanese tutoring program that my city had. I was a total beginner then, and I had no idea how to study a language, either, so my volunteer tutor would teach me simple question-and-answer patterns, maybe bring in a few pictures to talk about, and I learned that way. I wonder if a paid tutoring session is like that, and what the benefits are. Obviously, it helps to speak to native speakers of your target language, but I'm curious about what having a tutor gives you that you can't get from regular contact with native speakers, textbooks, etc. 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 114 of 230 04 August 2013 at 2:20am \| IP Logged
	Thank you Kujichagulia. All of the above in my case. The tutor has exercises prepared (in my case she does from the Teacher's manual and then in "conversation" she freestyles it), and I have questions and doubts, and we converse to reinforce output. But really the major advantage is that the tutor has experience so he/she can be much better at suggesting how to approach difficulties, but also at my very basic stage of Chinese, it is not practical to find a native and just talk to them. Not only is it rather impractical since I would have little to say, but there are VERY few natives who would do that gratis, but more importantly have the patience it requires. They would simply get bored and frustrated. I did not use tutors for French, German, or Portuguese. I taught myself the pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, expressions, syntax, and reading/oral skills. I talked to myself to practice speech. All that allowed me to reach a level where I could "go out" and talk to natives without forcing them to switch to English which would defeat the purpose, to be able to understand them without having to say "repeat" every other sentence (I never need repetition in German or French now, except when I was just not paying attention at all), and to have enough command of grammar and vocab to have interesting things to say and the means to express them. THEN the possibilities with natives open up drastically, when it is a two-way conversation and not just the poor native sitting there waiting for me to get through a basic sentence and me having to request repetition of all he/she says. Only this year did I start attending meetings and one-on-ones with natives to speak. They don't prepare anything for me, they don't teach me anything, they simply talk to me and we chat as if it was a normal conversation. I just need to develop output fluency at this point. With Chinese, I felt it was important to have a tutor from the start, for all the reasons above but also because I wanted to start speaking right away, and to have pronunciation and tone mistakes corrected early before they ossified and became much harder to correct. So my approach in this language is different from the other three, where I did massive input and silent periods before beginning to speak in any great form. 2 persons have 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 115 of 230 04 August 2013 at 4:08am \| IP Logged
	Weekly Progress Entry 20 8.2.2013 While this log officially began on March 13th, I had already practiced and learned Chinese phonology before, so if you assume the first two weeks of March would have been spent solely on pronunciation, then I'm now into my 6th month of Mandarin learning, thus the half-year mark will come at the end of this month. I almost feel like doing some taking stock of the road so far, but I think I will leave that for the One Year Mandarin anniversary. This week was copasetic in my Chinese studies. Though it began in the complete opposite fashion: I met with my tutor last Monday since she had been on vacation the prior Friday, day when we normally meet. Well, the connection either on Skype or DSL was utterly useless, so very little work got done. That was the first time that happened, which is the down-side of online lessons. I was not very pleased with the situation. But after that, it was quite productive. While in terms of my work load I did not do any extra lessons or the like, I worked very hard at the lessons I did. I forced myself to think and manipulate the language like I had not before. I did the drills, transformations exercises of BSC and the practice skills of NPCR fully but also twisted them afterwards to make utterances of my own. I'm starting to produce my own sentences with the grammar and vocabulary I know, but I don't dare try to say something I have not seen before in an example, in other words, I don't freestyle it if I don't know a precise Chinese way of saying something. So I'm still rather limited, but at least I am no longer limited to just memorized expressions. I have enough basic vocab and confidence in the grammar that I can put some simple stuff together as long as I am certain it is correct Mandarin. I am now into Unit 7 lesson 1, close to finishing it really. In NPCR I am almost through lesson 11. I will try to complete both my afternoon Monday. And then my Friday session with the tutor was flawless, and not just the connection. I understood more of what she said, and I saw a sensible increase in my output, albeit still all basic phrases or incomplete sentences, and lots of set expressions ("That's great"), but at least it is slightly more two-way now. But the real differences was that my response time to commands and questions posed to me in Chinese was notably better: I put the meaning together of whatever was said to me more quickly. Characters was the only area where I was a bit sub-par, as I only have learned 15 new ones since finishing the last 100 batch. This is because I was too lazy to write down the list on paper to take with me. I will definitely do this tomorrow with a full day off from work. Goals for Friday are finish through lesson 2 BSC, and lesson 12 NPCR. And for sure get 50 new characters into my world. Till the next WPE on 8.9.2013!! Edited by outcast on 04 August 2013 at 4:10am 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 116 of 230 05 August 2013 at 12:29am \| IP Logged
	Unit Completion Entry 35 Unit 7 Lesson 1 Basic Spoken Chinese 8.4.2013 1 person has voted this message useful
kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4858 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese	Message 117 of 230 05 August 2013 at 2:45am \| IP Logged
	outcast, thank you for the detailed reply to my questions about tutors. That was very helpful. 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 118 of 230 10 August 2013 at 1:04am \| IP Logged
	Unit Completion Entry 36 Cycle Two (Lessons 7-26) Book 1 Lesson 11 New Practical Chinese Reader 8.8.2013 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 119 of 230 10 August 2013 at 1:05am \| IP Logged
	Unit Completion Entry 37 Unit 7 Lesson 2 Basic Spoken Chinese 8.9.2013 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 120 of 230 10 August 2013 at 1:23am \| IP Logged
	Weekly Progress Entry 21 8.9.2013 I have had an average week in mandarin. Nothing great to report, but also nothing bad, just one of those weeks that in the long run you appreciate for having stuck to the routine, because those hours of practice eventually add up. I basically did all my goals, I'm into lessson 3 Unit 7 BSC, and almost done with lesson 12 Book 1 NPCR. My meeting with my tutor today was ok, but not as productive as last week's, it just felt a bit flat, but I still got some good work done. I'm up to probably 70 characters so I'm only 30 or so away from 1000. The current Unit of BSC contains an equal mix of grammar, expressions, and vocabulary explication. One of them is the 吗 used as a "flavoring particle" of sorts, not as an interrogative. It is clear that this is a tricky aspect, since you need to use intonation over the entire sentence to distinguish this "ma" from the question marker "ma". The question "ma" is higher pitched itself, but also the entire sentence is slightly intonated higher. It is still a bit tricky for me to get both the tones correctly while giving a slight interrogative intonation to the entire phrase. That is something I will have to get lots of input to be able to mimic more accurately. Overall, just a solid "foot soldier" week, nothing really exciting just plugging along. This week I hope I can complete Unit 7 of BSC, and I should complete Lesson 13 NCPR. Sometime early next week I should reach 1000 Hanzi. I still forget quite a bit of them, but for the most part I know that I have studied them when I see them, so at least I do recognize them. Review, review, review. As so many before me doing this project have said, but I may be saying for the first time, Chinese: what a language! (different, thus "hard"... i.e, can't learn this languge the "lazy" way!) Till the next WPE on 8.16.2013!! Edited by outcast on 10 August 2013 at 1:37am 1 person has voted this message useful