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Mandarin journey (FSI, Pimsleur, NPCR) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 1 of 181 15 September 2008 at 4:43am | IP Logged |
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So I really can't believe this, but I am going to learn Mandarin.
I say "I can't believe" because I never thought I would be learning this language, even a month ago. Then again, I never thought I would be learning Spanish either, but about 4.5 months ago I started that out of a same urge, and now I am having complete conversations. So now I have this incredible urge to learn Mandarin that came out of nowehere, and I think to myself; well, it can't be too hard right? :) My goal is complete fluency in all forms. As far as my goal is right now, this means 6000+ words and fluent conversation ability. In the future it may mean total native like fluency. I really don't care how long it takes me. I am honest with myself; if I get bored of it, or for whatever reason don't have the "urge", I will stop without regret. However, the urge for Spanish never died so I don't see that happening.... My method is going to be divided into spoken and written Mandarin. My method for spoken is going to be roughly the same as it has been for Spanish; start with Pimsleur I, II, and III to build a "speaking center", and then fill out the language with advanced and more complete materials. However, several things stand in my way. First, unlike Spanish, I have no native speakers to practice with. LiveMocha will be instrumental in this aspect, or I will try to find a club somewhere around Seattle. Second, since FSI doesn't have (to my knowledge) a complete Mandarin like Platiquemos, it is unclear exactly I am going to fill out the language. The method for writing is also unclear at this point. I know I want to have a firm base on what the words mean that I am seeing before I learn tons of characters, but beyond that I don't know. Still, this is better than school, which is worthless for languages as far as I can tell. Well, into the great unknown I go... Edited by irrationale on 20 January 2009 at 8:01am 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 2 of 181 15 September 2008 at 5:02am | IP Logged |
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I will be doing one Pimsleur a day, like I did for Spanish (this is in addition to my FSI Spanish). I won't post here every single day just to say "I did a pimsleur", but I will post here if I hit a milestone or wall, etc.
So I started Pimsleur Mandarin I today, and completed Lesson 1. I have to say, I can see(hear) the greater difficultly of this language right from the beginning, compared to Spanish. If I recall, I only did about 2 lessons over in Spanish, and the first was a breeze. I have already had to do this lesson over, and maybe once more! The main thing right now is the words are harder to remember, for some reason. I can remember all the TONES of the words perfectly, but 1 or 2 of the actual words slip away. Its like my mind is focusing too much on the tones! My synesthesia is behaving interestingly. I can see the words as colorful shapes, depending on the tone and noise of the word. Much more colorful than Spanish. Also, there are 2 sounds that I can't say correctly. They are both the "R" sound, I think. Spanish just had one sound, "rr", that I couldn't say. Now there are already two! My total study time for each day (until I finish FSI Spanish) will be a pretty consistent 30 min of Mandarin, Plus 1.5 hours of Spanish. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 3 of 181 18 September 2008 at 2:01am | IP Logged |
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Have done 4 Pimsleur lessons. I have passed the point where it all sounds like non-sense and can feel the language making more sense now. As of now, things are going just fine and only have to each lesson once.
Still don't know when I am going to start learning the Hanzi, but my current thought is I will learn it on a word by word basis starting with all the words I currently know from Pimsleur. Perhaps I will start when I know 160 words (about around the time I finish Level 1). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 4 of 181 19 September 2008 at 1:35am | IP Logged |
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Had to repeat Pimsleur 4, unfortunately. They actually introduced a lot of words here that for some reason, remain harder to remember for me. I refuse to move on in Pimsleur if I don't answer about every question right, not 80%. Edited by irrationale on 19 September 2008 at 1:36am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 5 of 181 21 September 2008 at 12:28am | IP Logged |
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Redid lesson 6. Passing through the full sentence construction barrier.
One thing I find interesting right now is that mandarin seems to use so many individual sounds in the words compared to both English and Spanish. It seems like they are saying so many things compared to English, when they are only saying "I would like to eat something". This is the opposite with Spanish compared to English where I thought I wasn't saying enough! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 6 of 181 22 September 2008 at 4:43am | IP Logged |
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Finished lesson 7.
I have decided that I am going to start learning the pinyin and hanzi right now, simultaniously with the spoken practice, for the words I already know. Each Pimsluer, I will write down the sentences I am saying (or at least the words I'm not sure which). My reasoning is as follows. I am not learning mandarin full-on right now because I need to finish Spanish completely, and the spoken practice of both languages uses the same thought processes. However, learning and remembering the written chinese uses a different thought process that is currently free to be used. Also, from all accounts, it will take awhile to read and write fluent chinese, so I need to start as soon as possible. I will always learn the word before the character because I think that speaking/listing is always more fundamental. I'm not sure which book I will be using, but I need a decent amount of hanzi to learn, not just 100 (or whatever). Feel free to give suggestions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Hedge Bilingual Diglot Newbie China Joined 5966 days ago 19 posts - 20 votes Speaks: EnglishC1*, Norwegian* Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 181 22 September 2008 at 8:36pm | IP Logged |
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I recommend Learning Chinese Characters by Matthews coupled with a good SRS like Anki.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6051 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 8 of 181 23 September 2008 at 10:34am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the recommendation Hedge :)
Finished lesson 9 without any problems. Have the basic request sentence and statement sentence structure down. Did some gruntwork installing east asian languages on my Win XP machine, as well as dealing with Pinyin, entering Hanzi, and figuring the whole thing out. I can see how this would intimidate some, but to me it is making it all the more enjoyable. The thrill of the challenge :) I now realize that I need to start learning the hanzi immediately because as the words become automatic, I want that same automation to apply to the hanzi so my mind will take root immediately around that association. I ordered some hanzi books yesterday and want them here right now! Another thing that I realized is that appearently is that writing the words in pinyin is helping me remember. I guess I do have visual memory when it comes to learn a language as well, but this wasn't a factor in Spanish. However, these words are so foreign to my ears that I need the support of the visual side. I now am back to getting around 100% correct. It is unknown at this point how well I am going to retain the Hanzi, I really I hope I can retain them and recognize them well. Edited by irrationale on 23 September 2008 at 10:45am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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