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Mandarin journey (FSI, Pimsleur, NPCR)

  Tags: Pimsleur | FSI | Mandarin
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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 6052 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 65 of 181
23 January 2009 at 8:32am | IP Logged 
I did 601 ANKI (combined) reps today from 2 different decks.

I think that is a personal record, but not one I'm proud of. During the time the cards were building up, I was trying to organize my new ruitine and integrate NPCR into it. Hopefully now, with zero cards due, I can get into my ruitine in full force. The only problem is, once I get going, it can't be broken or this will happen again.
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querido
Newbie
United States
Joined 6108 days ago

13 posts - 15 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 66 of 181
24 January 2009 at 11:20am | IP Logged 
quote
I also need some mandarin children's books, or at least simple books...I have no idea where to get these.
end quote.

I'm at about the 500 character level and moving much slower than you, with very different goals. My main text with audio is New Concept Chinese for Children (preschool through middle school), so I'm learning about flowers and birds and little animals, etc. This isn't for everyone. (Similar material without audio can be viewed here. Note that they also have coordinated *readers*, writing workbooks, etc.)

I am currently very excited about the "Chinese Breeze Graded Reader Series".
It is available here. (This bookstore has photo-previews of most of the books they sell.)
Some reviews are here.

They have more graduated readers:
Graded Chinese Reader
Wit and Humor
Funny Chinese
other children's books.

(My other favorite bookstore is ChinaSprout. They also have many children's books.)
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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 6052 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 67 of 181
25 January 2009 at 12:15am | IP Logged 
querido wrote:
quote
I also need some mandarin children's books, or at least simple books...I have no idea where to get these.
end quote.

I'm at about the 500 character level and moving much slower than you, with very different goals. My main text with audio is New Concept Chinese for Children (preschool through middle school), so I'm learning about flowers and birds and little animals, etc. This isn't for everyone. (Similar material without audio can be viewed here. Note that they also have coordinated *readers*, writing workbooks, etc.)

I am currently very excited about the "Chinese Breeze Graded Reader Series".
It is available here. (This bookstore has photo-previews of most of the books they sell.)
Some reviews are here.

They have more graduated readers:
Graded Chinese Reader
Wit and Humor
Funny Chinese
other children's books.

(My other favorite bookstore is ChinaSprout. They also have many children's books.)


Thanks so much for the reply.

I have decided against children's books, for a variety of reasons. Actually, NPCR is the kind of thing I was looking for, basic reading pratice that gradually gets harder.

However; I DO need adult level graduated readers. Thanks so much for that web link!!! I will definitely check that out in the future, because I am going to need more advanced material beyond NPCR, as well as all-around reading practice.

So thanks again and good luck with your mandarin! I will check out your progress as well... :)
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5961 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 68 of 181
25 January 2009 at 1:15pm | IP Logged 
These Far Eastern Publications Series books using simplified characters may be of interest. All of these are available through Amazon or Yale University Press;
1...."The Lady in the Painting". The original publication is by Fred Fang-Yu Wang. The newer, simplified character version lists Claudia Ross as the author and has an accompanying audio CD. This is at the 300-350 character level. It's a retelling of a traditional folk tale.
2....."Traditional Chinese Tales: A Multimedia Course for Intermediate Chinese" by Claudia Ross. This is a revamp of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" by Linda Hsia. The new version has a CD Rom. This meant to be read after reaching the 600 character level. These are retellings from a book from the 1700's, which is still very popular.
3...."The White-Haired Girl" by Chih-yu Ho. Seems to be vol 1 of an intermediate level set. It's a well known mainland story from about 1945.
4...."Sun Yat-Sen" by Yung Teng Chia-yee. Vol 4 of an intermediate set.
5...."Wu Song Kills a Tiger" by Yung Teng Chia-yee. Vol 5 of an intermediate set. It's a retelling of a story from "Water Margin".
7...."The Magic Ark: The Adventures of "Tiny Wang"" by Peggy Wang and Lao She. At approximately the 700 character level. Retelling of a popular childrens' tale.

Good Luck!
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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 6052 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 69 of 181
27 January 2009 at 11:53am | IP Logged 
Snowflake wrote:
These Far Eastern Publications Series books using simplified characters may be of interest. All of these are available through Amazon or Yale University Press;
1...."The Lady in the Painting". The original publication is by Fred Fang-Yu Wang. The newer, simplified character version lists Claudia Ross as the author and has an accompanying audio CD. This is at the 300-350 character level. It's a retelling of a traditional folk tale.
2....."Traditional Chinese Tales: A Multimedia Course for Intermediate Chinese" by Claudia Ross. This is a revamp of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" by Linda Hsia. The new version has a CD Rom. This meant to be read after reaching the 600 character level. These are retellings from a book from the 1700's, which is still very popular.
3...."The White-Haired Girl" by Chih-yu Ho. Seems to be vol 1 of an intermediate level set. It's a well known mainland story from about 1945.
4...."Sun Yat-Sen" by Yung Teng Chia-yee. Vol 4 of an intermediate set.
5...."Wu Song Kills a Tiger" by Yung Teng Chia-yee. Vol 5 of an intermediate set. It's a retelling of a story from "Water Margin".
7...."The Magic Ark: The Adventures of "Tiny Wang"" by Peggy Wang and Lao She. At approximately the 700 character level. Retelling of a popular childrens' tale.

Good Luck!


Thanks for the recommendations, I will definitely check them out!

Along with my usual daily grind, I did some maintenance and routine upgrades;

1) Due to the sheer amount of reps I am doing now, I had to create 2 secondary decks; conversation sentences and conversation words. These are for sentences and words that I gather purely through conversation with natives. I also put LowPriority on my main words deck for NPCR Supplementary words.

2) I am now switching to the AJATT method of "memorizing" sentences by recognition only, but only with the example sentences in FSI (of which there are tons now). I was memorizing both English, Chinese production and recognition for all sentences, but this is simply too much for me now that most of the sentences are "Mandarin enough" to be untranslatable, and would be a detriment.


For anyone reading and studying Mandarin, I strongly suggest to get 1400+ Chinese Conversational Phrases by Ju Brown. This is really helping me get those pesky convo phrases that people say all the time but are never taught for example "Its all your fault", "I think so (yes I was never taught this)", "You're lying" etc...

Edited by irrationale on 27 January 2009 at 11:56am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5961 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 70 of 181
27 January 2009 at 11:49pm | IP Logged 
irrationale wrote:
For anyone reading and studying Mandarin, I strongly suggest to get 1400+ Chinese Conversational Phrases by Ju Brown. This is really helping me get those pesky convo phrases that people say all the time but are never taught for example "Its all your fault", "I think so (yes I was never taught this)", "You're lying" etc...


Thanks for the idea. I've been looking at various pages, of the book, using Amazon's "search inside this book" plus listening to the corresponding downloadable audio from the author's website. Though I push the audio to 1.4x or 1.5x speed since it's pretty slow. Does the book say who the speaker is in the audios?
1 person has voted this message useful



dmg
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7013 days ago

555 posts - 605 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Dutch, Esperanto

 
 Message 71 of 181
27 January 2009 at 11:58pm | IP Logged 
irrationale wrote:

For anyone reading and studying Mandarin, I strongly suggest to get 1400+ Chinese Conversational Phrases by Ju Brown. This is really helping me get those pesky convo phrases that people say all the time but are never taught for example "Its all your fault", "I think so (yes I was never taught this)", "You're lying" etc...


   Wow, a list of sentences like that would be handy to have for learning any language. Even having just the list of English sentences as a study base would be a handy thing.

2 persons have voted this message useful



irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 6052 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 72 of 181
03 February 2009 at 1:22pm | IP Logged 
dmg wrote:
irrationale wrote:

For anyone reading and studying Mandarin, I strongly suggest to get 1400+ Chinese Conversational Phrases by Ju Brown. This is really helping me get those pesky convo phrases that people say all the time but are never taught for example "Its all your fault", "I think so (yes I was never taught this)", "You're lying" etc...


   Wow, a list of sentences like that would be handy to have for learning any language. Even having just the list of English sentences as a study base would be a handy thing.


EXACTLY my thoughts, I'll definitely be referecing this book in the future. These are all those phrases that pop up in convos that you need to know for any language/ Support this author and by her book (I'm not affiliated with her, I promise haha) :)


Things are moving along. I am finally to MOD 7 Unit 2, Lesson 20 in NPCR, 2. Now that I have my routine for what to add to Anki, and what to do with each unit in the new style FSI mods and NPCR lessons, I have a well oiled machine going. As long as I don't stop for one single day...if I do, all the railway cars will pile on top of each other and be a disaster.

Although I should be able to do a Unit and a lesson in about 4 days, my main concern right now is my spoken conversation ability. My reading and writing are just fine with all the chatting and sentences, I can survive in a native chat indefinitely now (with a dictionary). Improving my spoken conversation is proving to be possible the hardest part, for a variety of reasons already mentioned here.

I seriously want to get a job at a chinese restaurant purely for that purpose..:)

Oh btw, I know/produce somewhere around 900+ characters

Edited by irrationale on 03 February 2009 at 1:24pm



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