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A newbie sets out: Braving Mandarin. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4703 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 73 of 94 30 June 2012 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
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While I have been lurking around, it has been some time since I last put out an entry into this log. It is not without reason, simply put I was being burned in the flames of some emotional turmoil and I simply did not have the motivation to do much of anything. But his study for now is not just a hobby or an action of practicality, it is now part of my healing process.
One is still rather raw and tender, but as always I must press on. Naturally I did not finish Assimil I now have the finish line in sight with a handful of passive wave lessons to go and then just the active wave. I finally took one of my back burner items and put them in the oven. In ten days I crammed 50 words for food plucked off various menus I have collected. While I obviously cant say them I can read them out loud as I see them on the menu, which is sufficient for well, not starving. I am still not where I would like to be and obviously something is lacking. Most notably in the speaking department, well I could call myself A2, but I am not satisfied. B1 in a year was my target and it seems on track, but things are still difficult. The vocabulary deficiet is a huge one, While what I have gained from Assimil has seen its uses, it is wholly unsuited to everyday life. To try and repair that I have hatched a scheme. I now crane my neck listening to every and any conversation I hear on the street paper and pen in hand. I of course understand nothing I just simply listen for anything that I can recognise as an actual word. I will scribble this down in my best pinyin and then check it out later at home. Hopefully this way I can slowly but surely build up some everyday vocabulary. I also plan to extend this to any every day TV I can pull off the internet, given that they always have Mandrin subtitles which is almost always an exact match for the speech it should prove useful. As for speaking I have literally been going to bars and talking with drunks, they care little about whether I can understand or not and they are quite happy to chat on and on. All the better for me, I simply try and interject where I can. Suffice to say there is still a black hole where I was hoping to have a language exchange partner quite disappointing but for now I shall just try and have to make do repeating the few phrases I know to drunks. I have also started a vocabulary book of my own. I will simply write words that I “ learn” in there as I come across them. Then make a point of trying to use them at least twenty times, notching off each time in this book. The easiest way would seem to be online language exchange, poor me. Due to recent events I have also fallen behind in the challenge and I currently stand at just 15 movies and barely enough reading done to cover one book. Given my current Chinese ability reading is a slow and painstaking task where I spend more time looking up characters than what I do with the book. Even then many of the sentence's meanings elude me. I had a look at samples for the HSK 1 including the listening stuff. While the HSK 1 in my eyes means nothing it is encouraging for me to be able to say that this stuff is simply so easy for me now. Given the general impression from the listening section, I think the speaking section would have been a doddle too. So the plan for next month looks like this: Finish Assimil Eat out once every night, try to engage staff in small talk as much as I am able. Take menus home. More idle incomprehensible chatter with drunks. 5 movies a week 1 hour reading a day minus weekends. 15-30 new words a day. Find a friggin language exchange partner Have a quick exchange with the areas security guard every time I see him. Engage all shop keepers in with whatever idle inane boring Chinese I can muster. Continue with my stubbourn refusal to give up. Edited by eggcluck on 30 June 2012 at 5:07pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4703 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 74 of 94 04 July 2012 at 5:39pm | IP Logged |
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Finally hit a study mile stone again and reached the final lesson of Assimil Chinese. For the time being however it will make no difference to my routine as the freed up time will be poured into getting through the rest of the active wave. I have stumbled over a few times with the active wave when trying to translate and with the words just not coming into my head forcing me to look at the Chinese.
Relising how slow the Assimil audio really is I have took the time to go through all 105 lessons and speed each one up 32%, while I now think this is slighty too fast I am sticking with it. If it makes native speed seem slow to me, all the better! I may need to refresh my English at some point I have noticed a steady decline in spelling and a bit of Chinglish has creeped in, I should keep an eye on this. I have now done the first dictionary check of words I have overheard and tried to scribble down as best I could, sure enough most of what I make out is inaccurate and a dictionary search turns up now results, mayebe 40% of what I wrote down was an actual word! My attempts at small talk with the local shopkeepers has been met with fear and results in them freezing and just staring at the floor, so for now I have reeled back and keep it to a simple "how are you?". While I have not chattered with any drunks, I have chattered a little with sober random strangers on the internet so this is good. Albeit being in short bursts. I still have my own social hangups to content with, however I am not one to back down and run away crying, ...I have to get there first! Attempted to do another portion of the super challenge by watching some TV, wonderfully there is a program on at 02:00 that for some reason speaks fairly slowly. It is also has two epidsodes back to back to cover the requirement to count as one movie...now if only I can prevent myself from falling asleep halfway through the second episode! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4668 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 75 of 94 05 July 2012 at 10:23am | IP Logged |
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Great to read a log by someone who’s actually living in the country where the target language is spoken. 加油!
When I was studying Mandarin a few years ago, I found the most useful thing to watch on TV was a program called 李敖有話說 or “Li Ao has something to say.” Who is Li Ao, you might ask? He’s an opinionated intellectual from Taiwan, and they give him 20 minutes or so each night to talk about any topic he pleases. Because it’s only him, you pick up more and more as you get used to his style of talking. Also he uses props, like when he shows a copy of a newspaper article or something on Guomindang history (he hates the GMD, they jailed him at one point) and comments on it. The program is shown at around 10 pm on the news channel of Phoenix TV (鳳凰衛星電視) – this isn’t available everywhere on the mainland though. From Li Ao’s Wikipedia page, it looks like the show is still being shown. I for one found it really entertaining, and much more comprehensible than any of Phoenix’s news commentary shows. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Homogenik Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4826 days ago 314 posts - 407 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 76 of 94 05 July 2012 at 5:18pm | IP Logged |
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Wow congratulations on finishing Assimil, that's a great milestone! It's always so important to just get through
something to the end. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4702 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English* | Message 77 of 94 15 August 2012 at 3:13pm | IP Logged |
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Well done for not giving up and to finishing Assimil.
What Is your opinion of using Assimil and would you recommend It or something else for a beginner? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4703 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 78 of 94 15 August 2012 at 4:36pm | IP Logged |
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I would recommend Assimil but with the warning that it does have mistakes. Assimil will also not get you to B1, to reach what I would consider a survival level I had to suppliment it with other things such as a dictionary.
I have also found there is a rather large gap between actual speakers and the recording so much so that I have used audacity to speed them all up. I think Assimil Chinese with ease's biggest weakness is its choice of vocabulary. The Chinese seem to like to talk about food a lot and there is very few food items in Assimil. The other issue is the Beijing pronunciation "er" with actually renders you imcomprehensible in somes parts such as the one I am in. So I have removed them all from my practices. Pimsler has this problem too. Of course I need to be able to read menus, for you that may be not so important right now! Each to their own afterall. I also diverged from their suggested way of learning characters and I think many other Chinese students here would agree with me on that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4702 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English* | Message 79 of 94 15 August 2012 at 8:50pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the reply and opinion about Assimil. Good Advice thank you.
What way do you learn the characters? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4703 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 80 of 94 17 September 2012 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
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I have not posted for a while as my study has stalled somewhat. This is not to say that it has ended completely just that I have not do so much active study.
While I have been too busy for active study I have been out in the streets trying to use what I can muster, while I have noticed an improvement because of this, the standard is still not a communicative level as far as I am concerned with the biggest limiter appearing to be vocabulary and a audial comprehension of the vocabulary that I do "know". The biggest issue I would like to resolve is dealing with shops, as I am still be cheated or ripped off at the steady rate of at least once a week. Unless it is a supermarket or a trusted shop I will not buy anything now unless I have a Chinese person to accompany me which is rare. Though my days on the streets looks numbered for a while. This saturday say riots and all the Japanse places were ramsacked. I like in a Japanese ex pat heavy area and the streets are more of a mess than usual, what were once Japanese shops now have Chinese flags stuck there. My aparatment complex was also surrounded by armed police again as it is known to have a large number of Japanese living here. Needless to say since then all the Japaneses places are closed the once that were spared displayed a notice saying "the islands are Chinese" The streets are now dead there is simplly no life as the air is tense and all the Japanese are in Hiding, it is not good to be seen with them these days. I had just come fro, having to defend myself for the west "cheating at the olympics" now I have to defend myself for having been to a Japanese run bar. Nationalism runs deep here. I may be able to get some active study done, as I too will be keeping time outside to a minimum and keeping a low profile. The looks of curiosity I used to get in the street have been replaced with menance and I have my fingers crossed that the American goverment does not do anything stupid, wishful thinking there. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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