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A newbie sets out: Braving Mandarin. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4653 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes  Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 89 of 94 10 May 2013 at 7:29pm | IP Logged |
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Your English isn't that bad, eggduck!
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| eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4703 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 90 of 94 01 August 2013 at 3:55pm | IP Logged |
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The last few months were spent in a more carefree manner given recent stresses.
I took a month off to recharge, this included for the most part keeping off the internet, it did do me some good and while I had the difficulty of reforming a study habit after ward I came back to it feeling much better and I am now getting more out of the study sessions, at least so I feel. I also dropped the study plans just to see the effects it would have, with no plan I simply did whatever I felt like doing. The results from this tell me that I am more inclined to solitary methods, something that needs to be adjusted if I am ever to be able to actually talk to people. Not as much was accomplished as I hoped as I am finding the heat debilitating when combined with the high humidity as well as having to deal with being robbed etc. Though some good has come out of it, looking to remove physical stress I have taken up working out, this has resulted in the knock on effect of me being able to get more out of my study sessions, so taking an hour out my day from studies seems worth it. I still have yet to find a conversation partner, I am feeling more and more that this is one of the reasons that I am not making the progress I think I should make. While yes there is the man on the street but repeating an introduction and basic questions umpteen times will only result in so much progress. I need something that will allow me to try and open up past the basics. Movie watching has progressed steadily. I am still not even at the halfway point but I have gotten much further than what I did last year in regards to this super challenge thing. Obviously since I have managed to get a better understanding of much more hanzi I am now able to read better now mostly getting stuck by compounds that form unknown words rather than how to read a particular character...until I picked up that children's book again and spent 2 hours going through half a page, mostly looking up reading of unknown characters. Whoever called this a children's book may want to readjust their opinion! I have now done a fair few intermediate Chinese pod lessons with them now taking up the bulk of my study time. I am starting to doubt the effectiveness for me. This may be due to my impression that even though it is low intermediate there is far too much English, a lot of it being unnecessary and could easily be replaced with some basic Chinese. I was also able to finally meet one of my independence goals, I was finally able to order some clean water over the phone with no assistance. Meaning I can now move on to gaining some ability to handle myself in the markets, this is a big one. It is not just the talking I need to learn the general price of everything in order to avoid being cheated again, as well as find a way to get myself acquainted with the local selling methods and tricks to even the playing field a bit. Round up: NCPR 1 C8 Movies 39 Audio book project - C6 August targets: Finish audio book project Find conversation partner (still) Finish NCPR 1 Increase hanzi count by 200 (current 10) Find a source of resources that can free me of the computer 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 91 of 94 14 August 2013 at 5:04pm | IP Logged |
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I wrote a nice lovely long post only to lose it all I am not going to write it all again so here are bullet points :-
Completed NCPR - quick due to a dry up of my main reason for doing it Two chapters left of audio book - Will not use Rhino spike to make audio as too slow and unreliable - find volunteer. Hanzi at 46 - unlikely to meet target due to people Did one lang-8 article - unlikely will do anything with corrections due to time. Going to fire Tutor Why? - Ignores all my requests - Will waste time chatting on the phone rather than do what I pay her to do. - insists on doing reading and writing exercises from a text book - I want her to be a tool to help my conversation not teach or do things that I can do myself - Wants me to write x out 100 times, shouts when I say I do not want to do that or say I can do it in my own time. Apparently it means I am a lazy student and can not "learn well" - Always late - Brings uninvited guests to my apartment - Has destroyed a number of my books I have not even read one page of - Eats my food without asking - Cancels after already being late for minor reasons - Shouts at me for not remembering all words, even when I tell her I wont remember a particular word because it is a useless textbook word. - Shouts at me for not getting a concept read out by her from a text book that is above my level. - Unable to explain it in her own words - Insists on using English despite me telling her I want it to be Chinese only. - less and less Chinese as time goes on. - Her English causes more confusion for me than clarity. - Has wasted countless hours defining in English words already defined in the textbook, at least text book also has a short Chinese definition. - Her definitions can be the total opposite of what the textbook says. - Starts an argument when I point out the difference. Not so easy to fire because: - some cultural obstacles - despite my best efforts she has found her way into my social circle via others - considers herself my friend, this permits some liberties - Not the kind person I would accept as a friend for sure. - will cause a stir with others Though it will be easy to half the lessons using work as an excuse and as she has now moved one of my lessons to be particularly late so she can go the gym that day I can ask them to stop for being too late, this will save her enough face to not cause too major an issue, not that she gave me and "face saving" gestures. Apparently foreigners have "no face" so it is ok to abuse them. While I may not meet my goals I care little as they are just a means to an end to make progress, so if progress is made in the right direction all is well, just got to do something about this "teacher" 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 92 of 94 22 August 2013 at 10:43am | IP Logged |
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While the easing but still muggy weather and increasingly unreasonable demands from work continue to sap my energy and time I have been able to keep plodding forwards.
I took the time to visit two separate local Beer festivals one in Suzhou and one in Kunshan. The Suzhou one turned out to be pretty lousy with only two small beer tents in Site. And was I harassed by a beggar with a monkey who was dragging it round by its neck and kicking it to make it do flips. Kunshan while smaller was cheaper and had much more beer, food and entertainment, and no animal abusing beggars in sight. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get some speaking practice in, turned out to be not the case. The speakers were so loud trying to listen to what was ever going on on the various stages was pretty much impossible due to the distortion. A TV crew followed me round for quite a while I noted that it was the local news channel Naturally I tuned into the news channel the next day, but did not get to see myself. I did cancel half of my sessions with this tutor from hell, it did not go well and spent a lot of time resisting her persuasion attempts to change it to another day and time. I was even more annoyed to find out that I have made a bit more progress than the average local students and people refuse to acknowledge that it has been down to hard effort and attributing everything to her "good" teaching. Which she has now used a marketing thing to charge even higher prices.... I am also now almost finished with my audio book project and the manual on page work has all been completed I just need to get the audio, something I would have already had...if I had not of forgot about it. It will be nice when it is complete, for a start there is something for me to use that will allow me to unshackle myself from the computer for a short time. I am continuing to add hanzi to my SRS collection at a steady pace, but I will not reach the 200 goal. This is no problem given the hanzi I am adding are increasingly rare and thus the rate of new hanzi will undoubtedly slow down. So far my sole source of new hanzi is anything I come across in my old general license chinese pod transcripts, I suspect when I make a move into something more substantial the rate of new hanzi will pick up, though I am hoping all the prep work will mean that it will not pick up by a large margin. Hanzi 87 / 200 Movies ( super challenge) 41.5 / 100 Audio book project - Awaiting someone to lend me their voice 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 93 of 94 04 September 2013 at 3:52pm | IP Logged |
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So concludes another month.
I have now had my first lesson with the tutor from hell...after she had cancelled several 40 minutes after the time she was due to show up.... Then she behaved that I had not cancelled half the session and made plans for the session I had cancelled. I had to put my point across quite forcefully that cancelled meant cancelled. Now I need to reclaim my book back or rather the sorry remains of what was once a book. I have decided to give up looking for a language exchange partner if there was someone willing to talk to me I would have found them by now. Guess I must be some kind of hideous loathsome creature. Seems paying for it is the only way to go, Unfortunately I can not afford regular practice. Added a few more movies to the count, slow and steady progress, the end of the super challenge is drawing closer but I am still pretty confident that I can meet the deadline even if most other people seem to have forgotten about it and never seem to post updates that I can see. Twitter is blocked here after all. The book project still remains at its stalled point after the person going to record their voice cancelled because they wanted to go a bar instead. In the end I did not reach the Hanzi goal for the month though as previously mentioned I did not care about that I just wanted to see some progress. This month I will set a goal and will try to meet this one now that I have an idea of how much I can comfortably do (the goal will be over that, no point in having a goal if it does not mean pushing a little). The Chinese national holidays are coming officially that should mean a bit of time off so I can recharge a little, not with this company :s They have me working, and have adjusted the 'holiday' to fall on my regular days off, spread out over two weeks. Round up Movies 45/100 Audio book - Stalled Hanzi - 129/200 Find Language exchange partner - Gave up after nearly 2 years trying. This month Use a big stick to beat someone into lending their voice for my audio book. Getting what's left of my book back and randomly cancelling some tutor from hell lessons on account of being "busy" 150 Hanzi. Find a replacement tutor...a good one. Begin reading a new book. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5132 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 94 of 94 04 September 2013 at 8:52pm | IP Logged |
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I love your posts, eggcluck, they're hilarious. I hope reality isn't as dark as you want to make us believe, though :)
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