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Mandarin somehow eventually | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dcbaok Groupie United States Joined 4484 days ago 46 posts - 63 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 35 28 October 2012 at 5:26am | IP Logged | ||
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It's been a couple of weeks since my last update -- I've been busy.
- finished my 5th month of active study - set up Chinese input on my computer - started listening to VOAChina news on YouTube - started using Memrise (thanks to a mention on the LingQ forum) - started watching Happy Chinese on YouTube (thanks to a mention on this forum) My CDs for NPCR 1 haven't come in at the library yet, still waiting for them. It's been difficult remaining motivated with LingQ as I'm having trouble finding lessons I like at my level. I may have to start importing my own for now. Happy Chinese is charming, I'm enjoying it a lot right now, though I find the English subtitles a bit distracting. I've started another week of on call for work - hopefully I'll keep it together enough to maintain momentum. If not I'll just maintain until I get back to routine and recover my sleep deficit. That's all for now. 再见！ (<- not copy/pasted) Edited by dcbaok on 28 October 2012 at 5:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Toffeeliz Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5682 days ago 116 posts - 130 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 35 29 October 2012 at 9:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations on month 5! Chinese is a very rewarding language and I hope you enjoy your studies with it! :D
sharedtalk.com has a lot of native speakers with good English levels that you can practice with. Should you wish to speak with students such as yourself, I've noticed a lot more Chinese language students on there as of late. :D 加油！ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4446 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 35 29 October 2012 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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1 thing I do find useful when studying languages is to get down to the basics for a few months. But instead of
getting back to the textbooks or structured learning material after taking a break, find TV programs and get used to listening to the dialog. I like comedies & children's programs because the dialog is less involved and usually there is a lot of repetition around a single theme. Continue with your other learning materials on the side. The programs I got into watching online: daerduotutu 大耳朵图图 & Liang Xi Mei 梁細妹 from Singapore. There is a sequel to Liang Xi Mei where the actor played the part of a grandmother instead of mother Liang Po Po 梁婆婆. Again very simple dialog centered around 1 theme. Every time I come across a new word or phrase I'd look it up with the closest pinyin phonetics and add it to my word list. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rolf Senior Member United Kingdom improvingmydutch.blo Joined 6009 days ago 107 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch | Message 12 of 35 29 October 2012 at 10:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've only just found your thread but it's very inspiring. My Dutch level is probably
higher than your Mandarin level but I feel similar in that for a while I felt I would never break out of the lower-intermediate stage. But in recent weeks my listening comprehension has radically increased and now I've started to use flashcards too. Progress is slow but at least I can see it. I also wouldn't sweat it about not getting as much done on the weekends as you would like to. Far too many times I have felt tired after work and put off language learning till the weekend but I'm sure you know that regularity is absolutely key with language learning and its better to get in your daily weekday studies than cramming at the weekends. In fact, I'm going to stick to a M-F routine and leave weekends language free and for something else. If I plan this, then I won't feel guilty for having done no language study at the weekend because it was what I intended! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5714 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 13 of 35 30 October 2012 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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NPCR is excellent. The main characters in NPCR are the children of the characters from PCR (you'd get more of a kick out of this than I since I've never used PCR). I think the method is slightly different in that they use more of a multivalent pedagogical approach, instead of just focusing on one or two learning styles. There are (at least in the beginning) two dialogs per lesson and both dialogs are related. All the characters are in simplified hanzi but the traditional forms are given in the glossary. By the way, if you're impatient, the first couple of books can be had from certain corners of the interwebs if you catch what I'm sending your way. I think NPCR works best in a classroom or with a tutor, (which can be found here) but it still seems good for self learning. You'll want to get at least half way through the first book before deciding, but you may want to consider buying the whole set.†
One thing I LOVE about NPCR is that the dialogs aren't recorded once, not twice, but - wait for it - three times! Once slow (but still pretty fast!), once faster (very fast but still understandable), and once at normal conversational speed (these are the DVDs). The conversational speed ones are still easy to follow since they're accompanied with visual cues. They've got the psychology all worked out. The videos of all the dialogs can be found here. To memorize the characters I used a couple of different approaches:†† 1. I completed the writing exercises in the book. 2. I'd type in the pinyin here then copy & paste into the writing grids here.††† 3. At this point I was able to physically write them out (from muscle memory) but I liked taking around 5 or 6 and writing them out from memory using an approach similar to iverson's method. 4. Now you know all the hanzi, right? Well yes, but you'd better check your recognition here (scroll down to NPCR. The other decks are useful too). Seeing the characters in different fonts for the first time can throw you, but it helps strengthen your awareness in the end. 5. If there were some bug-a-boos that were just small enough to escape through the holes in my head then I'd use this, but honestly I don't think it's necessary. I found it easy enough to just create my own mnemonics for the 1 or 2 odd stragglers I couldn't grasp. Either way, this approach is better (for me) than this approach because it's cheaper, it teaches you the pronunciation, it has both simplified and traditional in one book, it teaches the most common characters first, and you don't have to learn them sequentially - you can flip to any character in the book. † Be aware that shipping from Beijing can take a while. †† Not all of these are necessary, some easy ones can be memorized with just a glance. Some nasty ones require all of these, but it's not as labor intensive as you might think. ††† Registration at hanzigrids is free. Also, Arch Chinese is a great resource with loads of helpful tools and it has its own customizable grids available, but I didn't have the funds to buy a membership. If you do, then go for it! You won't be sorry. ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------- If you do these things you will be VERY good at Chinese by the end of the last book. In any case, I'm sure your Chinese will be much better than mine soon (if it isn't already) even though I'm taking Chinese classes. I'm tackling some other languages right now. Just keep with it. =P Enjoy! =) Edited by Rout on 30 October 2012 at 4:36am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 35 11 December 2012 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't know if there's an mp3 version of his Nobel Lecture, but here's a transcript in Chinese as well as translations into English, Swedish, French, German and Spanish: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/ 2012/yan-lecture_en.html 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dcbaok Groupie United States Joined 4484 days ago 46 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 35 28 December 2012 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's been a while, I'm still working at it. I got ahead of myself and ended up fighting with the material and not having fun, so I have dropped the more advanced material I was using and am working on simple dialogues again.
Thanks for all the responses! I'll update again next month. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dcbaok Groupie United States Joined 4484 days ago 46 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 16 of 35 07 January 2013 at 5:21am | IP Logged | ||
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I was reviewing beginner lessons prior to retiring them and somehow got it into my head to make a comic strip to add interest to the insipid lesson text.
Here's the result, hopefuly amusing. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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