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Chinese Odyssey 2024 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 105 of 169 29 March 2012 at 7:10am | IP Logged | ||
Well, it's scheduled for "the next big update", but that's been in the works for ages now. They say it'll come out during 2012, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4867 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 106 of 169 31 March 2012 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Great to see a teammate is back! :) I've been following your logs and find all the information about Cantonese fascinating... Just reading about it makes me want to study it. But I guess if that's something in the far future. I'll definitely remember it in case I still don't have enough of Asian languages after Korean and then eventually Mandarin... :)
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| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4928 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 107 of 169 01 April 2012 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks, druckfehler. I haven't stopped studying, but I've been so busy that I'm not posting as much as I should. That ends today. I need to sharpen my Mandarin skills for a business trip in one month. No English will be spoken, so I need to really develop myself as much as I can before I go. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4928 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 108 of 169 08 April 2012 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
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A friend recently gave me a children's book in Mandarin to see if I could read it.
Since my goal is to be able to read a Chinese newspaper, I eagerly accepted the challenge and opened the book to find myself...completely lost. I mean, it wasn't Egyptian hieroglyphs or anything like that, but I'm still trying to crack this like my name is Michael Ventris. As I'm speaking a little more each day, I'm shoring up the cracks in my ability and laying the foundation for real skill. Deliberate practice is not easy. I could stay a high beginner or low intermediate forever, or I can choose to go back to the beginning and really solidify my understanding. When I speak to native speakers, they look at me like "awww, your baby chinese is so cute", but I'm at the current limit of my ability. My brain patterns haven't been ingrained yet so that I can tie my shoe without looking, as it were, when I'm speaking in Chinese. I can understand them when they speak to me, but there is too much processing on my part to be able to reply in real-time. In the artificial world of drills and textbooks, we can be fooled that we know the language, but it's not until someone is speaking at a normal to fast speed, that we really find out where we are in our studies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4928 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 109 of 169 08 April 2012 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||
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April 07th:
Some fundamental concepts... Asking a question: 吗 Use of 吗 at the end of a standard sentence turns it into a question. 呢 Use of 呢 at the end of a sentence is used to ask a question to which you already know the answer, perhaps. Agreement: 也 Use of 也 at the end of a sentence is used to note agreement similar to how "also" is used in English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4928 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 110 of 169 08 April 2012 at 1:08am | IP Logged | ||
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An interesting note: while the Mandarin textbook I am using is really very simple, there are still things in it that I don't recognize. Most of them are simply characters that I'm unfamiliar with, but a quick trip to the dictionary solves that problem.
The more interesting thing is that the instructions are in Spanish and Mandarin, so I am practicing two languages at the same time. Seeing how the instructions are laid out in both languages， I am able to practice both at the same time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4928 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 111 of 169 08 April 2012 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today was conversation day. I can go longer and longer when speaking to native speakers without having to pause for the next word.
I still feel I need more input and grammar patterns to go beyond the simplest of Mandarin, but it's nice to see how far I can go without reaching for the dictionary or saying "umm, what?". My strategy is to read my textbook, highlight any new grammar patterns and vocabulary, learn the dialogue, and then try to speak about that topic to a native. The darn thing is, it doesn't take them long to go outside of the little language box I've built for myself, and I'm back to "uhh, please say that again." It's a little like being being pounded in the head, going home and training some more, to get pounded a little less the next day. It's okay. Eventually, they're gonna get tired and I'll be able to go all 12 rounds. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zhanglong Senior Member United States Joined 4928 days ago 322 posts - 427 votes Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 112 of 169 09 April 2012 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I decided to streamline things a bit and post everything under one log for now.
Mandarin Reading I studied 100 characters and then tried to identify their associated HSK vocabulary. Part of the identification involved me repeating, slowly, the names of all of the characters and vocabulary. An interesting app for the ipad/iphone is "StickyStudy" which uses a SRS algorithm to display both the HSK characters and the HSK vocabulary, per level. It's very useful, and the interface makes using it almost like playing a video game. It's quite interactive. In addition to other tools, such as Quizlet, it can lower the time it takes to learn and use vocabulary. Speaking My speaking continues. I am hesitating less and less when speaking to others, but it's like pushing a boulder up a mountain sometimes. Writing I wrote ten sentences for review by a native speaker. Listening Pimsleur Mandarin is boring as all get out, especially since I've heard it before, but things will pick up after lesson 30, I guess. Cantonese I'm still working on FSI Cantonese. I try not to do the Mandarin and Cantonese speaking too close to each other, finding that I need a little time to shake off one of the languages before I do the other. Tibetan As dessert, I played around with the vocabulary from Chapter 1. The romanization system is not as much fun as reading the actual script, but I still have to find an easy and convenient way to type Tibetan on PC's and Macs. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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