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Billy’s TAC 2013 Asian Team 鶴 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4516 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 33 17 January 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello everyone. I have been lurking in the shadows for some time now. Being this is my
first post; I guess I better introduce myself. I have had an interest in different languages ever since I was a kid. I remember taking a Italian/English dictionary with me on a car ride from Florida to New York when I was 7, thinking that was more than enough time to learn Italian... I managed maybe 2 words before I gave up. I then took French in high school, but that got nowhere fast. Now, at 37 years of age, I have taken on Mandarin Chinese. I started back in July of 2012 with Pimsleur, and now I can't get enough of Mandarin. When I'm learning things, hours seem like minutes. When I'm away from it, I crave it. My issue though is I get side tracked easy. I can spend hours researching learning tools, when I should be spending that time (limited time) learning. I spend more time preparing to learn, or learning new ways to learn, than I do actually learning. I have just finished reading The Polyglot Project by Claude Cartaginese the other day and someone mentioned TAC. So here I am. I'm a goal person; if I don't create goals... it doesn't get done. If I do create a goal, I stop at nothing to get there... my problem is that first step of setting those goals, so here it is: 1 I'll learn to read (both pronunciation and definition) over 1000 simplified Chinese characters by December 31, 2013. 2 Get up to a low level (B1) in oral communication by December 31, 2013. I'm not sure how I will actually be able to measure this goal, so any suggestions would be good. Things (mini or short-term goals) I will do to reach my goal: 1 Continue with Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 by James W. Heisig. I'm currently on character # 96, but my actual known characters are at 157. 2 Continue to use memrise.com 2 or more times a day. I am using the course that goes along with the book Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 3 Continue to use Anki whenever I have down time. i.e. waiting in line, bathroom, etc... I have a deck I continue to build as I add characters from the same book above 4 Find some low level beginner reading material to help keep my interest up in learning new characters. Though, character learning is more fun for me than oral communication. I've found a few web sites that have daily comics and stuff that will help in this area. Any other good suggestions would be helpful 5 Continue with Pimsleur. I'm currently on lesson 22, and there are 90 lessons. I know this alone isn't the answer, but it is good free material from my local library. 6 Listen to Podcasts daily. I have a very hard time listening and picking out things... I would like concentrate on this area. 7 Log my study time/issues/road blocks etc... at least weekly on this forum. 8 Have 30+ hours of conversation in Mandarin with native speakers. This will be extremely hard for me. I find it really hard to speak with people in person (or webcam). I know it is a form of social anxiety. This is something I work on all the time. Any tips to help here would be greatly appreciated. 9 Narrow down all my study material to 3-4 favorites by January 31st 2013. I find I tend to bounce around a lot. This includes web sites for learning. I have Teach Yourself, Colloquial, Assimil, Youtube, Pimsleur, Standard Chinese, Listening to Mandarin, Podcasts, etc... all of which I can't seem to give up. I also spend to much time getting new things... which I need to stop. 10 Spend 10+ hours a week learning Known possible roadblocks: 1 Family. I always will put family in front of my own personal time. So much so, that I currently don't have hobbies of my own other than Mandarin. I need to learn to dedicate time for me. I currently only use wasted time for that (bathroom, waiting at school for pickup, in lines, lunch break at work, etc...) 2 Side tracked. Falling down the Youtube rat-hole. I can spend all my free time watching other people learn languages. Time would be better spent on me learning. 3 Speaking to people. I find it so hard to speak to new people. I do have a few co-workers that are native Chinese. Only 1 of them knows I'm learning Mandarin, and has helped me out in the past. I am setting a short-term goal to make sure they all know that I am, and ask that they maybe bring up the subject every once in a while when I see them. I also have met (on italki), and intended to Skype with a few people from China. 4 Money. We're a single income family with 3 kids. To say things are tight... so any hobby I do has to be cheap (really cheap) to free. This is one reason I'm loving learning Mandarin, as there is SO much free info available. I know this post is somewhat long, so I'll wrap it up. I'm looking forward to this forum and TAC 2013. My only wish is that there was an open Asia team... there isn't, so I'll have to do this year as an Individual instead of a Team. Thank you, and good luck and best wishes to all. Edited by billyshears66 on 19 January 2013 at 9:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4516 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 33 19 January 2013 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Saturday update:
- Characters known: 167 - 0 hours talking with natives (going to be hardest thing for me) - Up to date on Anki deck - Up to date on memrise.com - Found reading material. Someone posted a link to comics, and I think I will start there. - Pimsleur: Haven't moved on here. Still on lesson 22. This has been a hard lesson, and after 5 listens, I feel I haven't made progress. So, I have not returned to in in 2 weeks. I'm gonna push to try it again this weekend. - Podcasts: I've listened on my work commute (40 minutes each way). Up to 2 hours with this. - Narrowed down my study material that I plan on using for the next three weeks. Assimil (haven't started yet); Listen to Mandarin (haven't started yet); Podcasts; Memrise/Anki (based on Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1); FluentU.com; Goldlist Method (vocab learning); and Pimsleur. - Total study time this week (ends on Thursday mornings): 3 hours. 7 more to go to reach weekly goal. Anyone have experience with the Goldlist Method? I find it interesting, and I'm gonna give it a shot for vocab. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| js6426 Diglot Senior Member Cambodia Joined 4522 days ago 277 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English*, Khmer Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 33 20 January 2013 at 2:30am | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome to the team! I am looking forward to studying mandarin with you this year, you seem to be really focused
and goal orientated which is great! I was going to try the goldlist method, I think I made 3 lists and I totally forgot to go back to them. I can't see that it wouldn't be worth giving it a try, just don't write down vocab you will want to use straight away, otherwise it will defeat the point of not having the words in your short term memory. Which website do you use for comics? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4516 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 33 20 January 2013 at 3:14am | IP Logged | ||
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I think this was posted on the team page under good resources:
Comic Yeah, I have to look a little more at the Goldlist Method. Am I suppose to completely ignore the words on the list for the 2 weeks? Or, if I do come across them, can I keep going with them? Hope the comic link helps. Thanks for reading my post. I'm just getting caught up on the team thread. I'm now moving on to the team member logs. Looking forward to this journey and working with you also. Edited by billyshears66 on 20 January 2013 at 3:17am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| js6426 Diglot Senior Member Cambodia Joined 4522 days ago 277 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English*, Khmer Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 33 20 January 2013 at 5:39am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the link. You are certainly not supposed to look at the list for the 2 weeks, but regarding hearing the words or using them I am unsure. It seems it would defeat the purpose if you were using them all the time, and in that case Iversen's word list would probably be better. But again i'm really not sure, I imagine you'll be able to find out the nitty gritty details elsewhere 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 6 of 33 20 January 2013 at 6:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome to the Asian team! I'm looking forward to following your progress this year, you seem to be quite well organized.
I haven't tried the Goldlist method myself, but this thread might be a good start. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4516 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 33 20 January 2013 at 10:48am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the tip! I'll check it out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| billyshears66 Groupie United States Joined 4516 days ago 69 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 33 20 January 2013 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | ||
By the way... way to side-track my learning by having me read more on how to learn ;P J/K I fully take ownership on my wondering mind. I think I love the process of learning, even if it is learning about learning? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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