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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Damifino Newbie United States Joined 5140 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 1 21 June 2012 at 5:24pm | IP Logged |
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So before I state my language mission, I feel it’s necessary to give some background on my language ability, I hope you all don’t think this is too long. I’m a Chinese major and I’ve been studying the language for two years now. I studied abroad in Shanghai last summer, and am currently in Beijing doing linguistics research, but also obviously here to practice my Chinese. I feel that my Chinese is definitely at the conversational level; however I also feel that for the past two years I have not been immersing myself in the language as much as I should have. It’s only in the past few months that I started to actually practice Chinese with natives, listen to Chinese music, post on Chinese sites, actually practice learning characters etc. However, I still feel that I lack dedication and a definite plan. For instance, I was previously using Skritter and Anki every day to learn characters but in the past two months I lost that habit. So, I decided that one of the best ways to actually stay dedicated to my goals is if I made a language log.
One thing I’ve consistently noticed in the nearly four weeks I’ve been in China so far, is that while I can answer questions fairly well and talk about a variety of topics, my listening comprehension is horrible. I’m constantly saying “再说一次“or “我听不懂“. And unfortunately, Chinese often interpret these two phrases as “Please speak English with me”. So finally, here’s my language mission for the rest of the summer… Language Mission: Be able to have a lengthy conversation without once saying “再说一次“or “我听不懂” by the time I leave China on August 4th. However, I also have a few other goals related to reading and writing. As mentioned previously, I used to study characters intensely and love doing it, but lately I’ve been neglecting it. This has led to the frustrating situation where I can read and write about 600 Hanzi but there are still plenty of characters I don’t recognize. So, I have some mini-goals for the summer and another goal for the rest of the year. Mini-Goals: Translate a menu of a local restaurant near my apartment by next weekend Be able to read most of the signs I see on the street by the time I leave China Be able to sing Chinese songs when I go out to karaoke by the end of the summer Language Mission: Learn how to write all the Hanzi up to HSK4 in time for the HSK4 test in December To accomplish all the above goals, I want to make daily habits out of the following: Use Skritter for one hour a day Complete my Anki reviews every day Do ChinesePod for thirty minutes a day Make at least one post on Weibo a day Have at least one conversation on QQ and Skype a day Read at least one article in Chinese a day Converse with a Chinese person who knows no English (IE not the grad students I work with) at least once a day while I’m in China Now, don’t think that I’m neglecting speaking. I’m already having conversations in Chinese daily with the grad students I work with. However, I am worried about when I return to the US. Even though half of the international students at my university are Chinese, I actually don’t have that many Chinese friends. So I want to do the following: Get a conversation partner when I return to the US Join one of my university’s Chinese student associations. I had previously been too shy to do this, but I’m going to stop being shy. Something that I also want to get into the habit of is checking Chinese sites first when I open up my browser to surf the internet. For the past year, my compulsive (some would call it addiction) habit to browse the internet has really been screwing up my life in regards to my schoolwork and social life. I’ve been taking measures against this, such as installing LeechBlock. But I also figured if I’m going to browse the internet, I might as well make it productive. So really, this is all tied into another life goal of mine. And removing distractions such as browsing the internet so I can focus more on Chinese will help with one last goal of mine: Language Mission: Get an A in my Chinese class next semester. I barely passed this semester with a C. I don’t want that to happen again. Anyway, that’s my language goals and plan. Again, sorry for the long post, but I felt that I needed to be thorough for my own benefit. I’ll keep people updated and let me know if you have any suggestions! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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