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Manic Quest for Mandarin - TAC ’14 Team 鹊

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LangWanderer
Diglot
Pro Member
Australia
digintoenglish.com
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74 posts - 97 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin
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 Message 41 of 52
22 March 2014 at 2:32pm | IP Logged 
@ Expugnator & Crush - The vocabulary discount is makes a huge difference. Some words are written only slightly different in Japanese and Chinese, which can be a bit confusing, but others are written exactly the same (方言, 外国人 and 目的 off the top of my head, and many, many others). I've heard that there are some (only occasionally useful) rules for pronunciation changes between the two languages as well, but I've never looked into them.

I think the similarities will help later on with two-character compounds that would be far more difficult to remember if I didn't already recognise them from Japanese. It took a lot of sweat to drill them in the first time around (for Japanese), and I hope that a lot are similar in Chinese so that I can relax a bit and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

That's only a slight consolation for the fact that I have to learn thousands more characters in Chinese!

-----

March FSI challenge progress: 70/100

I've just started Unit 5, Module 1. I've found that I'm always hungry for new vocabulary so I am always tempted to rush through the units without reviewing enough. I think that this challenge has helped me resist this urge, because it takes far less time to review a tape than to start a new unit, add Anki cards for the new sentences, bumble through the unfamiliar drills, etc. The challenge gives me the extra incentive that I need to motivate myself to review old, somewhat boring material.

I've finally started regularly reviewing Anki cards on my phone, rather than relying on the computer for my reviews. It's good to get away from the computer, which is where I do the FSI tapes and add new Anki cards.

I love the sense of progression that I get from listening to 10 Assimil lessons a day, starting a new lesson each day and dropping the oldest one. For the first couple of days of listening to a particular lesson, there are plenty of words that I don't understand, but by day 10, I'm comfortable with most of it. Hang on - I say that as though I've actually been doing Assimil every day, when in fact I've been dreadfully lazy with it and I've only really studied it sporadically. That means that "day 10" of listening is actually about 20 days after "day 1".

Next month's challenge (not really): don't suck so hard at listening to Assimil every day!
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Crush
Tetraglot
Senior Member
ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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 Message 42 of 52
22 March 2014 at 6:16pm | IP Logged 
Wow, you do the FSI lessons at the computer?! I could never do that. I always put them on my mp3 player and do them while i go for a walk or while walking to/from work. I get too bored if i'm just sitting there by the computer. Have you thought about putting the tapes on your phone so you can do them "on the go"?
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Sunja
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6086 days ago

2020 posts - 2295 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Mandarin

 
 Message 43 of 52
22 March 2014 at 7:38pm | IP Logged 
LangWanderer wrote:
Next month's challenge (not really): don't suck so hard at listening to Assimil every day!


I'm really falling behind with my lessons. There's so much other interesting stuff out there -- there's just not enough hours in the day!
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LangWanderer
Diglot
Pro Member
Australia
digintoenglish.com
Joined 4539 days ago

74 posts - 97 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin
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 Message 44 of 52
28 March 2014 at 5:01am | IP Logged 
Crush - You're right. Sitting in front of the computer is certainly not the best way to do them. It's probably most useful for the C-1 tapes, because I cut them up in Adobe Audition and use them as audio for my Anki cards. I also don't have a printout of the workbooks, and I find it a bit easier to rewind the tapes while I'm at the computer (in Audition you can easily see where each drill or conversation begins and ends. But yes, I should do at least some of my FSI study on my phone. I'll put that down as one of the "lessons from the March challenge"!

Sunja - I hear you, unfortunately. The Assimil lessons, while useful, just aren't as interesting as they could be...
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Sunja
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
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2020 posts - 2295 votes 
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 Message 45 of 52
28 March 2014 at 9:15am | IP Logged 
LangWanderer wrote:
Sunja - I hear you, unfortunately. The Assimil lessons, while useful, just aren't as interesting as they could be...


Exactly. And I'm considering skipping Lesson 40. I understand that I need a lot of vocabulary if I'm ever going to learn this language, but I don't find a use for 研究/research right now. Maybe you can confer with me, but isn't 电脑 diannao the word for computer? I wonder why Assmil picks 电子计算机. I guess it serves to know that the term exists, but I have to assume that since it's Assmil it's less commonly used.
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LangWanderer
Diglot
Pro Member
Australia
digintoenglish.com
Joined 4539 days ago

74 posts - 97 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Korean, French, Mandarin
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 Message 46 of 52
28 March 2014 at 9:23am | IP Logged 
Perhaps my edition has been updated, because 电子计算机 doesn't appear in it. This is what is in my book:

7 - 主要是搞电脑,搞网站。

Has 电子计算机 in your book been replaced with 电脑 (and possibly 网站 as well) in mine? My French version was released in 2008.

I'm not really qualified to say which is more commonly used, but maybe the fact that the word has been changed for the newer edition is a sign that 电脑 is the more current expression.

Edited by LangWanderer on 28 March 2014 at 3:12pm

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SomeGuy
Groupie
Germany
Joined 5101 days ago

56 posts - 75 votes 
Speaks: German*
Studies: Arabic (Written), Turkish, Mandarin

 
 Message 47 of 52
28 March 2014 at 12:28pm | IP Logged 
In my version it says ( German version - 1994 )
7. 主要是高电子计算机。
so theres an updated version, nice to know.

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Sunja
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
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2020 posts - 2295 votes 
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Studies: French, Mandarin

 
 Message 48 of 52
29 March 2014 at 4:50pm | IP Logged 
Ugh. I have the non-updated version! SomeGuy which one of us should go and complain? ;)

Now I don't feel guilty about skipping a lesson or two.


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