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Total (I&!@^!!& Annihilation Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| myann23 Newbie United States Joined 6537 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 6 04 May 2008 at 7:49pm | IP Logged |
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Total Annihilation Challenge – Mandarin
Why – Need to learn Mandarin for job Duration – 10 Months Goal – By the end of this 10-month period be fully functional in my Mandarin proficiency so I can start work in the Beijing office of my entertainment/media company. What does this mean? 1.) Able to use Mandarin to function in my work environment. 2.) Have a general idea of what is happening when reading movie and television scripts.. 3.) Be able to listen in on deal negotiations and understand what is happening. 4.) Can follow the majority of the plotline of a Chinese movie or television show when watching it. Backstory – Was initially going to China at the end of this month due to start work and continue my Mandarin studies, but my boss told me to wait until after the Olympics because the deal flows in the industry are slowing to a crawl as everyone gears up for the Olympics so there isn’t much happening in the office now - therefore I’m going to stay in the US for 4 more months. I’m thinking about studying Chinese exclusively for 4-6 months after I go to China instead of working and studying at the same time, but we’ll see. Level Previous Study– I studied in China for 6 months last year, getting a good grounding of the language. Can have good, although sometimes limited (due to topic talking about) conversations in Mandarin. Have learned about 1900 characters, although I’m sure I’ve forgotten a couple hundred. Not focusing on writing. Studied at Taipei Language Institute in Beijing and Dalian. Wasted 3 months in Beijing because too many foreigners were around me and in my personal opinion, Beijing although being a fun place, has too many distractions to study Mandarin effectively, so I went to Dalian for my last three months in China where my study habits and Mandarin ability dramatically got better. I will divide this TAC into two phases: 1. Total Annihilation – Pre-China Phase a. Reading: I’ve perused the Princeton Series Chinese Readers that they use in the Princeton in Beijing Program and really like them - very well designed and presented. If I work hard, I think I can finish the 3 tomes in 4 months. i. A New China - http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6755.html ii. All Things Considered - http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7151.html iii. Anything Goes - http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8299.html iv. If I have enough time, I’ll try to finish as much as I can with this book - http://www.studychineseculture.com/book.asp?id=2601 just because I bought it in China and I hate that it’s collecting dust now. b. Grammar: Review the Hanyu Jiaocheng Series, Part III from BLCU. I loaded up on Chinese learning material before coming back to the states. These books are really cheap if you buy them in China. I will mine for sentences with any grammatical constructions or word usages I’m not familiar with and add them into supermemo. http://www.blcup.com/en/list_1.asp?id=502 I also bought the Schaums Guide to Chinese Grammar and think it gives excellent English explanations of grammar. I will Supermemo anything that I don’t understand in the book. http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Chinese-Grammar-Claudi a/dp/0071377646 c. Listening: My suitcase was packed full of tingli tapes and cds when I left China in December. In my humble opinion, these tingli courses from BLCU and PKU are well designed with dialogues and essays combined with exercises that will increase your listening comprehension. I will use these combined with Chinesepod. In Chinesepod I am in the middle of the intermediate leve, averaging around 4 lessons a day excluding weekends. If I can keep this up, I can finish most of the advanced level lessons by the end of the summer when I head to China. The intermediate level is fairly easy for me now, but I am picking several useful vocab from each lesson. I can listen all day to Chinese at work on my IPod, so I will definitely take advantage of this opportunity to listen to both my Tingli courses and Chinesepod. http://www.blcup.com/en/list_1.asp?id=1562 http://www.studychineseculture.com/book.asp?id=1400 http://www.studychineseculture.com/book.asp?id=1402 d. Speaking – I have a bunch a lot of Chinese friends I met in China and keep in touch with them on MSN. I’m aiming to speak maybe 3 times a week, 30 minutes each. 2. Total-Annihilation China – A part of me wants to start work right away when I get there, a part of me wants to have another crack at studying in an immersion environment. If my boss allows me to take time off to study, I’ll probably go for it. a. Reading: I really like the topics in this reader. http://www.cheng-tsui.com/downloads/reading_new_china_transi tion_guide. This is the absolute last Chinese read I will use. From here on out, it’s all authentic materials culled from normal life – newspaper articles, gossip magazines (makes for fun learning since I’m in the entertainment industry), trade mags, ect. I’ll also start to read movie scripts and just read read read everyday. b. Listening: Get a lot of listening practice just from daily conversation. Podcasts, tapes, and cds are nice, but there is no substitute for hearing real life speakers. I’m going to listen to more and more CCTV and television dramas, hopefully I can find the transcripts to them. c. Grammar/Speaking: Sentence mine anything that doesn’t make sense. I would probably go to TLI again and do a lot of grammar drills. I feel like I've only been in the intermediate phase for 3 months or so and to get to the next level, I will need to hunker and with a lot of vocabulary and massive comprehensible input. I'll post every few days with my progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| myann23 Newbie United States Joined 6537 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 6 06 May 2008 at 10:25pm | IP Logged |
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Supermemo'd 104 words yesterday and today. Finished 8 intermediate Chinesepod lessons. Today, listened to approximately 2 hours of my BLCU Tingli Course on my Ipod at work.
Further listened while reading for another 30 minutes at home. 325 reps on Supermemo before sleeping. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| myann23 Newbie United States Joined 6537 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 6 14 May 2008 at 10:18pm | IP Logged |
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Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been lazy with my updates but definitely not my language learning. Last week I cycled between Chinesepod and BLCU Hanyu Tingli Courses on my Ipod at work. Supermemo sessions have been intense. Last week added an average of 35 or so entries each day into Supermemo and now my daily repetition count is in the 320s which I think is too much. I'm not going to add anything for the next few days and hopefully the reps will dawdle down in the mid 200s - kind of like cleansing out the system. The rest of this week I'm just going to review and re-listen to a lot of previous audio.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| NJMaverick Newbie United States Joined 6147 days ago 34 posts - 36 votes Studies: English*, Portuguese | Message 4 of 6 26 July 2008 at 12:14pm | IP Logged |
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I am curious about things have been going with you the last couple of months. How about an update?
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| myann23 Newbie United States Joined 6537 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 6 27 July 2008 at 11:53am | IP Logged |
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Haha, thanks. I decided not to update because I was too lazy, thinking I should just focus on studying with my limited time after work.
I'm still listening to 3 hours of Chinese at work everyday. Sometimes it gets boring and I just get "Chinesed-out" so I switch to some music or listen to a podcast. Initially, I was going at a rate of 4 Upper-Intemediate Chinesepod podcasts a day, but there's definitely a sizable gap between the the Int and Upper-Int levels, so my goal is to complete 2 everyday now. The biggest difference is the level of specialized vocabulary I'm learning which I'm sure I won't be using too often in everyday life. One milestone I've reached is that I now have over 10,000 learned items in my Supermemo collection. Ultimately it doesn't really mean anything but other than I've been working my ass off. I hope this bears fruit in China. Other than Chinesepod and entering its vocab on supermemo everyday, I'm also learning 10-15 Hanzi. I'm using Wenlin's frequency list to 3500 and crossing off the lowest numbers I don't know. Currently know about 2300 now. To be honest, I'm thinking about easing up the gas a little on my Chinese studying as far as learning words and instead doing language exchanges on skype. Of course, I want to build up my vocab to 20000+ words, but at this point I think I should improve on the usage of the words I already know. I need to switch things up a little because I get the feeling that my studies are becoming a little stale. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| NJMaverick Newbie United States Joined 6147 days ago 34 posts - 36 votes Studies: English*, Portuguese | Message 6 of 6 27 July 2008 at 5:00pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks. You posted a TON of resources in your first post. So many that I kind of skimmed over it, to be honest. Did you have a couple of strong cups of expresso before typing that? LOL
What is "supermemo" and it is it really useful? I am thinking of engaging in a massive study of mandarin in the near future, as I will likely be moving to Taiwan next spring. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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