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Assimil Chinese with Ease | ||
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6525 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 33 of 79 27 December 2006 at 5:36am | IP Logged |
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I don't feel any soreness at all when chorusing Mandarin, sometimes for half an hour straight ot more. And it's not THAT far back in the throat. Have you looked at the Sinosplice pronounciation thingy? You might be doing the sounds a bit wrong. Or you simply have sensitive vocal chords, what do I know?
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 Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6720 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 79 27 December 2006 at 7:32am | IP Logged |
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Or I might have an infection. I've still been waiting to completely clear the soreness. While I feel fine normally, I can still notice that if the back of my throat is used even slightly, I will feel the soreness again. I'm going to be gone for 9 nights so I will wait until I get back and then see what I can do.
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| Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6720 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 35 of 79 11 January 2007 at 8:51am | IP Logged |
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Today I worked on pronunciation for 10 minutes. I did 5 minutes on lesson 1 and the other 5 minutes on lesson 2. I hadn't worked on this since the twelfth of December. I will gradually build-up the amount of time which I can work on pronunciation.
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| Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6720 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 36 of 79 22 January 2007 at 9:36am | IP Logged |
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I just finished lesson 10. It took me 5 days. I could only do 10 or 15 minutes each day. It seems I can only do the pronunciation for 5 minutes at a time.
So now I'm going just too slowly. :( I recorded and listened to my last 5 minutes today. While my pronunciation could probably be said to be OK, I still don't sound like a native speaker. My tones are probably flat on the real short syllables, and overall, my tones are probably too short. Perhaps I should record and critique myself on every session. Or maybe I should do 1 minute at a time and listen to myself. Then try to do better for the next minute and check to see how I'm doing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| owshawng Senior Member United States Joined 6829 days ago 202 posts - 217 votes Speaks: English* | Message 37 of 79 27 January 2007 at 1:23pm | IP Logged |
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When I first started using Pimsleur Mandarin I noticed the soreness thing. A bit in the throat but mostly in the hinge of my jaw and the base of my tongue. Maybe it's becaue the sounds in mandarin are so different then English that muscles are being used and stressed in new ways. Kind of like exercise. the first few weeks there's soreness from lactic acid build up, but after that the body becomes more efficient and the soreness goes away.
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| Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6720 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 38 of 79 20 February 2007 at 8:36am | IP Logged |
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Well, I got side-tracked for two weeks. I didn't do any language study for a fortnight. I am now on lesson 15 and I've decided to switch gears. I'm just going to spend 15 minutes on a lesson and do a new one each day. I might not do much practice on pronunciation. I might just listen only. Let's see how long I continue. I suppose I'll spend more time on a lesson when it is more difficult.
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| Vinnie Groupie England Joined 6467 days ago 65 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English* | Message 39 of 79 29 March 2007 at 12:51pm | IP Logged |
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Keith if you dont mind me asking, how do you find assimil chinese on the whole, upsides/downsides? is it a course that youd recommend, and what level of proficiency do you think someone can achieve with this course? thanks
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| Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6720 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 79 04 April 2007 at 7:24am | IP Logged |
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Hello Vinnie. Sorry for my late reply. I have been extremely occupied. I have been spending all my time listening to Assimil Chinese with Ease. I am trying to get 2.5 hours in per day. I was doing that last month until just this weekend when I got sidetracked by a major development project at home.
To answer your question, I think the course is excellent, although I don't have any experience with any of the other current Chinese courses. The audio is good. The dialogues are fine. I never get tired of listening to it over and over. They have maybe 6 different voices. I'm not sure. Some of the dialogues have 3 or 4 people in them. They've been building up and getting longer and longer. There are some grammar notes in the book, but I don't bother with them. The two-volume course will give you over a thousand words. How well you learn them is up to you. How many hours would you plan to put into it? Since the 12th of last month I've been devoting most of my time to it. I really want to get somewhere and I think I'm on track now. But I will need more time. I feel like I've only just begun. I have put 69.8 hours in so far into Assimil Chinese with Ease. There's a natural language aquisition somewhere around here that says about 800 hours should be spent before you naturally begin speaking the language. Although, I don't think it will take me that long to finish this course. We'll see. When I do finish the course I will begin speaking with real people for real and after I get used to speaking and before I move onto a new course, I will record myself and then we can see. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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