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Mandarin journey (FSI, Pimsleur, NPCR)

  Tags: Pimsleur | FSI | Mandarin
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181 messages over 23 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 12 ... 22 23 Next >>
irrationale
Tetraglot
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China
Joined 5840 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 89 of 181
09 April 2009 at 8:18am | IP Logged 
吕明扬 wrote:
你们都学得那么厉害啊!如果我有你们的努力 的话,我才会说普通话。 I've found that the farther you get into this particular language, the more grammar starts to fall to the wayside, that vocab accumulation and native material exposure become the most important parts to progress.
    Out of curiosity what does retroflex sound mean? Is it the case how some accents blend together the "Gang" and "Gan" sounds. Or more like "Shi" and "Si"?


不敢当:—)可是,"你们"是谁?你说到我妈 ?反正你说得很对,我实在学我的中文学努力 ,就是因为我到中国旅行以前,我要跟中国人 流利的谈谈。而且,学中文的原因之一是我特 别的朋友住在中国。看得明白了吗?各个人有 自己的学中文的原因吧,我大概不建议人们这 样学,我再也没有空了!

Retroflex are all the sounds that require the tongue to be up in your mouth ("curled"). These are Sh, Zh, R, Ch I believe. So instead of Shi, this person says says "si", etc.

Thanks for the comment, can you read native level material? What would you recommend after I finish NPCR?

Edited by irrationale on 09 April 2009 at 8:21am

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吕明扬
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United States
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30 posts - 30 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 90 of 181
10 April 2009 at 6:03am | IP Logged 
我写“你们”字的意思就是你和snowflake。我到 现在还没看过那个“NPCR"所以我不知道你的中 水平。

   I guess I could read native level material. Maybe... 70% of a 武侠小说. My biggest study method right now is just pouring in vocab. I use an SRS, If I see a character that I don't remember come up, I'll look it up in my dictionary and put every word that its part of in the SRS along with the example sentences. Since I started doing that about 3 weeks ago, my flashcards went from 300 to 2000+.
   Thanks for the information on retroflex sounds. Well after thinking about it some more after NPCR, you could probaly just go through wikipedia finding articles your interested in? But besides that I cant really give any advice. I try to stay as far away from textbooks as possible.
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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 5840 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 91 of 181
14 April 2009 at 6:54am | IP Logged 
FSI MOD 8 Unit 2, NPCR 43.

Had a "basic conversation" with a Chinese person today (with a standard accent) with no problems, felt comforable. Only had to ask what some words mean, etc. My listening ability isn't a problem anymore. Most of the FSI convos on MOD 7 tape 2 I can understand fine.

I can also read newpapers, internet, and get the gist of the article with a dictionary. Anyway, now is the time when I am comfortable saying "I speak chinese". Believe me, I know there is a huge road ahead of me to reach native fluency or maybe even advanced fluency, and to me, saying this doesn't mean much.

Still having trouble with strange accents. Main thing right now is increasing active vocab is quickly as possible, and finishing FSI/NPCR, then moving on to native material.

Trying to load my sound clip of me speaking...is anyone else unable to load soundclips? I get a "page not found".

EDIT:took out word count because it's hard to determine this in Chinese due to the multiple uses of many words, and it's too approximate anyway.

Edited by irrationale on 14 April 2009 at 11:31am

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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 5840 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 92 of 181
18 April 2009 at 9:20am | IP Logged 
Damn, I am caught in the "never ending review" hell because I can't complete my decks all the way. I haven't actually made much progress except for massive amounts of review. Trying to dig myself out of the hole now...
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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 5840 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 93 of 181
29 April 2009 at 5:17am | IP Logged 
Reviewing has been sporadic lately, but I'm at lesson 48 of NPCR and Unit 3 of MOD 8 FSI. I need to get back in my rhythm again, perhaps I will change to a morning ruitine...

I ordered New Practical Chinese Reader 5, which appearantly is the last book. I thought there were 6 books...I am kind of dissapointed because I am starting to depend on this series for a lot of vocab. Therefore after I finish 5 I will either have to move on to an "advanced" chinese textbook or just start reading chinese books for my reading practice and vocab. I have a young adult's/children's book and can read it without too many problems, but I want to read adult level literature, with SPOKEN chinese vocab/sentence forms as well.

Since MOD 9 of FSI has no book, and correspondingly, no reference sentences (I enter every single reference sentence in FSI into ANKI) I will be done with FSI sooner than I thought. All the more reason to start thinking of what next.

Edited by irrationale on 29 April 2009 at 5:18am

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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 5840 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 94 of 181
03 May 2009 at 12:11pm | IP Logged 
Lesson 49 NPCR.

I can't explain it, but today I suddenly realized that my reading ability is quite a lot better than I remember it being. I'm not sure if this is a sudden skill jump or not. Reading doesn't really take the effort it used to, and I read the entire NPCR Lesson 48 text today more or less casually, like something clicked in my head (hate to say that phrase). I am at the 1450 character level, so I'm not sure if this has something to do with it, but I heard elsewhere that around 1500 characters is some magic point where it becomes easier and easier to read. I never really believe in the magic skill jumps in language, but I really do feel like I am suddenly a lot better at reading...

Bad side is that I am really slacking on my sentences too much these days, skipping days too often, etc. I need to stop that.
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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 5840 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 95 of 181
05 May 2009 at 1:33pm | IP Logged 
NPCR Lesson 50, FSI MOD 8 unit 4.

Today definitely something clicked. I hate to say that phrase, but it did. None of my studies is really an effort anymore, I feel like I am just improving one of my own languages; which it is. It must be just some arbitrary percentage of the language internalized, like 90% or 95%..who knows, I don't know much about SLA.

Also, I had my first semi-advanced conversation about Chinese grammar usage in Chinese, in a loud starbucks without any problems.



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irrationale
Tetraglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 5840 days ago

669 posts - 1023 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog
Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese

 
 Message 96 of 181
08 May 2009 at 11:55am | IP Logged 
Well, I opened up New Practical Chinese Reader 5 and noticed something...its all in Chinese. The only thing not in Chinese is the word definitions in the vocab. Interesting...

The content of Level 5 is also interesting. It mainly seems to be Chinese literature type material. There are conversation sections, but most of the passages seem quite formal. My native friend confirmed this, and that many of the words are for written Chinese that have the same meanings as more common words. He actually compared it to a high school literature book. This brings me to a new stage, because memorizing every word for both production and recognition might hinder me, if I will never produce some of these in conversation. Therefore, unless the corresponding definition is in my English active vocab and needs to be moved over, or if it doesn't exist in English and I figure that it will be in my Chinese active vocab, I will put it for recognition only. I will need many contexts of these types of words to be able to use them correctly, and that will take time.


So far doesn't seem too difficult to read, there are just a lot of words - which is great.

I am starting to cull most of my convo vocab from Chinese chats, offline and on.



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