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Mandarin journey (FSI, Pimsleur, NPCR) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5555 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 97 of 181 08 May 2009 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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挺好的，如果能开始看文言调（in a semi-classical style）的东西了的话，passive的词汇量就可以突 飞猛进了。
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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 98 of 181 10 May 2009 at 6:26am | IP Logged | ||
好，谢谢你的建议。不过，目前我在认真的提 高我的普通词汇（生活词汇）。那是因为我快 要到中国旅行，也我需跟那儿的人要交流，所 以我的主要重点是生活词汇。但是以后，我一 定要进步我的其他的词汇了。（passive怎么说 ?）那我要向你请教一下。为了提高我的那个 ?面，哪儿有一个很好的节目？现在我听亚洲 甠?台的。特别是我真需要某本”普通话“的 丠?了增加我的生活词汇。但是我听说了所有 习?是正式的，没有什么普通的中文。那对不 对＠? 非常感谢！ （由于某种原因 有些的我写的字是写坏了。） Edited by irrationale on 10 May 2009 at 6:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 99 of 181 20 May 2009 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok, here we go.
I am going to China July 7th!!!! I am so excited. So basically I am studying my ass off non-stop, every chance I get, and focusing on spoken language. It is more than ACATT because I am not just doing lazy input, it is about 1/2 input, 1/2 output. On Unit 54 of NPCR and Unit 6 of MOD 8 FSI. Actually, NPCR is getting on my nerves. Lots of the sentence forms being taught are overly formal (useless for convos), and the useless words are starting to multiply. Still, it is good reading practice and contains a lot of good words in context. These days, it is the sheer amount of words, along with all of their contexts that is my enemy. Relying on dictionaries, I can read novels and converse, but the more advanced this language gets, the more murky the words become. My ANKI deck now has 6 fields, 2 new fields for each side (english/chinese) for contextual sentences to tell the words apart. I never know which word I learn is used on what context (besides the one I learn it in), which is more common, which sounds "silly" to Chinese speakers, which is too formal. Dictionaries are of little help. Even the HSK level doesn't really tell the truth. I am forced to 1) ask a native or 2 ) google the word/phrase and look at the amount of hits, and always, put massive amount of sentences in my other ANKI deck. So far, it has worked out. Oh, speaking of sentence mining, I finally joined the bandwagon and signed up for Chinesepod, basically to mine sentences. The thing that amazes me about this site is how much useless garbage and chit-chat there is. Why do I want to hear English chit-chatting and joking? Haha, I will use my audicity program to cut your nonsense out of my audio. Also the topics are mostly silly and too specific, trying to be too colloquial and entertaining. Still, the advanced and media lessons are totally in Chinese, it is more true to native speech than most other programs, and there is a ton of material there to mine..not bad for 10 bucks a month I suppose. I recognize/produce around 1650 characters. Edited by irrationale on 20 May 2009 at 2:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 100 of 181 12 June 2009 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am basically done with NPCR. Actually, I didn't put the last two lessons' (59 and 60) into ANKI because now I am totally suspecious of NPCR's vocab.
I am entering a new phases here. Basically, what is happening is I have entered the dreaded "sea of words". I memorized every word in NPCR series, and FSI up to now, and it is nowhere near enough for a complex discussion (my ANKI word count is around 3600, but this is tricky with Chinese because the words usually are multiple function). I can have a basic conversation, no problem, but I want intelligent thoughtful convos. My original goal was to be able to have a complex discussion by June 7, the day I go to China, but this almost surely won't happen. I am fed up with NPCR's, Chinesepods, and FSI's vocab. I am on MOD 9 of FSI and I can already tell that I will be getting fed lots of specialized vocab. As to NPCR's vocab, the last book 5...I would say a good 40% of vocab was a waste of my time, rare words, literary words, etc. Chinesepod has the opposite problem and tries to be too "native" and not enough meat and potatoes words. So I finally bought a frequency dictionary (I would have sooner, but I couldn't find it for some reason). Ater all this work over these months, I looked through the beginning and found a substantial amount of words under 1000 freq that I was never taught. Unbelievable. A lot of these words I had to ask a native for. Basically as it stands now, I am on my own. I am now focusing on massive imput, conversations whenever possible, watching chinese TV, continuing radio, and reading a chinese book (I don't know about 2/10 words). As I see it, the returns of working my active vocab are diminishing and proving to be foolhardy with context dependent chinese advanced vocab. Definite words with minimal context that are in my English active vocab will still go to active though. I will still continue and probably finish MOD 9 in time. Its not really hard at all anymore, just a question of grinding away. I strongly advice ANYWONE thinking of NPCR or FSI to read this and learn from my mistakes. Get to a native speaker or at least a freq dictionary. At the very least google your words. So I go on now until July 7th when I test my mettle in China. I am memorizing about 50 to 60 words a day, and probably reach 5000 word level by then, more or less. Edited by irrationale on 12 June 2009 at 12:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5655 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 101 of 181 12 June 2009 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations! You have been one of the most inspiring people for me here on this site (or elsewhere too, really)! Both of your logs are amazing resources (I've referred to your Spanish log many many times) and I've tried to make my own as informative, but so far I haven't done a very good job. But anyway, I hope your trip to China goes wonderfully, and it's just amazing to see all this hard work pay off :)
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| Thatzright Diglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5462 days ago 202 posts - 311 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: French, Swedish, German, Russian | Message 102 of 181 12 June 2009 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just read through the entire thread, and I have to say this is amazing. Not only are you studying a language as hard as Chinese (which I hope to tackle one day aswell), but you also actually commit yourself to it more than... more than really anyone I've ever seen commit to learning a language. You can already hold a basic conversation, and so here you are soon almost at the level of advanced fluency in less than a year after you started. And this is not German or French or any "sane" language like that, no, this is Chinese! I am truly in awe, I think topics like these prove that learning any language relatively quickly with enough willpower is possible ;) Please keep this going, this is really inspiring to read.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5749 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 103 of 181 13 June 2009 at 7:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Irrationale, how long will you be in China and in what area(s)?
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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 104 of 181 14 June 2009 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Crush and Thatzright;
Thanks so much for your words. This language gets harder (it seems) as you progress, so it still is good to have some encouragement. Multilingual people on this forum inspire me all the time, especially those who have mastered English (or any language, but I can only tell native English) to a native level. When I am done with all of FSI, which shouldn't be too long now, I will make my decks public, which include nearly every single sentence in FSI (reference and example), with all audio for mod 6, 7, 8 ,9 included. I also have another deck with every word in the NPCR series, with all audio from the CDs, and every word in the FSI series (most have audio I think). I will also outline what exactly my routine was and what I did, because it is pretty complicated, I suppose. I hope this can help others in the future. Snowflake; I am going to the Shanghai area for two weeks. I am pretty excited, but I know for sure that real life native Mandarin will probably shock me. I plan to throw myself in the deep end immediately and make a fool of myself (this is the best way to learn!) I am just now watching TV, and it was a mistake to wait this long to hear and see the real thing. I have been listening to radio for 5 months, but for some reason it just doesn't seem as intense or fast as watching TV. Have you been to China or have advice for me? I would love any I could get. BTW, for any reading this thread, the book I am reading now is http://vip.book.sina.com.cn/book/chapter_93992_60769.html this is a spoken style book free on sina. Reading this book, I know about 11/12 words, which is better than pure literature. The TV show I am watching is http://hd.tudou.com/program/15951/ It is about 3 cousins (I think) that try to make it in Beijing; good quality and with an interesting plot, and subtitles. I can understand just enough (without pausing) to know what is going on. :( Edited by irrationale on 15 June 2009 at 9:44am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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