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Mandarin Journal, after 1 year | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5091 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 65 of 107 26 November 2011 at 10:25am | IP Logged | ||
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JasonUK has a good point; you must enjoy your improvement. Just to make sure I don't come across as not
enjoying the FSI Drill tapes, I would like to make it clear that I am GREATLY enjoying the FSI Drill tapes. These things are awesome. I feel like they are stretching my current Mandarin abilities the most...and this I love! It is really important for me to master the basics of Mandarin, and now that I have already somewhat "mastered" (or became satisfied with my current ability of) the pronunciation, I need to improve the basics of my communication usage. I just finished studying the biographic module's last drill tape. I am quite happy about this milestone :) Here's my recent progress notes: - Drill 6: really, REALLY good challenge at 11:30 :) Other points to note, and some that I should redo: 13:15 and 14:30. - Drill 7: 1:30 super hard :( redo. - Drill 8: not bad, did all right. @ 10:00 is very hard. 22:30 also quite difficult. Even though my goal is to finish this module by Dec 2nd, I would still like some extra time to redo some drill tapes. I will just have to dedicate more time! I think I will redo drill tapes 3, 4, 6, and 7. I kind of want to also redo tapes 5 and 8 hehe. I will redo some of the drill tapes before I move onto my next phase of studying FSI's biographic module, which later includes all of the C-2 and P-2 tapes. While going through all of the drill tapes, I realized that there are definitely extra vocabulary words that I did not learn previously. The FSI Module 2 Student Text contains all of the target sentences along with "Additional Required Vocabulary". This information is found around printed pages 92. There are probably other goodies that I have to discover in this Student Text. I have some more ANKI cards to get to... And about that, every day now I nearly have the same number of Pimsleur 3 review cards as FSI ANKI cards due. It looks like I am pretty much finished re-reviewing Pimsleur 3, finally :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5091 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 66 of 107 29 November 2011 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
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throughout the past few days i have collected so many great phrases and vocabulary words that i want to readily
use; however, these facts i have not put into my ANKI deck. the facts are just laying around in my conversation history or on my Logic timeline (for audio files / extracting audio). I may have to dedicate 1 day to inputting these facts. Perhaps vocabulary and phrases that i think i'll commonly use should go into ANKI, and new key vocabulary words that may be used less often go into a Gold List? I'll meditate on this idea for the rest of the week and hopefully figure something out :) Any ideas or experienced methods to solve this problem of "new word / phrase hoarding" would be greatly appreciated :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5091 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 67 of 107 03 December 2011 at 8:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I have some great news! Since I have gotten temporarily bored, or lethargic from so much active study, I started
typing away with online Chinese friends via Skype during my free time. One friend in particular I've been talking with most. I asked her what type of music she liked, and from that question it is interesting how much you LEARN! Perhaps I even learned a lot as a kid: asking others about their musical tastes, learning about newer music, learning newer phrases. And this is exactly what happened. Needless to say, I've been listening to Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai a lot--both very popular Chinese pop singers. More Jolin Tsai since I bought 2 of her CDs ;) From the above, I do think studying my chinese conversations is very, very valuable. There's new vocabulary, new phrases, new interests, new THINGS...but most of this content I do not hear; I only read. But for Skype calls with Chinese, maybe I should record the audio? :D So on the other side of my current Mandarin studies: I didn't reach my goal to finish FSI module 2 by Friday Dec 2nd. Oh well ;( But I still feel great about my progress. By making myself determined to finish by yesterday, I at least had a lot of dedicated energy to finish the first 3 units' C2 tapes. And besides that, my ANKI decks are COMPLETELY caught up! It feels great knowing that I don't have many facts waiting for me. Just a couple of months ago (or maybe more?) I had well over 1000 cards to study/relearn. Since my life is getting busier with my work, the holidays, and other personal obligations, I need to find a way to get myself to dedicate time to Mandarin. Finishing FSI's biographic course (module 2) is my top priority, and I should really give module 3 a proper study afterwards. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5091 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 68 of 107 13 December 2011 at 7:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Over the weekend I sat in on the last day of school for a chinese class--I recently found the local chinese
academy. The class I sat in was the advanced class, with chinese students ranging from their young teens to later teens. A couple of the chinese students were impressed with my pronunciation, saying that I had no accent at all. Maybe this is true, but there are still sounds that I feel I need more work on. The "Xue" sound I am least confident about. Anyhoo, come January I am thinking of attending this class, and possibly as a teacher's assistant. My other option is to find an English-as-a-second-language program at a local college or something. I guess both options can be exercised at the same time... but my time is limited :( As for my progress lately, I have been working hard at keeping my ANKI decks clear of any due cards. I also managed to finish up to Unit 6's C2 tape. All I have left for FSI Module 2 is Unit 7 and 8's C2 tapes, all P2 tapes, and of course the review and criterion test. I feel pretty confident on the material, and I think I will pass these no problem :) Lately I have also been using Evernote and Skitch to monitor and keep notes of my progress. Both of these applications are free for Mac: http://www.skitch.com http://www.evernote.com One thing I really like about Skitch is that it allows me to instantly turn the FSI workbook into a workbook on my computer. I'll use Skitch's easy text and drawing tools to fill out my answers on the workbook. Earlier I used a regular paper notebook, and surprisingly this became tedious and tiresome, especially compared to just using Skitch. Here are some examples of my workbook studies :D 125-of-176-1">Skitch Screenshot 1 of-176">Skitch Screenshot 2 of-176">Skitch Screenshot 3 of-176">Skitch Screenshot 4 As you can tell, I am really excited about these 2 applications. I've used Skitch for a few years, but never thought about using it for this purpose. I am very happy that this idea came to my mind. Evernote is also especially handy for jotting down quick notes that I can later put into my ANKI deck--and I can jot these notes down on my iPhone or whichever (all notes are synced). Anyhoo, hopefully I can make the most of my time during December and January to study as much Mandarin as possible. I really need to just get this FSI biography module over with, especially now that I am super comfortable with the material. This month especially will be busy...wish me luck! Edited by aerozeplyn on 13 December 2011 at 7:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5091 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 69 of 107 27 December 2011 at 7:04am | IP Logged | ||
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After much thought over the past months, I keep getting the feeling that Pimsleur may have been unnecessary, especially with how
thorough and efficient FSI's biography module has been. My advice to future learners: unless you are greatly enjoying Pimsleur, just skip it. Use those ~90 days to focus more on FSI's resource module, classroom expressions module, and biographical module. (Don't neglect making audio flashcards for ANKI!) As for my current progress, I didn't get much studying at all done the past 2-3 weeks, with the exception of the past few days. Every night I also continue to listen to mandarin podcasts, so at least I spent time listening. Today I really tried to finish everything remaining of FSI's biographic module minus the tests. I still accomplished a lot :) Here's some progress that I marked down in Evernote: Dec 24: C2 tape units 4 and 7. Dec 26: C2 tape unit 8. Finished creating the remaining C2 audio flash cards. Also studied the P2 tapes for units 1 through 5. Unit 3 was a little challenging, but very fun. I may want to redo unit 4, and I did awesome on unit 5 :) Also, earlier I mentioned many plans to study FSI. Even though I treated the Biography module as a "review", FSI (so far) has always surprised me on how thorough it covers the material. I started the FSI biographic module thinking it would be a simple review, and now that I'm near the end of it, I feel like it was much more than a review. I learned a LOT!
From my current FSI routine, I'd like to update this study plan and use it for the next FSI modules. Instead of working "by the week", I'll work by phases. I will probably continue this plan ONLY for FSI modules that I feel might be "reviews", such as the Money, Directions, and possibly Transportation modules. * Phase 1 takes place during the nights of my final reviews and final testing of the previous module. For this phase: passively listen to all C1, C2, and drill tapes. * Phase 2 takes place immediately after finishing the previous module. This is where I start the new module--the module that i was passively listening to previously. Actively listen to each unit's C1 tape, and during this time also extract audio clips of sentences that feel slightly foreign to me. These files will all go into an ANKI deck as audio flash cards. * Phase 3 is next. Perform each unit's P1 tape, creating audio flash cards during the process. Note that not EVERY piece of audio will become a flash card; only pieces of audio that feel foreign. * Phase 4: set aside time to isolate myself and perform one Drill tape per day. This time is also good for catching up with the potentially massive number of new ANKI flash cards :) * Phase 5: study each unit's C2 tape and create audio flash cards. I noticed a routine while creating some of the audio flash cards for these, especially for passages that were repeated 3 times: on first listen I would simultaneously split audio to extract later for ANKI; on 2nd listen I dedicated that time to just actively listen, and nothing more; and on the final listen I would answer the C2 questions and "type" them into my Skitch screen shots of the PDF exercises. Also, so far these C2 tapes seem to include phrases that I shouldn't understand, but I will make audio flash cards out of these parts of speech anyways, unless they happen to be too advanced for me. * Phase 6: by this phase my command and understanding of the module has matured, and now it's time to finish these P2 production tapes! The process is the same for this phase: listen to each unit's P2 tape while simultaneously extracting the audio for ANKI. * Phase 7: this is sort of a maintenance and review phase, to be done after completion of all FSI material for the module. This is where I aim to accomplish the following: review ANKI until the number of "due" audio cards are at a comfortable level--which is less than 10 minutes of ANKI with my busy life. While reviewing the ANKI material, I should spend time to redo any C2, P2, or Drill tapes that were noticeably difficult. If it turns out that I was satisfied with all of my previous performance on all of these tapes, then this will be some free time for me to study, and make audio cards from, my favorite Mandarin podcasts :D * Phase 8: complete the review tapes and the test tapes if the module has them available. During this time, Phase 1 for the next module will begin. Wish me luck :) I should be at Phase 7 of the FSI biographic module any day now... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chenshujian Diglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5393 days ago 122 posts - 139 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: French | Message 70 of 107 27 December 2011 at 7:13am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, the way Taiwanese speak is quite different from people from Beijing. Mandarin in a Taiwanese accent sound more "feminine". :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5091 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 71 of 107 27 December 2011 at 7:15am | IP Logged | ||
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And I forgot to mention that I've been hanging out in the #Mandarin IRC channel on the freenode.net server. The
people there are helpful, and there are opportunities for me to help others as well :) I also noticed that sometimes conversations with people about Mandarin really inspires me to practice more rather than chat online, play video games, or veg-out in front of the TV. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aerozeplyn Senior Member United States Joined 5091 days ago 141 posts - 202 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin | Message 72 of 107 23 January 2012 at 4:30am | IP Logged | ||
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It feels like I haven't written in here for many months. I really like writing in here :) Recently I finished FSI's criterion
test for the 2nd module on biographic information. You could say that I FINALLY finished this module... :) However, I feel like I am still stuck on phase 7 of 8--which is where I review tapes that I noted as "difficult". I think this is something that holds me back with learning: sometimes I don't feel 100% confident on 100% percent of the material, and as someone who likes to be thorough, I feel a strong need to complete that. Perhaps the problem is that I never had any goal from the beginning; I simply wanted to learn a few chinese characters, then I wanted to learn Cantonese, then I received many recommendations to learn Mandarin before Cantonese, then I got really interested in the Mandarin language itself... At this point, I believe my overall goal is to speak Mandarin fluently before a certain age; let's just say by the summer of 2013. I also intend on going to China later this year, or even next Chinese new year, so it would be good to make the best of that by learning as much as I can :) Also, by my overall goal of reaching "fluency", I mean that I can pass at least the HSK 5--just 1 level away from the most advanced HSK! A good idea might be to take the HSK 2 or 3 this summer...who knows. But to reach my overall goal, I should not waste time and energy fretting about not understanding 100% of my current study's material. Also, today was another day of Chinese class. I really appreciate this new school; I especially like how the teacher talks to me as if I'm a native adult. As for my class, we are working on volume 5 of the Zhongwen books. Also, this book is PERFECT for my current level, so I'm going to bump up my priority of studying this material. With a book like this, it may be unnecessary to study the popular NPCR books in order to pick up chinese characters. We will see in time... (NPCR = New Practical Chinese Reader). Volume 5 PDF: http://www.hwjyw.com/fj/jcxz/zhongwen/5/all.pdf All books: http://www.hwjyw.com/textbooks/downloads/zhongwen/ So now I am moving on to study the first C1 tape of FSI's 3rd module: "Money". To save time, I will restrain myself from writing on here until I have finished the 3rd module...unless something very interesting comes up that I need to share :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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