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The Mandarin Challange | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5352 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 1 of 7 02 December 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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So through a pre quarter life crisis I've finally decided to change my major to applied linguistics and make my main focus, language wise, by Mandarin. I also speak fairly good German and have learned a little bit of American Sign Language, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Danish. I think that a major part of this process is going to be really learning what works best for me in learning a language, especially one that incorporates characters (hanzi).
I have amassed a number of resources which include (but aren't limited to): Books/Audio New Practical Chinese Reader Very Good Chinese: Spoken Chinese for Beginners (ISBN: 7561919441) Hanyu Yuedu Jiaocheng Volume 1 {ISBN: 7561906862) Speak Mandarin in 500 Words (which can be found free online from the Taiwanese government) ChinesesPod Software/Websites Anki BYKI Lingt Skritter Skype Progress so far: So far I have worked through the first 3 chapters of NPCR and can recognize the hanzi for all of the words in those three chapters. I am also almost done working through the first chapter of Very Good Chinese. In addition I have one Language partner that I've been talking to on Skype once or twice a day and we've been working on only speaking with Learn Mandarin in 500 Words. Method: I put this after my progress thus far because I'm really still attempting to flesh out just how I'll be doing this. Thus far I think that I will alternate books every other day and only go on to the next chapter once I understand everything from the chapter that I'm currently working on - this includes the hanzi. That said I will work on all of the hanzi every day, via Anki, Skritter, and Lingt. I also am using Smart.fm to some degree. Some might question my usage of a number of SRS programs but they all function differently in my learning process. I use Smart.fm (as well as BYKI - but not as much for Chinese) to learn the words. By learn I mean understand what the word sounds like, means, and what the character looks like. Lingt functions as a tool to help me quickly cement those words deeper into my short term memory and Anki commits them to long term memory. Skritter I use for the writing of the hanzi because, for me, just looking at the doesn't cut it as far as memorizing them goes. I do go through all of them except for smart.fm every day. I feel like that really gets them embedded in my memory. It may not be efficient for everyone, but it's what I'm finding works best for me. I will also be speaking with my language partner(s) as much as possible to work on the pronunciation and tones (though I've been told by a native speaker that my tones are really good, which was nice to hear). I'm also going to be listening to as much Mandarin as possible through out the day, whether it be ChinesePod, stuff from my books, or podcasts that are in Chinese. Goals: Get through at least two chapters of NPCR and Very Good Chinese a week Speak with my language partner(s) at least three times a week 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6281 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 2 of 7 02 December 2010 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck to you!
Learning Chinese characters by writing them (often over and over) is a popular method in China, but it never worked for me except for the most common characters, the ones that I reinforce every single time I write Chinese. That's why I was never able to learn more than the 800 most common characters this way, and even then a lot were shaky. Immense similarity is a big problem once you know a number of characters. For example 活 话 and 恬. The key for me, which allowed me to effortlessly bring my character count up to 3000 within a single year, was to see each character not as a series of strokes but as something made up of a few distinct parts (of which there are a very limited number in the Chinese language), each of them with a specific meaning, and then connect the meanings of each part to the meaning of the whole - very often the connection was even logical, since it's essentially how a lot of these characters developed. This is akin to the Heisig method for Japanese Kanji, but I used the book "Reading and Writing Chinese Characters", which adapts it nicely for Chinese. For a complete beginner, "Learning Chinese Characters" might be an even better choice because it provides mnemonics for the tones and generally offers more assistance. Whichever way you choose, I wish you success. Edited by Sprachprofi on 02 December 2010 at 11:12pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5352 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 3 of 7 03 December 2010 at 4:30am | IP Logged | ||
Thank you so much Sprachprofi - your advice has helped me a lot in the past and I'm really happy that you're offering up more here. In regards to what you said in the quote above, I think that might be what I've started doing intuitively when learning the characters. I'll see a character, like 男 (which is basic but that's where I'm at right now) I'll think "ok what is this made up of, I see 田 and 力". I haven't done any mnemonics work yet but I'll try it. I think that I'm mainly worried about having another thing that I have to remember that might not help me but I think I might try it. I went to the bookstore today and looked at both Learning Chinese Characters and Read and Write Chinese and decided on the first one. It seems that Read and Write Chinese doesn't tell you the components of the characters like Learning Chinese Characters does. It does look like a good book though, just not one for absolute beginners (which I know you've said in other posts before). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5352 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 4 of 7 05 December 2010 at 12:50am | IP Logged | ||
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I was planning on updating this blog last night, but seeing as I didn't do a lot of practicing (though I did go through all of my flashcards) I decided not to.
So far, after a week or so of learning, I can recognize around 86 words (their readings and meanings) though I'm still having trouble with writing them by hand. I'm not sure what to do about that though. I have heard some people say that being able to write the characters by hand isn't important if you can do it on the computer, but I'm sure, if I end up in China, or if I take a Chinese class in the States this summer, there will be occasions where I will need to be able to write the characters. As I said in an above post, I did end up buying a copy of Learning Chinese Characters. My goal is to do a lesson every day or two which would mean get me through the entire book in 40 days. I'm more than willing to slow that down though and I'm sure things will come up where I can't work on it one day or I can spend tons of time on it another day. I also ended up creating a bunch of flashcards in BYKI for the initials and finals as I seem to be having trouble with them. My checklist for the rest of the day looks something like this:
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5352 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 5 of 7 04 January 2011 at 3:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Long time no update! So thus far I've taken a turn in my studying methods. I decided to enroll in a Mandarin course at the local community college. We are using the third edition of Integrated Chinese - part 1. I think the class will be really good despite that it's in a classroom setting. I get a lot of motivation from having someone assign me homework and the professor seems really good. She's a native speaker and teaches at my university. I also need the course for my new major (applied linguistics).
It will be moving a little slow but I will be trying to learn a chapter's worth of words every week which seems like it'll be good for me. It's also a semi-immersion class (essentially immersion with a tiny bit of English, primarily used to explain cultural things in this case) which is nice. We're also learning traditional characters. The first year Chinese uses the traditional character version of the Integrated Chinese textbook and the second year uses the simplified version of the second level of the book. By the third year (which I will take at my university if I decide to get a masters degree there) we will be expected to be able to read both systems and write in at least one. The reasoning for starting with traditional is that most Chinese language media in the states (or at least Portland) is in traditional hanzi as are most subtitles of movies/tv show according to my teacher. I have to relearn some characters in traditional hanzi but it's going very smoothly so far. I'm using a pen and paper in conjunction with Skritter (writing each character 10 times every time I come to it - it works for me, so far) which I'm finding far more effective than just using Skritter by itself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5352 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 6 of 7 10 January 2011 at 12:22am | IP Logged | ||
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So far I've had a week of learning Chinese with my new method (classes - using the series Integrated Chinese, Skritter, and lots of practicing) and so far I'm really liking it. Like I said in the above post, I really like my class. There is tons of participation and my teacher (who I think I will have through second year Chinese) is really good. I also like that we use no pinyin in class at all. My teacher doesn't write in it on the board for us (though we did do a short lesson on how to read it, for our benefit), we won't be using it in our quizzes, which we have weekly, and we don't use it in our homework - save for the few exercises that require us to transcribe pinyin into hanzi.
I have only learned around 40 words, but I know how to say them (though I need to work on tones), read them, and write them. As I said above, the pace is fairly slow (two weeks per chapter, crazy slow) but in reality it might not be a bad thing because I'm taking three other classes that need my attention as well. I also think I might ask my teacher for more resources for reading and what not. My primary means of studying has been working through the homework (surprise surprise), writing out the dialogues a number of times, working through the exercises in the textbook (which are separate from the homework) and using Skritter. So far it has really helped to cement the language into my brain. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5352 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 7 of 7 30 January 2011 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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The title of this post should be "Woah - a language class that works!"
In short, I've been in my Chinese class for 4 weeks now and this seems to actually be working out well. Granted this isn't a huge surprise for me, but that's because language classes are the best way for me to learn (it's easier for me to stay motivated). Before I said that the class was moving fairly slow (a chapter every two weeks) but see here's where it pays to talk to the professor. I spoke with her and, low and behold, another student wanted to work through three terms of work (30 weeks) in two terms (20 weeks) as well. I ended up speaking with her for about 45 min and she's is going to make a study plan for us she's also going to tutor us once a week. We also announced it to the entire class and there are now about 8 of us who are going to be working together. So all that happened on Wednesday and as of today, Jan. 30th, I have learned around 95 words (how to read, write, and say them with some shakiness in the tones). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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