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Mandarin - Assimil - 2+yrs w/ ILR results | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4976 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 89 of 107 17 March 2013 at 10:36pm | IP Logged |
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Good job, BobbyE! You seem to have progressed quite a bit after you've finished
Assimil. My trajectory has been more erratic. Even though I did study daily and use a lot of resources, I didn't seem to advance much. Now i'm relying also on Anki to at least keep what I've learned. A good resource I used was the book Colloquial Chinese 2. It had exactly what I needed, and introduced my to a wide range of subjects you don't find in older textbooks. I've heard good comments about Open for Business. I may not be ready for it yet, but it surely is scheduled for the future. I have chinesepod too and I may stick to it after I finish one or two more textbooks, as it covers so many levels. Did you read novels with pinyin alongside or in plain characters? How did you look up words? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5057 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 90 of 107 30 March 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the encouragement! I'll have to check out Colloquial 2. I really enjoy
ChinesePOD because the dialogues are somewhat fun and interesting, and has slang and other phrases that Chinese people actually use. For novels, I use Mandarinspot. http://mandarinspot.com/annotate They have browser tool that you can just click-and-drag onto your toolbar, and it will let you hover your mouse over words and give you definitions. That's what I use to read novels. It's like LingQ or Learning With Texts, but without saving words or doing any importing. How do you feel about Anki? I've tried in the past but wasn't able to keep it up. Edited by BobbyE on 30 March 2013 at 7:14pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4976 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 91 of 107 01 April 2013 at 4:07pm | IP Logged |
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I'm using two Anki decks, one with characters and translation, no pinyin, and the other
one with sentences, pinyin and translation. Each has been useful at its way. With the sentences I get extra practice which I wouldn't get from my ordinary study. I get to learn words regardless of levels and there's a lot of reinforcement. As for the hanzi, I started to focus more on radicals and on figuring out the meaning of a character by looking at it. The fact that there's no pinyin makes me focus on radicals. Since I get pinyin from other sources, I think it's no problem. I only take 20 sentences a day, more than that is too much for me to pay enough attention to them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5057 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 92 of 107 04 April 2013 at 4:15am | IP Logged |
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Nice man, that sounds legit. I always like hearing other methods. Good look in your
studies! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5057 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 93 of 107 03 July 2014 at 5:28am | IP Logged |
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My most concrete update is that a few months ago I received ILR certification for my Mandarin speaking. It got ILR level 2. I'm still studying Mandarin daily. I even lived in Beijing for 6 months. My Mandarin is not bad, but not great. Learning a language has proven to be a long task, but a fun one if you find something you like about it. For me, it's reading and listening (a la Steve Kaufmann).
I've read whole novels, articles, interviews, I read Chinese forum posts and wiki articles and anything that's of interest to me. I listen to audiobooks, radio, interviews with economists, etc... I very occasionally (like a handful of times a year) watch some Chinese TV and movies, and lectures on a variety of things (for example, the relational database model 关系数据库模型, or general biology). I'm still not fluent, and there are still many, many holes in my comprehension (even in very basic conversation). I'm sure there are more efficient methods than my current one. What I doubt is that any other method is more sustainable for me than what I'm doing now. I've kept it up almost daily for over two and half years. I would love to start studying Spanish again, or start afresh on German, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Cantonese, etc... but I still have so much Mandarin to learn, I can't make in solid plans or promises to do anything else yet. I hope to post a video at some point of me conversing with a native speaker. An aside: Living in China didn't actually teach me that much Chinese. However, I was there studying full-time. Pushing 10 hours a day when I first got there. I met up with some Chinese language partners every week, talked to people on the street when I could, and took care of basic needs all in Mandarin, but I never really picked up much besides the most basic words in specific contexts (like, hearing a native speaker order food allowed me to order a little bit more native-like). The idea that you will just "pick up" the language is false, and in order to really learn what you need to have for conversations on higher-order subjects, you need to specifically read about those subjects. Want to talk politics? Read politics. Want to talk computers? Read about computers. You will not be able to "pick up" the vocabulary you need to talk about computers because you are only going to hear conversations like this once in a blue moon. The frequency for complex subjects will always be low, not matter how much you put yourself out there. That said... being in the country will give you motivation like you've never had before... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5057 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 94 of 107 25 October 2014 at 7:43pm | IP Logged |
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I highly recommend anyone who has kept a log to re-read it from start to finish. I just did and it was not only interesting but really informative.
There were so many paths I took and forgot, so many adjustments I made, so many doubts and frustrations. I almost started to think that learning Mandarin has always been as simple and comfortable as it is now. My Mandarins still sucks, but I never thought I'd get to where I am now -- using a pair of headphones to eavesdrop on Chinese life, just coasting along grabbing words and phrases throughout my American day. It's stress-free even knowing the road has no end goal. Every weekend I read stuff I like, every weekday I listen to that stuff when I can. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4976 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 95 of 107 26 October 2014 at 4:11pm | IP Logged |
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Way to go, BobbyE! I am also doing things I like in Mandarin, even though I am far from being able to use the
language or to understand something I watch. It is really nice to realize you've overcome the main frustrations regarding Mandarin, because then you identify yourself more and more with the language and feel more confident. I am still waiting for some noticeable progress and I am glad you reached it! With Mandarin diversity is always welcome. I tend to do more what works better, but I do other activities too because they all contribute to the improvements. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4498 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 96 of 107 26 October 2014 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
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It's great to see another success story here. Congratulations on all you've accomplished so far! From the point of
view of most people (especially English-speakers in the US), what you did is often considered to be impossible, but you did it anyway. Keep up the good work, and thanks for sharing with us! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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