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Hitchhiker’s guide to the Chinese Galaxy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4960 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 217 of 230 13 December 2015 at 6:28am | IP Logged |
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Learning to SPEAK Chinese is definitely the steepest personal enterprise I have ever undertaken.
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| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4960 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 218 of 230 16 December 2015 at 11:16am | IP Logged |
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Major Milestone 11
I have just completed the BOYA Chinese Level 4 book. A total of 16 units, each with about 50 vocabulary entries and 4-5 grammar notes. I have not done all the exercises, I will do those as a for of review in future visits to the book. I am in Lesson 10 of BOYA Chinese Level 3, I hope to complete this book by early January. Even though I was placed in Level 4 classes, I knew for a fact there were probably many vocab entries and grammar notes in Level 3 book I would find of good use. Indeed it has been the case. And just the intense amount of reading has helped, I can read much faster now. My constant listening of dialogues and texts has also improved my listening ability. After a rough week last week, I feel I am experiencing one of those "sudden" jumps. These books are considered a semester of college study, so in one semester I will have done two volumes. Level 3 and 4 are considered "pre-intermediate". I plan to start on Level 5 in the next couple of days. I also plan to borrow Level 2 from a friend, to cover any lose vocab entries from that volume, and as a form of review for more fundamental grammar structures, where I think there is no such thing as "too much" review. - - - - I also finished a few weeks ago HSK Level 4 book, and this week I have started Level 5. I plan to do level 5 book in the winter break of the university, while everyone else is back home. I will just keep punching away at this. Next semester I can then jump a level to 6, which is the highest level for foreigners. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4960 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 219 of 230 16 December 2015 at 1:15pm | IP Logged |
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Unit Completion Entry 96
Cycle Three (Lessons 27-50) Book 4 Lesson 43 New Practical Chinese Reader 12.16.2015 - - - - I really had a rough week and half with some personal problems due to carelessness, so I didn't do much of NPCR, plus heavy studying for tests in early December at the university. I have finished the first 5 lessons of Book 4, with lesson 44 being review. So I am halfway through the book. At the pace of a lesson a week I should be done by the 1st of February. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4960 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 220 of 230 29 December 2015 at 3:51pm | IP Logged |
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I am entering what I quasi-jokingly call the Funny-Tragic phase. What do I mean?
I mean that as I am reading Chinese, and hearing Chinese speak, I am finally starting to feel "quite" comfortable with the word order, which in Chinese probably throws most westerners for a massive long-term loop once you get past the very straight-forward (from our linguistic perspective) "Wo shi HuoXing ren" (I am a martian). While this SOV order is a huge help for all beginners and those that just wish to achieve tourist Mandarin, once you get past that, it really REALLY gets weird. And the weirdness doesn't go away without massive resistance and endless frustration. Crying nights, punctuated by some massive sighs of relief when you have some "aha!" moment. Slowly, I am feeling those "aha!" moments in terms of the word order are going away, they just don't happen as frequently, and I can follow longer sentences and dialogues without completely wrecking my nerves and neurons for 24 hours after just 20 minutes of intense listening. The most important part for me (it may be different for others), is the huge difficulty I have had with the left-branching of relative clauses in Chinese. For a long time when reading, it would just completely confuse me, lose me behind. I had to read things four or five times to figure out that an entire line of text was a relative clause of some far-off noun. Something like this (when reading a grammar explanation): "What follows this key word is describing the expected or before-hand imagined conclusion or resolution in accordance with that situation, occasion, or premise, the phrase." Got it? Just put "the phrase" after "is" and that nonsense makes complete sense: "What follows this key word is the phrase describing the expected or before-hand imagined conclusion or resolution in accordance with that situation, occasion, or premise." The head noun "the phrase" in Chinese has the entire relative clause (which as you can see can get quite long) to it's LEFT, opposite of English. This is very hard to get used to. Especially when you are reading it in characters which add to the confusion since reading characters in itself is a major challenge. Anyway... to make it short, in the last two weeks I am noticing how I can predict a relative clause well before the head noun appears, which is greatly aiding my reading and comprehension speed. It is a significant milestone for me so I wanted to log it. Speaking is still hard, but I am not too worried. Because I focus so much and complete tone accuracy, I still hesitate when I can't be sure about the tone. To be honest, most foreigners and fellow students don't seem to care much about tone accuracy. I'm just keeping it real, their tones are not that great. Of course not everyone, but most. I think most people in the rush to gain fluency just give up or neglect this. I refuse. Then I also try to constantly incorporate new vocabulary and not get complacent because a basic vocabulary can get you far. I push myself to use less common words, more specific ones. Of course many times I utterly fail because the usage is all wrong or the situation not right, but slowly you learn and eventually know when to use one word, and people are deeply impressed. 放弃 vs 抛弃 is a recent example where I properly distinguished usage and the listener was incredibly impressed. I don't know, if from a foreigner learning Chinese, this is a good thing or an indictment on our futility! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4960 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 221 of 230 06 January 2016 at 4:09am | IP Logged |
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Anyway I digressed to the point of forgetting to say why it's the Funny-Tragic phase.
This is because in prior experience, this is the beginning of the stage when reading and listening the target language become quite a big easier in fact, almost comfortable. The grammar and word order seem to become much more sensible and it makes you think you are finally really getting it down. You feel you are the gal! (or man, err, boy, in my case?) Then you speak. And it's funny, people laugh, and its tragic, because you feel so frustrated by this dichotomy. Why when you find the language making sense and the grammar and syntax sinking in, can't you mimic this when outputting speech? It is the stage when you utter something and almost immediately know "darn it, I should know better than to say it like that!". Whereas before it was not like this at all, simply because you had no clue at all whether or not what you just uttered actually made any sense at all. I guess it's the stage when you start developing that internal "language sense", but from sensing right to saying right is a long road to travel. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4960 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 222 of 230 06 January 2016 at 4:10am | IP Logged |
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Ok so here we go.
The 1st semester of my year at a Chinese university is over. I would say that overall it has been a great experience. The teaching itself is spotty, some good, engaging teachers, some simply too mechanical. I will say however all of them seemed to enjoy teaching to foreigners and appeared to enthusiastically try to teach us. That is a good mark in itself. I say "here we go" because starting tomorrow my winter recess begins, all the way to basically March. This two-month period I am all on my own. And that statement is actually literal: I will be one of the few who remains a significant time on campus, while 95% of both Chinese and foreign students return home (the foreigners most have one semester stays). For some time I had marked a proverbial "X" on this period. It is when I intend to launch a massive strike on the Chinese language, linguistic "shock and awe". I am going all out here, I will study intensively the textbooks and the grammar and vocabulary terms... but more importantly, I will be doing massive amounts of input: reading and listening. All day, every day. Reading over and over again, listening to the audio CDs, I will do passive listening with Chinese television on at all non-study times. I will for the first time do significant extensive reading along with intensive bursts (before I simply could not do extensive reading: Chinese script precludes usage of this tool until you have learned maybe 2,000 characters). My computer and phone will be based on Chinese. I will for the first time do shadowing of dialogues from a textbook that is specifically designed for oral, everyday language. I will use index cards for the first time in language learning (Anki seems obvious. I will use index cards to learn 成语，俗语 - these are the old proverbs and modern sayings, as well as other 4 or 5 syllable adjectives or words Chinese seems to have in abundance). I will also use rote: memorize a book of basic dialogues from a variety of situations. Rote has its place when it is targeted and specific. Even when walking to the store I will have audio in my head listening. In terms of the textbooks I will just eat through chapters, I will study intensively the words and grammar, but soon move on. If I forget, fine. I will just keep going up the levels because I have found that trying to ace a chapter and not moving forward is bad strategy. You keep going and learn new things from new chapters, and forget older ones. Then you GO BACK and do it a second time. It does wonders for me. Basically I will be using all the tricks in my language learning arsenal and borrowing some new ones (for me) from others: spaced repetition, shadowing, and targeted rote of short dialogues. What I will not do in this period, is intentionally seeking speaking opportunities. Of course I will talk to Chinese when needed or fancied, but it will be natural. When spring arrives, and this massive input period I am planning is over, my next step is to go out talk, and talk, and talk, and talk... to activate all the massive input. I may well burn out, but I will not quit. I think this period will decide whether I can reach solid B2 in Chinese the rest of my stay (up to September 2016). Click that seat belt, brain! - -- -- -- - The Winter Hybernation Hyperlearning has begun. I finished my last final for the university half an hour ago, so now I will relax and get something to eat. Early in the afternoon I will start this project. In the following 7 week period I have decided I will try to post a daily list of goals on this log on the night before, and then afterwards post what I actually achieved on that day. Hopefully this form of public pillorying will keep me motivated through the rough weeks ahead, the ones after the enthusiasm of the first couple of weeks wears off and the pressure or mental toll mounts. I have tons of motivation, but given the work load that awaits me, maybe I still need a bit of peer pressure. Because it is only a half day and I don't want to throttle too much after this week full of exams, I will take it "easy" today. My goals for today are: BOYA CHINESE Book 3 pre-intermediate: complete lesson 14. (this is below my actual level, so it is mainly review though there are always new words and some grammar patterns I was not familiar with) HSK 5 prep-book: complete lesson 2 (I have already worked on this lesson last week a couple of times) In the evening I will review some radicals, which I have not done in some time. That's it for Day 1. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4960 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 223 of 230 08 January 2016 at 3:43am | IP Logged |
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Boya Book 3, lesson 14: completed
HSK 5 prep book lesson 2: completed radical review: not completed** ** However, I reviewed nicely lesson 1 of HSK 5 prep-book and studied the vocabulary of lesson 3. I also finally started ANKI cards for 4-5 syllable expressions, sayings, and proverbs (only four cards though, hahaha. I am feeling my way through the program which was also just downloaded). So in fact I ended up doing more than I thought. Day 1: success! - - - - Day 2 goals: - BOYA CHINESE Book 3 pre-intermediate: complete lesson 15. - HSK 5 prep-book: work on Lesson 3 - Spoken Chinese series Elementary level Book 2: review lessons 12-16 (already have done them once), work on lessons 16-20 (this level is very easy, almost all vocabulary and grammar are known to me. I am using this series to focus on the expressions, which it has in abundance, to enrich my oral output and also make my speech more genuine and colloquial. Also I will use it to do shadowing of the male-voiced dialogues. So while easy lessons, there is still work). - Review some radicals - Review my typed notes from my Skype sessions with my tutor - Add to Anki when new terms that qualify appear in my studies 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4960 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 224 of 230 08 January 2016 at 3:44am | IP Logged |
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- BOYA CHINESE Book 3 lesson 15: completed
- HSK 5 prep-book lesson 3: completed grammar, reading, in depth-vocab comparison, and collocation vocabulary sections - Spoken Chinese series Book 2 review 12-16: completed - Spoken Chinese series Book 2 lessons 16-20: completed - Review some radicals: NOT completed - Review my typed notes from my Skype sessions with my tutor: completed As I am writing this I am still working on reviewing Spoken chinese lessons 12-16, as I tend to do any reviews of studied material before bedtime. It was a good day, I wasn't 100% up to it but I would say 90%, so no big challenges getting through. The HSK Lesson was loaded with grammar and words though, took me some time to get through. The example sentences were unusually loaded with unfamiliar words or new uses of old words (切 fourth tone, that's a new one as I only knew first tone use). I did not complete one task, is OK. I think I am giving myself a schedule that is possible to do but "full and a little plus" effort, so if I fall just a bit short is OK. Shoot for the moon.... Day 2: success! - - - - Day 3 Goals: - BOYA CHINESE Book 3 pre-intermediate: complete lesson 16. (END OF BOOK) - HSK 5 prep-book: complete Lesson 3 - Spoken Chinese series Elementary level Book 2: review lessons 16-20 - Review some radicals (finally I'll get to it???) - Review my typed notes from my Skype sessions with my tutor - extensive listening (60 to 90 minutes: probably listen through the BOYA CHINESE book 3 reading sections as a form of review since I will finish the book. I need to up my audio input as first two days were mostly reading and working through textbook lessons.) - New Practical Chinese reader: begin review of lessons 39-43 (due to finals and Christmas and New Years the good old NPCR got sidelined. Time to bring it back) This seems like a challenging schedule. We'll see how it goes. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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