Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5119 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian
| Message 297 of 408 08 April 2014 at 10:14pm | IP Logged |
Great :D I can use Pera-pera
You guys keep suggesting cool new books and series for Chinese and I can barely do what
I'm scheduled to do! :)
1 person has voted this message useful
|
lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4227 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 298 of 408 09 April 2014 at 9:29am | IP Logged |
第12夜 was Ninibo's suggestion and I took the idea of 鬼吹灯 in Chinese-forums. That's what is so great with these forums: good/interesting/enticing ideas are all over the place. If only I had more time to test some more of them and go more in depth with more of them...
1 person has voted this message useful
|
lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4227 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 299 of 408 10 April 2014 at 9:50am | IP Logged |
What shall I read now? I've read a few pages in vol. 2 of the reader for Chinese third graders but, frankly, it's a bit boring, and in fact quite complicated. I've also read a few pages of "流星 蝴蝶 剑", a 武侠 novel written by 古龙. So far so good, it's not terribly complicated and it is interesting. But I hesitate to embark on a journey that will certainly take three to four months of reading - if I manage to read the entire novel, that is: because the first three pages were relatively easy, it does not mean that the rest of the book will be like that. In addition, there's been talk about a wuxia challenge in 2015, so I'd better spend the rest of 2014 preparing myself. Ah, we'll see.
I've spent three sessions trying to transcribe a ChinesePod upper intermediate lesson about the horoscope. It was extremely difficult for me and, even after much looping, slicing and slowing down thanks to the wonderful Swiss army knife that is Audacity, the final result is not exactly stellar. I reckon I could transcribe only about two thirds of the dialogue with any degree of certainty.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4227 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 300 of 408 22 April 2014 at 9:29am | IP Logged |
It's been an hectic week at work and at home, so I've had very little time for language learning. I was barely able to review flashcards. No Skritter (I have a backlog of over 400 reviews). Not a single second of listening exercises.
On the other hand, I was able to read a bit more of the wuxia novel "流星 蝴蝶 剑", by 古龙. I've read a bit every day except two days when I had zero time for Chinese. I'm now on page 74, and it's still relatively easy, with a modicum of effort and attention. I've written a write-up on Chinese Forums:
Link
Now the plot has thickened considerably and quite a few new characters have appeared but the book remains very entertaining on the whole.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6038 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 301 of 408 22 April 2014 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
lorinth wrote:
(I have a backlog of over 400 reviews). |
|
|
That's the reason I usually never completely learn what I need to learn from SRS. I'm good at setting them up but I neglect the reviewing part. It's good to know that making them is also a learning process!
1 person has voted this message useful
|
Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 3969 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin
| Message 302 of 408 22 April 2014 at 9:22pm | IP Logged |
Belated congratulations on reading 第12夜! I don't really read detective novels in languages I know better either, but I found that the mystery keeps me going even if I don't get everything.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4227 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 303 of 408 23 April 2014 at 9:27am | IP Logged |
Thanks for dropping by, Sunja and Ninibo.
Sunja wrote:
That's the reason I usually never completely learn what I need to learn from SRS. I'm good at setting them up but I neglect the reviewing part. It's good to know that making them is also a learning process |
|
|
I've discovered that, contrary to what I thought initially, you can do quite a lot of fine-tuning and tailoring with Skritter. I usually replace the "translation" field with French words and, as I use Skritter to study characters only (no compound words), I use the "mnemonic" field to put not only a mnemonic / a breakdown of components / some etymological info, but also all words from HSK lists (if any) or Patrick Zein's list that contain the said character.
@Ninibo: Actually, I have vol. 3 (the first page happens in some Middle-Eastern desert) sitting on my shelf, but I'm now too far in Gu Long's "流星 蝴蝶 剑" not to try and read it entirely. But it will take months...
1 person has voted this message useful
|
lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4227 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 304 of 408 24 April 2014 at 9:25am | IP Logged |
I've read 10 more pages of 古龙's "流星 蝴蝶 剑". I'm now somewhere in chapter 3/29, page 88/564. I've been preparing a write-up about chapter 2 that I intend to post on chinese-forum or here, or both.
Finally, I've restarted practicing listening. I was lucky to come across an easier upper intermediate ChinesePod podcast about 养热带鱼. It took me "only" half an hour or so of slicing and looping with Audacity to produce a satisfactory transcript of the 1 minute-dialogue without peeking at the original podcast transcript or at the vocab sheet. BTW, it seems the ChinesePod software has simply erased all my records of studied/unstudied lessons for the last 8 months, so I don't know where I stand now. As much as I love their podcasts and their teaching methods, I think their software (both the web interface and the Android app) are among the lousiest I've ever seen.
Edited by lorinth on 24 April 2014 at 9:29am
1 person has voted this message useful
|