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Written Cantonese Spoken Japanese 鵲TAC14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4054 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 9 of 19 19 January 2014 at 5:01am | IP Logged |
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Studies
Hit some nice milestones these past 2 weeks. Firstly I finished going through my first pass of McNaughton's Reading and Writing Chinese, which was a very quick pass through just to get a broad idea for how characters are constructed and the ways different radicals play in forming their meaning. Now I'm going through my second pass, this time I'll be doing 5 characters a day. This time around I'll be closing the book before I start writing each character to see if I can write it from short term memory, and then I'll check my work and keep re-writing it until it looks recently decent with only my past mess-ups for reference. This will be a slower more intensive pass, and though I don't think I'll have all 1000 characters perfectly memorized after going through, I think I'll be pretty familiar with most of them. I'm also hoping this will help me start developing some automatically with stroke order, so when I come across new characters I'll be able to easily write them. With my Anki Deck I finished the ~500 Level 1 compound words from Cantodict and there ~70 example sentences with audio that came with it. Currently I'm going through FSI cards that I made from the transcribed dialogs some people posted on the CantoDict forums. These build up, so I'll be practicing individual word before practicing them in sentences. Overall while my studies are moving fairly slowly, I think I'm building a really strong base and I think that will help a lot when I focus more time on the language later in the year. Really happy that grammar and sentences have been re-introduced into my studies, it feels really good to be speaking the language again. Also totally stoked that Assimil is releasing a Cantonese course later this year. Yay Cantonese! Movies Unfortunately I didn't watch any Chinese films these past 2 weeks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4054 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 10 of 19 04 February 2014 at 6:31pm | IP Logged |
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Nothing big, but I'm done with 100 characters on my second wave of Reading and Writing Chinese. FSI dialogs in Anki are going well, I looked at the stats and if I stay on pace I should finish them within the next 2 months or so. So that leaves me with the question of what to do next with Anki?
The decks I have on standby are Cantodict Level 2 Characters, Words, and Sentences. Which is 1500 characters total and 4000 words. I of course want to do this eventually, but I worry I'll suffer major burnout from going through the 1000+ new characters all at once as happened to me previously. I found it most effective for me to study characters first and then to review them in words and sentences for reinforcement. But this would require a very long period of character only study. Still with my waves through the Reading and Writing Chinese characters and the vocab I get from FSI dialogs it might not be so taxing. The other main option is to start building a deck out of the Arizona Critical Language series, I'd have to carve out time in my routine to build the deck, but it would also be a really effective way to learn, because I would be studying lots of words and sentences with native audio. And if I feel if I could go through this whole series with Anki, going to the Level 2 Cantodict characters would be much more comfortable. I also have a deck of 200-300ish food items with audio, which might make a fun buffer after FSI dialogs. [Alternate Prediction: In 2 weeks I come back complaining about how hard the FSI dialogs get and how I had to slow down the number of anki cards I study per day to keep up.] Edited by YnEoS on 04 February 2014 at 6:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4054 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 11 of 19 04 April 2014 at 2:27am | IP Logged |
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Haven't been updating this log as much because there hasn't been much to report. So far just maintaining my Anki reps. Still doing my FSI buildup + dialogs deck, cards are getting longer so I've slowed down the pace of new cards to keep my average daily study time to 20-30 minutes.
Seems like the cards I'm working through are introducing some new grammar ideas that I hadn't encountered before in my past audio studies. So far I seem to be getting the gist but I'm mostly just trying to notice patterns. I think I'm also starting to get a feel for particles which I didn't even want to try and remember before. I've been really eager to pick up my Cantonese textbooks again and resume full time study, now that I can read several hundred characters and have learned a lot more sentence patterns. Still my routine with my other languages is keeping me busy, so for now I'll just continue slowly building my knowledge of written Cantonese brick my brick. Also absolutely ecstatic that Assimil is releasing a Cantonese course sometime this year. Edited by YnEoS on 04 April 2014 at 2:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4054 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 12 of 19 19 April 2014 at 4:59pm | IP Logged |
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Hope my Chinese teammates don't mind too much if I start updating some of my Japanese wanderlust here in addition to my Cantonese studies. I think it makes more sense here than in my other log, because it's somewhat related to my Cantonese studies as I'll get around to later. Anyways hopefully a few students of Chinese are nipponophiles as well, but I'll try not to do many Japanese only updates.
There's a chance I might drop it in a few weeks, but assuming I keep up with it I'm re-titling by log Written Cantonese Spoken Japanese. Japanese is really high on my list of languages I want to learn and in many ways it was my entryway into a lot of my interests today. As a kid I watched lots of anime and old godzilla movies on the sci-fi channel. Then in high school I listened to a lot of JRock, and my interest in film studies was really sparked by watching Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai for the first time. Japan is by a long mile one of the most important languages in film studies, they have had an incredible output of high quality films going all the way back to the silent era. Japan also plays a huge role in the story of Hong Kong cinema, in the 1960s many Hong Kong filmmakers looked up to the Japanese film industry for how to improve the technical standards of their films. And soon many Japanese cinematographers were brought in to work in Hong Kong to share their experience. There's also a good number of Japanese/Hong Kong co-productions throughout film history, and many examples of Hong Kong films casting actors who were more popular in Japan in films that were aimed at more international markets. The reason I've held off on Japanese up until now is because it makes use of Chinese characters and I wanted to make sure that I associated Chinese characters first and foremost with their Cantonese pronunciation before learning any additional languages that utilize them. But the weather is getting warmer where I live and I enjoy walking and going through a Pimsleur course at night, and Japanese is really the only Pimsleur course I have much interest in anymore, I decided to give it a start. I figure there shouldn't be any interference between spoken Japanese and spoken Cantonese. And if I'm not mistaken Japanese words tend to have more syllables and Japanese pitch accent plays less of a role in listening comprehension compared to Cantonese tones. So I think studying Japanese primarily through audio will be more feasible than it was with Cantonese tones. I'm not going to avoid written Japanese 100%, but from what I've noticed so far in my studies, there's a huge difference between hearing audio and looking down at the same sentence written out, and generating the aural component of a sentence just from seeing it written alone. So I plan on using written Japanese as an aid for aural comprehension, but I don't plan on doing any reading by itself until my Cantonese reaches a higher level. -------------------------------------------------------- Now that I have 2 languages in this log I'm going to be a bit more organized with how I update everything. I think for Cantonese my progress will be more clear if I show which Anki decks I've completed and what one I'm currently working on, so I'll start doing that from now on. I'll use * to show decks I've completed and am currently reviewing and - for decks I'm still working through. Cantonese Anki *SFUSD 350 most common characters w/ Cantonese audio *Cantodict Level 1 Compound Words *Cantodict Level 1 Sentances w/ Cantonese audio -FSI Dialog Build Ups Thoughts: I've upped my Anki pace to 8 new cards a day and I've got about 130 cards left in my FSI deck, so hopefully I'll get through them soon. Planning on starting up course study for Cantonese again soon. Japanese Current Tools: Pimsleur I Lesson 3 Thoughts: So far this has been lots of fun. I've noticed Pimsleur can get very difficult with non indo-european languages, so I'm also shadowing some early Assimil lessons for synergies and eventually I'll probably start working through Michel Thomas as well. Edited by YnEoS on 19 April 2014 at 5:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4054 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 13 of 19 03 May 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged |
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Cantonese
Anki *SFUSD 350 most common characters w/ Cantonese audio *Cantodict Level 1 Compound Words *Cantodict Level 1 Sentances w/ Cantonese audio *FSI Dialog Build Ups -Cantodict Level 2 Compound Words Cantodict Level 2 Sentances w/ Cantonese audio I finished working through my FSI dialog deck, now I'm working through Cantodict Level 2 compound words, which is around 3000 cards. This deck is probably going to take me quite a while to work through, aiming to have it finished before the end of the year, but it could extend beyond that if I can't keep pace. Good news is that after finishing it, that should definitely be enough to put me at a very solid Intermediate level in Cantonese. Also going to start working through my Cantonese courses again now, since I feel I have a solid base finally, and also because it will be a long time before I get back to audio cards, so I want to make sure I keep getting input. Japanese Courses Pimsleur I - Lesson 11 Michel Thomas Foundations - Lesson 2 At the moment my Japanese study is limited to when I go for walks, so I've skipped a few days due to bad weather. Luckily with Pimsleur it's pretty hard to forget stuff once I've learned it so I've been slowly working my way forward. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4054 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 14 of 19 23 May 2014 at 4:31am | IP Logged |
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Cantonese
Courses Pimsleur I FSI Basic Course I & II Anki *SFUSD 350 most common characters w/ Cantonese audio *Cantodict Level 1 Compound Words *Cantodict Level 1 Sentances w/ Cantonese audio *FSI Dialog Build Ups -Cantodict Level 2 Compound Words Cantodict Level 2 Sentances w/ Cantonese audio Today I finished shadowing the last lesson of FSI Cantonese, I didn't go through the drill normally because a lot of them are clearly intended for classroom use and awkward to do outside that context. Overall I felt pretty comfortable with all the FSI content and feel I can move onto other material, though it might be worth returning to one day.. I really hope Assimil releases their Cantonese course soon since that seems like it would be ideal for my current level. In the meantime I think I need to focus on audio practice to compliment my Anki study of characters. So I'm probably going to be shadowing the older TY/Linguaphone course, which is a pretty short/easy course, and I'll start working through DLI again which is quite a long course and probably goes a good way past intermediate. Japanese Courses Pimsleur I - Lesson 27 Michel Thomas Foundations - Lesson 2 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4054 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 15 of 19 12 June 2014 at 10:45pm | IP Logged |
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Decided when I update now I'm going to include my stats for Anki to give a better idea of my progress, since my current decks are going to take me many months or over a year to complete
Cantonese Anki Stats Cards Learned: 6390/113488 (3 cards per note = 2130/4496 notes) Total Study Time: 70 Hours Anki Decks *SFUSD 350 most common characters w/ Cantonese audio *Cantodict Level 1 Compound Words *Cantodict Level 1 Sentances w/ Cantonese audio *FSI Dialog Build Ups -Cantodict Level 2 Compound Words Cantodict Level 2 Sentances w/ Cantonese audio Japanese Courses Pimsleur II - Lesson 2 Michel Thomas Foundations - Completed Due to weather and messy schedule my Japanese walks/routine have been quite uneven, so I spent several days completing Michel Thomas and reviewing the later lessons of Pimsleur I, which I wasn't 100% comfortable with. Now I feel like I have a really good command of the material to start moving through Pimsleur II Japanese so far has been really really enjoyable, and the synergies between Pimsleur, Michel Thomas, and some occasional Assimil shadowing have made learning relatively painless. Going to wait til Pimsleur gets more difficult again before I work through Michel Thomas Advanced. Edited by YnEoS on 12 June 2014 at 10:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4054 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 16 of 19 24 August 2014 at 9:25pm | IP Logged |
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Recently my Cantonese studies have really picked up. Reading Gabriel Wyner's book, Fluent Forever, gave me lots of ideas for improving my Cantonese flash cards and has really invigorated my study. I don't follow his method completely but it had some great ideas and research that I have applied to my usual routine.
In addition I've been finding tons of great Cantonese resources lately, of course the big thing is Assimi's new Cantonese course is out now. And I've found a few low level Cantonese parallel texts and audio I can start using. And most excitingly I found a movie with Cantonese subtitles and my level seems to be decent enough that I've been able to start studying Subs2SRS flash cards! 
Right now everything is in flux, but I'm definitely committing a lot more time and attention to Cantonese studies now that I have so many new tools at my disposal. I've also just generally gotten better at creating study tools for myself. I've been editing Cantonese courses since the very beginning of my language studies and I've been trying to find more efficient ways of doing so. I remember years ago I tried to make and Anki deck out of the Sydney Lau books and audio, but eventually gave up because the process was too time consuming. Now with a bit of creativity I'm almost finished copying down the first deck. At some point I may want to invest in some decent OCR software, but this doesn't really cost me too much time and transcribing takes fairly little attention so I'm able to listen to podcasts while doing so. 
Anyways its too soon to say how all this will effect my overall Cantonese progress, but I plan on writing more about this sometime in the not too distant future. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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