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Kc’s language log - ZH, NDL, RUS | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kc2012 Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 4274 days ago 44 posts - 65 votes  Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Dutch, Mandarin, Russian | Message 1 of 13 12 January 2015 at 2:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi everyone.
This is my first language log on HTLAL. I've decided to start this log as a way of tracking my progress in the languages I'm learning and a way to (hopefully) motivate me more to study. So first a little context. Right now I'm living and working in Beijing and that's why Chinese will be a top priority for me! I've been here nearly 5 months already but my Chinese is still at a fairly basic level. I can function in everyday tasks and I have no problems being out and about on my own, I can have simple conversations and I can understand a lot more than I can produce (normal, I guess). Seeing as the last few months have been an adjustment period for me, I haven't actively studied as much as I'd have liked. Most of my Chinese has been picked up through friends and co-workers. My plan for Chinese will be to study the following courses - Assimil (already half way through), Teach yourself, and I will choose two more. I then plan to listen to podcasts daily, as I have much free time when I'm on the bus or subway. I also plan to attend some language exchanges here in Beijing to get more spoken practice (although opportunities for speaking are everywhere - I use this language almost daily). With regards to the other two languages (Dutch and Russian), these will be of less priority and I'll be focusing less on courses and more on listening and reading comprehension through blogs, books and podcasts. I already speak Afrikaans so understanding written Dutch is fairly easy for me (with a few exceptions) this is why I will be focusing mostly on native resources for dutch (blogs and internet news sights, LingQ resources too) I'm also going to be watching various Dutch TV series (I've started on Flikken Maastricht and Overspel already) Seeing as Dutch pronunciation is quite (a lot) different to Afrikaans, understanding the spoken language is a challenge for me - this is why I will be trying my best to tune my ear into Dutch. I may watch some episodes without subtitles and then again with subtitles (or the other way around - haven't decided yet). Without subtitles I still understand what's going on, I may just miss out on key details (which can be annoying!). Russian is a language I put a lot of effort into a couple of years ago, but since then my level has dropped quite a lot, seeing as I have hardly done anything with the language! However I plan to keep it ticking over by listening to podcasts and reading. I'll use LingQ and a few books I bought here in Beijing - they're actually university books for Chinese speakers learning Russian! But seeing as the books are written almost entirely in Russian, they will work perfectly as a means of improving my reading comprehension. Seeing as I'll be working a full time job I won't have too much time for language learning, but as I said I'll try to maximize my time by taking advantage of those tedious bus and subway rides. The majority of my free time will be allocated to Chinese, while the rest to Russian and Dutch (maybe when I want to relax I'll do some chilled reading in Russian or watch an episode or two of Dutch TV series - we'll see) Edited by Kc2012 on 12 January 2015 at 2:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kc2012 Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 4274 days ago 44 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Dutch, Mandarin, Russian | Message 2 of 13 14 January 2015 at 9:30am | IP Logged | ||
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So I'm finding the Assimil how to write Chinese characters (or whatever the name of the book is) quite good. The characters which you learn are the ones from the Chinese with ease course and a lot of them are very useful ones to know - especially in conversational terms. From that book alone I'm able to have some simple written chats in Chinese - Usually I have to translate some of the replies seeing as my character pool isn't that big yet - but usually I can reply and even if I have to throw in a couple English words, I'm OK with that!! What I really need to focus more on is speaking. I haven't had time to arrange any tutor sessions yet, that will have to wait till next month at least but I did attend a short language exchange which was quite fun, although I ended up speaking more English than Chinese (goddamnit Kc!).
I've started listening to LingQ podcasts for Russian and Dutch at the Intermediate 2 and advanced 1 level. I'm going through the ones I did for Russian a couple years ago first just to refresh my memory. I haven't had much trouble so far which shows I still remember most of the vocabulary I learned in Russian, although producing it would be whole different story! I've never studied Dutch in my life, but seeing as knowing Afrikaans already gives me 90% of the vocab I need, understanding the written language isn't much trouble (I just have to get used to the grammar, which is a bit harder). I've decided to sign up on DuoLingo for Dutch.I've never used it before and I don't know whether it's going to help me or not, but we'll see - more about that in future posts I guess. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kc2012 Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 4274 days ago 44 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Dutch, Mandarin, Russian | Message 3 of 13 26 January 2015 at 6:39am | IP Logged | ||
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So I recently visited one of my favourite bookstores in Beijing and bought a copy of
the 'New Concept Chinese' textbook. They have four levels which are supposed to take you up to HSK level 4 (or CEFRL B2). I chose to start with the 2nd book, as I think the first would be a bit too easy for me. I plan to finish Assimil Chinese with ease to try and consolidate my existing knowledge of Chinese and then I will begin with this book (after which I should, according to the book, be at around a B1 level in Chinese). If I feel that I've made good progress then I plan to carry on with the series and buy the 3rd and 4th book (which are supposed to further you knowledge and bring you up to a solid B2). Now a quick summary of how I plan to tackle Chinese. I have chosen to use 4 separate resources. 1. Assimil, including the character book (of which I am already halfway through), 2. New Concept Chinese (this will be my main coursebook, if it proves to be effective), 3. Teach Yourself (Just as a supplement, will begin this same time as NCC, after Assimil), 4. Basic Chinese a Grammar and Workbook (I will use this as a grammar reference). I will also be using podcasts and/or Pimsleur (not sure yet) for listening practice as well as LingQ for reading comprehension and character pool building. Once I have more characters, I intend to buy some graded readers and let those take over from Lingq as my main source of reading material and practice. (Right now Lingq is better because if I don't know the meaning of certain characters, it's easy to look it up). Meanwhile I've continued with watching Dutch series and I think I'm slowly getting used to the Dutch pronunciation/accent. So, onwards and upwards. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4150 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 13 26 January 2015 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||
You might want to look into this. The actual CEFR equivalent of HSK4 is closer to A2, than B2. B2 would require HSK6 (according to those sources; but it seems fairly reasonable not to expect C1 in a "highly developed" language with rather few loanwords/cognates, having studied just around 5000 words). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4967 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 5 of 13 27 January 2015 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I suggest you save Basic Chinese: a grammar and workbook for a pre-intermediate stage, when you wlll already be familiar with the vocabulary and so you'll be able to use the book mainly for the grammar while still learning the occasional work. At least after completing Assimil, I'd say. I wouldn't spend much time on a TY-like textbook. You could work quickly through it, like one lesson a day, only to get an overview of the language so you will meet some content in Assimil and the others with a slight idea of what's going on. Just don't let such textbooks slow you down because they are not actually aimed at learning the language, they are like enhanced phrasebooks.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kc2012 Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 4274 days ago 44 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Dutch, Mandarin, Russian | Message 6 of 13 30 January 2015 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great, thanks for the replies! Ezy Ryder I have come across these findings before, however I'm going
to stick with this book for now as it contains some really useful material (it's all aimed at language and vocab that a foreigner in China is likely to use) however it is slightly light on content (although I don't like textbooks to be too dense either!) so I'm thinking I may be able to work through this book quite quickly and then maybe switch to something with more content (we'll see how it goes) Expugnator that's a great suggestion :) if you have any suggestions on other resources or anything in particular which you found good, let me know! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kc2012 Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 4274 days ago 44 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Dutch, Mandarin, Russian | Message 7 of 13 07 February 2015 at 5:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Right so! I've been continuing with Assimil volume two, I'm on lesson 52, and I've started on New
Concept Chinese Book 2, I'm on lesson 6. My thoughts on New Concept is that unfortunately although it's book two, it's a little easy for me. Most of the content in the lessons I've done I already know, however I have learnt quite a few new words and I wouldn't say it's been useless at all! So hopefully it's gets a little harder because I plan to finish this book asap. Also, everytime I finish a lesson of new concept or assimil, I will add all the new words I've learned to my flash card app, studydroid, with example sentences to be reviewed at a later stage. I've also decided to add to my Chinese goals in that I want to listen to 100 podcasts and watch 100 movies/tv shows this year. So far I'm on 2 podcasts and 2 movies (Ip Man 2 and Chinese Zodiac) Things are going well, I'm averaging just over 90 mins of study time each day and about the same in listening time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kc2012 Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 4274 days ago 44 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Dutch, Mandarin, Russian | Message 8 of 13 08 February 2015 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Just an update on what resources I've decided to go with for Chinese and what I plan
to carry on with: Right now I'm doing: Sit down study: - Assimil Chinese - New Concept Chinese Book 2 Listening Practice: - Chinese 101 podcasts - Busuu podcasts - Pimsleur Mandarin Chinese - LingQ Other: - Chinese movies - CCTV Shows 1 person has voted this message useful |
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