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Eric’s Mandarin Log (see post 1 for course list) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6196 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 33 of 141 21 August 2010 at 4:28am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for your post, Jason!
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| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6196 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 141 31 August 2010 at 5:43pm | IP Logged |
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I've been plugging away and have finished Pimsleur lessons 16 - 20. I'm having problems with Assimil, though. The lessons have a lot of new words that I am having troubling remembering and recognizing. I've listened to the dialogs so many times that I have the English running in my head instead of concentrating on the Mandarin. So I've decided to take a mini-break from it and continue with Pimsleur. I think the slow introduction of vocabulary with Pimsleur is really helpful when learning a completely different language like Mandarin. Edited by newyorkeric on 31 August 2010 at 5:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6196 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 35 of 141 15 September 2010 at 5:28pm | IP Logged |
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I've finished lesson 25 of Pimsleur. I've decided to just push through with Pimsleur and leave Assimil for later. I realized that with the little time I have for language study right now that it was too stressful to juggle the two. I'm more of a linear thinker anyway so I think this will work out better.
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| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6196 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 36 of 141 22 September 2010 at 5:08am | IP Logged |
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I've finished Pimsleur I! (There are 173 words in Pimsleur I by my count, if anyone is interested.) It feels like an accomplishment, even if it's just a small one. But I have noticed that when I re-listen to Assimil I'm understanding more easily so maybe something is starting to click inside my brain.
I'll spend some time on Assimil to finish volume I, and to give myself a change from Pimsleur, and then it's back to Pimsleur II... Edited by newyorkeric on 22 September 2010 at 6:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 budonoseito Pro Member United States budobeyondtechnRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5622 days ago 261 posts - 344 votes Studies: French, Japanese Personal Language Map | Message 37 of 141 22 September 2010 at 2:17pm | IP Logged |
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It is an accomplishment. Congratulations.
For French I am using Pimsleur and Assimil. Assimil can throw a lot of vocabulary at you in one lesson. Pimsleur does seem to build more gradually. I wish my library had Pimsleur Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6196 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 38 of 141 05 October 2010 at 2:43pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks budonoseito!
I've finished Chinese With Ease Volume I. I started using wordlists in advance of the lessons and that has helped a lot with all the extra vocab Assimil starts throwing at you as the course advances. I'll keep revising volume I while starting Pimsleur II. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6196 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 39 of 141 03 November 2010 at 3:39am | IP Logged |
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It's been a while since I updated this log. The reason is that I've decided to change my approach. I think Pimsleur and Assimil aren't bad, but I felt that I had to memorize everything, which was creating a lot of stress and removing the fun of learning. I felt like I needed a more textbook approach that builds up the material over time and has a lot of explanations. Now I'm using the DeFrancis series of books. I've had Beginning Chinese and Beginning Chinese Reader for a while, I've just been waiting for the audio material that I ordered from Seton Hall University.
The series is very interesting because it integrates conversation with characters in a very well though out way. Evidently DeFrancis spent years designing this course and it shows. It also has a lot of audio, 40 hours for the Beginning series. The way it works is that you first read a chapter from Beginning Chinese, which is in pinyin. It starts with a conversation and a list of vocabulary and follows with a number of drills on what was taught and on pronunciation. Then you do the accompanying chapter in Beginning Chinese Reader which introduces 10 (traditional) characters and words based on those characters and has a bunch of example sentences and conversations, all with audio. The text and character fonts are really beautiful, too. It's nice just looking at them! I finished the first chapter last night. I won't be able to get through a chapter a night so I will spread it over several days. I'm also using flashcards for the characters which I carry around during the day. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6196 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 141 04 November 2010 at 3:43am | IP Logged |
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I've worked through the first 6 chapters of BCR. The initial chapters are short. (There is about 5 minutes of audio in total for these chapters.) Later chapters are much longer as the number of characters available for conversations and texts increase.
So far the text has introduced 50 characters (chapter 6 is a review) and 26 combinations. I've made flashcards for the next 50 characters that I will learn while I work through the corresponding chapters in BC. Note: BC: Beginning Chinese BCR: Beginning Chinese Reader Edited by newyorkeric on 04 November 2010 at 3:44am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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