What to study after Heisig

[zedar]

>> The 2nd book is not out yet and it probably still will take quiet some time to make.

Do you know for sure? I hope its out soon, and I cant see it being too difficult to produce after the first one. All the hard work of training the method is in the first 500 characters of the first book. The second book should be slimmer overall and mostly just have hints on radical introduction and lists of characters building on each other.

[HerrPetersen]

I do not know for sure, but I remember the first rumors about RS/TH to be out "soon" around summer 2007. Also the proofreading and printing process took much longer than I expected, I think it was another 6 (!) or so month.

[HerrPetersen]

Hi Zedar,

I have found something, that seems - to me at least - pretty much perfect for post-Heisig-studies:

http://www.iknow.co.jp/series/3334

It introduces 2700 hanzi in 10 lists à ca. 250 Hanzi. You probably learned most of the Hanzi in lists 1-6 or so in terms of Heisig-keyword already.

The lists provide at least one example sentence containing words containing the Hanzi in question. It provides excellent audio-recordings that go along with it (also a pic - which adds some fun). And to top it all: you can even (legally!) download all the stuff into anki via - this anki-plugin

http://ichi2.net/anki/wiki/Plugins#ImportyouriKnowitems.2Candgenerallists

(however I did not quiet manage to get sentences into my deck - but a fix of my brain or the import script is underway)

.

As I am kinda in the same boat as you are in (I also have lots of "dormant"-Heisig hanzi in my head) , I will go forth with this after studying all my new cards in anki (which should be done in a weeks work - can't wait!)

Edited February 17, 2009 at 09:54 AM by HerrPetersen

[zedar]

Wow thanks HerrPetersen, this looks likes exaclty what I need at this stage.

Im happy to keep using mnemo and start with anki if it means I can work offline and don't have to do data entry

[HerrPetersen]

Yeah - it really is cool stuff. If you want to keep using mnemosyne (and mnemosyne only) you should be able to use anki's export to txt function and import the stuff to mnemosyne.

On the other hand it might be a good idea to check out anki to form an opinion on which one you like better an then make a final decision.

Anyhow - can you post, if you manage to import sentences into anki? So far I have failed.

EDIT: I managed to import sentences with the new plugin. However I seem to not be able to *only* load sentences. But this is not a big deal since it creates two models, one for vocab, one for sentences, so deleting the vocab model should do the trick.

Also be sure to punch in "en" for your language, I made the mistake and typed in "zh-CN" since I figuered the plugin was asking what language I want to *study* and not what language I want to *study in*.

Edited February 19, 2009 at 02:42 PM by HerrPetersen

[spiff]

For those currently using Heisig Book 1, I thought I'd mention that I recently asked the publisher about publication dates for Book 2, and they said that they already have the book in stock at their Pennsylvania warehouse. My query was about Simplified but they seem to be publishing both in tandem, so perhaps they have Traditional as well.

I'm 2/3rds of the way through book 1 and finding it very effective when paired with anki. The only thing I find a little dispiriting is looking at, say, those smart.fm sentences and translating 他們的女兒很可愛 as 'He..[something]..of..woman..[something]..very..can..love'. But I suppose with this method you've got to focus on the long game - building a solid foundation of hanzi before beginning to put them together into multi-character words and sentences.

[zedar]

Hi Spiff,

Great to hear the second book shouldn't be far away.

Ive studied similar to you, with heisig simplified and SRS (mnemosyne) and found it to be very effective.

The method is great at remembering the writing, and approximate meaning of characters, but as your finding its not aimed at reading words.

他們 的 女兒 很 可愛

Are you studying reverse? The reason I ask is..

Sometimes reading I recognize a character but just can't recall its meaning, the book says reverse should come naturally over time and not be studied directly using the method so I have stuck to this. However I finished the first 1500 6 weeks ago, and have been using SRS every day and am having a hard time seeing improvement in reading speed and meaning.

I'm wondering if I should add reverse cards and start studying them to improve recognition speed.

[imron]

If you want to see an improvement in reading speed and recognition, then you should practice those things. These things might come naturally over time, but I don't see any harm in giving them a little push if that's what you want.

To improve my reading speed, what I do is select a passage of text - this can be anything from 100 characters to a few thousand characters. Make sure it is something that is at your Chinese level. Nothing slows reading down like not understanding something. Go over the passage slowly, making sure you understand the meaning of every word and sentence, looking up and learning the ones you don't know - obviously you want to keep this to a minimum, hence the importance of selecting the right text. If you find the text is above your level, then you need to find a different passage. Now get a stopwatch (most mobile phones have them). Time yourself reading the same passage again at your normal reading speed. Calculate your reading speed in characters per minute (cpm = characters / seconds * 60). Let's say it came out to 100 cpm. Set yourself a target goal of 110 cpm and now read the same passage again but purposefully try to read it faster. Note any places that you got stuck on, or slowed you down and go over them closely until you are sure that they won't slow you down the next time. Repeat the process until you can read the passage at your target speed. Once you can do that, switch to a new passage of text and repeat the process. Once you can reach your target level on a new passage of text the first time you read it, set your target higher (say 120 cpm), and begin everything again.

The keys to this are:
*Selecting material at the right level - doing this sort of exercise is not about learning new words/characters, it's about improving the reading speed of things you already know. You don't want to be bogged down by unfamiliar words and sentence structures, so choosing the right material is key.
*Timing yourself - having empirical evidence about your current reading speed is vital to helping you set realistic targets. It also helps show you the progress you are making, which can be a useful motivational tool when you find this sort of repetitive process bores you to tears.
*Set small, easy to obtain targets for improvement - 10% increases in speed are usually quite easy to reach. This adds up quite quickly, and after regular practice, you'll find that you've doubled your reading speed.
*Keep using new material - this shows that your actual reading speed is improving, rather than you just being familiar with the same passage of text.
*Regular practice - You're better off doing 20 mins a day everyday, rather than 3 hours once a week - use something like 100% (which I developed) to help track and monitor progress.

To give you a gauge for the kind of speeds you should be looking at reaching, a native speaker on average typically reads anywhere from 300-700 cpm. For the old HSK Advanced, you needed to be reading at around 200-250 cpm just to be able to read all the questions.  For the new HSK6 you need to be reading at around 170 cpm just to be able to read everything.

[HerrPetersen]

I found, that when learning material (e.g sentences from smart.fm) your ability to read the vocab contained in these sentences comes quiet natural. For speeding things up, imron's tips are probably gold.

Maybe the smart.fm sutffis a little too hard though, for someone who is a complete newbie. In this case the "Assimil Chinese with Ease" is a good option to start out. I cut out around 1000 audio-sentences which start out from level 0 (aka ni3 hao3 ma) - if you have the book (Assimil) and are interested in having those just contact me via pm.

Other than that the lists from smart.fm have one great advantage for Heisig-learners: you can check each list, you want to learn, for unknown Hanzi, learn those Hanzi Heisig-style and then go on to actually learn the list. Here a link to a thread with an excel-sheet that finds unknown Hanzi:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/20159-creating-lists-of-unknown-hanzi

I also have a Javascript/Html file in which you can enter lists of new vocab, a list of your known Hanzi+keyword and it will output the new vocab with keywords like this:

虽(zwar)然(sort of thing);

放(set free)弃(abandon)[-棄] ¹fàngqì* v. abandon; give up;

出(exit)口(mouth) chūkǒu v.o. ①speak; utter

比(compare)较(contrast)[-較] bǐjiào* v. ①compare; contrast

附(affixed)近(near) fùjìn* n. vicinity

不(negative)动(bewegen)[-動] bù dòng v.p. not move

安(relax)装(attire)[-裝] ānzhuāng* v. install; erect; fix; mount

note: those are definitions taken from Wenlin and I have German-keywords mixed with Remembering the KANJI keywords.

[Ole]

@HerrPetersen

I have put together the complete smarftfm Mastering ChineseCharacter series material in a way,that you can study and review each sentence randomly sortable for Lesson 1 -Less 10.

You can search Gb, Pin, Eng etc. You get a clickable sheet with sound, Picture, Gb, Eng, Grammar Structure, Words (clickable with German and Eng HSK and Hande and CCdict -translations).

The sound playing feature requires Firefox.

here

[chalimac]

I think those suggesting to learn 3000 hanzi before coming into contact with any sentences are wrong. We are learning a language not winning a memory contest.

Read sentences, any material with context way before you end Heisig.

Try the DeFrancis Series of readers.

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Chinese-Reader-Part-I/dp/0300020600/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239199260&sr=8-2

[OneEye]

I think those suggesting to learn 3000 hanzi before coming into contact with any sentences are wrong.

Really? If it works for those people, how can they be wrong? That doesn't mean it's the best way for everyone, but there isn't a right or wrong way to go about learning a language, provided that what you do actually results in you learning the language.

[tooironic]

I think those suggesting to learn 3000 hanzi before coming into contact with any sentences are wrong. We are learning a language not winning a memory contest.

Really? If it works for those people, how can they be wrong?

I didn't make the original two quotes but if I may interject here, I think what the first person said is quite true, as a language learner you should always seek out authentic texts as much as you can. Route learning vocab can only get you so far. Sure, it's great to consolidate your learning, and help with your visual recognition ability, but in order to truly understand how they work in real-life texts, one must seem them in action. After all, that is what language is - a living, breathing thing, with contexts and realities, and if you ignore that and just learn every word in isolation you're missing out on getting to the heart of the meaning.

[HerrPetersen]

@Ole - Holy cow. That must have been quiet a lot of work. Now how do I incorporate this into my study routine hmmmm....

[Ole]

@ HerrPetersen

"Every picture tells a story." ( I startet to print them out in thumbnails on 6 posters.)

It could be a good idea to try to link Heisig-keywords to the iKnow-sentences.

As I don´t work with Heisig, it would be nice to know, if there is already a worksheet with complete keywords and stories either in English or German. The Heisig-approach reminds you of the writing of the character and the iKnow sentences show you the correct usage of these characters as words. For the drilling you can use smartfm.com or anki or whatever.

Ole

[spiff]

@ Ole - I agree with HP, that's really impressive.

@ Herr Petersen:

I also have a Javascript/Html file in which you can enter lists of new vocab, a list of your known Hanzi+keyword and it will output the new vocab with keywords

Could you say a bit more about this? Is it the sort of thing that would be customisable by someone with little coding knowledge?

[HerrPetersen]

Here is the file.

In the first field you need to put hanzi and keyword like this: (these have to be tab separated so you need to copy paste from excel or similar)

一 ONE

...

In the second the new vocab entries/text etc. are entered:

one num. 一 yī; 壹 yī; 幺[么] yāo

...

press "und los" and this comes out:

one num. 一(ONE) yī; 壹 yī; 幺

...

It is all java-script. So yeah I guess you can customize it. (Even though I think you would be better off to restart from scratch - someone who can programm will hate this file) Also bear in mind, that for larger lists it might take a little longer (up to a minute or so).

As for Heisig and Smart.fm used together: I basically see to "good" ways:

1.) Learn the unknown charachters of a list first Heisig style and then learn the list itself.

2.) Take a smart.fm-list, use a programm/script to delete all entries to be left with a list that includes only Heisig-hanzi.

definition_input.rar

[spiff]

Thanks, much appreciated.

[Ole]

@HerrPetersen

I have trouble to extract your rar-file.

Are you sure that it is valid? it seems so small with 640 Byte.

thanks, Ole

[HerrPetersen]

Yeah - it is that small. I just downloaded on a different computer and it works here...

Here it says 652 Bytes. It is just a html-file cointaining. Just so you can laugh at me, here once more in text format:

<html>
<head>
<title>Wenn am Anfang der Zeile das Steuerzeichen Tab steht (Ascii %09) - die betreffende Zeile wegmachen.</title>
<script language="JavaScript">




function los()
  {
   erstesfeld = document.doof.dumm.value;
   zweitesfeld = document.doof.dummzwei.value;

Imerstenfeld = erstesfeld.split("n");
Imzweitenfeld = zweitesfeld.split("");

for(x=0; x<Imerstenfeld.length; x++)
    {
        gleichtabsweg = escape(Imerstenfeld[x]);
	 Tabsweg = gleichtabsweg.split("%09");
	 for(y=0; y<Imzweitenfeld.length; y++)
	     {
		  if(unescape(Tabsweg[0]) == Imzweitenfeld[y])
                {
                 Imzweitenfeld[y] = Imzweitenfeld[y] + "(" + unescape(Tabsweg[1]) + ")";
                }				 

		 }

	}
   document.doof.dummdrei.value = Imzweitenfeld.join("");

  }

</script>

</head>

<body>


<form name = "doof">
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<textarea name= "dumm" rows=10 cols=30 wrap=off></textarea>

<textarea name= "dummzwei" rows=10 cols=30 wrap=off></textarea>

<textarea name= "dummdrei" rows=10 cols=30 wrap=off></textarea>




</td>
<td>
<input type = "button" onClick="los()" value="und los">

</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

</body>
</html>