Rapid Literacy Approach-Pls advise

[ZenLow]

Hi all,

First and foremost, many thanks all to the admin and long timers on this forum by providing invaluable advice on this forum. I first joined this in 2006 but work and laziness got the better of me so I really haven't started until last month (sept 09). I am in the middle of a transition between jobs and going back to do postgraduate studies (not related to Chinese) so I have approximately 3 more months to study as much Chinese possible. And I really mean - have *nothing else to do* but study Chinese. This is something I really am motivated to do.

So my plan of action so far has been to

1)acquire a size able vocab in speaking and listening

2)then start - reading and writing

The rapid literacy approach by Zhang Pengpeng is:

1) Initial stage - speaking & listening

i) Oral- learn pinyin

ii) Writing - Learn components/radicals of characters

2) Comprehensive Course

i) Character Learning

ii) READING/ WRITING SENTENCES

My aim I guess is to build a solid foundation for future travels in China and at least have functional use of the language to communicate in everyday situations, thats enough for me. But I do not want to neglect the reading/writing part aspect of the language.

So far here is what i've come up with.

Part (1)- Listening and Speaking

i)

I have just finished the Pimsleur series 1,2,3 in 1 month.

ii)

I am trying to play catch up with my vocab by trying to going through the the newbie level Chinesepodcasts by cutting them up into chunks of sentences using audacity and then feeding them into Anki.

I then shadow/repeat the words, go through the vocabulary review and will print the pdf transcripts to go through them with a native Mandarin speaker(tri-lingual in English, Mandarin and..... Nigerian [he seriously majored in that language]).

I generally skip the longer podcast where the narrative is 30-40% English unless my mind is toast and needs a break from the intensive study.

My aim is to use the Anki SRS approach until the Elementary/Lower Intermediate Level only using the 'recall' mode - so the question only displays English which prompts me to speak the Mandarin version. I won't work on the 'recognition' mode until finishing part 2 - learning to read and write.

2) Reading and Writing - I aim to concentrate on 3 books -

i) Reading - Using Pengpeng's Rapid Literacy Book of course, in conjunction with...

ii) Writing - using Heisig's Remembering simplified hanzi

and use reference books where needed for grammar and etymology*

I will start with the radicals and simple words in Heisig's book and then build on it using Pengpeng's method for pronunciation and memorization, all of this will go into Anki

I hope to go through this in 3 months time, but of course, it seems already too ambitious, but nevertheless, I will do what I can intensively and then cut back once uni starts. 3 Months or 3 years, no matter.

The approach will be linear.

Complete 1.i then do 1.ii,

then start with 2.i & 2.ii

and then 3. perhaps re-iterate or simultaneously where one sees fit.

What does the panel of friends on this forum think of the approach? Doable? Realistic? Does this approach and implementation offer a good foundation for future learning? Any potential hazards and setbacks? This obviously not the traditional textbook NPCR (chinese reader-esque) approach and is heavily centered around new technologies and ideas/approaches but this my understanding of what seems to be working for different people at different levels on this forum and have just put them together under a bigger picture.

p.s.

There are 3 threads I constantly read for inspiration and advice:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/5007-some-advice-for-beginners

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/11415-what-would-you-do-differently-if-you-were-starting-to-learn-chinese-again

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/510-phoenix-tv7

I am a big fan of efficiency and 'smart' learning but at the same time the old adage of the turtle and the rabbit keeps repeating at the back of my mind i.e. 'slow and consistently motivated' vs. 'nimble/quick but inconsistent progress', so I guess the key is a balance/middle ground of both.

References I (will) use

*Claudia Ross's Chinese Grammar Guide

Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary - by Rick Harbaugh

Pablo free Chinese Dictionary

[Daan]

I've never used most of the study methods you listed, so I wouldn't be able to tell you if this schedule is too ambitious, but it does seem as if you might need to ensure you get enough speaking practice. For example, going over the transcripts is certainly a good idea, but I think you also need to try to chit-chat a bit every time you meet your tutor. Studying according to a set plan is definitely a good idea, but when you're in China, people won't stick to the textbooks either, so be sure you won't end up standing there knowing lots of words, but never having practiced using them in speech

Good luck!

[abcdefg]

...so I have approximately 3 more months to study as much Chinese possible.

This is an ambitious project. I have three comments.

1. Three months is shorter than you think. I’ve spent several three and four month blocks over the past few years totally focused on learning Chinese in China. They fly by.

The approach will be linear. Complete 1.i then do 1.ii, then start with 2.i & 2.ii and then 3.

2. I'm not sure a "linear" approach is best for your task. It's OK to shift the emphasis in your studies from one aspect of learning the language to another, but probably not best to, for example, totally shut down vocabulary acquisition while you work on learning to write characters. I'm not even sure it's possible to be entirely linear in such a complex process as language learning.

3. If your rapidly-acquired Chinese must go into "cold storage" while you complete unrelated postgraduate studies, it won't be there intact when you want to thaw it out a few years later to go traveling in China. You had better formulate a "retention program" to supplement your crash learning project.

[Hofmann]

I'm not you, but the main problem I would have with your plan is that it delays reading (i.e. literacy), assuming you want rapid literacy. I would start working on literacy right away. To me, Pinyin is only a way to notate pronunciation and not a way to write a language.

[ZenLow]

abcdefg,

I plead guilty to all 3 counts. Haha!

The gravest danger I've already faced smack bang on day 1 is the dry/monotony of doing the same thing.

So your advice on doing maintaining listening + speaking whilst learning writing is a well grounded. It keeps things interesting.

1) 3 months is indeed a short time, Heisigs claim to fame is that anybody can learn 1500 hanzi in 4-5 weeks if done intensively, I believe 12 weeks or 3 months would suffice if I did 1 lesson a day whilst maintaining consistency with other work like listening/speaking. I do not know the vocab word count for the Chinesepod beginners/newbie level but would it be fair to say maybe 1000-2000?

2)As you mentioned, second language acquisition is indeed complex, the key it would seem is to keep the variety whilst maintaining a structure/focus (and hence shy away from the danger of doing too little of too many things i.e jack of all trades - master of none).

Keeping realistic minimum daily milestones that need to be done x podcasts, y lessons, z hours of practice and achieving them is quite satisfying for me personally.This would keep the motivation going.

3)Retention programme? I haven't thought about that too much, I was interested in the feasibility of the this approach - but now that you've mentioned it, I think daily review of whatever I've input into ANKI (just for vocab) and ZDT (which I plan to add just characters I've learnt) would be crucial. ZDT has additional benefit of generating practice pdf sheets etc.

I am personally fascinated by this undercurrent of Chinese blogs, websites, Chinese comics/manga, video/tv series that exists but we so little catch wind of in the Western-language speaking world, so I hope that once there is a minimal level of proficiency after this 3 months, I would be in a better position to enjoy the fruits of labour and use it in the 'real' world, and actually have fun whilst doing it.

My background is that I an overseas born Chinese of Cantonese-speaking origin, so being able to bridge the disconnect of written and spoken putonghua at least to a minimum level for a start, will be very satisfying personally.

That would be my carrot and stick for the coming 3 months.

Lets give this method a try - this SRS, heisig, rapid literacy, pimsleur, podcast, all-chinese-all-the-time approach.

If the approach fails, so be it, if it works, it might help others who want to do something similar in the future.

Anyways, enough talking about 'learning how to learn', time to get some real learning done! Hahah!

[ZenLow]

'm not you, but the main problem I would have with your plan is that it delays reading (i.e. literacy), assuming you want rapid literacy. I would start working on literacy right away.

Hoffman,

Thanks for that, yes, this seems like good advice, the linear approach doesn't seem feasible.

There no is reason to delay reading/writing according to Heisig, he says this helps disambiguate all the homonyms that are bound to come with increasing vocab.

I have already a basic vocab under the belt and sufficient minimum exposure to pinyin which I will increase with podcasts & SRS'ing, for reading/writing I will work simultaneously on the rapid literacy book to remember pronunciation whilst using Heisig's mnemonics for writing.

Another reason to get started with reading/writing characters is that I already see there are plenty juicy opportunities for using verbal pegs/mnemonics if one knew the individual characters, one could make sense of the words eg. (definitions courtesy of pablo):

高速公路 ,gāo sù gōng lù

'high'+'fast/rapid'+'public/common'+'road/path' = highway!

水手, shuǐ shǒu,

'water'+'hands'=sailor!

Cool bananas! One's imagination can really run wild and have fun in the process whilst working on vocab. if one researches the background in written characters. This is in stark contrast to having to learn the mishmash chunk of a word and its definition together eg.

shuǐshǒu =sailor

gāosùgōnglù = highway

[wushijiao]

Hi Zenlow, good to see your ambitious plan, and good to see that you found a little of what I said to be useful!

Anyway, I think it's fairly feasible. You can always adjust and tweak the plan as need be.

A few thoughts:

- Remember to do lots of repetitive audio (ie. listening to a dialogue many times. The more audio you do, the better. From the beginner stage all the way up! The only difference is, I think, as you get more advanced, you can decrease the amount of repetitive, intensive audio and substitute it with extensive audio based on real, authentic materials).

- Are you in China right now? I used the Rapid Literacy book to great effect, but I was in China at the time. That means that when I learned a batch of 25 new characters, I natuarally saw them on signs, and products in the environment surrounding me. If you're not in China, I wonder if it might be useful to spend just 10 minutes a day, while you're learning characters, to just go to a Chinese website, say Xinhua, and just spend some time trying to scan around and recognize characters that you know. I think reinforcing characters from an authetic context is important, even if you can't quite "read" yet, and maybe it might help? I don't know...

Good luck!

[renzhe]

1) 3 months is indeed a short time, Heisigs claim to fame is that anybody can learn 1500 hanzi in 4-5 weeks if done intensively, I believe 12 weeks or 3 months would suffice if I did 1 lesson a day whilst maintaining consistency with other work like listening/speaking. I do not know the vocab word count for the Chinesepod beginners/newbie level but would it be fair to say maybe 1000-2000?

You can learn that many, yes, but you will forget them in a week unless you keep reviewing them regularly, and it is this reviewing work spread over several years that makes learning characters difficult.

It will likely take you a couple of years before all these characters "sit", including proper context, common words it forms, etc. Tools like Heisig help, but they are not a silver bullet.

In my experience, 2000 characters is roughly the mark where reading things becomes comfortable and not too frustrating.

My background is that I an overseas born Chinese of Cantonese-speaking origin, so being able to bridge the disconnect of written and spoken putonghua at least to a minimum level for a start, will be very satisfying personally.

Do you actually speak, or have had significant exposure to Cantonese?

I imagine that this would make a very positive difference.

Lets give this method a try - this SRS, heisig, rapid literacy, pimsleur, podcast, all-chinese-all-the-time approach.

It might work, if you don't burn out. You probably won't be conversational by the end of it, but will have a decent basis for continuing studying.

Like wushijiao hinted, volume is really important. Listen, parrot what you've heard, repeat, read, read outloud, repeat, listen, watch TV, parrot what you've heard, repeat. Ad nauseam.

For some reason, I found this more important with Chinese than with other languages.

[ZenLow]

Do you actually speak, or have had significant exposure to Cantonese?

My level of Cantonese is functional - 'lets have dinner' 'are you ok?' 'nice dress' - beyond that, don't ask me about socrates' philosophy or corporate responsibility or human rights or topics like that， neither can I read or write traditional or simplified characters.

I am like every other bastardised diaspora-ed overseas born kind of Chinese - no connection to motherland China at all.

I am not in Guangdong nor in Hong Kong, but in a very geographically isolated island in the South Pacific, called Fiji - we grew up speaking primarily English, and one grows up listening to Hindi and Fijian languages.

If I come into this with any advantage with my Cantonese background - it probably is an discriminatory sense of 'right tone' or 'wrong tone' - this vague sense that yes, there was a 'funny' accent spoken or he spoke the 'zh, sh, ch' all mixed up .

But sometimes I occasionally get the Cantonese and Mandarin tones mixed up!

Grammar is slightly similar, but 不一样, bù yī yàng.

If anything, it is to my disadvantage as mixup/confusion between the two are likely to occur - better to approach it as a different language altogether.

Thanks for the advice guys, volume and a "Conan the Barbarian" (thanks wushijao) effort with a "Zen Mind" seems to be the key to success.

Well, its a hard, rickety ride on the slow bus to the top of the mountain, hopefully it gets downhill from there.

[renzhe]

If anything, it is to my disadvantage as mixup/confusion between the two are likely to occur - better to approach it as a different language altogether.

Not really, IMHO.

If nothing else, coming from a tonal language is a huge help. It's better to mix up tones than not to hear any tones in the first place, which is something many of us struggle with for years.

But you're right, it's better to approach it as a completely new language and try to get it right. Your knowledge may help you in places you don't expect.

[Scoobyqueen]

Like wushijiao hinted, volume is really important. Listen, parrot what you've heard, repeat, read, read outloud, repeat, listen, watch TV, parrot what you've heard, repeat. Ad nauseam.

For some reason, I found this more important with Chinese than with other languages.

Same here. Never used parrot fashion before but with Chinese Ive had to and it has worked.