Learning Chinese -- A roller coaster

[imron]

These things are very easy to measure, unlike lofty goals like "improve my spoken Chinese this year".

This is a really good point. I was thinking of saying something similar in the "Aims and Objectives" thread after seeing a number of posts mentioning quite open and vague sounding goals that will be very difficult to objectively measure whether or not they've been met/surpassed. Goals that are not clearly defined can be really hard to work towards, especially when you get stuck in a learning rut and feel you're going nowhere. Setting yourself quantifiable goals really makes a big difference because it allows you to prove you've been making progress even when you feel like you're getting nowhere.

[eya323]

Thanks, Daan and Taylor04. Good advice that I will take.

Taylor04, since you said that most of your friends are Chinese, perhaps you could give me some advice? To be honest, I have not read through the culture threads (been focusing on the "Learning Chinese" discussions), so stop me if this is covered somewhere else.

I am trying to make Chinese friends so that I can have conversations with people other than my teacher and the waiters at my favorite restaurant. I had a foreign exchange student live with me last summer and hopefully will do it again this year. It was helpful to practice my Chinese and I enjoyed helping someone learn English. I would like to have conversations with someone my own age, though.

There is a male Chinese grad student at the lab where I work. We have friendly "conversation lite" when we see each other. I've invited him to eat lunch or get some tea before because he says that he would like to help me with my Chinese. I think he thinks I am coming on to him because he suddenly gets all shy and then runs back into his office. (The only helpful background on this situation is that I am a young female about his age but am also one of his bosses, so maybe it is a power distance issue and not a male/female issue).

I had a similar problem with my teacher's nephew last summer. We were in Beijing together and I wanted to practice Chinese with someone other than my teacher. He was very talkative when my teacher was around and would carry her purse everywhere for her, etc. When he and I went around the city together one day, he only talked to me to point out how old a building was or how much shopping we could do in somewhere...and he didn't want to stop for that yummy yogurt drink (which may have been due to the crowds that would follow us asking for pictures).

I've never had a problem making friends in other countries and almost all of my friends (home and abroad) are male. Am I hitting a cultural barrier and should just try to make female friends, or do you think that these are just two out-of-the ordinary experiences? All I want to do it practice and make new friends!

-Elizabeth

[crazillo]

Hello everyone, this is my first posting here. I'm studying Chinese and Political Science in Tuebingen, Germany! I first lived in China from Jan to Aug 2008, teaching English there, but haven't really learned much Chinese except for 菜单 back then. I regret this now. Then I started studying Chinese and felt like going through the stages the thread opener mentioned as well: there was fast progress and we felt quite good about it. After finishin three textbooks in the first year, we now are in our third semester. And I feel like in a bubble. Words seem to get more and more alike, grammatical structures seem useful, but hard to remember after a while. Not to speak of idioms...

Concerning the topic of this thread:

- I do think passive recognition is very important. I am a lot better at reading characters than writing. I find this a key. We've done a lot of reading texts and translating them.

- However, actively it has been a lot worse, espacially this semester. I feel like we're still using words we've known for months.

- In our first year, we had a constant pressure of examinations. There was an exam every second week. To be honest, this forced us to study characters really well constantly. Now this semester, we only got two exams. I have been thinking about this a lot recently: in the Chinese school system, students got constant exams. Maybe this explains why we had a stellar progress in the first year, while now thus has not been the case.

- We also started learning Classical Chinese this year. We're doing the Shadick. I do like those texts a lot and find they transport quite a nice message, but then I haven't really seen how this can also improve my spoken Chinese. We're gonna read Rulin Waishi in a years time from now (after a semester spent abroad in Beijing) and I hope this is gonna be much more satisfying.

- The biggest thread to me personally is the fact that Chinese words start to feel alike a lot. There's thousands of 于， 雨, 玉 and we're used to words than can be seperated. This does not so much refer to components such as 得到 想到 etc.

- The rollercoaster aspect you mentioned: you feel like adding some knowledge on the left hand will cause you lose some on your right. This becomes increasingly frustrating when you encounter situations like "I know I've studied this character but just can't seem to remember it"

How would you rate discipline? I think studying daily is quite important in order to improving one's Chinese, much more than in western languages. Being "caught" in a BA system with a minor subject and many many cultural / historical courses, it seems a certain drive and motivation is lacking for this disciplined learning. I don't think the BA systems fits very well with Chinese at all.

[chrix]

Welcome crazillo! If you're interested in Classical Chinese, be sure to check out our study groups in the Classical Chinese subforum. Right now we're discussing texts from two textbooks, by Michael Fuller and Wang Li.

As far as your remark about homophones go, it is indeed the bisyllabicity (and of course the tones) of Mandarin vocabulary that offsets this. The fact that Mandarin has simplified its phonotactics (and tone system) compared to other Sinitic languages is undoubtedly related to this.

Discipline is indeed important. If you aren't using SRS yet, I suggest you do so, it will not only help you memorise things better but also help keeping up with reviewing what you've already learnt (水滴石穿, 熟能生巧 etc )

[taylor04]

Sorry eya323, I just now noticed your post. Whenever I hear a Chinese person talking Chinese, reading Chinese, etc, I just stop and talk to them. I consider it quite rude because I remember how it felt when I would be interrupted in China from people who want to practice English; but I still do it. I'm a guy, and almost all my Chinese friends are girls, opposite your situation. Therefore, I can't comment on your particular situation, all I can recommend you to do is get out there and find some more Chinese people. Once you get to know 3-4 Chinese people you'll start meeting them left and right.

Crazillo, passive recognition is very important. I never learned how to write, and I passively learned characters for 3 years. Whenever I learned new words in class, it would immediately go into my spoken vocabulary and into passive reading recognition. After three years, my spoken abilities have far surpassed my reading, because I never built a foundation of conscious recognition. I have used Skritter for about 2 months, and can write about 700 characters. This has boosted my new vocab learning speed and passive recognition. I honestly wish I wouldn't have thought writing was so useless when I first began. You don't have to learn to write every character, but a good base is always helpful

[crazillo]

I might sound really stupid now, but could you guys give me a brief introduction into Skitter and SRS? This would be very much appreciated! Why would you recommend those tools?

Oh, today I was writing my last year's summer programme Chinese teacher. I was saying that I gonna ba back in the end of February, hoping for the weather to be improved by then. I found this nice sentence 春暖花开, I'm hoping my time in Beijing will give me more phrases like that!

Also, do you guys sometimes got problems with similair looking characters (talking about writing only), e.g. 借，错 and so on? This example is clear and easy, but there's a lot more of them.

I will take a look into the Classical Chinese forum soon. First of alll, I gonna survive our Shadick vocabulary test on Friday though. ;-)

[xianhua]

Why would you recommend those tools?

Before I found Skritter, I was lost; a mere shell of a man; wondering through a lonely desert of meaningless characters. Then I found it. Or it found me. Now, we are inseparable. Even Christmas Day can not come between us.

It's definitely time for bed now.

[imron]

I might sound really stupid now, but could you guys give me a brief introduction into Skitter and SRS?

If you search the forums for those terms and you will find plenty of posts describing them