The 2010 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[Lu]

I'm actually going to fulfill one of my goals! No, not the translating of a book. But I am going to China. And Taiwan. So looking forward to it!

[edelweis]

I'll just give an update on my goals here. Study routines etc will appear in my new blog later...

0) don't let Chinese eat up all my energy and free time - leave a little time for my other projects and some energy for the work I get paid to do

Hmmm well 5' of music 4x a week is better than nothing at all.

I've started having coffee after lunch to avoid embarrassment (napping at work just isn't done here. How I envy my Chinese colleagues and their little desk pillows, on the other side of the globe.)

2) spend 15' per day learning/reviewing character writing

Still going well.

3) finish the 1033 word HSK vocab list

I study 3 words of that list per week, but since I also study words from overlapping lists on the other days, I think it's on track.

4) finish the study of "chinese grammar without tears"

Page 144/321.

5) submit at least one written exercise per week on Lang-8

On track, but inspiration waning. I should post less frequent but better quality articles.

6) keep watching chinese TV and listening to Chinese Breeze. Have a notepad and pen ready to take notes!

On track, but I don't take notes.

Low-priority goals:

7) finish the assimil "Chinese with ease" books

On track.

8 ) study one of my Talk Chinese books

On track.

9) start traditional characters reading (I bought the NPCR1 textbook in traditional characters for that purpose)

Hmmm I should have specified this goal better. Technically it's reached since I have "started".

10) learn to type in zhengma and wubi and stop using pinyin input methods

About 10-15' per day of wubi+radicals drills, and I use wubi for grammar study and sometimes on Lang8. Still very slow.

11) learn the 1000 most frequent characters (in words, not by themselves). Right now I can recognize about 500.

Can read/recognise/recall a word for about 680 of those characters now.

I also counted I can read about 800 characters.

[trisha2766]

I haven't been doing too well with my goals. However, I will be in China sometime this fall for a couple of weeks - Beijing, Zhengzhou and Guangzhou.

My listening skills may have gotten slightly better from really, really listening to the NPCR dialogues. Still terrible though.

Speaking skills are still terrible. I found a tutor but won't be able to start working with her until August though.

I got through NPCR4, but I can't say I really learned the material that well. I've been reviewing books 2 and 3 a lot. I think it helps, but it is discouraging.

Not sure about my reading skills. I've been working through some simple children's books and it seems like there are so many characters and words I still don't know.

[renzhe]

It sounds like you're doing fine. Chinese is a language that takes its time. You will need more listening, reading and revision than you originally expected, but it does improve if you keep it up for a long time.

I'm not doing much myself, due to being very busy with more important things at the moment. The really nice discovery I've had is that I haven't forgotten everything in the 6 months of very little active work. I can still talk, understand movies, and read books. I'll have to get back to proper studying before it starts getting too rusty, though.

[querido]

Can't wait for 1AUG to post...

I've been distracted from my stated 2010 goals!

My goals (post #14) were:

1. Finish second grade (according to the Chinese national standard)

2. Master Chinesepod Newbie

I'm going back to my children's books, pushing for #1 above all.

Thank you trisha2766 and aristotle1990.

[edelweis]

On track: everything not textbook related

2) spend 15' per day learning/reviewing character writing

3) finish the 1033 word HSK vocab list

4) finish the study of "chinese grammar without tears"

5) submit at least one written exercise per week on Lang-8

6) keep watching chinese TV and listening to Chinese Breeze or cslpod etc.

10) learn to type in zhengma and wubi and stop using pinyin input methods

11) learn the 1000 most frequent characters (in words, not by themselves).

I am working on both 10 and 11 by learning to type characters by order of frequency.

On hold: everything textbook related

7) finish the assimil "Chinese with ease" books

8 ) study one of my Talk Chinese books

9) start traditional characters reading (I bought the NPCR1 textbook in traditional characters for that purpose)

I am having some issues with both motivation and amount of flashcards. More on this later in my blog...perhaps.

Rant-worthy:

0) don't let Chinese eat up all my energy and free time - leave a little time for my other projects and some energy for the work I get paid to do

[querido]

Doing New Concept Chinese for Children vol. 9.

The Chinese school I found locally starts its new session on the 22nd. We'll be thinking about attending. If so, I might switch to or add their textbook series which is mostly parallel to what I've studied already. It's downloadable as pdfs.

[valikor]

I finally decided to post something here, because I figured probably nobody in the real-world actually cared, and I needed to say something But...

I apparently have finally reached 2,000 characters! I take the Clavis test every couple months. In February/March, I knew around 800.

That is about 7 characters a day. Doesn't sound like much, but I've been really trying to make sure that I know how to use them, and it's been a lot of work.

[BertR]

valikor, that's really great progress. I was wondering whether you use a specific book to learn these and whether you can also write them.

[valikor]

I would estimate I can write 1/3 of them by hand. To be honest, I gave up on that several months ago, and haven't regretted it.

I have used several different textbooks, as well as picking up words from reading. I throw everything into Anki and generally spend 1-2 hours per day reviewing. It has been very painful and rewarding at the same time

I wish I knew a better method.

[BertR]

Maybe it is about time I'd give up writing as well. I currently can write around 1750 characters, but increasing this number and making sure that I don't forget any characters I previously learned takes most of my time...

[gato]

Yeah, you can use the time saved to start reading more native-level material.

[Gleaves]

Good work, everyone. I think I am overdue for an update.

1. Read 6 books this year.

I finished my second book of the year - a translation of A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin. At 700 pages, it took me a while, but I loved this book. It was good medieval fantasy fun. I have the next three books in this series waiting patiently on my shelf.

I need to pick up the pace a bit to reach my goal of 6, but am still confident I can do it. I'm in the middle of a book or two and just started 流浪地球 by 刘慈欣.

2. Watch 4 TV episodes and 2 movies a week.

I'm averaging a little less than 4 episodes and 2 movies a week. I've gotten into a pretty good habit of reading for an hour most nights a week. I'd really like to also get that consistency with listening practice.

Edit: I've decided to add a third goal for the year...

3. Consistently score a 2 or above in the Chinese reading exercises from the Univ. of Iowa.

These exercises are a terrific and plentiful resource. They give you a score based on how quickly you read and how many answers you get right in follow-up questions. I usually score about a 1. I'd like to get that score up to a 2 (I think that translates to about 150+ characters per minute). My reading speed stinks. I really want to pick it up so that I can take in a greater variety of reading material.

[hackinger]

It is not too late to set goals for 2010. Here is mine:

2000 Chinese words by the end of 2010. This includes the about 1000 words from the old HSK A list

and another 1000 words from the HSK B list.

The goal is mainly for reading and listening comprehension and I will have to know about 1200 characters.

I started out in the middle of May this year and to achieve that goal I have to learn a bit more than 250 new words per

month. I have a busy job and study Chinese only as a hobby, but that should still be doable. Currently, I am ahead of schedule

with the characters but behind of schedule with the words.

I am using the Matthews book for the first 800 characters, New Practical Chinese Reader, Pimsleur and as an introduction to Chinese grammar

the Basic Chinese workbook by Yip-Po Ching and Don Rimmington. I have a couple of Chinese Breeze books which I will start to tackle soon. I use both Anki and Plecodict for daily vocabulary reviews, in fact I review twice per day, after lunch at work on my mobile device and in the evening on my PC. I also use plain old HSK lists on the computer for vocabulary study.

Cheers

hackinger

[Lu]

I'm actually making great progress.

- Translate a book.

- Go to China (on holiday).

The rest is stuff like finding a new job/something useful to do with my life, taking more exercise, and such.

- The book translation is not going to happen this year, but not from lack of trying or opportunity, but for reasons that follow.

- I went to China, and what's more, I'm going back for a longer period, to work there again! (Which is why the book translation will be shelved.)

- I found a new job, and a good one too.

- Still not sure what to do with my life, but I'm working on that.

- Been taking exercise pretty regularly.

Things really took off in the last two months or so.

[roddy]

Excellent, do you know where in China you're heading?

[Lu]

Beijing!

[Daan]

Congratulations!!

[querido]

I'm making good progress on larger goals not really measurable in flashcard #s.

[edelweis]

I haven't much to report this month pertaining to my goals, except that I still haven't made any progress on textbook study.

Considered joining a class but that would either be too slow (at 1.5hrs/week) or too much commute and stress. I rather like the freedom of self study.

Learning to type the most frequent characters in Wubi is perhaps the most productive thing I'm doing right now.

However I am having fun with comics and postcrossing (which is basically sending/receiving postcards to/from random people worldwide, but you can also arrange for private swaps, which I have been doing with Chinese people. I have yet to receive postcards from China, it looks like the average travel time to France is 3 weeks! I sent half a dozen cards to China though, in a mix of English, French, and Chinese, and learned to write 上海世博，巴黎，艾菲尔铁塔 along the way B) )