The 2010 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[chaiknees]

The end of the year has come. Time to compare goals and results.

Total time studied: 28 weeks (started in June 2010)

Status in Sept. \\ Targets set in Sept. \\ Current status:

NPCR lesson: 18 \\ 30 \\ 33

Can read and write Hanzi: 650 \\ 1100 \\ 1440

Facts in Anki: 866 \\ 2000 \\ 2667

The proportion new words / new characters slowly becomes bigger. As the new words per day are limited (now I do about 15 per day), the progress regarding Hanzi becomes slower and slower. I am aware of that and know that's natural.

Read in 2010:

- 2 Chinese Breeze Level 1

- 3 Chinese Breeze Level 2 (the 4th was way too boring, disposed after a few pages)

Comparison with qualitative targets set in September:

(further optimize schedule to increase learning efficiency): I tried to. Now I use the time on the bus for learning my new words in a little notebook (before: evening). Use 20 minutes of the lunch break for Anki online (before: evening). Saves much time in the leisure time. Actually I have no idea how to make it still more efficient, not much time besides full-time job :o

(practise speaking to make it less halting, use more opportunities to speak Chinese in daily life): Generally I give review more time than before. After NPCR 2 I made a break for 2 weeks just to review the old stuff. To become more confident about the basics, I try to review some pattern drills every day. But still not enough, I feel my speaking is far behind lesson 33, although I know all the words and grammar content when I come across it... Speaking actively is a totally different topic, I found that even the active vocabulary in my mother language is quite limited during daily talk. Even if I was able to translate my thoughts into Chinese, I just don't think about the words which I could use. Sounds strange, and is hard to explain; however I still need to find a way around it. Also have the willful intent to use Chinese whenever I can in daily life (chatting on QQ, writing SMS, talking with the 茶馆 owner etc.). But shy by nature. Realized there is a correlation between alcohol consumption and the ratio of Chinese I use instead of English

(skim over the whole Routledge Grammar just for overview): I did that once completely and several times for certain topics. That book is worth its' weight in gold. I love it.

(use a food delivery service without any help ;-)): Haven't made it until now, still not confident enough. And I am sure, even if I prepare the order and address in detail, there will be some further inquiry which I don't understand and makes me feel I'm stranded :huh:

[imron]

Quote

Double my Chinese reading speed from the current 250-300cpm to 500-600 cpm.

Didn't manage to do this. My reading speed stayed at about the same level. Not long after making this resolution however, I decided not to focus on this, and changed it to something else (see below).

Quote

Possibly finally take the HSK if they hold it in Melbourne late enough in the year, and it's still the old version.

No more old versions outside of China, so this will still have to wait.

One goal I did meet however, which I made after my initial post but never updated here, was to read at least one book a month. Over the course of the year I've read 17 books, with a combined total of over 4 million characters (handy tip, in the cover page of all Chinese books, it tells you the total number of characters a given book contains. This is great for keeping score ).

This has been great for my reading in general.

For those interested, I've listed the books below. Those highlighted in blue, are ones I think would suit someone looking for a first/easier book to read.

《汉语与文化交际》(more a reference book than a novel, but still interesting)

《家》

《春》

《秋》

《活着》

《许三观卖血记》

《记忆的微风》

《天下无贼》(this is actually a collection of short stories, one of which was used as the basis for the movie of the same name).

《中国式离婚》(I'd read this previously, but thought it might be fun to read it again)

《兄弟》(上)

《兄弟》(下)

《书剑恩仇录》(上）

《书剑恩仇录》(下)

《碧血剑》(上)

《碧血剑》(下)

《圈子圈套1》

《圈子圈套2》

[skylee]

handy tip, in the cover page of all Chinese books, it tells you the total number of characters a given book contains.

Really? ALL Chinese books? I didn't know that. Where is the figure exactly?

I have no targets but I have read at least three 700-page Millenium Trilogy novels and ten (200-page) Sookie Stackhouse novels. So they added up to about 4000 pages of useless pastime reading. I have also read The Time Traveller's Wife, 大江大海 by 龍應台 and a number of travel books.

[imron]

Definitely all Chinese books printed in mainland China, although I'm not sure about other regions. It's usually the on the first page or two of the book (before the table of contents), although sometimes it appears on the very back page.

Among all the other information, such as the Author, publisher, printing date, ISBN, etc, there is also one called 字数, which lists the number of characters - oddly, in thousands, so you'll see things like 653千 rather than the more common 65.3万.

See attached pic.

Edit: Just checked a book I have that was printed in HK, and it doesn't have this information, so I guess it should be Chinese books printed in mainland China only.

Edited December 31, 2010 at 12:08 AM by imron
Checked HK published book

[Gleaves]

Here's my 2010 results.

1. Read 6 books this year.

Success. 成功了。 Here's what I read. About 3000 pages, all told. I enjoyed them all, for the most part. 冰与火之歌 (A Song of Ice and Fire) was by far my favorite.

多情剑客无情剑 (by 古龙)

流浪地球 (a book of sci-fi short stories by 刘慈欣)

時間的皺紋 ("A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle)

你一生的故事 (a book of sci-fi short stories by Ted Chiang)

冰与火之歌, 卷一: 权利的游戏 (A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin)

盛世 (by 陳冠中)

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

Fail. I kept pretty close track of this. I ended up averaging 3.5 shows and 1.7 movies a week. I was hoping I would watch more this year. All the same, this goal definitely kept me somewhat on track the days and weeks when I didn't really feel like doing any listening practice.

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

Fail. I made this goal in the middle of the year and then quickly forgot about it.

I want to fine tune some of the 2011 goals I am thinking of, then I will hop into that thread.

[JenniferW]

I've gone ahead and started a thread for this for 2011 - starting off with putting down my own aims and objectives.

I've really liked reading what other people set themselves for 2010 - it's let me see what a range of things you can pick to focus on - and then also liked reading people's end-of-year reviews. It's encouraging to hear about objectives being met, but also good to hear of some failures - makes you realise you're not alone.

[valikor]

Overall I don't think I met my expectations for spoken Chinese this year. This is probably largely because for the last several months, I just haven't spent much time conversing in Chinese, except with my girlfriend (not enough). This will definitely need to change next year.

On the bright side, I was pretty diligent with my Anki. I learned over 2,000 new characters this year (now know about 3,000 total), completely transforming my reading ability from "damn near zero" to "not bad"! I am very happy with this progress.

[xianhua]

1.Characters: Finish learning to write the HSK2 list in Skritter.

Skritter got knocked on the head around April. The inability to be able to 'freeze' the reviews during a three-week holiday meant the prospect of returning to a colossal list of over-due reviews. This prospect stressed me too greatly.

2.Listening: Continue to listen to the Slow-Chinese podcasts.

Exceeded my expectations here. I still listen to these but the main staple of my listening now comes from the excellent TV show recommendations made on this forum. I've now finished 空镜子 and I'm working through 奋斗. I still need to make far too many pauses but the source of new vocabularly is proving worthy.

3.Grammar and vocabularly: Finish off the few remaining lessons in Boya Hanyu, Inter-Intermediate level.

Done. Also just finished Intermediate - Book one.

4.Writing: Continue with Lang 8 journal entries.

Ongoing.

5.Speaking: Continue practising with my wife when we have time.

Ongoing.

1.Move to a bigger house.

The 经济危机 meant we couldn't sell for love nor money.

2.Complete the second year of my Masters.

Done.

3. Get someone to tell me where all those posters on here from years past disappeared to, and try to avoid the same fate if possible

Still looking for clues. Perhaps we could start a 'where they are now' thread with entries like 'John Laowai: moved back to London following two years in China. Now a marketing consultant with two children. Would like to study Chinese again some day.'

[Meng Lelan]

In other words I'm not doing anything except for randomly blogging in Chinese, that's aimless enough for me.

That was my aimless, random goal for 2010. Accomplished.

[hackinger]

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.

Hi,

I have all (old) HSK B characters and words under review in my flashcard system. These are 1600 characters and 3000 words. However I am *studying* these vocabulary items (daily), which does not mean that I have *mastered* them. (I saw each card at least five times by now and I am doing SRS.) I can correctly recall most of the characters. Regarding the words, I am using them largely to better remember the characters and their pronunciation in a word context and I have no good estimate for how many of them I can really give a precise definition. If a word consists of more than one character I often mark it as success if I get the pronunciation right and have the meaning about right.

I am through the first two NPCR volumes and did the first two lessons in the third. That means I have learned about 1000 Chinese words as part of actual text. When I move to the next lesson, I find that I usually know already the majority of words from my flashcard work.

Due to an often rather busy schedule I did much more flashcard work than actually looking at the textbook, because it is more easy for me to fit several shorter flashcard sessions into a day.

I reckon that in the last seven months, for which I have been doing this systematically, I did at least 200 flashcard hours (probably quite a bit more). I also did at least 200 hours of listening to Chinese sound, because I run or bike every day and I now always listen to Chinese stuff when exercising.

1000 words or 2000 words or even 3000. The exact amount does not matter so much to me right now. The important thing is that I enjoy studying Chinese and I will carry on pretty much with the same method. 2011 I will try to get a better ratio of textbook study to flashcard study though.

Cheers

hackinger

[OneEye]

My goals and plans changed to much over the year for it to be worth worrying about whether I met them. Onward and upward, I guess.

[Lu]

- Translate a book.

My life got to a 丁字路口 and this was the road I did not take. The other road has a great view and just the right amount of slope, so I'm happy with how it turned out. There'll be another crossing somewhere where I will take the book road.

- Go to China (on holiday).

I went on holiday, I went for a job interview, and now I live in China again. Mission accomplished!

- Finding a new job/something useful to do with my life.

Well, it's a job, and it's useful. Not sure if it will last a lifetime, but we'll see how far I get.

- Taking more exercise.

I was on a dragonboat team for most of the year and got a lot of exercise done that way, but I haven't done anything since I came to China, except for rambling through Beijing and (recently) taking the stairs. Will continue this aim in the coming year.

- Read more, watch less tv.

Did okay on this one, even more so once I got to Beijing, tv is not that interesting here.

[edelweis]

I am late reporting here... not that there was any progress in December whatsoever.

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

Ahem. It was not a complete failure, but certainly wasn't a success either. However I did learn a few things about myself and I think I can do better in 2011.

1) take the HSK (apparently it will be the new version here)

Took and passed the new HSK level 3.

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

I think globally this was a success. However, wubi practice replaced pen and paper writing these past few months.

3) finish the 1033 word HSK vocab list

Almost complete, I think I have about 30 to 40 words left. Since I swore off cramming, I did not make any effort to drill these into my skull during the winter holidays.

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

About 3/5 complete.

5) submit at least one written exercise per week on Livemocha to practice 3) and 4)

(preferably more!)

Success on average, although frequency varied a lot (and I gave up on Livemocha and post on Lang-8 instead). Also I did not really make an effort to incorporate newly learned words and structures into my writing.

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

I've kept this up fairly well, even though I was not as actively listening as I could have been, since most of the time I was doing something else at the same time.

7) finish the assimil "Chinese with ease" books

Stuck at about lesson 72 (out of 105).

8 ) study one of my Talk Chinese books (perhaps the "IT talk" one)

I started on the daily talk one, but less than 1/4 complete.

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

Started. I need to practice more consistently.

10) learn to type in zhengma and wubi and stop using pinyin input methods (for active character recall even when typing)

Good progress on this. I still need to use pinyin for speed and forgotten characters though.

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

Even though I can read about 1000 characters, only 800 are in the 1000 most frequent ones. So technically this goal is 8/10 complete.

[heifeng]

YEAR END SUMMARY OF 2010 GOALS & PROGRESS:

-Listening: Watch Chinese news daily for at least 1/2hr , 1 hr on weekends.

OK, I HAVEN'T WATCHED MUCH NEWS THIS YEAR, THE MOST CHINESE PROGRAMMING I'VE BEEN WATCHING IS PROBABLY 快乐大本营。 ALSO I NEED TO FIND SOME GOOD SOAP OPERAS TO WATCH IN 2011.

-Understand more of dialects that I hear daily.

BIT OF A FAIL. OR MAYBE I HAD SOME PROGRESS AND HAVE NO WAY TO REALLY MEASURE MY IMPROVEMENT ALTHOUGH I STILL DEFINITELY CAN'T UNDERSTAND MY NEIGHBOR.

-Organize my vocab notes/journals...somehow.

FAIL. BUT IF I GET THE NOTES TO JUST STAY IN MY MIND RATHER THAN HAVING TO ORGANIZE THEM ON PAPER OR ON MY PC, THEN THAT'S CONSIDERED SOMEWHAT ORGANIZED, RIGHT?

-Random Exam prep

-Pass State Court interpreting written exam, worry about the rest later:)

PASSED WRITTEN TEST & TOOK THE ORAL EXAM IN JAN OF 2011. I HAVE NO IDEA ON RESULTS, BUT I COULD KEEP UP & FINISHED ALL SECTIONS & DIDN‘T ENCOUNTER ANY HUGE SURPRISES--SO ULTIMATE QUESTION WOULD JUST BE HOW WELL I PERFORMED. AND OF COURSE THERE IS STILL ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT--SO YES, THIS GOAL GETS ADDED TO 2011 TOO. BUT AT LEAST I COMPLETED WHAT I SET OUT TO DO IN 2010.

-Work on more English..yes English vocab too.

YEAH, THIS WAS WORKED ON DURING 2010. ESPECIALLY WHEN I WAS STUDYING FOR THE ABOVEMENTIONED WRITTEN EXAM. YEAH,I WAS PRETTY RUSTY ON SOME OF THOSE GOOD OLE' SAT WORDS. IT'S PROBABLY WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DEAL WITH RANDOM ACRONYMS AND ￥#%×…%@ SAP T-CODES EVERYDAY. REAL WORDS DON'T MAKE SENSE ANYMORE...

-Work on Chinese Grammer.

-Actively study more commonly used chengyu.

I READ SOME BOOKS OFF AND ON (BUT DIDN'T FINISH EITHER) ABOUT COMMON GRAMMAR MISTAKES (中国人最常见的病句& 中国人最易用错的成语）...THAT SHOULD GIVE ME SOME PARTIAL CREDIT, BUT I DIDN'T PROACTIVELY STUDY AS MUCH AS I'D HOPE, THIS NEEDS TO GO ONTO THE 2011 GOAL LIST.

-Speaking & Pronunciation: Work to get 二乙 ON PSC...

OK, SO I HAVEN'T TAKEN THE TEST SINCE 2008, BUT I'VE CONTINUED TO TAKE & RECORD FULL PRACTICE TESTS EACH WEEK FOR MOST OF 2010, WHICH INCLUDES GOING BACK AND MARKING UP WHAT I WOULD HAVE LOST POINTS ON. ALSO JUST GENERALLY RECORDING MY LANGDU PRACTICES AND LOOKING UP WORDS HAS HELPED ME QUITE A BIT ON CORRECTING SOME PROBLEM AREAS & LEARNING MORE VOCAB.

OVERALL I THINK I'VE DONE 'OK' HERE. IN THE VERY LEAST THIS AREA IS BETTER THAN 1 YEAR AGO, 2 YEARS AGO, 3 YEARS AGO WHEN I STARTED FIRST CORRECTING MY PRONUNCIATION. ALSO I CAN DEFINITELY READ OUTLOUD MUCH MORE SMOOTHLY ESPECIALLY WHEN I PICK UP SOMETHING FOR THE FIRST TIME.

FOR 2011 I NEED TO MAKE SURE TO RECORD AND CORRECT MYSELF WHEN I GENERALLY SPEAK MORE THOUGH TOO. NOW MY MAIN PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS SEEM TO COME OUT WHEN I'M DUAL TASKING WHICH BASICALLY MEANS I CAN'T ONLY FOCUS ON WHAT I'M SAYING B/C I NEED TO ALSO FOCUS ON READING AND LISTENING TO SOMETHING ELSE. SO APPARENTLY THE TONES AND SUCH NEED TO BE FURTHER POUNDED INTO MY HEAD.

-Writing;

-Keep an ACTIVE Blog. Goal: 1 article per week.

-actively practice handwriting at least 2 hrs per week.

BIG FAIL HERE (DIDN'T FINISH HANDWRITING PRACTICE GOAL, IT IS NOW BUMPED TO 2011) & I'VE GIVEN UP ON BLOGS. THE MOST WRITING I'VE DONE HAS PROBALY JUST CONSISTED OF GROCERY LISTS AND DOODLING DURING MEETINGS.

-Reading

-Read at least 1 novel every 2 months. (ie. keep up 2009 average). -Improve reading & scanning spead (Yes, stole this one from Imron, but I have no clue how fast I read now)-Less time reading English-language fashion & gossip websites. Start thread/Get recommendations from forum members on good, juicy, gossipy Chinese websites.

-Stay updated on Chinese current (non entertainment/gossip that is) events. Scan newspaper at least every other day.

I PROBABLY ONLY FINISHED READING 4 BOOKS AND THEN THERE ARE AT LEAST 4 OTHERS THAT I STARTED, READ HALFWAY AND THEN LOST INTEREST IN..

HOWEVER MY READING SPEED SEEMS TO HAVE IMPROVED FROM JUST READING CHINESE NEWS EVERYDAY AND OVERALL SO I'VE SPENT A TON LESS TIME SURFING THE INTERNET AND REALLY JUST GO ONLINE TO READ NEWS AND CHINESE FORUMS WHEN I GET A CHANCE.

-Other

-Spend more time studying for class & going through text book exercises.

WELL, I FINISHED MY CERTIFICATE PROGRAM 'WITH DISTINCTION' SO I GUESS I DID OK THERE. AFTER FINISHING THE PROGRAM SOME OF MY CLASSMATES & I CONTINUED TO ORGANIZE STUDY SESSIONS TO PREPARE FOR THE ORAL EXAM MORE, SO I THINK I'VE DONE PRETTY GOOD ON KEEPING THE MOMENTUM GOING HERE.

-Time Management

-Sure, I'll join the 'don't break the chain' gang. I anticipate 2010 will be a busy year, must not waste a minute, right!?

OK, SO I DIDN'T KEEP A CHAIN, BUT I STAYED REASONABLY PRODUCTIVE. I STILL NEED TO BE MORE DISCIPLINED ABOUT FITTING SOME STUDYING IN RIGHT WHEN I GET HOME & BEFORE MY BRAIN SHUTS DOWN FOR THE EVENING IN 2011 THOUGH.

PHEW, NOW I CAN FINALLY ORGANIZE AND POST MY 2011 GOALS-- 2011 SHOULD BE A BIG YEAR I THINK. PERHAPS A YEAR OF CHANGES...HMM (starting with not oddly writing in all capital letters for no reason whatsoever! )