Study Routines.

[kongli]

Not sure if this has been posted before (sorry if it has) but I thought it would be interesting to see how different people study Chinese.

As of recent I have been more focused on finishing up my college degree and thesis but when I was in China and could (or perhaps had more motivation to???) devote a good chunk of time to studying my routine went more or less like this:

1. Make flash cards for all the new words reviewed in current chapter of textbook as well as random words picked up in the last day or so.

2. review words until about 90% were known

3. Read text over and highlight new words.

4. Read text again, specifically focusing on the unknown words (words that could not be understood upon first glance)

5. Make sentences with those words, learning how to use them properly.

6. Review flashcards again, this time paying specific attention to particularly useful words and skipping over more esoteric vocabulary. For instance perhaps I would skip over the word 戳 (to poke) but concentrate more on 血(blood).

7.Haphazardly listen to Chinese news or T.V. shows through out the day and engage in conversations with people as much as possible.

That's mine, lets see yours!

[Xuesheng123]

I just started studying Chinese a couple months ago, and so far I have been doing the following:

1. Started studying with Rosetta Stone (don't use it anymore, it's a good way to listen to how the language sounds, but other methods are more effective to learn with).

2. Looked at online flashcard databases (Anki) and wrote the characters myself to get used to writing them. Then used those flashcards to study the definitions of the characters.

3. Am taking a community language class every Monday from 6-9pm (This is where the majority of my chinese speaking takes place).

4. I have watched various chinese movies mainly for entertainment, but also to get a feel for listening to the language (Just watched Beijing Bicycle and loved it!).

I like your study routine. Specifically how you read text, highlight new words, re-read the text and then use the new words in your own sentences. My study routine is pretty soft, but as a beginner I am fine with that

I find that I am limited in learning because of my lack of character knowledge (I probably only know about 150 or so), but sometimes just writing out flashcards and flipping through them gets old. Do you recommend a way to learn characters other than making flashcards?

[Yezze]

I'am in my third year of studying Chinese, but we just started reading and writing characters this semester (high school online class).

For speaking: As of now, i just think about how to say everything I say in English, in Chinese right after i say it in English. Also, I mostly only speak Chinese to my friend (Chinese exchange student). When is started, i focused on memorizing sentence structures first, then slowly expanded my vocabulary, with flashcards.

Reading/Writing: I use ZDT a bit, but mostly i just look at the weekly list and make flash cards with the meaning, pinyin, and stroke order. Then i go through and try to recite the pinyin, then i go backwards and try to draw them based upon the pinyin. Then i try to read the texts in my book, but it doesn't always go so well.

[tuanjie]

I am about an upper intermediate level learner and I have used many different ways to study. I would say that there is one principle that guides me more than others:

always stay engaged.

I try to do anything that stops me from quitting! If there is a study method - a certain text book, podcasts, software, tutor, copying characters while I listen to Bach, etc that I like - even just for that couple months, I'll use it. If I feel my motivation waning, I'll find sth else that feels good, that I like to do/use. It may not sound disciplined, but I figure the only thing that can stop me from improving is to quit being engaged with the language!

There's a great tool out there now that I like very much, (and also had a hand in developing the computer side of it.) It's very versatile, dialog-based, and can be fun to use, especially if you're like me and like to use different strategies to learn - it's very flexible.

You can find it at http://www.nolimitchinese.com

Again, I'm part of the development team, so for sure I'm biased. But really it's worth taking a look at. Can use it for 3 months for free.

Would love to hear feedback about it!

-Jon