The 2011 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[abcdefg]

abcdefg - Where are you studying now? I've seen from previous posts that you studied for 6 months in Kunming. I'm curious as to whether you chose to go to a university or a private language school there, and if you've tried both, how does each meet your needs?

Sorry I overlooked your question, JenniferW. I'm back in Kunming at a private language school doing one-to-one again. I don't think I will ever enroll in a university class because I have been spoiled now beyond repair by several years of one-to-one. Also I don't need a degree program such as a university could supply.

It's difficult to say much about my longer-term goals though conversation is still much easier for me than reading, so I'm now concentrating on improving my reading level. Writing is a distant third and frankly I barely care if I ever learn good penmanship or not. I no longer aspire to a balanced skill set and never plan to take the HSK or similar exam.

[Meng Lelan]

at's serious business, man. My wife has already been assured unofficially that she will not have a job next school year. Not that it matters since we're moving to China, but it sucks for everyone remaining in Texas, especially in non-TAKS subjects (my wife teaches art and music). Good luck with all that.

I have been reading a lot about the schools in Austin where you and was thinking of you. Thanks for your good wishes, but lots of hard work and preparation is what I need, not arbitrary luck. I'm in special ed and we are considered god-sends to the TAKS especially for disabled kids who are struggling to pass the TAKS, so that tends to get more protection than art and music. However the two Micromanagers who micromanage my work 24/7 are being more and more critical of what I do no matter how hard I try in my special ed teaching work. I haven't been told anything official yet, but seemingly they do not like me at all and are likely ready to put me on the to-fire list.

Therefore I have decided that if they fire me I am going to go collect unemployment benefits and apply to get a master's in Chinese at UT Austin. The other 2011 Aims that I have in place now aren't going to change much though. For one thing I was going to go to Vermont to look at the Chinese masters program there.

[OneEye]

OneEye's unforeseen change in the job situation is typical of real life, though, isn't it. Just as you've made your plans, it all changes! For the Chinese studies, this will mean big reviewing of the aims for this year, won't it? Will you still carry on with some of your plans?

Well, since we were already planning on moving to China for the 2011-2012 school year, it won't really affect our plans. We weren't planning on coming back to Texas when we get back anyway. But like I said, it sucks for the people who aren't moving, which of course is most of the state.

Edit: Didn't see your post earlier, Meng Lelan. I appreciate the thoughts. Hopefully everything goes well for you, but if not, then onward and upward! Things tend to work themselves out in the long run, despite what it may feel like in the short run. New doors open. My wife was terrified of moving out of the country at first, but now she's seeing all this as a sign that we picked a good time to do that. So it goes.

[Meng Lelan]

You and your wife picked a very good time to do this. My thoughts are with you and your wife. Still, more terrifying to stay in Texas since Texas education is going down and down. In the meantime the Micromanagers have scheduled another Cultural Revolution style struggle session for me tomorrow where they denounce me and I do self criticisms of how I teach special ed and I am forced to wear a poster stating my crimes in special ed.

[edelweis]

I am more than one month late setting goals here, although I drafted them during the holiday period. It's winter and I've been busy.

Now that I have a very basic grasp of Chinese, where do you think my bosses sent me? Well, not China. And now I've this temptation to take up yet another language. (brought back one magazine and three novels in Finnish).

So... language goals. I will not be strictly sticking to Chinese this year because I found out my Spanish has vanished. I'm only producing mangled Chinese sentences with a few Spanish words here and there :blink:

Also my spoken English has not improved any...

0- keep a healthy lifestyle and log non-language-related habits on that other forum.

Ongoing.

1- English:

* review pronunciation (mainly tonic accent and vowels)

* conversation once a month

Have not touched the pronunciation yet but I did practice although not with native speakers.

2- Spanish:

* conversation once a month.

* read one new novel.

Not started yet.

3- Modern Standard Arabic:

* review previously studied textbooks

* review pocket grammar book

* dig up that short stories book I started to read so long ago and learn new words from it.

* find and install software tools such as pop-up dictionary etc.

This may be a little ambitious. Not started yet.

4- Colloquial Arabic:

* define one small goal and fulfil it

Not started yet.

5- Kabyle:

* define one small goal and fulfil it

Not started yet.

6- Chinese

* Keep the Chinese menus on my computer. If I really need to switch back to French to do something, immediately switch back to Chinese afterwards.

Working fine so far, unlike previous attempt last year.

* Optional: Take HSK4. No hurry. No cramming.

Probably won't be able to take it in Paris since the session will be in March - I haven't enough time to prepare.

* Vocabulary: finish the HSK4 list and make a dent into the old HSK list B.

Not started yet.

* Finish one textbook.

Not started yet.

* Free writing at least once a week.

only 1 week successful so far.

* Grammar exercises on Lang-8 at least once a week.

only 1 week successful so far.

* Daily reading: keep it varied!! Goal: 15' at least 5x/week.

not reached so far but I did start reading again.

* Learn 1 chengyu per week.

not started yet.

* Conversation once a week

not started yet.

* Daily listening.

Usually watching 家有儿女 in the morning and listening to cslpod intermediate in the evening, although not during the week I spent up North.

* Simplified characters: learn to read at least 500 new characters (total 1500)

I need to come up with a routine for this, just learning to wubi-type the characters will not cut it.

* Traditional characters: practice reading at least once a week.

Not started yet.

* Typing: use mainly wubi.

Have hardly typed anything so far and it was in pinyin :angry:

and (I just can't resist)

7- Finnish

* Learn pronunciation and 1st unit of the FSI textbook and workbook.

Barely started.

Näkemiin...

[heifeng]

2011 Year of the Rabbit Study Goals:

1) Leisure reading: Complete reading a book every 2 months:

-Include reading at least one Chinese 'classic' (TBD)

2) News Reading:

-Read newspaper a minimum of 30 minutes daily

-Read more articles from Mainland newspapers

-Also keep up 2010 momentum and still read in Traditional characters when reading from other websites, books, newspapers. ie. don't automatically default into simplified mode just b/c there is 'the option' B)

3) Vocab

- Remember the Chengyu I do come across in reading & practice using them. (Refer to goal 7 & write each one 100x's while practicing my handwriting )

- Continue to improve legal and health related vocab to include more specialized terminology (more so than on visa forms and dr. office forms. enough to go through a forensics report, etc.)

4) Listening

-Watch news daily & find some new soap operas or other programming to watch more often.

5) Pronunciation & general speech:

Recording & Self-correction

- Continue to frequently langdu (~1 time/day)

- Increase recordings of non-read items (i.e. sight interpreting, answering questions, etc)

- Every weekend give self practice PSC & grade it & make sure to follow up on words that I get wrong during remainder of week. (did this during 2010 but I discovered some characters were not truly in my long-term memory & if the same character popped up a few months later I still forgot the correct tone **Drats**! So I seriously need to fix this!)

6) Interpreting:

-Continue to study for state Court Interpreting Oral Exam.

Since I finished the language program I was in last year, I need to continue studying at home & in study group/with classmates on a regular basis.

Actually pass the exam w/in 1 year from now, which allows for 2 more test sittings. (I'll know how likely this is based on when I eventually get my 1st exam results, but not getting discouraged & just working on problem areas is another general goal)

-Find interpreting work or volunteering opportunities for the weekends.

7) Translate: continue doing some freelance translation work.

8 ) Penmenship

-Finish the 席殊3SFM实用硬笔字60小时训练 book within first 1/2 of year(I finished 1/3 of it long ago and it was already really helpful, but now I need to actually complete the rest of the book..heh)

-Practice writing out random things so hand doesn't forget how to hold a pen...

9) Here's a new one: Improve Knowledge of Chinese History:

-So I feel very rusty on Chinese history & related references when they pop up. In fact I never really studied very much Chinese history beyond one required Chinese civiliation course when I was in school so it's a bit of a weak point. Therefore, although, I do try to look these things up as soon as I come across them especially references to historical figures or events I know this area could use some improvement. And, therefore other than relying on soap operas to fill in this void I need to do some actual work in this area. I will take recommendations and am fairly open to suggestions. Although, I think it will be pretty easy to find 'study materials'. The goal is more a matter of me following through! :rolleyes:

Other

1) Prepare for state Professional Engineering license exam in October.

2) Work out a minimum of 2 times/week.

3) Actually write to friends more & keep in touch w/ people...

4) Figure out a 'master plan' to return to China before or by the year of the Dragon arrives!

[JenniferW]

I posted my aims and objectives a month ago, at the beginning of this thread. Within the month I realised one of my aims was already proving impossible. I only study part-time, and looking back, I can see that all the time I create goals that are much more suitable for a full-time student (and one who has no other interests in life, probably).

The target I soon saw would be impossible was to learn the characters and grammar (and the skills) for New HSK level 4, which I will take in May (here in the UK). At first, seeing my rate of progress each week, and realising how impossible that target would be, was just plain depressing. I can't lower my target to Level 3 because I took that last year. But it's also had the effect of making me decide to spend part of my time on an upcoming trip to China sitting in language classes.

So, setting the target amd then seeing myself already failing looks as if it's pointed me in the direction of a different approach. I'm sure this is how this process of goal-setting and monitoring is meant to work, but it's a pleasant surprise when you do actually see yourself changing how you're tackling something.

[querido]

Thanks JenniferW. :-)

Study routine totally exploded. Flashcards felt useless, couldn't speak. Dumped everything, flashcards, children's books. Switched to all-audio, all-conversation, completely different set of resources (which fortunately I already possessed).

I hope I've worked around a brick wall and I'm pressing forward again. This is the best I can do.

From the inert mass of Chinese information in my mind, if I can convert about a thousand words into real language by the end of this year, I'll be quite relieved.

That's my new goal.

See you later.

[rmpalpha]

I took first-year Mandarin Chinese during the 2009-2010 academic year (the last year of my graduate school career), but haven't had the opportunity to take the second-year Mandarin course sequence since I graduated. So, late last year, I decided to go through all the character/vocabulary items of NPCR 1 and 2 in Skritter, reviewing both the simplified and traditional characters (if applicable) for each item. Two or three months later, I have finally finished all 26 lessons in both books (there are a few characters that I'm still having trouble remembering even after all this time, but I'm sure I'll learn them all sooner or later!). So, moving forward from this point, here are my objectives:

(1) Begin NPCR Book 3, studying both simplified and traditional characters on Skritter and grammar points in the book. Pace: 1 lesson per week (this may be too ambitious but we'll see).

(2) Begin "Basic Chinese: A grammar and workbook" by Yi Po-Ching and Don Rimmington, doing all exercises in the book.

(3) When I feel ready, begin "A New China" by Chou, Chiang, and Eagar. (recommended to me by my first-year Chinese class teaching assistant).

At this point, I feel like I've learned all of these Chinese characters but I don't really know how to use them at all apart from very basic sentences. I may hire a Chinese language tutor or try out chineseteachers.com.

We'll see how these objectives go in a month or two. I like the Chinese language, but it's hard to find the discipline to study regularly without the structure of a formal course.

[renzhe]

Due to my pending move, I expect Portuguese and Spanish to become my priorities this year.

I still plan to go ahead with my Chinese plans, though.

[jbradfor]

At this point, I feel like I've learned all of these Chinese characters but I don't really know how to use them at all apart from very basic sentences. I may hire a Chinese language tutor or try out chineseteachers.com.

As I was reading your goals I was just thinking that it seems heaving on learning to read/write "units" -- characters, words, and grammar. You might want to add some full sentences -- podcasts, texts.

Due to my pending move, I expect Portuguese and Spanish to become my priorities this year.

Sounds like fun! Any details you care to share?

[renzhe]

Sounds like fun! Any details you care to share?

It looks like I'll be moving to Portugal very soon. This brings Portuguese and Spanish higher up on the list of priorities. But let's not chat up the topic.

[wedge]

Since making progress always seems to take longer than expected, I'll make my goals this year process-oriented instead of results-oriented. I really want to stick to studying some Chinese almost everyday.

1) Keep up with the character flashcards - review them everyday, try to average 5 new characters a day

2) Read a bit each day - at least 1 news article no matter how short

3) Watch at least a bit of TV everyday

4) Try not to hang out with expats so much

[rmpalpha]

As I was reading your goals I was just thinking that it seems heaving on learning to read/write "units" -- characters, words, and grammar. You might want to add some full sentences -- podcasts, texts.

I should have made my post a little clearer - I'm deaf so I can't really learn spoken Chinese (or listen to podcasts). That's why my goals are exclusively reading/writing skills - since those are the only skills that I can really develop. I agree that reading texts is an important skill - the third goal I mentioned ("A New China") is a reader rather than a textbook so it may be a good place for me to start practicing my reading skills.

[renzhe]

I'll make my goals this year process-oriented instead of results-oriented. I really want to stick to studying some Chinese almost everyday.

In my experience, this is the best way to make progress. Concentrate on how much you cover per day, not on long-term goals. The progress comes automatically, and faster than you expect.

[OneEye]

- My spoken Chinese sucks because I've always studied at home with no partner, so I've mainly focused on reading.

My spoken Chinese still sucks, but I'm making progress.

- I'm currently working a lot on Classical/Literary Chinese. I plan to focus on modern Chinese while I'm in China, so I'd like to get a decent amount of 文言 under my belt while I can.

This is taking a back burner for now. I've gotten busy with other things I need to study, which I'll mention below.

- I'm reading through some graduate linguistics course syllabi from Ohio State University (Marjorie Chan's Intro to Chinese Linguistics, History of the Chinese Language, and Study of the Chinese writing system), and an undergrad history course syllabus from the University of Texas (David Sena's Early China: History and Archaeology).

Finished the reading for the linguistics courses, at least as far as I was interested. There were a decent number of articles I couldn't find at the UT library and so I didn't read them. There was a decent amount of overlap, so I sometimes skipped a bit here and there. And sometimes I skipped because the reading threatened to bore me to tears. I figured I'm not in grad school yet, so there's no need to slog through all the pages of data in some of the articles until later.

I loved the history readings. However, after several weeks of library trips I decided that my general knowledge of Chinese history was too limited to be reading from such a focused syllabus. So I'm reading a few survey-type books and also trying to get a feel for what type of research historians are doing at the moment. I may well end up doing history instead of historial linguistics in grad school. I still have some time to narrow it down, but we'll see.

- I need to take the GRE before I move so I can apply for grad school while I'm in China, so that hopefully I'll have somewhere to go when I get back. I've been studying vocab lists and brushing up on my math (it's been a while).

This is becoming a higher priority. I took a practice test and scored a 680 on the Verbal section and a 580 on the Quantitative section. After that I bought a few GRE prep books and I've been working through them. One is a math workbook, and the other has extensive exercises for both sections. I plan to take the test in April, and to spend an hour each day until then studying for the test.

Much of my spare time is spent in the UT library reading and studying. If I can familiarize myself with some of the literature before I start grad school, I'll be in a much better position when I do start.

I've spent a little less time at the library lately, but I have most of the books at home that I need. Sometimes it's nice to get to the library though, because I have nearly zero distractions there (I can't even get wifi since I'm not a student there). I ought to start schlepping down there more often again.

In other news, I've applied for the CSC scholarship for this fall. I'll also be sending my application in this week for the Huayu Enrichment scholarship in Taiwan. I've begun applying at other schools as backups (Heilongjiang U, Nanjing U, BLCU, and National Taiwan U) in case I don't get either scholarship. I'm also brushing up my French reading skills for grad school, and I've begun learning to read Russian. I dabbled in German a bit but didn't enjoy it as much as Russian, but we'll see which one I stick with. I figure it's best to get these research languages out of the way now so I can focus on Chinese, my coursework, and research when I get to grad school.

That's all, folks! It looks like a lot, but fortunately my current job allows me the luxury of some free time during the day.

[edelweis]

Quick update:

went to 2 polyglot meetings B) . Spoke a few sentences in Chinese, and a lot in English - still with this terrible accent. I intend to go once a week if possible. Problem: afterwards I feel too keyed up to sleep. So I have to take a nap the next day or something <_< which limits opportunities...

Having some trouble learning new words because of huge SRS backlog.

Wubi practice: up to 950 characters. I am adding 25 characters per week. This, reading a little, and listening make up almost all of my current Chinese study routine (which is not much at all).

I'd like to restart a serious routine but...

I'd like to take a trip to China in the summer or autumn but...

Read a little Spanish (fanfiction and poetry). Found that Arabic short stories book but I've forgotten too much of the language to be able to read it, so I pulled out the pocket grammar book instead. We'll see whether I open it this month.

Same for the English and Spanish vocabulary books...

Firefox localization:

if using Windows, install the xpi file for the relevant language and firefox version (somehow I didn't need to do this with Fedora).

Use the -UILocale option to select the locale, for instance:

firefox -UILocale es-ES

firefox -UILocale ar-SA

firefox -UILocale fi-FI

firefox -UILocale zh-CN

firefox -UILocale zh-TW

(optionally also use -P to select a given profile)

[imron]

Having some trouble learning new words because of huge SRS backlog.

The easiest way to get around this is to delete everything and start again

Although that might seem a bit extreme, the useful words in your deck you'll either have learnt fully in which case you won't need to add them again, or they will appear regularly enough in your continued learning activities that they'll be added before too long anyway.

The less useful words won't make it in, meaning you spend less time revising useless vocab. Plus you also won't keep putting off revising because of a huge backlog.

[edelweis]

@Imron: thank you for the advice. I might end up doing that.

[trisha2766]

This is the first chance I've had this year to stop by this thread. My goals for this year are:

1) To increase as much as possible the amount of Chinese I am able to speak to my daughter at home.

2) To keep my daughter from losing much of her Mandarin receptive language skills she had when we met her. But it may be too late for that already.

3) Improve my accent. Apparently one problem (of many) I have is with two syllable words where the first syllable is a 4th tone and the second is a 1st tone - I tend to turn the 4th tone into a 3rd. I'm only able to sometimes hear myself doing it, and I keep getting corrected in the very small amount of time I have to get feedback from anyone.

Still trying to figure out how I'm going to do all these things though - looking into and trying out various resources available to me. I don't have much time to study now either.