The 2011 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[heifeng]

Oh yeah, good thing you did post twice, I totally forget to reply to your recommendations! Thanks by the way.

I should have said books in Chinese, but I'm gonna take a look at the ones you recommended though--those look promising!

Your goals look they are coming along nicely too! Congrats

[OneEye]

Yeah, I could have probably figured that out from context now that I look at it again. Glad it was helpful, anyway.

Yes, my goals are finally coming along fairly well, probably for the first time since I started participating in these yearly threads. It's amazing what a decision to pick up and move over there will do for one's motivation.

[Liebkuchen]

Ech...My major goal- the whole getting to China this August is going to have to be delayed- although certainly not abandoned.

Money's the major factor- I haven't earned enough in my part time day job and my art business has been pretty dead. I know I started out way too anxious about funding but I don't think the PSB would be happy with me begging in the street. I will, hopefully, have enough money for March or (definately) Sept 2012.

Also, I had a flare up of my depression which had been going extremely well. New pills and exercise seem to be starting to work but its obviously something I need under control for going away.

The good news is that I'm applying for a better paid job that is also 9-5 so I might be able to get to class lessons with one possible location being Edinburgh's Confucius Institute. Alternatively, if I'm waiting a year, the Open Uni in the UK now does a beginners Chinese course- either way, I'll actually get to study Chinese while I'm saving.

And while the delay's allowed me to consider other unis, SWUFE in Chengdu remains my first choice, even if I end up paying the fees myself so that's a nice realisation.

[JenniferW]

I started off this year's thread and about half way through the year I'm feeling I'm not doing as badly as I expected to. In fact I'm a bit amazed at how well the year's studying's going.

The year started with me having to admit my first aim was impossible. I was planning to take New HSK Level 4 this year, and aimed to work through the whole characters list before the exam. With the amount of time I have for studying I soon realised that was impossible - but I did take the exam in May (waiting now for the results) and although I didn't get through more than a small part of the list of characters, I could cope with more than I expected to in the actual exam. So, a lesson learnt about setting goals.

Last year, while I was waiting for the HSK results, I drifted right out of any systematic study and this year I've not done that - so I'm also pleased about that. The exam was really above the level I think I'm at, so I came out of it feeling I already knew things I needed to get on with, and actually wanted to get on with. I've settled back into mundane coursebook work with a renewed sort of interest and motivation.

I planned on a trip to China, did go on the trip, and for the first time made it a language study trip, doing around 3 weeks of classes in Beijing. One goal achieved.

I also wanted to start working through Wang Fang Yu's 'Chinese Cursive Script: An Introduction to Handwriting in Chinese', and this week actually did. And it's a book I'm already loving. It's covering something I've wanted to learn more about for a long time, and I'm amazed I've finally settled down to do it.

So, what can I say? This scheme of actually writing down your aims and objectives and on top of it, going public with them, actually seems to work!

[edelweis]

hmmm I wish writing down my goals worked as well for me, JenniferW. Actually it looks like I'm better at reporting in than at studying.

Anyway.

In June, read regularly although not every day, studied two easy textbook chapters, SRSed a little, practiced characters up to 1200, and that's pretty much it. Ah, and I sent two postcards in Chinese - very, very basic sentences.

I am not taking part in the Comics Project any more because real books are more comfortable, so I read what I find in libraries. This month there was 旺财日记, single page humorous stories about an IT engineer and his internet-addicted dog. (I didn't even bother looking up 旺 until it became relevant in one of the stories). A sample is attached just because. Short, easy to understand even if I skip some words, and about computers =

[Meng Lelan]

旺财日记? Oh I didn't know about this cartoon. It's only available in libraries? - not online?

[heifeng]

So, to keep myself motivated, I might as well give the monthly update for the end of June...I've had some progress..had some set backs, but I think there is an 'ok' general trend :rolleyes:

1) Leisure reading: I am still working on 三国演义, and just broke the 10% hump, but progress has been slower b/c of ther other goals I have been focusing on. (And I'm not trying to speed read 三国...hopefully I can take something away from it. So far it's a better understanding of the main characters in the story...and better recognition of those 'less common Chinese characters'.)

2) News Reading: I haven't been reading as much newspaper articles as before b/c I have been trying to practice some other exercises more, but I still read quite frequently.

3) Vocab- so my new big thing is watching cops and just simultaneously interpreting it, which has given me some interesting vocab. I've been trying to focus on drug related vocab lately.

4) Listening: I finished watching 家,N次方 which isn't particularly challenging, but was interesting enough.

5) Pronunciation & general speech: So I am still doing my weekly PSC. I missed one week b/c of a trip though. Now I aim to take my last 6 month problem word list and create a summary to post on that PSC thread I started. I cut back on my 朗读 due to some time constraints, but I've been wanting to move on from that to just general speaking/recording, which I have done. Overall I've still been making ok progress in this area.

6) Interpreting:

So despite being massively angry I only had 1 month b/t getting my previous state interpreting score to know what section I failed prior to the the next exam, I sucked it up and spent most of this month really studying hard for the retake. I mean hard. My classmates and I literally had 1-2 hr skype study sections on average 4-5 times/week, went through text books & documents and practiced tons of simultaneous exercises, critiqued eachother, recorded and rerecorded, memorized & built up speed, etc. So the good news is I just retook the summer sitting of the exam this week, and can say that keeping up with 150+ words per minute isn't so bad any more...let alone 120 words per minute as required for the exam. I don't know if I did as well as I needed to on ALL of the sections (for some reason I seemed to get a bit discombobulated from a different section this time), but the intense month prep and having some pretty well organized study sessions were very helpful. I'll still be massively angry if I didn't pass again, but this time seemed to rely less on the luck of the draw-- This time my classmates and I actually came up to the challenge and revisited everything from our former lessons, which was a very beneficial exercise. I'm pretty proud of this. On the other hand I'm sort of sad I may still have messed up a section..*drats*

7) Translate: I've basically been keeping busy with other projects and the item above, so no progress here in terms of anything actually 'written' and turned in for payment at least. Although a translation project I want to work on for the remainder of the year is to take some really useful reference books I have ordered that are only available in English/Spanish and then translate them into Chinese so I have my 'master' glossary. (rather than my current 'everything scattered in different files waiting for the day my PC fails' system)

8 ) Penmenship: call it nerves but I haven't been able to sit down w/ a pen lately w/o breaking it in half and having ink leak all over me (true story..red ink everywhere..not pretty), I will need to start this up in July b/c I need to r---e---l---a---x a bit. I think I am still on chapter 35 or so of 55 so far.

9) Here's a new one: Improve Knowledge of Chinese History: Fail: F- here. goal for the 2nd 1/2 of this year.

Other

1) Prepare for state Professional Engineering license exam in October. So I am basically registered...once I mail in my application tomorrow-ish. I sort of don't want to part with my money and dignity (a lot of recommendations are needed to even take the exam.....oh god...). Note, I haven't actually prepared yet...only done the leg work to register so far :blink:

2) Work out a minimum of 2 times/week: I need to re-start up my exercise plan which fell off the radar a bit this month (not including the daily exercise/commute though)...so now I fear my joints are not gonna be happy (By the way this is an awesome video for working out/flexibility since there are sometimes questions about flexibility on this site, I highly recommend this video. I also recommend random systema flexibility exercises if you have carpeting at home and understanding downstairs neighbors and need something more manly or

to do.)

3) Actually write to friends more & keep in touch w/ people: So I need to go home for a while to take care of some things. I'll have time to kick it with the homies then.

4) Figure out a 'master plan' to return to China before or by the year of the Dragon arrives: I need to get cracking on this. The inflation scares me a bit...I guess I might need a legit job, imagine that. I basically will be in a decent position (=ready get outta dodge) to make a move by the end of this year I hope. On that note I am sort of in the 'wishful' thinking phase of making this happen, so I owe a better update by the end of next month. ;)

[edelweis]

@Meng Lelan: well it was a library book so I don't know about finding it online... sorry

[querido]

My #1 language exchange partner graduated, moved, got a job, is getting married already, and says that continuing our exchange is "impossible".

Depressed. Flashcards expired, etc. Took it hard. Drama queen, ok.

I shall find a native speaker in my area, by going back to school, or not.

[OneEye]

The past month has been crazy, trying to get ready to leave Austin. So unfortunately I've fallen behind. On the bright side, I'm now in Florida with family, and have next to nothing to do for the next 6 weeks besides applying for visas and making sure everything is ready for us to leave August 15, so I'll have plenty of study time.

[Gleaves]

Been a little while since I've updated.

1. 20 minutes of conversation/speaking practice a day

I'm averaging about 15 minutes a day, so I need to work on this.

2. Finish ten TV shows.

4 out of 10 so far. I just finished 神话。 I am making my way through 潜伏 and 茶馆. I am roughly on pace to get through ten this year.

3. Beat five video games in Chinese.

2 out of 10 so far. I beat Rainblood and am working on 古剑奇谭 now.

4. Increase my reading speed to 300 characters a minute.

I've not worked on this the last few weeks. I really need to get back to it. When I don't deliberately practice reading speed, I dip back into a much slower speed (about 8 pages an hour versus 15. And I'd like to get to about 20 pages an hour this year).

[rmpalpha]

Well, my goals have pretty much fallen short of where they're supposed to be. Still, I'm going to persevere with my Chinese studies.

(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).

Definitely too ambitious since some lessons are more difficult than others, and because I took a two-month hiatus this spring. The slowest part for me is learning the vocabulary. Right now, I'm finishing lesson 33 in NPCR 3 - this is a difficult lesson for me because there are a lot of grammatical concepts involved. I hope to finish out book 3 by the end of the summer and start book 4. Skritter has been awesome, and very helpful in learning how to write them. I need to find a way to learn how to USE the characters I've learned how to write since I've just been learning by reading lessons, memorizing vocabulary, etc.

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

Haven't started this yet though I've browsed it a couple of times.

(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).

Same as above, I haven't started this yet, but I've browsed it a few times. It definitely looks much easier now that a few lessons in NPCR 3 are under my belt. I also have a stack of Chinese Breeze readers that have been lying around for about a year now - I should get around to reading those too.

I may hire a Chinese language tutor or try out chineseteachers.com.

I tried chineseteachers.com, but I didn't like the interface and felt it was difficult to just go ahead and pick a teacher to learn from. I'm deaf, so I had to rely on the IM system that they had - it was quite cumbersome and the interface is obviously designed for people to learn the language through listening/speaking rather than through reading/writing. Maybe I just need to take a class somewhere - I'm a little hesitant to hire a Chinese language tutor because they seem expensive around here (SF Bay Area) and I don't know how to pick the "right" one for me.

[Meng Lelan]

Ah, my goals, what were they? Skritter is up to 2200 characters now. I was wanting to get 5000 characters lined up in there by the end of the year but this pace is fine by me. Going to Vermont next month to look at the Middlebury Chinese School. In Houston right now getting private coaching for the wushu forms I'm competing in later this month.

[Liebkuchen]

Just ordered the NCPR Book 1 (2nd edition) with cd and the Oxford Beginners dictionary from Amazon. Going to set myself a challenge of one chapter a week. I'm aiming to supplement it with live mocha and kids tv from youkou.

On a more practical level, I've saved up my 'fall back' money for job hunting/moving regardless of what happens after my year in China (plus my visa ). Everything from now on goes in the 'kitty' to be used in China. Only 13 months to go...

UPDATE: just gone mad on Amazon and additionally bought Harry Potter in Simplified Chinese and also got a good deal on a tintin book...aiming high!

[character]

With class out for the summer, I've concentrated on review using Chinese Demystified and also on watching Chinese films/TV series. Once I've finished Chinese Demystified, I'll work on one of the 500-character Chinese Breeze books.

Improvement continues to be slow, but I'm definitely understanding more whole sentences. I'm beginning to think another effort at learning a lot of relevant vocabulary would be beneficial at this point.

[roddy]

August Bump!

[OneEye]

Good call, roddy.

I'm leaving for Taiwan on August 15. Everything is in order, visas came in two days ago, so now we're just waiting. Class starts September 6 at National Taiwan Normal University 國立台灣師範大學, and I'll be in the "intensive" program for 3 quarters. Recently, studying has taken a back seat to getting ready for the move (which has turned out to be much more time consuming and costly than expected, but that's how moving always is), but I have kept up with flash card reviews. So that's something.

Once we're settled in it will be "All Chinese All The Time" (har har). I should be able to fit in time for French too, and if I have any leisure time after that I want to improve my chess game. So if anyone here will be in Taipei and likes to play chess, hit me up.

[Meng Lelan]

August bump alright, I'm fulfilling one of my original goals of 2011, that is, I'm in Vermont visiting Middlebury right now. It just finished raining and I'm trying to upload to my blog a picture of a rainbow I took an hour ago.

[abcdefg]

That Vermont rain must be a treat; so dry and hot in Texas. Glad you got to go to Middlebury.

[Liebkuchen]

Well, the whole 'not getting to China for another year' woe above was surprisingly premature...Off to Yantai in 23 days.

I've been flashcarding away on my phone at HSK 2 level, listening to and trying to sing along to some pop music but need to get back to basics for survival needs.

Revised goals for next 2 months:

1)I want to be able to speak, read, listen and write basic instructions/needs/wants for eating, directions, taking the bus.

2)To pass the HSK 2

I intend to achieve this by:

A)Interacting with and socialising with Chinese speakers whereever possible. I'm not shy at garbling unintelligbly in a foreign language but I need to actively get out and about and find people in the first place.

B )By hiring a local tutor for upto 4 hourly sessions a week (will be contacting the other uni in town which trains tcfl teachers)

c) When I'm on my own, speaking to myself in Chinese and watching Chinese tv, films and making use of kids books if I have to. Intend to join the local library.