The 2011 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[querido]

My year was a big success.

I accomplished this, from post #6: "1. Automatize some real listening/speaking skill." I'm still just elementary, but it feels real. This is something I had complained about here for almost two years. The other goal from #6 was abandoned when I switched from children's books to CSLPod, a good decision.

I survived the difficult transition described in #48; this year my routine switched from 100% solitary to 80% social (paid and unpaid, in person and on QQ, as described in other threads here).

I did this, as I vowed in #86: "I shall find a native speaker in my area, by going back to school, or not."

That first tutor and her family have become our friends. I took a beginner's course, too.

This was one of the best years of my (late adult) life.

And, I became an "English teacher". :-)

[renzhe]

1) Finish 水浒传 or get as far as I can. Progress here: http://www.chinese-f...b5%92%e4%bc%a0/

2) Get my hands on a decent grammar book and work my way through it. I feel that NPCR was not enough, and I need to consolidate.

3) Finish a couple of TV shows, focusing on listening.

4) Finally do some newspaper article reading. A short one a day, ideally. Progress here: http://www.chinese-f...cle-of-the-day/

5)- Conversation, and loads of it

1) Well, I'm making my way through it, but it's not steady progress. I'm doing fine, but not covering enough ground. I need more discipline next year, like a nightly quota.

2) Nope.

3) Yes, finished a few, intend to continue.

4) Worked well for a while, then lost momentum. To be honest, reading is my best developed skill, and I think that I should concentrate on other things for a while.

5) Some of it, not enough. Plan to address this in detail next year.

6) go through the complete HSK wordlist in Anki

7) go through the 1400+ chengyu chrix posted in a thread here a while ago

Started both, made some progress, but got too busy at work after a while. Will continue with both, concentrating on 7)

[edelweis]

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

Didn't track on that forum.

Some progress on sleep.

Exercised little but regularly.

1- English:

* review pronunciation (mainly tonic accent and vowels)

* conversation once a month

Some conversation did happen, much less than once a month though.

I started reviewing pronunciation but it didn't last more than a few weeks.

2- Spanish:

* conversation once a month.

* read one new novel.

No conversation happened.

I did not read any novels. Tried Insolación and El hombre duplicado. The latter has sentences that fill pages and felt more psychological (and depressing) than fantastical. I might go back to the former next year, or find something else... the problem is, in librairies and bookshops I never find any SciFi except for classics like La Isla del doctor Moreau, which I have read already.

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.

Barely started.

4- Colloquial Arabic:

* define one small goal and fulfil it

Not started at all.

5- Kabyle:

* define one small goal and fulfil it

Not started at all.

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.

This worked fine. I only needed the French menus to do some formatting in OpenOffice.

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

No hurry and no cramming. Did not take the test.

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

I have not yet finished the HSK4 list...

* Finish one textbook.

Failed.

* Free writing at least once a week.

Failed except for a handful of weeks.

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

Failed.

But, I am now taking a weekly class which emphasizes grammar.

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

I did not keep it varied, and some weeks I did not read at all.

But I did read a novel in Chinese (活着）and started another one （圈子圈套）.

And globally this is one of the things that worked rather well.

* Learn 1 chengyu per week.

Not started.

* Conversation once a week

Failed except for a handful of weeks.

* Daily listening.

Some weeks it was daily, most month it was weekly...

But I did learn something: audio with transcript is useful for learning vocabulary in context. I will use that more next year.

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

I drilled characters up to the 1500th most used one. Retention is not quite as good as one would hope (today I could read only 1300 from those 1500). I have not tested myself with characters in the 1500-2500 range yet, might update later.

Anyway I'll count this one as a pass.

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

Failed except for a couple of months.

* Typing: use mainly wubi.

N/A (barely typed anything).

7- Finnish

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

I did not do this but perhaps it's better this way.

Globally this year did not go too badly despite the random work, health and family issues. I feel I had a better balance between Chinese learning and work than the previous year. I could have studied more and better though. The most positive changes are the weekly class and the novel reading. Also I recently bought a smartphone and I want to use it for studying on the go in 2012.

There are lots of failed goals above... I don't think it matters much. Call it goal making experience. I will do things differently for next year's goals

[imron]

Goal 1) Continue to read at least one book a month.

Success and then some.

Goal 2) Finish and release a new software program I've been working on to help learn Chinese. This probably won't happen until closer to the end of the year,

Well, I didn't get to finish it yet, however I did quit my job, start my own business and start working on it full-time. Unfortunately I was a little longer in quitting my job than originally planned, so that set things back by a few months, and then I also got sidetracked with another little side project (ready soon) that has also been taking up some of my time. Which means the actual program probably won't be ready now until later 2012, but I got quite a lot of things done on this front, so while not a success, progress was made that I was happy with.

[Gleaves]

My tale of the tape, a few days late.

1. 20 minutes of conversation/speaking practice a day

Success. I gradually increased my speaking practice over the year, mostly with the help of tutors and meetups.

2. Finish 10 TV shows.

Fail. Only finished 6. Started and stopped a few more. I really thought this would be the year I would come home and catch an episode at the end of every night to brush up on listening. Not a big deal, though, plenty of other ways to practice listening when i don't have the patience for dramas.

3. Beat five video games in Chinese.

Big fail. Only finished 2. I hope to get back to some gaming in 2012.

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

Fail. I put some good work into this, but I am still not there. After a few chapters of an easy good book, I can read this quickly, but not so much on unfamiliar texts or news articles. I'm going to continue to work on this. I don't have the patience to continue to read at a slower speed and I'm not giving up reading, so something will give this year.

[hackinger]

> Study Chinese for two hours per day and see how far that will carry me.

2011 has been a mild disappointment from the "Learn Chinese" point of view. In 2010 I had already completed the first three volumes of NPCR. In early 2011, I essentially just did HSK (old) flashcards. Then I stopped even doing flash cards and only listened to Chinese sound files when exercising. Since I exercised more than an hour per day, mostly biking but also running, I reviewed at least the easy stuff. I listened mainly to the Pimsleur tapes which I had originally done in summer of 2010.

In October when the days became shorter I got serious again with studying Chinese. (It is only a hobby for me.) I had already purchased the two volumes of Chinese with Ease from Assimil and now went through all 105 lessons. The lessons are pretty short, but I really liked these books. The two books teach about 1300 words . I also went through NPCR 2 and 3 again and read the texts of the first 110 beginner leassons from the "Chinese Reading World" from the Iowa Uni. I also listened to the sound files.

With flashcards I started from scratch and did the first 1000 characters and the corresponding words from the HSK (old) word list.

To achieve this, in December I spent roughly 4 hours per day (rather per night) studying Chinese. 2012 I want to avoid such a sprint at the end of the year.