When to introduce native material for learning / teaching?

[Liebkuchen]

In my short experience (2 weeks in China), I've struggled to find the motivation with simpler children's books- which still have plenty of obscure vocabulary. What I have much preferred is pandering to my inner nerd and going with a couple of comics and graphic novels. I'm actually happy to read these for pleasure. My little wandering swordsman comic comes to bed with me.

I feel this has to be more beneficial than forcing myself to sit and translate a fairy tale word by word because I haven't done any 'reading' today. I've also decided just to skim read- going only with the words I know for now, then returning to them after one cycle when my vocab is greater.

I'm getting my vocab from my NPCR, lists of words I want to know in order to express myself, and ANKI sets for the HSK 1 and 2.

[Areckx]

Ooooh I have been quoted! I feel famous!

One of the things we must realize as language learners is that we are all unique in how we learn, as well as how vastly different our individual lives are. For example, I can only put in the amount of hours I do each day because I am very sick and bed-ridden. While I am improving my health and seeing doctors, I have little options on how to spend my day. It's either study or lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The obviously more productive choice is studying.

One thing I must make clear, however, is that there is absolutely no reason why you should ommit any resource while learning a language. If you have access to graded readers and have the personal drive to push through them, then by all means go out and do it. There is absolutely no reason why you should focus ONLY on graded readers. Likewise, there is absolutely no reason why you should ONLY use native materials(as defined in this thread) and neglect your dictionary study.

With me, I really don't know how to go about learning Chinese WITHOUT focusing a lot of attention on my dictionary. The words that I HAVE learned tend to stick out when I encounter them in both audio and reading, and I always make an attempt to read something outside of my level(for me, everything written in Chinese) even if I am skimming at first, then going back and looking up every single hanzi. It certainly fills out my notebook, and while I'm in the dictionary, I jump between entries and find new words containing that shiny new hanzi I just learned. It's a really good exercise just to get lost in the dictionary.

Get lost in the moment. When the time is right you'll be breezing through what you previously wanted to throw out the window, possibly granting the best gift a passerby could receive; a chinese text landing on their head.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't get discouraged anymore from not being able to understand what I'm reading/watching/listening to. Sometimes hours go by while I'm listening to radio talk shows (Beijing news)

I also make an attempt every single day to form my ideas in Chinese. It's really basic right now, things like 说什么 or 错错！· 不错！ etc

I think Ms. Frizzle says it best.

"Take chances! Make mistakes! GET MESSY!"

EDIT: I...LOVE...THE INTERNET!!!

http://www.chinese4kids.net/magic-school-bus-in-chinese-out-of-this-world/

[jkhsu]

I was the one who quoted you. Great post. I agree with everything you said here. Utilize all material and always try to do something that is outside of your comfort zone.