Is my approach too restrictive?

[ChristopherB]

I have been studying Chinese on and off for the past five years, alongside a number of other languages, and my level has not yet passed the beginner level. I'm not a total newcomer to learning languages -- I have made quite considerable progress in several Western European languages -- but with Chinese I have become so concerned with method and structure and logical approach, that my results are coming at less than a snail's pace.

I am basically a slave to graded readers, utterly convinced that steering off the path of systematic vocabulary and character acquisition is a recipe for failure. I have not allowed myself to study native content yet, given that my character count is less than 1000 (abysmal for five years of "work"...) and will not even contemplate the idea until I have finished the set of readers I am using.

Of course, given that I am student of Russian and Spanish, and work regularly to maintain and refine my German and French, my expectations for Chinese need to be reasonable. I try to get in an hour a day of study and my efforts have focused largely on developing literacy. I have this fear that learning vocabulary haphazardly "in the wild" will only confuse me and draw me away from the serious task of completing these damn readers. I don't truly dislike using this textbook material, but it is very arduous and boring at times. The former I suppose is to be expected with such a language, but must I really endure this five volume, 2000-page torment of textbook dialogues and narratives? Is boring, artificial, didactic content a necessary evil for Chinese?

[Gymnosopher]

It kinda sounds like you've decided already that using textbooks doesn't work for you - not because of your judgement of the rewards to time ratio but just from the tone of your comment (though don't shoot me if I read this wrong!). The way I see it is that when you make learning a chore, as it may be when you're sick of a certain method, you're going to severely inhibit what you take in and retain. Sure, different people learn in different ways and you may have a proven track record with textbooks in other languages but perhaps if you're not enjoying it so much as "boring, artificial, didactic" would suggest then you could try something else.

I'm not the most qualified to discuss this kind of thing, being near the beginning of my Chinese learning, though I have read elsewhere on many occasions that textbooks designed for foreigners learning Chinese ought be a good basis. Perhaps others here would be able to comment on the specific textbooks you are using and could also contribute suggestions of what else you could do (I can almost already hear people saying 'media media media!' on the tv/film/radio camp and subs2srs on the srs camp).

[Peter2010]

I really endure this five volume, 2000-page torment of textbook dialogues and narratives

You don't have to do that. Alternatively. you need to read or do something (of course in Chinese) that could catch your interests.

As to the difficulties in learning Chinese, you should be aware that Chinese is totally diferent from any European language and few can master it in a few years. So take it easy, your situation is normal. In my personal experience, one hour a day is far from enough to make a "quite considerable progress" in Chinese within five years. As the old saying goes, no pay no gain. I guess you need to spend more time and efforts on Chinese learning.

[Olle Linge]

How about adding some kind of communicative goal or element to your studying? I find that most students learn better and can keep motivated if they have a genuine goal which isn't simply to finish the textbook before the end of the year. It will of course be very basic in the beginning, but having a native speaker to communicate does at least make the project of learning Chinese real. I also agree with Gymnosopher that it sounds like you've already decided that it doesn't work. I'm quiet a fan of structured approaches myself, but I try to do things in parallel, i.e. focus part of your time on your textbooks and another part of your time "haphazardly in the wild". It's fun to get lost in the wilderness sometimes. I've always liked language exchanges as a kind of controlled, semi-wilderness, which might be preferred over the real thing.

[creamyhorror]

When something isn't working, switch things up. Try other approaches and other media. You don't need to throw away structure completely, but take a semistructured approach. Select things that you know are recommended for the beginner level and freely use them. This includes videos, readers, random bits of text from webpages, foreigner-aimed textbooks, Chinese textbooks, radio/podcasts, etc.

Also consider using less-boring readers like Chinese Breeze (search the forum for it).

Random links:

Zhongwen Green - Basic sentences. Move on to Zhongwen Red afterward.

Full flash textbooks for overseas Chinese (courtesy of querido) - Try the 'Hanyu' textbook

Learn Chinese @ CCTV/CNTV - Chinese learning videos from the state broadcaster. Start with the Beginner level videos in the column on the right, like Growing Up in Chinese, Easy Chinese, etc.

Beyond the basics, Chinese isn't a linear journey. You can meander around the "starter regions" all you like and you'll still get better at the same rate - as long as you're consistently doing it. (Remember to put your learned material into a spaced repetition system (SRS) or other review system, though!)

Finally, 1000 characters over 5 years of an hour a day is relatively slow. You should try a character recognition/mnemonic system like Matthews, Hoenig or Heisig, with which some folks finish 1500 characters in a few months. This should be done with the help of an SRS as well. Don't demand perfect character recognition, either - just maximise your rate of learning.

Good luck in finding a new wind.

[roddy]

Have a shot at spending one hour a week on something more interesting - you might find it gives you an enthusiasm boost which makes the rest of your studying more efficient. You don't need to overload yourself with new vocab - trick is to feel good about the stuff you do understand, not worry about the stuff you don't.

[ChristopherB]

Thank you very much for the thought-provoking responses. I have used Heisig, I got up to about 1350 characters before shelving it, since I felt my efforts would be better spent elsewhere. It certainly did help ingrain writing skills and I so I have a pretty solid handle on character construction and recognition, even of new characters.

Adding communication is an interesting idea, though I think I'll feel more motivated to pursue that when I have some kind of post-beginner passive knowledge of the language. Of course if I had been more diligent and settled on an approach earlier and actually stuck to it, I'd probably have long since hatched out by now.

I think I'll take Roddy's suggestion and try mixing it up for a week, using LingQ perhaps. I guess there's no harm in that.

Thanks again for the advice, I'll be sure to take all of it on board!