The 2012 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[imron]

+1 for finishing 3sfm

[heifeng]

Hah, Thanks! I don't know if my writing looks any better (hmm, well, yeah maybe some), but it did help me in (1) reading other people's handwriting, and (2) writing characters more quickly using 连笔字 when taking notes and in a more consistent way. Some characters I now always write as the book taught, other characters I still use 楷体字...so it's a bit of a hodgepodge at this point

[WangYuHong]

Awww, no update from Imron on his book list for the year?

I enjoyed reading his posts on the 2010 and 2011 lists.

They've inspired me to finally get back in the habit of learning Chinese (via reading).

While I'm still not at a level to work through any of the literary giants (家，围城，and 呐喊 are all on my list of future books), at this point I'm just trying to find something interesting to grab my attention to force myself to keep reading...

To accomplish this, my goal for 2012 is to read 3-4 novels:

1. 和空姐同居的日子

2. 和空姐同居的日子 2

3-4 Undetermined (need to see how well I handle those two, and find something else that is interesting enough to keep me motivated)

I've started the first book already, and am in the second section (out of 5). I don't care if it's cheesy or lacks depth or whatever, at least it's keeping me motivated (partially because I too am a geek, and dreamed about chasing girls in my younger years).

Two questions that have crept up for me though:

1. For those who have read 和空姐同居的日子, how would you rate it as far as complexity to understand compared to other books? (I'm sure it's easier than a lot of other things people are reading, but how much? A lot easier? A little easier? Comparable to X? Harder than X?) I'm trying to ease myself into things, but would like to know how far I have to go to start really opening up my literary choices (i.e. being able to choose the more eloquent writing or more subtle topics)

2. In general, how do you enhance your learning by reading? I'm finding myself still needing to look up far more words than I care to admit in the dictionary. Thank goodness for Pleco though... Do you just trying and push your way through books and after a while just seem to remember more vocabulary through exposure? Or do you find yourself needing to make flashcards out of the new words and frequently review study materials (in addition to reading) until the new vocabulary starts to stick? I know the "optimal" answer is to do both, but I'm hard-pressed to find free time right now, so I'm trying find a good balance to eventually ween myself off the dictionary use. Pleco being so easy and powerful is both a blessing and a curse in that regard...

Cheers!

[Silent]

In general, how do you enhance your learning by reading? I'm finding myself still needing to look up far more words than I care to admit in the dictionary.

I only read one book so far and what I did and worked very well is in advance analyse the text and add the most frequent vocabulary to your flashcards. If you make them show up in the same order as they occur in the book and your reading speed and flashcarding keep in pace you learn the words in the book and in the flashcards at the same time generating good synergy. Actually if the flashcards lag the reading a little many words are learned in the book flashcards only help to commit it to long term memory.

The words you learn that way are at least relevant for the book but maybe of lesser importance in real life. But it takes fairly little effort to choose and add to your deck. Also, if not the most current word, when learned in the book why not invest the little effort to commit it to long term memory as in the long run you'll want to learn it anyway.

As said, the methods worked great for me. I can however imagine that for more advanced learners it's less efficient. The moment you know 'all' current words you end up in long lists of characters that occur only once or twice in the book. Then you're back at the question of what to add. You may delay this point by creating a reading list and do the analysis on the combined books. In the long run however this method will stop working. At some point you'll need to add what you need to look up and you feel is worthwhile to actively learn or even quite flash cards at all.

[imron]

Well, seeing as you asked, this is my reading lineup for this year (not necessarily in the order I'm going to read them, just in the order they are currently on my shelf):

《杜拉拉升职记》

《杜拉拉2华年似水》

《杜拉拉3我在这点头的一年里》

《雪山飞狐》

《裸婚》

《蛙》

《人生》

《飞狐外传》（上）

《飞狐外传》（下）

《黄金时代》

《拆婚》

《想象中的动物》

So far this year my reading has dropped off a bit due to a number of other things taking up my time, so I'm also still finishing off 《夜谭十记》from last year. Should have that finished by the end of this month though.

In answer to your question, I haven't read 《和空姐同居的日子》but I think the most important thing is first to develop a reading habit. Make sure you're spending at least half an hour a day on reading (not including vocab acquisition, which needs to happen on top of that half hour). It doesn't matter what you're reading, just pick a book and start. If you're finding it too much of a struggle, or that there are too many new words, put the book aside with the plan to come back to it in a few months. It should only take several pages to figure this out, and once you decide to continue, stick at it until you finish it. Once you've got a few books under your belt, then if you've been doing vocab acquisition along the way, you'll be able to start to broaden your reading.

Personally I'm a big fan of trashy literature and pulp fiction rather than well-known literary works, especially when you're starting out. Mostly because the former are often easier and more fun to read and this will keep you reading, which is the most important thing.

As for how to learn, it's important not to overwhelm yourself with new words, and I think a good idea is set yourself a quota of new words per day (with a word possibly containing several new characters, or possibly no new characters). Make sure this quota is well within a comfortable range for you to learn. The number I've found works for me when I'm in vocab learning mode is 5-10 words per day. When choosing this number it's better to start small, and decide to increase it once you know you can meet it, rather than choosing a large number and dropping back (give yourself at least a week at one level before deciding to increase it).

The important thing is not the number of words you learn in a day, but the number of days you continually learn new words, and the larger the quota you choose, the more likely you are to skip a day once other things in life take priority or because you're feeling burnt out from too much vocab acquisition or whatever (and once you skip one day, it becomes very easy to skip the next day, and the next day, and the next day and so on).

Then as you are reading, if you look up a new word, add it to Pleco's flashcard list. Once you meet the quota, either stop looking up words, or look them up, but don't add them to Pleco's flashcards. As you read more you'll notice which words are repeating, and learn to prioritise them when deciding what to put in your quota. Over time, you'll realise that the useful words repeat themselves enough that they'll get added to your quota eventually, so there's no need to try and learn everything at once.

A while back, I wrote a much longer post discussing this in more detail.

Then make sure you are drilling the words you learnt as per usual with Pleco. If you've picked a nice comfortable level for your quota, you'll find this doesn't take up much time and will be easy to maintain for long stretches of time.

[roddy]

It doesn't get much trashier than 和空姐同居的日子.

Haven't you already read 黄金时代, Imron? I'm sure it was a Book of the Month some time back.

[imron]

I think it was book of the month way back when, but I never read it - at least not more than a couple of pages.

[roddy]

Bump it to the top of the list, especially if you haven't read any of his stuff before. It's only short (although you may have a volume with other stories?)

[imron]

It turns out the volume I own does have several stories in it. I figured it was just a single novel.

[Gleaves]

Update and a new goal.

1.) Listen to 8 audiobooks

One down thus far. I had previously posted some thoughts on 悟空传in the audiobook thread.

New goal...

2.) Closely listen to a piece of audio everyday

Inspired by the methods of imron and 赫杰 here and here. This has been challenging and fun thus far. Trying to account for every word, it takes me the better part of an hour to get through a minute of 锵锵三人行。 Continuous re-listening, then dictionary help, then finally the transcript. Then repeat. This makes my brain burn in the same way that character learning once did. I’ve got a streak of 7 days going.

I will probably add some sort of recording myself goal next.

As an aside, I like the android app mychain. I like that the widget on my phone’s home screen stares at me whenever I pick it up. It is one of more than a few dontbreakthechain.com type apps available. You can find many by searching for “Seinfeld calendar.” I’m guessing iphone is the same.

[imron]

Trying to account for every word, it takes me the better part of an hour to get through a minute of 锵锵三人行

It gets better with practice I look forward to hearing your thoughts 3 months from now (assuming a mostly unbroken chain that is ).

[Silent]

Two months into 2012 and a lot has happened. So a good time to review the targets.

- Read my first book in Chinese. With book I mean a book aimed at native adults. This most likely will be: 许三观卖血记, 余华 (I hope to make a start this year)

Finished. A lot quicker and with less effort then expected. See here The price I paid for this accomplishment is that I spend too much time on reading and that my other goals suffered. See below.

- At least double, hopefully triple, my vocabulary from about 2500 now to 5000-10000.

I'm well on track to achieve this. With the current rate I would end up somewhere near the middle of the mentioned range. Nevertheless I've decided this week that I'll drop this goal as I feel it's becoming a drag instead of a way to improve. I feel that the flashcards are taking too much time and energy and doesn't provide the motivation it gave me a year ago. The result is that I spend less time on other skills that are important and that I tend to be less serious about the flashcards themselves. That is, I tend to rush through and the doubtfull cards are rather marked good then false so I got rid of them. This is making studytime less effective. Add to the mix that my vocabulary is well ahead of my other skills. So for the time being I've decided to consolidate what I've studied and to stop studing new vocabulary routinely.

- Diversify my Chinese skills. To achieve this I intend (on average):

Made my first serious steps towards this goal. Spend however less time on it then hoped for. I've not administered the time spend so times mentioned below are estimates.

> to work on grammar at least an hour a week.

Spend a bit of time on grammar, but I doubt it's the hour meet the hour a week target as in Januari I only about an hour or so. The last couple of weeks I met the goal by spending a little time on grammar on a nearly daily basis though often only a few minutes. I'm in search of a way to routinely practise the grammar rules studied that is sustainable for me.

> spend at least 1/2 an hour a day on listening (watch movies, soaps, audio books, real excercises)

I have met this goal in quantity easily. The intensity of the listening however is too low. It has mostly been very passive listening and my mind tends to wonder when listening as 'background' during traveltime. I plan to intensify this and have already some ideas on how to do this without getting distracted too much.

> start to actively use chinese (maybe find language exchange, tutor or abuse some chinese friends)

I've done this, but again, only in very modest amounts. I got a language exchange partner, though a not too critical one, and we've one session a week. Usually 2-3 hours. Most of the time is spend on Chinese as she seems to have other goals then just language exchange. Still a fair bit is in English so she gets a fair amount of excercise. We mostly do reading & writing excercises. Pronunciation correction are too little, with corrections on writing she's more active.

I also signed up with lang-8. Wrote only a couple of pieces up till now. I plan to write at least one piece a week from now on. I hope to increase that number, considering time and effort it takes and the other activities I suspect that increase won't happen short term.

> 4-6 weeks of travel in China this summer.

No real news on this one. It's still the plan though chances are it will be autumn rather then summer.

> New objective

Based on the feedback on my audio sample here and my experiments with Praat I've become aware that the tones I voice are often not the tones I thought to voice. With a fairly limited time investment in excercises with Praat I notice clear improvements. With individual characters the intended tone and the real tone match now most of the time. If I still fail now at least I tend to notice that I fail. When it comes to words and even more for sentences I still fail badly without noticing. I intend to make it a daily routine and use a more structured approach. First by going through the complete pinyin chart to improve the basics and make sure I cover all sounds as sound and tone interfere. Still considering what is the best approach after finishing the pinyin chart.

[OneEye]

Mkay, check in time for February. Not as much of a success as January, but I'm still pleased with my progress.

Taiwan Today: finish Chapter 14 (whole book)

Not quite. I'm starting Chapter 13 tomorrow, so I should finish 14 next week. No big deal.

Fuller: Finish Lesson 27

Nope. Finished Lesson 24, and I'm going to do a different book (see below) first before I go any further in Fuller.

PAVC: Through Book IV Chapter 4

Done. Won't be continuing with this book (see below).

Apply to ICLP (??)

Started my statement of purpose, so that counts for something I guess.

Finish The Emperor of China

Not even close. Losing interest in the face of all the other stuff I'm doing.

So, not so great this time. But I did some other stuff that I'm pretty happy about. I mentioned last month that "My teacher thinks I can skip part of PAVC Book IV and start next term at Chapter 11, which would be great (that's skipping half a term)." That was dependent upon how I scored on the final exam. Well, not only did I test well enough to skip to Chapter 11, I also did well enough to skip the rest of the book completely and take the book of my choice for the next level. So I'll be taking Mini Radio Plays this coming term (starting Monday), which should be a lot of fun and good for my 口語, which is still lagging far behind my reading. I also picked up some students to tutor in English, and hopefully I've found a tutor for myself (I seriously need more conversation practice). I've also finally started reviving my French – what little I had, anyway – and will hopefully be able to continue with that, if only a little bit per day.

I mentioned I'd be using a new book for 文言文. That's Literary Chinese for Advanced Beginners. The whole book is in Chinese, definitions and everything, so it should be great.

I'm stepping my studying way up this term (more than I already had). This is going to require me to be pretty organized with my time, especially if I'm going to also tutor people. I'm studying from a lot of textbooks, but there's a lot of overlap and some of them will be pretty much just supplementary reading practice. So, here are the goals for March, on top of what's going on in class:

1) Literary Chinese for Advanced Beginners: Lesson 4 (this will depend on how quickly the difficulty increases)

2) 20 Lectures on Chinese Culture: Lesson 6 (I said before that I had quit this book, but it's pretty useful)

3) Learning Chinese with Newspaper I: Lesson 3 (published by my school)

*4) Chinese Customs and Traditions: 1-2 chapters per week (Supplementary reader, pretty easy going)

Native material to use every week:

1) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: read some daily

*2) 國語日報: a few articles per week (awesome local newspaper for kids)

*3) Ranma 1/2 (亂馬1/2): for fun, not much learning going on here anymore

*4) Chinese TV Shows

Other:

1) Don't quit French

2) Apply to ICLP (this has been a goal for three months now. If I don't apply this month it will be too late)

* means low priority. I have no problem dumping some of these if I need to. No matter what though, I'll be using LCFAB, 20 Lectures, Newspaper I, and reading Harry Potter. And learning French. And drinking plenty of coffee.

Fortunately, if I wake up when I ought to, I'm at school from 8:30 AM until 7:30 PM most days. Class only takes up 3 hours of that, and tutoring only 1-2 hours, so I have lots of time to do this other stuff. Some of the items aren't for daily study, just a few times per week. It very well may prove to be too much, and I'm prepared for that. But I'm going to do everything I can to cram all this stuff into my head.

[querido]

My laoshi and I are on track to finish CSLPod Intermediate this year.

I'm not actually keeping pace, but I believe it will get easier as I go.

I've spent a lot of time ensuring that I've cemented Elementary.

Aside from simply maintaining the flashcards, I believe I've done this.

:-)

[WangYuHong]

March Update:

Finished 《和空姐同居的日子》 and will be starting 第二季 later today...

This was my first real book read, and it went a lot smoother than I expected. I still had to look up a bunch of characters and even some new vocabulary from characters I already knew. I'm probably at an "advanced intermediate" level as far as reading and understanding, but with some obvious gaps since I've only been haphazardly studying...

Still, I found the book very approachable since it uses modern style of writing (as opposed to classical literary styles). The story was quite entertaining as well, which helped immensely in holding me long enough to press through to the end and "learn through absorption." Even from the beginning to the end I found myself looking up words less and less...

The one problem I did have with the book was all the 成语 used in there. I guess that's something I need to start focusing on, as I start to solidify my grasp of the basic grammar and vocabulary.

It did make me think of a question for people though: for the books that you've read, how frequently do you encounter 成语 in them? I'd say 《空姐》 averaged about one per paragraph throughout the whole book, but sometimes even using two or three in a single sentence... The book is from the main character's perspective, so even when there's no dialogue it's still him thinking and describing the scenes. He thinks he's smarter than he actually is though, so a lot of the 成语 and fancy descriptions in the book are more him just "showing off" for the reader instead of adding any actual depth to the story. But still, it makes me wonder what other books are like as far as content...

[imron]

Other books are much the same. The more you read, the more your vocab will increase, and the less of an issue this will be.

[WangYuHong]

I kinda figured as much...

Time to find a better dictionary for Chengyu...

Using the basic Pleco dictionary package, I was still missing out on some of them.

(You can kinda tell when something is a set phrase when you see a 4-character sequence that doesn't make much sense when you translate the characters individually...)

[imron]

The ABC dictionary is quite comprehensive in this regard.

[laurenth]

Update time:

- "read my first book in Chinese. With book I mean a book aimed at native adults". In my case, it will most probably be 活着"

Done... sort of. It's not 活着 and it's not a novel. It's a short story (8500 chars) by 刘庆邦, called "遍地白花"。I first read the abridged version in Graded Chinese Reader 2. I thought it was so good that I wanted to try the real thing. Found it online. Opened it in Pleco reader, and there we are. I might try the same strategy with other short stories published in the same series. I think it's quite effective and it gives a nice warm feeling of achievement. I still want to read 活着 before the end of the year.

-" I want to add 20-25 words daily to my Anki "word" deck, drawn from daily readings and listening. "

That's way too much. I went down to 12/day and will be happy if I can keep that pace for the rest of the year.

"- Add at least 2 characters/day to my Anki "characters" deck (I have two separate decks), if possible drawn from my daily dose of new words - if not, from a frequency list."

On track

- Read some Chinese everyday, first my remaining readers, then anything but textbooks and readers.

On track, except that I'm tired of readers and textbooks. So I only read "real" stuff, albeit in smaller quantities.

- Listen to some Chinese everyday, anything

OK, sort of. Except that I'd really love to spend more time applying the famous "imron method": splitting the text into small bits, understanding, repeating, keeping at it everyday, etc. I've done that a few times, but it's very time consuming. One day I will shift my priority to doing just that, more than reading. So for the time being, I do listen to Chinese radio every day, but most of the times, I don't even understand what people are talking about. About once a week, I also use podcasts and transcripts done by Deutsche Welle, BBC, RFI and CCTV.

- Continue taking 2 hours/week of formal class

On track. My teacher now uses less textbook and we spend more time talking about current affairs, which is fine with me.

"- Take new HSK 4 if it's not organized too early during the year."

The session in Paris is held on 19 May. But I'm getting married on 18 May, so I thought there might be a slight possibility that my future wife might not be pleased if I register. Oh well, there's probably another session in December, and I could try both level 4 and level 5 while I'm there.

[icebear]

I want to add 20-25 words daily to my Anki "word" deck, drawn from daily readings and listening.

I occasionally get tempted into this pace also. I think its fine for a day every few weeks (say, when trying to cram an important new chapter in that you'll have time to review over the following week) but on average 10-15 per day is more realistic (and really, more like 10). 10 a day in a year is 3600, which is a pretty good boost to vocabulary in a year, if well learned!