The 2012 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[edelweis]

Quick update:

8 tasks:

(previous score since April: 3.9, 4.7, 4.5, 4.4)

August 3.9

September 5.4

October 5.7

Basically my routine is set, I know what I have to do, either I do it or I don't.

Compared to my last update, the main changes are

- stricter separation between work and study. No more studying during breaks, except for the noon break.

- this means I only have to think about studying Chinese 4 times a day: after each meal and right before sleep.

(圈子圈套3 did make me miss my sleep time at least twice, the 三号 passage especially. On the other hand there were times I skimmed whole pages without understanding much at all.)

Also the "other tasks" have more or less disappeared except for 科普听记 which I try to do once or twice a week (but I'm still only on lesson 3). I'd like to finish that Spanish book this year but if I don't it's no big deal...

I am approaching my character goal (2060/2100) and should reach it in November, with December for reviews and tests. For next year I'm already planning to keep the same amount (600) or even less, but catch up on the traditional characters, and read one book in traditional characters.

I'm not going to the weekly Chinese class any more. I intend to go to calligraphy sessions once a month.

Also I realised that at this rate "learning Chinese" will require another 7 to 10 years, and that, although I like the idea of intensive classes, I would probably hate those in reality...

[Meng Lelan]

Now that the year 2012 is ending, and this is my final update for this year.

1. Skritter: I now have 3000 characters (both trad and simpl) in the Skritter queue. So I want to end the year 2012 with 5000 characters in the queue.

2. Middlebury: Pray that I get $$$ to go there now that I've been admitted. Then go to Middlebury this summer and get started on a master's in Chinese pedagogy.

3. Wushu: Compete in the Boston tournament while I'm at Middlebury. Compete in a Texas tournament if there is one in the fall/winter.

4. Blog: Just continue to blog. Simple enough.

1. Skritter: Fell way behind thanks to my thankless time at Middlebury. When I got out of Middlebury I faced over 7000 reviews on Skritter, so I have to finish out those reviews before I can go on to my goal 5000 in the queue.

2. Middlebury: Went there. I don't think I want to go again anytime soon. Middlebury didn't do much for my Chinese language learning but I did start to see immersion as a possibility even for first year learners, so I did learn something new.

3. Wushu: Fell way behind thanks again to Middlebury. I didn't have time to return to Texas for a wushu tournament.

4. Blog: Did some blogging, not much though.

[OneEye]

I'll go ahead and update for November too. The term at MTC is over, so it feels like the end of the month. November's goals were:

Finish 《古音之旅》 and start 《文字學概要》 by 裘錫圭

Didn't finish, but I'm starting 《文字學概要》 anyway. 《古音之旅》 is pretty easy going, so I'll dip in here and there when I have a few minutes.

Find a tutor

Found a tutor, and two language exchanges. With the tutor and one of the language exchanges, I'll be focusing on writing ability. I've purchased Expressions of Written Chinese, which I'll be putting to good use. I'm considering one of the several mainland-published "writing for foreigners" type of textbooks I've seen at the import stores here (can't remember titles, but one was from Peking University Press), but I'm still undecided since I'm still pretty slow at reading simplified Chinese. I'm open for suggestions here. With the other language exchange we'll be focusing on speech, particularly on natural phrasing of sentences.

Do 3000-4000 sentences using the Glossika method

Still using Glossika's method, but differently. I'm "mining" sentences from the audio tracks of TV shows and movies, then mimicking them. Trying to develop natural phrasing and intonation, as well as expand my vocabulary.

Continue with, and hopefully finish, Shadick's A First Course in Literary Chinese

Continued, did not finish. I'll be returning to it occasionally, but I'm now mostly using 《古代漢語教程》.

I also want to plan out my studying for next year, especially books related to my research field that I want to read between now and when my degree starts. I've got a shelf of books on 文字學, 聲韻學, 古漢語語法 and the like, and I'm sure it will grow exponentially over the next few years. I plan to do my master's thesis on 通假字 in Warring States texts, which will not be an easy topic, so I need to get started learning this stuff as soon as possible.

Planned. This is bound to change, but I do at least have a core of 4-5 books I want to read before I start the MA. I have about 9.5 months to go, so this should be achievable.

So as I said before, this was my last term at MTC. I had my last class on Saturday, which was not bittersweet, but very sweet. Everyone in my class is either continuing at MTC (2 people) or staying in Taipei to look for work, so there were no farewells to be made. Anyway, I'm to the point now that I think I'll be much better off with a tutor. Class was becoming a waste of time, because I'd be able to progress more quickly if I wasn't having to sit there and listen to the teacher for two hours every day. Starting this week, aside from tutoring a few hours per week and the occasional translation job that comes along, I'll be able to devote all of my time to improving my Chinese and preparing for the MA.

I'm toying with the idea of reading at least one novel per month during 2013. I've been stalking reading imron's posts about how much that helped his reading, and I want to get in on that action, starting now. I have a few at home, and I've ordered a few more. I haven't decided what I'm going to read in December, but one way or another I'm going to read a full novel next month.

So the goals for December:

Work through 4-5 hours of TV shows/movies intensively, studying the subtitles and mimicking the actors

Select and read a novel

Eight articles/lessons from The Independent Reader 《從精讀到泛讀》

100 pages or so of 《文字學概要》, read, learned, and summarized (this is part of the writing I'll be doing with my tutor)

First unit of 《古代漢語教程》 (hopefully!)

Get back to work on Japanese, if only for 30 minutes in the mornings

Finalize next year's goals

Edit: rather than one novel per month, I'm going to make it one book per month outside of 文字學/音韻學 and related stuff. So for instance, a book on early Chinese history would count.

Edited December 3, 2012 at 04:46 PM by OneEye

[renzhe]

OK, time to rip my progress apart. Like last year, I've had very little spare time to devote to Chinese this year. That's life, but you have to roll with it and adapt. In addition to this, I'm not convinced that my approach is really beneficial, and I will have to make radical changes to it next year. Although I'm not putting enough work into Chinese, I still find that the return I get is too low, given how much I do actually invest.

I've basically maintained my level over the past 3 years, and it's starting to frustrate me. This threshold-level of being able to do most things, but not really, is annoying and I've found out that many methods do not work. To summarise, I'm good with passive skills, poor with active ones, and pure exposure is not helping anymore.

1) Introduction of the "Chinese Saturday" (became the "Chinese weekend")

2) Finish 水浒传 . About three pages per day should do it.

3) Watch TV shows without reading any subtitles. Stuff like 非诚勿扰 , but also 男人帮.

4) Finish old HSK vocab, which I started this year (not a priority).

5) Finish the 1400 chengyu I started this year

6) After 4) and 5), start working on writing characters by hand

1) was an interesting one. It worked really well for quite a while, but then we fell into a routine, and this led to talking about same topics over and over again, and talking less than usual. I've been really good about keeping up with this, but it will need more structure because it stopped helping.

2) Not finished, but more than half-way through, and I'll finish it next year. I'm getting good at reading this, but it doesn't really help at all with everyday Chinese.

3) Mostly kept up with this, can follow most modern stuff, but the last few percent are as distant as ever.

4-6) Nope.

After some discussion with my girlfriend (who is advocating more Chinese-style rote exercises) and a couple of professional English teachers who mostly work with advanced students, I'm planning to completely re-structure my learning for next year, make it more organised and disciplined, because that's how I made the most progress in the past. Some of the things I will be doing in the future:

1) daily langdu for improving pronunciation. Work on a short article for a week, then move on. A combination of native recordings (where available) and a native speaker correcting me. About time I did this properly.

2) topical discussions based on an article, or some TV show. This will include writing down all vocabulary, rephrasing things, writing down a summary in my own words, the classic stuff I hate. This will replace at least parts of the "Chinese Weekend".

3) go through the new HSK lists, select a number of words that I know roughly, then make sentences and stories using these words to get a feeling for when and how to use them. I understand all of them in context, but that's not enough. I should be able to dish out perfect sentences illustrating different usage patterns for any of them.

4) get serious about modern language again. A short newspaper article and a short news report per day. I read 水浒 faster than I read 南方周末. That's ridiculous!

After 3 years of proper study (which worked) and 3 years of passive enjoyment of native materials for a more passive approach to learning (which didn't work at all), it's time to go back to school, the hard way.

I hope that I can develop a schedule where I can fit all of this without making it overwhelming, so I can keep it up and re-evaluate after a year.

[Guest realmayo]

Really interesting post renzhe. I started to suspect recently that passive learning like watching TV may be great for "maintenance" but hasn't been helping me much with actual "improvement". So last month I dug out some old textbooks and hired a tutor.

In fact I think terms like passive/active aren't helpful here: radio and tv could both be classified as "passive", and talking in Chinese as "active", but I'd say listening to the radio is more "active" than watching TV, and it's also harder work than a casual chat with a friend in Chinese. Maybe the old "intensive" versus "extensive" descriptors are more useful.

I imagine your comfort with watching TV will still be very beneficial though: everyone knows that if you come across a new word in your native language it feels it's almost inevitable that you'll come across it in a newspaper or somewhere the next day too. So I guess the same will be true for voab, grammar, usages, style, that you pick up from the "study" learning: seeing them on TV before learning them and you're not really aware that there's anything of interest that you're missing; see them after you've learned them and they suddenly become key, intrinsic parts of the Chinese language!

[roddy]

Renzhe, do you have an end-point in mind? Some level at which you will say to yourself "Well, my Chinese is good enough now" and concentrate on maintenance? Or is this a lifetime undertaking?

[renzhe]

Renzhe, do you have an end-point in mind?

C2 would be acceptable, but I do intend to make it a life-long thing, aiming for native level. It will probably become more passive once I am fully fluent. My girlfriend (of many years) is Chinese, her family is Chinese, I have good reasons to be as fluent as I can

Personally (and I really mean this only as a personal goal, not a universal standard for everybody!), to me, anything less than C2 doesn't "count". So I don't "speak" Chinese, Portuguese or Spanish at the moment, I'm learning them.

[Meng Lelan]

So who is going to put up a 2013 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread and get it started? I've got goals already.

[laurenth]

Assessment time.

On 21st Dec. 2011 (post #12), I said:

- "Read my first book in Chinese"

Done. In fact I've read 3 Chinese novels (余华's 活着 and 许三观卖血记 as well as

王强's 圈子圈套 I), 2 translations (哈利·波特 I and 小王子), a handful of short stories (刘庆邦's 遍地白花 + just finished 天下无贼) + many many snippets of random stuff.

- "Add 20-25 words daily to my Anki "word" deck to reach 9000 words"

Semi-failure. I've been adding words daily, but no more than 10 on a typical day, which is more sustainable.

I'm still far from knowing 9000 words, though it's hard to tell. Last time I took the zhtoolkit.com test, I was supposed to know 6835 +/- 1262 words. 5573 sounds reasonable.

- "Add at least 2 characters/day to my Anki "characters" deck"

Done - with a caveat. After having studied once the entire 2500-character deck, I had many many suspended leeches (almost 1/3 of the characters in fact!). So instead of adding 2 new characters/day, I'm reviewing the leeches as if they were new characters. Hopefully, at the end of the second round, there will be far fewer leeches.

- "Read some Chinese everyday"

Done. That was a very vague objective though.

- "Listen to some Chinese everyday, anything."

Almost OK, but useless, as far as I can tell: my 听力 is still very disappointing. Maybe because the objective was too vague and the activity not focussed enough. I should change my method and make that a higher priority in 2013.

- "Classes by Skype: 2 hours/week"

Done

- "Take new HSK 4"

Failed. Didn't even register. I did some mock tests, though. The 听力 part was so so, which made me hesitate to register. When I wanted to do it, it was too late.

For the 4th quarter, I had added (post #158):

- "Use Skritter daily for HSK4 characters"

Failed. I do use Skritter, but on an irregular basis.

- "Spend less time on Chinese / more with my family; read some books in French"

Done, but I'm not sure my kids and wife noticed.

[Guest realmayo]

Gee another year, given the world has not ended today I suppose it's time to contront my latest failings....

All of a sudden I'm overcome by a feelin' of brief mortality

'Cause I'm gettin' on in the world

First six months: consolidate; second six months: push on.

1) Recently restarted relearning how to write characters: finish this to the 3,000+ mark well before mid-year.

2) Recently reset my Anki deck containing loads of Chinese->English vocab: continue going through this to have all the cards either current or suspended/deleted, before mid-year

3) Learn Korean -- basic conversational Korean before mid-year.

4) Chinese TV: 90 mins a day (thank you 45mins each way on a train commute)

5) Read Chinese books or magazines: a little but often

6) Decide who has the best-sounding Chinese, the actor who plays Cao Cao in the recent Three Kingdoms TV series, or the guy who plays Liu Bei (陈建斌 vs 于和伟)

Completed (1) and (2) after 10 months, not 6. Failed with the Korean, need to try again in 2013. Didn't do as much of TV or reading as I had hoped. Number 6 was much easier than I'd thought.

Self-study for 2013 will involve textbooks and a tutor.

Edit: Laurenth, interesting to see you settled on 10 new SRS words a day versus 20-25, think 10 is a feasible target for me too if it's going to be 300+ days a year.

[querido]

My #1 goal this year was to finish CSLPod Intermediate.

That didn't happen. My tutor/friends and I based our chats on that material but there were many distractions, some of them Chinese language/culture related.

But, nine hours total time with them per week has had some effect. My minimal Chinese language skills at least feel real now, and sometimes I say a few sentences sortof automatically. Certainly, this year was a success, but in other directions and in less measurable ways.

I'm getting pretty old for this. I'm only 53 but I fear an alarming decline. But unless my tutor dies before I do I'll probably be studying Chinese for the rest of my life.

[icebear]

Last update for 2012, July update (and prior) here. Overall I feel like I've kept (or increased) my momentum in most areas, although since being in Beijing a few issues have become more evident - I'll discuss those in the 2013 thread.

Relocate to Beijing

​Goal: as stated

Result: been here since July, will be here until at least July 2014 (at least - I'm enjoying it).

Skri​tter

Goal: clear my reviews each morning, or Skritter for up to 1 hour, whichever comes first

Result: became unsustainable around 4000 words and 2500 characters. Nuked my account and restarted, this time only with characters, and that is much more manageable - I add 5-10 per day with just 5 minutes of Skritter. Maintain my words via Pleco Flaschards; this seems to be a good balance.

ChinesePod

​Goal: one lesson per day

Result: fits and starts - probably an average of 3-4 per week, mostly in the intermediate range once my new tutor/textbook became more demanding

NPCR

​Goal: Lesson per week through volume 4.

Result: made up through the end volume three, then my tutor had me switch to 成功之路, which both of us find far superior (and it has a long, long series to keep building on). I'm on book three of 进步篇, which is just below their 中级汉语 series. The lesson dialogues are better in my opinion, and the grammar explanations are far superior.

Chinese Reading

​Goal: read one news article per day

Result: maybe 3 a week. I've also read 活着 and 我的祖国不做梦, and currently am meandering through the rather trashy (but entertaining/conversational) 我们的过去与未来. Reading to myself is much smoother, although I still rely heavily on Pleco (or skimming/underlining and reviewing later, if in print).

Chinese Media

​Goal: movie every few weeks

Result: switch to series as they are more sustainable. Watched 奋斗, 北京爱情故事,男人帮, and lots of first episodes. I probably watch 3-4 hours of Chinese TV per week.

Chinese Speaking

​Goal: unspecified

Result: since arriving in Beijing and restarting with a tutor, spending time with Chinese friends, dating Chinese girls, etc, the 口语 has definitely improved, although I am constantly reminded of my bad habits - especially being lax on third tones. Still, I have friends and girls that I converse with exclusively in Chinese for hours (or days, during holidays) on end, and that feels pretty good, despite the occasional confusions and roadblocks.

[xuexiansheng]

I've been avoiding this topic because I know how I've missed on most of my goals. I probably shouldn't beat myself up too much because goals change and life has a way of getting in the way!

I usually lurk around Chinese Forums, but I'll throw my goals out there this year! This is going to be a big 'China year' for me. I've got a vacation for 3-4 weeks in March, where I'll want to take a cruise down 长江 and visiting a few schools that I'd like to apply to for the CSC Scholarships. I'm thinking (济南， 郑州， 武汉， 长沙. But I'll be soliciting advice for those schools in other posts....) After I get back from the big vacation/school visiting, I've got to decide if I want to go back to China to study/live for the next few years. (1-2years more language study in china and then possibly a masters, if I can get my language skills up enough.) I'm 32 now and the clock is ticking...

So, for 2012 Goals:

So I did go to China and had a wonderful time traveling for one month. I decided not to pursue the CSC Scholarship at this time. Instead I'll be staying at my current (cushy) job and continue to learn Chinese as more of a hobby, rather than any particular career path or as a means of living in China. I did successfully turn 33 and well, the clock is still ticking...

Reading-

• (in English) finish Story of the Stone trans. by David Hawkes. (This is soooo much better than the stale translation I read back in 2004!) Read Three Kingdoms, then I'll be done all of "the four classics".....in translation. Anyone know a good version of 三国?
  
• (in Chinese) finish 活着 (my 1st chinese novel) and find two more to read this year. Maybe with the forum crowd projects!
  

My reading goals are were a big FAIL. I didn't finish Hawkes, I got half way into the second book and my interest petered out. I had already read it and it wasn't holding my interest. My 1st Chinese novel was a big fail too, not for lack of interest, but it was still too far out of my skill level. I'll try again this year.

Writing-

• Finish writing exercises from 话说中国 exercise book. This is a great textbook series because after writing, I can check the answers. (BEWARE:a little outdated like NPCR！)
  
• Writing ability for HSK 5. (ie. be able to compose approx. 100 characters in two mins. This is what held me back from attempting the HSK 5, last fall.)
  
• Continue Anki recall cards for my decks. Thank Jeebus for Anki, it has really helped with my recognition and now I can make recall cards that force me to write characters as well! (That reminds me...I really should give them some paypal $, they deserve it)
  
• Enroll in classes either at Confucius Inst or local Univ.
  

Writing was 50/50, I've felt a little better with my writing. I didn't finish the exercises in that book, too boring to writing out random sentences for myself. I need something a little more interactive. Anki was great for about 4-5 months, and help a great deal with my character recognition, but it became a chore and I stopped over the summer and haven't gotten back into it. I have done some other flashcards with Pleco for my Classical Chinese class. And I did enroll in Confucius Inst. and my local Univ. classes.

Listening-

• Continue with Chinesepod Upper-Inter and maybe move on to Advanced. (These are great to listen to at the gym.)
  
• Continue with Chinese movies and TV series. I finished 金婚 in 2011 and just started 空镜子. Thanks to:
  TV Series Recommendations and Index Thread
  
• Continue with classes at Confucius Inst. or my local Univ.
  

I feel I've made some fair progress in Listening skills. I did continue with Chinesepod Upper-Inter and should move onto Advanced this year. I've watched a few Chinese movies, more for entertain than study, but I feel it helps the ear. And structured classes at Conf. Inst. and Univ. did help with listening.

Speaking-

• Classes at Confucius Inst./Univ.
  
• Language partner.....? I've been kicking around the idea of posting something at a local coffee shop where all the Chinese/Taiwanese students congregate. Its time to put myself out there and work on finding some language allies!
  

I made some progress in speaking during class, but I never did find a language partner. I'll re-up that goal for 2013.

The biggest discovery this year was deciding what I wanted to do with my Chinese. I felt like I was at a point where I needed to do something with it or quit. When I wrote my post last January I had a real fire in my belly for what Chinese was going to be this year, but after going to China (after almost seven years away) it really changed my expectations. I went there thinking I would scope out some places to go to school when I got a CSC Scholarship. But travelling around I had a wonderful time just being a tourist and enjoying all the best parts of Chinese society without having to dirty my hands with some of the less desirable parts. This certainly kept me from somethings that I initially thought I wanted to experience, but also opened the door to new possibilities of how I could interact with China. In the end, I realized there was another path I hadn't considered, which was to have Chinese purely as a hobby and visit it once a year. This new approach during the last half of 2012 has made me much more relaxed. And may have improved my studying, since I do it only for pleasure without the pressure to 'make something of it'. I believe it has had an over-all positive influence on my language skills and I've rediscovered a passion for the language.

[OneEye]

Final update for 2012:

Work through 4-5 hours of TV shows/movies intensively, studying the subtitles and mimicking the actors

I found this works better if I take it much more slowly and listen to each chunk of audio many, many times. So I did about an hour.

Select and read a novel

Selected 《流星·蝴蝶·劍》 by 古龍, but didn't finish it, or even close. Part of it is because I spent a week in Japan and didn't do any reading while there, part of it is because my wife is on vacation from work right now so I'm spending more time with her and less time studying, and part is because I just got lazy. I hope to finish in January, or maybe February.

Eight articles/lessons from The Independent Reader 《從精讀到泛讀》

Scrapped. This is a great textbook, and I may come back to it, but for right now I'm focusing on other things.

100 pages or so of 《文字學概要》, read, learned, and summarized (this is part of the writing I'll be doing with my tutor)

Not quite, but I did do a good chunk of what I was hoping to. I'm not doing the summaries, because I decided my time with my tutor would be spent more productively on writing my study plan and such for my MA applications (which have to be all in Chinese).

First unit of 《古代漢語教程》 (hopefully!)

Mostly.

Get back to work on Japanese, if only for 30 minutes in the mornings

Success. Going to Tokyo made me really want to learn Japanese, and I'll be spending a decent amount of time on this going forward.

Finalize next year's goals

Finalize is a weird word to use, because my "goals" seem to change on a monthly basis. But I do have a list of books I want to read before I start grad school in September, and I kinda know where I want my Japanese to be by the end of the year, and I know I want to spend a few hours every week on 文言文 and palaeography (I'm working through a book called 《商周古文字讀本》). I know which class I want to audit next semester and I'm getting ready for that.

I consider this year a complete success with Chinese, even if I may have veered from the specific goals that I set for myself a year ago, and even if I did have a few periods of laziness in there. I've been in Taiwan a year and four months now, and before that my Chinese was not much to speak of. At this time last year I was studying Practical Audio-Visual Chinese III in class, which is a pretty low-level textbook (I'm guessing you might know around 1200 words before starting that book). Now I'm able to read novels, books in my field, and newspapers, I'm fairly comfortable with 文言文, and I'm able to converse about pretty much anything I need to. I still have a long way to go before I'm "there," but I think another year of studying and then 3-ish in a Master's program in Taiwan should go a long way toward it.

[大肚男]

My update

Life has been hectic in 2012, I had a lot of more urgent real world concerns like passing the bar and dealing with much more work responsibilities, so not a lot of Chinese studying done.

1) Finish Heisig's Remembering the Hanzi Vol. I, as I have been stuck at 900 characters for a long time. I want to finish by March.

- I did finally finish the book, but I didn't review probably, so now I can confortably read all 1500 characters, but can only write about half.

2) Finish Pop-Up Chinese Elementary and Intermediate podcasts. I am more than half-way done with their Elementary catalog.

- I didn't do much of popup Chinese, instead I switched to Chinese Pod. I skipped right to upper intermediate, and I am half way through it. I need to get back into the habit of listening to it, but since I graduated, I hadn't have any "drive time" to listen.

3) Listen to Chinese materials on a daily basis. I just started listening to 黑米公主 and 锵锵三人, based on another thread. While I barely understand anything said on 锵锵三人, I would like to make this a daily habit, just to train my ear to listening to normal speed Chinese.

- I think I did OK on this one. I have been watching about 1 hour a day worth of Chinese TV (mostly 非诚无扰)

4) Read a Chinese book. I want to start this once I finish with goal #1. I tried reading a book earlier in my studies, but it was frustrating. Recently, I started testing the water by reading comics, and I wasn't looking up too many words. I hope that by the time I finish with Heisig, I will be in a good position to read a full fledged book.

- While I did read a Chinese book and a bunch of comics in Chinese, I still feel that I should have read more.

5) Visit China by May. The last time me and my girlfriend went to China, it was for only a week due to work constraints, and we lost couple of days in Japan due to the earthquake. Hopefully next time we will be able to take a 2-3 weeks tour of China, and stay couple of day in her hometown.

- Again, due to work and school issues, I was unable to take a proper vacation in 2012. However, My girlfriend and I visited the China Towns of 4 U.S. cities

I am planning to spend a month in China in 2013, if all goes well

6) Start speaking with my girlfriend's roommates in Chinese. They are pretty nice and helpful about it, but they seem to quickly forget that my listening comprehension and vocabulary list are limited.

- This is probably where I made most of my progress. I have spent a lot more time with my girlfriend's friends, and most of there conversations are in Chinese. While I can understand most of what they say, I still have a problem formulating long sentences on the fly, so my contributions are usually limited to couple of words.

[rmpalpha]

Well, let's see how I did this year...

(1) Finish NPCR 3 by getting through Lesson 38, and get through NPCR 4 (through Lesson 50).

This is a definite check - after my trip to Taiwan last summer, NPCR became much easier to get through and finish. I've ordered NPCR 5, and will probably work through that over the next year.

(2) Go to Taiwan to study Chinese in January and possibly in the summer as well.

Check on this as well - I went to Taiwan for seven weeks to study Chinese. I would do this again if I could!

(3) Try to chat with my Chinese friends in Chinese more often - this will be hard because I have no real conversational skills in Chinese yet. I'm at the point where I know a bunch of words, but I still don't have the grammar to say things that seem basic to me (in English anyway).

I am a little better after my summer in Taiwan, but this is largely a miss. Most of my Chinese-speaking friends will chat with me for a minute or two in Chinese then switch back to English (usually when I ask them about a specific word or phrase they used). I shall persevere.

(4) Read some written Chinese that isn't in a textbook (this could be Chinese Breeze, or one of the other readers I have). My Chinese isn't advanced enough to try to read newspapers yet.

Also a miss - I haven't made a serious effort to read in Chinese outside of textbooks. Newspapers are still pretty incomprehensible to me, sad to say. Hopefully this will improve by the end of next year.

Overall, it's been a good year in terms of my Chinese language skills. I hope next year will be even better!

[hackinger]

The first few months of 2012 , I did study quite a bit. However when the days got longer and I spent more time with outdoor activities, I stopped studying Chinese for 6 months. On November 23rd I had to pick up the pieces and started studying Chinese in earnest again.

- Finish volumes 4 - 6 of NPCR. (I only do the grammar, vocabulary and the texts and listen to the sound files. I do not do the exercises.)

Did not happen. I finished Volume 4 and then I quit studying. However starting November 23rd I reviewed all lessons from Vols 2, 3 and 4 at the pace of one lesson per day. (I reviewed vocabulary and grammar and read all stories and dialogs for the lesson and listened to the recordings.)

- Redo all 105 lessons of Chinese with Ease: This time I look at the English text at the right hand side

and translate back to Chinese. Write the Chinese translation per hand. (Assimil calls that second wave.)

Fortunately I finished that in time before I stopped studying.

- Learn and review the first 2200 Chinese characters and associated 5000 words from the HSK (old) word list with Pleco and Anki flash cards.

- Currently I have 1000 characters in my deck under active study.

Did not happen. I reset the entire deck in November and at the end of the year I had activated the vocabulary of the old HSK B level. (1600 characters and 3000 words).

- Continue to read the "Chinese Reading World" texts at the website of Iowa University. I am at lesson 110 in the beginner part currently.

Nope

- Watch once per week a part of a "nan ren bang" video and look once per week at the "Special Chinese News" at the CNTN web site to remain motivated and humble.

Nope

- Get enough sleep and exercise ....

I did not get enough sleep, but was successful with exercising: I jogged 750 km and biked 4000 km and always did my short daily morning workout.