Upper Int. to Advanced Learner Question

[ouyangjun]

Hi all... I have a questiona and I'm hoping that some people who have gone through my learning phase already have some advice for me.

Quick background:

-Studying Chinese 4+ years

-No formal study/education, all independent

-Passed New HSK Level 4 over a year ago (very confident can easily pass level 5)

-Live in China

I'm at the point where from a living life perspective in China I am very comfortable, but want to make sure that I am still progressing from a learning perspective. Lately my self study has not had much rigor or dedication. For study methods I review vocab and grammar on Anki each morning (~20 mins per day). Other than that I frequently converse in Chinese, watch Chinese sitcoms/movies, ready Chinese books, play on weibo, etc.

What I'm struggling with is having the motivation to continue going through the books that I've always used, 博雅汉语 (boya hanyu series). My original goal was to finish the entire series up to the final advanced book. I've currently studied up to the advanced series, but have not started/completed it...

I'd like to know if any other people have advice on study techniques strategy when reaching this point in language learning. Is there a lot of benefit in putting all the time and effort into these textbooks, or should I use that time to read Chinese books, or other actives instead.

Thanks for the advice!

[imron]

To be honest, if you're struggling with the motivation to keep going through textbooks, and you're already comfortable watching Chinese sitcoms/movies and reading Chinese books, I would suggest just to do more of that. Especially reading books, which will be great for expanding your vocab - so long as you look up words that you don't know (see my thoughts on the topic here).

[ouyangjun]

@imron - thanks for the comment, that's what I've been thinking as well. I read your post about reading books, good stuff. One trap I fall into with reading books is that I often times run into words I don't know, but based on the context of what I'm reading I can make an educated guess on the meaning and move on. This is good if I just want to enjoy reading, but bad for learning new vocabulary... I know I need to be more dedicated to looking up new vocab...

[anonymoose]

The material in the advanced Boya series isn't vastly different from native materials (in fact, if I remember correctly, much of it is derived from native materials), so in terms of learning, I don't think there is much of a difference. The advantage with native materials is that you can choose something closer to your personal interests which should help with the motivation, but if you're just expecting to pick up a copy of 读者 as a substitute for Boya, I don't think it'll really solve much.

[Silent]

I'd like to know if any other people have advice on study techniques strategy when reaching this point in language learning. Is there a lot of benefit in putting all the time and effort into these textbooks, or should I use that time to read Chinese books, or other actives instead.

Personally I see little to no value in study when you are already comfortable with native level material and have no trouble using the language actively unless you have very specific goals where the 'perfect' language skills are requiered. I'ld say it's better to use the language a lot. If you have specific issue's it's off course worthwhile to target those specific issue's but I don't think that a general textbook should be the answer to solve specific issue's. Learning/practicing specific grammar or learning subject specific vocabulary is probably more beneficial.

[imron]

One trap I fall into with reading books is that I often times run into words I don't know, but based on the context of what I'm reading I can make an educated guess on the meaning and move on

This is why I suggest setting a relatively small quota of new words a day when you are reading. It means that most of the time you'll be continuing on reading, but at the same time, you're not neglecting learning new words either and over time, so long as you're doing regular reading, you'll gradually accumulate more and more words in your vocabulary. The key is not to let these new words interrupt the reading process much. This means either a) using an electronic dictionary such as Pleco that lets you quickly look up words and add them to a list to study later, or b) underlining new words with a pencil and then coming back after you've finished reading to lookup and study those words.

so in terms of learning, I don't think there is much of a difference.

As you mentioned, I think the only real difference will be in terms of level of interest towards the target material. If the textbooks I've used are anything to go by, native material will be much more appealing.

[li3wei1]

How about targetting native material in areas that you find interesting/useful, and making sure that you spend a certain amount of time every day reading/listening to material that you find challenging, i.e. stuff that you would normally turn away from?

[ouyangjun]

Thanks for the feedback... I think what I will do is pick up more on the reading. I was kind of hoping that someone was going to come back with a great argument for me to stick with the Boya Advanced books... something about me feels like I'm quitting if I don't finish them all. The problem I run into with Boya is a lot of the content is dull and doesn't interest me, plus they use a lot of vocab that is more literature focused and not very practical. I think I will force my girlfriend to sit with me for an hour as we go over the vocab in each of the chapters and she tells me which ones are worth learning, then I'll hit the worthwhile vocab, any interesting stories, and do all of the grammar and grammar practice... kind of a hit the highlights tour of the Boya advanced series. Now going to read a book I'm thoroughly enjoying, 《1988：我想和这个世界谈谈》by 韩寒.

[imron]

That sounds like a reasonable plan.

something about me feels like I'm quitting if I don't finish them all

Moving on to better things would be another way of looking at it.

plus they use a lot of vocab that is more literature focused and not very practical

Until you start reading literature If you read enough, you'll probably come across most of that vocab eventually anyway. The difference is whether you come across it all at once now in material you find boring, or whether you come across it gradually over a range of material you find interesting.

[OneEye]

It's easy to get stuck in that whole "I should finish this" thing. Just put it aside for now, planning to come back to it later. Do more interesting things for 4-6 months, and then come back to the Boya book. I bet not only will it still be boring, but it will be too easy to be useful. I haven't read any of the Boya series, but that's been my experience with some other books that I thought I "should" use but that either bored me to tears or were ancient and dry (but old standbys at places like ICLP).

[jkhsu]

I was kind of hoping that someone was going to come back with a great argument for me to stick with the Boya Advanced books... something about me feels like I'm quitting if I don't finish them all. The problem I run into with Boya is a lot of the content is dull and doesn't interest me, plus they use a lot of vocab that is more literature focused and not very practical.

Ok, I'll volunteer to be that someone. Actually, I'm not planning on giving you a great argument for finishing the Boya books specifically, but I will explain why I like textbooks in general. First of all, I hope you're not using "content is boring" as an excuse for learning vocab. It takes energy, effort and persistence to learn and remember vocab. If you're just doing some "relaxing" reading of your favorite topic and not encountering enough new words and/or spending the time to learn/remember those new words, then you're probably not maximizing your learning potential. In general, I agree with others that as long as the native material you are using is challenging and providing you with new words/grammar points that you actually take the time to learn, then you're all good. However, just going through that process takes effort and in my opinion, textbooks make this easier (as long as you're not beyond the textbooks level).

I use a variety of textbook readers. A typical reader contains chapters covering various topics so it's never really "boring" for me (I'll explain this further in the next paragraph). Plus, each reading section is only a couple of pages so I'm rarely stuck reading something that I'm not interested in for very long. What's useful to me is the vocab broken out next to the reading sections, the exercises to help me understand how to use the vocab/grammar and review of the vocab in subsequent chapters. I’ll also pick textbooks used at major Universities so that I can simulate their curriculum and gauge my progress.

The “textbooks are boring” topic comes up all the time. For the record, I never read anything remotely close to any of my Chinese textbooks when I'm looking for something to read in English. Let's face it, if you can easily read best selling novels and newspapers in Chinese, why would you need to read textbooks? Textbooks are great for learning, especially if you’re self learning. Personally, I find the process of comprehension and getting through the chapters rewarding. When I first encounter a new chapter, I might get maybe 80% of the meaning, then, as I learn the vocab/grammar points, things start making a lot more sense. After I get that "ah ha, so that's what it means” moment, I'm on to the next chapter about a totally different topic.

On a recent trip to China, I bought the Boya Chinese Advanced Book 3 along with several other advanced level textbooks. I haven’t started this book yet but I like the fact that the vocab definitions are in Chinese. Again, I see additional textbooks as more opportunity for exposure to vocab and reading material. Remember that just because you’re going through textbooks doesn’t mean you can’t read stuff you enjoy either.

[rebor]

I am very far from this level with my chinese, but I think you question is interesting on a more abstract level, and concerns what you want to do with your chinese, as Silent has already touched upon. The answer will of course differ from person to person. Some people aim to be the next 大山, some people want to be able to follow the news and read books, some just want decent verbal skills so they can deal with the in-laws. My English still has big gaping holes in it. Some of these I might well try to mend someday soon, but in other areas I just don't have the motivation. I will never drill the names of every kitchen utensil or common piece of furniture for example, as I see little use for this outside an english-speaking home. My pronunciation isn't 100%, but I could care less since it is already very good. I wouldn't be able to write a novel in English without embarrassing myself, but since I don't see myself doing that in the near future, I'm fine with it. I can read anything I come across, write decently, understand lectures and dramas and and speak freely without too many errors, and that's enough for me. If I would come close to this level in Chinese I would be very pleased and just focus on enjoying the language and the culture, advanced textbooks be damned! One could of course argue that one should learn for learnings sake, always strive to improve oneself et cetera, but since our time on this earth is limited, striving for perfection in one area will invariably draw time away from others. For example, the time I've spent on chinese could surely have been used to improve my English(or Swedish for that matter!). For me though, the value of reaching say an upper-intermediate level of Chinese is much higher than marginally improving my mother tongue or second language. But if I wanted to write poetry or do academic research on English literature this would not be the case.