Have any tips to get back on track?

[grawrt]

Long story short, I immaturely trashed Chinese because I bombed a placement test.

It's been one year since and I havent touched Chinese at all. It's hard to admit but I think admittance is the first step to overcoming the problem.

Before I dumped it I had been 1 1/2 years into my studies at a local University. I used the textbook Integrated Chinese, and NPCR 2. And I remember the transition from integrated -> NPCR being a little more difficult because I had been used to using traditional characters as opposed to simplified (or atleast I THINK that was the problem..).

I'm rusty in all areas though surprisingly I still recognize many characters (mostly the super duper easy ones).

Here is what I was planning on doing beore I decided to ask you all:

1- Purchase Modern Grammar and go through it to get a better sense of sentence construction.

2- Listen/practice with Podcast/Chinese audio each day

3- Take out NPCR 1 and work through it (<-- part of me feels like what I recognize from my old textbook is what I remember and thats why I know it, not neccesarily because I know it... <-- does that make sense? o__O)

4- Use Anki to help reinforce vocabulary, and practice writing by hand.

I dont really remember how I went about learning. It feels like an eternity ago, can you guys help me out?

[anonymoose]

Your plan seems pretty good. The next step is to stop planning and actually get on with it!

[Arreat]

hmm.....I don't think grammar book is a good idea. Maybe a easy textbook with some badly used grammar tips is better for you. Keep reading short articles and try to figure out the

characters or unfamiliar constructions. Find some Chinese who would like to help you. BTW, I'm a Chinese :-) I think that's the best way to learn Chinese.

[anonymoose]

On the contrary, I think systematically going through a grammar book is a very good idea.

[Arreat]

@anonymoose

hmm...that depends on what kind of grammar book and op's Chinese level. I don't think it is good to go through a

big grammar book if op doesn't know much of Chinese. Since we don't care about grammer much in China even

though we are Chinese. I don't know much about English grammar either. But I can use English, though not very well.

I'm a Chinese, I learn English by reading a lot of English. And I'm a Korean Chinese, Chinese is not my mother language

too. I started to learn Chinese when I went to elementary school. We don't learn grammar then. Just begun from the most

basic and badly used character and construction, and did a lot of reading.

[anonymoose]

I never learnt English grammar either. But learning a second language as an adult is different from learning one's native tongue as a child.

[Arreat]

yeah, I agree with you. but I don't learn English grammar either. And English is totally foreign language to me

[OneEye]

I think using a grammar book is a good idea.

No offense intended to Arreat, but it isn't generally a good idea to take advice from native speakers on learning their language. Ask them about usage, sure. Or about your pronunciation. But ask them about how you should learn the language and you'll get all sorts of bad advice, such as not paying attention to grammar. Most Taiwanese people tell me that to work on my conversational skills I need to read a lot of magazine articles, or memorize lists of vocabulary words, or learn more characters, or even read a lot of Classical Chinese. I just smile and nod and say thanks. The needs of a second language learner are much, much different than those of a native speaker, or even those of someone who learned the language as a child. Better to listen to someone who has traveled the same path, and done so successfully.

OP, remember that planning will only take you so far, and that no matter how meticulously you may plan, things tend to fall apart immediately in the real world. Stay flexible, be willing to throw things out that don't work, etc. Don't get too caught up in the plan. It should be a distant second to actually learning the language. Take this from someone who plans language study to an almost obsessive degree.

[grawrt]

Thanks very much! I started my studies this morning *phew* I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but...

When I was writing out 星期 the characters came out really messy even though the stroke order was correct. I think it has to do with the spacing im putting between the characters and how high or low but something just doesn't look right. Do you guys know how to keep them looking neat-ly written? (my teacher used to give us those huge character practicing sheets but I always felt like the boxes were too big).

[Arreat]

Hi @grawrt. I think you mean the handwriting. That's totally normal. Because you just begin to learn it.

If you are interested in Chinese, I think maybe you should keep using the boxes and try to control the

size of characters. Just keep practicing. Practice makes perfect! I know it's hard, but you have to get

through it. Good luck!

[querido]

Hey grawrt!

I'm sorry your thread got distracted. :-(

Did you study any this morning? :-)

Do you still have your old books and audio? When I'm trying to get started again (something that might happen to you again in the future!) I hope to quickly confirm and reinforce what I supposedly already know. This is a way to re-orient to "where I am" so I can get started again.

[querido]

...For example, can you listen to the Integrated Chinese 1 audio on random play, and understand everything and maybe "talk back" to it without looking at the book? And if you want to write too, could you pause those lessons and dictate them?

Your plan looks good. I would focus first on those old lessons.

[querido]

To grawrt:

How many flashcards do you have? How many are due this morning?! :-)

If you have flashcarded words from multiple sources, you might want to limit these, also, for now, to only those from Integrated Chinese and NPCR. Do you plan to continue with NPCR? I think the number of words in NPCR 1 and 2 should be manageable.

Have you considered shutting out English-language TV/popular culture? In my opinion you wouldn't be losing much. :-)

[querido]

To grawrt:

This forum has been one of my most important resources, but it is too time-consuming to consider everyone's ideas. There are many helpful posters here so I regret naming only one, but in my opinion a good first approximation to getting the most help with the least noise is to search for the posts of Imron and see if you can accept his views. Here is a good place to start if you want to "follow" him. (Please don't follow me because my opinions and my temperament have been "all over the map".) See post #80 in this thread.

Bye and good luck. :-)

[grawrt]

Hi & thanks Querido

Unfortunately I dont have a disk for integrated chinese, my course book came with a code that only worked for one semester

I just purchased Modern grammar & NPCR since I never had it so it will take a few days to arrive, in the mean time I am working with Rapid Literacy in chinese (for some reason I cannot find my integrated chinese book but I didnt want to do nothing on my first day of re-starting my studies). I first looked at the sentence in characters-only and found it easy to read but writing out the sentence without looking at it was challenging so I began writing the characters to reinforce it in my mind. No flash cards yet, I was debating on adding them after I got NPCR or just doing it now.. but now that I wrote that I realize I SHOULD do it now *bad me* XD

I have considered shutting it out but its kind of hard to do it completely (TWD is too good not to watch xD). Do you have any recommendations for shows/movies to watch?

[imron]

Discussion not specifically related to help grawt get back on track with his/her studies has been moved here.

[imron]

@Grawt, as others have noted, the best thing you can do is just buckle down and start studying a little bit each day.

Consider using a tool like http://dontbreakthechain.com or my own 100% to help.

[grawrt]

It's me again xD I figured since this thread was still up I might as well ask.

Okay so I've been on track with my studies (Still haven't got NPCR but I'm not really worried because rapid literacy in chinese is proving to be really helpful) I was just wondering how do you guys go about studying the characters?

I don't mean how do you remember them, I've been having no problem recognizing the tone, pronunciation and character but rather what meaning to place onto isolated characters. They often have multiple definitions or some have similar ones because they're placed in compounds.

I was just wondering if I should be studying the compounds or keep studying the isolated words as well as the compounds (this is what i've been doing), and if this is the case how do I decide which definition to remember it by?

Thanks!

OH and one more thing this is a bit trivial but, Whats the difference between 食堂 and 餐厅? Both definitions say dining hall but surely theres a difference or there wouldn't be two different words..

[querido]

I started with single characters, studied the etymology (according to the authority I had chosen) and usually put every meaning on the card. Later I added cards for compounds and tended to keep all of their meanings too. Eh, it was impractical.

Now, I'm happy enough to retain only the meaning of the word *as it was used in the lesson I took it from*. I don't mind having the other meanings on the card but they're much harder to retain. If a word appears again with a different meaning in another lesson, you could indicate it on the card, maybe by moving the definitions you're using to the top.

In the beginning I hand-wrote all of my cards. At some point I switched to an automated process (which pulls in every meaning). If I were hand-writing my cards now, I might put *only* the meanings that have occurred in my lessons. At first I wanted to know everything; now I think it would have been wiser to focus on only everything *in a single trusted source* first. NPCR is very good. I'm using CSLPod.

食堂 ¹shítáng* {A} p.w. (institutional) dining room; canteen

餐厅 cāntīng {B} p.w. ①dining room/hall ②restaurant

These definitions are from the ABC dictionary in Wenlin.

[grawrt]

Thanks. I'm *kind of* still confused. When you say words & their meanings in the lesson do you mean like 食堂= dining room or just 食= food 堂= hall