Got Anki Ready to Go. Now What?

[Chief123]

Even though I have had a few false starts with getting my lists organized and into Anki, I now have a functioning deck of 5406 words. I am committed to spending a minimum of 2 hours a day 6 days a week (and as many more hours as I can fit in) to get to the next level. I've been stagnant for too long and have got to jump in full force with both feet and quit messing around. Note that I live in Taiwan and 99% of all daily interaction, including with friends and family, is in Mandarin.

Of these 5406 words I would guess that 50-60% (hard to measure without counting) I "know" in that I have used the word before, an additional 20-30% I have heard others use in my daily interactions and can basically understand but have not used myself, and the rest I have no clue on. The list includes my personal vocabulary lists (still have more to add but this is a start) in combination with the top 5000 words on the official TOCFL test list in Taiwan.

My objectives in priority order are:

1. Really learn the 70-90% that I use and hear all the time. Master them. One problem I have is that many of the words I "know" I don't REALLY know and I'm left trying to remember or I remember the first part of the word but not the second. Speaking and listening is the priority over reading but reading is a must and getting to be more so every day.

2. Improve my tone and pronunciation for those words I know. My tones are a problem. I may know and use a word but have no clue what the tone is if you ask me. People say, though, my tones are fine but I have a hard time believing them if I can't say this is 2nd tone/4th tone word.

3. Learn to read that 70-90% that I know.

4. Master the rest of the list that I don't currently know. Continue adding new vocabulary.

I'm using a couple textbooks for grammar/structure.

Now the Now What part.

1. What would your study routine look like as far as this vocabulary list using Anki and/or other tools.

2. What would you do with duplicate words? For example a word is a static verb and a noun with similar meanings but different uses. On this list they would be two separate entries. Some words such as 好 have 4 separate entries.

3. How should I set up my cards based on the priorities above?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Mark

[icebear]

Only commenting on your first point - since you are so comfortable speaking it's probably necessary to start reading and especially writing a lot more to understand the nuance of similar words.

[li3wei1]

2 hours a day seems an awful lot to spend on flashcarding, when you're in Taiwan and you know enough characters to be reading. I would spend some of that time reading, possibly a graded reader at a challenging enough level, or possibly texts in whatever area interests you, and some of that time doing some intensive listening/speaking. Flashcards can be done anywhere. While you're in Taiwan, you should be taking advantage of the opportunities for conversation.

[Chief123]

To clarify, I don't know enough characters to read much of anything. I'm not against reading and want to start doing it right away because of advice I've received from others here. When I say I "know" these words I mean I know how to use a big portion of them in speaking but wouldn't recognize them in writing.

However, I'm looking to boost my speaking ability in a big way since a big part of my responsibilities is doing interviews, giving advice, helping people solve problems, giving talks, teaching lessons, etc. A small (but important) part of those responsibilities is being able to read letters, manuals, etc. and I get through most of them with the help of online tools and assistants. The vital thing though is to be able to express myself clearly in a lesson/talk/interview/counseling environment where the main communication is in oral form and to take the limited skill set I have to the next level - speaking first then reading.

Unfortunately, even though getting good advice here - mainly to start reading - I am so involved with the speaking/teaching/counseling stuff and living everyday life (99% in Chinese) that I've been lax with the advice and my studies and it's beginning to have a negative effect. Like I said I still stumble or forget even with the basic 2500 words or so I "know" on my list. My goal is to master what I already "know" and what I hear and understand while slowly adding new vocabulary. But until I get those basics down pat, the new words aren't going to do me any good.

Thanks for the input so far.

[rebor]

So the cars you've created, do they contain characters or only pinyin and meaning? What I mean to ask is, are you planning on learning how to read characters with this "surge", or will you be focusing on improving your spoken language? I'm a bit tired and I've had too much coffee, so sorry if you already said ;)

2 hours is extreme, but if you have a decent foundation and the willpower to persist, you should improve by leaps and bounds(regardless if you do characters or pinyin, although I'd wager you'll find learning characters quite hard at first). I think complementing flashcarding with some form of reading would be good. This is obviously easier if you are learning characters, but even if you're doing pinyin, getting a pinyin only textbook like Colloquial Chinese should be beneficial. You need context if you wish to be able to produce the words in speaking. If speaking is your main priority, perhaps you would be wise to spend some of this time with a tutor, practicing using your newly acquired vocabulary?

[icebear]

Unfortunately, even though getting good advice here - mainly to start reading - I am so involved with the speaking/teaching/counseling stuff and living everyday life (99% in Chinese) that I've been lax with the advice and my studies and it's beginning to have a negative effect. Like I said I still stumble or forget even with the basic 2500 words or so I "know" on my list. My goal is to master what I already "know" and what I hear and understand while slowly adding new vocabulary. But until I get those basics down pat, the new words aren't going to do me any good.

If you force yourself to read a chapter of a book or a few articles a day (say 30-60 minutes), the majority of words you'll see will be from that basic 2500 words. This is essentially like flashcarding (if you force yourself to look up any word you don't know) and will make your actual Anki time much smoother (for the majority of words). It will be horribly painful at first, but if you never start you'll never be decent. And I think most words past the 2000-3000 mark are relatively rare in daily (informal) conversation. You need written material or target AV material to work on what you are lacking - and get writing as soon as you can.

[li3wei1]

Right. If your life is already full of intensive conversation, plus reading, then you can ignore my previous advice.

I've got three stacks going. One is single characters, and one is words using those characters, usually the most commonly occurring word for that character. I add characters to the first stack in order of frequency, and when I don't know a new character, I add a word for it into the second stack. If a leech drops out, I stick it back in, and add four or five words for it into the second stack. On both of these stacks, it doesn't move forward unless I've got the meaning, sound and tone correct.

The third stack is random stuff from reading. Here I'm more lenient, and if I get the tone wrong but everything else right I move it forward by the smallest amount. The theory being that there is value in know what a word or character means, and approximately how to say it, even if you're not completely correct. Here the emphasis is on volume, while the emphasis in the first two is quality.