study plan advice, need more grammar..

[dhaubles]

Hello forum dwellers ,

 

I've started learning Chinese quite recently and I've been trying to cover all three bases of the language -reading/writing, speaking/listening, grammar - with self-study. I use an evolving collection of materials to accomplish this goal, amongst which are included: NPCR 1, Pimsleur 1 and Anki. I gave Rosetta Stone a try for the first lesson before opting instead to use Pimsleur- only after hearing so many good things about it on this forum (admittedly i found it immediately more useful). Thus far I have been using the following method to better my Chinese:

 

3-4 hours/day divided into the following;

 

1 hour Reading/writing; 

I derive the characters to be learnt essentially from NPCR and at that, only the characters that they suggest at the end of the chapter. I spend 30min handwriting all of them and then I use a pre-prepared anki deck　for the next 30m. For Anki i use 3 field cards in both directions - character>pinyin，pinyin>character.

 

1 hour Grammar;

 

For grammar I read an NPCR　textbook chapter, watch the npcr lessons on youtube, listen to the audiotape, do the drills and do the exercises. I also use a modified version of the Anki shared deck 'NPCR (books 1-5)' which i've updated to 3 fields and use to memorise the lesson vocabulary (pinyin>definition, definition>pinyin). 

 

1 hour Speaking/listening;

 

For speaking and listening I go through a Pimsleur lesson once without stopping and then revert to anki for memorising the phrases. I use the pimsleur transcripts for the exact Pinyin for Anki.

 

1hour building anki cards, preparing for next day, researching different study topics on internet.

 

Do you guys think this is a well-rounded plan? Do you have any suggestions to make it more efficient? 

 

Thus far i find the speaking/listening and reading/writing part of my plan to be quite effective, I really like the Pimsleur approach and i feel that the characters that are instructed for practice in NPCR build at a gradual level of difficulty which I certainly appreciate. What I find lacking in my plan is grammar application and practice. The NPCR books I think are good but they don't have many included exercises and the ones that are included don't have any included answers. I have had a look at the workbook as a workaround to this, but again, the workbook doesn't have any included answers either (apparently you need the teachers book too..). At this stage it looks like I might need to try another popular textbook (Integrated Chinese?) so that I have a graduated comprehension and exercise book to work through. 

 

I'm curious as to what study-plans first year university students tend to follow and how much time per day they allocate for Chinese, any current/former students like to offer some tips?

 

 

Sorry for the long post..

[lvn]

Why don't you try the following books:

 

Yip - Rimmington "Chinese a Comprehensive Grammar" Routledge.

 

Yip - Rimmington "Basic Chinese. A Grammar and Workbook" Routledge

 

Schaum "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar" Routledge

[GotJack]

Theres a book I use called 'Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide' by Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma. It also has an associated workbook, where the exercises match the different areas of grammar in the 1st book. (same title, just with workbook added on)

 

I find it very useful, and my friends & classmates (who are at varying levels of Chinese, some very good) all highly rate it.

 

It may help you with grammar?

[Kev]

My approach was to focus soley on listening and speaking for a year because that's what I needed to travel around China and meet people. I remember the abolute thrill I had when someone said something to me I didn't understand. It was a thrill because my brain didn't realise, until they said something I didn't understand, that I had actually been speaking in Mandarin without thinking about it and getting on quite well!!

 

I had already been a language teacher, so took this communicative approach, as opposed to a grammar based approach. This might help you:

http://kmccready.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/learning-a-second-language/

[dhaubles]

Thank you very much everyone for your responses!

 

Ivn> I have access to the two Yip Rimmington titles and will definitely take a look and tell you what I think.

 

GotJack> I might have to take a trip to the bookstore to investigate the texts you refer to but I am very keen to investigate, thanks for your suggestions. You mentioned you had classmates, does this mean you are studying in a formal setting?

 

Kev> I appreciate your sentiments and I had a read through your post. Your method sounds excellent and, correct me if i'm wrong, this broadly sounds to me like the 'Pimsleur' approach - learning of language structure to attain fluency in place of focusing too much on grammar and reading/writing. I try to incorporate each of the different categories - grammarvsstructure, minimal pairs, listening/speaking and reading into my practice. Perhaps you could maybe suggest which materials you utilised in your years worth of listening/speaking? 

[Kev]

No, not Pimsleur (I cannot see the point of hearing stuff in my own language). Though with a good teacher “substitution drills” are fine. Also, learning to read, particularly with Chinese is a totally different skill to learning to speak.

I used to drive to and from work at the jail, 1/2 hour each way. I had the Chinese 300 cassette tape in the car and I recited along together with it as I drove.But by the end of 8 months, before I left to go to China, I could recite the whole tape like a parrot. (请问，到汽车站怎么走？Can you tell me the way to the bus stop please.) After I got to China I could ask simple stuff. The problem was understanding the replies.

My biggest aid in China was the tape recorder and my personal notebook of phrases and vocab. And my teachers of course!!!
 
I set out to learn the days of the week, months, numbers, family relations (every Chinese person I met wanted to know about my family), jobs and income. Oh, and most importantly I wanted to learn how to ask questions about the language. Vital was 请你再说慢一点 – Could you please say it again slowly.

Later on I used “Business 900″ (same idea as “Chinese 300″) and learned lots of business and trade stuff as I began to prepare for NAATI exams. By this time there had begun to be neat little computer programs where you could set the wind-back time to the number of seconds you wanted. And I remember now that tiny mp3 players were coming into use and they were pretty nifty.
 
All in all, it was hard work. I remember describing my wife as a “mandarin widow” because she would go out with friends or to films and I would stay at home learning Chinese.  
 
It was only in about Year 3 of my studies that I decided the time was right to begin seriously learning Chinese characters – the next project was going to be learning to read. I wanted to be able to sit near the fire at night and curl up with a good book.

 

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You have prompted more blogging from me on the subject a bit more expansively:

My story – Learning Chinese 1980s style

http://kmccready.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/my-story-learning-chinese-1980s-style/