The 2014 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[imron]

Was very pleased to put on some old 爱情公寓 and really understand large amounts of dialog that I simply could not follow before

It's great when that happens!

[edelweis]

Looking at my July log,

Chinese: about 20 hours (actually a bit more than this!)

Other languages: nothing.

 

I gave up on counting bedtime reading as study, because my minimal study duration is 15' and I often feel sleepy earlier than that, and even if I do manage to last 15', there's the matter of remembering to log it. So reading now means "reading an 阅读 textbook" and bedtime reading is not logged any longer. I think it makes Chinese more like a normal part of my life, just like English became.

Doing well with my 科普汉语听记 book - and that may be a direct result of reading so many book reviews on this forum recently and feeling so greedy for new books, while reason tells me I should actually study and finish a few of those I have in order to make room for more. When I say "doing well" it means in terms of study habits, not speed, and that's at the expense of other languages...

Summer is nice when it's not too hot.

[OneEye]

Goals for July: finish the paper for my dialectology class, enjoy my remaining time in Taiwan, study some Japanese. Once I get settled there, I'll have a better idea of how my days will go as far as work and study.

 

Check, check, not check. Oh well. I'm in Japan now, so I'll have plenty of time to work on my Japanese.

 

That's really the main news, I guess. Landed yesterday, moved into my new place this morning, got internet and everything else set up this afternoon. A few things left to do: get cell phone number, some bookshelves, a desk.

 

Now that I'm no longer in school, I'll be settling into my new responsibilities at my company. We'll have some cool videos coming out (hopefully this month), so look out for that.

 

Goals for August: figure out how to maintain my Chinese now that I'm not in Taiwan, figure out a Japanese study routine, and figure out how to balance it all with work. Should be fun. Might take longer than a month to figure all that out.

[Lu]

- Translate another book and not miss the deadline this time.

DONE! My deadline is Monday and I just sent off the book. Hah! Tbh the deadline was extended with a few weeks, but I got the extension well before it became an issue and the schedule is not set back at all. Last week has been a marathon checking it all one. last. time, especially the 13-page monster of a last chapter argh but I did it.

Meanwhile I also got the minor health problem (inside of nose messed up by Beijing air) checked out and it looks like it's improved a bit. Now that the book is finished I'll start running again. Next book is already standing by, I'll start as soon as I get the contract (which I should have received two weeks ago. Ah well).

[Yang Chuanzhang]

Goals for August: figure out how to maintain my Chinese now that I'm not in Taiwan

 

Hey, you should consider reviving your blog to document that process. It's a problem many people on this forum seem to be dealing with and I'm sure there'd be a lot of interest, if you figure out a good way.

Good luck with your new life in Japan

 

 

 

Of my goals for july, I only managed to start reading Chinese books again, but that has been a great success. I read on the tube every morning and it's been so much fun that I overshot my original goal by 200%.

[OneEye]

I'll probably post occasionally there, but most of my blogging will be done at Outlier once we get our website set up (the link in my signature is to our Facebook page).

[洋人丹]

Well I posted my objectives for this year earlier, and life has really gotten in the way and I haven't been making progress in a few areas. Thinking of kind of tweaking things.

 

Before, I mentioned reading Ming/Qing literature. I've finished 3 books and am working on my 4th, but I haven't had time to sit down and read lately. Hopefully I'll be able to find some free-time to sit down and read. Thinking of cutting other things out of my schedule to focus more on reading, since I have a certain number of books I want to have gone through at least once before grad school.

 

I've been prepping for the 普通话水平测试 my tutor says she thinks I can get an 一级乙等 （which is 92% or higher), and while I've made improvements, I suffer from horrible confidence and anxiety problems and am very-introverted, so I tend to freeze up during tests even if I perform fine in daily life. Needless to say I need to start solving these problems if I really want to have a chance of achieving this goal, so I'm thinking of tweaking my study plan (like giving speeches and trying to stand up and read in front of groups of people). The problem is, I'm so introverted that I have a hard time speaking to people I don't know (though I can chat fine with friends). I've had this issue since I was a kid, and I guess it's time to conquer it. 

 

I've been learning Hangzhou dialect, now doing classes 3 times a week. I can understand a lot of conversations (since I've been listening to my wife, mother-in-law etc. speak it for 5 years), but can't speak much. I'm making steady progress and can now have simple conversations and be understood, which was something that wasn't possible a month ago, so I'm very happy about that. Because I'm really serious about improving my level, my wife has suggested switching from speaking Mandarin to speaking Hangzhouhua at home. I'm Deciding if I want to give myself that big of a challenge. 

 

Sorry this was a long update post.

[AdamD]

I wrote this in February:

 

Here's mine:

 

1. Pass HSK4.

 

2. Be able to write 2,000 characters from memory. I'm beyond 1,500 now, so I don't think it's an outlandish jump.

 

3. Be able to understand clear 普通话 speech without having to ask the other person to repeat all the time. This is by far the most difficult goal for me.

 

4. Finish a book, even if it's only 100 pages. This goal is not about ability so much as finishing what I start.

 

5. Obtain work that involves the Chinese language in a significant way. This would be a stepping stone to my ultimate career goal of specialising in the specification/development of Chinese language learning software.

 

My sad, sad progress:

 

1. I've enrolled for the September HSK4 test even though I've not even looked at the word list in three months. 450-odd new words in four weeks will be difficult but not impossible, and I'll only feel more guilty if I don't at least attempt it.

 

2. If I get through point 1, I'll probably have reached 2,000 characters.

 

3. Speech recognition is better but still largely a blur, so this one's not likely.

 

4. I might try this after the HSK4 test, depending on how much energy/drive I have left by then.

 

5. The work goal is not likely this year. I've had to put my plans on hold due to unforeseen circumstances (our terrible government wants to make university prohibitively expensive just to prove a political point), so I don't even know which country I'll be in next year.

[imron]

our terrible government...

Help us double-dissolution kenobi, you're our only hope.

[AdamD]

Oh the things I'd love to say here.

[ZhangKaiRong]

- Continue preparing for the HSK6 exam, learning 12-15 new words every day from the word list, starting to grind some 模拟考试. To be honest, I don't feel that this exam contributes that much extent to my practical Chinese knowledge, but I need the damn paper for some reason

 

- Continue listening to ChinesePod 高级 podcasts during my way to work every day and relistening the track after work on my way back home

 

- Continue reading at least one longer or two shorter articles on 财新 web

 

- I have been slacking off recently and haven't practiced writing Hanzi for some time, and due to the fact that I mainly text on Weixin or writing stuffs in Word, so I forgot how to write a lot of characters from memory. I don't have any difficulties with them when I read or when I type, but this passive knowledge is not enough for me, so I will write 40 minutes every day to refresh the characters

 

- I would like to finish 余华's 活着 this year, as well as some 张爱玲 short stories

 

- Maintaining the good relationship with my dear Chinese friends, meeting the ones living in my city once or twice every week and contacting the ones in China on Weixin or Weibo

 

- Finding some time to watch Chinese TV shows every week, I haven't seen 非常勿扰 or 爸爸去哪儿了 for ages, and I miss these shows

 

- The most important one - and the one that probably won't be fulfilled this year - is to make my company transfer me to China, and not somebody with no "China-experience" and no language knowledge. Working for a prestigous consulting MNC can be rewarding financially, but not with the secondments abroad: corporate hierarchy works just way too fine, and years spent at the company still count much more than language skills and intercultural experience. Even though I feel in my heart that I would be the perfect candidate for that job in China, I know that the executives will probably choose somebody else with no Chinese skills but more business experience. Still, I hope that I might be lucky enough to get the chance. I will try my best!

 

Some progress:

 

1. Studying for HSK6 is slowing down. The problem is that in my home country there are only two exam dates every year, in spring and winter. I could have sat for the spring one, but that was some turbulent time at work, instead of the normal 55 hours/week work I sat in the office some 70 hours. I still have a lot of words I have not learnt from the vocab list, but surprisingly my mock exams are not that bad, in the last 3 months my worst result was 167 and the best was 198. Maybe I should sit an actual exam without being fully prepared, but I'm still worrying about bad results.

 

2. ChinesePod is done, I have listened to all the tracks I have from the 高级 level. Recently I have started to listen to some upper intermediate level tracks just for fun, and there are still some unknown words. Awesome.

 

3. I found 财新 pretty good, there are a lot of interesting articles every week. I have also downloaded the 凤凰网 app on my smart phone, I sometimes read the news from there, too, but it's still not a regular habit for me.

 

4. Writing Hanzi... Meh. Due to the long working hours, I don't have time for serious practicing. Maybe the autumn won't be that bad, and I will have an hour every two days, because writing from memory became my worst skill in Chinese, though it was used to be my best. Now I practically keep forgetting elements of some Hanzis when I have to write it from memory. I was naive about reading in Chinese everyday also stimulates my active knowledge of characters instead of just stimulating the passive part

 

5. I have 50 more pages from 活着, but I have already finished Zhang Ailing's 红玫瑰与白玫瑰. The first half was bad due to the lot of 成语 and 俗话, but I got used to it, and the second part was quite smooth, there were pages where I didn't really have to use dictionary.

 

6. Weekends are free for me, I made some new Chinese friends thanks to my former Chinese collegue. Moreover, I've been together with my girlfriend for more than two months now, she is from Harbin but she studied here and also working here now. We have been dating since spring, we communicate in Chinese since the first day we met, so every time I'm with her is like a really high level 口语课. My speaking and listening skills are soaring. I thought I was fluent in Chinese after I came back home from China, but oh boy, how silly I was there. My tones, usage of certain words and grammar patterns became stable, even I can feel the difference compared to my level last year's summer, but I also got a lot of positive feedbacks from my former teachers and Chinese friends.

 

7. Well, transfer time is over, and I have not been relocated to China. But at least I was transferred to a much better department, both professionally and in terms of Chinese-related work, since at this new department I can work on some projects concerning Chinese business activities. Better than nothing, and this time the route on the corporate ladder also shortened a little bit, so maybe 3 years later I can be the one appointed to be leading manager of my region in China. But 3 years is quite a long time, and that time comes with a lot of experience in my business field, so maybe there is some chance to run into a better offer as well. Or at least my friends in HR say so.

[edelweis]

August update:

 

Chinese: about 10 hours. I was busy with other things these past two weeks.

So I did mostly 听力, SRS, and 科普汉语 the first two weeks with a side dish of 词汇 - but that was mostly compiling lists of vocabulary related to flowers, plants, trees etc which I then searched big images of on the internet in order to make a background wallpaper slideshow (my latest harebrained scheme for vocabulary review).

 

Other languages: no formal study, but I did read most of Un chino en bicicleta and now I am having trouble keeping Spanish words out of my Chinese sentences (the reverse was already true...) in addition to feeling confused about the various 2nd person pronouns in Spanish (due to the book being in Argentinian Spanish).

 

In September:

I might set up a computer with skype and a webcam in order to take online Chinese classes.

And I might sign up for a Chinese newspaper reading class.

And I might make another attempt at improving my Spanish and English.

[新墨西哥人]

I hadn't thought about an update. seems like a great idea. sorry it’s a bit long.

After being active here for a little while, I promptly caught a horrific cold that pretty much had me laid up in bed for 3 weeks. Too tired most of the time to even do Pimsleur or Skritter or work. I mostly binge watched Netflix and Amazon Prime. During that time I stopped doing my Skype lessons, and never restarted. I took a long break.

 

Last week I started taking lessons in person.  We are going to use the NPCR (used IC before). We are quickly reviewing volume 1, as there are a few words here and there that I haven't learned. I can read the dialogues pretty well through the middle of Volume 2. The words that I don't know are usually two characters I do know.

 

My listening and speaking are not at the same level as my reading, and I want to change that.

In late April through late June I studied Italian (Pimsleur 1, made it to lesson 20 or so), in preparation for a trip to Italy (was awesome!) Romance languages are so easy compared to Chinese. I had studied Spanish in the past, which helped.  I found the course covers material much more quickly, which makes sense with all the tone work need in Chinese. I enjoyed using the Italian and tried to use it whenever possible. I’m not saying I was any good but learned how to do many basic transactions.

 

My goals for Chinese for the rest of the year:
* don't take another long break.
* Focus on listening and speaking, especially listening. In the past I found I cheated a bit by reading the dialogue to help with my listening. It was good for my ability to read characters, though.
* Continue the private lessons. If my husband is accepted to be a visiting scientist in Shanghai then I will up it to 2x a week.
* Attempt to strike up a casual conversation with another parent (e.g. while at the playground with kiddos).  I can practice this with my tutor.
* Keep doing Pimsleur slowly. I tend to do a lesson when on a long boring drive, or when going out for my exercise/hike. Not high pri though.
* Keep at Skritter, again slow but steady. No number goal at this point but just to keep using it regularly and see the numbers increase over time.
* Non-Chinese goal: Continue increasing my leg strength (I had surgery in May for torn cartilage). I want to ski this winter! Unless we are in China in which case I need to pick up another sport.

 

[OneEye]

Goals for August: figure out how to maintain my Chinese now that I'm not in Taiwan, figure out a Japanese study routine, and figure out how to balance it all with work. Should be fun. Might take longer than a month to figure all that out.

 

I did pretty well with this, actually. Getting up at 5:30 helps, and I've managed to be quite consistent with that. That's a big deal for me because I've always been more of a night person. I've seen way more 3 AMs than 5 AMs, anyway.

 

For Chinese, I spend about 3 hours per week reading 《古文觀止》, 3 hours on The Independent Reader, 2 hours on 《商周古文字讀本》 (it's palaeography, but it's in Chinese, so...), and 2 hours on 康熙來了 or 鏘鏘三人行. I'm also reading, or rather re-reading, 《流星·蝴蝶·劍》 in my limited spare time. That's in addition to reading I'm doing on early Chinese Archaeology and palaeography. I haven't had much chance to speak Chinese, but hopefully I can find someone to talk with soon.

 

For Japanese, I'm doing a sort of adapted Glossika-style mass sentence thing with a book I bought in Taiwan called 《用聽的就會：日本語10000句會話辭典》. So far so good, but it's still early days, having only been here a month.

 

As far as balancing my study with work, it's coming along. Sometimes the former gets pushed aside from the latter, but I'm trying to keep that under control so that it only happens when it really needs to.

 

This month, more of the same. My goal is to be consistent, not necessarily to reach a certain point.

[tysond]

August Update:

 

Chinese Vocabulary Progress:

- I have finished studying HSK4, but a bit of revision and solidification to do - have quite a few leeches that I want to go back to as they are useful (if a bit hard to learn).

- 1000 HSK5 words and 2400 HSK6 words are now in scope!  I'm going to tackle these next, using frequency order.  I also have some lists of words from reading and work that I want to add into my SRS routine.

 

I looked into doing HSK4 test but the next date I could consider would be November.  I will still look into doing this as I'd like to see how I go.

 

Progress on Chinese Skills

 

- Listening:  Vocab is still the biggest hurdle to comprehension.    I've been doing listening tests based on HSK4 and they are significantly easier now I've filled the vocab gaps.  I still usually fit in an hour of listening while cycling to work.

 

- Reading: Also improving as well.  Mostly practiced reading "in the wild" - either while travelling or reading documents sent to me in Chinese now (e.g. powerpoint decks or PPTs as they are known in China).  Very happy that my menu reading skills are much better now, so helpful while travelling.  Outside the big cities, English menu or picture menu gets more and more rare.  Bought a few magazines recently.  Harvard Business Review is largely readable as the vocabulary is very similar to work.  Travel magazines are harder, especially because of all the transliterated names of places, brands, people that you barely know anyway.

 

- Speaking: I presented several times, including once to 300 people in August.  Negotiated personal training at the gym.  Checked into airlines and hotels.  Briefed a vendor on work I needed done over the phone.  

 

- Writing: Still focused on characters, got practice on quite a few new ones in the last month due to new vocab.   

 

I also got a present this month, a great big pair of books 石头记/红楼梦 (Story of the Stone/Dream of the Red Chamber).  I worked with my teacher to read the first few paragraphs, which was very heavy going (about 1 hour a paragraph to both read, study & discuss).  Was fun, but I'm a fair way off being able to self-study at the moment.  

[AdamD]

1. Pass HSK4.

--> Nope. Dead. High school physics is now my second worst ever performance in an exam. I wanted to tear up my paper but the invigilator said no.

 

2. Be able to write 2,000 characters from memory. I'm beyond 1,500 now, so I don't think it's an outlandish jump.

--> I'll achieve this.

 

3. Be able to understand clear 普通话 speech without having to ask the other person to repeat all the time. This is by far the most difficult goal for me.

--> My speech recognition is definitely improving but it's a long way off this goal.

 

4. Finish a book, even if it's only 100 pages. This goal is not about ability so much as finishing what I start.

--> I've already started. It's a 250-page short story book for young adults, and I'm not doing too badly with it.

 

5. Obtain work that involves the Chinese language in a significant way. This would be a stepping stone to my ultimate career goal of specialising in the specification/development of Chinese language learning software.

--> Failing at goal 1 has battered me pretty severely (even though I knew I had no chance of passing; funny how the mind works, eh?). I'm refusing to even think about this for a while.

 

--

 

To pull myself out of this stupid, self-inflicted rut, I've started on the HSK 5 word list (as tysond just said, better vocab leads to better listening comprehension), and I'm also forcing myself to keep up with language exchanges and apps like HelloTalk. Brute force is required now.

[OneEye]

September...ouch.

 

As far as Japanese goes, it was a great month. I did several units from 日本語10000句會話辭典, reviewed the parts of Genki 1 I had done before and did several new units, and watched a decent amount of Japanese TV. I've gotten to where I can handle everyday situations fairly easily (buying lunch, getting around, etc.).

 

As far as Chinese, I did a decent amount of listening to the news, a little bit of reading, and not much else unfortunately. I got to talk with a Taiwanese lady at a party last week though, and I've met a few Taiwanese people who live here in town recently, so that's been fun. I'm trying to get back into the routine of reading at least some 文言文 and some from The Independent Reader every week.

 

So for October, that's the goal. Keep on with Japanese, get back on track with Chinese.

[edelweis]

September update:

 

Chinese: 21 hours, mainly SRS, 听力 and 科普汉语听记 with a little 商务汉语口语.

I registered for a 报刊阅读 class and I'll report back about that in a few weeks.

Also I am trying to follow the 中级汉语语法 course but I started late and the 2nd week has so many videos, it's unlikely I'll be able to keep up...

 

English: finally I got myself two British Skype partners for pronunciation, one of seems unreliable but the other one is fine so far, and now that we are past the initial awkwardness the sessions seem beneficial to the both of us.

 

Spanish and other languages: nothing much.

 

For October: keep the good habits, try to keep up with the newspaper class, just keep at it if/when my September energy surge fades. And whatever happens happens...

Edited October 2, 2014 at 04:26 PM by edelweis

[winterpromise31]

Fun thread! 

For September, I studied Chinese for 27 hours which smashes my previous monthly record for either Chinese or Japanese. I felt like I learned a TON last month.

Anki - studied a ton of cards, finished a deck, and started adding my own vocab words from reading blog posts in Chinese

YoyoChinese - Finished the beginner course and started the intermediate course

 

October goals - I don't know how ambitious to be because I'm probably going to be flying out of town in the next couple of days for a family emergency and will be gone a few days. I guess I want to aim for 20+ hours of study, stay on top of my Anki decks, and complete four weeks of YoyoChinese classes (I double up a lot so shouldn't be a problem even if I'm out of town for a week). 

 

Happy studying, everyone!!

[AdamD]

1. Pass HSK4.
--> Perhaps next year.

2. Be able to write 2,000 characters from memory. I'm beyond 1,500 now, so I don't think it's an outlandish jump.
--> Going well. I've covered HSK 4 and I've started on HSK 5.

3. Be able to understand clear 普通话 speech without having to ask the other person to repeat all the time. This is by far the most difficult goal for me.
--> I've finally reached that level at which watching TV shows is constructive rather than demoralising, so I've been watching a lot recently. Also, next week I'm going back to China for a week expressly for language immersion. No English unless I'm calling my wife.

4. Finish a book, even if it's only 100 pages. This goal is not about ability so much as finishing what I start.
--> Postponed due to next week's trip; I'll pick it up when Olle Linge's reading challenge begins in November. The 250-page short story book was pretty good, but the language is so inconsistent from story to story that I don't know whether I can get through it by the end of the year. I've got a reasonably simple 100 page book, and I'll grab some more in Beijing.

5. Obtain work that involves the Chinese language in a significant way. This would be a stepping stone to my ultimate career goal of specialising in the specification/development of Chinese language learning software.
--> My role at work has stepped up sharply this month. It has nothing to do with Chinese language, but it has everything to do with the way I want to incorporate Chinese language in my career. In this case, a shift up is probably better than a shift sideways.