Hi! My introduction and my Chinese goal for this year

[jefflau]

Hi guys,

 

This is my first post here and I finally decided to make an account to join the community of Chinese learners, share what I've learnt, learn from you guys and also to make myself more accountable to learning Chinese. I'd like to introduce myself briefly. I'm Jeff from London. I've been studying Chinese since November 2012, so about a year. I quit my job a few months back to go travelling around Asia, which is when I began writing my blog again, which is now not just about Chinese, but about learning in general, habits, motivation, life and learning. I've been in Taipei, Taiwan for about 7 weeks now, I only planned to be here for about a month, but I've found it's such a great place and the people are so friendly and on top of that it's a great environment to learn Chinese. I plan to stay here until my visa runs out in early February and then do a visa run to Malaysia and come back end of February.

 

My Chinese level:

 

My Chinese level is probably somewhere between B1 and B2. If HSK3 counts as B1 (although it does seem a little easy) I was probably at that level in February this year (where I went to Shanghai for 2 weeks and could use my Chinese to survive and get around). I can probably read about 2k characters and maybe 3-4k words, although these are my best guesses as I stopped SRS with Skritter about 2-3 months ago, but I'm planning to pick up SRS again with Pleco as I find in Taiwan I'm using it a lot to add words and the flashcard system looks pretty flexible (I haven't used anki before/yet)

 

In terms of communication, I can pretty much hold a conversation all night with most natives about everyday life, hobbies, dreams, learning Chinese, friends, family. The normal stuff. I'll probably have to beat around the bush a bit and use several sentences instead of one succinct sentence to express what I mean.

 

My goal:

 

I consider myself a very high intermediate (B1) or maybe even a decent upper-intermediate (B2). Again, just best guesses as I've never taken the HSK. I want to take that to a C1 level by my birthday of this year 28th May. I'm pretty sure it's doable but I wanted to ask some advice on what steps I should take. I'm going to spend the next month or so preparing and pushing my level up to a good B2 level and preparing material for C1. Then in Feburary I will go on holiday to Malaysia for a few weeks so when I come back end of February is when I want to push for C1. So technically I have around 3 months from then.

 

Questions:

 

What do you guys consider B1, B2 and C1?

 

What ways are there to assess your level of Chinese?

 

Depending on what your definition of B2/C1 is, how would you go about increasing your level of Chinese from upper intermediate to advanced in 3-4 months?

 

Any general comments and other advice would also be appreciated too

 

TL;DR?

 

I'm Jeff. Can you help me answer these 3 questions above and any advice you'd have for raising your Chinese from upper intermediate (B2) to advanced (C1)?

[Demonic_Duck]

The matter of what's "elementary", "beginner", "intermediate", "advanced", "conversationally fluent", "fluent" etc. are all unfortunately very subjective, as so many different standards for judging exist.

 

With that said, I'm around HSK5 level (my teacher told me a while back that she thought if I put in a bit of work to revise for it I could pass it), though also never having sat any exams as yet. I consider myself to be a solid "intermediate" level (possibly just verging on upper-intermediate, but again, it's all subjective, ain't it?)

 

As for CEFR:

Looking at the band descriptors, I'd say I comfortably fit into the B1 band, but am still a good way from B2 level.

 

Bear in mind that the CEFR bands are very wide, and that some people don't even attain C2 level in their L1 (to be honest, I can think of examples of people I know whose L1 skills wouldn't even fit C1... "recognising implicit meaning"... "understanding 'demanding' texts"... "using language effectively in academic contexts"... "writing clear, well structured, detailed text"...)

[roddy]

I wouldn't worry about the Council of Europe framework. Matching those up to the HSK is a linguistics professor's job, and of no practical benefit for the student. But from what you've said (probably probably probably best guesses probably consider myself maybe just best guesses pretty sure) I do think you'd benefit from a bit of concrete bench-marking.

 

Take an exam - grab an HSK sample exam or whatever - and find out what your level is and how it stacks up across the different sections of the exam. That'll tell you where you are, and then you can set a realistic goal for three months out.

 

What actual study are you doing? It sounds like you've landed in-country and jumped in with both feet, which is a fantastic way to learn. It's also a wide and downward-sloping road to bad habit development and over-ambitious assessments of your own level. Who's correcting and explaining your errors, and then pulling you up when you make them again?

[Lu]

How are you currently learning? Are you taking classes, do you have any structured approach, or is it more learning as you go? If you don't have a structured approach at the moment, it might not be a bad idea to get one, be it a textbook, an online course or a teacher. Once you're at a decent level (which it sounds like you are), it's easy to sit back and enjoy the comfort zone where you can express most of what you want to express and can talk around the other things, with not much need to try new words or grammar.

 

And nice to see you like Taiwan. The 'I came here for a holiday and now it's seven years later' is not uncommon among foreigners there :-)

[jefflau]

I have no super structured approach at the moment and it's all quite liquid as I figure out how I want to study out here. I was working my way through the HSK4 vocabulary before I came here and had a private tutor as well as a lot self study and language exchange. But since I've been here I've switched to learning traditional as well as simplified simply because it's useful to communicate here. I could pass HSK4 - is that B1 or B2? I'll take a look at HSK5 and some of the mock tests now.

 

1. Most of my time in Taiwan so far has been language exchange.
2. I'm using pleco and it's flash card functionality (mostly recording words during LE and daily conversation)
3. I'm also using Chinesepod intermediate and upper-intermediate lessons in downtime such as walking to the train station.
4. I also just started using lang-8 and am posting daily diary entries to work on using new vocabulary I may have learnt that day and to throw out some more complicated sentence structures which I wouldn't use in conversation for fear of slowing the conversation (if I said it wrong).
5. I'm reading a book slowly on Pleco.

 

I want to create a more structured approach so that's what I'm going to try and do over this month and then when I come back from Malaysia I can hit the ground running. Thinking of studying HSK again starting from 4 and quickly move into HSK5.

 

Decisions, decisions.

 

And how do you stay for 7 years?! You'd have to keep leaving and coming back in! Taiwanese salary is so low, i'm thinking of freelancing and sticking around for a bit, by going on visa runs every 3 months - anyone know people that do this?

[Lu]

You find a job, that's how. (Or you just never leave and let your visa expire, but I don't recommend that approach.) English teaching turns into managing English teachers, translating turns into journalism, and before you know if you have a career and a family :-) Salaries are not that low, you can certainly live there (I did, although not for seven years). As to visa, there are many many people in Taiwan doing the visa run thing. Hong Kong is usually the destination of choice, although I heard Macao is also nice. But can't you get a tourist visa for 6 months, or am I misremembering? Alternatively, if you want to, you can become an official student and get a student visa for six months or a year.

 

It looks like you have a pretty well-rounded study routine already. For me, I would need a teacher, but if this is working for you, just keep at it. Perhaps you can pick up an HSK book to practice exams and see where your weaknesses are?

[gato]

Is the OP a Cantonese speaker? That might explain the quick progress without going to classes.

[jefflau]

@gato - I'm not a Cantonese speaker. I wish I did, but unfortunately my parents are from Malaysia and spoke to me in English as they moved to England when they were young. It was easier I think to speak to me and my brother in English. When I was studying Chinese in England I was pretty much going to work, coming home, studying, going to sleep, rinse and repeat for about 6 months. I did go to a university class once, but I felt they were progressing too slowly and it would have been a waste of money on my part to continue.

 

@Lu - When you say teacher do you mean private tutor? I've just been doing this routine recently, maybe I'll need something more structured as I don't have a job out here and when I was studying in England I was using my routine of my work to keep me in check. For instance I had a 2 hour commute, there and back and I was using that as my flash card review time. Then I'd come back and try and find as many LE partners as I could on livemocha. I feel without a routine I might slip - too much time sometimes is worse than less time!

[gato]

That's very good progress you are making then. Good job!

[Lu]

When you say teacher do you mean private tutor?

Private tutor or class, whichever is more suitable for you. An advantage of a private tutor is of course that s/he can cater exactly to your requirements, interests and learning speed. An advantage of a class is that if you pick an established school, you can get a student visa and perhaps a piece of paper at the end saying you studied there.

 

I completely agree about more time vs more structure. Personally I couldn't do it without some outside pressure (like a teacher giving me an angry look for not doing my homework). To be honest I'm seriously impressed by what you've managed to do so far by yourself. But structure can also be a set language exchange appointment, or a schedule you make for yourself.

[roddy]

Jeff, how's progress going?