Organising Beginner Study

[tijana93]

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, but seeing how experienced everyone here is, you might have some advice for me too: How would you organise your study, if you were a beginner again? Now, I’m not a complete beginner, but i don’t think i could read newspapers or anything like that. I just finished two textbooks I had and the related stuff, but I’d like to stop using textbooks as much as possible, and try using more native stuff...

 

Also, do you think that it’s better to separate different parts of language? Like studying vocab and grammar separately, and then maybe just randomly watching some simple cartoons, trying to read comics, watch drama, write and talk to yourself, chat... How much time should be spent doing each of the different types of language work? Also, how do you feel about beginners trying to use native material, even if it’s simple? Is there anything to be cautious about? And how do you go about creating as Chinese an environment as possible, given that you’re not in china or anything?

[roddy]

Welcome to the site. I've edited your post into more standard English - please use punctuation, capitals, and less of ur textspeak, pls 

[Ruben von Zwack]

 

Also, how do you feel about beginners trying to use native material, even if it’s simple?

 

It's a great thing to do! You could, for example, browse the Grand First Episode Project on this forum and see if you fancy something. There are so many benefits from listening to/watching native material: it will reinforce vocabulary, you will hear a lot of expressions, get used to the speed and sound.

 

Now for organising, I can't give any tips unfortunately, because my studying is terribly unstructured...  But I separate different fields of "study" too. For example, I watch cartoons just for leisure. First I tried to learn vocabulary from them, too, but it soon became too stressful and wasn't fun anymore.

Sometimes you just need to relax (and still hear Chinese at the same time )

[daofeishi]

There are two pieces of advice I would give people who are starting out: Including native material from the start is one of the best thing you can do. They enable you to learn Chinese the way it is spoken and written by native speakers, not the way it is written when simplified and processed into textbook format, often by non-native speakers. It is hard in the beginning, but if you arm yourself with a dictionary and power through the initial struggles, you get great returns. Examples of good starting points are small illustrated story books for children (小人书), textbooks used by elementary school students and TV shows for children. After a while, if you are ambitious, it is possible to attempt short, simple novels like The Little Prince/小王子, which can be a great first novel since the language is relatively simple once you can read 小人书-level books, and it's a story many people know and have read in their native language. 

 

The other advice I would give is to always learn vocabulary in context, not just as individual words. All words collocate with other words in specific ways, and unless you know exactly how, you haven't really learned a word. A common mistake among both beginners and more experienced learners is being confused about parts of speech or using collocations that exist in their native language but not in Chinese. Whenever you learn a new word, make sure you understand what part of speech it is and how it is used. Don't just create a mental one-one mapping between words in Chinese and your native language.  

[Sinofaze]

One study-technique that was successful for me when studying this languge back in uni was making labels around the house.

For example, I placed labels on the doors of each room (bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, etc) and I would include a couple examples of grammar underneath ("I am in the bathroom", "I am cooking in the kithcen", etc). I would even label all the furnishings in the rooms ("I am taking a shower", "I am going to bed", "I'm working on my computer", etc). All labels would be written in both pinyin (for pronounciation) and hanzi (for recognising characters). Pretty soon, I was in a situation where Chinese was all around me. It was very effective.

The downside of this was that it was labour-intensive. Also, I did perhaps take it too far ("Honey, why've you got "I'm taking a dump" written on the tiolet with some Chinese writing??!... You're weird....").

Another technique I'm using is learning Chinese characters using Anki flashcards and a whiteboard. This helps me learn the stroke orders, essential in writing. A correct card means the character stays on the board, an incorrect card means the worng character is wiped off the whiteboard and the card goes back into the cycle. After writing the same character over again so many times, it sticks and I get a real buzz when standing back from the whiteboard seeing it full of characters and that I can actually recognise them.

Using instant messaging is also very effective in learning Chinese as well as great fun. I combine Pleco Dictionary and Google-Translate with WeChat, Skype and QQ International. This helps me to practise the dialogue I've learned from my Chinese classes each week.

[tijana93]

Thanks, so many useful tips here. Actually, I have even more questions now~

I’m not sure if it’s cuz of all the sugar I’ve been eating lately (holiday season ), but i couldn’t memorise random words easily...First I tried the 局中局 drama that’s been recomended as the easiest, but learning the new vocab prior to watching felt too hard, i was never really good at learning things by heart...So I tried the other way around, but that felt too slow...Also maybe it’s just me, but they don’t speak as clearly as in say cartoons or historical dramas...It was a bit of a shock at first, do you think that watching subbed dramas could help getting used to it? Cartoons seem to be closer to my level right now, even tho there are some unknown words here and there, it’s getting much easier understanding them

As for the reading, i’ve started reading Doraemon. It’s amazing, i’m actually reading something in Chinese. It’s simple, but has many unknown words, so in a way I’m using it as a textbook too. Ive also found it easier here to look up a word after encountering it rather than memorising it prior to my reading it. Is this normal? It’s been so hard to learn anything by hearth lately, i realy hope it’s just the messed up diet and me not drinking enough water these past few days. I’m trying not to worry too much about this. Ah, also it feels like im not reading enough. I’ve started relatively fast, just checking the more important words, and just reading like that, but now I’ve started copping most of the sentences, looking up almost every new word, also looking through my beginners dictionary for examples on some words i find interesting,...It feels like I’m doing alot, but I end up not reading much. I mean, what if it turns into a habit? Then again, I am just a begginer, so I’m probably just overthinking it.

As for the new words i encounter, I’ve decided to just add them to anki, and hope it will do the rest. What do you think about the idea of having days where I dont do anything new or hard, but just review my notes, watch subbed stuff, listen to some songs,...? How often should i do this? Or should I just try to expose myself to new stuff every day, and that way it would get easier and more natural?

I’m really trying to develop a habit of studying chinese regularly, on a dayly basis. If I develop good habits now, it will be much easier to keep them in the future, but I also don’t want to work too hard...Sorry for the long post, and if you have thought of sth useful, please share~

[mouse]

 

Ive also found it easier here to look up a word after encountering it rather than memorising it prior to my reading it. Is this normal?

 

Yeah I'm sure this is the case for most people, especially with more abstract concepts. It's probably better for long term memory to learn words this way anyway, not to mention you have to know how to use a word before you really know it.

 

As for how often to review etc, try to be disciplined to a certain degree, but really as long as you're doing something with Chinese every day that's what matters.

[Sinofaze]

@tijana93

 

Could you link me to the cartoons you mentioned? Are they subbed? Where can I download/stream them?

 

Cheers

[Ania]

Ive also found it easier here to look up a word after encountering it rather than memorising it prior to my reading it. Is this normal?

Well I hope it is, because that's exactly what I do as well I don't really try to learn the vocabulary beforehand, I always look up the words after I've seen them in the text. It works better for me, but I guess everybody has their own system. 

[tijana93]

Thanks, I guess it’good then...I use funshion, i’ve installed the app on my phone, and both the streaming and the downloading work fine...They also have a program for computers which downloads as you watch I think...The cartoons I’m watching arent subbed and don’t have chinese subbs either, but that’s probably because the kids have yet to learn to read...Tho maybe it’s better this way, cuz it really makes me focus on the listening rather than looking at the subbs for clues. I’ve only tried a few ones, but the easiest are those made for really small kids, like those cartoons that teach kids colors, whats bigger, smaller, food, clothes, you know the stuff little kids need...They’re around a minute long per episode, have everything drawn out, so you can just watch many episodes in a row, and I think they’re great for begginers like me (not what’s considered a begginer on this forum, people here are so good, so they have really high standars for begginers...and I will be really good one day too, but until then, i need some super easy stuff)...I like 和巧虎一起学, I think this is the easiest thing you can find out there...As for the real cartoons, I like 大头儿子和小头爸爸...It’s under ten minutes per episode, it’s more difficult than the first type, the very first time I tried it, it was a bit too hard and I had to rewatch the first episode more than once, tho I think it’s because it was the first time watching chinese without subs, because it got much easier afterwards...There are unknown words and parts I don’t understand, but even with those I think I understand 70-80% nicely, and the rest I make out using pictures and the words I can recognise. So, I think it’s really great for a begginer. Ah, also I remember I tried watching an episode of my little pony a few months ago thanks to a link I found somewhere on this forum, and 大头儿子小头爸爸 is deffinitely easier...And it’s actually fun...I can’t get the song out of my head.

Uh, sorry for the long post, but I really wanted to share what I’ve found so far, and maybe someone else will find it useful too. If anyone has recomendations for really easy beginner stuf, please share~~~