Should I begin mining at my low level of expertise?

[Andrew 45]

I have heard of sentence mining, where one watches or listens to a show and writes down sentences where they understand most of it, but try to learn the one element of it they don't understand. What I'd like to try to do is the same thing, only... I believe I won't understand most of the sentence, rather than just a key element of it.

 

I would say I am still in the "beginner to novice" area of learning Mandarin Chinese, having finished the 90 lessons of Pimsleur and the first 1500 characters of Heisig, so I know SOME thing, but there is still soooo much I don't know yet even for shows intended for children.

 

I guess what I am asking is, would this be a good idea? Would this work? 

 

I don't mind spending 10 hours per episode (10 minute episode) writing down the characters, pronunciations, getting an idea of what they mean using a Chinese-English dictionary, I just want to make sure I'm not losing out, and that I am at least intuitively developing my skill at this.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Thank you!

[Kelby]

If you're a beginner, I would wonder at how much you would understand from a TV show. That's not to say I'm assuming your Chinese is poor, but I remember trying this early in my 'career' and coming away somewhat discouraged by my attempt. This sort of exercise is great for learning new ways of expressing yourself, but if you don't understand most of what you hear then you'll spend all of your time trying to unravel sentences whose structure and vocabulary you're wholly unfamiliar with. This is... well, very boring.

Also, when it comes to watching TV, while you can bridge the gap in your understanding a bit through reading subtitles, they flash accross the screen fast enough that they're damn near impossible to read for a beginner, especially when deal with fast paced speech.

Using TV to learn Chinese requires reading speed and listening experience, so if you're lacking in either of those areas I'd recommend starting or at the very least supporting your TV practice with these things. I'd recommend a good podcast and some simple readers which you read for speed and understanding if you're up to that.

Of course, no one knows what you're capable of but you, so I say give it a dry run and report back to us with how it went

[anonymoose]

I would suggest that you first work through a Chinese grammar book (such as "Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook" by Yip and Rimmington). I haven't used the Pimmsler course, but as I understand it, it doesn't explain much about grammar. By going straight into TV, you will probably end up spending a long time trying to figure out basic grammar structures that could be quickly garnered from a grammar book. And with the foundation that you already have, you could probably work through the book within a few weeks. I think it would probably save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run.

[Nathan Mao]

Part of it depends on what type of learner you are.

Are you someone who learns better "hands on", or someone who learns better by receiving exhaustive instruction before trying yourself?

Do you learn something better by understanding how to do it perfectly, or by fumbling through on your own and making mistakes?

 

Both are valid ways to learn, but different people gravitate toward certain styles.

 

I'd say: you have a notion that you think might work.  That you came up with it yourself indicates it may well be one of your natural modes of learning.

 

So try it.  You'll know pretty quickly whether it is actually working for you or not.

 

Bottom line is that spending time working on natural/authentic language materials is NEVER a bad thing.  The best textbook is still artificial.  The worst natural language material is still people actually using the language as it really is.

There are some drawbacks to this method, as the others have pointed out, but it is likely that it is balanced by other advantages.  Whether the trade-offs are beneficial for you, only you can know, and only after you try it.

Why not try it for two weeks and then report back what *you* think, and what you learned?

[Lu]

If you have a hard time picking out any sentences that you might learn from, perhaps it's better approached the other way around. Use a textbook or other material designed to study from, and when you watch movies or series, try to pick out things that you do understand, be it words or grammatical patterns. If you find an entire sentence that you understand completely or almost completely, great, mine it and use it. If you just pick up a word here and there, enjoy the fact that you totally understood something.

 

I'll never forget watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon somewhere in my first year. Zhang Ziyi walks into the tavern and orders a whole list of dishes, ending with 'and a cup of 玫瑰露'. My classmate and I turned to each other: we totally learned that word! And now here it is in an actual Chinese movie!

[Ruben von Zwack]

when you watch movies or series, try to pick out things that you do understand, be it words or grammatical patterns. If you find an entire sentence that you understand completely or almost completely, great, mine it and use it.

 

I did that with 天龙八部* last year. I only worked with a few sentences from each episode, those that I fully understood (that would be in the beginning not more than "你是谁?"), or where I understood a significant chunk at least. I was watching it out of genuine obsession and not primarily to study, so I wouldn't have had the patience to spend too much time on one episode anyway.

 

While you do that - and study from other sources as well, like anonymoose said - your vocabulary is gradually increasing, anyway, and your hearing is getting more differentiated, so the chunks you understand will magically get larger (almost) on their own.

 

I'd say just go for it! But if you feel it is too frustrating, then maybe find an easier language level just for the moment. It doesn't mean you won't be making progress, and you can switch to more difficult language when you are ready for it.

 

加油!

 

*I found that on Wuxia series and films, they speak quite clear and, well, not really slow, but precise.

[Andrew 45]

Alright, thanks guys. I will try this for a bit... I have made something of a vow to put in a tremendous effort, and I think it will work and really pay off. I will look into that grammar book Anonymoose, it can only help to understand why some words are used the way they are (I've already had a run in with the use of the word cai2 or 才, which appears to have very different meaning depending on use).

 

Thanks!

[deremifri]

this might help you: http://learnlangs.com/step-by-step/understand_TV_in_30_days

[Nathan Mao]

@Andrew 45,

So what have you learned about 才?

[Andrew 45]

@Deremifri Thanks! That's a neat system they put together. It does require a bit of set up, but when you get it going, it looks to be effective. I plan on doing something like that myself, but it will be more "manual" and less automatic, just because I lack some of the require materials (English subtitles) and just want to see what I can do with what I have. Later on, I'll have to try this with that system, though.

 

@Nathan Mao I have learned a bit about 才, in that I know it can mean plenty of things (thank you Pleco program), but in the case I was seeing it used... it appears to mean approximately "just before" or "until"... kinda? From the translations I was getting from translating the sentence (and bits of the sentence) it appears to make sense that way.