[Vlog] Taiwan Study Abroad Experience **On Going**

[Rai]

I am unsure where to properly post this On-going blog on here, so I decided to post here, if I posted incorrectly please move to the correct section. Thank you for your understanding Admins and Roddy.
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Roddy sent me a PM a few days ago requesting when I come back from my nine month abroad program from CIEE in Taiwan for Intensive Mandarin and Culture to write about my experiences in Taiwan. I wanted to make it a little bit more fun for me, so I decided to do a video series regarding my experiences. At the time of writing this post I still have four whole months left before I depart, so currently I am attempting to best prepare myself when I land my first foot in Taiwan.
 
The structure of this video series is having be talking about my current struggles, performance and ultimate grasp of the language. I anticipate there will be about fourteen videos altogether relating to this video series. The first video was recorded today as I have officially started my "predepature" studying for my program. Soon to be followed by two more videos sometime this Summer, maybe one in mid June or beginning of July. And then one right before I go onto my Plane to Taiwan, maybe even to a special video recording myself on the plane or something just for fun. Then for every month I am there I will produce one video reflecting on the happenings and my current skill level which would be another nine videos. Concluding with a reflection of my entire trip and my Mandarin level.
 
I will mostly talk about each of the four main skills of Chinese language learning and feel how I am doing at the current time. They would of course be: reading, writing, listening and speaking.
 
 
May 10th, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=571FDPYqYVg&feature=youtu.be (if someone knows how to embed this into my forum post that would be amazing)

 

So this video is a bit on the longer side because I explain the reason for this upcoming video series ect. Now, to get into my current level and history. If you guys don't know my name is James Fitzgerald and I have been studying Mandarin for four years now. I just finished my freshmen year in college where I am majoring in Chinese language and literature. I previously studied three years of High School Chinese and by the time I graduated I completed all four levels of the Mandarin offered by the Chinese department at my high school thus I was granted an independent scholarship.

 

During my high school career we used the Australian ”你好“ textbook series. And this year during the start of my college career I've been studying from Integrated Chinese Level 2 series. 

 

At the time of writing this I have completed both semesters averaging an A- in both classes. Though while my College may say my Chinese level is "Advanced" I beg to disagree. My reading and writing have improved substantially since the beginning of this year but my oral comprehension and speaking really have yet get much needed improvement. 

 

I am currently planning and working on watching the "我可能不會愛你" Taiwan drama to build my vocabulary and familiarize myself with the Taiwan accent and speaking habits. I hope to go through maybe 3 episodes per week. Each episode, to my understanding, is 80 minutes long, so I'm going to first watch the episode, then rewatch it by writing down all the new vocabulary. Then looking up each new word I don't know, study them using Anki. Then finally rewatching the episode again, and again until I can 聽得懂。

 

I hope to write another post sometime the mid June to early July period. 加油！

 

 

 

[OneEye]

Cool, looking forward to it!

 

I'd recommend also mimicking the male actors in 我可能不會愛你. Try to say things they way they say them. Pronunciation, pace, intonation, tone of voice, everything. Doing this aloud really helps with internalizing the language and will help your accent in the process. If you want to take it a step further, record yourself saying the lines so you can compare your pronunciation to theirs. Doing this will also, in my experience, help with listening comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, grammar internalization, etc. Saying things the right way (i.e., the way a native speaker would) over and over will make you very aware of when something is said the wrong way (read this).

 

Good luck in Taiwan!

[roddy]

Man, who's that Roddy guy sending out all these PMs?

 

Thanks for doing that, it'd be fun to get to follow your adventures, and the kind of information you'll be able to provide over the next year or two could make things a lot easier for those following in your footsteps.

[etm001]

 

 

I'd recommend also mimicking the male actors in 我可能不會愛你. Try to say things they way they say them. Pronunciation, pace, intonation, tone of voice, everything. Doing this aloud really helps with internalizing the language and will help your accent in the process.

 

Randomly enough, I just finished watching this show. I whole heartedly agree withOneEye's recommendation. TV dramas are a fantastic way to learn natural/colloquial Taiwanese Chinese (or any other language - I'm firmly convinced that the show "Friends" has been the most powerful force in the world for ESL learning). That said, this method for learning can be bit time consuming and/or tedious, so here are some random tips based on my experience:

 

• I strongly recommend recording yourself speaking the lines and playing them back 1-2 days after recording (a la the Glossika method). It really helps with memory retention.
  • Note: if you are like me, you might cringe upon hearing your recorded voice. Well, it's even more cringe-worthy hearing your recorded voice speaking Chinese, especially in the beginning. Don't let it get you down - you'll get better with time.
• If you are streaming from YouTube:
  • There are keyboard shortcuts which make it much easier to skip and fast forward/rewind, something you'll need to do a lot when learning this way.
  • Extensions are available for Chrome, FireFox, etc., that allow you to further customize YouTube to your liking, including enabling behind-the-scenes settings that can improve how well YouTube streams to your computer.
  • There are extensions that will allow you to download YouTube content to your computer, whether audio+video, or just audio. I won't go into details, but sometimes it's much easier to work with local files than with streams.
• Unlike back home, Taiwan (well, at least Taipei) still has video rental stores scattered about. Their benefit over YouTube is that DVD audio/video quality is (probably) higher than what's on YouTube, and the selection might be better too (finding shows online to watch can be very hit or miss). Plus, sometimes it's nice discover new titles just by browsing what's on the shelf.
• When playing back recordings, I like to hear the native speaker speaking the line, immediately followed by the recording of me speaking the line 2-3 times, so I can hear the difference between the native speaker and myself. In other words, I merge the source audio track with the track of my recorded voice. This can be done on a computer using a program like Audacity. I will admit, however, that the process to do this is a bit time consuming and tedious, so I don't do it all the time.
• There are tons of other Taiwanese dramas. If you liked 我可能不會愛你 then try 海派甜心 and 不良笑話. Some other shows that I've watched, in no particular order:

  • 惡作劇之吻 (It Started with a Kiss)

  • 痞子英雄 (Black and White)

  • 新兵日記 (Rookies' Diary)

  • 戰神 (Mars)

  • 18禁不禁

  • 智勝鮮師 (Confucius)

  • 霹靂 (this is a long running puppet show in Taiwan. It might be easier to find it in a video rental store than YouTube).

​And of course we have to mention 後宮甄嬛傳 (Empresses in the Palace) and most recently 來自星星的你. Both are widely popular, but be aware that 後宮甄嬛傳 takes place during the Qing dynasty, so the phrasing, vocabulary, etc. is much different, and 來自星星的你 is a Korean drama, so it's dubbed (I don't think it's actually aired on TV on Taiwan yet, all the online versions I've found are sourced from mainland China where it has already aired on TV).

 

Good luck!

 

P.S. Oh, and don't forget there are tons of great native movies you watch and use as source material too!