My Chinese progress log (Videos)

[Flickserve]

Pokar,

Managed to take a look at your youku video. He spoke fast! I understood the second time round as I had to start the video again after one minute. But first time round was a bit blur for me.

Your listening skills are pretty good. I was well impressed. I understood what you were saying but the tones were quite off. I guess I am slightly better than you in pronounciation by my having cantonese skills.

[Pokarface]

@Flickserve, oh yes! I forgot you lived there! Short and common phrases are easy to pronounce (at least it feels like it sounds right, but I'm not sure),

but on longer conversations you'll hear me "break".

 

I have more footage from my first week using Speak Up Chinese. I'll see if I can make a highlights video to show my progress and Henry Su's method  .

I was able to understand a lot because he sounds like the guys from my Chinese learning CDs    ! but in real life I hear all sorts of accents in my city  .

The more  苏先生 realizes I understand what he's saying, the less likely he is to speak English. This really helps a lot because he's not watering down the difficulty level and I need to listen more.

[Flickserve]

Hi,

 

To me, your pronunciation can be quite off, though I understand it

 

This actually brings up the same issue that a lot of the other people on the forum brought up. They wished they had concentrated on tones a lot more. I realised in myself, that my ear wasn't tuned into discerning the minor differences so I have spent more time on that (at the expense of vocab acquisition) and reproduction of the sound with my speech. I created a thread about it with chinese teachers used to 2nd language learner's pronunciation and less likely to correct it so much. The result is the learner finding, on arrival in China, having difficulty being understood.

 

I have my radio turned on for passive listening - the mandarin is pretty clear but it does mean I am not experienced in picking up different accents. I watched a Taiwanese movie the other week and found that really hard to pick up the first time. A China made production was much easier to track the sounds. On my recent trip, the older people I met tended to have stronger regional accents which was tricky to discern.

 

Even down in HK, although my mandarin is pretty elementary, some of the HKers say it doesn't sound bad! is that indicative of the level found in HK or are people just trying to stroke my ego?   One mandarin speaker (fully bilingual in both english and mandarin) said to me "oh I can tell you are learning the Northern China style". Damm, I am so easy to please

[Pokarface]

@Flickserve. Hey! I don't know. Is it? 

I started noticing recently during my conversations all the wrong tones I pronounce right after I make the mistakes. (Or at least I think I can notice them, lol)

 

Before, I would only detect few of my tone mistakes (it's easier to notice them once I see repetitions of my videos), but I think I've finally developed the ear to hear them all during my conversations.

I don't know if it's helpful because now I'm more conscious about my mistakes and I feel like repeating correctly what I mispronounced, so I simply giggle and repeat what I said.

 

Would you believe me if I'd tell you that since I started learning Mandarin I've always tried pronouncing the tones? I would even write the pinyin words with tone marks. I think this only proves how difficult Mandarin has always been for most people. However, I did spend more time acquiring new vocabulary rather than making sure I had a good pronunciation since initially I was just learning Mandarin for fun. I never intended using it for professional reasons, I just wanted to chit-chat in Chinese  , and make new friends.

 

I've heard doing business in China requires you to first build strong relations, so I think I'm learning the right stuff if I later decide to use it for business  

[Flickserve]

I think everybody goes in trying to learn tones but perhaps it's hard for instructors to keep at it if students get bored of it. Plus, there is the business aspect of trying not to lose a student. It is a bit harder for me as I am ethnic chinese so people assume I have a much higher ability. Learning cantonese has shown me if you are off on the tone, you can be way off in what people understand of you.

I just have had to alter my vocab learning objectives slightly. I went to some formal dinners and the style of conversation is different. We would need to talk a little bit deeper. Good to have put things into perspective.

Building relationships also require the ability to drink and tolerate alcohol. Usually, I drink wine with multiple sips through a meal. During formal dinner in China, it occurred to me that every time I had a sip, the head of the table would drink with me at the same time (plus 千杯). Cultural lesson learnt and reinforced faster than vocabulary! Secondly, one of the dishes looked like sesame seeds. But only after it was in my mouth and realising the rough texture was a bit different to sesame seeds did I have a closer look......fried (or baked) ants... Cultural lesson number 2 duly learnt and reinforced. Ants are not usually on my diet!!

[Flickserve]

Rather than create a new thread, here's my little progress. I don't have a target for mandarin except being conversational. Last week, I did get a HSK2 paper thrown at me at random. Surprised to find that It was actually fairly straightforward. There were a few words I didn't know (probably less than 5%). So it does look like I am making some progress. Nice to know.

[Pokarface]

I'm going to work to China! 

Any suggestions? 

[Flickserve]

I'm going to work to China!

Any suggestions?

Simply awesome! Find an employer and learn some mandarin? Haha.

Improve consistency of tones?

[Pokarface]

My current progress. I've gone a long way compared to last year's videos.

Just me talking about what I've been up to. I didn't went to China, it was the most hoax sounding job ever, haha, but I managed to secure a C# programming position in a different state (within the U.S.)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEqBEI32gB0 (no subtitles. This video is intended for Chinese, Taiwanese, and Chinese language learners =-). I could write the transcript maybe one day when I have time on the video description)

 

I'm glad I'll get to program something in my new project. I was getting tired of my previous role as a tester, but well, you have to start somewhere   , just like I started with Chinese!!

 

My progress video from last month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufqsm9x_lUI (no subtitles. Same reason)

 

I started learning Chinese in March 2014. I never really stopped learning! I've heard people say they studied X language on-and-off, I never felt like I needed to study on-and-off  .

 

I'm starting to feel like I want to learn some Korean, but I still want to improve my Chinese listening skills. While some people might tell me that I'll have better job opportunities by focusing on Chinese (I wonder what kind of jobs), who am I kidding? I learn languages because I love it! I simply like talking to others in their OWN native language, have some drinks with them, crack-up some jokes, and hangout.

 

Being able to tell someone that you can speak their native language is one of the best conversation ice-breakers ever! I don't think there's someone who regrets learning a language, but I believe there's many who regret not learning a second language.

 

Did you guys know that I can speak Portuguese and Spanish as well? And I don't think I'll ever hear someone during my daily-life activities speaking Esperanto, but that's OK because I think I would still prefer to use their own native language to communicate 

 

Thanks for everyone at Chinese-forums who has helped me, given me positive criticism, supported me, advised me, and followed my progress for over a year 

[Bigdumogre]

Great new video you have come a long way in a short time. Lot less hand movements and speaking more rapidly. Try and shoot a video of you talking to someone?

[Pokarface]

@Bigdumogre. Thank you! My spy camera is kinda defective since I still have the one I used around college and the Sichuan restaurant.

 

Maybe recording my QQ conversations is more practical. I could ask someone if he or she wants me to record our conversation on QQ. I met a young professional on Hellotalk, she can speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, and English, so we could speak 3 out of 4 languages and that would make a great video! Lol, I'll even ask her to teach me a word or two in Cantonese if she agrees, haha 

 

Hey, I think I move my hands when I speak English as well. , Obviously, nothing can match my first month Chinese video hand-movements, haha.

[kuang]

Hi pokar

 

You really made big progress in Chinese! I’m impressed by your song. You can indeed go to the “ Iam singer3” haha. When you come to China? Which city you will be stay? If you come to Hangzhou, I can show you around.  Although I don’t have any suggestions for you now, if you have any problems, welcome to ask me , my QQ:939884497  (in Chinese learning or life in China). Hope you enjoy your days in China.

[CH09]

Very good ! keep going we were all at your stage. 

[Pokarface]

I'm still in the game!!! Progress videos!!!!

 

Me singing in Chinese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQRIS3nWENc

 

你在中国吗？我也有YouKu!

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMxMjU0ODk5Ng==.html

 

When I read Chinese

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgVpy-7gcaU

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMxMjU1MTk3Ng==.html

[Pokarface]

If anyone is still following me,

here's another Progress video!!!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES8hCCJ2V1s

[Bigdumogre]

Your vocabulary is getting larger but seems not very fluid. Much better than mine so can't really give you much info lol just keep killing it

[陳德聰]

I feel like your tones have become better with practice. There are a lot more natural things going on, but I think a part of your speech that I thought would change with time (but hasn't) would be the way you affect your voice. I find it difficult to follow some of your sentences despite your better grasp of grammar and pronunciation because every word seems like a surprise. Your eyes light up and go really wide and you kind of gasp for air before every few words, and it creates a disjointed feeling.

 

But the improvement is there so I guess keep at it.

[Flickserve]

Same as the others.

 

But what's the word at 0.18 just before you say 中国的女生？

 

Is it the same as 0.30?

 

There were some parts I couldn't understand - it's probably my lack of vocabulary.

[Pokarface]

lol， sounds good Ogre. Hehe.

I haven't studied Chinese in a while like I mentioned in my video. I do however, speak often. Well, there was a time when I used to speak English and sounded like a foreigner since I grew up among Hispanics and spoke Spanish for my whole youth. My American accent developed as I moved to college and to the north of the U.S. Something I cannot do with Chinese.

Given the opportunity of living in China/Taiwan, I might be able to sound like them. Despite studying Chinese and having gotten this far, I really can't think of how I will use Chinese (if I use it at all) in the future, so expanding my vocabulary takes priority over sounding more fluent. I don't ignore one aspect over another on purpose, it just happens to be a difficult language to master and focusing on all its aspects at the same time is very time consuming :s

Well, I already got to go out with Chinese/Taiwanese girls that can't speak English, so that's a plus. I've went out for drinks with friends from Fuzhou whose English suck, so that's a plus. I need a stronger motivation to really get better. I've done everything I ever thought I would ever do with Chinese.

At :18 I said 我跟一个中国的女生

At :30 I call her a gold-digger, 拜 金女啊

[Flickserve]

Ahh, thanks.Your 一个 sounds quite like colloquial Cantonese for "now".

 

Pretty good how you can talk for so long!