The 2015 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[victorhart]

I have been really enjoying my Mandarin experiment and have increased my daily viewing time. Whereas I planned on watching at least 30 minutes per day, and in the first year averaged 40 minutes, since January 1, 2015, I have watched about 1 hour and 17 minutes on average per day for a total of 66 hours. Of course, that is all I do.

 

Of that time

 

- 37 hours have been on Chinese movies

- 3 hours dubbed Disney movies

- 9 hours Qiao Hu

- 4 hours Boonie Bears

- 7 hours on the Boonie Bears introduction song and Nan Zi Han from Mulan

- 2 hours on other kids' music (this is a new thing)

- 4 hours reviewing clips or other random stuff

 

With my Law classes starting up again in March and many other challenges, I probably won't be able to keep up this pace.

[imron]

Not quite sure what the relevance is, but that is a good story.

The relevance is that it's easy to get continuously distracted by new things, which can bring you undone.

[OneEye]

Probably a good point, too. Story of my life.

[Meng Lelan]

Progress update: No progress in Chinese at all. Searching for New Career and New Life takes 500% of my time, efforts, and life. 

[edelweis]

Meng Lelan加油！

everyone 加油！

二月报告：

February mini-goals:

finish the 1st 章 of the 1st 卷 of 星际浪子 even if I don't get every detail. Done and I even finished the 2nd 章.

establish regular habits for English and Spanish. Some effort but regular habits still not attained.

do just one of the 3 parts of a mock HSK5 test. Started doing the 阅读 part of the 大纲 document then realised I already did it some time ago.

Don't get stressed out. Have fun if possible, else relax/rest.

Nothing much to report. Unexpected stuff happened, but no real drama.

Keep learning Chinese.

- Chinese TV daily. Sometimes easy, sometimes hard to understand, but it's for "immersion" so mostly passive.

- complete a mock HSK5 test. (still not done in February).

- keep 90% compliance on daily SRS. 75%, better than last month, but not there yet.

- listen at least once to every imandarinpod podcast. Same as above. I'm excused from this task on days I have the newspaper reading class since that's enough 听力.

- write in Chinese daily, even if just 2': not happening so far. Well, I'm writing up my daily tasks in Chinese, (example attached, I went low tech à la Reinhard Engels) but not actual sentences.

- regular weekly group activity. 2/4. Need to find something easy when there's no newspaper reading class. Perhaps I can replace that with skype tutoring or polyglot meetings.

- finally read a Sci-Fi novel in Chinese. Now keeping two bookmarks in 星际浪子. The close reading one is still on the first page. The "what happens next?" one is at the end of chapter 2. I wonder what shape the last descendant of the 方舟一号 will be in after his rude first contact with outworlders. Orange, not green, because frankly I should be reading this book everyday, not every other day.

- systematic review of Chinese grammar. (not started).

- finish a technical Chinese textbook. I'm more or less studying chapter 4 of the sinolingua 听说 book. That's the "shadow the lesson and learn the vocabulary" bookmark. The "do the exercises" bookmark is still at the start of chapter 2. Also not studying often enough to make actual progress.

- drill the 3000 most common characters. I still haven't started actually studying them. But I have compiled a list of 3000+ characters from the old and new HSK and the current TOCFL vocabulary lists. I intend to drill them, not in frequency order as I did until 2013 (the year) and 2200 (characters), but in batches of similar looking characters (same or similar radical or phonetic component). And when I first learn them, I will also read the corresponding words from the vocabulary lists, and look up other dictionary words only as a complement if needed.

Keep other languages active.

English: did a little bit of podcast transcript reading + shadowing the audio. We'll call this pronunciation work.

Spanish: did a few FSI tapes.

"German": #12 of the first series of Deutsche Welle podcasts for Chinese speakers.

Other languages: nothing.

March mini-goals: I should have more time to study in March so let's be a little more ambitious.

Learn new characters.

Establish regular habits for English and Spanish. And this means: at least 3 times a week, at least once English and once Spanish. It would be nice if I could schedule the sessions as well instead of just studying whenever the mood strikes.

Do a full mock HSK5 test. Yes, that includes WRITING.

Speak Chinese with a native speaker. I think online.

Study two more chapters of scientific Chinese.

Select a book or course for my Chinese grammar review.

Read one of those 2nd hand Taiwanese children's books.

Look up interesting novels in Spanish.

Start anti-bookmark project. First target: fanfiction in English. I should read stuff in Chinese or Spanish instead.

oopsie. Went a little overboard. I still have a full time job, even though I should get a few days off this month. Well, we'll see what happens.

[Lu]

- Don't miss my deadline for the current book.
We got an extension and managed to hand in a translation in time. It's not really finished, though. We didn't have enough time to check and polish the last few chapters. I hope we can sneak in some checking & polishing in the correction rounds.

- Translate another book and/or find an interesting job.

I suppose I can't continue to 守株待兔 and expect books to fall into my lap, so I'll need to be more pro-active. Write to publishers, select books...

- Add 10 chengyu per week to Anki.

Failing, so far.

- Visit Taiwan and/or China this year.

Not visited yet, but the year is still young.

- Continue to learn new words.
- Continue to read Chinese books.
- Continue to speak Chinese with friends and language partner.

All going well.

- Make more money.

Working on it.

- Once the book is finished, start running twice a week again.

I started again, and will start again again tomorrow.

- Take more pictures.

Done some of this. Needs more work.

[Lou]

It's quite late for new year goals, but Chinese New Year didn't end too long ago, so perhaps I can still join you?

I'll set my goals for three months, the goals for the next three months will be set after May.

My Goals for 2015

1. March

- Get to Lesson 7 in the NPCR 1

- Work on my handwriting- I want to be able to write all the Hanzi of lessons 1-6 of the NPCR by hand IN A READABLE WAY.

- Master the thrice-dammed ever-so-subtle difference in the pronunciation of the Pinyin j, ch, x, q

- Be able to actually communicate-my listening and speaking skills should improve!

2. April

- Get to lesson 13 in the NPCR 1

-Again, readable Hanzi! My handwriting may be horrid, but with enough training, it should at least be decipherable...

-Try writing short texts or dialogues in Hanzi. At least two of those per week!

3. May

- Get to lesson 18 in the NPCR 1

- Continue to write at least two little texts a week

- Try watching one or two movies in Chinese (with English subtitles, of course) to see if you can understand some words and learn how they can be used in real life

So, let's go, gotta start Lesson 4... Oh my, there is so much new vocab in that one, it will probably take me 4-5 days. But it's fun, so far!

[edelweis]

The more the merrier

[eshen]

@Lou - I agree.  Maybe there should be a sister thread 'The Year of the Ram/Sheep Aims and Objectives'. 

 

I've been watching this thread to get inspired and figured I'll write down my goals. 

 

I am an ABC.  I spoke Chinese at home while growing up until I went off to college so I basically have a teenager's verbal vocabulary.  I want to learn to eventually read.  My grandfather was a journalist and politician and wrote a biography. I want to want to eventually read his biography.

 

My near term goals is to learn to read characters and words. 

 

1.  Go through 'Remember Traditional Hanzi.   I find the mnemonics very useful in helping me remember the characters.  I plan to learn 5 characters a day Monday through Friday and bumping up to 10 characters each on Saturday and Sunday.  I just hit 900 characters so I should finish book one in about three months (mid June) and book two some time in Feb 2016.  

 

2.  Go through DeFrancis Beginning Chinese Reader series.  This will help me read words and know the pronunciation of the words.  I plan to do two lessons a week (so far I recognize the meaning of the words), maybe drop to one lesson a week if I start hitting uncharted territories.  I just lesson 15, so that should I should complete both Part 1 and Part 2 in October/November.

 

3.  Reward myself by reading a graded reader - Read Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Curly Haired Company (Mandarin Companion Graded Reader).   I'll probably work on that once I have made enough progress in DeFrancis so I don't have to keep looking up words.  I'm hoping to start in the fall.

 

I'll be using Pleco Flashcards to keep reinforcing the words I learned in RTH and DeFrancis.  Late last year, I missed a couple of days of doing flash cards and got demotivated when my pass rate dropped substantially. 

[ouyangjun]

2015 Goals:

 

1)  Get better at Chinese speeches.

Progress:  On track

February:  Gave my company Chinese new year speech in Chinese and it went well.

Upcoming plan:  March/April:  Plan to give a Town Hall in Chinese

 

2)  Read more chinese novels (at least 4 this year)

Progress:  On track

Completed one novel (圈子圈套) as of February, and am on book 2 of the 黄金时代 collection.

Near term goal:  complete book 2 of the collection, 三十而立, in March

 

3)  Daily review and adding new flashcards in Pleco

Progress:  consistently achieving at least 5 days a week.

 

4)  Write at least 2 times per week in my journal (in Chinese of course)

Progress:  new goal added in March

 

5)  More social time with my wife's friends (all native Chinese speakers) - at least 2 outings with them per month

Progress:  Going well

January - started studying tea at a local tea house and have attended a few classes.

February - two dinner events with her and her friends.

March goals:  

Book a trip in April to Guilin and hire a Chinese tour guide to take us around - to be done all in Chinese.  

Join at least one yoga session instructed in Chinese and chat with tea/coffee afterwards.

Go to tea house at least once to 品茶 with our friends.

[AdamD]

This year has already conspired to destroy my plans. My confidence and motivation have collapsed, and a health issue has really thrown a spanner in the works, but other things are getting in the way as well. I'm back at uni now, so I'm hoping that will give me the right impetus to get moving.

 

1. Be able to understand clear 普通话 speech.

 

I think my comprehension is improving. I've not written or spoken any Chinese in months because I've been so over the whole thing.

 

2. Learn the HSK 5 word list.

 

Stalled.

 

3. Pass an HSK level.

 

I'll probably try this in September. I don't care what level right now.

 

4. Extend my reading and listening chains to 400 days.

 

At least 15 minutes of each, every day. This one's on track. Tomorrow I'll hit 150 days of listening and 125 days of reading. I even managed it one day when I was panicking in a hospital.

[Flickserve]

I haven't set hard goals. Not sure if that's going to work for me. I am already on another postgrad diploma course (online) on sports.

I just want to be able to understand more and improve my accent. If I can understand more, it shouldn't be too hard to make the transition to verbalising, right?

Listening - continue with hearing the mandarin for about 30mins during the day (not sure if passive listening actually helps that much). Finish watching a serialisation called 唐朝好男人。Will need to re watch it to pick out familiar words.

Reading? Again, no goals. Some words are easier, some are harder to retain.

Books - actually need to get around to reading some of them

Software - buy a Chinese writing pad for my PC.

Give up on Anki - I cannot customise it to exactly the way I want and I have spent more hours trying work out how to customise it than using the damm program.

[edelweis]

@AdamD:

kudos for keeping up with the listening and reading despite everything.

Also it's ok to redefine your goals, or not have set goals but just report whatever you're doing.

[antony]

The seriously get back on track after frequent bouts of procrastination over the past nine years.

I feel like I need a good service:

Back to basics; Pimsleur 1-3 to brush up on pronunciation.

Work through Chinese Made Easier 1-5, (3 is about the level I'm at).

Work my way through the Radicals.

A possible return to ChinesePod, though I suspect my ChinesePod days are over.

Stop procrastinating!

[Bigdumogre]

Finally done with lieutenant test and time to get back in the grind. Have not practiced one word in months and as a beginner feel like I need to start almost at beginning again.

Can't find my NPCR textbook but found CDs I know it's somewhere lol. I found the workbook though so will start doing that. Started with pimsluers again and will breeze through first level as a refresher.

I leave to China in 3 weeks so want to be able to at least ask for direction and food at minimum. Hope by next go around I will be able to speak conversationally.

Right now just sitting in a Taiwanese breakfast spot in queens New York listening to people speak.

[dtails]

I'm a little late for the start of the year but I've been happy with my progress so far anyway.

 

To be completed:

 

1 Finish PAVC book 4, Taiwan today, and start Far East 3

 

2 Start a cool blog using Chinese - something at least the tiniest bit interesting (ideas pending)

 

3 You know exercise and eat my vegetables

[AdamD]

@edelweis: Thanks for your support. It's a bugger when things don't go to plan.

 

I recently discovered that my two Chinese units at uni are full-on interpreting and translating, and now I'm a bit scared. My ability needs to be up there before July.

[edelweis]

三月的报告

March mini-goals:
Learn new characters Yes! after more than two months of procrastination/preparation.
Establish regular habits for English and Spanish: the sessions are scheduled (Mon or Tue: Spanish podcast shadowing, Thu or Fri: English transcript reading + shadowing, Sat: FSI Spanish tape, Sun: optional English session) but I only followed the schedule for about 2 weeks...
Do a full mock HSK5 test. I took the listening (95/100) and reading (88/100) parts of the HSK51001 sample test.
Speak Chinese with a native speaker. Didn't happen.
Study two more chapters of scientific Chinese Barely 1 chapter.
Select a book or course for my Chinese grammar review. Well, I have the HSK语法精讲精炼 book from the Sinolingua giveaway, so I've decided that my "grammar review" will be achieved when I have completed all the exercises (which doesn't exclude consulting other reference books too).
Read one of those 2nd hand Taiwanese children's books Moral of the story: instead of getting into squabbles and then asking grown ups to act as arbiters, our little friends should try to get along with each other, disputes are useless.
Look up interesting novels in Spanish. Oh well, some other time.
Start anti-bookmark project. Total failure, read more fanfiction in English than ever. However I tried to redirect at least some of my internet bad habits which produced this unplanned but quite nice result:
I've been reading some short newspaper articles in Chinese (on my own I mean, not for the class I am taking). In Traditional characters even! Some are quite easy (new phone on the market etc.) but I suspect those are translated directly from English, and some way too difficult - packed with chengyus and rarely used words even though the topic does not actually require specialized vocabulary - and I suspect those were written by native Chinese reporters

General 2015 goals:

Don't get stressed out. Have fun if possible, else relax/rest.
The usual stuff + minor but annoying physical ailments

Keep learning Chinese.
- Chinese TV daily. The 中华文明之美 feature on Hunan Satellite is quite funny to watch (also quite short) but I have to confess I often don't understand much of it.
- complete a mock HSK5 test. 2/3 done.
- keep 90% compliance on daily SRS. Just barely, but goal reached this month!
- listen at least once to every imandarinpod podcast. Not quite there, but not a total failure either.
- write in Chinese daily, even if just 2': started here and here and on Lang-8.
- regular weekly group activity: 3/4. Missed one class for no good reason at all
- finally read a Sci-Fi novel in Chinese. starting chapter 5 of 星际浪子 but still not reading it everyday.
- systematic review of Chinese grammar. (not started).
- finish a technical Chinese textbook. The "shadow the lesson and learn the vocabulary" bookmark is at chapter 5. The "do the exercises" bookmark is near the end of chapter 2. Still not studying often/intensively enough to make actual progress.
- drill the 3000 most common characters. started with these batches (already knew about half the characters):
奂换唤痪, 搀馋谗免勉兔冤, 包跑炮抱胞饱泡袍雹刨, 囗国因回团图围困固园圆圈菌, 尧烧晓绕饶挠浇侥跷翘, 岁岸岩崇岂岗崩崖炭嵌崭, 戋线钱残践浅贱盏, 皿血益监盘盖盛盟盗盐盆盒盈盏, 非排匪啡徘诽悲辈罪靠
(of these I think I like 雹 the best )

Keep other languages active.
English: podcast transcript reading + shadowing the audio (neglected at the end of the month)
Spanish: did a few FSI tapes and technical podcast shadowing. (neglected at the end of the month)
"German": #13-14 of the first series of Deutsche Welle podcasts for Chinese speakers. Not a serious endeavor, just fun to listen to while doing chores.
Other languages: nothing. However: I have been thinking that when I stopped studying Arabic I was about to start learning how to read newspapers. And now I am starting to read some simple/short newspaper articles in Chinese (which should be harder to read than Arabic?). So reading articles in Arabic might not be that hard? Hmm.

April focus: Stop putting on weight. Don't resign unless I have another job lined up.

Unrelated French saying just because I can: En avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil.

[OneEye]

Well, March happened. Can't say it involved much Chinese, but oh well.

 

I did start reading 金庸's《白馬嘯西風》 a few days ago. It's quite short (a 中篇小說, just over 100 pages). Literature is a weak point for me, since the vast majority of my reading in Chinese has been academic. This is a way for me to dip my toe in.

 

I also did a bit of 文言文 (using 進階文言文讀本) and a bit of listening to a news podcast during my morning run. Palaeography has fallen to the wayside for now in favor of prepping for our ever-more-delayed Indiegogo campaign. That's OK.

 

I'm still learning Cantonese, so there's a good bit of news. I'll do Glossika's GSR track 10 today, which means I've done about a third of what I intended to do so far, but it's more than I've ever stuck with a 方言 before. Cantonese is a lot of fun.

 

French got ditched. Imron is a prophet. Another time, perhaps.

 

Goals for April:

 

1) Do some 行草書 stuff every week.

2) Finish 白馬嘯西風 and start something else

3) 3-4 lessons in 進階文言文讀本

4) GSR Cantonese through track 30

[Lou]

Morning everyone!

Gods, April is already here, the time flies by so fast... Well, let's see what I archieved!

- Get to Lesson 7 in the NPCR 1-Check! I actually am a good two lessons after L7, I'm going to start Lesson 10 today...

- Work on my handwriting- I want to be able to write all the Hanzi of lessons 1-6 of the NPCR by hand IN A READABLE WAY. Yeah... It works out. I can definitely recognise all of them, but actually hand-write "only" about 90-95%. Most of those that I can't write are pretty useless ones (like, 红葡萄酒-I mean, recognising that on a menu is useful, but actually handwriting it isn't necessary for someone who doesn't drink alcohol, I think.) I definitely can write what I need and therefor think that I'm fine.

- Master the thrice-dammed ever-so-subtle difference in the pronunciation of the Pinyin j, ch, x, q. This continues to drive me insane. I think I got some sort of a hang on sh-x now, x is sharper. But it sometimes the x is pronounced with this "ks" sound... Ch/Q still are a mystery to me. J is fine now. I seem to sound halfway fine, but I still need to work on some things.

- Be able to actually communicate-my listening and speaking skills should improve! I definitely have more vocab in the "active" part of my brain now, vocab I can actually use when speaking or writing. My listening still isn't great. I sometimes listen to Chinesepod and am not able to understand certain sentences in the dialogue, but later, when they go through the dialogue word by word, I realise that this one word I didn't understand was de facto one I already know and can write/speak... Happened today with "喜歡". I was totally confused by that word that I understood as something like "ksihoun" and later, when they explained the dialogue, immediately realised that is was "喜歡" with the x pronounced in that odd way. But hey, I'm learning Chinese since three months, I'm bound to make mistakes!

So far, things are going well. I will adjust my April goals a little and set Lesson 16 (does the NPCR 1 even have this many lessons? I'll need to take a look and perhaps order the second one soon...) as my new aim for April. The rest stays the same. :-)