The 2015 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[tysond]

Progress update - March:

 

I didn’t get around to updating at end of Feb, so let’s cover two months here.

 

Work is quite busy, but I did take a long trip in Feb to visit the USA (for work) and Cuba (for leisure).  Coming from China to visit Cuba, a country where real socialism is still quite actively pushed, was very interesting as a cultural contrast.  I met a few Chinese people while in Cuba and they all commented on how similar Cuba now is to China 30-ish years ago. 

 

The trip did give me a lot of downtime where I could study by myself, which was quite useful.  I focused a lot on new vocabulary (or backlog vocabulary) and reading, and didn’t worry too much about the Anki backlog I have, instead adding new cards and sentences. 

 

Listening: Glad to be back into warmer weather where I can ride my bike to work and listen to podcasts.  Listening keeps improving and I’m much more often able to follow longer discussions and dialogs, and conduct daily affairs over the phone (harder than in person).  Chinesepod has changed owners and I think the new dialogs are a bit different and perhaps a bit more challenging than before.  I also signed up for Popup Chinese and grabbed a bunch of their podcasts to study.  I still listen to a mix of intermediate, upper intermediate, advanced and media oriented podcasts and am getting some value out of them all.  Intermediate is great for just going with the flow and testing complete understanding including a few new topic specific words, Upper Intermediate is very valuable for listing to a 2-3 minute dialog and trying to keep it “captured” in my head, and Advanced is back to listening to key words trying to guess overall meaning (unless it’s a familiar topic).

 

I also started listening to HSK5 sample listening questions and must admit I find them much easier than I thought they would be.  The new vocab is not overwhelming and you can usually understand it via context. 

 

Speaking: I just changed teacher (my previous teacher wanted a different schedule, so I have a new one taking over my schedule).  It’s wonderful.  In our first session she corrected me on many “lazy” tone errors where even simple words I had been a bit sloppy on tones.  This is forcing me to slow down and be more correct which is great.  Keeping the same teacher for too long is sometimes an issue as the two of you can get comfortable with your ability to communicate with each other, despite mistakes.

 

I’ve also listened to quite a few foreigners speaking lately and it’s simply amazing how many errors we make, but we are still understood J   Two years ago when I arrived in Beijing I thought that taxi drivers required perfect Chinese in order to go places but now I realize that is not really true.  You can fluff 25% of the tones and they still understand!

 

Reading: Over the last few months the thing I have noticed is that my reading is getting much better.  A lot of the vocabulary I’ve been learning from HSK5-ish sources is still very common and if I learn something new it typically appears again a few days later – often in something I’ve actually seen before but didn’t really absorb.  A lot of texts from textbooks are quite easy and I can make it through with a little more speed and feeling as I understand the meaning as we go, as I am able to bring to life more of the short expressions that are part of the sentence.  As I watch TV and so on although I can’t always catch everything people say on complex topics, if I pause and read the subtitles I am doing OK (obviously some weakness in my listening!).

 

What’s good is that reading articles and so on is becoming easier and easier – I look up more explanations of Chinese in Chinese, I read random texts and grasp much more of the meaning and so get more value from reading the text, and so keep going.  I found myself a science fiction short story recently that I quite enjoyed reading – 1500 characters in a single stretch, which is of course quite short, but still managed to keep my attention for the entire text, and the words I had to look up were things that are really not that common.  I now think that character knowledge is a bit of a limitation on my reading skill – via Heisig I studied 3000 characters, but I think a good 1000 of them are a bit fuzzy now, but show up all over the place in more advanced vocab, or have secondary meanings/readings that I’m slowly uncovering.

 

Writing: I made a change in my habits and started to respond to work emails in Chinese – giving my thoughts and ideas to colleagues (I also duplicate the text in English).  Although I am sure I make mistakes and butcher the language at times, it’s very useful to uncover holes in what I want to say and people are very supportive and have said I can just drop the English as they know what I’m on about. 

[uni419]

Late comer but here it goes. Goals for 2015. Planning to make heavy use of the 100% app to keep on the daily task. 

 

Listening:

- 1 hour per day shadowing Chinese audio using Speater during commute/downtime.

- Maintain habit of passive listening when otherwise unengaged. (Personal observation, a small and easily stashed set of bluetooth headphones with good battery life are worth their weight in gold here. I never really realised the amount of time I spent with my mind just drifting until my ears had something to do all the time.)

 

Reading:

- 30 minutes per day of leisure reading.

 

Speaking:

- 10 sentences of glossika per day using GMR method.

- 2 hrs a week of skype convos. 

 

Writing

- Learn 5 new traditional characters per day with Skritter/Flashcard/Hanzicraft

 

Test:

- Sit and pass HSK 6 

- Sit and pass DPLT with 2/2/2 or above. 

 

Professional:

- Secure an active-duty commission in my desired branch of service.

- Apply to five paid internships for the Spring of '16 which will let me use of Mandarin in a professional capacity.

 

Health/Fitness:

- Continue running two miles a day.

- Continue training pushups and situps everyday. 

- Continue macronutrient ratio of 40/40/20 (protein/carb/fat)

- 290+ APFT on 01JUN2015

- Continue lifting plan once back in states

- Deadlift, 2BW, Squat 1.5 BW, Bench 1 BW by Dec 31st. 

 

Personal:

- Mentor at least one language learning cadet

[eshen]

It's six weeks later for me and progress hasn't been where I would like to be.  Work got busy and by the time I got home, my brain was already too tired to do anything else. 

 

1.  Going through RTH - Currently at 1115 characters.  Up 215 from 6 weeks ago so I'm averaging just over 5 characters a day.  Haven't hit 10 characters on the weekends like I hoped to.

 

2.  Going through BCR - Currently in lesson 20.  Averaging less than one lesson a week. I started hitting unfamiliar words and that has stalled progress.

 

It looks like I'm hitting a resistance area - the novelty of learning new characters is starting to wear off for me and other things are looking more interesting (e.g. book club).  

 

What do you do to recharge your motivation when you start feeling things are dragging?

 

 

[Flickserve]

Variety. Sometimes I get bored of looking at characters. So I tried a news article and looked up the words. Sometimes I will take a video clip and rerun a sentence a number of times just to match the speech to the subtitles.

I find I can't learn new words so easily off a book now. It needs some introduction. Strangely enough, when I was in my 20's, I used to copy out words like 過 or 車without context and which would stick in my head. Couple of decades later, that same method doesn't seem to work.

[AdamD]

1. Be able to understand clear 普通话 speech.
 
I'm definitely winning here. My 15+ minutes of listening per day has paid off. Now I only need to listen to a short sentence once or twice, not 10 times. I'm understanding speech better and parsing the meaning more intuitively.

 

Because of this, I'm starting to get back into speaking and writing Chinese, not just consuming it. My grammar is suffering due to lack of use, but I'm working on that.
 
2. Learn the HSK 5 word list.
 
I'm not doing this, but I'm not stressing about it. Right now I need to lift my ability to use the language, not just pick up words. Having said that, I've probably absorbed half the word list just by sticking with goal 4.

 

3. Pass an HSK level.
 
Meh, whatever. 3 or 4, probably.
 
4. Extend my reading and listening chains to 400 days.

Next week my listening chain will hit 200 days, and my reading chain 175 days. It's becoming less a chore as my skills are improving, which has been fascinating to experience.

[imron]

which has been fascinating to experience.

The most fascinating experience is yet to come - that's when after the result of all your hard work, people start to tell you that your language ability must be because you have a natural gift or talent for languages.  That's when you roll your eyes and look back at your 400 day chain and know that it was more because of consistent hard work rather than natural ability, and then you start to realise that people you consider talented in other areas have probably just put in many, many hours to get that good rather than having some innate talent, and then you realise that you can apply the same principle (consistent hard work) to anything you want to learn.

 

The realisation that almost everything is a learned skill is mind-blowing because it frees you up to learn anything you desire.

[AdamD]

people start to tell you that your language ability must be because you have a natural gift or talent for languages [but] it was more because of consistent hard work rather than natural ability

 

Wow. I hope I get to that point. (Uh oh, a new goal.)

 

 

and then you start to realise that people you consider talented in other areas have probably just put in many, many hours to get that good rather than having some innate talent

 

This has already happened. People who I once thought were just ~incredible~ at ~things~ are in fact focused, unrelenting, flexible, self-critical, staggeringly hard-working people with the same number of faults as everyone else.

 

Last year someone I value pretty highly told me, in response to a confidence meltdown on my part, that perhaps I'm just not suited to learning a language. That should have sent me packing; instead, it made me determined to prove him wrong.

 

 

The realisation that almost everything is a learned skill is mind-blowing because it frees you up to learn anything you desire.

 

This is probably a good time to point out how enormously Chinese study has changed me as a person. By working towards a seemingly impossible goal, and therefore being influenced by other Chinese learners who are equally determined, I'm now a harder working, more confident person who will find a way to get pretty much anything done, whether it's my responsibility or not. As you said, imron, now that I've proved to myself what I can achieve with focus and hard work, I can and do apply those base skills to everything.

[Lu]

perhaps I'm just not suited to learning a language

Yeah, that's nonsense, and I'm glad you didn't let it get to you. Virtually all humans are suited to learn a language, which is proven by the fact that virtually all humans speak a language. Unless that person was talking about you not being able to muster up the time and effort, but I'm glad you thoroughly proved them wrong on that count as well.

[AdamD]

Thanks!

 

Unless that person was talking about you not being able to muster up the time and effort, but I'm glad you thoroughly proved them wrong on that count as well.

 

He meant I was probably not predisposed to it, but to be honest I think he was trying to be helpful: I had had a massive hissy fit about being crap at Chinese, and he agreed with me as a way of being supportive. Loads of people would take a conversation like that as a signal to give up and walk away.

[edelweis]

I haven't been studying, so no detailed report for April.

I've only been toying a little with basic science open courseware (in Chinese), and Tang poetry (李白's 静夜思), which is not something I'd have considered previously, but since Chinese primary school students learn this stuff, I guess it's not that hard... this particular poem is short, contains only one new character, and I found it pretty neat once I actually understood (?) it.

Not unemployed yet (there's always next month eh).

Bought those new pants but did not weigh myself often enough to determine whether I am still putting on weight.

 

In May:

- take two steps ("b" and "d") to sort out some of my "real life" issues - one way or another.

- go to the newspaper reading classes.

 

BTW thanks to the people that took part in the beginner's writing thread experiment - I'm afraid it's just too difficult to implement without an experienced teacher to moderate it or something.

[Lu]

Chinese-related

- Don't miss my deadline for the current book.

Kind of failed, in that after we handed it in we still haven't finished-finished it, but this was not my fault (and my fellow translator was not slacking either). I have since made two other deadlines, so that's progress. The next one will be a lot harder since I'm very badly behind schedule.

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

Currently working on a novella. Had an opportunity for a book but the pay was too low even for my standards.

- Add 10 chengyu per week to Anki.

I added a few. Not nearly ten, though, let alone ten per week.

- Visit Taiwan and/or China this year.

In the works.

- Continue to learn new words.

Going well.

- Continue to read Chinese books.

Going well too. I'm travelling by train a lot and read my Chinese books on the train.

- Continue to speak Chinese with friends and language partner.

Going well.

Non-Chinese-related:
- Make more money. (This sounds greedy. It's not, really.)

Going reasonably well, though I don't have the next big project lined up yet.

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

This is failing pretty badly at the moment. I haven't run for weeks if not months.

- Take more pictures.

Going well.

[Ilse]

Truth to be said, my aims are small:

- to get back to the level of Chinese i had after studying in Taiwan for 1,5 years.

- Read a book in Chinese even if it takes a lot of effort and use of dictionary at the beginning.

- improve my spoken Chinese, which is rusty as old nail after not using the language for a long time.

-finally use some of modern means of learning Chinese, not only textbooks and dictionaries.

[laurenth]

Hey, 2015, we've been muddling along together for 6 months and, look, I haven't dared to post a single update on Chinese forums. I thought I couldn't go wrong if didn't promise anything but very simple, routine objectives  (see post #44). Turns out even that was too ambitious. Let's see:

 

- Input/reading. In 6 months, I've read several short stories (traditional tales in 中国民间故事, SF by 张系国) and a novel (盗墓笔记). I'm currently reading 鬼吹灯, part 2 (and enjoying it). I usually read for about 30-60' every day on week days. I keep hoping that my reading speed/general comprehension will improve, and that I will be able to read more, and more complicated stuff, but it still takes about 2.5-3 months to read a novel. I don’t see any improvement there, though I still consider reading as an enjoyable activity - except that I still have to choose my reading material very carefully, so that I don't end up spending more time looking up words than actually reading.

 

- Input/listening. Bah. Hopeless situation here. I've been using WorkAudioBook, Audacity and Anki audio cards for almost one year now (I'm not saying I'd never worked on my listening comprehension before), at least 4 days a week, with a variety of audio sources, from Slow Chinese to BBC podcasts, LearnChineseOnline lessons, a movie (白蛇传说)  or, more recently, 锵锵三人行 (one show studied exhaustively over March and April - yes it took 2 months-, sentence after sentence, and another one being studied). The result? Subjectively, I don't think my listening comprehension has improved one tiny little bit. The radio is still the same background noise it has been for years. My last attempt on this utterly disappointing journey is to use WorkAudioBook as a dictation tool: I loop through a sentence, transcribe what I hear in pinyin, check the result against the transcript, try to understand, go to next sentence, repeat. We'll see.

 

- Studying vocab. I normally collect a small daily dose of vocab while reading/listening for later studying. The "daily dose" has gone down from 20 to 15 to 10 to sometimes zero lately.

 

- Output/speaking.  Zero. I have not been able to integrate iTalki sessions in my routine.

 

Overall, quite disappointing. And holidays are coming, which are traditionally a low point for my Chinese studies. Eppur si muove - still a little!

 

[gato]

Input/listening. Bah. Hopeless situation here. I've been using WorkAudioBook, Audacity and Anki audio cards for almost one year now (I'm not saying I'd never worked on my listening comprehension before), at least 4 days a week, with a variety of audio sources, from Slow Chinese to BBC podcasts, LearnChineseOnline lessons, a movie (白蛇传说) or, more recently, 锵锵三人行 . The result? Subjectively, I don't think my listening comprehension has improved one tiny little bit.

How many hours a week? The above list of materials seems a bit unfocused and too wide-ranging in difficulty level (like reading beginner textbook one moment, and 红楼梦 the next, if we were talking about reading comprehension).

It might be better to concentrate on material just slightly above your current level of listening comprehension, and try to spend at least 5 hours a week on it.

I think generally time spent on material too much above your level is in effect time wasted.

[laurenth]

Hi Gato, it's true that I tend to move from one source of audio to another to avoid boredom (same subjects, voices, approach...). As for the vocabulary level, a typical Slow Chinese poadcast has few unknown words. BBC podcasts or 三人行 shows are of course more above my level but once I've looked up the keywords, reading the transcript is manageable. The problem is: whatever the source, most of the sentences I can *read* without a problem are impossible to understand when I *hear* them - at least on first hearing and, in most cases, even after multiple loops, when I come back to them after doing something else. 

 

Quantity is certainly a problem. On a typical week day, I can devote about 30-40 minutes to listening exercises, only part of which is quality time, i.e. a moment when I can sit down with a notebook and try to transcribe what I hear - and I've been doing that for only a few weeks. The rest of the time consists in listening while commuting or walking in the street, cycling through sentences, failing to make sense of them, and then checking against the transcript.

[gato]

Listening is its own skill. You can't really judge the difficulty based on the difficulty of the transcript. For example, I think a typical movie is probably more difficult than an 锵锵三人行 episode because movies tend to have less clear audios and more unpredictable dialogs, though the latter might have a more advanced vocabulary on occasion.

[laurenth]

 

I think a typical movie is probably more difficult than an 锵锵三人行 episode because movies tend to have less clear audios and more unpredictable dialogs, though the latter might have a more advanced vocabulary on occasion.

 

Not sure about that. In a movie, you have a lot of redundancy, i.e. a good deal of the dialogues are an illustration of the images. In 锵锵三人行, bar the occasional use of photographs and hand gestures, there is no redundancy. In addition, dialogues in a movie tend to be made of short sentences, while 锵锵三人行  has full reasoning/arguments. Dialogues in a movie are written in advance, while dialogues in 锵锵三人行 are produced on the go, which means they can be convoluted. People in 锵锵三人行 often talk at the same time, stutter, leave sentences unfinished, etc. If anything, it's 锵锵三人行 that is unpredictable (and it's part of the charm of the show. As 窦文涛 puts it:  "你真了解我们的精髓，我们就是跑题跑不停"). In my experience, learning from the movie 白蛇传说 (leaving aside the Buddhist blurb) is easier than learning from 锵锵三人行. The value of 锵锵三人行 is elsewhere: of course, it's more natural,  much closer to the real contemporary language and, as far as I can tell, constantly renewing itself.

[character]

 

The result? Subjectively, I don't think my listening comprehension has improved one tiny little bit.

Maybe now is the time to make some notes on how much you comprehend some specific material so you can check your progress at the end of the year.

 

 

 

The problem is: whatever the source, most of the sentences I can *read* without a problem are impossible to understand when I *hear* them - at least on first hearing and, in most cases, even after multiple loops, when I come back to them after doing something else.

Can you isolate the differences between sentences you can understand and those you can't?  Are the ones you have trouble with longer, spoken faster, spoken with a stronger accent, using certain grammatical constructs, etc?  I wonder if it would help if you went back to easier material, but focused on 'chunking' phrases/patterns so you comprehended more with less concious thought, giving yourself more time while listening to figure out the harder parts of each sentence as it is spoken.

[AdamD]

The result? Subjectively, I don't think my listening comprehension has improved one tiny little bit.

 

This forum abounds with pointed advice about improving your listening. What it probably doesn't abound with is warnings about the sheer amount of effort and persistence it can take to get your listening skills to a practical level.

 

For some of us, listening is by far the hardest skill to develop. I think the reason for this is lack of control: you can control how quickly you read, write and speak, but audio just comes at you. You can slow it down or ask people to speak more slowly, sure, but then you have to cope at normal speed.

 

You've already said you use Audacity, but if you have an iOS device, get hold of AudioStretch (try the crippled Lite version, pay the US$10—it's worth it—or wait for it to go on sale), slow down an audio file to your liking, and use the scrubber to repeat short passages until you understand them. Unlike Audacity, you can use this on the run, and it's much easier to repeat short and long passages. I swear this app has improved my listening more than anything else ever.

 

Most importantly, don't beat yourself up over this. You are not alone.

[gato]

锵锵三人行 are produced on the go, which means they can be convoluted. People in 锵锵三人行 often talk at the same time, stutter, leave sentences unfinished, etc. In my experience, learning from the movie 白蛇传说 is easier than learning from 锵锵三人行. The value of 锵锵三人行 is elsewhere: of course, it's more natural, much closer to the real contemporary language and, as far as I can tell, constantly renewing itself.

I was thinking more in terms of movies about contemporary life with people speaking in more natural speech, with the same talking over each other, etc, except with less clear audio and shorter phases with less context than you would have in a show like 锵锵三人行. It's easier to understand longer speeches than shorter ones because you have more context and you gain a familiarity with the speaker's speech pattern.

Back to your situation, how about trying to stick with Slow Chinese and trying to get to a level where you can understand a new piece in a first listen? That seems to be closer to your current level. Can you do that now?