One year of (not) studying...

[ouyangjun]

This post is nothing more than update and observations of my past 1 year...

 

About a year ago I started to get tired of studying.  I used to read Chinese books daily, news articles, tried to somewhat regularly work in advanced textbooks for a structured study standpoint, watched Chinese movies and listened to multiple Chinese podcasts.

 

I'm not sure what it was, but about a year ago I just got tired of it…  I quit reading the Chinese books and switched back to strictly English books.  My Chinese podcast listening turned into English podcasts or audio books.  Any movies I watched were non-Chinese.  I pretty much gave up all and any structured study for the Chinese language.

 

The other weekend I watched my first Chinese movie in what feels like close to a year, and there were a few new words I picked out of the movie that I decided to look up in Pleco and put into the dictionary.  Shortly after doing this I went into my Weibo account and starting posting again.  Even more recently I cracked open the Boya Advanced II book and have started to go through the lessons.

 

Some things I've found. 

 

Over my past year of not studying at all, my Chinese has actually improved.  The Boya lessons that I went through this past week were all much easier than I remember them being a year ago.  My reading comprehension and vocabulary seems to have improved.  This is likely because my daily life involves reading Chinese…  I read Chinese labels of the food I buy, chinese signs or bulletins posted in stores or on the street, read daily email at work that is written in Chinese, etc. 

 

The area that seemed to have regressed was my memory of Chengyu.  The Boya Advanced books are filled Chengyu and I found myself needing to lookup many Chengyu that I previously studied.  Although I find Chengyu interesting, and believe it is something any Chinese learner should study, I also have found it overrated in real life.

 

This recent experience has somewhat energized me to get back into a study routine.  And when I say a study routine, I mean it in the loosest sense.  Below is what I'm doing now:

 

Pleco flash cards.  When I find interesting words I will put them in here.  Over the past 3 weeks I've maybe added 10-15 cards.  I will check the flash card deck a few times a week to see if there is anything I need to review.

 

Boya Advanced.  Getting back into these books, but at a really slow pace.  I used to set goals on how long it would take to complete a chapter.  I used to put all the new vocabulary into flash cards…  Not anymore.  I will go at a leisurely pace and not be too concerned about remembering all of the vocab.  I will cherry pick words that are of interest to me and have faith that through repetition the words of use will be seen often enough to be memorized instead of heavy use of flash cards.

 

Podcasts.  Started listening to 老外看点 again for a few days a week.  

 

That is about the extent of the changes I'm making and my upcoming study plans.  My non-study activities already have a pretty good amount of Chinese (written/spoken) mixed in, so the planned study should be a good supplement to daily life and help achieve a stronger grasp of the Chinese language.  This "laid back" approach has me excited to get back into a somewhat structured Chinese study plan...

[Video Vocabulary]

Has your writing improved? I mean writing with pen, not typing with pinyin.

[ouyangjun]

I rarely ever have to write Chinese characters by hand (other than studying and doing lessons in text books). I would say that my writing memorization has probably had a decline, but it was not big enough that I've noticed it. I actually didn't even think of it until you mentioned it in the post above, but I do find myself needing to look up a some characters that I previously could write by hand.

[eion_padraig]

Hey Ouyangjun,

 

That's great that you've found your way back to enjoying studying Chinese. I find my motivation levels have gone through peaks and troughs. When I'm peaking I try to maximize my efforts and when I'm at a low level I sometimes step away entirely though usually for brief periods.

 

When I left China back in 2005, there were 6 years when I seldom heard Chinese, rarely used Chinese, and never studied it. I started up again in 2011 when I finished my graduate program and had some free time. Since coming back to China in 2013, I've surpassed my previous level by quite a bit. Again, with studying Chinese I fell like it's an ultra-marathon race with no finish line. 

 

Good luck.

 

Eion