Preparation for my trip in 2 months

[Pandarollroll]

Any advice is welcome. I sort of went off on a sleep deprived rambling here, so you can just read the numbers under the "initial plans" and let me know if you think I should go buy Glossika Fluency 123 to use in conjunction with Pimsleur.

Background info: I'll be heading off to Taiwan in 2 months and I want to atone for many many moons ago when I was a youngster in Beijing, wandering the streets with a physical dictionary and babbling toneless words. I work and attend college, so unfortunately, I can't spend all day studying. I started learning Chinese almost a decade ago, but the process has been extremely disjointed, so progress has suffered immensely.

My strengths: reading, accent (Beijing not Taiwanese)

Weaknesses: listening, vocalizing my thoughts, reading Chinese menus . I've always been able to quickly memorize what characters mean, for many I won't even know the proper pronunciation in Chinese but I'll know the English meaning.

 

Here are my initial plans:

 

1) While on my 20 minute commute to and from work, review the previous Pimsleur lesson (I generally don't like doing this even for review because I pay less attention, but it's the best time for it).

 

2) Every night:

a) do a new Pimsleur lesson

b) analyze a reading passage (the app also can read the passage aloud, so I do that after I try to read it on my own) and add words/phrases that stump me to Pleco flashcards.

c) watch one story on the live news and put the words from the headline and any subtitles that I don't understand into my Pleco flashcards. I use screenshots and then after the report is finished, I reference my dictionary.

 

3) On Saturday (my free day):

a) watch a Taiwanese movie

b) review all of my news flashcards

c) do a new Pimsleur lesson

d) review my reading passages flashcards

e) quickly read through my Chinese introduction document (contains reasons for my travels, learning Chinese, details about my state and job, etc. Really things that I shouldn't be memorizing but rather I should just know how to say off the top of my head )

 

Fin.

 

I almost feel like I might not be making the most out of my time, in regards to improving listening skills, but I can't think of any other ways to practice. Also, I've been debating whether or not I want to bite the bullet and buy Glossika Fluency 123 (the content and Taiwanese accent would be nice, but the price tag is a little off-putting), since I'm not sure if I could get the most out of it within the 2 months that I have. I have seen some people write that one module = one month, but Glossika says it is 10 months of material? The travel edition didn't really standout to me. If I did buy Glossika, I would probably use Pimsleur while commuting and focus on Glossika at night.

[roddy]

When you say heading off to Taiwan - what for? Are we advising you for a two week holiday, a two year course of Chinese study, a two-decade marriage?

[Pandarollroll]

Not sure how I forgot to mention that, but it's a 2 week holiday. I'll be exploring the country alone.

[imron]

Keep in mind that for many every day common items, there is slightly different vocabulary used between Taiwan and mainland China.  Learning from Pimsleur, which goes from the mainland standard, might mean you run in to issues talking about common things - this happened to someone else recently.

 

That being the case, Glossika might prove to be a better option for Taiwan.

[roddy]

For a two week holiday, I might ditch (actually that's a bit harsh, especially if this is a long term project, but scale back on) the live news and Pimsleur, and work off a phrasebook, Taiwan specific if possible. You're going to spend a lot more time asking for the wifi password and bus times than discussing current affairs. The movie looks good, maybe replace the TV news with a soap opera or something more 'real-life'. 

 

e) quickly read through my Chinese introduction document (contains reasons for my travels, learning Chinese, details about my state and job, etc. Really things that I shouldn't be memorizing but rather I should just know how to say off the top of my head 

 

That's a smart plan. Back it up with a mental list of questions to ask people you meet - are they local, why'd they come here, do they have any local recommendations, is their hometown worth visiting, etc...

 

For reading / flashcards, maybe cram some menu terms, placenames, tourist vocab...

[eddyf]

Pimsleur is really basic and goes really slowly. It's great for learning proper pronunciation (including tones of course) but don't expect it to help with vocab or even with listening skills. On the other hand, if you're at the level where Pimsleur doesn't seem too easy, then native-level materials like news or movies will be way too hard. You can glean a lot of vocab from them, but it's not efficient because you probably won't be prioritizing the most important words first. And it won't help with listening that much because it's too far above your level. My suggestion is, first of all, leave out the TV and movies for now. If Pimsleur doesn't seem too easy, then work through it as fast as possible. After that, move on to podcasts like ChinesePod and Popup Chinese. For vocab, start working through the HSK levels in order--in two months you should be able to make it through the HSK 3 list. On the side you can cram tourist vocab too if you want.

[Pandarollroll]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I've started adding tourist phrases/vocab to my study repertoire (mild shame). As for Pimsleur, since I'm on level 3 lesson 7, I'll probably do 2 lessons a day (if this becomes too much then I'll go back to 1 lesson/day and then 2 lessons on my free day) just to breeze through the rest of them and then move on to something less Beijingy and more Taiwany (Glossika). As an aside, I also remembered that Youtube has a feature that allows you to control the speed which is immensely useful if you're listening to Chinese things that are fast (ex: the 2 rap songs that I'm trying to memorize or the news)

[imron]

which is immensely useful if you're listening to Chinese things that are fast

Just be careful not to overuse it, because people in real life don't have this feature so you need to make sure you're still getting enough exposure to real speed too