My 90 Day Mandarin Challenge

[simon taiwan]

Hello everyone.

 

I am currently doing a mandarin Challenge and part of that is making this very public so that I am accountable and need to progress and put the work in regardless of how motivated I feel.

 

So I thought I would share the Challenge here. This is my week 1 Update with a video showing where I am at.

 

http://www.dawnoftruth.com/speak-chinese-week-1/

 

My focus is purely on speaking and listening and I am doing now what I should have done years ago.

 

Thanks

 

Simon

[abcdefg]

Well, I looked at your website and saw the reverent homage to "90-day-wonder Benny." We have all been through this before. Groan, here we go again. I would be more supportive if you were undertaking a 5-year challenge.

[simon taiwan]

Many thanks for your support

[Wurstmann]

I think you should use these three months to set up a routine with which you can stick for a long time, instead of doing as much as possible and probably burning out and forgetting everything you learned in the following three months.

It seems to me, everytime someone starts something like that, you never here from them again.

[Shelley]

Well, I looked at your website and the reverent homage to "90-day-wonder Benny." We have all been through this before. Groan. I would be more supportive if you were undertaking a 5-year challenge.

 

My thoughts exactly- oh no Benny again - speak mandarin in 90 days

[simon taiwan]

Tough crowd....for sure this is just the start. The 90 Days is to put myself under a spot light so I have to put some serious effort in.

Of course this is a long term thing, there is so much to learn.

 

But also 90 days of speaking every day is also teaching me so much and I am already very glad I started the Challenge.

 

I shall keep you updated, I am sue the results won't be too impressive to you guys but if I can speak a whole lot better at 90 days than on day 1 then i will be happy.

Thanks all for a having a look.

[querido]

Of course we wish you luck. Just be warned that the psychology, the mindset, of the long, long road is very different, as I'm sure you know. It is true that many people who start threads like this disappear, and that is disappointing to the contributors. But you could be an exception, right? Ok, good luck. :-)

[Lu]

While it's true that many people starting threads like this disappear, each new thread can be the exception. So good luck OP! If you really want to make yourself accountable, consider also regularly updating your real-life friends and family, who can really hold you to your promise (or grill you if you start skipping things).

 

Also, I agree with others that learning a language is a long-term project, but as Laozi wrote, a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. Three months is a nice first step.

[陳德聰]

Oh my goodness but you're learning with Fiona Tian! Haha she is one of my favourite youtubers. Good luck, I suspect you will be off to a better start than Benny. Everyone note that Simon has been an expat in Taiwan already for a while without trying to learn Mandarin at all, so at the very least he has had a larger amount of input than Benny ever did. If this is after his first week, his 90 days will likely leave him at a much more functional level than Benny considering he's already at around the same level Benny was when he finished his Mandarin series.

[eddyf]

Good luck and I can vouch for ChinesePod and Glossika. They're awesome. And it never hurts to have more people volunteering to experimentally answer the question of just how much Mandarin a dedicated student can learn in 90 days (or any other fixed amount of time).

 

The down side is that you will be so focused on getting better at speaking that you will probably neglect to build a strong foundation in things like pronunciation. And you might form some bad habits that will be hard to break later. When I started I spent my first six months focusing almost entirely on pronunciation. Maybe I overdid it but I think it helped a lot. Similarly, you will probably neglect to study reading at all and just focus on studying vocab via pinyin. That might help you reach a higher speaking level in 3 months. But in the long term it would be more efficient to learn the characters in a word at the same time that you study that word.

 

Basically, you can optimize for short term efficiency but it will hurt long term efficiency somewhat.

 

But anyways, the biggest risk is that you'll burn out and give up entirely, so what's most important is that whatever method you find that you can stick with, you should just go with that.

[stapler]

I personally think it's very impressive you're even putting yourself out there in the public speaking Mandarin. I've developed such an intense fear of speaking Mandarin I don't speak it all in my personal life, let alone publishing it on the Internet this publicly. Good luck.

[simon taiwan]

Thank you guys.

 

Yes I plan on keeping the thread and my blog updated on my progress it doesn’t end at 90 days.

But I do plan to keep on pushing myself with these mini challenges as I have found it so effective so far.

Re comments about not learning the writing at the same time and perhaps rushing the pronunciation, I think these are valid points and maybe I will regret the way I started.

But so far on balance I am willing to loose out in those things to just get lots of hours of speaking with real life people. Everyday so far I am managing to get a conversation in with someone. This I feel is pushing me on helping me a lot more in actually making the language useful to me on a day to day  basis.

 

Re Fiona and Chinese Pod: They were super awesome and so friendly and supportive of my challenge. So yeah anyone thinking about doing their courses or their tutoring go for it as they are as nice in real life as they are on youtube.

 

Re Glossika: This has been my main resource. It's a simple idea but the way its structured really does seem to work and help me remember far more  than I would ever expect in such a short time. Really recommended.

I am coming to month 2 now so the pressure is really on.

 

Thanks as always for taking an interest.

 

[abcdefg]

...actually making the language useful to me on a day to day  basis.

 

I think that is an important key to successful learning. Make the language useful; in fact, go even farther by making it essential. If learning is just an academic exercise, it's so much harder to keep up the momentum.

 

Wish you great success! The fact that you have achieved proficiency in 武术 speaks well for your determination.

[Flickserve]

Good for you!

A few questions.

Does the four week update have a video?

Power chats : what do you talk about? How do you plan it? How many times a day do you power chat? Do you the mimic method in power chats?

[simon taiwan]

 

I think that is an important key to successful learning. Make the language useful; in fact, go even farther by making it essential. It it's just an academic exercise, it's so much harder to keep up the momentum.

 

Yes the fact that it is relevant to my daily life and I am seeing the benefit in getting to know more the people who live near me and actually be able to explain a little better who I am is really motivating.

I miss so much not being able to speak so many things happen locally that I never hear about.  So now speaking with the locals ( to a limited degree) I am finding out all sorts of news and gossip about my local area.

 

 

A few questions.

Does the four week update have a video?

Power chats : what do you talk about? How do you plan it? How many times a day do you power chat? Do you the mimic method in power chats?

 

Hey thank you for  reading and for the questions.

 

No video for Week 4 yet.....I am debating whether to hold off a little longer before I put another one out. I have taken video which I will release in one long video at the end of 90 days  (approx 15 mins long )

Power Chats have been a life saver. At the moment I am averaging 2 a day but I keep trying to add more people. Because it is just a short time people are far more keen to give up 10 mins and jump on Line or Skype.

 

I usually use the content of the Chinese Pod Lessons or Glossika sentences to guide the Power Chat.  But in general its daily stuff like what they have been doing, movies they saw, business etc. All very simple subjects but due to my limited vocabulary we take a lot longer as we stay in the language as best we can.

 

Like for example last week my friend had gone rock climbing and had to explain the next 10 minutes how it wasn't hiking. We got there in the end with lots of back and forth questioning. Because it 10 minutes it is over before it gets too boring or weird.

 

Thanks all.

[abcdefg]

No video for Week 4 yet.....I am debating whether to hold off a little longer before I put another one out. I have taken video which I will release in one long video at the end of 90 days

 

Seems to me this might be dangerous; that it might be an unconscious rationalization for not sticking with your plan. "I won't do it now so I can do it better later." That sounds like a familiar excuse from my student days.

 

Remind yourself of this part of your mission statement: "...so that I am accountable and need to progress and put the work in regardless of how motivated I feel."

 

Bite the bullet: make and show the week 4 video like you promised.

[simon taiwan]

 

Bite the bullet: make and show the week 4 video like you promised.

 

Never promised to do a Week 4 video.

 

I did write in my original blog post that the best (most embarrassing) would be saved till last.

 

Its just a challenge guys no need to psycho analyse it

 

The stated plan is being stuck with if you check the first post saying what I would do and how I would do it.

[simon taiwan]

Next video I do will probably be midday through 2nd month so roughly 2 weeks from now.

[艾墨本]

Keep it up Simon!

 

This is so cool and I wish I had done something like this early on in my learning of Chinese.

[simon taiwan]

 

Keep it up Simon!

 

This is so cool and I wish I had done something like this early on in my learning of Chinese.

 

I appreciate the support, it's really nice to get a positive message.

 

Doing my best I have two power chats line up for tomorrow where i can test out some new sentences and different ways of saying things instead of my tried trusted safe way that I use now.