Feedback on current study

[cliveface96]

Hello, 

 

I'm back again with another question. I've been working on my study routine since I last posted and tried to incorporate your advice into it after my first (disastrous) online Chinese lesson.

I'm a uni student and currently have 2-3 hours a day to pump some Mando study out. 

 

My current approach:

- Get daily target on Memrise (20-25 mins)

- Finish Skritter reviews i.e. just get it down to 0 reviews left (40-50 mins)

- Do an elementary Chinese pod lesson (listen to dialogue a few times, then listen to the actual podcast, then listen to the dialogue again, write some notes on it, do the exercises - there's some transcription listening stuff and basically just reading simplified comprehension exercises. (takes about an hour).

- Try to do some shadow reading - Idk if that's the correct name I basically just record myself and then compare it to the person speaking it to try and get it to sound as close as possible (like 30 mins). 

 

My thoughts:

- I tried to add in the shadow reading to supplement the speaking a bit.  It's definitely not enough though ... I'm going to start scheduling more frequent Italki lessons now. Once a week, maybe twice. What are your opinions on frequency (I'm also a pretty poor uni student ) 

- I was thinking of maybe starting to listen to a TV series or something with chinese subtitles on, Ipartment or something? Not really sure if this is a good idea or not yet. 

- I read on another forum that just reading a book and transcribing it was also a good way to learn. 

 

 

Opinions on this setup? 

How can I improve it? How can I optimise it? 

I've basically got a year where I want to get as good at Chinese as I can before I do an exchange ;). 

 

Cheers

Clive 

 

[Wurstmann]

3 hours a day is a lot more active learning than I have ever done. Do you think you can keep that up for a long time? I think consistency is most important. It doesn't help if you burn out and end up doing nothing for a few months. Just a reminder to be careful and watch for signs of burn-out.

 

Are there no Chinese students attending your university? If you befriend them you can get a lot of listening and speaking practice. 

[Flickserve]

Somethings are better at different stages of learning. Since you are a student, a language partner is a reasonable option. Just hand them a couple of Chinese pod lessons, ask them to pick out some sentences at random and say them to you. Nothing too ambitious at first. The aim is to be able to improve listening skills.

I doubt the value of a lot of time on Memrise and skritter at this present moment. You learn words but can't recall them when you need to when speaking. I can see the attraction of using them because it makes you feel good seeing the numbers giving a sense of achievement.

The shadow reading is excellent.

If you interact with a native speaker, record it. Recording software on PC can cost money but I have to say a one off investment on recording software is well worth the trade off of one or two fewer lessons with a teacher. It would take time to review the recording but it really does help. (Look up an excellent post by Tamu on this. I will put the link up later as I am on mobile).

I have to say, learning short phrases/sentences is the way to go at the beginning. Just start by having a core stock of them that you can say really well. At some point, you will have to do tone practice.

Watching movies is good but don't expect to be able to understand all the content after a year. I reckon you will get more out of recording a real conversation between yourself and someone else, reviewing that, and then practising the answers.

[stapler]

Given what I can glean from your comments TV will be too much for you. I don't think you'll understand it nor get any useful practice from it. You may of course get some kind of joy out of Chinese TV and in that case that may make it worth watching. Give it a shot if you're curious. But don't bang your head against it thinking that you should be able to tackle TV until your Chinese is very advanced.

 

Also a large amount of your practice is geared towards memorising characters and vocabulary. Nothing inherently wrong with that. But try to remember that in the long run it will probably be your usage of the language rather than your ability to recognise characters/words that will be your biggest hurdle. You can't read or flashcard yourself to fluency. Like a bike, you need to actually get on it and use it, not study a book about its physics then hope you'll suddenly be able to balance on it  (a good simile someone else once made)

[Flickserve]

@cliveface96

 

This is the post I was referring to.

 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/43939-independent-chinese-study-review/

 

That particular person makes heavy use of recording conversations

[cliveface96]

Absolutely mint advice guys, thanks so much for the replies! 

[Shelley]

I read on another forum that just reading a book and transcribing it was also a good way to learn.

 

 

I would not recommend this. What you can do is read a book, just as you would in English, don't write out the translation. I used to do this with short passages thinking I was learning but it was boring and tedious and I didn't really learn anything.

 

As soon as I just started reading it became enjoyable and I think I learnt more that way.

 

I was thinking of maybe starting to listen to a TV series or something with chinese subtitles on, Ipartment or something? Not really sure if this is a good idea or not yet.

 

 

As others have said this might be a bit too much at your level but I enjoy just having something on, chinese lessons, radio, or even TV but not necessarily paying full attention to it. I think of it as "tuning" my ear, getting familiar with the rhythm and cadence, the sounds and tones of the language. Over time you find oh I understood that and you gradually understand more and more.

 

I would also spend concentrated time listening to actual lessons or pod casts.

 

I would like to suggest you try a great app called HelloChinese. It has speaking, listening, reading and writing exercises. I did a review of it here http://www.livethelanguage.cn/review-hello-chinese/

 

You might like to have a read of my blog where I describe my learning materials and methods http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/blog/108-my-chinese-learning-blog/

 

I think you are basically on the right track. Remember not to over do it, I think you learn more when you are enjoying it

 

[Luxi]

An aside about recording software. You may not need any. If you have an mp3 player, most can record too. I have been using an old walkman to record audio from the PC and if it's a quiet place, it produces mp3 files of reasonable quality. Maybe a phone can do it too, I haven't tried.

 

Definitely, background listening helps a lot, even if you only understand the odd word here and there, as Shelley says, your brain will be capturing a lot more than you think without you even noticing.