The 2017 Aims and Objectives Progress Topic

[lechuan]

Less is More

• Put a pause on character writing so that I can increase the reps on character reading. I found that with only a limited time to study each day (~30 minutes), I can make a lot more progress concentrating on reading only compared to covering a lot less material when I'm practicing writing. I will return to character writing once I am more comfortable with character reading
• Don't buy any new learning materials. Work/read through as many of the books/audio materials that I already own.

Increase Character/Spoken Vocabulary

• Review/Learn HSK4 and HSK5 vocabulary, SRS flashcards
• Learn new words from twice-weekly Tutorming Lessons

Read HSK5-level Characters at a comfortable speed

• Daily Practice with Graded Readers, Textbooks, and Chairman's Bao Articles

Improve Spoken Naturalness

• Memorize and Mimic dialogs (from textbooks and old chinesepod dialogs)
• While driving: Pimsleur 4 and 5, Glossika

Talk

• Drastically increase the amount of Mandarin I speak with Mandarin-speaking family and friends (usually we just use English)

[baihua]

• Pass the HSK 6 written test. Possibly even look at the HSKK高级

Put a couple of things on lang8 on a weekly basis.

Finish at least a couple of books cover to cover.

Increase the amount of listening and speaking.

Possibly even return to transcribing the show I started on earlier this year.

[abcdefg]

I'm thinking about putting together a small bilingual cookbook aimed at the expat and foreign student community. Would like to help people new to China be able to make food at home that is inexpensive and satisfying. Would like to include some exposure to the original Chinese recipe language, so people are not forced to use lame English-language adaptations.

[imron]

Please do!

 

And please make sure to keep it full of the personal tips and anecdotes about shopping, food selection and preparation that are found your posts here.

[geraldc]

We've got a baby due in March, so I will be testing the adage if you want to learn, teach. Plan is to speak to the baby in Cantonese (wife's first language, and my very dormant language as a toddler)

 

We worked out the last phrase I know only in Cantonese is 抹屁股， which I guess I would shout at my parents when I was too young to do it myself. So I should be ahead of the baby for the first year at least.

 

Wife is very anti mandarin and anti simplified form, so haven't worked out how to expose the baby to those yet. 

 

Mother in law will be moving in for a few months so my conversation skills will have to improve.

 

Relatives are sending over a stack of baby books from Taiwan, so I guess I'll be reading those out aloud again and again at some point. 

 

Should be an interesting next few years.

[abcdefg]

#24 -- Will do, Imron. Intelligent shopping and ingredient selection are extremely important, and I will take the reader to the market as often as possible. Kitchen prep tips and staging ("start the rice first") can make the difference between a meal that's easy to fix and one that's a burdensome chore.

 

The idea behind its being bilingual is to help people living here who would like to sometimes cook at home and are also Chinese language learners. It's not easy to bridge the gap between using English adaptations of Chinese recipes and using the authentic originals. I've managed to do that after several years of trying, and might be able to share that skill.

 

Additionally, I believe that knowing a little about Chinese cooking can help one in reading restaurant menus and selecting dishes that will be to one's taste. In its simplest form, for example, if you don't like soy sauce you will know not to order 红烧肉 or 红烧茄子。If you don't like spicy, tingly and hot, you will know not to order 麻婆豆腐 because you have an idea of what goes into making those dishes.

[Flickserve]

Wife is very anti mandarin and anti simplified form, so haven't worked out how to expose the baby to those yet.

.....

Relatives are sending over a stack of baby books from Taiwan, so I guess I'll be reading those out aloud again and again at some point.

Should be an interesting next few years.

I suppose one has to be rather practical about teaching a baby a third language.

Your wife may be very anti-Mandarin because she feels uncomfortable herself hearing and speaking it. I see plenty of HK people who have poor Mandarin verbal skills though their listening skills are very good.

I would say give exposure in Mandarin so that it doesn't feel totally unusual. Simplified versus traditional are not in conflict. I personally think traditional gives a good background. When the GCSE Chinese comes up, it will be in simplified form anyway so your wife will be forced to convert when the time is right.

[大块头]

Here is a link to a final progress report for my 2016 goals.

 

My main goals this year are to: (1) improve my listening ability, (2) increase my reading speed, and (3) maintain my speaking and writing ability.

 

To achieve these goals I will do the following:

 

Listening

I intend to spend at least 4 hours a week passively listening to Chinese podcasts/radio or watching Chinese movies/television. Last year I used a stopwatch to measure the percentage of each podcast/show that I understood, but I found that there was too much variance in my performance to see any statistically significant improvement. This year I will just listen to as much as I can and keep track of the total duration.

 

Reading

I intend to spend at least 30 minutes every day reading Chinese. I saw a significant increase in my reading speed last year with only an average of 7 minutes of daily practice.

 

Speaking

I intend to spend 30 minutes every week speaking Chinese with a language exchange partner.

 

Writing

I intend to write at least 3 journal entries (length ≥ 50 characters) a week on Lang-8.

 

Passive Vocabulary

I intend to clear my Anki queue every day.

[Guest]

Happy New Year everyone!

 

I'm a big lover of bullet-points, so here's my Chinese goals for this year condensed.

 

• Pass the HSK-4 (date set - 14th January)
• Pass the HSK-5 (aiming for August/September)
• Increase rate of posting on Lang-8, at least one post per week (min. 52 posts for the year)
• Maintain a minimum of three articles read per week on The Chairman's Bao (156/year min)
• Find a real-world language buddy or two.
• Mandarin-speaking 'Time Challenges' - go for certain lengths of time only speaking Mandarin. Loose goal - will write the longest I go without at the end of the year.
• Master 3000 (simplified) characters total.
• Read a full book in Chinese (I've bought the first Harry Potter).

These goals are a bit loose and free-form, so I might come back and refine these later. Best of luck to everyone on their goals.

[Clarabelle]

My goal for 2017 is to pass HSK 5 paper-based test.

 

My current order to get there is:

Phase 1 :

Writing  

    Finish off last few HSK1 & 2 characters

    Master HSK 3 characters

Reading

    Finish off last few bits of HSK 3 vocab

    Master HSK 4 vocab (already know most of the vocab but don't recognise half the characters)

Listening

    Listen to HSK3 and 4 official books

 

Phase 2:

Do Sample HSK4 test papers

Pass HSK 4 on March 19

 

Phase 3:

Study HSK 5 vocab

Pass HSK 5 on December 3

[FilipSan]

Happy new year everyone! 

 

2017 I will finally finish university and hopefully move to China in August for work/study. Until then I hope to spent at least 1 hour/day studying or reading Chinese. 

 

Goals:

• Finish reading the 平凡的世界 series (about halfway through now), then embark on a new reading project as rewarding as this one. 
• Listen to the 新闻酸菜馆 podcast every week, either actively with a pen in hand or just passively. Also listen through some older episodes. 
• Listen to and read through the manuscript of one 锵锵三人行 episode every week. 

[Ruckele]

Hello to everyone, I’m new here.

I want to say Good Luck in accomplishing your goals for 2017 and those working on passing their HSK tests. I was able to meet a few language students in China and we were able to talk to each other in Chinese instead of English. I thought that was pretty cool.

 

For 2017 I hope to accomplish a few goals.

 

l  Increase my vocabulary count

l  Finish preparing for HSK 5 and pass the test by the summer time

l  Practice handwriting Chinese at a quicker speed and more legible

l  Complete a Chinese learning video series for people interested in learning Chinese

l  Practice writing articles on lang8 and italki weekly

l  Write and publish blogs in Chinese perhaps by the end of the year

[Not Nicky]

Hi, another newbie (and occasional lurker) here. Similar situation and goals to a few others here. One main goal, but I have to figure out the specifics of improving steadily in all four areas.

 

Destroy HSK 5.

I want to pass the HSK 5 with flying colours by June at the latest.

Take half an hour each day, complete at least one unit each week of HSK标准教程:5 (上册，下册).

If anybody has tips on this please let me know, but I bought these books on a whim here and think I'll go with this/some sample tests to measure progress?

 

I plan to just start with this goal. By the end of January I'll come back and see how I need to refine it. 

I'm currently just studying the Skritter HSK 5 list. I live in China and get a fair bit of practice (not quite enough but am more than comfortable with daily necessities, fairly good with casual chatting with colleagues, competent at explaining English grammar in Chinese), though still need to increase accuracy and confidence.

 

So, Napkat, Clarabelle, Ruckele, lets do it!

 

Potential other goals:

Read 3 well-known works of Chinese lit.

Regular podcasts/talk-shows + transcription or shadowing

Glossika (and/or doing the method with my own materials)

[laurenth]

In 2016, I didn't even bother to set objectives. So first let's take stock of that aimless, unfocussed year before I talk about objectives for 2017.

 

I did *some* Chinese every day in 2016. Even during the roughest personal or professional periods, I did the following, by order of priority:

 

- Study my vocab queue in Skritter (characters) and Anki (words collected while reading, listening, etc.). I believe I didn't miss a single day in 2016: you always have two minutes here, ten minutes there to start Pleco, Anki, Skritter, whatever, on your phone and study some vocab.

 

- Some reading: over the year, I read vol. 1 of 平凡的世界, most of Yu Hua's 没有一条道路是重复的, plus 林良's  雨天的心晴, vol. 1 of   三國演義 － 百花改寫版 and about half of 古龙's 金鹏王朝. I'll add DeFrancis' Beginning Chinese, of which I read vol. 1 and part of vol. 2 as a preparation for a trip to Taiwan. In quantity, it's not that much, because my reading speed is still pretty slow and I haven't worked on that question in 2016. In quality, I feel that my reading is much more accurate and less shallow than it used to be. In addition, the parts where I don't have to look up words slowly tend to be longer and more frequent.  I've read some Chinese almost daily. That's the activity I prefer and, on most days, I have one or two 15-30 minute periods which I can devote to books.

 

- Some active listening, including full transcription in pinyin and parroting/shadowing, looking up words, looping, repeating, etc. For that I used a wide variety of podcasts, recordings of textbooks, shows, news items, etc. Those that tended to be interesting were way above my level. Those that were easier tended to be boring (textbook dialogues, stories for kids using an annoying childish voice, etc.). The problem is that, subjectively, I have noticed no improvement - or maybe only very little improvement - when I listen to a random podcast or radio station. That's the activity I should focus on because it's a sore point for me, but it requires more dedication and more time than reading. Plus, for full transcription exercises, I do need a quiet place and a desk, which I don't have every day.

 

There are areas where I did not intend to do anything and I ended up doing some work: writing (I have regular pen pals on HelloTalk), studying some basic classical Chinese (using Rouzer's book), familiarizing myself with traditional characters.

 

Another area where I did not intend to do anything and, as expected, nothing much happened: speaking.

 

I had vaguely entertained the idea of sitting the HSK5, but the mock tests I did were so disappointing (especially listening) that I did not even enrol.

 

---

 

For 2017, I have a brilliant idea: I will make a list of the exact same aimless activities and rename them "objectives for 2017".

 

With the following nuances:

 

- Vocab: I cancelled my Skritter account. I'd been using it to study isolated characters for years, but I'll drop that part and only study "words" in the future.  Hopefully Outlier's dictionary will be available, like, real soon now, and, within Pleco, perform the functions for which I'd been using Skritter. Objective: continue studying words every day every time I have a few minutes.

 

- Reading: no change planned. Objective: continue reading every day, mainly while commuting. I have a pile of unread books on my shelf and on my electronic devices.

 

- Listening: no change planned. I don't see what else I could try, except going on and on with transcribing, shadowing, checking transcripts, etc., using a variety of resources,  until something noticeable happens to my listening comprehension. Objective: some active listening on every working day - usually after lunch and before resuming work.

 

- Speaking: I was finally able to use HelloTalk to meet real (and Chinese speaking) persons in my town, so I hope I can have at least one language exchange meeting/week during lunch time. That counts for "listening".

 

- I recently restarted taking classes in italki because I feel I need to add some formal structure to my studies. Objective: sit 2 classes/week. I have to do that very early in the morning, before real life starts and taking account of the time difference, so that objective will be hard to meet. Let's try at least.

 

- Writing: no particular objective. I'll probably go on exchanging short messages with a few pen pals.

 

- Avoid all the rest and spare some time for my guitar and the gym (as demanded by wife). All of this outside family and work time obviously.

[Guest]

Find a real-world language buddy or two.

 

Did it. I now have two language buddies at BLCU whom I'm currently meeting with once a week each, though we're going to try and up that to twice a week each (working around schedules and impending teaching commitments).

 

Mandarin-speaking 'Time Challenges' - go for certain lengths of time only speaking Mandarin. Loose goal - will write the longest I go without at the end of the year.

 

 

I've split this into various 'challenges,' the reward for each being permission to buy something I want, with the object I can buy getting bigger/more desirable as time goes on. Current 'challenges' are speaking only Mandarin* for one day, three days, a week, two weeks, and finally a month. I don't honestly expect to hit the last one, but if I do then the reward will most likely be a guilt-free holiday somewhere.

 

(*In some cases I have to speak English, such as for my job or if I'm talking to someone who can't speak Chinese, i.e. family. In these cases I'm allowing myself to speak English as an exception, but I'm capping the time that I can be in contact with them for a bit).

[fabiothebest]

I passed HSK 2 a couple of years ago, then I studied other things, moved to another country, started working full time and stopped studying Chinese regularly although I always read some articles and occasionally translated some Chinese text. I'm back to my normal life, I have been to China again for 1 month and now I'm trying to study Chinese again. My level is actually higher than HSK 2, I know more words and grammar, anyway I want to study systematically and especially improve my speaking.

 

I'd like to pass HSK 3 and then HSK 4 or try HSK 4 directly, skipping HSK 3. The next test session at my nearest test center is in March. I'll see if I'm ready.

 

I'd like to learn more words (apart from HSK wordlists), also by reading graded readers.

 

I'd like to read "Sherlock Holmes and the read headed league", "Great expectations" part 1 and part 2 and "The secret garden", all by Mandarin Companion. I already have all these books, I just need to read them. I have the iBooks version, it's cheaper than the paperback and it "could" be easy to copy and paste the text into Chinese Text Analyser and make an anki deck with the words I need to learn. Unfortunately the books are protected by DRM and it isn't possible to copy the text. I'll need to figure out how to do it and I don't wanna pay for that. I bought the books and I just want to use them for studying, not distributing pirated copies.

 

Then I'd like to write some texts on Italki and have them corrected by some Chinese native speaker.

 

I would like to have some online classes on Italki or eblcu.net .

 

I also would like to learn how to write characters, I already can write some characters but only a few of them (even if I can recognize them).

There is a course called "Chinese characters for beginner" on Coursera that should teach how to write 1200 words.

 

Then there is also a "Chinese for HSK" specialization on Coursera covering HSK 1, HSK2 and HSK3 (part 1 and part 2). HSK 3 level didn't start yet, I wanted to try HSK 1 and it's good but it was too boring for me, then I stopped it at the end. Waiting for HSK 3.

 

Then I already completed the course "Tsinghua Chinese: Start Talking with 1.3 Billion People" on edX and I highly recommend it. It isn't strictly about HSK (even if it can help also for HSK preparation) but it's highly practical, it teaches how to greet people, order food at the restaurant, take a bus, subway, taxi and  do shopping so it can be useful for many people.

 

Then I want to take the course "中级汉语语法 | Intermediate Chinese Grammar" on edX. I didn't start it yet because it's recommended to know about 1500 words before.

 

Then I want to take the course "Mandarin Chinese fro Business"  and "中级商务汉语 - 入职与营销篇 Intermediate Business Chinese - Recruitment and Marketing" on edX

 

Then I would like to watch some tv in Chinese and watch some Chinese movies.

[Shelley]

I have addressed two problems this week.

 

1) Needed something interesting but short to listen to - Rediscovered Slow Chinese - perfect length and various topics and levels with character texts so more to read as well.

 

2) Needed more character writing practice to up my remembered characters. I remembered that when I was part of the Chinese Forums summer of free Skritter I really enjoyed using skritter and with a sort of slow dawning this week I have realised that the characters I can write smoothly and without hesitation are ones I learnt using Skritter. So I have decided to get back to Skritter, when I finished my current list I will resubscribed for a month at time with some of my Christmas, Birthday money.

 

So rediscovered two very useful tools.

[mackie1402]

@Napkat

 

On ‎1‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 5:01 PM, Napkat said:

I've split this into various 'challenges,' the reward for each being permission to buy something I want, with the object I can buy getting bigger/more desirable as time goes on. Current 'challenges' are speaking only Mandarin* for one day, three days, a week, two weeks, and finally a month. I don't honestly expect to hit the last one, but if I do then the reward will most likely be a guilt-free holiday somewhere.

 

How about browsing the internet? How about a challenge for only using Chinese resources such as Baidu, YouKu, forums etc.

[Guest]

Quote

Then I want to take the course "中级汉语语法 | Intermediate Chinese Grammar" on edX. I didn't start it yet because it's recommended to know about 1500 words before.

 

Ooh, I didn't know about this. I might enroll in a month or so! It's completely free (if you don't get the certificate)?

 

Quote

How about browsing the internet? How about a challenge for only using Chinese resources such as Baidu, YouKu, forums etc.

 

Hey, that's not a bad idea! I'm not too sure whether I could go without Facebook though. I mostly use Chinese resources when I'm online - YouKu, iqiyi or similar - to make sure that my downtime still have Chinese in it. It's definitely helping. I'll see if I can go without the occasional western comfort though!

 

As a side note, I suggest you check out LIT/Lost In Translation - it's a Youtube channel where overseas Chinese students in America and ABCs perform various challenges or the occasional reaction video. It's bilingual with subs and absolutely hilarious. Good listening/reading practice.

[fabiothebest]

6 hours ago, Napkat said:

It's completely free (if you don't get the certificate)?

yes, it's free if you don't want the certificate.