Learning Goals for 3 Months in China

[flray]

Hello All,

 

I setting out goal to keep myself on point and to take advantage of the time I have in China. I know that 3 months is a pretty good block of time but also in many ways  brief.  I am a basic speaker and know maybe about 400 to 500 hanzi. I am self taught and spent about a year working in a Chinese Grocery store with native speakers.  I want to increase my spoken and written/reading comprehension as much as possible.

 

    I think speaking is very important and I want to have a steady input of information to use to improve.

 

I am going to take private lessons for one month, Monday through Friday  6 hours a day.  They have their own textbooks they use at the school. For the other 2 months I want to self study with the help of language exchange or private tutor.

 

Materials

 

A Practical Chinese Grammar  by Samuel Cheung

 

Mcgraw-hill’s  Chinese Dictionary and Guide.

 

    Contains 2000 Hanzi  with corresponding words. I plan on writing out hanzi old school about 25-50 a day.  Day to day activities in country should reinforce memorized hanzi.

 

Elementary Chinese Reader ( book one, elementary course) Beijing press

 

Chinese-english visual bilingual dictionary  DK Press

      Should be helpful to review with language partners for subject specific lexicon.

 

Oh, China Elementary Reader of Modern Chinese for Advanced Beginner

       Fantastic Book but a bit heavy so I am photocopying  the Chinese text of each
Chapter

 

Beginning Chinese John Defrances

       Book with no Hanzi  and similarly might photocopy  text to take with me.

 

Lonely Planet and Berlitz Chinese Phrasebooks.

 

Berlitz  Chinese Dictionary

 

 

Chinese Pod

       Plan to do a certain amount of lessons every day  then go out and converse.

 

Hsk 1-4 word lists.

 

Thanks again. I know there are some quite in depth posts on study on here. If anyone has any suggestion on how to tweek my plans so it would be more  effective its much appreciated. I know it would be very easy  to go to china and enjoy it but limit my advancement.

 

Cheers Ray

 

 

 

[iekkim]

Following this post

 

I'm studying Basic Chinese 1 in the local Confucius Institute and am about to take my final exam this coming Saturday before I proceed to Basic Chinese 2. We use a textbook called New Practical Chinese Reader Textbook 1, there's a 2nd book that I have not seen but, for a beginner like me, it's pretty helpful. 

[Guest realmayo]

My only suggestion is just don't expect to do much self-study while you're taking those six hours a day of one-on-one classes. I've done that before, it's very tiring, I could do little more than basic preparation for the next day's classes.

[roddy]

Are those six hours group or one-to-one? Either way that's pretty intense, I wonder if spreading those hours more evenly over your stay might be wiser. 4>2>0 over the three months, or 2>2>2. 

 

"then go out and converse"

Have a bit of a plan for this. Old people in parks? Younger folk in cafes? Will you be staying in one place so you can become a regular face some places? Do you have any hobbies which might help - tagging along with a photography group or a hiking trip?

[stapler]

Don't buy any of those dictionaries. Get Pleco on your phone instead.

[Flickserve]

20 hours ago, flray said:

I want to increase my spoken and written/reading comprehension as much as possible.

 

    I think speaking is very important and I want to have a steady input of information to use to improve.

 

I am going to take private lessons for one month, Monday through Friday  6 hours a day.  They have their own textbooks they use at the school. For the other 2 months I want to self study with the help of language exchange or private tutor.

 

Materials

 

You don't mention resources such as laptop, software, recording equipment.

 

If you haven't seen it, this post is brilliant

 

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/43939-independent-chinese-study-review/

 

[flray]

Thanks all,

 

realmayo

" don't expect to do much self-study while you're taking those six hours a day of one-on-one classes."

Definitely. I am going to self study korean a bit because I will be in Yanbian but besides studying Hanzi I will just review my lesson for the month I am taking classes. The self study is more for my time when I am not taking classes

 

Roddy

"Are those six hours group or one-to-one?I wonder if spreading those hours more evenly over your stay might be wiser."

 

Yeah they will be one on one and its how the school is set up. I agree it might be better to spread it out but I will just dig in. I also agree with you that in addition to more spontaneous conversations its good to have a plan. I might study a certain lexicon through picture dictionaries etc and then go to stores or places where they correspond. 

 

Flickserve

 

"You don't mention resources such as laptop, software, recording equipment."

I didn't mention because I am doing this pretty much old school using books. I do think chinese pod will be a good resource tough. Thanks for the link for the post on self learning and resources I will dig through it. One thing I didn't mention was I have been using Baidu Maps street view. It is interesting to see street signs in Yanbian both in Chinese and Korean.

 

 

One other things I am trying to do is compile a subject or theme specific list of verbs. Just like Roddy said before its good to have a plan I have about 150 but would like to build it to 300 or so. I know there are links to lists of 2000 verbs or other general lists online but I need to hone it down to be usable.

 

Cheers

 

 

[werewitt]

On 2017-3-28 at 1:30 PM, flray said:

Oh, China Elementary Reader of Modern Chinese for Advanced Beginner

 

A standard meaning of "Advanced Beginner" in studying Chinese means you speak natively but cannot read/write. This book is likely focused on teaching characters to speakers and probably is not for you.

[edelweis]

@flray

are you in China right now or back already? How did it go? How about a review of the school you attended?