Skritter list (WAS Anki deck), words in an "easier to learn" order

[werewitt]

46 minutes ago, 艾墨本 said:

I think you're confusing opinion and authority. He has an opinion on the topic, but that doesn't make him an authority.

Not an opinion or authority on abstract language question, experience and authority on how they are using that language. "Do you know what does this character mean off the top of your head" is rather binary. Or do you perhaps mean I was wrong in my conclusion and drilling characters is actually useful? You need to decide, you cannot deny both.

 

10 hours ago, realmayo said:

I think treating native speakers as an authority is naive if you don't understand how to interpret what they're telling you. 

They are the only source of first hand experience about the language.

 

Anyhow, you people are doing the internet's usual "I'm arguing with my personal vague variation of that guy's words, even if he did not actually say that."  Good luck!

[艾墨本]

1 hour ago, werewitt said:

Not an opinion or authority on abstract language question, experience and authority on how they are using that language. "Do you know what does this character mean off the top of your head" is rather binary. Or do you perhaps mean I was wrong in my conclusion and drilling characters is actually useful? You need to decide, you cannot deny both.

 

To clarify, yes, I do disagree with both as you presented them.

1) I disagree that someone is an authority of their native language just by the merit of it being their native language. I think they are an opinion on their language, and a valuable opinion at that. This doesn't mean a native person's opinion can't be followed, just that I would check their opinion against other sources. In contrast, if an authority on learning Chinese or Chinese as a language gives me advice, I am much more willing to simply do as they tell me and trust in their experience

2) I have also found that drilling characters in isolation is unproductive and wasted a lot of my time. In contrast, drilling characters when they were paired with sentences has been much more beneficial, and, furthermore, studying characters with example sentences using SRS software has been a boon to my vocabulary retention. I can't say if this is true for all. I am simply reporting what my experience is. Taking my experience and opinion as a statement of authority in that studying characters individually is a bad way of studying, period, would be doing exactly what I am cautioning against in point one.

 

1 hour ago, werewitt said:

Anyhow, you people are doing the internet's usual "I'm arguing with my personal vague variation of that guy's words, even if he did not actually say that."  Good luck!

If you feel the information is incomplete, would you care to expand on what he said?

Edited April 22, 2017 at 03:06 AM by 艾墨本
swapped "you should"s for "I would"s.

[Guest realmayo]

Native speakers say 'we don't think too much about tones, we just speak naturally, I think it's okay for you too' 

Native speakers say 'Chinese does not have any grammar' 

Native speakers say 'Chinese characters are like pictures, you can work out the meaning' 

Native speakers say 'werewitt, your Chinese is very good' 

[werewitt]

3 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

If you feel the information is incomplete, would you care to expand on what he said?

 

I showed him a remembr.it page for 及, and asked what that char meant. The page also lists two char words as examples. Then he said

Quote

he easily recognises 及其, 及时, 普及, 及早 etc and can read the sound of 及, but in order to figure out what 及 stands for on its own he has to think a second.

Note a second. A couple of weeks ago we did https://hanzitest.herokuapp.com/ test just for giggles - it told him he knew 4500 chars, so not exactly a country bumpkin.

@艾墨本 I'm still not clear whether I was correct in deciding that drilling chars isn't too useful, based on my friend's feedback

 

PS. @realmayodid ever think of moonlighting as a comedian? Don't.

[lips]

23 minutes ago, werewitt said:

……but in order to figure out what 及 stands for on its own he has to think a second.

Now I understand.  Your friend undoubtedly knew the most common meaning of 及 without thinking, but had to think for *one* second before coming up with the other common meanings.  That is not unreasonable.  It happens a lot, even with native speakers.

[werewitt]

On 2017-4-20 at 1:22 PM, werewitt said:

E.g. he easily recognises 及其, 及时, 普及, 及早 etc and can read the sound of 及, but in order to figure out what 及 stands for on its own he has to think a second.

@lips Spoiler - that was literally a cut and paste from what I said back then. 

 

[Publius]

Yay, 6700 characters. Have to give myself a big pat on the back.

Even some common characters could be tough to recognize in isolation. I had to recite 已半巳滿不出己 three times to make sure it's 已. And for 蛤, all I could think of is 蛤蚧. 蛤蟆 totally eluded me.

[imron]

4 hours ago, Publius said:

蛤蟆 totally eluded me.

 

You need to read more 金庸

[Publius]

56 minutes ago, imron said:

You need to read more 金庸

Haha I read a lot of 金庸. Even played a wuxia MUD based on Jin Yong books. Dunno if that kind of thing still exists. It'd be a good way to immerse in the language. (P.S. Hamagong was the most elusive quest in the said game, believed to be impossible without cheating...)