Can't feel any progress

[amytheorangutan]

12 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

 

It's Chinese and you need to readjust your expectations of progress. Much slower for Chinese. 

Cannot agree more. I adjusted my expectation from the beginning so as not to feel frustrated. I think John Pasden talked about it a bit here on what to expect https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/chinesepod/id914400734?mt=2&i=1000336996784 

[amytheorangutan]

Doh @mungouk I never realised that! Thanks so much! I will do that next time. Luckily I have never been away for too long. 

 

Update: I think the function to pause while on vacation on Skritter is only available when you subscribe directly through them. Because I subscribe through ITunes, the vacation button wasn't there. I originally subscribe through ITunes because I didn't want to deal with the exchange rate ups and downs. Phew relieve to find out I'm not as thick as I thought ?

[Shelley]

4 hours ago, vivea said:

I'm not sure I understand your way of thinking and studying. What do you do with those words that make no sense when you look at them, even if you know all components and their meanings? That occurs frequently, as usually the word is a combination of a semantic part and a phonetic part. Do you study phonetics separately?

 

I didn't mean to give the impression that that is the only way to learn and remember characters, but it is only another tool in the toolbox.

 

I think that people like hints at the beginning but you soon learn that it is only extra baggage and you quickly discard them. 

 

The fact that on day 1 it is easy to remember a new character but then on day 2 its gone shows why you need to study them consistently and regularly. You say want to primarily read Chinese, but don't neglect the speech part of learning because this can help you remember characters too. 

 

Just concentrate on using the best learning materials for you, everyone learns differently so find what suits you and work hard it and you will feel progress eventually.

 

 

[amytheorangutan]

Interesting. Skritter told me I’ve done 371 reviews in 25 minutes. 

[vivea]

@amytheorangutan, you've mentioned that it's writing only, right? Just making sure.

 

I'm baffled that it used to take so much time in my case. Although I reviewed around the same amount of characters\words as you, it was taking me 8 times more time. No kidding! Memrise was definitely at fault, Tofu certainly doesn't repeat itself in reviews.

 

Sadly I can't use Skritter due to inadequate pricing for my region, but Anki is supposed to have the best SRS algorithm, right? That's a question for everyone  I'm now slowly moving everything I've got into Anki and eventually into one single deck, and I'd like to be confident that I'm relying on the best program. I'm still going to rely on Tofu for writing, but at least for recognition pratice I want to get rid of issues with reviews unnecessarily taking too much time! Seriously, I thought memrise was good, and now it turns out that it was the main culprit of draining my time away for no good reason.

[amytheorangutan]

Hello @vivea I’m doing writing and tones only . I think Skritter has a free trial period of 7 days. You might want to try and use it and see if your number matches mine when using the same app for statistic purposes. 

[vivea]

Hello, I'd rather not use Skritter at all  I can't realistically afford it, and I don't want to feel sad about it in case I like it too much.

[NinjaTurtle]

Vivea,

 

Do you have someone in your area that you are studying with?

[Tomsima]

10 hours ago, vivea said:

That's a question for everyone

Well I can definitely voice my support for the anki/supermemo algorithm, for me it consistently outperformed pleco flashcards srs, skritter srs, memrise, to the point where I moved everything over to anki a few years ago and never looked back

[vivea]

I probably need to find or start a new topic for this? There must be a topic about Anki here. But I just wanted to know where people obtain sounds for usage with Anki. I memorize better when hearing, and programs like Memrise and Tofu make it so easy to add audio, they do it automatically. Yet I've looked through a list of Anki plug-ins, but there's nothing to automate the process of adding audio for Chinese? It's not something I can't live without, but it's going to make it much harder for me to memorize pronunciation if I have only pinyin but no sound.

 

@NinjaTurtle, I wish! :-) Chinese is unpopular in my city, and when companies are looking to work with China, they automatically look for English interpreteurs rather than Chinese to conduct business via English interpeteurs on both sides. But at least nobody is calling my hobby eccentric, they say 'Oh, you're studying Chinese? That's useful, China is on the rise'.

[mungouk]

On 8/16/2018 at 3:49 PM, amytheorangutan said:

I think John Pasden talked about it a bit here on what to expect

 

I just listened to this on my phone, since there's about 150 of the older Chinesepod podcasts available for free on iTunes.  (Thanks for pointing this out @amytheorangutan.)

It does a good job of setting expectations of rough timescales for learning sounds, pinyin, tones and characters.  A good bit of orientation for those starting out.

 

I can't see a way of linking to it directly, but it's #39 What to Expect Newbie.  Or maybe that's obvious.  

 

btw @vivea — I'm not so sure you can dismiss memrise, or something as opaque as its SRS algorithm, as 'causing' problems quite so easily.  Sure it's not perfect, and the mismatch between the phone app and the web experience is perplexing, but I've found that it really depends which "courses" you use. I only use the web version.

 

There are audio-only courses for HSK vocabulary for example, which I found really helpful, and because you're hearing multiple voices in the audio it gives you good practice at listening and recognising tones.  The courses that are set up for typing the English meaning are more or less useless I think, given the many meanings that so many Chinese words have.  But the audio-only ones are useful IMHO. 

 

I find the StickyStudy app also good, although it's a bit annoying you can't vary the font. I think I will have to make some of my own StickyStudy lists with the vocab in the same order as my current textbook — chapter by chapter — to make it manageable since there are now 600 new words to learn for HSK 4. (I built my own HSK 3 list in chapter order for memrise and it took more than a whole day.)

But if you're just starting out, the HSK 1 and 2 lists wouldn't be a bad place to begin.

 

 

 

 

 

[NinjaTurtle]

12 hours ago, vivea said:

Chinese is unpopular in my city

 

Vivea,

 

There are two issues here.

 

One issue is the use of study aids, textbooks, online study programs, etc. You have to choose one program and get through it, cover to cover. If there are multiple textbooks in a series, you have to get through all of those textbooks. There is just no way around this. Make the effort and get it done. Do not worry too much about understanding everything, just get to the last page in a reasonable amount of time

 

The other issue is speaking Chinese with another person. Yes, using study guides, collecting flash cards, etc., are important. But more important is actually communicating with someone in spoken Chinese. I am an English teacher for students in China, and all of my students make this mistake. My students think English is only a subject to be tested on. They think English is only lists of vocabulary words to be memorized. It is not. First and foremost, English is a means of spoken communication, but my students do NOT see English as a means of spoken communication. As a result, their English is terrible and it is not getting any better.

 

What you need to do is find someone to practice speaking Chinese with. If you cannot find someone in your town, then find someone on the Internet. Find another English speaker who is also learning Chinese and have very simple conversations with this person in Chinese. (If you need help on how to construct these kinds of easy conversations, just ask.) Or find a Chinese person who wants to practice their English with you. (There are literally millions of such people on the Internet.) Spend 30 minutes speaking English, then spend 30 minutes speaking Chinese. This is called doing a Language Exchange. If you need help finding Language Exchange partners, let us know.

 

[xyj3]

On 8/14/2018 at 8:34 PM, vivea said:

And I've heard 'scary stories' about people with a 3 000 baggage of characters who can't read newspapers freely. That sounds dreadful.

I have around 2400 characters and HSK6. I still cannot read quickly or smoothly, and often come across unknown characters. I agree with others that have said you cannot expect too much - Chinese takes a long time to learn and is especially difficult in the beginning. Maybe you cannot feel the progress, but if you practice consistently it will be there. I think checking how many HSK words you know every week or month is a good way to make your progress seem more tangible.

[vivea]

@NinjaTurtle, thanks for your thoughtful advise. I believe I'm doing fine on the studybook front, I'm close to finishing the first one. As for speaking, I really am not sure I'm up to it... My vocabulary is too small to talk freely. I had a language exchange partner at italki for a little while, but I ended up reading my written texts to him rather than talking. It was useful, but only marginally so, I learnt that my pronunciation can be understood by a Chinese person and the tones are fine, but that's it. Then Skype broke our communication by being a bugfest that it is and always wrongly displaying everyone as 'offline', but I didn't try to reestablish the connection. I just don't think that at this moment there's anything to be gained from speaking to a native. Maybe in a few months? As for other students, I'd be interested to know how to construct very basic dialogues with limited vocabulary.

 

@mungouk

Memrise has another serious flaw: I can't make my own decks with it, unless I'm willing to enter everything manually. Whenever I tried to import a deck, it ended up all messed up, the columns for Chinese and English would get switched every 2-3 words. I searched and found some others who had the same problem and they've been unable to find a solution, too. Maybe I'll use memrise in future with decks made by others, but for now I have my own and can't import them to memrise anyway, even if I wanted to. //stops grumbling

[GregO]

On 8/16/2018 at 3:33 AM, Flickserve said:

It's Chinese and you need to readjust your expectations of progress. Much slower for Chinese. 

I believe this feedback really says it all. I encourage you to not worry too much about feeling the sense of progress. It is critical to recognize that learning this language is a lifetime adventure. Staying consistent over the long haul (many years) will be a big key to success.

 

On 8/16/2018 at 3:36 AM, DavyJonesLocker said:

An SRS system is just a tool and should be employed with appropriate use. For example it appears I know 5000 words from anki but in reality it just means I know the pinyin and tones (mostly) with s vague idea of the meaning. How to use the word I only get from reading it speaking. Relying on anki alone would be of no use.

 

This is also quite important and I will add to it. SRS (I like Anki) can be very helpful if used right but a real time waster and source of frustration if over used. There is often the temptation to go really heavy on SRS, word lists, etc because it feels like you are making progress as you see the number of cards accumulate. This often comes at the expense of other crucial things like getting comprehensible input. I am not suggesting, Vivea, that this is the situation with you but just warning you against going down an unproductive road.

[NinjaTurtle]

Vivea,

 

You are having trouble with Skype. I wonder if you have a virus. Are you using a Windows machine?

 

You said,

 

On 8/21/2018 at 7:14 AM, vivea said:

My vocabulary is too small to talk freely.

 

Then you need to build it up, both vocabulary that you are familiar with, and vocabulary that you can speak easily.

 

On 8/21/2018 at 7:14 AM, vivea said:

I'd be interested to know how to construct very basic dialogues with limited vocabulary.

 

Write very short, meaningful dialogs in English on the left side of the page, then write the Chinese on the right side of the page.

Start with greetings.

 

Hello. 你好。 Ní hăo.
How are you? 你好吗? Ní hăo ma?
I’m fine. 我很好。 Wǒ hěn hăo.
Thank you. 谢谢。 Xìe xie.
And you? 你呢? Ní ne?
I’m fine too. 我也很好。 Wǒ yě hěn hăo.

 

Then start with the verb to be.

 

Is this a pen? 这是笔吗? Zhè shì bǐ ma?
Yes, it is. 是的。 Shì de.
Is this a pen? 这是笔吗? Zhè shì bǐ ma?
No, it isn’t. 不是。 Bú shì.
What’s this? 这是什么? Zhè shì shénme?
It’s an eraser. 是橡皮。 Shì xiàngpí.

 

Then start with verbs.

 

Do you study? 你学习吗? Ní xuéxí ma?
Yes, I do. 是的，我学习。 Shì de, wǒ xuéxí.
No, I don’t 不，我不学习。 Bù, wǒ bù xuéxí.
Do you walk? 你走路吗? Ní zǒulù ma?
Yes, I do. 是的，我走路。 Shì de, wǒ zǒulù.
No, I don’t 不，我不走路。 Bù, wǒ bù zǒulù.
Do you run? 你跑步吗？ Nǐ pǎobù ma?
Yes, I do. 是的，我跑步。 Shì de, wǒ pǎobù.
No, I don’t 不，我不跑步。 Bù, wǒ bù pǎobù.
Do you teach? 你教吗? Nǐ jiào ma?
Do you cook? 你烹饪吗？ Nǐ pēngrèn ma?
Do you smoke? 你抽烟吗？ Nǐ chōuyān ma?

 

Add direct objects.

 

Do you eat vegetables? 你吃蔬菜吗？ Nǐ chī shūcài ma?
Yes, I do. 是的，我吃蔬菜 。 Shì de, wǒ chī shūcài.
Do you eat cabbage? 你吃卷心菜吗？ Nǐ chī juǎnxīncài ma?
Yes, I do. 是的，我吃卷心菜。 Shì de, wǒ chī juǎnxīncài.
Do you eat spinach? 你吃菠菜吗？ Nǐ chī bōcài ma?
No, I don’t. 不，我不吃菠菜。 Bù, wǒ bù chī bōcài.
What kind of vegetables do you eat? 你吃什么种类的蔬菜？ Nǐ chī shénme zhǒnglèi de shūcài?
I eat lettuce, cabbage, and celery. 我吃卷心菜，卷心菜和芹菜。
Wǒ chī juǎnxīncài, juǎnxīncài hé qíncài.

 

Slowly add dialogs with indirect objects, prepositional phrases, multiple prepositional phrases, it-for-to sentences, present perfect, subjunctive mood, on and on, until ending up with very complicated questions and answers. Do not be in a hurry; ask lots of questions that do not have indirect objects until you have a lot of experience asking questions with only direct objects.

 

Google Translate is a huge help in preparing these dialogs.

 

https://translate.google.com/

 

Methodology

 

Both of you have a copy of a dialogue. Both of you take turns reading a dialogue while both of you look at the written-out dialogue. Then, both of you do the dialogue again, but this time your partner (the teacher) looks at the page while you (the student) do not look at the page.

 

Each time, your partner asks you the question, you answer, then you ask her back the same question. The pattern is, she will ask a question that you will answer with a yes or no, then you ask her back the same question. then she asks you a question that you answer with a wh- word (who, what, why, etc.) then you ask her back the same question. The pattern is: yes question, no question, wh- question.

 

The goal is for you to be able to ask and answer the questions without looking at the paper. (In the beginning, this will be a lot harder than it seems.)

 

 

 

 

[Shelley]

I agree with the general method described by NinjaTurtle but do not rely on google translate. Please use a dictionary.

[imron]

On 8/21/2018 at 7:53 AM, xyj3 said:

I have around 2400 characters and HSK6. I still cannot read quickly or smoothly, and often come across unknown characters.

HSK 6 gets you half way.  At this level expect approximately 1 unknown character per sentence and 20 unknown characters per page (including repeats).

[amytheorangutan]

I personally always feel awkward talking via video calls even to people I know. One of the main reasons why I go to classes/see a private teacher is so I can talk for 2 hours a week face to face but recently I have been talking to myself in Chinese at home. I would imagine a scenario, like if my parents or friends come over what would I say to them and I try to say that in Chinese to myself and respond to imaginary dialogues. I must say, it makes me feel my Chinese is inadequate in unscripted environment but I suppose that's the whole point of the exercise. The other thing is I try to exclaim things in Chinese in everyday situation where I normally do it in English like oh my god so hot or so annoying or so weird etc it just helps to start thinking naturally in Chinese. I remember I did the same thing when I was learning English. 

[大块头]

On 8/18/2018 at 4:48 AM, vivea said:

Hello, I'd rather not use Skritter at all  I can't realistically afford it, and I don't want to feel sad about it in case I like it too much.

 

Checkout the open source alternative to Skritter: Inkstone

 

https://www.skishore.me/inkstone/