Best way to use Chinese film / tv transcripts

[BaneGlory]

 How do you guys use the transcripts? - My idea was to:

1) load one episode at a time into Chinese Text Analyzer and then

2) (manually or with a 'known-vocabulary'-list???) Cross-reference and remove known-words...then

3) with the remainder create-and-expprt a Pleco Flashcard SRS study list.

4) Go through and learn all the vocabulary once.

5) Review until I'm about 60% to 100% 'solid'

6) Watch the show once, allow myself to read the English subtitles and hopefully follow the story, and see if I can Recognize the Chinese vocabulary when it comes up

7) Watch again and see if I can understand the words better in context with the grammar structures. 

8.) Decide if I want to go to the next episode or check out another show. 

[roddy]

4 hours ago, BaneGlory said:

6) Watch the show once, allow myself to read the English subtitles and hopefully follow the story, and see if I can Recognize the Chinese vocabulary when it comes up

7) Watch again and see if I can understand the words better in context with the grammar structures. 

On the actual watching stages - I'm not sure if others would agree, but I'd be inclined to suggest a first watch without any subtitles (tape a piece of paper to the screen if you have to). One of the pitfalls of Chinese TV watching is that there's almost always Chinese subtitles and you end up getting reading practice, not listening practice, and a false impression of how good your listening is. With English subtitles, again, it could be a case of feeling like you've understood more than you really have, without the benefit of the reading practice. Listen out for those words you've been reviewing (I like that pre-learning stage), perhaps even ticking them off a list as you hear them. Let yourself go back quickly to stuff you miss, but don't worry about it too much unless the plot isn't making any sense.

 

Then a second watch, with subtitles and more going back to check stuff. 

 

Like I say, I'm not sure if that's the best way or not. 

[imron]

I'd also question the utility of English subtitles.  Yes, they can help you understand what is going on, but they also take away the need to learn anything, and brains are lazy and like taking shortcuts and will subconsciously decide not to bother remembering the Chinese when the English is right there.

 

6 hours ago, BaneGlory said:

(manually or with a 'known-vocabulary'-list???) Cross-reference and remove known-words...then

Chinese Text Analyser will track your known vocabulary, and you can easily export lists of words with known vocabulary removed.

 

6 hours ago, BaneGlory said:

4) Go through and learn all the vocabulary once.

It's probably not worth going through all the vocab, just the vocab that appears more than X number of times.  Otherwise you could be devoting a whole bunch of time and effort to words that will never really appear.  Don't worry about missing out on learning them.  If they are useful they will appear again soon enough in another episode, and if they *don't* appear soon enough in another episode, then by definition they are not useful to you yet (so no need to spend time learning them until they start appearing).

 

6 hours ago, BaneGlory said:

8.) Decide if I want to go to the next episode or check out another show. 

One thing to keep in mind is that for any show, there will be a bunch of genre and story specific vocab, as well as certain words and phrases that certain characters will prefer to use.  That means that for any new show you watch, there will be a bulk of new, high-frequency vocabulary in the first few episodes, that will then make watching the rest of the episodes easier.

 

If you are continually checking out new shows rather than sticking with just one, you'll always be hitting this bump.  Therefore, I'd recommend sticking with a show for 4-5 episodes before deciding whether to continue or change to something else, just to maximise the benefits of the vocab you are learning.  Ideally, also choose shows you think you'll like and that other people recommend to increase the likelihood of watching through until the end.

[Wurstmann]

1 hour ago, roddy said:

One of the pitfalls of Chinese TV watching is that there's almost always Chinese subtitles and you end up getting reading practice, not listening practice, and a false impression of how good your listening is.

Agreed, I always put a notepad window over the area where the subtitles are.

And with English subtitles you just practice reading English.

[markhavemann]

I would add one extra step to that.

 

While watching, identify sentences where you either: 

 

A) "Know" all the words, but couldn't follow the sentence the first time you heard it. 

       OR

B) Pretty much understood the sentence, but it has a new or slightly unfamiliar word that you would like to learn. 

       OR

C) You think it's an interseting or useful sentence [structure] that you would like to be a part of your working vocab. 

 

• Now use FFMPEG or an audio editing programme (or both) to extract the audio of this sentence. Add the sentence text (conveniently available in the transcript) as both the filename and metadata title. 
• Put these sentences on your phone/mp3 player and loop them any time you are travelling or doing anything that doesn't require your full attention. 
• Spend ten minutes each day actively working through the sentences with the lowest playcount, shadowing along one or more times, depending on how difficult the sentence is. 

 

As you work through a show you will get more and more sentences from it, and get more and more familiar with the way that people speak, the kind of language that is used etc. and things will get easier. 

[Flickserve]

Do any of you have problems with overstudying? Just wanting to try to know everything that’s unknown?

[DavyJonesLocker]

2 hours ago, Flickserve said:

Do any of you have problems with overstudying? Just wanting to try to know everything that’s unknown?

 

yup my whole life, never been a year that i haven't studied one thing or another. 

 

The more you know, the more you realise how little your knowledge really is in the big scheme of things.

 

Problem is with chinese is that I am so far behind it word and character recognition when i consider the amount i read  and reread. My deck is near 10k now but i realistically am only able to recognize 6k. I don't add any more in now as its near pointless. However i am never sure where the ANKI / reading / listening is. If i don‘’t do SRS I will not pick this stuff up simply from daily reading / listening. I think they are interdependent for me anyway 

[imron]

3 hours ago, Flickserve said:

Just wanting to try to know everything that’s unknown?

This is a problem that flashcards exacerbate due to the promise of "remembering everything forever - just so long as you keep doing your repetitions".

 

It's a bit like the holy grail from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - which gave you immortality, but couldn't be carried across the great seal of the temple.

 

A tantalising promise, with a significant catch.

 

I found it quite liberating to realise that I don't need to learn everything right away, and it's ok to forget things also.

[markhavemann]

8 hours ago, Flickserve said:

Do any of you have problems with overstudying?

Definitely! When I started watching my first TV series (家有儿女) I tried to learn all kinds of words that I would probably not see again for a long time. I also wanted to understand every sentence and spent a fair bit of time trying.

 

Now, if anything, I have the opposite problem where I skim over so much, happy just to mostly understand and studying almost nothing in-depth. The way that I think about learning has changed a lot though and I think maybe even if I'm not quite right in this approach, I'm still much better off than before.

 

I liked Imron's analogy so I thought I'd add my own:

 

At first I imagined my learning as an expanding circle (the bigger it gets, the more area must be added for it to grow). Now sometimes I imagine it as an expanding empire.

 

Unconquered lands (unknown stuff) right next to my current borders are easy to conquer. I don't have to send my troops far, it doesn't take a lot of resources and, because it's nearby, I already have some idea of the terrain and the people, making them easier to win over. Very often, all I have to do is strengthen my existing empire and those bordering nations will just naturally become part of it, being absorbed as it grows without any effort or fighting necessary. 

 

It's possible to go and conquer far off, unknown lands. It can feel good and bring glory to the empire. The problem is that it's a lot of travel time for my troops. The other problem is I don't know the people, the terrain, or any of the neighbouring countries so it's difficult to know exactly what approach to take to conquer these lands. If my troops manage to get there at all, and do conquer it (understand that extremely difficult sentence/learn some random abstract grammatical word that I've never seen before this), it's very difficult to hold on to because it's far away from where the bulk of my strength is.

 

In my experience so far, learning the stuff right on the fringes of what I currently know is by far the best way to spend my time and I've changed my approach to allow more of this. Unless you have a good reason to, don't make a flashcard of a word that you've never seen at least once before. Don't try to understand every sentence. By enjoying the process and learning the things that you notice because you've seen them before, you will grown in a more natural (and fun) way that's much easier to do. 

[imron]

9 hours ago, markhavemann said:

Now sometimes I imagine it as an expanding empire.

Your description of this is great.

[imron]

9 hours ago, markhavemann said:

Now, if anything, I have the opposite problem where I skim over so much, happy just to mostly understand and studying almost nothing in-depth

I think this is ok, as long as you are learning some of it and aren't just skimming over everything.

 

Learn a few things really well each day, then just skim over the rest.  Over days, weeks, months and years, those 'few things' will turn in to a great many things.

[PerpetualChange]

On 3/8/2019 at 7:21 AM, imron said:

I'd also question the utility of English subtitles.  Yes, they can help you understand what is going on, but they also take away the need to learn anything, and brains are lazy and like taking shortcuts and will subconsciously decide not to bother remembering the Chinese when the English is right there.

 

I would say you get next to nothing from watching with English subtitles on. Otherwise how many anime-obsessed Japanese "students" would be fluent in Japanese by now?