The 2021 Aims and Objectives Progress Topic

[Tomsima]

Its that time of year - share your aims and objectives for the coming year here!

 

For me, I have two areas I really want to push myself forward into:

 

1) Reach 150WPM in shorthand speed. I halfheartedly began learning Pitman shorthand back in 2018; it got put on the back burner until lockdown this year, and now I've finished all the textbooks and workbooks available. Currently sitting at a mediocre 40-50WPM. I want to be able to note take speeches at speeds exceeding 150WPM by this time next year (roughly the normal speed of human speech). 

 

2) Second goal is related to first. I want to complete translations of 100 news articles in Chinese by sight interpreting directly into shorthand. Thats around 1 article every 3 days, so this is a big goal that I'm committing to. As a result, thats it for me for targets for this year.

[PerpetualChange]

First Quarter Goals:

• Continue reading at least 30 minutes per day and reviewing new words 10 minutes per day. 
• Do some kind of active listening for 15-30 minutes a day

 

2nd Quarter Goals:

• Same as the above, but I would like to start practicing with a language partner again, maybe just a few times per week.

 

3rd/4th quarter stretch goals: 

• Find a tutor to help with my writing. 

 

[jannesan]

My project for the year will be learning 繁体字 so for my year goals:

• study 简化总表 (list of character simplifications)
• add 繁体字 to all Anki cards, existing and new
• read 1-2 textbooks in 繁体字
• start consuming some news written in 繁体字

Goals for every month:

• read 1/2 book
• write one article by hand and correct it together with a teacher

Every week:

• watch some TV show episode(s) or/and some movie(s)
• listen to at least 1,5 hours of podcast (故事FM while cooking is a good combo for me)
• 1-2 Italki classes, but less free talking than this year, more concentrated study
• one session of 50/50 German/Chinese with my girlfriend, with focus on more complex topics than the everyday 家常

Every day:

• Anki review + at least 5 new words
• write entry in dream journal

Basically keep up the pace of 2020, with more focus on writing and learning 繁体字.

I'm wrapping up my studies in the beginning of the year and then gotta find a job, so maybe my planning for Chinese is a bit much, we'll see ?

[Tomsima]

@jannesanFor traditional I would highly recommend using the Defrancis readers and just start reading. If you're already fully confident in simplified, and acquainted with the way in which the two systems relate, this is the best way to hammer the characters home if you ask me.

[Jan Finster]

Because the first 3-4 months of 2021 will be super busy work-wise, my main goal for the first third of 2021 is not to regress. I am a bit hesitant to make any goals for 2021. I guess, I will be happy with 2021 if I look back and I have:

 

1) read and listened to at least 1000 articles in TCB (at least 50% at HSK 5 level)

2) my reading speed has increased from around 50 CPM to to 150 characters per minute following Imron's method (https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/20007-what-to-study-after-heisig/page/3/)

3) I have completed Chinese Zero to Hero's HSK 4 and 5 videos [I have bought it during the Black Friday sales, but have not looked at it]

4) Finish 2 non-fiction books in Chinese

5) considering (according to Lichess) I have spent the equivalent of 21 whole days playing online blitz chess from April 2020 to December 2020 , I hope I can find a way to make learning Chinese as relaxing and addictive. Sadly, I believe I have not spent the equivalent of 21 whole days learning Chinese since April. When I am super tired from work and I have to choose between Lichess and Chinese, Lichess feels much less like "hard work". How do you make Chinese a "zoning-out activity"?

6) Continue shadowing and eventually start online speaking sessions again.

[Moshen]

Quote

5) considering (according to Lichess) I have spent the equivalent of 21 whole days playing online blitz chess from April 2020 to December 2020 , I hope I can find a way to make learning Chinese as relaxing and addictive. Sadly, I believe I have not spent the equivalent of 21 whole days learning Chinese since April. When I am super tired from work and I have to choose between Lichess and Chinese, Lichess feels much less like "hard work". How do you make Chinese a "zoning-out activity"?

 

I have that goal also!  But I've gotten there with Spanish.  My "zoning out activity" (which feels virtuous because it's both language learning and entertainment) is watching Spanish telenovelas on Netflix.  Depending on the accent/country that the program is from (Colombian and Mexican accents are easist, Chilean hardest for me), as well as whether it's mainly dialogue or partly voiceovers (voiceovers have a more formal, dense style), I can understand most without having to go back and turn on the English subtitles and re-view.  And it's enjoyable, engaging and relaxing.  Educational, too, because I have to look up various cultural references that I don't understand.

 

My Spanish mastery is about two years ahead of my Chinese mastery, and with Chinese I can't watch anything yet and hope to get through it without hard effort.  So my goal for this year is to get over the hump and be able to watch some Chinese program mainly understanding it.  To get there, I bought a 6 month subscription to ChinesePod and have a year to go on my Chairman's Bao subscription.  I'll try to do a lot of listening at easier levels to try to make my comprehension more automatic.

 

But if anyone can suggest "transitional" resources for getting over that hump in Chinese, I'd appreciate it!  In Spanish, that was provided for me by several simplified telenovelas (video and audio) specifically designed for learners, with a plot, characters and some narrative drive as well as somewhat simplified vocabulary.

[imron]

On 12/25/2020 at 4:32 AM, Tomsima said:

this is the best way to hammer the characters home if you ask me.

I agree. Going through flashcards of the character simplifications was useless for me. Going through a novel and looking up unknown words was much easier and much more effective. 
 

the de francis readers also sounds like a good option. 

[amytheorangutan]

On 12/25/2020 at 10:20 AM, Jan Finster said:

2) my reading speed has increased from around 50 CPM to to 150 characters per minute following Imron's method (https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/20007-what-to-study-after-heisig/page/3/)

Thanks for pointing me to this topic. I desperately need to improve my reading speed so I will be doing this. I like reading other people’s goals and objectives but I never have one ?

[JF]

I'd like to transition from reading mainly textbook stuff into reading something else regularly. I've started reading Mandarin Companion graded readers, went through two of their breakthrough level books relatively easily, and have now transitioned to reading level 1 books. I'll probably go through all their level 1 books first and see if I can transition to level 2. At some point I'd like to start Chinese online comics as my reading level improves.

 

I feel like my listening ability lacks behind my reading, so I should do more listening practice. I'll be trying to watch more Chinese TV shows and movies and listen to audio versions of the Mandarin Companion books once I've read them.

 

Also, do more grammar and writing exercises from my textbook.

[Singe]

On 12/27/2020 at 2:29 AM, JF said:

I feel like my listening ability lacks behind my reading, so I should do more listening practice

 

I definitely know the feeling. It's so easy to just pick up a book rather than embarrass myself with the level of my listening skills Having never spent any extensive time in China, I need to concentrate on this. So, with this in mind, my plans for 2021 are;

 

1) Engage with a tutor online. I've had a couple of good suggestions on who to start with and so will initiate this in the next couple of weeks. Just making that initial step is a real block as I know my listening skills are poor compared to my reading and writing. I like the idea put forward by a recent new poster of an online group but, as is often the case living in New Zealand, when everyone else is awake, we tend to be asleep, so the times don't always work out.

 

2) Keep practising characters. I've recently gone right back to where it all started from for me. I started with the set of books YCSM (You Can Speak Mandarin) by Philip Yungkin Lee. Whilst I don't think they were particularly great, they obviously have sentimental value as it just seems easy to pick up the books and practise the characters every now and then. Plan to have a goal of 'x' amount of characters by the end of 2021 - I just need to set the level of 'x' to make it achievable and therefore more likely to be managed. Got plenty of reading material to help along the way that I've picked up in dribs and drabs over the years.

 

3) Try at least one Chairmans Bao per day. Life does get busy so I'm not going to beat myself up on this one and perhaps make the rule 5x/week. Only just recently started using the Chairmans Bao and it really works for me. Good way to launch into the listening too. Hovering around the HSK level 3/4 and still making mistakes on 3 so will carry on between these levels for now.

 

4) Take an interest paper in Chinese Diaspora. On offer through Massey University here in NZ in Semester 2 in 2021 from June onwards. Although this is in English and perhaps isn't as relative to this thread as other stuff, I've had a look at the paper on offer and it looks fascinating.

 

5) Plan for 2022. At the stage in life were there are no kids at home any more and plan to sell my business to free up time to spend some decent amount of time in China at some stage in 2022. COVID allowing, of course. The more effort I put in during 2021 will mean hitting the ground running when China travel does eventuate.

 

and of course....

 

6) Keep logging into this site on a daily basis. So inspirational.

[imron]

2 hours ago, Singe said:

Try at least one Chairmans Bao per day. Life does get busy so I'm not going to beat myself up on this one and perhaps make the rule 5x/week

1x per day, every day will be more useful than 5x week, but reading all 5 on the same day.

 

Life does get busy, but habit will always beat out motivation in terms of getting things done, so if you want to make progress on something try to make it a habit of doing it every day.  Use something like dontbreakthechain to help.

[lechuan]

My main goal this year is consistency. Spend an hour per day doing something.

 

Cantonese (45 minutes per day), some or all of the following:

• Finish Pimsleur Cantonese Level 1 Lesson 13-30
• Glossika
• Mimic and learn transcripts from Cantonese with Brittany Youtube videos (transcripts available for Patreon subscribers)
• Go through Cantonese Class 101 lessons, mimicking and learning the dialogs
• Weekly italki Cantonese lessons with Gary

 

Mandarin (15 minutes per day):

• Start going through the Go Ahead Drama series, mimicking and looking up new words.

[feihong]

I have no luck setting goals around consumption. I don’t know if writing them down will motivate me at all. But if I set goals around production, then it’s a different ballgame.

 

So I’ll read more print manhua this year and write a post within the first two months of 2021 about “How to read print manhua in 2021”. Based on the research I’ve already done, the landscape is very different from several years ago and there are many more options.

 

I’ll also continue updating the Chinese Lyrics Challenge blog up to my previously stated goal of 100 posts. Actually I’ll almost certainly publish more than 100 entries, but I’m not sure by how much.

 

After the blog is done, I’ll switch to publishing the occasional theme playlists like I already did with the workout playlist.

[imron]

7 hours ago, lechuan said:

 

My main goal this year is consistency. Spend an hour per day doing something

 

Habit beats motivation ?

[lechuan]

1 hour ago, imron said:

Habit beats motivation

 

For sure! I've found my motivation wanes in days to weeks, but doing it whether or not I want to builds the progress that makes the activity motivating for me.

 

I also started trying "temptation bundling", pairing something I like to do with something that I want to make a habit: ie. Only eat snacks if I'm studying Chinese; Only watch English shows/movies if I'm exercising.

[ZhuoMing]

I spent half of 2020 in China, and yet my 2020 goals all did not end up being achieved. This year I will be a little less ambitious due to the fact that I have started a new job in the USA and won't be able to spend an extended time in China for at least the next two years or so.  As such I am mainly concerned with maintaining my level, and to hopefully improve my listening as that is my weakest area. Although my goals are smaller, I will be trying harder to be more consistent and hold myself accountable. My goals are simple and I will be tracking my progress throughout the year. 

1. Actively listen to 300 hours of chinese audio.  This will mostly be podcasts, and maybe some tv shows here and there.  The idea is to try to listen for about an hour a day for most days of the year.  I am adding a rule for myself where I can do transcription exercises and they count for double time. Meaning if I do 30 minutes of transcribing an audio clip, that will count as one hour to my goal. My reasoning for this is I feel that transcribing is very intense and very effective, but I hate doing it. It also gives me some much needed writing practice, as I want to keep up with my hanzi writing skills. 

 

2. Read 4 chinese books.  In 2019 I read 2 books. These were the first two novels I ever read in Chinese and I loved them. In 2020 I read half of a book.  I need to do better in this area. I could have made my goal to read a book every month which I think would be manageable, but I really want to put the majority of my time into listening practice, since I think for my purposes I really need to improve my listening more than I need to improve my reading.

[feihong]

10 hours ago, feihong said:

I’ll also continue updating the Chinese Lyrics Challenge blog up to my previously stated goal of 100 posts. Actually I’ll almost certainly publish more than 100 entries, but I’m not sure by how much.

Today I planned out my publishing schedule for the entire year of 2021. I have enough songs in the queue to get through the entire year, so by the end of December 2021, I'll have published 123 posts.

[Lu]

7 hours ago, ZhuoMing said:

Read 4 chinese books.

Let us know what you're planning to read and perhaps we can do another group read!

 

I don't really have many clear goals, since things are going well and if I just continue to do what I'm doing they will hopefully continue to go well. One my 'next step' goals was to stand on a stage as myself (not as interpreter), telling an audience something I know a lot about. That is set to happen in March (an online stage, but still a stage).

 

So:

- Learn words and chengyu.

- Read Chinese books, both in Chinese and in translation, and books about Chinese literature.

- Finish current translation (that doesn't need to be a resolution -- it has a contract and a deadline and I will do it) and start new translation project. Preferably a book for an established publisher, but if no assignment is forthcoming, I should finish the short story translation I started and get that published somewhere.

- Write and publish things about Chinese literature, preferably paid, but unpaid also works.

And one bigger one:

- Look into getting a PhD. I want to learn how to think better, analyse, see connections and bigger pictures. Also I want to have a PhD at some point, so it's time to look into getting started studying for one.

 

Non-Chinese goals:

- Learn to cook curry. It's healthy and delicious and not rocket science; I want to learn how to make it.

- Visit all four of my nieces and nephews on their birthdays. Or more often, that's even better, but definitely on their birthdays. Three of them live relatively far away and I don't see them often enough.

[道艺]

Last year's goal reflection:

One of my goals last year was to get my chinese 驾照, and boy did I just squeak that one in. As of Xmas eve of last year, I am now a licensed driver here in China! It took about 3 mo. of studying with 驾考宝典, 5 attempts, and plenty of times pestering my Chinese friends, but I did it in Chinese. I scored a 90, which means I just barely hit the 通过线. But boy, if I got a point for each time someone told me to just take it in English, I would've passed just on that alone.

 

This year:

Goal for this year is to finally get around to passing hsk 5 as well as signing up for a college course in Chinese (not a college chinese course). Not sure what the availability is like for night classes in Shanghai, so I can't commit yet. 

 

加油 to everyone else ?

[Tomsima]

Amazing you passed the Chinese driving license exam before an HSK exam, that's an achievement in itself