The 2023 Aims and Objectives

[Jan Finster]

 Shall we...? ?

 

I never seem to stick to my goals and objectives since I always discover new things along the way...or simply because life gets in my way. Whatever...

 

Anyway, looking back, 2022 was a successful year for me. According to Lingq, I managed to double my "know word" count from around 9900 at the end of 2021 to now around 1800 known words (11/2022) even though I "only" read around 0.5 million words. I noticed, I seem to learn Chinese non-linearly. There are weeks or even 1-2 months were I do not study much at all, and then I do 4-12 weeks of high-intensity input.

 

My Chinese journey has been mostly input focussed. As some of you know, much of it has been TCB. While I still consider this a great resource, recently I have moved to Youtube content. On Youtube, in 2022, I fluctuated between reading transcripts of high-intermediate podcasts (esp. news, Ukraine war, etc) and TPRS beginner content. Since TCB is focussed so much on news, I still learn a lot from beginner channels that talk about everyday life (https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/60741-chinese-language-youtube-channels-recommendations-thread/page/7/).

 

Over the last 3.5 years, I have made several attempts at reading books, but never finished one. Mostly because they were too hard or too boring. My most recent attempt is the Chinese version of Ray Dalio's book "Principles". It is actually not too hard anymore (except for all the financial terms that I do not understand in English or my native German either)  ?

So, one goal for 2023 is to finish my first book in Chinese.

 

Another major goal for 2023 is to focus on outputting. Here I want to first focus on Olle Kjellin's method for improving pronunciation (i.e. chorusing, shadowing):https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285234145_Quality_Practise_Pronunciation_With_Audacity_-_The_Best_Method

I tried shadowing in the past, but always ended up with a strained voice. As I have written here (https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/60363-shadowing-and-recording-most-effective-method/?do=findComment&comment=487778) I have found the reason for that strain. I am gradually relearning my tone levels (i.e. not going too high pitched) and so far, vocal strain has not recurred.

In the second half of 2023, I want to do conversation classes with an Italki teacher again. I have not had any teacher since June 2020.

 

Hopefully, by the end of 2023, I will be at 35K "known words" on Lingq.

 

That is all for now.

 

Looking forward to reading your goals

 

[Woodford]

I always look forward to this time of the year, when we think about what we'd like to accomplish in the next!

I, too, have had a fairly successful 2022. I've had a moderate amount of listening practice, and a lot of reading practice (maybe around 10-12 books). I think I hit a listening milestone in the past week, where I finally felt like I was able to understand a Chinese podcast enough to really engage with its content. It involved the self-help psychologist, Steve Shi, talking about self-discipline, our misconceptions about it, and how to cultivate it (steveshuo.com/313). I think that my listening ability (which lags behind my reading ability) will just need continued exposure to the language, which can't be rushed. As some of us have already noted, reading can indirectly help listening. I'm finding that to be true.

 

Lately, I've been reading (and am about to finish) the Chinese edition of "A Short History of Chinese Philosophy" (中国哲学简史) by Feng Youlan. It was originally written in English, but Feng wrote a Chinese edition that become extremely popular in China. The author's main work is very prosaic and easy to understand, but he regularly quotes Confucius, Mengzi, and the other classics, which are really opaque to me. I have a hard time understanding anything, and I'm very reliant on Feng's follow-up comments, usually prefaced by, "换句话说" or some other such phrase. About 15-20% of the time, though, he offers no such explanation, leaving me a little mystified. I suppose I could have gotten the bilingual edition of the book if I wanted to know what all the classical Chinese said, but I just didn't do that. I've understood enough of the book for it to be worthwhile, but that aspect has been annoying.

 

Therefore, I'm thinking about learning some of the ancient roots of the language. Will I become a proficient reader of classical Chinese? No. Will I have a better grasp of its basic structure, and learn more about the modern language? That's my goal! So I'm thinking about the following route:

1. Keep reading modern Chinese material in simplified characters

2. Keep listening to Chinese podcasts/videos

3. Find easy/simple material for learning traditional characters (I'm thinking of just reading articles on cn.nytimes.com, with traditional characters turned on)

4. After spending some time acclimating to traditional characters (it likely won't take long), work through my textbook on Classical Chinese (which is also written in traditional characters)

 

Meanwhile, I have taken a break from certain other responsibilities at the end of the year in order to more intensely pursue German, which is something I do with my wife (who is probably already at the CEFR level C1 with her German, whereas I'm maybe a late B1 at the best). I am getting toward the end of the Duolingo curriculum and will likely win its German "trophy" by January or February. My wife and I have been working through Olly Richards' "Short Stories in German" books. We finished the A2-B1 (beginner) book, and now we're on the B1-B2 (intermediate) book. It continues to be much easier than Chinese, but I often struggle with the order of words in German sentences. Which word goes before which word? Sometimes it's hard to tell. The need to memorize a word's tone (as in Chinese) has been replaced by the need to memorize the word's gender (German). My English brain has a difficult time referring to a girl (Mädchen) as an "it" (es) rather than "she" (sie). Or referring to inanimate objects (like a door) with gendered pronouns. Duolingo penalizes me for accidentally calling things like a door an "es." That's the English way, I guess!

One thing I've gotten through Duolingo German is the ability to practice output (here's a sentence in English. Now type it in German!). And so I've been able to get conversational in it really quickly (even if I often sound awkward). I've had very little such practice in Chinese. It's been 99% passive input. Yes, I can talk to Chinese friends (I had a fun exchange a couple weeks ago), but my speaking progress isn't as fast. I've gone the indirect route of internalizing tons of input and then mimicking it as best as I can.

Chinese, I think, will remain my primary language interest. I'll finish Duolingo, and then German will ebb along in the background until I visit Austria this July. 

I have my own nerdy chart to present for my Chinese studies. I've continued to measure an approximation of how many unknown words I encounter on each page of a book. X axis is number of books read. The gray line is book-by-book data, the orange line is an average of the last four books (a smoother curve), and the dotted line is a statistical "best fit" curve. I'm on my 29th book now.

So here goes 2023!

 

[Tomsima]

On 12/16/2022 at 7:28 PM, Woodford said:

My wife and I have been working through Olly Richards' "Short Stories in German" books. We finished the A2-B1 (beginner) book, and now we're on the B1-B2 (intermediate) book

 

This sounds like such a great thing to share together, nice to read about. My wife and I have divergent language interests - she has a background in Japanese whereas as I am interested in Cantonese (which is too easy and therefore boring to her as it were!) A shame we don't get to share this kind of thing together for sure

[dakonglong]

I am excited to start a new year of Chinese study!

 

Last year was an important one for me, because I finally achieved the milestone I set out to reach when I started learning Chinese, which was to read a book for pleasure. I actually read seven books last year, a combination of both translated books and native Chinese books. As a result, my vocabulary has also increased a lot. I have 9,000+ Pleco flashcards, but I suspect I know more words than that because the only new words I seem to encounter in the books I read are onomatopoeia (I had no idea there were so many words for “twitter”, “whoosh”, “sizzle” etc.), proper nouns, literary equivalents of words I already know or idioms. My reading speed has also increased a lot, to the point where reading feels enjoyable if I skip over some of the aforementioned words (specifically the onomatopoeia and literary equivalents). I still learn 15x new words every day, but I am increasingly finding them from other sources where I pickup more useful/technical/contemporary language.

 

My speaking, listening and writing also improved greatly last year. I have my tutor to thank for that. We have been meeting weekly for the past two years or so, and she has really helped with my fluency. I finally feel comfortable speaking Chinese. I used to panic when I needed to use Chinese in the real world because there were times where I just couldn’t understand what was being said, or I couldn’t figure out how to say exactly what I wanted to and I would lock up. Thanks to frequent practice, I have learned to work around what I don’t understand (ask the speaker to repeat themselves or slow down, use context clues to understand what I couldn’t catch). I have also learned to just speak without second guessing myself, even if I’m not 100% sure I’m saying things correctly. I have found that 99% of the time, whatever comes out is close enough to be understood, and in the end, that’s the point of the language, isn’t it?

 

In short, I finally feel like I have the “working proficiency” in Chinese that I always wanted, so my goal for next year is to switch up my study methods and actually use the language in different ways. Specifically, I want to:

 

• Translate a novel from English to Chinese. Some of my favorite foreign authors do this as a hobby/side business so I thought I would give it a try. I purchased an easy book that I have read several times to start with, “Sphere” by Michael Crichton.
• Publish a Chinese-language travel vlog for Chinese tourists who visit my city. My city has a large number of Chinese tourists, but I have noticed (through watching Chinese-language travel vlogs) that they all go to the same few super-touristy places. There are a bunch of hidden gems here that only someone who lives here would know about. I want to share those tips with Chinese tourists so that they can get a more intimate and unique experience when they visit. I also think it would be fun to learn to make youtube videos/edit content, etc. so I’m kind of killing two birds with one stone.

 

I will also continue to learn using the methods I have employed in the past (reading books, meeting with my tutor, writing articles, etc.) I will just try to add these two new methods in this year.

 

I’m excited to hear everyone else’s goals, maybe it will give me some other ideas.

 

Good luck with your Chinese in the new year!

[Moshen]

Quote

This sounds like such a great thing to share together, nice to read about. My wife and I have divergent language interests - she has a background in Japanese whereas as I am interested in Cantonese (which is too easy and therefore boring to her as it were!) A shame we don't get to share this kind of thing together for sure

 

I'm almost finished going through the six (thin) volumes of the BLCUP easy version of Journey to the West, and it's been fun every day going to my husband (native Chinese speaker, but not that well educated in Chinese) with questions about phrases I didn't understand.  Almost always they turn out to be idiomatic expressions that he'll look at and then laugh and take ten or fifteen minutes trying to explain it to me in English.  For example, the expression today was 三长两短 - it took a while for him to figure out an English equivalent but then he explained how one might use the expression.  He had no idea what the literal derivation was, but even so it was a fun discussion.

[PerpetualChange]

2022 was my worst year in 12 years of study, and I can't imagine I'll fare much better in 2023. 

I feel like I've got no wind in my sails, and no rudder. 

 

I guess I'll just keep looking for some way to advance in a way that's enjoyable. Maybe I'll find some media that finally clicks, or a novel I care about finishing. 

I guess that would be my goal - to be on the lookout for that spark. Otherwise, I think I'll be focusing on enjoying other hobbies this year. I've been making great progress with my guitar playing. I'd like to find some hobby that keeps me healthier, too, like maybe getting out on my bike more. Finally, I've gotten really interested in PC gaming again, thanks to buying a Steam Deck. Interested in checking out more indie game titles especially. 

[alantin]

I had a strong start last year, but it died down by June and I stopped recording my progress. I kept meeting with tutors one to three times a week though and my conversation skills have gotten pretty good. Though I feel I've squarely reached the intermediate plateau.. I feel like despite what ever time a put into Chinese, I don't really improve. But then again I began giving IT and security training in Mandarin to new Chinese employees at some point during which is definitely a milestone for me and it is not something I was able to do a year ago.

 

I don't think I'm going to set any hard goals for 2023 but instead just try to find something interesting to watch, listen, and read. Generally just keep using the language and expect that to help me improve. There is something exciting to expect next year though. I booked a month studying Chinese with LTL in Taipei in the spring and living with a host family.  I'm really looking forward to the experience and trying out living only in Mandarin for a month!

[matteo]

On 12/20/2022 at 9:18 AM, alantin said:

There is something exciting to expect next year though. I booked a month studying Chinese with LTL in Taipei in the spring and living with a host family.  I'm really looking forward to the experience and trying out living only in Mandarin for a month!

That sounds really interesting, it would be great if you could write up a report on the forum when you are back!!!

I would like to do something like that sooner or later, just have to find the time and save enough money ?

 

My Chinese studies are a bit on the backburner. I keep reading almost daily (I'm going through the Harry Potter series which I find relaxing enough not to be a chore) but that aside, I'm on a break from active study and tutoring. As a consequence, my listening as wells as my spoken Chinese have gotten considerably worse.

 

The proposition for the new year is to resume studying regularly with a focus on listening and speaking. I bought a couple of textbooks and I'll try to get back in the routine. 

The most important thing however is to find and retain motivation. A trip to China (or Taiwan) would be great for that. 

 

 

 

[alantin]

On 12/19/2022 at 11:20 PM, matteo said:

That sounds really interesting, it would be great if you could write up a report on the forum when you are back!!!

I would like to do something like that sooner or later, just have to find the time and save enough money ?

 

My Chinese studies are a bit on the backburner. I keep reading almost daily (I'm going through the Harry Potter series which I find relaxing enough not to be a chore) but that aside, I'm on a break from active study and tutoring. As a consequence, my listening as wells as my spoken Chinese have gotten considerably worse.

 

The proposition for the new year is to resume studying regularly with a focus on listening and speaking. I bought a couple of textbooks and I'll try to get back in the routine. 

The most important thing however is to find and retain motivation. A trip to China (or Taiwan) would be great for that. 

 

I'm sure I will! I'm also considering some kind of a travel vlog for it, but I'll see if I have the energy for that.

 

This is actually something I was dreaming of back in 2020 for the next year when then pandemic would be over and my original plan was to go to Shanghai as our company has an office there and it would probably be possible to somehow combine working and studying there for a month or two. But that didn't exactly go like that and for reasons, I've actually skipped quite a lot of holidays over the last two years. I've also put some money aside for this so when Taiwan announced it was opening up and there was no end in sight for the travel restrictions in China, I decided to change the plan to Taipei.

 

It was also easier to convince the missus about me going alone to Taiwan even with the whole Pelosi and the aftermath ordeal than about Shanghai after last April and everything that has been going on since... Shanghai hasn't really felt appealing for me either for a while now... Maybe some time in the end of the next year it will again.

 

I really wanted to do something awesome just for me to mark the end of the pandemic and to give my Chinese studies a boost. I'm looking forward to filling blanks in my speaking and interaction skills, since the vast majority of my study has been in front of a computer during the pandemic and there are a lot of things that you don't learn from talking with tutors online. I think those are quite realistic expectations for a month long trip, while it isn't very long when thinking about the whole scope of one's language studies over several years. On the other hand, it by a conservative estimation I'm expecting to get about the same amount of hours being exposed to the language in that one month as I did during my most intensive three or four months of study this year! So I'm definitely going to have to come up with something to measure progress before and after.

 

I was thinking about taking some HSK practice tests before and after, doing some videos videos talking in mandarin, and to ask a tutor to make some kind of a subjective estimate before and after.

[Jan Finster]

On 12/19/2022 at 9:18 PM, alantin said:

There is something exciting to expect next year though. I booked a month studying Chinese with LTL in Taipei in the spring

 

Great. Looking forward to your report 

 

What kind of family are you living with? (I ask since you are, just like me, not a spring chicken any longer) ?

 

How good are you with traditional characters? When I was in Taiwan, the inability to read anything (even in coffee shops) was a bit of a downer.

 

 

[Moshen]

I feel like I made a lot of progress with Chinese in 2022.  I don't track any numbers - not vocabulary, not reading speed, nothing.  (in almost everything I do, I go for quality rather than quantity.)

 

In 2022, after reading a couple of posts here, I focused on graded readers, starting with some really easy ones (Mandarin Companion, eg), progressing to some that seemed like they should have been easy but weren't (the Level 1 10-volume series of folktales from BLCUP) and then progressing to the point where I could understand so much more without looking things up.  This was due to a combination of knowing more words that had been reinforced through reading and being more comfortable guessing words or going on without understanding every single word.

 

In the Level 2 BLCUP of the 4 classic Chinese novels, I found Dream of the Red Chamber difficult and not that interesting because I don't feel it was a good adaptation.  Too many characters and too much of the original story line left out so that it was hard to follow.  But the Journey to the West edition at that same level has been extremely enjoyable and a relatively easy read for me.  It's really reading!  Not studying, not struggling through a text.

 

In 2023, I plan to go on to the Level 2 Outlaws of the March and Three Kingdoms as well as to catch up on The Chairman's Bao, which I've neglected for the last 6 months.  Beyond that, I'm not sure.  Maybe I'll finish the HSK 5 course, which I stopped one-third of the way through.  Or maybe I'll find some harder but still not too hard graded readers.  There's a Level 3 for BLCUP graded readers, but the topics there don't interest me much.

 

In any case, I'm going to continue to focus on reading improvement.

 

If China gets over its virus surge and lets in international travelers later in the year, I guess we'll go there for a visit.  My husband has a court case (inheritance dispute) that has been suspended (it seems) since the start of the pandemic in 2020...

[alantin]

On 12/20/2022 at 3:08 PM, Jan Finster said:

What kind of family are you living with? (I ask since you are, just like me, not a spring chicken any longer) ?

 

Thanks... Actually, I haven't heard anything from them yet regarding the host family, but I expect they've had other non-spring-chickens before. They had an "on-boarding form" where they asked about my language level, expectations, and about my hopes for the host family, in which I brought this up and wrote that I preferably would hope them to be about my own age or older and preferably with kids. I imagine it would be pretty awkward living with a childless couple younger than me. Or a couple with a baby... ? I guess my main hope is that they talk a lot! ?

 

On 12/20/2022 at 3:08 PM, Jan Finster said:

How good are you with traditional characters? When I was in Taiwan, the inability to read anything (even in coffee shops) was a bit of a downer.

 

I'm really glad you brought this up! Thank you!

I began studying Chinese using the traditional characters because I though they would be easier to approach due to my history with Japanese, but after about half a year I switched over to simplified, because my main interests are on the mainland, and I've completely ignored the traditional characters since. And my reading Japanese sucks too, so I'm not really any good with the traditional...

 

I have a bit over two months before my trip, so I think I'm going to use that time to brush up!

[Woodford]

On 12/16/2022 at 5:59 AM, Jan Finster said:

I have made several attempts at reading books, but never finished one. Mostly because they were too hard or too boring.

 I can actually relate to this feeling. No matter how much I improve, reading something in Chinese is always more awkward than reading something in English.

 

When I see a page of English text (as someone else on this forum once commented), my brain automatically processes it. It's such a passive and natural process that I can't help but to understand it automatically! But Chinese text always requires an active effort. I never feel like I've gotten to the point where I've gotten good "enough." 

 

On 12/16/2022 at 2:43 PM, Tomsima said:

she has a background in Japanese whereas as I am interested in Cantonese (which is too easy and therefore boring to her as it were!)

 

Is that because her native language is Mandarin? I've always wondered if an English speaker learning German feels similar to a Mandarin speaker learning Cantonese. So many of the words are similar, or even identical. To me, German and English feel like different subdialects of the same language (even though they're mutually unintelligible, of course). 

If I had an infinite amount of time, I would find the study of both Japanese and Cantonese to be extremely interesting. From what I've seen of them, they seem to be much harder than Mandarin. But maybe that's just me! I've spent so much time on Mandarin that now it feels "normal," and the other languages look unfamiliar and intimidating.

Another interesting aspect is that where I come from in the USA, the earlier waves of immigrants consisted of Cantonese speakers. When someone would attempt to use Mandarin in a Chinese restaurant, the waiter would promptly say, "I don't speak Mandarin!" That was a common occurrence.

[Tomsima]

I presume so - she is a native speaker of Mandarin, both in its 普通话 form and in a Southwestern Mandarin dialect. So where I might get excited to find that 去 is pronounced ke in certain dialects, following older rules of pronunciation, she will often wonder why this is so interesting to me! I would say learning Cantonese is about the same difficulty as what I remember Mandarin being like. But the difference is I hold that opinion with Mandarin under my belt already, as it were. I think if I were studying Cantonese without any Chinese before, it would surely be much harder than Mandarin.

[Tomsima]

My goals for 2023:

 

1) Make it to and finish Intermediate Cantonese vol. 2 in the Sidney Lau series. 

 

2) Apply for a formal programme in phonetics. I am enjoying lecturing here and there in applied linguistics these days, and once you get me started on real world tone contours I just can't stop. I feel like its about time I got something more formal to build on this interest (or, dare I say, skill) so putting this rather vague goal into writing to see what happens.

[pon00050]

I will join the party.

 

My goals for 2023:

1. Continue learning the Chinese characters "deeply" using the Outlier Dictionary of Chinese characters and Skritter.

I already started this routine. As per the lessons from the Atomic Habits, I intend on keeping the daily quota of new characters very minimum.

I hate spending more time on getting the learning materials ready. I want to quickly pick up the next words or expressions that I am interested in and move on.

2. Continue watching videos from 小Lin说 and extracting vocabs.

Previously I did something similar, "without" the focus on actually understanding each new word. I was more into the action of just doing the routine.

This time around, I am making sure to listen to the whole thing sentence by sentence and really get all the words that I can from the video.

Similar to the previous goal, I also intend on keeping it minimal but fun.

 

Another advice and reminder for both myself and others is "do not break the chain". 

Make sure you do the learning everyday, at least a little.

 

Lastly, I purchased a book this year. It's written completely in Chinese.

I'd like to be able to casually read it one day. "One day" isn't going to get me started.

So, after some time, I'd like to also add the habit of reading 1 page of this book everyday.

 

[KupGriye]

2023 will be a monumental year in my Chinese journey. I am an undergraduate Law student from Israel. In September 2023 I will go on exchange to Tsinghua University. My aim is to successfully take courses in Chinese with the regular students, instead of taking English language courses. That cultural and social experience is a dream come true for me. Therefore, I divide 2023 to two parts: 

 

January to September - do everything I can to reach the level I need. For me, That means just continue reading novels and follow tv shows without subtitles. I do also plan to begin some speaking practice with a native tutor, maybe talking about academic articles (if I'm not too lazy).

 

September to January 2024 - Survive in China. Pass or Barely pass the exams. Have Chinese friends. Immerse in Chinese culture. Squeeze every bit of progress I can in that semester (in terms of Chinese level, of course. I don't care for law).

 

Also on my radar for technical purposes is passing HSK 6 in March here in Israel. I could pass right now, but unfortunately In Israel we still have the paper test that requires handwriting, A skill that I never fully had and What I had I didn't maintain. lucky for me, learning how to write characters that you already recognise in your sleep is much, much easier than the opposite. Also, the fact that I am continually exposed to the characters should make retention much easier.

 

Wishing all of us a fruitful 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flickserve]

On 12/21/2022 at 7:07 AM, Tomsima said:

I think if I were studying Cantonese without any Chinese before, it would surely be much harder than Mandarin

I study Mandarin and can use Cantonese in daily life. I find the recognising characters rather straightforward. But honestly, I really think mandarin is so hard with many different words sounding the same because of only four tones. 

[markpete]

Hello, all! Sharing my goals for 2023:

 

The most important goal for me is to be able to have conversations with people.  My weak areas are listening skills, vocabulary, and production (speed and correctness using appropriate vocabulary).  I really tried to emphasize listening and conversation practice last year. I did see some improvement, but nothing amazing (to be expected, since I'm somewhat limited in the time I can devote to Chinese - about an hour a day at most).

 

This coming year, I will try focusing much more on reading. The idea is to make studying feel more rewarding and feel like a bit less of a grind. I also think that _maybe_  this will help not just my reading skills, but also my listening skills. My hypothesis is that if I increase the number of words and grammar structures I'm exposed to, as well as increasing the total number of exposures to each word and to each grammar structure, this could help my skills all around. So I want to test that hypothesis.

 

Plan started December 11, 2022.

 

Goals for reading and listening:

·       1.5 hours per week of conversation (e.g., meetups or lessons) or focused listening.

·       25 minutes of reading per day

·       At least 100 minutes of reading over past five days on at least 80% of days (to make sure I'm consistent and don't get too far behind).

·       Read 你的名字 (light novel based on the movie).

 

Goals for vocabulary:

·       1000 new high-frequency or useful words and phrases.

o   When to learn a word? When it’s in the top 5,000 words, on the HSK or TOCFL lists, appears at least 5 times in a given reading, or will be useful in my conversations.

·       Up to date on flash cards 90% of days.

 

Goal for supporting work:

·       90 minutes per week of supporting work (e.g., preparing study materials).

·       No Quora / Imgur / Reddit / IG 90% of days (general time sucks that reduce time I have for anything, including Chinese).

[Jan Finster]

On 12/20/2022 at 7:51 PM, alantin said:

Or a couple with a baby...

 

Well, at least you get to master the baby talk ?

 

On 12/20/2022 at 7:51 PM, alantin said:

I guess my main hope is that they talk a lot!

 

I wonder what the arrangements are with those "families". Can they still do their thing (see friends, go to gym, spend all night on their smartphone ? or are they "supposed" to "entertain you" and have you join events (going out, seeing friends, etc)? I am really curious what you will report (?)

 

On 12/23/2022 at 10:27 AM, KupGriye said:

I could pass right now, but unfortunately In Israel we still have the paper test that requires handwriting, A skill that I never fully had and What I had I didn't maintain. lucky for me, learning how to write characters that you already recognise in your sleep is much, much easier than the opposite.

That leaves room for hope. So, you are confident to get to learn to write all those characters until March?

Is there a time limit for writing? (people always say that yu have to be able to read fast; do you also have to be able to write fast?)