The 2023 Aims and Objectives

[Guest realmayo]

No real advice but would love to know how you get on because I'll hopefully be in Taiwan later this year! Two things I've found useful: 1. If you are talking with someone and they unobtrusively repeat a word back to you, they're probably not confirming what you said, but are politely correcting your pronunciation, so it's good to listen hard to how they said that word back to you. 2. If you have a naturally charming face then no problems, but if you tend to look serious when nervous or concentrating on producing the right langauge sounds, then you might unintentionally be intimidating people when initiating new chat! In my experience easily remedied (though it sounds foolish) by making a proper effort to smile each time you are, say, ordering a coffee or whatever. But this perhaps applies only to bald, thuggish, middle-aged men such as myself.

[Jan Finster]

On 2/21/2023 at 2:17 AM, malazann said:

(P.S I'll be looking to move cities every few weeks, so am also open to suggestions on cities to stop by)

 

I really enjoyed Tainan's food and I love Kaohsiung. It is right at the waterfront, there is a metro, beaches, plenty of night markets and it is much cheaper than Taipei. It also has a creative/artsy vibe.

[becky82]

On 2/18/2023 at 11:08 PM, abcdefg said:

I wanted to pull it off with aplomb.

 

Today I learned a new word: aplomb (n.) self-confidence or assurance, especially when in a demanding situation.

[abcdefg]

I wonder how one would say that in Chinese. Anyone know?

[abcdefg]

On 2/20/2023 at 7:17 PM, malazann said:

If anyone has any tips/advice for me, please feel free to share them.

 

I agree with @Jan Finster, above. The south of the island has lots of charm. I felt more at home there than in Taipei. I found those smaller cities great for just wandering around instead of being too tightly focused on hitting the "must see" tourist attractions from the guide book. (Disclaimer: I only visited several times; never actually lived in Taiwan.)

[pon00050]

 

I broke the streak of learning characters using Skritter yesterday.

That makes the longest streak 85 days for me.

Of course, I have already restarted the routine and I am going to try to do it consistently after doing another existing habit, so that I perform the action automatically.

 

[querido]

I aim to start again.

Previous materials/methods became crazily overcomplicated. Can't repeat that. 

Intend to switch to mostly listening and reading aloud and avoid "text handling" as much as possible, if you know what I mean.

Good luck everybody.

 

[Jan Finster]

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

I booked a month studying Chinese with LTL in Taipei in the spring and living with a host family

 

Any updates?

On 2/21/2023 at 2:17 AM, malazann said:

I'm lucky enough to get the opportunity to go to Taiwan next month for ~3 months (remote work)

 

Any updates?

[malazann]

On 3/19/2023 at 4:43 PM, Jan Finster said:

Any updates?

Been here for less than a week. I remember hearing a podcast on time, and how the secret to living longer is to have new experiences - it "tricks" you and expands your sense of lived life. My 4 days feels like the equivalent of my last 2 months back home. I think that says more about my deprecated social life though

I am currently in Taipei, got 1 more week of accommodation sorted and have started seeing apartments. I kind of forgot about the homestay idea tbh. I might have quick browse on homestay.com (someone mentioned the site to me). 

I love Taipei though. Taiwanese people are soooo friendly. I am having more success than I thought with using my mandarin in real-life. Went to the president's palace and a volunteer talked to me for 30 minutes in the room with Taiwan milestone pictures (taiwan through the decades). 

Went to a dope manga store and the clerk introduced me to Tawainese manga artists and her favourites. Another long convo. 

I can't be happier with my decision to come here. I am just gonna focus on learning through osmosis for now

[Guest realmayo]

Very cool. I am going to / moving to Taipei in June - interested to hear how you get on with apartment-hunting.

[malazann]

On 3/21/2023 at 10:52 PM, realmayo said:

Very cool. I am going to / moving to Taipei in June - interested to hear how you get on with apartment-hunting.

I am only here for a few months, so I wasn't too picky. I joined some facebook groups (taipei rent, 臺北租房 should give you several active groups), and then just messaged a few people and it was fairly painless

If you are going to be here for more than a few months, I'd definitely suggest just getting accommodation for the first week and scrolling through these facebook groups to get an idea of the renting landscape before you arrive. maybe even arrange some inspections, if you have an idea of where you want to live (its a big city)

Alternatively you can of course use 591, a good option if you have a rough idea of what you are looking for. I was having easy success on facebook so I never turned to it. 

sidenote: facebook is pretty damn popular here. 

[Woodford]

The first quarter of 2023 is already coming to a close!

As I've discussed elsewhere, I've abandoned my SRS habit (except for around 5-10 "handwriting" cards per day, which takes around 2-3 minutes). I listened to an interesting YouTube video from a Japanese learner who also quit SRS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3sqHvdpBwM&t=2239s). He talked about how it became an obsession for him, and it took over 2 hours every day to finish all his reviews. He quickly came to believe a few false ideas: That SRS was like a "safe" where he could lock away all his memories and automatically preserve them for free; that if he didn't add a new word to his SRS deck, then he would certainly forget it; and over time, he could learn all of the Japanese words that exist--which is really an absurdly impossible goal that we don't even approach in our own native languages.

 

He finally realized that these ideas were hurting his progress in the language, and he eliminated his entire deck. He did suggest more helpful approaches to SRS, using the metaphor of launching a spacecraft into orbit. Once you get an object up in the sky, it will effortlessly go around the earth and stay up there. So he suggested deleting SRS cards once they're "in orbit" (for example, the interval is a year or longer). If you don't naturally encounter a word in a whole year of reading or listening, is it worth investing a bunch of effort to remember it? Not really.

 

So lately, I've just been reading novels without the formal process of flashcard review. I think things are coming along nicely. These days, it's less about building up vocabulary and more about building confidence and familiarity with the language. I've also practiced a bit of content with traditional characters, and while I'm not quite as confident with those as I am with the simplified ones, I can say that I can pretty much read traditional writing now. It all really comes down to learning to recognize around 200-300 characters that are common and look nothing like their simplified counterparts. Context helps a lot in guessing words where you can't comfortably identify a character.

I'm really focusing more on listening than I ever have before, and doing more "intermediate" content (HSK 4-6). My favorite YouTube teacher is Liao Dan, who produces these really long videos where she talks a lot about basic topics. I'm in an odd place where my listening comprehension for that kind of stuff is about 100%, but once I move beyond there and listen to native-level content, things get more frustrating. The expanded vocabulary, the slang, the insider references to Chinese culture, the accents, the talking speed, laughing, interrupting, multiple people talking at once, etc., can really make things difficult. At worst, I can't follow along much at all. At best, my comprehension is spotty and not quite where I want it to be. But I've experienced the truth that others have pointed out: If you just relax and allow for ambiguity/not needing to understand everything, it's a better experience.

[dakonglong]

On 3/31/2023 at 3:05 PM, Woodford said:

So lately, I've just been reading novels without the formal process of flashcard review.

 

It's really impressive that you have made it to the point where this is possible!

 

With the benefit of hindsight, at what vocabulary level would you recommend making this transition and dropping flashcards?

 

If I recall correctly, your vocabulary is over 20k+ words. As of now, mine is only half that at around 10k, so I may still have a ways to go before I can do the same, but I want to make sure I choose the optimal point to transition.

 

On a related note, how did you learn so many words so quickly? I have been consistently learning 15 words a day for some time now, but that puts me at least 2 - 3 years out from your level. Did you speed up your daily acquisition as your vocabulary became larger? Or were you consistent over a longer period?

[Woodford]

On 3/31/2023 at 9:19 PM, dakonglong said:

With the benefit of hindsight, at what vocabulary level would you recommend making this transition and dropping flashcards?

 

I often wonder what it would have been like if I had never used flashcards at all! Because I can't go back and try again, I can't be sure. I think the most important thing is consistent exposure to the language. I'm not using flashcards with German, and that might work well. I guess I'll find out!

I'd say that things start to hit a plateau after the first 12 or so books (a few thousand pages). After that, improvement became much slower, and that's maybe when a Chinese learner can shift to a different set of study techniques.

 

When I first started reading novels, I had the 5000 HSK (1-6) vocabulary words pretty much memorized. Then I read about 4 or 5 new pages each day (but I actually ended up reading anywhere from 12 to 20 pages, because I would review stuff I already read). In the beginning, I would encounter maybe an average of 6 unfamiliar words per page, which amounted to 24-30 words a day. My "half-life" was about 7 books. So after 7 books, I saw 3 new words on each page. Then by the time I had read 14 books, I was seeing 1.5 words. After 21 books, it was 0.75. After 28 books, it cut in half again. Anyway, you get the idea! As I continued, I read faster and faster, too. When I had more time on my hands, I could read 14-20 new pages in any given day (I stopped reviewing). So I kept a pretty constant intake of new words for a while. But eventually, vocabulary acquisition slowed way, way down. The remaining words were getting more and more rare, less useful, and few and far between. These days, I read a little more slowly. Maybe 8-10 pages a day (I have other things I have to do). So some days, I don't encounter unknown words at all. Sometimes one, sometimes two. But I imagine it's the same way in my native language! There are so many English words that I don't actually know, but I often don't feel compelled to stop and look them up. I can get the gist of the story anyway.
 

So I've been reading for three and a half years now (I think I'm on my 33rd native-level book overall). My flashcards (before I stopped reviewing them) got up to about 22,500. The growth of my deck was slowing down so much that I don't think it would ever quite reach 25,000 (unless I purposely read super obscure stuff or switched to classical Chinese, etc.) My actual vocabulary size is larger than the flashcard deck, but I have no way of counting that. Maybe 30,000 or more. Not sure!

I definitely got to the place where I was chasing a crazy goal of knowing all of (or...at least most of) the Chinese words. It was never going to happen. And my SRS review consisted of constantly battling a stubborn group of words that just wouldn't "stick" in my memory. That's when I really decided to stop. The majority of my effort was spent on remembering those difficult words. Then forgetting them. Then re-learning them. Then forgetting them. Then re-learning them. Endlessly.

[黄有光]

Wow. The last time I posted was in September of last year. Hard to believe it's been that long. (I've been away while I commit the majority of my study energy to learning Norwegian. I've been applying everything I learned about "how to learn" that I picked up from my Chinese studies and am pleased to say I have an estimated vocabulary of ~4000+ words after only five months of study. So woohoo for that!)

 

@Woodford Curious what your experience with 武侠 has been (if you have read any)? I understand that 金庸's novels are quite demanding in terms of the level of vocabulary they require.

 

Now that I dont' have the time or effort to focus on SRSing crazy amounts of Chinese vocabulary like I was doing last year, I've been focusing instead on simply exposing myself to the language as much as possible, with particular focus on reading and listening comprehension. I've started watching Heidi in Chinese (~80% comprehension), occasional children's stories on Youtube (~90% comprehension), and news broadcasts (~5% comprehension). I've also been reading a variety of books. I'm not too fussed about finishing the books, necessarily---although of course that's the ideal end goal---but as long as I'm reading at least a few pages per day, I'm happy with that. Back when I was cramming vocabulary, I was focusing predominantly on books that I had already read in English. Now, the training wheels are off. I'm reading 活着 and finding it surprisingly pleasurable! I find that I understand the vast majority of sentences. I've also experimented with reading 光晕：致远星的沦陷 (military science fiction originally published in English). In that case, I have already read the original English, but I was curious to see how well I'd handle a modern science fiction novel. I was shocked to find that I could read the story absolutely effortlessly. 

 

For a very, very long time now, I've been restricting my reading choices because I simply wasn't advanced enough to handle much, and that meant I was stuck reading stuff that I found boring (The Chronicles of Narnia), or had already read a million times before (Harry Potter), or was simply explicitly aimed at a young audience (The Giver). But now I'm comfortable enough with reading that I can finally branch out into new literature, and thanks to my intensive studying last year, I have the vocabulary to support that, too. I'm almost halfway done with 活着 and I'm already thinking about picking up 我们仨 after. And I'm actually finding 致远星的沦陷 unexpectedly delightful to read in Chinese, so I'm probably going to continue plugging away at that. I know I probably still don't have the vocabulary to handle high literature yet, so my reading choices are still somewhat limited, but there's so much available to me now that I don't think I'll miss it. I'm going to keep reading and picking up vocabulary a bit more passively (recent additions have been 沦陷，怀孕，子宫，药流，流产，赌博) and working on my listening comprehension. I think when I bring the full force of my attention back to Chinese in a few years, I'll be astounded at how much more comfortable with the language I'll be.

[Woodford]

On 4/10/2023 at 2:26 AM, 黄有光 said:

@Woodford Curious what your experience with 武侠 has been (if you have read any)? I understand that 金庸's novels are quite demanding in terms of the level of vocabulary they require.

 

I purchased a few of his books a while back, and they continue to sit on my bookshelf. I have maybe around 40-50 Chinese books and have read the majority of them, but I have yet to get to the Jin Yong ones. From what I can see, his books are indeed difficult to read.

I, too, started with 活着 and then attempted 我们仨 as my second book. I found it extremely difficult at the time. In the first half of the book, I would often have to consult the dictionary around 10-12 times on each page, and even then, I couldn't understand the story at times. I often wonder what it would feel like if I returned to the book now and read it again. My third book was Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem, which was heavy on the vocabulary, but readable enough. Then Lu Yao's "Life," which was nice and easy (similar to 活着, but slightly harder), and then the Chinese translation of Keigo Higashino's "Secrets of the Namiya General Store." By that time, I was feeling pretty good about myself, and believed I had arrived. Then I was just about defeated by Mai Jia's "Decoded" (Book #6) and then Wang Xiaobo's "Golden Age" (Book #7). Wang's book was my last terrible experience, and reading got easier after that.

[黄有光]

@Woodford Hmm, if that's the case, maybe I'll try reading 许三观卖血记 next instead? The summary makes it sound deathly boring, but I thought the same thing about 活着 before I started reading it, and 活着 has turned out to be deeply meaningful and a joy to read. So maybe I will go into 许三观卖血记 with an open mind.

 

I'm not fussed about aggressively laddering my books, though. I think at this stage I prefer to read books that are pretty comfortable for me. If I'm able to tackle more and more advanced books as a result of that, that'll just be a cool bonus.

[Guest realmayo]

许三观卖血记 is a lovely book! Gentle-paced, quite sweet.

[Woodford]

On 4/11/2023 at 2:08 AM, 黄有光 said:

maybe I'll try reading 许三观卖血记 next instead?

I haven't read that one yet, but from my experience, you can never go wrong with Yu Hua! Other than 活着, I have read his collection of short stories (entitled "我没有自己的名字," which is actually the title of one of those short stories). Over the past couple of years, I've been trying to stretch my reading skills and read a large variety of more difficult books, so I haven't revisited him lately.

[Dr Mack Rettosy]

On 4/11/2023 at 2:08 AM, 黄有光 said:

maybe I'll try reading 许三观卖血记

 

I highly recommend 许三观卖血记. I found it easier than 活着 and just as compelling.