Well right now I’m feeling pretty happy with myself. I’ve been at least doing something everyday in terms of language progress, again haven’t spent as much time as I would like [which probably can never happen unless I had the whole day free and the focus to just study] but its also not something to turn your nose up at. [wait. . .who even uses that pharse anymore? i don't think i've ever even spoken those words in real life before. . .don't you love the differences between written and spoken language? lol]
I’ve been going through my Chinese characters list pretty frequently for the past couple of days, and am up to about the 300 character mark. Its weird, even though these 300 only scratch the surface of the total that “needs” to be learned to be considered literate in Chinese, I feel like I can read a large chunk of the characters I run into (on websites and such). This may be because I’m studying down a list by frequency, so of course the one’s at the top of the list are going to be everywhere, but also I think I’m seeing characters that I may not necessarily know but am familiar with or have familiar pieces so I am comfortable with them. Regardless it feels pretty good. I’m gonna definitely keep this up. . .only 2,700 more to go! [or 10x times what I’ve done to go! haha].
I’ve also been listening to my Chinese podcasts almost everyday. These are really a god send, whenever I lay down, am bored, or have downtown time I can pop in the ipod and just go through the more difficult Elementary lessons that I’m on. And even when I may be doing something else I can go through the newbie lessons and still pick up lots of stuff as well as keep the flow of the language going mentally. Pretty awesome~
Korean I’ve been doing a pretty good job keeping up with too. I listen to the easy beginner and newbie KoreanClass101 podcasts while I’m “working” in the morning [shouldn’t even call it that since I just talk to the kids really]. And I’ve even listened to some of the fairly easy intermediate lessons on my ipod.
On top of this I finally got back to doing my SRS reps in Mnemosyne, which contains a lot of my novel Korean vocab. This is a really big deal since I had a horrendously HUGE hiatus in doing them, about the whole of my last semester in college (the last 4 and half months) I neglected my poor Korean SRS and the damage was visible when I first looked at the stats (about 1,100 scheduled words which should ideally be in the 10’s, in addition there were about 300 unmemorized words). I made a huge dent in this number over the past few days and somehow still remember or have a good hint at a vast majority of the words. Although at times I feel it is very tedious, even worse than regular flash cards, I guess my recollection of the words attest to the power of SRS. I’ll keep adding new entries to this as I continue to catch up.
And I’ve been consistently watching Korean programs to top of my nights. I’m not really doing much studying of them, but its good to practice comprehension and what I know and a good source of entries into Mnemo. Korean shows are really entertaining(*note to self* remember to include some fav shows in Korean language approach) I really should probably try to start watching more Chinese programs though.
Lastly, I’ve even found time to learn some Arabic! It just some of the alphabet and a few vowels, but it’s a big start. There are a few, about 5, lessons on Youtube that are done by a terrific teacher here. The way he set up the lessons is really just impressive and I found myself picking up what he said rather easily. I went through all his lessons, and now I can proudly say I can read about 12 Arabic consonants, a few vowels, and a handful of words. Plus he explained the formation of the script very well, I finally understand what was previously a complicated mess to me. It was cool too because all the things taught in the vids built on each other.
Reminds me that youtube is a great general learning resource and people now have any information they want literally just a few buttons away! I will search on there for more good lessons and absorb as much as I can for sure~
Anyway, next up. . . my korean language approach!
Reminder:
- Abuse Youtube!
- Watch more Chinese programs
- Write some entries in a target language?
- Keep it up!
[More]
I’ve been going through my Chinese characters list pretty frequently for the past couple of days, and am up to about the 300 character mark. Its weird, even though these 300 only scratch the surface of the total that “needs” to be learned to be considered literate in Chinese, I feel like I can read a large chunk of the characters I run into (on websites and such). This may be because I’m studying down a list by frequency, so of course the one’s at the top of the list are going to be everywhere, but also I think I’m seeing characters that I may not necessarily know but am familiar with or have familiar pieces so I am comfortable with them. Regardless it feels pretty good. I’m gonna definitely keep this up. . .only 2,700 more to go! [or 10x times what I’ve done to go! haha].
I’ve also been listening to my Chinese podcasts almost everyday. These are really a god send, whenever I lay down, am bored, or have downtown time I can pop in the ipod and just go through the more difficult Elementary lessons that I’m on. And even when I may be doing something else I can go through the newbie lessons and still pick up lots of stuff as well as keep the flow of the language going mentally. Pretty awesome~
Korean I’ve been doing a pretty good job keeping up with too. I listen to the easy beginner and newbie KoreanClass101 podcasts while I’m “working” in the morning [shouldn’t even call it that since I just talk to the kids really]. And I’ve even listened to some of the fairly easy intermediate lessons on my ipod.
On top of this I finally got back to doing my SRS reps in Mnemosyne, which contains a lot of my novel Korean vocab. This is a really big deal since I had a horrendously HUGE hiatus in doing them, about the whole of my last semester in college (the last 4 and half months) I neglected my poor Korean SRS and the damage was visible when I first looked at the stats (about 1,100 scheduled words which should ideally be in the 10’s, in addition there were about 300 unmemorized words). I made a huge dent in this number over the past few days and somehow still remember or have a good hint at a vast majority of the words. Although at times I feel it is very tedious, even worse than regular flash cards, I guess my recollection of the words attest to the power of SRS. I’ll keep adding new entries to this as I continue to catch up.
And I’ve been consistently watching Korean programs to top of my nights. I’m not really doing much studying of them, but its good to practice comprehension and what I know and a good source of entries into Mnemo. Korean shows are really entertaining(*note to self* remember to include some fav shows in Korean language approach) I really should probably try to start watching more Chinese programs though.
Lastly, I’ve even found time to learn some Arabic! It just some of the alphabet and a few vowels, but it’s a big start. There are a few, about 5, lessons on Youtube that are done by a terrific teacher here. The way he set up the lessons is really just impressive and I found myself picking up what he said rather easily. I went through all his lessons, and now I can proudly say I can read about 12 Arabic consonants, a few vowels, and a handful of words. Plus he explained the formation of the script very well, I finally understand what was previously a complicated mess to me. It was cool too because all the things taught in the vids built on each other.
Reminds me that youtube is a great general learning resource and people now have any information they want literally just a few buttons away! I will search on there for more good lessons and absorb as much as I can for sure~
Anyway, next up. . . my korean language approach!
Reminder:
- Abuse Youtube!
- Watch more Chinese programs
- Write some entries in a target language?
- Keep it up!
I just re-read my last entry and I feel somewhat ashamed at the amount of time I’ve been able to put into LangStudy, even Mandarin which is supposed to be my main language right now). So many things to think about, plan out, arrange, put in action. . .its killing my available time (working early in the morning and taking a 2hr nap doesn’t help much either -_-). . .I know, I know, same complaints. . .hopefully by the time I write the next entry I will be more proud of myself ^_^.
Anyway, on to the focus of this entry, my Mandarin Chinese Approach!!
I think I will do these language approach entries as a series of my own answers to good questions I would like to be reminded of when I look back and ask myself “Why and how did I spend so much time learning this language?”. My questions to answer for each language I write up will be: 1) Why *insert language here*?, 2) How did you get started?, 3)What’s the hardest part so far?, 4)What are your current study methods and goals?
1) Why Mandarin?
For Mandarin, the reason is pretty clear to me, and all it takes is to look around any urban development, (heck, even most suburbs now). . . yes, that’s right, Chinese people are EVERYWHERE! (no surprise considering the population is going 1.3billion strong). I’ve had a number of Chinese/Chinese speaking friends since middle school, even before I had any interest in languages or other cultures. I had heard of many Chinese traditions before I even cared for their meaning, loved Chinese food since forever, and thought every single Asian person I met was Chinese. Although the average Chinese individual my take offense to hearing some of these, it really speaks of the raw prolificacy of Chinese cultural influence. Looking back, I’m surprised I wasn’t studying Chinese since long ago. I guess this influence is what piqued my interest, and sparked one or two short rendezvous with the language in the past. Considering the vast number of Chinese I doubt I will ever be at a loss for native speakers to converse with, which is a definite plus.{A little aside on this note. I took a trip with a friend to Chinatown in NYC the other day, and was dumbstruck by the Cantonese-ness of the place. All I heard left and right were the “ah”s and “la”s ever present in Cantonese speech, and met a number of native Chinese that spoke NO ENGLISH at all ONLY CANTONESE!. There was even a rambunctious black traffic cop who said the expression “Fai di la! Fai di la!“ [快啲啦] (“hurry up!”) with ease as my friend and I crossed the street with an old Cantonese woman who gleefully repeated it back to him. Got me thinking maybe the vast number of Chinese speakers are not really the demographic I imagined them to be (in other words not Mandarin speakers). Maybe I should have taken up Cantonese instead??? I actually did for a little while, but didn’t know there was a difference between Cantonese and Mandarin back then.}
In the present I would also add that the awe that results when a westerner says he/she is fluent in Chinese , notoriously known for its mystique and difficulty, is a major motivator. The debated boom in China’s economy and business is another aspect acting as a motivator, it would be nice to be in a position to take advantage of this when the opportunity strikes. . . hopefully, I can learn this language well enough to do so.
And lastly, I will admit there is some interest in expanding my relationship options by about 0.7billion…gotta love the petite Chinese girl ( but you best get that whole Asian persuasion/yellow fever mess outta here, [though somewhat present haha] mine would be more like a global fever~).
*I use “Chinese” in these paragraphs referring to all Mandarin/Cantonese/other Chinese dialect speaking peoples/countries. I know better than to put it like this but unfortunately this is just how I think most of the time. Bear with me~
2) How did you get started?
I first started in high school from a friend who taught me some expressions, the only of which I can remember now is “where is the bathroom?” [廁所喺邊度呀?] (chi-suo hai-bin-do-ah?). But as you can see, her family were Cantonese speakers and I ended up not really getting into it then.
Regained a lust for Chinese again, this time Mandarin, about 8 months ago, and shortly after decided to study it quite seriously (or as serious as I can when time allows) and made it my primary study language replacing Korean.
3) What’s the hardest part so far?
So far the hardest part is reading. I simply don’t have enough characters under the belt to read in any logical form of the matter. That is one of the crux’s of this language, there is no alphabet, only unique individual characters, that if you don’t learn and recognize. . .well, then you can’t read very well my friend.
Of course making enough study time is really the hardest part, because with enough time and devoted study, the characters WILL become familiar and you WILL be able to read.
4) What are your current study methods and goals?
For Mandarin I’m trying to focus mainly on learning characters, like I said before you can’t do so much without knowing the characters. Characters build words, and words build the phrases. I’m not learning characters exclusively, but word acquisition and understanding moves a lot slower without them.
To learn characters I am going through “The most common Chinese Characters in order of frequency” from the website by Patrick Zein. I printed out the list in groups of 500 and am going straight down the list testing myself on the meaning and pinyin for each given the character (recognition). I then write the characters I can easily recognize on a separate paper, and practice strokes for each given the pinyin (production).I try to do about 20 new characters a day and review the list I already know frequently. I initially planned to input the list in an SRS, Anki, but found it almost useless and impossible to remember unless I have some exposure to the chars already. Since SRS’ing is mainly for long-term memory I will probably start putting chars in from the beginning of the list once I get to about 1,000 or so chars that I recognize.
This approach seems to be working pretty well, since I’m able to read more and more Chinese online, so if I keep up with it I should cover the 3,000 or so characters supposedly essential for literacy in a few months, maybe by summer.
Because I would feel like I am not really learning the language by only studying characters, at the same time, I have been listening to the “ChinesePod” pod casts. I think this is probably the single best Chinese learning resource out there, and has done a lot for my listening comprehension as well as pronunciation. If you are learning Chinese you should definitely get an account , it is very cheap monthly subscription.I listen to about 3 of their pods a day on my Ipod and try to just understand as much as possible the first time around. The 2nd time I just check to see if I picked up everything in the dialogue, by listening to it individually and seeing if there were any words I didn’t get. When I understand it all, I put a one star (rating) on the pod. The next time I eventually get to that pod I open up the PDF file for that lesson, containing the written dialogue, and enter the words that I don’t know from the lesson into Anki. I also copy down each sentence in the lesson in Chinese chars, pinyin, and English to later test my ability to reproduce them. Once this is done I put a 2 stars on the pod to show it is complete. After that its just a matter of coming across the lesson again and checking if I still understand and remember the sentences.
*Links to the resource websites i use can be found on the right under the language.
Anyway, I guess this sums up some of my thoughts on Mandarin. My two main study methods are just for the time being, and definitely subject to change. If I can think of other questions to ask myself I will edit and add them to this entry.
I think the most important thing to me for all of my languages is that they link me with people everywhere and in that way I become more linked with the world and what drives it at large. I think this will in return make me much more globally minded, if there is even such a thing, and appreciate our world and everything in it more profoundly. Mandarin is a great member in support of these ambitions
Reminder:
- This entry is only about now, write another entry for simple structured long-term method, 1-2yrs+ ahead and where want to be.
- In future entries make point of groupings (for example what am/will I be doing to progress Speaking, Listening, Writing, etc.)
I really need to make out time each day for language learning. It’s so important to me and I think it is such an important skill, regardless of how popular the language your learning is, yet the amount of time I spend actually studying is getting smaller and smaller as my responsibilities increase and my attempts at putting my life on a good track become more involving.
I just graduated from college and I’ve been trying to figure out how my career choice could involve learning languages or how knowing languages could be a major benefit (it always is, but I want it to be a focal point of my future career), I found what I thought was and still think is a pretty damn good way but my choice was kinda shutdown by the powers at be (parents...lol) and I am being pushed to focus on a different career path. . .never fear though I am still looking for ways around this~
Anyway, focusing on other things has left me/will leave me with little language study time, pushed to the very end of my day. I was hoping that I could jam 2hours of studying at this time, starting around 11pm/12pm every night, but there are a few other tasks my end of the day are devoted to (writing in my blogs for example, =D) and I’m also usually either tired and sleepy, hungry, or get caught up doing something else (browsing foreign websites, chatting with friends, watching foreign movies/tv, and catching up on my delicious favorites are the worst offenders though in a way are all related to learning ). On top of all this after I study or do w/e, I am left with only a few hours of sleep, which after, I need to wake up at 6am to teach online.
It’s actually not that bad...and a lot of what I do on my own has the languages I learn already embedded in it (passive learning) but my focused intensive studying (active learning) is very lacking. Maybe I’m complaining too much cuz if I organized and focused better I could probably find more than a few hours to study. . .but considering my division of languages and the time I WOULD LIKE to devote to them, specifically during the day, its highly insufficient in my eyes., thus why I need languages to be a central part of my future career.
Bleh, I‘ll figure it out I suppose~. . .and now I shall try to sit down and do an hour of Chinese characters before I pass out!! YahooOOOooo
Next Entry: My Mandarin Chinese approach! (including profile, answers to questions posted last entry, progress, dated goals, etc.)
Reminder:
- From TODAY ON 12am to 2am will be my “Language Time” (intensive/active), no if’s, but’s, and’s, or’s about it. . .once the clock hits 12 I stop everything and do language study of the day for two hours. If I can start earlier and get in 2hours before “Language Time” then I can do other things after the 2hours, otherwise I MUST get in my 2hours EVERYNIGHT! (passive doesn’t count for 2hour quota)
- Make Lang of day timetable
- Get other duties cleared out of the way as early as possible and use time to do LangStudy. If 2hour quota (active) is met, can move to next Lang in table. LangTime will always be used (if start early, must end within time period).
- Organize!!!
I just graduated from college and I’ve been trying to figure out how my career choice could involve learning languages or how knowing languages could be a major benefit (it always is, but I want it to be a focal point of my future career), I found what I thought was and still think is a pretty damn good way but my choice was kinda shutdown by the powers at be (parents...lol) and I am being pushed to focus on a different career path. . .never fear though I am still looking for ways around this~
Anyway, focusing on other things has left me/will leave me with little language study time, pushed to the very end of my day. I was hoping that I could jam 2hours of studying at this time, starting around 11pm/12pm every night, but there are a few other tasks my end of the day are devoted to (writing in my blogs for example, =D) and I’m also usually either tired and sleepy, hungry, or get caught up doing something else (browsing foreign websites, chatting with friends, watching foreign movies/tv, and catching up on my delicious favorites are the worst offenders though in a way are all related to learning ). On top of all this after I study or do w/e, I am left with only a few hours of sleep, which after, I need to wake up at 6am to teach online.
It’s actually not that bad...and a lot of what I do on my own has the languages I learn already embedded in it (passive learning) but my focused intensive studying (active learning) is very lacking. Maybe I’m complaining too much cuz if I organized and focused better I could probably find more than a few hours to study. . .but considering my division of languages and the time I WOULD LIKE to devote to them, specifically during the day, its highly insufficient in my eyes., thus why I need languages to be a central part of my future career.
Bleh, I‘ll figure it out I suppose~. . .and now I shall try to sit down and do an hour of Chinese characters before I pass out!! YahooOOOooo
Next Entry: My Mandarin Chinese approach! (including profile, answers to questions posted last entry, progress, dated goals, etc.)
Reminder:
- From TODAY ON 12am to 2am will be my “Language Time” (intensive/active), no if’s, but’s, and’s, or’s about it. . .once the clock hits 12 I stop everything and do language study of the day for two hours. If I can start earlier and get in 2hours before “Language Time” then I can do other things after the 2hours, otherwise I MUST get in my 2hours EVERYNIGHT! (passive doesn’t count for 2hour quota)
- Make Lang of day timetable
- Get other duties cleared out of the way as early as possible and use time to do LangStudy. If 2hour quota (active) is met, can move to next Lang in table. LangTime will always be used (if start early, must end within time period).
- Organize!!!
Happy New Year!
Ok, so I'm finally going to start writing in this blog, even though i set it up months ago. I have started writing 2 other blogs today as a new, kind of change of life thing that i decided i would do on the New Year. This blog is for the linguaphile part of me.
The title of the blog explains it all "A personal journal of my triumphs, failures, and overall struggle with the languages I wish i could speak. . .". I am absolutly obsessed with learning languages and have been doing so for quite a while now. This is an attempt to make myself more productive and chronicle my long road to fluency.
My language "lovers" are Korean, Chinese, Hindi, French, Arabic, and Japanese (probably more will come hehe). This is in order of they're relative importance to me, but i spend considerable time on each.
Because i am quite tired right now, and really need to sleep. . .i will explain how i have come to love languages, why they are important to me, and why i want to learn as well as my basic thoughts on each of the aforementioned langauges in the next entry. (maybe including my approach for each language, like a lanuage profile, but we'll see how long that takes)
Reminders:
- This blog is mostly for language learning progress and anything in my life language related (you could probably say that includes everything couldn't ya? lol).
- What I have done/studied/learned between each post
-My methods of study and resources ( critically analyze each - what found difficult and what learned from it)
- Language interactions, language in use, voice recordings, exemplary linguists. . .etc.
[More]
Ok, so I'm finally going to start writing in this blog, even though i set it up months ago. I have started writing 2 other blogs today as a new, kind of change of life thing that i decided i would do on the New Year. This blog is for the linguaphile part of me.
The title of the blog explains it all "A personal journal of my triumphs, failures, and overall struggle with the languages I wish i could speak. . .". I am absolutly obsessed with learning languages and have been doing so for quite a while now. This is an attempt to make myself more productive and chronicle my long road to fluency.
My language "lovers" are Korean, Chinese, Hindi, French, Arabic, and Japanese (probably more will come hehe). This is in order of they're relative importance to me, but i spend considerable time on each.
Because i am quite tired right now, and really need to sleep. . .i will explain how i have come to love languages, why they are important to me, and why i want to learn as well as my basic thoughts on each of the aforementioned langauges in the next entry. (maybe including my approach for each language, like a lanuage profile, but we'll see how long that takes)
Reminders:
- This blog is mostly for language learning progress and anything in my life language related (you could probably say that includes everything couldn't ya? lol).
- What I have done/studied/learned between each post
-My methods of study and resources ( critically analyze each - what found difficult and what learned from it)
- Language interactions, language in use, voice recordings, exemplary linguists. . .etc.
