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United Kingdom flagArthur 王昊烨
Learning Chinese: My current approach // 4 month update

Hello everyone (大家好!）,

 

So it's been four months and Chinese is awesome! I've reset my goals and am now aiming for HSK5 at the end of December this year (starting in February of the same year).

 

A few people have asked so here are my latest rough notes on my approach to date - tips and pointers are hugely welcome (I'm making this up as I go along!)!

 

For context I'm currently taking a year out to travel through Asia so my approach is super intense (between 4 - 5 hours per day of self guided study).

 

N.B., I've tidied them up a bit but these are still my private notes so super sorry if things aren't clear/complete. Please do PM me if you have any questions or thoughts! I will write something more comprehensive later this year.

 

N.B., I'm currently reviewing input, process and output (progress) every three months so CYCLE 1 refers to the first three months of learning. I'm just coming to the end of the first month of CYCLE 2. This approach was written at the end of CYCLE 1 and is what I'm following now.

 

Good luck and stick with it - if 1.5 billion people can do it so can you(/I)!

 

Arthur 

 

// TIME ALLOCATION OVERVIEW

 

CYCLE                C1        C2       C2@5h

Speaking            35%     30%    90m

Listening *

Reading                         20%    60m

Writing                          10%    30m

Pronunc.             5%      5%     15m

Vocab.                60%*   30%   90m

Grammar                       5%     15m

 

At 5h/d >> 5% = 15m

* Absorbs excess time in event of no speaking

 

————————————————————————

 

// Speaking

 

- iTalki lessons (60 mins)

    - 4 teachers: 2 formal, 2 informal - each one male, one female, one northern, one southern

    - Formal lessons following two different text books (one with each formal teacher)

    - Set thematic conversation topics for informal lessons (keep every lesson challenging)

- Talk to self / think in Chinese 

 

CYCLE 1: 

- 1hr formal and 1hr informal lessons each day

 

CYCLE 2:

- 1hr formal and 1/2 hr informal lessons each day

- Begin to play ambient sound (e.g., busy road intersection) in background of lessons to intentionally degrade audio quality 

 

// Listening

 

- Audio books (Harry Potter, used in conjunction with books on Kindle)

- Spotify - Music, playlists and songs whilst traveling

- Podcasts

     - http://www.chinesepod.com/ - Guided Chinese lessons and conversations

     - http://popupchinese.com/ - As for ChinesePod but „grittier“ Chinese

- Youku - http://www.youku.com/ - Chinese YouTube with TV shows

- Other tools: Sohu, Fluent U (not tried these yet)

 

CYCLE 1:

x Listen to PopupChinese pod casts on busses / down time

x Minimal explicit focus otherwise except for in lessons

 

CYCLE 2:

o No explicit focus unless less than 1.5hrs of iTalki lessons booked for the day

o In China - traveling one month, conversations with locals (be brave Arthur!)

o Listen to Harry Potter E-Books following the text in the book

o Listen to PopupChinese on busses / down time

 

// Reading

 

http://chinesereadingpractice.com/

http://readchinese.nflc.org/

http://www.kindle114.com/

http://language.globaltimes.cn/

 

CYCLE 1:

x Minimal explicit focus on reading beyond Skritter

 

CYCLE 2:

o Complete Harry Potter vol. 1 on Kindle

o Complete Harry Potter vol. 2 on Kindle

o Complete Harry Potter vol. 3 on Kindle

 

(Out of space... TBC in first comment!)

Comments · 7

1

I was wondering how can your Chinese is so good just after 4 monthes study. Now it explained every thing. I'm so amazed that you could work it out by yourself. I think it's useful for all the students who are learning a new language. And I'm also very happy to be the one of the teachers to help you on your learning journey and I'm willing to help you more if you wish. I have a wechat( Chinese whatsup) group which I invited some of my students who has wechat to join the group, and I will have one group wechat class once a week. This program is free for all my current students for them to practice Chinese together. If you are interested please feel free to let me know your wechat number.

1

Thanks Jason!

 

I've just finished month 4 (although month 1 was a bit of a soft start).

 

On trajectory (from a purely vocab learning point of view - which I know is only a small part of the story) I found the following table quite helpful:

 

HSK       New        Cumu.    CEFR

Level      Words     Total       equiv.
I            150         150        A1
II           300         450        A2
III          600        1050       B1
IV          1200       2250       B2
V            2500      4750       C1
VI          5,000+    9750+     C2

 

At the moment I'm aiming for the HSK V (or just under 4750 cumulative words) by December (so 10 months total study). Skritter tells me today I've just hit 1050 (so around HSK III) meaning I'm adding about 25 characters a day (with allowances for missing days etc...)

 

This might be too much of an ask; I think to date I've only managed on average around 8 - 10 new characters per/day.

 

This means I'll probably need to up the weighting of time on Skritter or re-manage my expectations in a months or so.

 

Hope that helps! I'll keep you posted.

 

Arthur

1

// Vocabulary

- Focus on Skritter (No Anki for Mandarin)

- Focus on tackling no more than 1 - 2 lists at a time to avoid fragmentation and loss of momentum

 

CYCLE 1 (2 - 4 h/d)
Build basic vocabulary (Skritter word lists)
   x Radicals [214]
   x Skritter 101
   x Glue words (custom list)
   x HSK 1
   x HSK 2
   x HSK 3

 

CYCLE 2 (2 h/d)
Use textbooks to build grammar thematically and support iTalki lessons with formal teachers (aim to maximize use of time in lessons)

 

FIRST:
   x New Practical Chinese Reader vol. 1
   x Short Term Spoken Chinese vol. 1

 

THEN:
   o New Practical Chinese Reader vol. 2
   o Short Term Spoken Chinese vol. 2

 

AND ALSO (one at a time):
   + HSK 4 + 1000 most common Chinese characters (to plug text book gaps)
   + HSK 5

1

// Writing

 

CYCLE 1:

x No explicit focus on writing beyond Skritter (strict stroke orders + trails)

 

CYCLE 2:

Handwrite (30m) then transcribe to iTalki (30m)

 

o TBC e.g.,

    - Work through HSK 1, 2 and 3 mock written papers
    - Write on themes from each chapter of NPCR

 

// Pronunciation

 

Use Anki record and replay voice facility to work on:

- Individual Pinyin pronunciation (full Pinyin deck)

- Multiple tone sounding (Tone pronunciation deck)

 

// Grammar

 

http://comet.cls.yale.edu/mandarin/content/grammar.htm - Good Mandarin Grammar
http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Main_Page

 

CYCLE 1:

x Picked up passively through iTalki teachers

 

CYCLE 2:

o TBC - need to find a grammar book with good exercises

0

如果我们学英文的速度也有这么快就好了，看来还是事在人为，恒心和毅力都很重要。向你学习！

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