HSK 0 to HSK6 -> 1 month Challenges to learning mandarin

Today's hours: 1.5

LOL I l looked up HSK 3 600 words so a tonne more, but that's not the issue.. writing is!!! I only know maybe 5 characters off by heart    We'll see. Lets focus on two ad see how far I ge this week first. I may have to change my game plan. Regurgitating and cramming, and exam technique is easy for 1 and 2, but HSK 3 seems to be a different beast, so how to best get through 1 and 2 fast and yet benefit 3... mmm. I only have 9 days before payment deadline so I need to strategise.

1. 30 minutes  Did Hello Chinese view and two sections
2. 30 minutes Some vocab drills especially if I want to get those 600 in...
3. 30 minutes Actual character practice to remember and not just mindlessly copying 

Today's hours -> 2.8

Well I've finally caught up updating so log is now current  After yesterday's good mock tests, I am wondering if I cant even just go for HSK 3? More research needs to be done, regardless I registered for it... I'll pay if it seems feasible LOL  

1. Spent too much time setting up learning with texts, but that's now done, also discovered opLingo.com for reading help. Lets see if I can begin to use the characters I know in context.
   1. Spent about 15 minutes reading, found some beginner texts and am getting around 50% on first try.
   2. Added new resource links to my notion
   3. Wondering if  I should record my passive learning time i.e. Chinese drama and cpop music... I could hear some words yesterday in the drama -> so totally cool
2. Aim to finish one coursera course
   1. Done! took about 2 hours 40min to complete the last 3 weeks. I'm bushed.
   2. Completed the Taiwan Uni one, it was faster and loved that it was totally in Mandarin... I did notice some different words, but who cares, synonyms  
   3. I'll need to come back to it later, I passed the last quiz barely

Day 1. 29 April - 5 hours 30 minutes

So I read somewhere that HSK 1 can be done in 40 hours... so I decided ok lets try that then.

I have minimal learning exposure -I did some Yoyo Chinese pinyin about a year ago, and one coursera lesson when i decided to learn guzheng. But 40 hours is doable so hey why not.

On the other hand I have a lot of hours... thousands... under my belt of Chinese drama. Thing is I watch it usually at 2x speed so cant pick out a lot of individual words... I may have to slow hat down now sigh.

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1. At 4pm I started research spent about 90 minutes looking for resources, and figuring out what was required for HSK 1
   1. Joined discord servers, reddit groups etc
   2. Collected pdf's for practice
   3. set a game plan and updated my notion OS for learning the langauge, with resource links
   4. set up a new browser learning centre
2. downloaded an app to use to track my time
3. 45 minutes -> I then tested my vocab using an HSK list (got the numbers right and 15 other characters) - and attempted a mock HSK paper -> score 35
4. 90 minutes -> Worked through a few chapters of 3 coursera courses
5. 90 minutes -> Downloaded ton of apps to try out, and used all.. have 8 good ones left, deleted the rest

Day 2. 30 April

Spent 4 hours on coursera...

Day 3. 1 May

1. 40 minutes on coursera
2. 15 minutes -> downlaoded anki did some vocab

Day 4. 2 May

1. 47 minutes on coursera 
2. 15 minutes writing practice
3. 15 minutes vocab app

Day 5. 3 May

Nothing

Day 6. 4 May

Nothing

Day 7. 5 May

1. 30 minutes on vocab apps and Hello Chinese

Tried to register for exam   No luck seems home based is only in June... such a bummer  But still could not register for that either.. finally got hold of CI and they said the site is down for  now... so will retry in a couple of days time.