The 2009 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[OneEye]

My goals have changed a bit recently. I've decided to go back to school this fall for a Bachelor's in international studies (East Asian focus). My Bachelor's in music isn't really turning out to be very useful and I'm sick of retail so I'm entering a field with some more potential. After that I plan on getting a PhD in Asian Cultures and Languages. Big step.

The university I'll be attending for undergrad uses Integrated Chinese for the first two years. I'm trying to test out of both years so I can take more upper level classes, or possibly lower level Japanese classes. So I've bought the books and have started going through the dialogues and adding vocab I don't know to my Pleco flashcards. The transcriptions at Yellowbridge are very helpful for this (convert to plain text, import into Pleco's reader, tap unfamiliar vocab, add to flashcards).

So my primary goal for Chinese is to test out of two years of classes this fall. Otherwise I'm still keeping up with my flashcard reps for Heisig, adding more characters occasionally.

I also want to place higher than college algebra (I'm required to have at least one course above college algebra so I'd prefer to skip that one and just take the required course) and haven't done any math since my junior year of high school so I'm studying that.

So my job goal is no longer a promotion to Store Manager. It's "find a new job." I'll stay part time at my current job (since you can only be full time if you're in management) and I'll find a second part time job.

The gym goal isn't happening. Once I figure this whole job thing out I'm going to get back to it but for now it's on the back burner.

That's all folks!

[renzhe]

Time for a monthly update!

Let's hear 'em!

1) Finish the HSK vocabulary.

7500, roughly. 1300 left.

4) Read some other book(s) after I'm finished with that (condor heroes).

I've finished 家, I'm half-way through 春.

5) Keep on working on characters (both the ones encountered while reading, and the most frequent ones I'm missing)

3800, but I'm really starting to nail the most common 3000.

6) Get comfortable at speaking fluently about a wide range of topics.

This is still improving with more exposure, but it's slow progress, as expected. I expect that at the end of the year, the improvement will be good, though.

7) Be able to watch modern TV dramas and movies without subtitles (I still need to glance at them often, but it's getting better)

I'm watching a spy/military show (the phantom one in the First Episode project), and I can actually understood most of the conversations completely (intermediate-level stuff). This is great stuff, as it makes it possible to watch something in the background without racing through subtitles all the time.

Oddly, I'm struggling with 家有儿女. Which has a simpler, everyday setting.

I guess that's because each episode has a new theme, and it often involves unusual stuff (chimpanzees, detectives, etc.), whereas the spy show has slower conversations that revolve around the same themes.

10) improve writing my characters. Be able to write between 1000 and 2000 characters by hand by the end of the year.

I've passed 900 here. 2000 might be doable with lots of work. If I reach 2000, that's all I'll ever need to write by hand, and I'll be satisfied.

[OneEye]

So my primary goal for Chinese is to test out of two years of classes this fall. Otherwise I'm still keeping up with my flashcard reps for Heisig, adding more characters occasionally.

Make that "next fall." I was planning on majoring in International Studies at the University of North Texas, but have decided to move to Austin and major in Asian Cultures and Languages (Chinese) at the University of Texas. Since my lease has just been renewed, I'm here for another year, during which I'll be getting my general education requirements out of the way at a community college. UT has a more aggressive Chinese program than UNT, but if I continue studying hard for the next year, I should be able to test into third year Chinese when I get there. I'll be brushing up with PCR 2 (their second semester text) and then studying from Intermediate Reader of Modern Chinese (their second year text).

I also want to place higher than college algebra (I'm required to have at least one course above college algebra so I'd prefer to skip that one and just take the required course) and haven't done any math since my junior year of high school so I'm studying that.

Haven't made much progress here. Math isn't exactly my favorite thing ever.

So my job goal is no longer a promotion to Store Manager. It's "find a new job." I'll stay part time at my current job (since you can only be full time if you're in management) and I'll find a second part time job.

Still working on this one. I went out of town for a while so that kind of cut into my job search.

[querido]

1. New Concept Chinese for Children vols. 7-8.

Volume 4... done! Rabbits, chickens, spiders, rivers, mountains, colors of the rainbow... a beautiful little world.

I'm guardedly thrilled with my progress, and intend to push ahead with my current study materials and methods, through volume 6 at least.

2. Chinese Breeze graded readers level I

Number of additional characters needed to read "Left and Right" is down to 69. This goal is on hold.

Five months have passed; are my goals still realistic? Yes.

Edited May 31, 2009 at 01:27 AM by querido
...I accidently published before finishing

[Shadowdh]

1. Read more books, start to finish instead of just start to page 3 or 4...

Ok exams have finished and I have read a couple of the books from the graded readers series by breeze... still working through 家 although I am only a few pages in, and I am reading the short story of the month which is not so bad... still need to spend more time on this though

2. Utilise my study time more effectively as well as study more

Ok exam study is over and I am now getting some sort of "real" study plan working. I feel I need to be more consistent and more frequent rather than study in chunks...

3. watch at least one episode of the tv shows covered in the first ep thread on this board a day, even if its the same episode as I will need to cover each episode more than once to understand properly.

Have watched a couple of episodes of 家有儿女 and one or two of the other first episodes... but again need more regularity and consistency...

4. listen to each of the podcasts I download at the moment at least once a in a day, hopefully more as again at least at first it will prove very beneficial for my learning.

Doing better here... Thanks to Roddy pointing out the excellent resource of qiangqiang3 (I hope thats right)... listen to a couple a day trying to get the overall gist before re listening and really going for total understanding of all the language...

5. Do more writing practice, daily lists and sentences at least...

Since the end of exams this has been pitiful... woeful... downright embarrassing... sigh... must get my butt into gear on this... although a friend who is very honest with me (tears strips from my efforts if I get it wrong, unusually) has said my written Chinese is better... so small gains...

6. gain more fluency by practicing with my language partners and Chinese friends more...

Not going at all at the moment, now exams are over I have moved onto getting the house sorted, garden and DIY... there is alot to do and I dont have much time to meet up with them at the moment... much try harder...

7. finish and post the book review I have only half done from the great big book give away on this board (apologies to Roddy and Elina)...

Working on it, and oh god its taking so long I think they will give me a slap if I ever meet up with them... its over half done, more like 3/4 really...

8. on a more personal level, train more regularly (weights and taiji) and more effectively... eat better/more healthily...

Going not so well... although eating is better, training is not starting with the hiss and roar I thought it would... must get my rear in gear with this...

9. Anything else that crops up that I should do...

Its amazing how many lists my wife can come up with and how many jobs that absolutely have to be done right this minute... good god I will be working on the house till 3000!!!

10. Finish my masters and undergrad dissertations...

Ok the BA is done and dusted... even got my mark back which wasnt too bad... Masters one is still a work in progress but its going ok...

Finding it difficult to balance (and perhaps justify) study needs with homely duties at the moment... the wife has a massive list of priorities and she does not consider further Chinese study one of them, but I ignore some of those "priorities" or try to work Chinese study in with them... makes for interesting times on some occasions I tell you...! Results for Uni are coming in and looking ok so far... thats about all for now...

[renzhe]

I guess we can have another monthly update. We're exactly half-way through 2009.

I'm happy with the progress since the beginning of the year, but the progress this month has been very slow, and I've only moved a little bit since the last update.

Notably, the flashcarding effort is exceedingly slow despite regular reviews. I'm blaming my busy schedule for this -- I've had a very busy month.

The primary effort for the next 6 months is to finish the HSK vocabulary so I can concentrate on other (more passive) learning methods.

[querido]

1. New Concept Chinese for Children vols. 7-8.

Volume 5, done!

All other goals are on hold.

My beautiful little world gets more interesting, bit by bit.

Six months have passed; are my goals still realistic? Yes.

[Gleaves]

Scary that it is the the half year mark already. My update:

1. Be able to start reading a Jin Yong novel by the middle of summer.

Didn't realize when I set this goal that Jin Yong is a bit harder than your average Chinese. I'll get to Jin Yong eventually, but I am content to tackle more average prose at the moment. I've made my way through some short stories (黄金时代 and 我没有自己的名字)and essays. I'm about 20 pages into the book 夢書之城 (City of Dreaming Books, a fantasy novel from Germany). I bought it randomly off of books.com.tw because it had a cool cover. I also thought it would be a brief and not too difficult read. Ends up it is 500 pages.

2. Watch lots of shows from the First Episode thread. (Thank you to all that contribute to the vocab lists.)

I'm happy with how much Chinese langauge content I have been watching lately, but I have yet to take advantage of Chinese tv shows. What I have been been watching is dubs of Batman the Animated Series I got off of yesasia and Transformers I found online. I've also watched about ten movies in the past month, mostly dubs of cartoons, like the Incredibles, the Sword in the Stone, and Wall-E. Although watching Wall-E in Chinese is about as prodcutive as watching Tom&Jerry or Charlie Chaplin in Chinese.

3. Know about 10,000 vocabulary items, including 3000+ unique characters.

I'm pretty happy with progress on this. I have about 1000 items left in the HSK lists to study. I've neglected my flashcards lately, so I will need to do a ton of review as well. I want to finish off the HSK and get another 500-1000 characters under my belt.

4. Make some significant headway into studying Chinese poetry.

This one is on hold until another time.

*New Goal* 5. Tackle the traditional character set.

I'm finding it to be too much work to avoid traditional characters, so I figure I might as well take that plunge. I used renzhe's list here, made an anki deck, and am reading through 夢書之城 mentioned above to solidify what I am learning. I've read manga in traditional in the past, so it is not entirely uncomfortable.

[renzhe]

With that vocabulary, you should be ripping through TV shows with no problems. Go go go! Post in the TV show subforum if you need specific recommendations!

As for Jin Yong, 射雕 was the first "real" book I read. It was painful in the beginning, but getting through it has really improved my reading ability. You are right that it's quite a bit more difficult than your regular reading, but if you can get through 余华 without trouble, you could try tackling Jin Yong. It gets much easier after the first 700 pages

Concerning the traditional characters, that list is missing a couple of common ones (like 丝/絲), but if you flashcard that for half a year and do some reading, reading traditional materials will become a breeze.

[OneEye]

So my primary goal for Chinese is to test out of two years of classes this fall. Otherwise I'm still keeping up with my flashcard reps for Heisig, adding more characters occasionally.

Make that Spring '10 at UT, but Second Year Chinese II. It's coming along fairly well.

I also want to place higher than college algebra (I'm required to have at least one course above college algebra so I'd prefer to skip that one and just take the required course) and haven't done any math since my junior year of high school so I'm studying that.

Found out that this isn't necessary. They offer another math track for Liberal Arts majors so I won't have to test out of college algebra. I'm still brushing up on my math though.

So my job goal is no longer a promotion to Store Manager. It's "find a new job." I'll stay part time at my current job (since you can only be full time if you're in management) and I'll find a second part time job.

Found a new job, but since I'm moving this will be temporary. I need to find a job in Austin now.

[querido]

1. New Concept Chinese for Children vols. 7-8.

Volume 6 hasn't sunk in yet, so I might spend a month consolidating, letting the flashcard reps settle down, etc. This is a good place to pause in this textbook series, as it is the end of the "second year".

I continue to modify mnemosyne to suit myself, and I'm pretty sure I'm finally done (except for whatever minor adjustments I might desire).

[renzhe]

Thanks for the bump. Here are mine:

1) Finish the HSK vocabulary.

About 1000 left (of 8800 or so). The speed is picking up.

4) Read some other book(s) after I'm finished with that.

In addition to 巴金, I have started reading some short stories. I've just finished 倾城之恋.

5) Keep on working on characters (both the ones encountered while reading, and the most frequent ones I'm missing), the new goal is 5000 characters.

The new goal has changed to 4000 characters. The progress has been very slow, but I'm finding that I'm getting much better with the ones I know, and that's more important.

6) Get comfortable at speaking fluently about a wide range of topics.

This has improved a lot. I can go for hours now. It still gets hairy (and I feel like a total n00b) when I venture into specialised topics where my vocab is lacking, but the everyday stuff is settling in quite well.

7) Be able to watch modern TV dramas and movies without subtitles (I still need to glance at them often, but it's getting better)

I've been watching some simpler stuff (局中局 and 我的青春谁做主) without subtitles, and I can pull it off with some parts of Ugly Betty -- but the pace in the latter is simply far to frantic and some of the vocab far too random, so I'm pretty much in the glancing department there.

10) improve writing my characters. Be able to write between 1000 and 2000 characters by hand by the end of the year.

I've passed 900. I think I'll hit 1000 easily, probably more, but definitely not 2000.

[OneEye]

As things keep developing as far as starting back school and all that, my goals keep getting adjusted (since they're connected to going back to school). This school year I'll be at a community college taking the general courses that my last degree didn't require. So I won't be starting on the Chinese coursework in my degree until next fall (2010). I'd like to test into third year Chinese by that point, and I have a year in which to get through their Second Year textbook, so that should be doable. So this is priority number 1.

Still working on finding a job in Austin. Just got here a week ago.

[Gleaves]

5. Tackle the traditional character set.

Renzhe was right about this one. After a month of solid flashcarding, and about 100 pages of a book in traditional, I feel like I no longer care whether I'm reading simplified or traditional. It's a great feeling to no longer have that boundary, and to be able to revisit any material I had previously pushed aside.

[heifeng]

Chinese Progress:

(1) So I was finally accepted to the part-time court interpreting program that I was interested in for a while. The program is over 1 year, so this should keep me busy in the studying and setting goals department:clap Also, I think this should help me accomplish some goals I set in January (see below). When I finish this class I don't think the Catti levels 2 for consec. interpreting will even be an issue any more (I mean I didn't fail it toooo miserably last time at least:lol:) I will have to save any predictions about simultaneous interpreting until I actually start that portion of the class though....

9. Stay on top of PSC, HSK, and CATTI exam stuff so one day I can finally achieve levels 2B,11, and 2, and complete my all around cycle of torture, also known as my 2008-but-temporarily-sidelined-examination-goals

Not that I am planning on taking the HSK or PSC again any time this year, But I do have an ongoing goal of looking up tones on all words I am not completely sure.Also I may need to start redoing some HSK listening sections...as long as I can crack that section~ must get 11..grrr.

6. Get back into doing some translation work after I finish some applications and exams...

&

7. Practice more E=>C translation as a subsitute for keeping a journal...which I always get bored of writing around the 1/2 yr mark.

(2) In order to prepare for application and class for (1) I actually found some pretty good court interpreting resources online to start pumping up my vocab in the law department and reviewed that quite a bit over the last 2 months. Mostly just criminal law so far though... but it actually really helped when I was watching some cop programs (you know...someone loses money on train..or plane...and how the police track them down..etc )

(3) This progress is still related to 1) basically I've been reading a number of articles on various criminal cases. Haven't posted them on my reading thread, which I should do...make that a goal that I need to keep up a bit more. I'll have to do quite a bit of reading for my class, so I think the below goal needs to be bumped up to 3 articles.

2. Continue recording an article every other day.

(4) I've been averaging about 1 book per month so far this so, so I'm doing alright on this goal:

4. Read all the books I just bought in China.

Goals Outside of Studying Chinese

(1) Read my new books that I just bought and are actually in English! Yes, I'm finally forcing myself to brush up on my English. Plus I need to better understand some legal terms..so it's time to work on this a bit (cuz, just being a native speaker, doesn't mean ya know it all!)

(2) Go back to just drinking water and tea...I've fallen back off the wagon into a sea of diet coke and coffee...not good...not good!

New/General Goals Related to Studying Chinese

(1) Month of August: Continue working on criminal law vocab and start cramming some family law related vocab.

(2). Manage time wisely & get/stay organized. Do all my homework everyweek. Rewrite all in class E=>C exercises, review any unknown vocab for C=>E exercises.

(3) write write write. I think I'm going to have at least 1-2 months to get my characters back up to a reasonable speed (and accuracy)! I need to spend at least 1/2 hour writing (not typing) Chinese each day. Actually this should be managable since I need to do homework and such...

Longer term goals (prior to 2011:mrgreen:)

1. Take the state's court intepreter exam and not encounter an epic fail, ie, pass in 2 (or less!...or worst case...cough cough or ummm 3) tries

Edited August 11, 2009 at 02:00 AM by heifeng

[wushijiao]

So I was finally accepted to the part-time court interpreting program that I was interested in for a while

Congrats! Sounds interesting! It looks like you're really keeping busy as well!

[heifeng]

Thanks! Yeah, I've been trying to stay busy and out of trouble! Now I'll need to make the best of this program b/c the pass rate is apparently only 5% for the state exam for Mandarin:roll: But I think it's a good way to keep up my Chinese...and learn more English:lol:

The class seems pretty interesting so far. I guess I'll save descriptions for a later post in a more appropriate thread once it's actually in full swing though (maybe the Chinese testing thread, or the Chinese classes outside of China thread...or that new translation/interpreting thread~we'll see).

[Meng Lelan]

Go back to just drinking water and tea...I've fallen back off the wagon into a sea of diet coke and coffee...not good...not good!

Me too. I guess you'll have to start a "Back on the Wagon" thread as one of your goals too.

[querido]

1. New Concept Chinese for Children vols. 7-8.

Finished volume 6, starting volume 7.

This begins the "third year", so there's another jump in maturity level and in the speed of delivery of the audio. Vols 1-3 were almost all poetry, vols 4-6 all poetry, now volume 7 transitions into the rest of this series, which is mostly non-poetry. The number of pages per volume is increasing, and the font size is decreasing, so each lesson is much bigger. The number of new characters taught per volume is about the same I think, so the volume of supportive context per new character is increasing. This is very, very good! Instead of each new poem being mostly opaque, what I see in volume 7 are stories I can already read with a few look-ups.

I'll be adjusting my procedures now. I want to look at a bigger picture, reading and listening to whole stories a lot more than I have been, but making and doing flashcards has been consuming all of my study time and mental energy. After I've settled on an effective adjustment, I'll post about it.

[OneEye]

As things keep developing as far as starting back school and all that, my goals keep getting adjusted (since they're connected to going back to school). This school year I'll be at a community college taking the general courses that my last degree didn't require. So I won't be starting on the Chinese coursework in my degree until next fall (2010). I'd like to test into third year Chinese by that point, and I have a year in which to get through their Second Year textbook, so that should be doable. So this is priority number 1.

Still working on finding a job in Austin. Just got here a week ago.

I'll be starting Intermediate Reader of Modern Chinese (the second year textbook at UT) this week. Things are going well, study-wise.

Still looking for a job. Part time (to work around school) with decent pay is hard to find.