What should I study?

[xifbk]

I know a decent amount of individual words now (skritter is also helping with that). I get frustrated that I know almost enough words to make a sentence in chinese, but don't know where to start putting it together.

ie Tonight I wanted to translate this:

"Used a sauna for the first time tonight, as

far as first time experiences go, awesome

actually."

I am sure this would get the point across but I doubt it makes much sense:

"晚上用桑那第一次，

很不錯 （真牛？）"

[skylee]

Consider - 今晚（or 今天晚上）第一次去/試桑拿，以第一次的經驗來講，很/挺不錯。

[wedge]

xifbk -- I don't have any advice but I can sympathize. I'm starting to accumulate alot of individual words too but since I'm learning mostly via self-study, my grammar isn't keeping up. Whenever i think of a sentence in english and try to translate, I just know that it's not right. I'd like to think that once I figure out how to get over the late elementary hump, it'll get easier. But from everything else I've read on this board, that's probably just wishful thinking.

[abcdefg]

Probably need to start working through one of those comprehensive textbook series that everybody (including me) complains about, such as NPCR or Hanyu Jiaocheng. Just knowing a lot of words isn't tantamount to knowing the language, as you have discovered.

[Chinadoog]

Chinese Made Easier is another great textbook.

Pimsleur is also really good.

[hawks]

Watch Chinese shows and movies. Internalise new vocabulary items and grammatical features as you observe native speakers speaking on a broad range of topics.

[xifbk]

Thanks for the tips. I have the NPCR books and have been meaning to go through them but I find them so boring! (:

I am not quite at the level where I can listen to chinese movies or TV shows and take in all but the simpler sentences.