The 2011 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[Meng Lelan]

@ Meng Lelan, there used to be a meetup on Tuesday afternoon, I think at JP's Java. I never went, but it might be worth looking into.

This is indeed the one meeting at JP Java's! The time changed for the better because the original guy in charge had them on Tuesdays at noon, well, I couldn't just drive up from San Antonio at noon on Tuesdays. Now he's got a full time job in Houston meaning the new guy in charge has changed the time to Saturday at noon. Which is wonderful because San Antonio isn't able to support a Chinese meetup - yes, people have tried many times in the last ten years - and no one ever came.

[renzhe]

My goals for this year were a bit fuzzy and not too challenging: 水浒传*, some TV shows, some newspaper articles, a grammar book, and conversation.

I'm doing OK on the first three, though I haven't covered as much I'd hoped for. I'm ramping it up at the moment, though, as I find more free time again.

Negative on the grammar book (which will have to wait for next year) and conversation (which is slowly ramping up too).

I've added two more goals for this year:

- go through the complete HSK wordlist in Anki

- go through the 1400+ chengyu chrix posted in a thread here a while ago

I know most of the HSK wordlist, so going through 9000 items in 3 months is rough, but doable. I haven't done flashcards for about 3 years, and I want to make sure that I'm not forgetting anything important. I don't know most of the chengyu in that list, but it's about bloody time I tackled those, so bring them on.

If that works as planned, I'll focus on characters again next year, including writing at least the most common 2000. Some of the rarer ones are slipping and I'll have to reign them in. But not right now.

* yes, of course, this one is challenging, but the goal was to keep reading and see how far I come, not to finish it

[edelweis]

November 5 already.

In October I was pretty busy with other things, so progress was slow...

Character drilling: up to 1425. 75 to go, then I'll review and test myself at the end of the year (let's not dwell on the fact that after 2.5 years of study I'll know less characters than a 1st grade Chinese school student huh.)

Reading: I have been reading a couple of pages of 活着 most nights, sometimes more. As I mentioned in the dedicated thread, I'm just following the story - silent reading without making any effort to check every word and character...

Writing/grammar: I have been doing the exercises in the textbook for the Chinese Cultural Centre class - the current lesson just happens to focus on one of the grammar points that I knew I would need to practice a lot (修得了/修不了 type sentences).

I bought the HSK4 mock-up test book but I still have 300 to 400 words to learn before I can tackle that. I intend to take the actual test in 2012...

[OneEye]

How easy it is to forget if I don't get any notification emails.

My Chinese is still progressing very well. 可惜我的英文越來越退步. Oh well. My class has finished the book we were working on and has now started the next one in the series. My teacher has taken a special interest in me since finding out I can read some Classical Chinese (I translated the passage from 韓非子 beginning with 宋人有耕田者 into Mandarin) and have some knowledge of 篆書 and 甲骨文, so she's offered me some help with resources in those areas. She also teaches at ICLP, so I'm going to ask her to write me a recommendation letter when I apply for a scholarship to ICLP for next year.

Still working through Fuller's book for Classical, trying to do at least a lesson per week if not more. I'm in need of a decent 文言文 dictionary and haven't been able to find 古漢語常用字字典 in a bookstore so I'm going to order it soon. Hopefully Pleco releases their classical Chinese dictionary (dictionaries?) soon.

Chess? Still no. Too much other work to be done. Though I found out a classmate also plays, so maybe I can start playing again soon (and maybe even on my phone again, thanks roddy).

[Meng Lelan]

Still blogging though I am switching to traditional characters because I am finding that typing/writing/reading in traditional is easier for me than simplified, not sure why.

Switched to a wushu/kungfu school in Austin for my wushu training. The organizers of the Chinese Meetup in Austin quit so no more Meetups there.

Finished my Middlebury application so now I just wait by my email inbox.

[Daan]

OneEye, are you sure you can't find any good Classical Chinese dictionaries in the Shida area? Try the Wanjuan bookstore near Guting MRT - walking towards Guting MRT from Shida, turn right at the intersection with Roosevelt Rd, and take the elevator to the left of the McDonald's outlet. It's on the fifth or sixth floor, I think. Your teacher probably knows where it is, too - it's quite popular among Shida faculty.

[Gleaves]

I figure I better get in an update here before the end of the year, which is frighteningly nigh.

1. 20 minutes of conversation/speaking practice a day

I'm pretty much on point with this.

2. Finish 10 TV shows.

I've only finished 5, but I am working on a few others. I don't think I will hit 10 for the year (unless i cram over the holidays), but should get to 8 or 9.

3. Beat five video games in Chinese.

I've only finished 2. I need to get my game on.

4. Increase my reading speed to 300 characters a minute.

In terms of easy pop fiction type novels, I'm close to this speed. The real goal is to get my news article reading to this speed, which still needs a good bit of work.

[OneEye]

OneEye, are you sure you can't find any good Classical Chinese dictionaries in the Shida area? Try the Wanjuan bookstore near Guting MRT - walking towards Guting MRT from Shida, turn right at the intersection with Roosevelt Rd, and take the elevator to the left of the McDonald's outlet. It's on the fifth or sixth floor, I think. Your teacher probably knows where it is, too - it's quite popular among Shida faculty.

Sweet, thanks! I've mainly looked at the bigger stores like eslite, not knowing where else to look yet, figuring they'd have something along those lines, but it's all 教育部國語辭典 and 辭海. Nothing wrong with either, obviously, but I really liked 王力's dictionary (kicking myself for leaving it in the US). I'll check this place tomorrow.

[edelweis]

November update

Character drilling: I'm supposed to reach the 1475 mark this weekend (only studied 25 characters in November ) I should be able to reach 1500 by the end of the year...

Reading: finished the September Book-of-the-Month 活着, started on the December one 圈子圈套. I actually intend to learn some words from this one, more details there.

Writing/grammar: still working on this for the weekly class, but we have a new teacher due to a family emergency. We'll see how that goes... I also would like to do the exercises in the first few lessons of the book (which the other people in the class studied last year) and get those corrected. Every weekend I tell myself "let's get started with that" and then I don't do it

HSK4 vocabulary: very slowly working on this.

Listening: I did search for "audio with transcript" resources that contain the vocabulary words I am working on, and listened to some of them. Although it's still infrequent, it is more serious listening practice than usual.

[OneEye]

I just found out the other day that I've learned 2500 new vocab words in the last three months. Some were words I had learned before and forgotten, most were brand new. I learned to write about 1900 of them. There are quite a few that I only know passively (reading/listening) for now, but I'm OK with that. Anyway, that's the big news this month.

I just ended my first term at MTC. It was great, my teacher was fantastic, and I made lots of new friends. The new term started out quite differently. My teacher made fun of me whenever I said something wrong. Not in an "oh that's cute" kind of way like my former teacher would occasionally do (which was fun), but it a "why would you possibly try to say it like that?" kind of way. I didn't feel like it was OK to make mistakes in class, like I needed to apologize if I got something wrong. Not something I gel with, even though the other students in the class who had her last term all thought she was great. She also was planning on assigning way too much busy work, which I don't need because I'm going to study hard no matter what my coursework load is like. The benefit of a light coursework load is that I can devote more study time to studying the things that are important to me, while using the course as a good baseline for progress. Anyway, I dropped her and went with a different teacher who is MUCH better. The homework load is still higher than last term, but it's all useful work instead of mindless busywork.

Anyway, thanks to Daan's advice I found a bookstore with a copy of 王力古漢語字典. It's great since it has 反切 spellings and Middle Chinese tone info in addition to the definitions and such. I don't remember if 古漢語常用字字典 has 反切 or not, but I like this feature.

I'm reading through 亂馬1/2 right now, and I occasionally read the 國語日報, which is an absolute godsend. Some of the articles are above my level, but I'll get there. I also use a Far East Everyday Chinese textbook as a supplement to my class textbook.

I guess this is where I talk about whether I'll meet my goals for the year or not, but honestly right now I'm so much more focused on the process than the end goal that I'm not worried about it. And I think that's a good place to be.

[renzhe]

I won't be meeting my flashcard goals this year. Work got a bit too stressful and I spent quite a bit of time coasting along instead of adding cards. I'll try to at least prune all the easy ones from the HSK deck by the end of the year (I suspend all the cards that I know really well, which is more than 80%).

Learning chengyu was a great decision. Although I won't learn all 1500 of them by the end of the year, I was surprised at how easy (most of them) are to learn once you have a good grounding in characters and vocabulary. Another case where postponing learning an aspect of a language for later was a good choice.

The book is progressing sporadically. Sometimes I read a lot, sometimes I don't touch it for weeks. It's not even a matter of finding time, it's a matter of finding energy at the end of the day.

[heifeng]

Q4 Update to 2011 Year of the Rabbit Study Goals (possibly last update for the year from me...I'll have to start thinking about the 2012 goals!)

1) Leisure reading: Complete reading a book every 2 months:

A bit of a fail, but I've been reading other books...well not Chinese novels either (see item 3 below). I got about 15% through 战国演义。 I liked what I had read so far, but then I got distracted by other less literary subject matter. (i.e., that required less brain power during the period which I read books, namely the 1/2 hr to 1 hr before I go to bed!). However, I have literally JUST begun reading 曹禺剧本选..so I'll have to add this to the 'What are you reading thread' at some point next year!

2) News Reading: (-Read newspaper a minimum of 30 minutes daily /-Read more articles from Mainland newspapers/ -Also keep up 2010 momentum and still read in Traditional characters)

Pass. I read newspapers daily and for some reason 世界日报 has been broken (or my browser is) so I cannot switch to simplified. Now, the technical genius that I am, I decided the best way to fix this problem was just to get use to reading everything in Traditional. See, I knew that minor inconvenience would just sort of resolve itself.

3) Vocab

Remember the Chengyu & write each one 100x's while practicing my handwriting

Ummm. Fail. I look up and attempt to remember Chengyu I run into, but I don't write them or actually use them that often. I'd better keep this in mind for next year!

Continue to improve legal and health related vocab to include more specialized terminology

Passable. I've been reading quite a bit in English and Chinese on health issues, fitness, and anatomy. I think my Chinese vocab is almost up their with my English vocab now for medical terms (which is reasonable...but can definitely improve). So far this year I've been self studying & such. Spent alot of time going through these books (Dance Anatomy , Stretching Anatomy, 人体局部解剖学标本图谱;汉英人体骨骼肌学习手册; 改变身体的美丽体操 Then I've also used some books/ CDs in English/Spanish such as ACEBO RX and then translated the English into Chinese after I was finished with interpreting them.. (Which sort of explains why I seek out certain health topics--to see how the terms are used in Chinese texts and some alternate ways to say the same thing). Next year, however, I think I'll take a local medical terminology course (in fact have 2 picked out, just have to narrow it down) so I can keep to a schedule to help with this area (i.e. bring it up to a professional level) in English and at the same time work on the Chinese equivalent.

4) Listening (-Watch news daily & find some new soap operas or other programming to watch more often.)

I've been listening to the radio quite a bit...well at least on the weekends. I have been watching the news somewhat, but there could always be more practice, although I like the radio more since you don't have visual clues and I can rest my eyes a bit. I failed in the soap opera category, but mostly b/c I haven't found anything I really was addicted to...and these recent 偶像 dramas are pretty lame (except the ultimate one cough cough 流星花园...I. That is....let's not talk about anything after that). I think I'm just happy rewatching 重案六组 I, II, III which I mentioned on some other threads...but that's b/c I like 季洁。(you have to admit, there are NOT that many female characters like her on Chinese TV shows !!)

5) Pronunciation & general speech: (Recording & Self-correction)

- Continue to frequently langdu (~1 time/day) :

Yes this happens. I still don't like my voice any better, but the articles are pretty smooth. At least now I can anticipate and glance ahead as I am reading, so I think this helps quite a bit. If only I could rewind to those days of being called on in class. *Prompt deer in headlights look*

- Increase recordings of non-read items (i.e. sight interpreting, answering questions, etc).

Ugh, yes. So much I need to clean out my computer quite frequently due to all the random audio files!

- Every weekend give self practice PSC & grade it & make sure to follow up on words that I get wrong during remainder of week.

So, I kept up with this for a while and then I became a lil' pressed for time on the weekend, so I have had to take a few breaks. But other than that, it's still a relatively active goal.

6) Interpreting: (-Continue to study for state Court Interpreting Oral Exam. -Find interpreting work or volunteering opportunities for the weekends.)

Did some volunteer work & learned quite a bit about US naturalization in the process. I also became court certified in my home state, now I need to get certified in my current state, which hopefully I can finally get out of the way right at the turn of 2012 after one final final final test (fingers crossed). Also I was approved for registration for a medical interpreter certification, so I'll study for that for early next year. I've done some medical interpreting this year and have starting testing preparation, so this will have to go on my 2012 goals list for sure.

7) Translate: continue doing some freelance translation work.

Eh, yeah, as I'm available I've taken on some, mostly to keep up with the mental exercise though and to help colleagues out if they need more manpower.

8 ) Penmanship*

-Finish the 席殊3SFM实用硬笔字60小时训练 book

Ok, I'm about 70% done with this book. I was making great progress and then, as previously mentioned, I became totally frazzled. However, when I can sit down long enough I have really enjoyed spending 1-2 hours just practicing writing. It reminds me of school (as in when I was a kid and we use to practice cursive and calligraphy...and then later in college when I first started learning Chinese an we had quizzes!)

(*Note to self it's penmAnship---although i like how I made it plural-ish by spelling it as penmEnship in my earlier posts. I need to add a spelling goal too for next year)

9) Improve Knowledge of Chinese History:

Umm..there is a reason this never gets done. And all of 2011 just proved that either I am not properly motivated or just don't have the bandwidth. I think it's the latter, but I need to prioritize it a bit once I get more headway on my higher more 'urgent' goals I suppose.

[imron]

Here's a new one: Improve Knowledge of Chinese History:

Umm..there is a reason this never gets done.

Just start reading more 金庸 then you can claim success for both item 1 and 9 When a central plot line to an entire novel is about Mongol invaders trying to overthrow the Song, it's not too difficult to remember the historical order of those dynasties.

[heifeng]

Good point! Hey, I have a long flight coming up, maybe there is still a chance to make some headway after all. Or I'll just conveniently decide to use the CHINESE NEW YEAR as the cut off point again for achieving these goals--I could get through a novel by then. That would definitely buy me a lil' more time

[xuefang]

Only three and a half weeks left of this year, time to see if I've reached my goals or not. This is what I promised in January:

- January and February: Despite the holiday read more in Chinese, translate a book about Finland from Chinese to English/Finnish, watch more Chinese movies in Chinese, Skritter a lot, speak with other Chinese people than my boyfriend, listen to ChinesePod Intermediate lessons

I didn't do all this in Jan and Feb, actually can't quite remember what I did during that holiday, but luckily it didn't affect negatively on my studies.

- March: Start another new term in Guangzhou university and be prepared to every class, also do homework and study the characters in every lesson, get ready to HSK by doing HSK mock tests

I did ready for HSK, but don't remember how hard working I was with the classes.

- April: Get the old HSK level 5

Got it!

- May: Try not to forget the language while in Finland, Chinese boyfriend will come along if gets the visa

I didn't really study at Finland during my holiday, but also didn't forget everything.

- June, July and August: Work in Guangzhou and try to maintain the language with reading, watching movies and speaking to local people

Again I have to say that I didn't study enough during the summer, but I did do something.

- September: Start Chinese language BA degree in Sun Yat Sen University (with foreign classmates, not with Chinese), be prepared to every class, do homework and learn the characters in every lesson, get ready to HSK by doing HSK mock tests

I'll admit it, I'm lazy. I started my BA and got to a class 本二下 which suits my level very well. I'm preperad to most of the classes, but not to all. I always do my homework and learn the characters in 综合 course atleast before small exams. I did start preparing for HSK.

- November: Get the old HSK level 6

This December I took part in the new HSK 5 level, but haven't got the results yet. If I passed it, then I could say this goal was reached.

For next year I'll surely make better goals so I don't have to write again how I haven't done the things I promised my self! But all in all my plan is going quite well, if I just can pass the HSK, then everything's fine.

[skylee]

My aims are at #9, reproduced below -

1 - live a healthier life - no, no success.

2 - be a more useful person - no. But edelweise said that since I had donated blood twice I had been useful to someone else.

3 - be happy and contented - no. But I am not more unhappy of less contented than before.

4 - write better at work - this has happened, simply because now I have been in this office for over two years, and I know more (for the time being) than my new boss ...

[jbradfor]

Took a look at what I put down for my 2011 goals (post #3!), and almost burst into tears.

Got almost nothing done on my goals. On the plus side, I did spend a decent amount of time reading. First half of the year read comics, second half of the year picked up 平凡的世界. I do feel good that my reading is improving, but my spoken vs written is getting more and more out of balance.

I have two primary goals for 2011: prepare for a possible trip to China in 2012, and improve comfort speaking Chinese.

Pretty close to zero.

I did absolutely nothing to prepare for the trip language-wise. I've been re-studying Chinese now for maybe 5 years, since my last trip to China, and this trip would serve as a "final test" for how much I've progressed. So, based on how I studied when I was in school, I should be cramming like crazy. I think I'll just take a D and move on.

I did a bit on speaking. I found some people from China that were on-site for a couple of months as part of a mission-transfer, and they were willing to talk with me in Chinese once a week. It was fun and interesting, but I don't think my speaking improved much. I learned a lot about culture, got practice listening, and overall it was well worth the time, but I didn't speak much. I don't think I can expect anyone to put up with listening to my Chinese for long without getting paid. But I didn't really do anything to focus just on speaking. I keep telling myself I should, then go back to reading.

Continue reading comics, but without letting it get out of hand.

Fail again. First half of the year spent almost all my Chinese-time on reading comics.

Learn about 500 new vocabulary words, not including food words for my trip.

Fail again. [My goal was to not add many words, and focus on other aspects instead.] I actually learned a lot more than this, probably added around 750 to my ZDT list, plus it turns out I hadn't learned my words from last year as well as I thought, so a lot of my time was spent on what I claimed I learned last year, so I'd guess I easily added another 1000+ words to my vocabulary.

Start reading, if not finish, two textbooks I bought, An Introduction to Literary Chinese and Chinese Cursive Script. And maybe, just maybe, get a copy of Streetwise Mandarin Chinese. [Reading it, however, might be a 2012 goal :-) ]

Minor progress: I bought Streetwise Mandarin Chinese.

Otherwise, fail. I got a chapter or two into the first two textbooks, but that's it. They look really good, I want to continue reading them.

I might dip my toes into the Grand First Episode project.

I guess this one I did. I got about 18 episodes into 魔幻手机 . It was fun, I want to continue, but did reading instead.

Think about considering exploring the idea of maybe possibly switching from ZDT to anki.

Fail. I did update my ZDT scripts to get rid of words that I "know" faster than the built-in SRS does, so that helped a bit.

[Meng Lelan]

4 - write better at work - this has happened, simply because now I have been in this office for over two years, and I know more (for the time being) than my new boss ...

I agree that skyee's writing flows very very well, at least from what I see in the blog.

As for me I am mentally done with my 2011 goals and ready to move on to 2012 already.

[skylee]

Thank you Meng Lelan. That was very flattering. The writing I mentioned, though, was mostly in English.

I suppose we are at the check stage of the plan-do-check-act model. I agree that we should focus on the future.

[heifeng]

Skylee, also, FYI, you are extremely useful to us on this board, so you need to give yourself more credit for that goal indeed!