I need to start over

[Meng Lelan]

P.S. You know, I didn't forget my "哪里哪里" and "不好". And they laughed

Wow! And you'll be emailing and texting in 汉字 soon, all the time, 非常好！

[querido]

Oh, I love my tutor; now she has to go back to Hong Kong for six weeks and I'm crying, man. :-)

My local Chinese School (about which I posted above) finally sent a notice that the adult class will be starting. They use Integrated Chinese. It might be "too easy" but is a chance to correct the simplest mistakes and also to make new friends and contacts. Also, I've never held a real brush for writing. That'll be fun. :-)

Thanks to being on the e-mailing list of my local Chinese Association (as I posted above) I have an invitation to their Mid-Autumn event. :-)

I'm flashcarding: 1. only the words my tutor has to write down for me, 2. only the words I need to learn as I work through CSLPod Elementary. See, yesterday I was able to dig up and use 豆/dòu/bean but she had to write down 紫/zǐ/purple. I also now have an all-Chinese deck, 3. CSLPod Elementary sentences- audio front, hanzi back, with the hanzi only there to confirm/prompt the listening/speaking. This is great exercise, though not as good as having a tutor.

*The one poster here whose flashcarding ideas I most wish I had adopted from the beginning is imron.*

abcdefg said:

Best wishes with your new tutor and her family. I've had the privelege of being "adopted" like that, and found it made for a very pleasant and fertile learning environment.

Oh, yes. That is what I've found so far.

Just don't let your skill-set get as unbalanced as mine was. If it is, I'm sharing this opinion, that "starting over" isn't so bad.

[querido]

It has been three years since my original post.

 

What I accomplished since then could be described as building a little Chinese life. It includes tutors and real friends talking, playing, eating, etc. It isn't secret like Walter Mitty or whatever. It's a subset of my life running in parallel. Though my spoken language skill is still minimal it's real now, and that feels great. Now when I feel like "starting over" there's a portion that nevertheless retains a continuous life. It's a tiny fraction of everything I supposedly know. It's a distillate of a block of my life and it's worth a lot to me!

 

Why did I think about this now? I recently made some more friends and I know that being a good friend will involve even more talking, playing, eating, etc., and as I only have so much mental and physical energy, less and less may go to whatever I was doing before. 

 

I mourn almost nothing of whatever I gave up as I had "been there, done that" my whole life. If you ever feel like that there's more without limit, out there.

[kikosun]

I can totally relate! I studied hard core for a while some years ago, then I burned myself out and did not come back to it after a break (I went home for a 2 week vacation). When I got back to school, I did not study at all. And the longer I was away from studying Chinese, the harder it was to come back. Last year, I decided to start over. I reset all of my flashcards because I had thousands of cards in backlog, and I didn't want to deal with it, it was demoralizing. So I started a new flashcard set and essentially started over. It was a lot faster to get back to where I left off than I expected. I have been trying to keep motivated, but there are periods where I will take a break, and its hard to come back to studying chinese, but when you do you realize its not that bad. I would just keep it up, and don't be afraid to take a break if you need. You'll catch back up to where you left off in no time.

[querido]

I posted for your sake, not for mine. :-) What I mean is, if you're having trouble with consistency or motivation, real Chinese-speaking friends and a little real "Chinese life" can be helpful. Edit: Ping-pong is real. Chicken feet too. :-)

 

Edit: When I wrote the original post I probably had study methodology on my mind. It turned out (as I tried to explain) that "Oh, get a life!" was the right answer. In this case, it was a Chinese-speaking life that I needed, with real friends, etc. When I said "I mourn almost nothing of whatever I gave up" I was referring to the corresponding shrinkage of my previous interests that were wrapped up in my native language and culture, and in people too much like myself.

 

There are some ongoing threads about immersion. They're mostly about methodology, which is good. But I care a lot about my friends these days, and the things we do together. Just sharing that with you. :-)

[abcdefg]

Edit: Ping-pong is real. Chicken feet too. :-)

 

Part of me will always feel like I'm a fake and an imposter here in China until I start riding the bus or walking down the street munching on a bag of those nasty chicken feet and just casually spitting out the bones.

 

Congratulations if you have embraced chicken feet. That is a true milestone! I'm much more impressed with that than with having eight million words in your Anki deck.

[querido]

We'll take unpleasant medicine if it's good for us, right? Well, chicken feet (and the 100-fold more "medicinal" pig's feet) are, I figure, good for a lingering potential problem in my left foot that's holding back my ping-pong. I think that because the pig's feet especially are loaded with sticky cartilege-stuff of some kind. I do love this restaurant's pig's feet, but I'm not sure a chicken foot is worth the trouble as I can get more cartilege, with less fat, off of other chicken parts.

 

Well, "that's my story and I'm sticking to it", but the truth is that my friends introduce me to new restaurants and I enjoy letting them order for me. I tell them I'll eat anything they will. If we ever go to Hong Kong or Guangzhou, though, it might get too exciting for me. :-)

[Lu]

Abcdefg, you just haven't had the right chicken feet yet. They're great when prepared the right way.

[abcdefg]

Maybe you're right, @Lu. I will keep an open mind.

[querido]

I regret using the word "medicinal". I didn't mean "bad tasting". I only meant "something I eat because I think it's good for me whether I like it or not". In this case, I found it comparable to other skinny/fatty/cartilaginous bits I've been eating because I imagine it's good for my foot. Edit: And by "skinny/fatty/cartilaginous" I also don't mean anything bad! Aiya, English is so difficult.

 

As Lu said, the taste depends on the preparation.