The 2013 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[laurenth]

Assessment time for my 1Q2013 objectives (post #20)

READING

- Read a novel without Pleco reader: FAILED

- Read a children edition of the 论语: FAILED

I tried to read 早上七八点钟的太阳 and found after a dozen pages that it was above my comfort level outside of Pleco reader. Also tried a children edition of 水浒传. It was even harder, yet more interesting, so I managed to read maybe 5 chapters (after all the French version of 水浒传 is the reason why I started learning Chinese). Also tried 王小波's 黄金时代 and also failed in the middle of chapter 2. So I started reading children stories. I could read *that* but - was it boring! So I started reading the comic 名侦探柯南. Now that was both possible *and* fun. So I read the first two volumes. After that, I thought it was better to actually manage reading something *with* Pleco reader than failing to read without it. So I started reading 王小波's 黄金时代 again and I'm now in the middle of chap. 6. Sometimes it's quite easy and then there are passages that I barely understand. But at least I'm reading and enjoying it.

So the first objective is a total failure, but at least I've been reading Chinese, somehow, all the time.

LISTENING

- Chinese Learn On Line: 2 podcasts/week. I'm on track. I've listened to - and studied - lesson 187 to 215.

SPEAKING

- 2 Skype classes/week: DONE.

- Each day use 1 sentence or shadowing, parrotting, substitutions, etc. More or less on track if "each day" means "semi-daily".

VOCABULARY

- HSK4 with Skritter: on track.

- HSK5, hanzi and random vocab: on track.

HSK

- 3 mock tests to prepare for HSK4. Only did one. I hate tests. I only want that HSK because it might be useful on my CV, one day.

OTHER LANGUAGES

- Spanish: read and finish one contemporary novel: I've read two; Bioy Casares' La invención de Morel and Roberto Bolaño's Estrella distante. The second one, I bought on a whim, never having read anything by Bolaño. After the freaky La invención de Morel, written by Borges' closest friend, I was astounded to find that Bolaño's novel starts with an allusion to Pierre Menard (the author of Don Quijote) - so the ghost of Borges, one of my favourite authors, is everywhere.

- Listen to 1 podcast/week about China: did that and more - but not necessarily about China.

- Finnish: 1 short text/week. Read many more

- Latin: read chapters XLI-XLV of Oerberg's Roma Aeterna. Hm, I'm stuck in chap XLIV. But I also read other stuff in Latin, including Caesar (extracts of the Commentarii de Bello Gallico), medieval fables, etc.

- French: read the books and comics my wife and daughters offered to me: read David Grossman's To the End of the Land (in French Une femme fuyant l'annonce). A haunting book about the inevitability of bad stuff.

[edelweis]

No progress this month - was too busy and too tired and spent my free time playing mahjong, reading fanfiction and eating chocolate. Feeling vaguely ashamed. Basically my main China-related achievement was learning to use Knitted Tiles combinations.

[icebear]

Quarterly update [in brackets]:

Structured Learning

✓ Goal: 1.5 hours of tutoring twice per week after work

✓ Goal: 1.5 hours of review, revision and homework (which may encompass the below goals) at least 3 other nights per week

成功之路

- Goal: one new lesson per week with the tutor (currently lesson 29, 进步篇3) [behind schedule]

✓ Goal: skim one lesson from a lower book per week (I'd like to cover the whole series, start to end) (lesson 1-10 of 进步篇1 so far)

Audiovisual Media

✓ Goal: five episodes of a Chinese TV series per week (iPad while jogging at the gym) [Four-five]

- Goal: watch more news (news reading first) [Focusing on news reading for now]

Reading

✓ Goal: ensure that I can read out loud the week's content from 成功之路 smoothly/naturally

✓ Goal: at least thirty minutes per day of fiction/nonfiction unrelated to a textbook

✓ Goal: transition into more newsy/economic/societal type articles which will open up those types of books

Composition

✓ Goal: complete all homework, including compositions/essays, for new lessons of 成功之路

- Goal: post at least once per week to lang-8.com (initially essay prompts from 成功之路 that my tutor skips, later my own content/journal/blog) [Pretty weak on this one]

- Goal: write in greater detail and length, review corrections more diligently [Pretty weak on this one]

Handwriting/Vocab

✓ Goal: 5 minutes of Skritter (only characters) per day

✓ Goal: clear Pleco Flashcards at least once per day, twice (evening/morning) if convenient

- Goal: hand write weekly homework for 成功之路 [Other priorities at the moment]

Social

✓ Goal: only date girls that speak exclusively Chinese (regardless of their English level)

- Goal: prioritize social time with Chinese speakers (over English speakers) [Not much beyond what I had already - friends on weekends]

- Goal: continue developing network of Chinese friends [Ditto]

Bench marking

- Goal: HSK5/6 - determine if I think this is worthwhile this spring with my tutor, revisit possibility in spring update. Best time to take would be fall, after the summer lull to study through. [Haven't decided yet, different focus with my tutor for now but she is confident I'd do fine on HSK5, maybe could manage HSK6 - not sure if it matters yet to me]

[Meng Lelan]

I don't really study anything these days as my goal right now is to do the wushu front and back sweep with a good finish and not twist my knee in an ostrich-like reverse bend so much.

[OneEye]

Turn in MA and scholarship applications

Yup.

Add another ~500 sentences to Anki (about 25 per weekday)

750

Finally finish the two phonology books I've been working on

Nope. This is turning out to take longer than I planned. I've read a lot of this kind of stuff before, just in English, so while I have no problem reading and understanding the book, there's a lot of information I'll need to memorize, which will take some time. I understand the stuff and how it works, I just need to learn it so I can actually use it. That may get put off until after I take the TOCFL.

Keep reading magazine and newspaper articles

Off and on.

Keep up with the reading for the 尚書 reading group

Doing pretty well here. Started off just reading the main text and only dipping into the commentaries when I got stuck, but now I'm reading all of it because the commentaries have turned out to be very useful. Lots of background information, etc.

Lesson 42 of Assimil Japanese, and unit 6 of Shadowing.

Doh. Did through lesson 21 of Assimil, and 3 of Shadowing. Oh well. I just got back from 6 days in the Kansai area, which allowed me to get some practice with what little Japanese I do know, so that was fun.

Getting my MA and scholarship applications completed and turned in ended up taking a lot more time than I thought, so the first half of the month was almost entirely devoted to that. Now that I'm done with all that, I've had a bit more time to do the things I want to be doing. However...

I have the TOCFL coming up May 4th. I'm taking the Level 5/流利級 test, which I failed by 1 point in November. I have to pass it this time, or one of the schools I applied to won't accept me, and the other will only take me provisionally, if at all. My Chinese has improved a lot since then, but I haven't done any TOCFL-specific studying, so I've discovered I don't really know any more of the words on the official vocabulary list than I did last time. Since I don't do well studying from lists, I'm going through the list of textbooks they recommend. They're pretty easy going, so I'm just going through as quickly as possible. I don't actually have any doubt that I could pass it, even if I had to walk in and take it right now, but I want to be sure. So one of my goals this month is to go through the first four books in the "Supplementary Chinese Reader Series," which are 中國寓言、中國的風俗習慣、 and 中國曆史故事1&2. I should finish the first this weekend, and then the others will get a week each, with the last week before the test for review. I'm also reviewing Thought and Society/思想與社會.

This month's goals are simple. Prepare for the test as well as possible (including studying those 4 books and reviewing T&S), keep working on 尚書, and study some Japanese every day.

[Vinnende]

In the next 2 months:

Finish Pimsleur I, II and III

Finish Chinesepod Newbie through Intermediate

Finish Remebering Simplified Hanzi book 1

Continue Skype lessons

Book flights to China

One week intensive course in China

One week travel

Should be fun.

[laurenth]

I forgot to mention that my objectives for 2Q2013 are pretty much the same as for the first quarter, though looser:

- READING: Read a bit everyday (I've almost finished 王小波的黄金时代).

- LISTENING: Continue working with Chinese Learn On Line at a rate of 2 podcasts/week.

- SPEAKING: Continue 2 Skype classes/week this month. My subscription to eChineseLearning is coming to an end in exactly 1 month and I don't intend to renew it. Not that I'm not satisfied with their service, but it's been increasingly difficult for me to find time in the early morning to attend class before going to work. That will leave a big gap in my learning routine, though.

Practice shadowing, parroting, substitutions, etc. with Chinese Learn On Line podcasts.

- WRITING HANZI: Skritter HSK4

- VOCABULARY: Finish reviewing HSK4 with Skritter; finish studying HSK5 and start HSK6 with Anki; and study some more vocab collected while reading. That's my daily bread. If there's only one thing I can do on a given day, that's it.

- HSK4: 2 mock tests + actually register for June.

- OTHER LANGUAGES:

Finnish: read 1 short text/week.

Latin: finish chapter XLIV and read chapters XLV-XLVI of Oerberg's Roma Aeterna.

Spanish: one novel (probably Bolaño's Las putas asesinas). Some listening activity.

- Reminder: 6 pm - 10 pm is Chinese-free time

See you on July 1st!

[eshton]

Update #1

Did HSK 4 today pretty sure I passed, HSK 5, here I come. My spanish is toast, definitely will need a refresher course to keep it up.

[Meng Lelan]

Not studying Chinese at all. Well, ok, I am reading 西遊記 and incredibly found a Chinese speech pathologist in Austin who may finally help me plow through some consonants that have plagued me for decades. Decided on three 套路 for the July competition: 五段長拳 (a killer) 南棍 (killer when done with the heavier southern style staff) 朝陽拳 (maybe but I don't enjoy doing traditional Shaolin unless I do at supersonic speed).

[OneEye]

This month's goals are simple. Prepare for the test as well as possible (including studying those 4 books and reviewing T&S), keep working on 尚書, and study some Japanese every day.

I feel very well-prepared for the TOCFL, even though I didn't finish everything I wanted to. It should be no problem.

I worked a lot on 尚書, but it's very dense and the annotations in the volume I was using are a bit absurd. Sometimes one line in the original text might have two whole pages of annotations in small text. After reading 孔安國's preface in that volume, I switched to a different, more concise version with annotations by 屈萬里. It's going a little faster now, but I'm still in the first section (堯典).

Japanese every day didn't happen, but I did move forward some.

I went out looking for more freelance work two weeks ago. I had some a while back, but then most of it dried up. By the end of last week I had as much as I could handle, and most of it will be translation, which is nice. One client, the owner of an English school here, has me translating one or two short stories per week, Chinese to English, along with other various things like proofreading English. It doesn't pay much, but it's really easy work and he's really flexible on turnaround time, allowing me to prioritize better-paying work, so it's fine for now. Otherwise, I'm working for a translator who gets more work than he can handle, so he'll be sending me the overflow, probably a job every day or two. This pays much better, I like him more than the other guy, and it's more challenging. Work I've done in the past week includes a sociology PhD dissertation abstract, a CV for a high-level executive of a big corporation, and an information pamphlet for a medical technology company, so I can already tell that this job will be really good for my Chinese. He seems very happy with the work I'm doing, so I think he plans to load me up.

I'm also doing some English proofreading for the Taiwanese government. They send me the original Chinese and the translation (done by a Taiwanese person), and I clean it up. It's a one hour job every two weeks or so, but at least it's something, the pay is pretty good, and I get to practice my Chinese a bit while I'm at it. I'm still tutoring English, but I'm trying to phase that out, so once this school year ends in June I hope to be done with that. Of course, if I find someone that's actually motivated to improve, rather than getting lessons out of guilt that their English isn't better than it is or because their parents make them, then I might reconsider. I'm trying to line up a few more regular translation clients, but we'll see how that goes.

So anyway, I think I'm going to defer admission to the MA program (if I'm admitted) for a year. There are a few reasons, but the main one is that my wife isn't happy at her job. There are very few places in Taiwan where she can work in her field, none of which are likely to be hiring any time soon. I don't want her to be stuck at her current job for the next three years while I do my MA, especially when I have other options. So over the next year, we'll be looking for new jobs for her. We'd both like to live in Japan, and the jobs that would available for her there pay well and would look really good on her resume, so we'll be focusing the search there. By that point (fall 2014), I should be pretty well set-up to be able to continue doing C-E translation from there, so I can work and study Japanese while we're there (I'll need Japanese for grad school anyway, so this would be a very good opportunity), and then I'll try to start my PhD in the States once we're ready to go back, which should theoretically go faster since I'll have the two main required languages out of the way (I'm told that's the biggest obstacle for PhD students in Chinese departments in the US). If she finds a better job here, we'll stay here and I'll go ahead start my MA next fall as originally planned. At any rate, waiting a year will allow me to improve my Chinese a lot and put away some money in the meantime, and I should be set up to continue getting translation work whether we're in Taiwan, Japan, or elsewhere.

So anyway, wow, that's a long story. But hopefully someone who is thinking about moving to China or Taiwan to study Chinese can get some inspiration knowing that I came here about 20 months ago with very poor Chinese, only tested into the low end of level 2 at the MTC, and now (should be) getting regular work as a translator. Like I've said so many times, you have to work harder than the next person, but learning Chinese much faster than the language centers think you can or are willing to allow you to do is certainly possible.

So, goals for next month, now that I'll be done with the TOCFL. Finish 堯典 from 尚書, keep pushing with Japanese, get (re-)started on The Independent Reader, read some from magazines and newspapers, read Boltz's The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System, and maybe some 《先秦史》. Maybe get back to the high school 國文 reader if time allows. We'll see.

[querido]

I added no new lessons last month, but I made two new Chinese speaking friends at the ping-pong club. :-)

[querido]

I'm at lesson 175/286 of CSLPod Intermediate.

Still reading and writing, and conversing in slow motion.

:-)

[OneEye]

So I still didn't fully pass the TOCFL. I passed the listening section no problem, but once again I didn't have time to finish the reading section. My reading speed really needs some work. I doubt I'll take it again though, I just don't see the point.

尚書 is going well now, but wasn't earlier in the month, when a few of our meetings got cancelled. No big deal, I read some high school 國文 instead, and some 四書. I'm going to try to keep going with the latter, if I have time.

I've had stuff to translate every single day this past month. It's been really good for my Chinese, and it's usually pretty interesting stuff. I'm letting that replace The Independent Reader for now. I read some newspaper and magazine articles here and there, a decent chunk of 《先秦史》 and part of Boltz's book, so pretty successful this month.

I got accepted into the MA program I applied to. Then I got back in touch with the professor I hope to do my PhD under (who has also been tremendously helpful through this whole process since I moved here), and he advised me to go to Japan for a year or two instead. Obviously, I'm going to take his recommendation seriously, so over the next year or so, my wife and I will be getting ready to move there, looking for a job for her, etc. I can continue translating while we live there to keep my Chinese sharp or even improve it while earning a decent income, and of course I'll be working hard on Japanese. That means I really need to make Japanese more of a priority in my schedule, starting now, which I'm looking forward to.

So, goals for June. I'm participating in Tadoku this month, and my goal is to read 500 pages in Chinese. I usually read 10 pages or so per day as it is, but on days when I translate a lot, I can't do much serious reading. So I bought some comic books to read this month when my brain gets tired. I want to make significant progress on both Japanese and 尚書. And I want to continue watching/listening to a bunch of movies, because it helps a lot with both listening and speaking ability.

[Lu]

- Translate a book (still).

- Actually study Chinese instead of just using it. To this end, set up a serious SRS deck.

- Keep reading books in Chinese.

- Figure out what to do with rest of life (again). Alternatively, accept that I won't figure this out, and instead make a resolution to spend good times with friends, family and other cool people.

Well, it's all going fairly well.

- I'm translating a book, not quite as fast as I'd like but hey, I'm translating a book!! Need to figure out some more administrative things if I want to get more than a starving wage, but I will get paid and it will be published and this is quite cool. If this continues to work out, that'll be a pretty big life goal accomplished.

- I'm actually studying Chinese, feeding Anki words (mainly from the aforementioned book) and keeping up with it pretty well.

- Reading still.

- Still looking for work and a Direction in Life, and meanwhile spending good times with friends and family.

And I'm running 4-5 km several times a week, which was not a resolution but I'm happy that I'm doing this. There is also a bunch of stuff that I should be doing and haven't, but well, one thing at the time.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Seeing as we're nearing the half way mark for the year, I thought I'd post an update.

READING

I'll most likely keep downloading Taiwanese dramas in both Mandarin and Cantonese audio dubs with standard Chinese subtitles.

Doesn't mean I won't also download Korean dramas, Japanese dramas, etc. with Chinese subs or dubs.

I've just finishing downloading 大長今, the Korean historical drama in Cantonese audio dub with standard Chinese subs. I guess it was recently on Hong Kong TV because the torrent site was uploading one episode per day. It was a big hit a few years back all around Asia and in the diaspora communities around the world, but, I hadn't watched it then. The stupid torrent site all of a sudden hid the links to non-registered members, so, I didn't finish downloading it until a few days ago when I found a direct download site that had the entire series.

I've also downloaded Chibi Maruko-chan the Japanese anime series with audio in both Mandarin and Cantonese. Fan-subbed. You learn a lot of cultural stuff from these series. Many handed down from China.

Download the occasional Manga.

Read the occasional article, blog post, Facebook post, forum post, what have you.

After a disasterous hard drive crash had me down for most of the first part of the year, I finally got back into the swing of things and watched some of Da Chang Jin. Then got bored with it. Also, watched the Korean edition of It Started With A Kiss, titled Practical Kiss, dubbed in Cantonese for the Hong Kong market. Learned a lot there. The difference in wording between the Cantonese dialog and the standard Chinese subs. In Cantonese, instead of saying "zhi dao" or "ming bai" they'd just say "zhi" or "ming" but in Cantonese. Lot of little things like that.

Watched some of the Chibi Maruko-chan episodes.

Started reading this food blog by a Cantonese girl after getting back into Chinese food and cooking. When I was younger I was really into cooking in general and Chinese cooking in particular.

LISTENING

See reading.

SPEAKING...I've pretty much given up on this.

Speaks for itself.

WRITING HANZI...With computer IMEs (Input Method Editors), I don't see myself putting pen to paper any longer.

Ditto.

AND MORE

Do the occasional forum post.

I might start blogging again.

I finally got back into blogging.

OTHER LANGUAGES I WANT TO LEARN

I downloaded some Korean language material and might take up Korean. Can't be worse than Chinese. ;-)

Got plenty of Korean co-workers. They say that outside Asia, the Los Angeles metropolitan area has the most ethnic Koreans. Might as well take advantage of them.

Downloaded a crap program (warez) called Korean is Wonderful.

Makes Rosetta Stone seem comprehensive.

About as useful as those posts recommending a download of Chinese edition of Bible as if by some miracle you all of a sudden are able to read it in Chinese.

In the beginning...

Erhm...that's the foreword. It tells who translated it and what editions they consulted.

Oh, right.

And you're holding it upside down.

The first half of the DVD series was all cultural. About the royal archives. Had a narrator speaking Korean with English subs (along with Russian, Chinese, Japanese, & Spanish).

Only thing got from it is that they used 麪 in the royal archives of the food list for some banquet instead of the more common 糆 or 面.

Didn't know that the French had fought Korea and looted the royal archives. Returned some, but, not others.

The language learning part was all in Korean and the English subs. Nothing to tell which part of a sentence corresponded with which word in English. Nothing. Total waste of time. Got to know some Korean co-workers, but, too self-conscious to ask about Korean language.

[edelweis]

Lately: restarted learning Chinese after things calmed down a bit at work.

Doing reasonably well with these:

reading: started a book in traditional characters (台灣現代文選 小說卷). I don't know whether the level will be appropriate for me. I am still reading the introduction, which is about exposing students to the art of writing novels, and what is needed to make a novel vs a simple account of facts or story. Previously I tried another traditional characters book, a novel translated from Japanese (selected at random on the library shelves) but it was not riveting (something about heroin addicts - the needles ).

use it for work: I have been watching tutorials on 优酷 (at home, about topics that might be useful if I left my current job )

srs: halfway through the HSK5 vocabulary. Adding more Chinese definitions and synonyms as well as sample sentences on the cards.

listening for HSK5 vocabulary.

other languages: made a list of 5 languages and cycling through them. On ordinary days I sit at my desk and study or review textbooks or prepare audio material or whatever strikes my fancy (reading aloud a Sci-Fi novel or technical wikipedia articles in Spanish, shadowing Librivox poetry recordings in English etc). On laundry days I do audio reviews and exercises as I sort the laundry. It has been slow going but enjoyable so far.

I am trying to restart daily character study.

Not sure about the rest... I'd like to practice speaking and general vocabulary daily (or on alternate days?) and I am considering alternating as many days as needed to complete one lesson of my 科普汉语听记 manual and then the same number of days studying grammar and general writing. Over-thinking and over-planning as usual... never mind we'll see what happens.

[querido]

I'm suffering my once or twice a year total collapse.

I might declare my 275 Elementary and 175 Intermediate lessons at CSLPod to be "enough", and move on just to try to freshen myself.

Chatting and texting and occasionally socializing with my real-life Chinese friends continues. They are my prize for the studying I've done, and improving my Chinese to facilitate these friendships is my final motivation, really.

[abcdefg]

#57 -- You've made excellent progress. Congratulations! Never hurts to review. That's what I do during "pauses" or when I "hit the wall" (in marathon parlance.)

During the summer vacation months I often hire a university student to help me review what I've learned in the classroom earlier in the year. Even with SRS and such, it always seems I've forgotten tons. My rate of forgetting increases with every year that is added to my age.

Personally I find the main benefit of these "tutor reviews" to be not just recalling seldom-used vocabulary words, but rather how and when to use those words, in what context and so on. The "when and how to use what" points plus everyday grammar and syntax are things that these reviews help me with most.

Realize it might well be more difficult for you to arrange since you don't live immersed in a Chinese-speaking environment.

[querido]

Thank you again abcdefg.

I should begin consuming real native media (to get thousands of reps). In Spanish and Russian I liked (Western) chess books; maybe this time it will be ping-pong videos.

To the thread: I don't think I can finish this podcast project. In fact, I don't think I can eat another bite!

[rebor]

Update since my last report

As per usual, I was horribly overconfident in my studiousness and self-discipline. About the only thing I did is what I said I wouldn't do - ditch Skritter. I made the switch to Pleco, and although that meant spending some time blasting through familiar cards to get them in to the new system, I feel it was a worthwhile exercise. No more monthly payments, and far less time spent doing reviews(thanks to not having to write).

I have read some, too. After reviewing all my old textbooks, I felt a bit burnt out, as I found little pleasure in the material. There's nothing much wrong with the books(Road to Success for the interested), but they are textbooks, and no one learns a foreign language for the sake of textbooks. After some hesitation, fearing that the extent of my ignorance would finally be revealed to me, I swallowed my pride and took up reading 南方周末. I cheat, because I use pleco's reader, but with that crutch reading is fairly comfortable. I add every unfamiliar word to my flashcards(so convenient! I love pleco), and the context, and the fact that I found the subject matter of the article interesting in the first place(otherwise I wouldn't have chosen to read it) increases my motivation.

I have also done a bit watching TV-shows, looking up unknown words as I go along, and I think it has great potential to improve both my 口语 and 听力, but I haven't made the habit stick yet. This is next.

With a bit more vocabulary under my belt, I'm itching to speak more. Will harass the poor exchange students come this fall, it's a promise! A tutor(probably on Skype) would also work wonders. But I've learnt to be realistic in my plans, so I won't promise anything here...