The 2014 Aims and Objectives Progress Thread

[abcdefg]

#20 -- I also watch the 春晚 every year. Often twice. This year it will debut at 8 pm on Thursday night, 30 January. It will be easy to catch entire daytime re-runs Friday the 31st, as well as Saturday and Sunday of the immediately following weekend. Bits and pieces will be shown all throughout the next week. 

 

http://www.qicaispace.com/flowers/2011/info24.asp

[edelweis]

great, thanks! So that's 30 Jan 13:00 CET.

[abcdefg]

I don't know your time zones. It's 8 p.m. Beijing time.

[roddy]

Re the Spring Festival TV show, I'm not up to date on the buzz this year, but if anyone wants to start off a new topic in the mold of this old one we can get all over-excited then watch it together. 

 

I think last year I missed it by getting my time differences confused. 

[gato]

冯小刚 is the director this year, so it might lean a little more towards comedy perhaps, maybe.

[Lu]

The past year has been good, and the goals are still useable, so I'll just partly recycle them:

 

- Continue to actually learn more Chinese. Keep feeding Anki. Also start putting in chengyu again, not just words.

- Translate another book and not miss the deadline this time.

- Speak more Chinese and to that end, spend more time with Chinese friends.

- Continue to read Chinese, including books, and not only the one I'm translating.

 

In non-Chinese-related:

- Get minor health problems sorted out (see optometrist and such).

- Try to make current profession financially feasible or else get a job.

- Get up earlier, start work earlier, and get more done as a result (which will help in not missing aforementioned deadline and in making aforementioned money).

- Continue to run 5 km 1-2 times a week.

[JustinJJ]

2014 Goals:

 

Vocab - learn around 10 words a day to boost my vocab to around the 10,000 mark (tackle the remaining 1000 Hsk words first, then focus on news-related words)

 

Listening - spend a couple hours a day, alternating between radio, tv shows, the news, etc

 

Exams - Sit the HSK level 6

 

Environment - Create a 100% Chinese environment in my apartment i.e. find Chinese flat mates who are relatively sociable, only speak English to non-mandarin speakers, live in a predominantly Chinese area of Sydney etc.  

[jefflau]

My goals for Chinese:

 

Raise my Chinese level to advanced (C1) by end of May.

 

Read 那些年我們一起追的女孩

[querido]

In Mandarin my goal is to retain what I have now and to listen to as much of my graded reading material as possible. 

I might not post every month but of course I'll post if I actually accomplish anything. :-)

[anonymoose]

I really hate goals. I think I've managed to get as far as I have with Chinese precisely because I've never had any goals, and therefore never had any pressure, so I've been able to enjoy myself without any of the stress.

 

Still, I "hope" I will be able to speak more fluently by the end of the year. I just need to somehow find a way of adjusting my thought mode so that things come out more naturally. I don't think I'm too far off this, but the last hurdle is elusive. Maybe the problem is not being well-practiced enough with vocabulary. But what can one do so that even the infrequently-used words are at the tip of one's tongue whenever one needs them? I guess that's even difficult for me in English sometimes.

[Rowan]

 

I just need to somehow find a way of adjusting my thought mode so that things come out more naturally. I don't think I'm too far off this, but the last hurdle is elusive. Maybe the problem is not being well-practiced enough with vocabulary. But what can one do so that even the infrequently-used words are at the tip of one's tongue whenever one needs them? I guess that's even difficult for me in English sometimes.

 

I think ideas about needing to adjust your thought mode to speak more fluently are an illusion you can create yourself about how fluency really comes about. I think what I've underlined is a much more relevant concern when it comes to improving fluency. It's not your thought mode, it's more of just the state of mind of being able to talk correctly with your thoughts focused solely on the ideas you are expressing rather than the vehicle you are using to express them, an ability that comes solely from your familiarity with that vehicle, a familiarity which in turn comes solely from time invested.

 

My two cence. 

[John Zhouran]

As a beginner studying Mandarin for 1 year, my goals seem fairly insignificant. My biggest goal is to be more effective with my study in 2014. Importantly for me, sometimes that means studying offline and without distraction. I have 2 hours each day to study but would like to make this time more efficient.  So by listing my goals for 2014, I hope it will help to attain and review my goals periodically. (wish me luck!)

 

2014 goals:

 

*Attempt HSK 3 (October)

*Complete FSI recordings.

*Visit China for 4 weeks, (April) maximising oral learning opportunities.

*Weekly public speaking for 5 minutes without notes attended by Chinese Uni students at Confucius Institute.

*Find study partners of the same level for support, learning through games and competition

*Li Bai Poems, memorise and recite poems

*Learn by Songs, listening and singing to current pop songs.

*Learn more Chinese History/Culture

 

Daily goals: (2 hours daily)

 

*Speaking: Record voice and role plays

*Listening: HSK material / FSI

*Grammar: As per NPCR2

*Vocab: SRS

 

Resources:

HSK2/3 material, Memrise, Anki

[roddy]

Made this sticky, and will unsticky the 2013 (and 2012, which seems to still be there) topics. The old topics are still open though, so if anyone wants to review their 2013 progress, there's still time. 

[Meng Lelan]

Thank you for letting us know and thank you for making this a sticky, roddy!

 

As for my goals so far, I got the Short Story thing up and running thanks to assistance from roddy, also am now on Chapter 9 of the DeFrancis Intermediate Part 1. Learned the opening moves for the beginning of 南拳 and  刀術 already. So looks like a good start to 2014 which will hopefully continue to be good going. 

[ZhangKaiRong]

Goals... Sure they can be motivating, so here is my list:

 

- Continue preparing for the HSK6 exam, learning 12-15 new words every day from the word list, starting to grind some 模拟考试. To be honest, I don't feel that this exam contributes that much extent to my practical Chinese knowledge, but I need the damn paper for some reason

 

- Continue listening to ChinesePod 高级 podcasts during my way to work every day and relistening the track after work on my way back home

 

- Continue reading at least one longer or two shorter articles on 财新 web

 

- I have been slacking off recently and haven't practiced writing Hanzi for some time, and due to the fact that I mainly text on Weixin or writing stuffs in Word, so I forgot how to write a lot of characters from memory. I don't have any difficulties with them when I read or when I type, but this passive knowledge is not enough for me, so I will write 40 minutes every day to refresh the characters

 

- I would like to finish 余华's 活着 this year, as well as some 张爱玲 short stories

 

- Maintaining the good relationship with my dear Chinese friends, meeting the ones living in my city once or twice every week and contacting the ones in China on Weixin or Weibo

 

- Finding some time to watch Chinese TV shows every week, I haven't seen 非常勿扰 or 爸爸去哪儿了 for ages, and I miss these shows

 

- The most important one - and the one that probably won't be fulfilled this year - is to make my company transfer me to China, and not somebody with no "China-experience" and no language knowledge. Working for a prestigous consulting MNC can be rewarding financially, but not with the secondments abroad: corporate hierarchy works just way too fine, and years spent at the company still count much more than language skills and intercultural experience. Even though I feel in my heart that I would be the perfect candidate for that job in China, I know that the executives will probably choose somebody else with no Chinese skills but more business experience. Still, I hope that I might be lucky enough to get the chance. I will try my best!

 

Everybody 加油

[Meng Lelan]

- Maintaining the good relationship with my dear Chinese friends, meeting the ones living in my city once or twice every week and contacting the ones in China on Weixin or Weibo

 

I really like that kind of goal. 

[Kelby]

2014 will be the year of reading for me. 2013 saw me burried six feet under in a Chinese immersion environment, but I now see the need to bring my awkward laowai Mandarin to some sense of normalcy.

The biggest thing I see that makes me communicate ineffectively is a small vocabulary. I can use that small vocab with great confidence now but alas, it hardly comes accross as too educated. Seeing how I've been more and more fed up with not being able to express myself properly, it's time to get to work on that vocab.

I plan on building that vocabulary the same way I build my English one; by reading anything and everything. I've always been curious about whether naturally encountering words can help you learn them better than just flash carding them into your brain, so I'm excited to experiment with this idea over the year. It also helps that I hate studying, although I know I'll have to keep that up still.

It's also nice because studying and seeing me with a book makes my girlfriend happy, and growing more able to communicate effectively with her is quite literally a labor of love.

To this end I have some resolutions

1. Read my weibo feed instead of just looking at the pictures.

2. Stop deleting the weibo news that so annoyingly skews what one thinks are forwards and replies and read it instead.

3. Keep a physical book by my side or comic loaded into my phone at all times. Reading is better for one's Chinese than playing Angry Birds all the time, right? (I'm behind the trends so I only just discovered the Star Wars one. It's awesome, no?)

4. Continue my love/ hate relationship with my SRS study.

5. Restart my personal frequency list.

6. Use Lang-8 more, especially to revise my social media posts so I can confidently...

7. Post on Weibo and Weixin more.

Now my goals, which I'm hoping will put me in a whole new magical land of literacy.

1. Pass the HSK 4. This is actially an old goal, bit is necessary for this year's...

2. Take the HSK 5.

3. Complete my 3000 character frequency list. I break this study down by 1) studying a list of fully unknown characters for their pronunciation to help reading speed and 2) studying the characters I know how to pronounce for vocabulary words they appear in. This will continue throughout the year no doubt, but I plan on having the list sorted into categories 1 & 2 and having a big dent made in my study by March.

4. Read a familiar, translated novel by June. My tentative choice is the Hunger Games, because it's a relatively easy read and I'm familiar with the story already.

5. Read an untranslated, Chinese novel by next January. That is, a novel wholly in Chinese, right out of a Chinese brain, that has never intermingled with English, so to speak. I'd love to get some suggestions on novels to try ;)

Other, more long-shot goals include having Chen Yi Xun over for tea, becoming a Chinese superstar, and giving Wang Lee Hom a fist bump out of mutual respect for chizzled features and great hair, neither of which I have. One can dream, right?

How about the rest of you?

[Lu]

That is, a novel wholly in Chinese, right out of a Chinese brain, that has never intermingled with English, so to speak. I'd love to get some suggestions on novels to try ;)

Take a look in the Chinese literature subforum. Others have asked this question before you and received lots of useful answers. Also consider reading a Book of the Month (they're not actually confined to any singular month, you can just jump into a BOTM thread from 2008 if you like) or Meng Lelan's short story project.

 

Seconding your Wang Lihong goal. I don't like his music all that much but I admire what he's managed to do. Also he's hot :-)

 

Good luck on all your goals!

[Demonic_Duck]

Every day Mon-Sun:

At least 30 minutes listening (TV, film, music all count but has to be concentrated listening rather than in the background)

At least 30 minutes reading (any available content of a suitable level, generally simple but native-level content from magazines etc.)

Do a few flashcards on the subway (weekends excepted, no specified amount as I don't think it's much of a priority)

 

Weekly:

Attend 4 hours of small-group classes a week. Ideally, will add a few more hours to this of private lessons.

Write at least 1 lang-8 journal entry.

 

General:

Use Chinese more in daily life, particularly at work, as my current workplace includes ample opportunities to do so, though also requiring a lot of English.

Learn to sing more songs in Chinese. No specific target, but I think my total at the moment is around 7 or 8 I can sing by heart, so doubling that would be good.

 

Goal for the year:

Get to HSK6 level by the end of the year. If I get to a level where I think I can pass it with a decent mark, I'll take the test too.

[Nathan Mao]

I have never really had yearly goals.

 

1) I want to read my 2nd Jin Yong book. (read my first, 连城决, last year)

Dunno. If I get around to it, I might want to read the 2nd half of 杜拉拉升值.  And one of these years I'll get around to reading the 4 Great Novels in Chinese, I guess.

 

2) I'm going to watch a bunch of television serials for fun, so I might as well add watching them to my list of goals. Just finished 咱们结婚吧 and I highly recommend it.  I'm watching a 孙红雷 serial right now about him getting revenge on the town leader for having his father killed.  Looks like a lot of good action and suspense...hoping for it to be as good as 黎明之前 (which I liked better than 潜伏, slightly).  Then there is an older one about a guy who becomes a special forces soldier, 我是特工士 or something like that, which was good. Plus my wife has 黄渤 (huang bo)'s television serial something about/like 民军 teed up for me next.

 

3) I want to improve my reading from a 3 to a 3+ on my next DLPT V test, which will be coming up in March.  I was extremely surprised to get the 3+ in listening last time; historically, I've always been much better at reading than listening.  I know about 3300 characters right now (on the list of most common characters, I start thinning out at 3200 or so, but I know at least 1 out of every 10 all the way up to above #4000).  So I guess I'd like to get to the point where I know the top 3500 characters in both simplified and traditional (I'm slightly better in simplified).

 

4) Post here a lot, and learn from reading your posts!