Goals to learn Chinese

[Erickones]

Hello everyone...

I'm in the intermediate level now and I feel I'm improving really slow in the moment... I read some articles about goal settings for language learning and it seems really good, but I can't think of good goals... 

Can you guys give me some ideas and share some of your language learning goals with me?

Thank you

 

[889]

You mean practical goals, to measure your advancement?

 

I'd say at intermediate level you should be able to deal with common everyday situations: open a bank acccount, buy a SIM card (and understand the terms), report a theft at the PSB, etc. If you can do these sorts of things, and interact with Chinese in a way that actually accomplishes something, as distinct from just chit-chat, you'll start seeing a postive return on your studies.

[trevorld]

Some intermediate Chinese goals of stuff to be able to do:

• Read an (easy) Chinese book / article, read a particular (harder) Chinese book / article, re-read a Chinese book / article at a higher level of comprehension (perhaps no dictionary assistance)
• Watch an (easy) Chinese TV show / movie, watch a particular (harder) Chinese TV show / movie, re-watch a Chinese TV show / movie at a higher level of comprehension (perhaps without subtitles)
• Listen to an (easy) Chinese dialogue / podcast / radio / song, listen to a particular (harder) Chinese dialogue / podcast / radio / song / lecture / group conversation, re-listen...
• With a Chinese person have an (easy) social interaction, with a Chinese person have a particular (harder) social interaction
• Sing an easy Chinese (KTV) song, sing a particular (harder) Chinese (KTV) song
• Pass an (easy) Chinese exam,  pass a particular (harder) Chinese exam, re-pass a Chinese exam with a higher score
• Write an easy Chinese essay / diary entry / letter, write a particular (harder) Chinese essay / diary entry / letter, re-write an essay / diary entry / letter "better"
• Be able to recognize in context X most-frequent (simplified/traditional) characters / words, then be able to recognize X + 100 ...

Personally some of my near-term goals (likely will complete this year):

• Read online the novel 《鬼吹灯（盗墓者的经历）》 (several chapters in)
• Go through my downloaded collection of Popup Chinese dialogues at the Elementary-difficultly level with target goal of when (re-)listening to them to be able to understand the vast majority of them without needing to refer to the transcripts (have already learned several dialogues at that level and all dialogues at the previous level of difficulty).
• Get my traditional character reading comprehension up to my simplified character reading comprehension.  At a "friends-of-the-local-library" sale I was able to pick up 25 volumes of a traditional Chinese manhua series for 25 USD total as practice material and am currently on volume 10 of that series as well as read volumes 1 and 2 of "Tales and Traditions" graded readers.
• Learn the lyrics to a couple more Chinese songs (already learned the lyrics to eight songs)

Personally some of my mid-range goals (likely will not complete this year):

• I want to read a Chinese translation of 《霍比特人》 (since I've enjoyed it in English, Spanish, and Esperanto) (already have a copy on my shelf)
• Read at least one Chinese wuxia novel (Hacking Chinese has a list of good choices to pick) 
• Recognize in context the 3000 most-frequent characters (already recognize 88% of them) and 12,000 most-frequent words
• Pass the HSK6 exam (have tried to learn all but 300 or so of the vocabulary words), of the skills it tests listening comprehension seems to be my weakest link
• Hire a tutor and drill my speaking skills

Some more information on goals:

 

http://www.hackingchinese.com/study-more-chinese-time-boxing-vs-micro-goals/