Diving into specialised vocabulary (e.g. engineering): at what level?

[Jan Finster]

I wonder at what level learners can start to dig into specialised vocabulary based on their interests, major or university degree (e.g. engineering, history, chemistry, medicine, psychology...)

 

What do you consider as mandatory minimum HSK/skill level that one should have prior to specialising?

 

(I realise more and more that I have little motivation to be able to read Harry Potter in Mandarin or understand the news. Mainly I would love to dig into biomedical and psychological topics.) 

 

[Wurstmann]

If you got the basics down I think it's never to early. If you're into gaming you will naturally end up watching and reading stuff about that and as a result acquire words pertinent to this field. So you end up learning specialized vocab either way. 95% (yay for made up statistics) of the language is the same anyway, regardless of the topic.

[imron]

Train what you want to learn.

[thechamp]

The slightly harder thing is more formal sentence structure and conjugations that you find in 'serious' texts like something academic or high-brow journalistic - and certainly something business related or legal.

 

I think this is actually more of a departure in Chinese than the difference between formal and demotic English. If you didn't know some of those more formal sentence patterns and conjugations but knew all the vocabulary in them, you wouldn't really be able to read the sentence in any meaningful way. Learning formal grammar patterns shouldn't take long though if you've already learned a lot of Chinese.

[anonymoose]

1 hour ago, thechamp said:

conjugations

 

What conjugations?

[edelweis]

1 hour ago, anonymoose said:

What conjugations?

Co...ations  => collocations ?

[edelweis]

@Jan Finster

these links might be of interest

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/45124-review-an-elementary-course-in-scientific-chinese/

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/56993-the-chinese-government-scholarship-experience/

http://www.tju.edu.cn/english/Admissions/Foundation_Program.htm

http://sie.tju.edu.cn/en/ykxm/201508/t20150804_263625.html

 

[matteo]

As an engineer, even if your Chinese level is very low,  knowing a few hundreds (industry-dependent) words will allow you to make sense of basically any technical drawing, which is quite useful.

[DavyJonesLocker]

I think it's quite important to focus on what you wait to learn early on. That was a major mistake of mine when I was formally studying in language school.

It's very easy to get trapped on a HSK style learning route and really struggle with everyday life. Words you don't use become very hard to remember and you end up on this highly inefficient  cycle of trying to force learn HSK words at the expensive of much more important words (for you personally). These words need to move to the top on the list if you use a SRS methodology

 

For example I have been going to the hospital recently and been struggling trying to speak to doctors. Even very simple questions from the doctor like 大便 or  小便 I didn't understand at first. 

 

To put an actual hsk level on it I'd say around HSK 4 onwards is around the time when about half of your words need to start coming from sources that are of use to YOU. A very crude guide I admit and it will naturally depend on your interests (reading material , conversing etc, ) whether you live in China or not, and so on. 

 

Up to HSK 4 Id say around 30% of words where just coming from everyday life. My anki deck now is about 60% to 70% non HSK words (正骨推拿 just got added in this morning) as I'm just back from the excellent blind massage centers they have here in Beijing. 

 

When I inevitably every few months fall behind in anki and need to suspend thousands of cards the only ones that are marked as essential are ones that didn't come from text books. 

[thechamp]

Sorry, blonde moment, I meant 'conjunctions' obviously! I remember there being lots of different ways of basically saying 

仍然 for example. Bare in mind I've not lived in Asia in nearly five years so my Chinese deteriorated a lot - but I was very surprised at how different the vocabulary was between informal and formal Chinese.

 

I remember having a job where I was asked to translate a contract and seeing a lot of 

 

照顾中国法律

 

And then some fairly unusual terminology afterwards, that I've long since forgotten. 

[murrayjames]

My background is in music and music education. When I started learning music terminology in Chinese, I was at a lower-intermediate level. I bought a freshman music theory textbook from the local Chinese music conservatory bookstore. Reading the textbook was slow going—it took me six months to finish—but enormously helpful. I also read 维基百科 and 百度百科 articles on music-related subjects, which was similarly helpful.

[abcdefg]

Learning about tea here was a challenge. Lots of specialized words. Classes all in Chinese, textbook way over my head. Had it not been for some patient and helpful classmates, I would have drowned.  The teachers were kind too, but my classmates were the real heroes. 

[Flickserve]

Starting early is good. Keeps your interest up.