The 2020 Aims and Objectives Progress Topic

[Lu]

3 minutes ago, timseb said:

I think Niezi will be a great read, but I'm scared it's still too difficult for me.

Niezi is great but I'd also be wary, last time I read any Bai Xianyong (which is years ago) I found it pretty difficult. But just try it, and if it's too hard, try the Niezi tv series, which is also great though in a different way.

[jannesan]

Time for a recap:

 

whole year:

• take HSK5 and pass with a good score Nope, didn't want to do the online test
• read a few easy Chinese novels Yes, on my 7th right now, and will be done before the end of the year:)

each month:

• write at least one essay longer than one page Nope, only wrote an irregular diary for the first half of the year

each week:

• take 2 classes with 50/50 focus textbook/free talk Yes, kind of, though it was way more free talk
• read a few news articles Sometimes, but often I just read my current novel instead
• watch at least one episode of a TV show / consume some other video content Yes, watched quite a few shows and movies

each day:

• vocabulary study (~10 new words) Yes, but I gradually reduced it to 5 new words, review time was getting to long

 

I'm satisfied overall, but next year I have to come up with a plan to do more writing.

I'll make a plan and post it in next year's topic.

[Jan Finster]

58 minutes ago, jannesan said:

• take HSK5 and pass with a good score Nope, didn't want to do the online test
• read a few easy Chinese novels Yes, on my 7th right now, and will be done before the end of the year:)

 

You read 7 novels in 2020 being at HSK 5 level? Jaw drop! ?

[Lu]

1 hour ago, jannesan said:

I'll make a plan and post it in next year's topic.

You can start a topic for next year, if you want!

[Jan Finster]

On 6/28/2020 at 12:43 PM, Jan Finster said:

On 12/31/2019 at 5:50 AM, Jan Finster said:

My goals for 2020 are:

1) read, listen to and "shadow"/chorus  every episode of Chinesepod Elementary and Intermediate before my subscription runs out on Black Friday 2020: those would be around 4-5 episodes per day.

2) watch Chinese dramas (at least 5-7 episodes per week) and review the subtitles (read the subtitles on Lingq and SRS study important words).

3) Listen to Chinesepod, audio from Chinese dramas and other audio products on the go (gym).

4) try to work on my oral speaking skills with a tutor on Skype or iTalki. This, I have neglected recently due to loads of stress at work.  I hope I can get tutoring at least 1-2 hour per week. I am not really keen on preparing homework for my tutors, but maybe there is a way around it...

5) try to learn some medical Chinese vocabulary (still have not found a good western medical textbook translated into Chinese, only TCM books (!?))

 

I thought I would write a brief update on my progress:

 

On 12/31/2019 at 5:50 AM, Jan Finster said:

1) read, listen to and "shadow"/chorus  every episode of Chinesepod Elementary and Intermediate before my subscription runs out on Black Friday 2020: those would be around 4-5 episodes per day.

 

Here I am happy with my progress. I am probably averaging 4-5 episodes a day. I never listen to the whole episode, but rather just shadow the dialogue and "expansion" sentences. I feel my tones and overall smoothness when speaking are getting much better.

 

On 12/31/2019 at 5:50 AM, Jan Finster said:

2) watch Chinese dramas (at least 5-7 episodes per week) and review the subtitles (read the subtitles on Lingq and SRS study important words).

 

I pretty much stopped doing this around March/April. I realised watching TV dramas is a subtle way of procrastinating. I believe at my level I can invest my time better. So, I started TheChairmansBao. The benefit of using TCB to me is the incredible breadth of topics. If you watch a spy drama with 70 episodes, the vocabulary will be rather narrow (guns, bombs, enemy tactics, etc). With TCB you can jump from "producing art from garbage" to "why are domestic hog breeds at the verge of extinction" to "a Chinese man unicyles around the world" in an instant. I have been reading and listening to about 5 lessons per day (mostly HSK 3-5 levels).

 

On 12/31/2019 at 5:50 AM, Jan Finster said:

3) Listen to Chinesepod, audio from Chinese dramas and other audio products on the go (gym).

 

Been doing this consistently while running. Not sure how much it really helps...

 

On 12/31/2019 at 5:50 AM, Jan Finster said:

4) try to work on my oral speaking skills with a tutor on Skype or iTalki. This, I have neglected recently due to loads of stress at work.  I hope I can get tutoring at least 1-2 hour per week. I am not really keen on preparing homework for my tutors, but maybe there is a way around it...

 

Starting doing lessons once a week with a tutor on Skype since May. I wish I had more time to do this 2-3x per week. Speaking skills are still really bad, but getting better.

 

On 12/31/2019 at 5:50 AM, Jan Finster said:

5) try to learn some medical Chinese vocabulary (still have not found a good western medical textbook translated into Chinese, only TCM books (!?))

 

Total failure on that part. I created some 2000 or so flashcards, but did not really study them. I probably should wait until my "normal" Mandarin gets better.

 

Recap of 2020:

 

I started TCB in April 2020 and to my surprise I read just over 1000 articles since then (around 50% HSK 3 [very easy extensive reading], 40% HSK 4 and 10% HSK 5 [intensive reading]). 

I started 2 NY Times Bestsellers in Chinese (intensive reading). I am around 3 chapters in on both. Way above my abilities, but still "fun"

Overall, I read about 350.000 words and listened to native audio (mostly TCB and the audio books of said NY Times bestsellers) for around 350 hours  in 2020.

Oral: Took a break from daily shadowing due to recurrent throat soreness and have only recently restarted. I also restarted with my teacher after a 5 months hiatus in May, did approximately 6-7 lessons, first at HSK 5-6 level, which was a bit challenging. Then my teacher felt we should work systemically through the HSK 4 standard book since I lack grammar skill even though I know the vocabulary of HSK 5+. Did the first lesson in that book and got bored out of my mind and stopped working with the teacher for now.

 

According to Lingq, I learned 3000 new "words" this year.

 

Thanks to COVID-19  I had quite a lot of time to invest in Chinese, but considering all the effort I put in, I am very disappointed with my progress this year. I still struggle to remember characters even though I have encountered them 30-50 times this year. I only understand about 70-80% of the TCB audio versions of texts I have read in the past and my speaking is still HSK 3 ish (at best). ? 

 

 

 

[imron]

14 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

I have encountered them 30-50 times this year. I only understand about 70-80% of the TCB audio versions of texts I have read in the past and my speaking is still HSK 3 ish (at best). ?

Welcome to the intermediate plateau.  
 

Everyone who achieves a high level of Chinese has been there. 

 

The only way out is through. 

[PerpetualChange]

On 12/16/2019 at 11:03 AM, PerpetualChange said:

Daily: 

• 30 minutes reading time 
• Deeply focus on at least 5 unknown new words
• 30 minutes active listening (active TV watching, LCTS, etc)
• Diary entry 
• "Teach" my wife for 15 minutes per day (as long as she stays interested... this can just be a basic conversation together based on her vocabulary)

Weekly: 

• Continue at least 1 hour formal tutoring (online)
• Write a 500-1000 word essay
• At least two 30-minute conversations with language partners 

Yearly

• Read 6 novels
• At some point, begin a more serious study of Classical and Literary Chinese

 

Thoughts? 

 

Pretty much kept up with everything until the summer, when my first was born. After that, everything dropped but 30 minutes of reading per day. I think it's OK as I was getting a little obsessive and over-stressed about my Chinese abilities, and having other things to focus on in life just kind of put the need for Chinese study into perspective for me. I don't use my Chinese for work and don't even know where I'd begin to ever do so, so Chinese serves very little purpose in my life other than enjoyment, which comes from reading novels and watching movies, neither of which I have a ton of time for anymore anyway. 

[Flickserve]

2 hours ago, PerpetualChange said:

when my first was born.

 

You can put those movies and dramas on again and start developing your baby's listening skills in Chinese?

[BearXiong]

On 1/4/2020 at 11:29 AM, BearXiong said:

I've been learning Chinese for nearly 5 years now. I could have done more but I'm happy with the very modest progress I made. I can recognise about 3200 characters, read simpler novels, chat online with people about lots of different topics, watch TV shows etc.

 

That said, I don't have the same energy/motivation as I once did but also don't want to plateau at this level. I still do my Anki reviews daily and add words/characters I want to learn to Anki. However, in 2019 I didn't add as many words/characters as I would've liked. My goals for this year is simply to be a bit more aggressive with addings words/characters and keep up with consuming media. I figure over one year this might not make much of a difference but if I continue for another 5 years, even learning 2-3 words per day, which isn't so hard to do, will add up to ~5000 words which is quite significant.

 

1) This year I added and learnt 1,300 word flashcards (probably learnt a few hundred additional words outside of flashcards).

 

2) Learnt 300 new characters, for a total of 3500.

 

3) Probably read 500k to a million characters via novels. Not as much as I hoped but I still feel like my reading skills improved a fair bit, maybe from watching so many TV shows.

 

4) Watched loads of TV shows (watched something everyday). Diversified what I watched to include lots of new genres like 推理剧，盗墓剧，古装剧 etc.

 

5) Finally, the most important thing I did for my Chinese this year was spend a tonne of time calling people on HelloTalk and WeChat. I must've spent 100+ hours, not sure exactly how much. I always felt like my speaking skills lagged so far behind my other skills. Now that my speaking skills have improved significantly, it no longer feels like speaking is holding me back significantly. Still a long way to go but I'm much more confident talking to people now. Feels good man.

 

 

[Tomsima]

Its that time of year once again, checking in to update on my 2020 progress. Its been a very strange year for all of us, and particularly so considering I'm back in the uk preparing for some new mutated COVID-20 uk lockdown nearly a year after getting trapped in Hubei with the mystery Wuhan virus. Bizarre...

 

Anyway, onto how I did this year.

 

1) I managed to learn around 50 Tang poems off by heart, and it has really blown me away just how useful this has become for understanding wordplay and feeling in everyday Chinese, but especially so when watching TV dramas, where they get referenced all the time, and you wouldnt know otherwise. They sit there like little in jokes for those who know, and I strongly recommend learning some of the most common poems to all advanced learners who have yet to do so.

 

2) I still type in Cangjie, and to my surprise actually find it more of a mindfuck typing according to pinyin nowadays, it just feels like everything is mapped wrongly. That being said, I still frequently forget how some character is written and have to check a dictionary before I can continue. I have typed very little in Chinese in the last few months, so this is definitely a consequence of not having everyday practice to reinforce this skill. Still, very very happy to have managed to make the jump here, both on desktop and mobile.

 

As for 2021, I believe the thread hasnt been made yet, so I'll go and do that later unless someone else wants to take the lead?

[matteo]

All in all, I think I'm happy about my 2020 Chinese-studying wise, although with a few ups and downs.

I didn't have any proper objective for 2020, but If I had to list what I'm most and least happy about that would be:

 

I'm happy about:

- improved reading skills and reading speed. I started reading more native material, read 4 novels, had a go at a fifth and dropped it (too hard). I'm now 20% into another (山楂树之恋 ) which is on average not too hard...I'm struggling to keep at it though cause I just find it too sappy and not interesting enough to keep me going. Selection and procurement of good novels at the right level is a major problem for me... @jannesan could you please give me the titles of the novels you read? I'm in dire need of inspiration!

 

I'm not unhappy with:

- vocabulary: 650 words added in Anki this year. It's not many really considering the time I spend reviewing every day (45 mins on average) but this must be because I review sentences (which I pick up from the various books and other sources) rather than individual words. I find this method to be very effective in retaining the words and providing a context for them - so I think I can't get rid of it yet - but it's very time consuming and doing it day in day out is a bit of a weight on the mind.

 

- speaking: once a week for a couple of hours me and girlfriend have a non-structured conversations with our friend/teacher and we are getting better at expressing ourselves. We can speak about almost anything without switching back to english and that's something we were not able to do last year. I'm aware this is in large measure due to our teacher being super patient and maybe even having developed an "ear" for our mistakes but still pretty happy on that front. 

 

Still struggling with:

- I feel listening is still the hardest activity. Earlier this year I decided I would make a point of listening every day to native material (podcasts): I've done so for at least half an hour to an hour  (depending on life commitments) each morning and I see results, but they are coming in soooo slowly. I still can't dream about watching tv without English subs. I tried last week listening to a HSK 5 audio (one of those longer ones at the end of the listening section which I really struggled with at the start of the year) just to have a reference: while I find the speech much clearer and the speed approachable, I can only get the gist with many holes. So still lots to do.

 

 

Will definitely have to sketch up an objectives list for 2021,  even if I'm afraid there is a high risk of them being massively influenced by the pandemic developments...my life/work/china plans are changing wildly by the moment, I guess just like everybody else's...?

 

 

[imron]

38 minutes ago, matteo said:

so I think I can't get rid of it yet - but it's very time consuming and doing it day in day out is a bit of a weight on the mind.

You’d be better off only learning words, then using Pleco for the auto dictionary entries and zero maintenance flash cards, and then spending the extra time you save on reading.

If you read enough, then in any given year you’ll encounter all the useful words multiple times and that will provide the context and help you need in remembering the word. 
 

Flash card review should never be the learning activity you spend the most time on. 

[matteo]

I am definitely considering doing that, might take these upcoming Christmas holidays as the pretext to switch...what holds me back is the idea of letting go of a system that worked pretty well for years and provided me with a clear daily commitment. It feels a bit like removing the training wheels! 

[jiaojiao87]

2 hours ago, matteo said:

improved reading skills and reading speed. I started reading more native material, read 4 novels, had a go at a fifth and dropped it (too hard). I'm now 20%

What books did you read, if you don't mind sharing?

[大块头]

2 hours ago, matteo said:

vocabulary: 650 words added in Anki this year. It's not many really considering the time I spend reviewing every day (45 mins on average)

 

What is your leeching threshold? I don't know how you're structuring your flashcards, but that sounds like a lot of time to have spent on 650 words...

[matteo]

1 hour ago, jiaojiao87 said:

What books did you read, if you don't mind sharing?

In order I read:

许三观卖血记 

小王子

活着

aborted 江城 by Peter Hessler 

草鞋湾

now reading 山楂树之恋 

 

46 minutes ago, 大块头 said:

What is your leeching threshold? I don't know how you're structuring your flashcards, but that sounds like a lot of time to have spent on 650 words...

 

leeching threshold is 8 (standard) but have very few leeches. The long time is due I believe mainly to two factors:

1) since the very beginning when I started using anki I've been used to noting down whole sentences or paragraphs and I read them for each card. For instance, my card for "规矩" shows me the word, plus this sentence 按规矩凤霞得一个月以后回来，我们也得一个月以后才能去看她。Sometimes I have 2 or 3 sentences when the word has different meanings in different contexts. I usually read all the sentences for each card and often check other words in the sentence which are not the main word. I end up spending about 20 seconds on each card, which is quite a bit.

2) I have about 4000 active cards in the deck, which means every day I get about 140 cards

 

I think this was a really good system at the beginning but I agree it's now too high maintenance and getting out of hand...I'm absolutely keen on changing it, I' just want to be sure that what I go for is not worse ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lu]

3 hours ago, matteo said:

2) I have about 4000 active cards in the deck, which means every day I get about 140 cards

In b4 Imron comes by to tell you to delete the whole deck and start afresh.

 

I myself am not a 'delete the deck' person (I make my decks myself, painstakingly, Chinese to Dutch and vice versa, with example sentences, so there is too much effort invested there), but your deck does sound rather bloated and you might want to consider some kind of purge. Either by following Imron's path or perhaps by deleting individual cards as you come across them and find them either overly easy or not very useful.

 

14 hours ago, Tomsima said:

As for 2021, I believe the thread hasnt been made yet, so I'll go and do that later unless someone else wants to take the lead?

Yes, go for it!

[jannesan]

8 hours ago, matteo said:

@jannesan could you please give me the titles of the novels you read?

• 地久天长
• 撒哈拉的故事
• 许三观卖血记
• 活着
• 非暴力沟通
• 欢乐英雄
• 流星·蝴蝶·剑 (currently 4/5 through this)

If I had to pick one to recommend that you haven't read, I'd say 欢乐英雄. 古龙's writing is simple and has a good flow. But also pretty sexist, though 欢乐英雄 is not that bad in that regard. A few more books on my list to read next:

• 草房子 - 曹文轩
• 一地鸡毛 - 刘震云
• 看见 - 柴静
• 围城 - 钱钟书

 

25 minutes ago, Lu said:

Either by following Imron's path or perhaps by deleting individual cards as you come across them and find them either overly easy or not very useful.

 

How about just suspending the cards that are not useful anymore, then you can reuse them again in the future if they become more relevant again. I also put quite some effort in creating good Anki cards, so deleting just doesn't make any sense if you can also just suspend them.

[Singe]

On 4/5/2020 at 10:47 PM, Singe said:

Not posted on here for years but here goes. While there's some fairly awful stuff going on around the world at the moment and we're currently in lockdown, it's given me an opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for years - pick up the Chinese books again. In fact, I'm astonished with how much I've enjoyed it after almost 20 years. I've always wanted to do a HSK exam and I might even give it a go this year. I realise the HSKs aren't the be all and end all but it's still a good goal (as per thread title). Normally live life at a million miles an hour, it is just amazing to be able to completely wind down, re-evaluate life and do stuff that has been on the back burner for so long. For the first time I can really see the possibility of heading for 3/4 months study in China, perhaps that will have to wait until a 2021 thread - looking at maybe Kunming or Chengdu.

 

2020 has been the year I finally got back into the Chinese. It's also the year I regularly visited this site again on a daily basis and it's been an inspiration. I ended up enrolling in a distance learning 300 level paper at Massey University;

 

https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/programme-course/course.cfm?course_code=241305&course_offering_id=1267498

 

I ended up with a B+ and was less than 1% away from an A-. If I'm being honest I didn't deserve an A- but it's nevertheless been good to get the whole process going again. COVID hasn't been too bad for us over here but it's certainly given me the perspective change I needed and the Chinese study this year has been so enjoyable. Fancy taking another paper next year in Chinese Diaspora but that's a paper totally in English and will be just out of interest.

 

In the meantime, I'll make a better attempt at posting on the recently formed 2021 thread which will hopefully keep me on task and enable me to plan more of a structured approach. I really need to work on my spoken and listening Chinese. I did buy some of the books suggested in the book reading threads and intended to get involved but they were simply just above my level for it to be a worthwhile project. Nevertheless, they will be useful in the future.

 

Finally a big shout out to all who post regularly on here. I now visit every day and find it so inspirational. A particular mention for @mungouk whose posts are a treasure trove of useful stuff.

[imron]

On 12/23/2020 at 9:13 AM, Lu said:

In b4 Imron comes by to tell you to delete the whole deck and start afresh.

 

On 12/23/2020 at 9:13 AM, Lu said:

I make my decks myself, painstakingly,

 

On 12/23/2020 at 9:43 AM, jannesan said:

I also put quite some effort in creating good Anki cards, so deleting just doesn't make any sense if you can also just suspend them.

 

Are you hoping to become a collector of painstakingly created, artisan Anki decks, or are you hoping to learn Chinese?

 

Granted those aims aren't mutually exclusive, but surely the point of flashcards is to learn Chinese, rather than to accumulate decks of flashcards that may or may not be useful in reaching that goal.

 

The whole point of deleting decks is to make sure the vocab you are focused on is recently relevant, and to get to a point where you spend almost zero time crafting and maintaining decks (which helps prevent getting emotionally attached to them).