The 2023 Aims and Objectives

[Tomsima]

@matteo I did a whole year of full time study with them (2016/17), one of the best decisions ive ever made. 唐老师 was the teacher I had daily lessons with, though I don't know if shes still teaching there. For me Guilin was the place where I got deep into tea culture, so thats one thing I'd recommend. Of course, getting out hiking in the karst mountain landscape is the best weekend activity. I'm finally going back to China next month all being well, talking about Guilin is making me want to put it in the itinerary!

[matteo]

Thanks for the suggestions @Tomsima, I'm definitely keen on some hiking and possibly some rock climbing in 阳朔 if logistically is not too complicated (given I'll be there for only two weekends). Getting to know tea also sounds interesting, I don't know much about it but love the relaxing atmosphere of a teahouse.

I'll ask in the school if anyone remembers you, should be a fun little investigation!

[Singe]

Better late than never I suppose, though I could argue that with it being the start of the second half of the year and living in the Southern Hemisphere then I'd done it on purpose. But then I'd be lying.

 

Finally sold my business and went off grid for a while (thoroughly recommended) and have now been back home for a couple of months. I've started wading through my level of Chairman Bao exercises and have found it really works for me (thanks @Jan Finster for the tips on various threads), as well as reading some graded readers. Decided to keep the goal a little vague and fluid but want to be consistent upper intermediate by the end of the year in reading and want to really improve my listening skills which are falling way behind. Want to get to China next year for 6/8 weeks in a language school so planning ahead for that. Great thread this one.

[Woodford]

Halfway through 2023! I'm currently pushing my way through a reading binge. My skills are maturing to a pretty good level, though slowly. Thus far, I have worked through (and these are English/pinyin names, because I'm too lazy to switch to Chinese typing) "History of Chinese Philosophy," "Qiuyuan," "Chang'an Lizhi," "Ordinary World" (Part 2), "White Deer Plain," and "The Economic Development of China," and now I'm in the middle of "The Rise of China" and "Plant Battle."

Plant Battle was just an irresistible choice for me. I love the "infotainment" genre, and...the cover is just great. It's been just as fun and breezy as I hoped.

 

One new habit I've had is to read two different books concurrently--a physical book and a book that I purchase on Weixin Dushu. The physical book has the advantage of not needing to look at a phone screen (I work in IT and I'm a graduate student, so I'm already looking at screens all day long...yuck). The Weixin Dushu bookstore, on the other hand, is awesome in terms of accessibility. I can buy whatever popular book I want, and the prices are cheap by US standards (a book that would maybe cost $20 - $30 USD from Amazon or some other American book seller only costs $5-7 USD on Weixin). It can be fun and clarifying to read the Weixin community notes from other people who have read the book. Many readers contribute a lot of clarifying comments and background commentary, especially in places where the original author isn't quite clear or uses a rare term. When I lack a physical book, or I just don't want to take one with me, I can whip out my phone and read whenever I want. Finally, by reading two books at a time, I can straddle two different genres at once, keeping my skills fresh in each.

 

One point of frustration for me is classical Chinese. One might ask, "Hey, you're trying to learn modern Mandarin Chinese, right? So who cares about classical Chinese?" Well, the relationship between the two is closer than I had previously imagined. A lot of modern authors use classical turns of phrase (Mo Yan, I'm looking at you). Whenever I read a history book (which I'm doing now), the author quotes from original sources, which often come from the early 1900s or older. I can often get the gist of what's being said, barely, but it's not easy at all. For that reason, my experience reading "History of Chinese Philosophy" was miserable. The modern author was very simple and easy to understand. The quotations from ancient Chinese philosophers, however, were impenetrable at times. So much odd word order, single-character words (that would have ordinarily been compound words in modern Chinese), and particles like 之，也，者，其，etc., that aren't quite used in the way they are today. 

 

And so I have started to chip away at a textbook I've owned for a while: "Classical Chinese: A Functional Approach (Traditional Characters)," by Kai Li and James Erwin Dew. It's a nice and gentle introduction to all the different quirks of the classical language (and it lets me practice my traditional character recognition, as I normally only read simplified). Most of the text is bilingual (Chinese and English). It provides a lot of real examples for translation practice, and it has an answer key in the back of the book (although the answers are not in English, but modern Mandarin, so you have to be ready for that). The most surprising thing I've found is that knowing modern Chinese has prepared me well. All the different Chengyu seem to come directly from classical Chinese, and those of us who have studied the modern language have already had to learn a lot of those. It's not totally easy, though, and I imagine that I'll never be in a place to *comfortably* read classical prose. However, I like to compare it to my years of learning Latin. Are my Latin skills good? Absolutely not. Did I learn a lot about my own native English language in the process? Yes! Can I look at a lot of Latin phrases and understand their basic meanings? Yes! So I'm likewise hoping that my grasp on modern Mandarin will improve.

 

Meanwhile, I've engaged in a lot of passive listening practice. A lot of Chinese podcasts, from Mainland China, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in the USA. It's really hard to gauge my progress, but I feel like I'm in a much better place than when I was a beginner. The biggest problem is my attention span. I tend to multitask as I'm listening, so my brain only follows fragmentary phrases. There's some benefit in that, but I need to sit down with full concentration and try more active listening at some point. Books are my comfort zone, but I can't invest 100% of my time in those.

[Moshen]

Quote

I love the "infotainment" genre

 

What is this?  I haven't run across that term before.

[Woodford]

On 7/3/2023 at 2:38 PM, Moshen said:

What is this?  I haven't run across that term before.

 

Upon further examination, I think I slightly misused that term. It's generally used to pejoratively describe a kind of media that mixes entertainment and journalism, and therefore is less than serious journalism. My intention was to describe something that is fun, informative, and not entirely serious. The "Plant Battle" book is a mixture of scientific information and entertainment, and, though educational, it is written for a popular audience by a person who has zero professional background in Botany. So some of the Weixin reviewers warn that the book has occasional errors in it. 

[Moshen]

Quote

and not entirely serious.

 

I'm curious about what this means.  Are there jokes mixed in with the information?  It seems like you mean something other than just making the information understandable and interesting for the general reader - and I'm not sure what the "entertainment" element is. 

[Woodford]

It's colorful and cartoonish, makes use of some humor, not written by a scholar in the subject matter, not arranged or presented systematically, wouldn't get assigned in a university class, etc. Someone may be tempted to tell me, "That's not a serious source on botany, natural history, or plant evolution! You should read this more serious material instead!" But my purpose is to not only learn, but also to have some fun and not dive in too deeply. Whether that deserves the label of "infotainment," which is really a term I misappropriated from elsewhere, I'm not sure.

[lordsuso]

On 1/10/2023 at 5:26 AM, imron said:

On the other hand, if you then go and read something in simplified (after doing a lot of reading in traditional) it feels like everything is written in txt speak e.g. 'k. brb, c u l8r m8'.

 

I also wanted to switch to traditional in the near future, but this is making me hesitate haha. From what you and others say it seems that once you make the switch you won't want to come back.

 

The thing is I have purchased 20 years worth of manga in simplified, and even for books reading in simplified is more convenient because the traditional > simplified conversion is very easy (while the opposite isn't) so I can download ebooks in both scripts. I don't ever want to feel like "I wish I was reading this in traditional".

 

I am probably over-thinking it and it's not that big of a deal, but given that I can't think of a single reason for switching to traditional other than "because it's there", I might stick to simplified until I do.

[Lu]

I started with learning traditional; spent a year as an exchange student in Beijing and picked up simplified; spent a year in Taipei exclusively in traditional again; worked in Taipei for a while, again from traditional... I can comfortably read both, and neither feel like txt speak or overly formal. I wouldn't worry about that. On the other hand, if you have no particular reason to pick up traditional, you can just stick with simplified until you do.

[TheBigZaboon]

@Woodford I have a couple of "plant battle" books, too (both simplified and traditional)... I didn't run into them purposely, but lots of different paths led to me seeing them, and as I could closely match them with something I was reading in Japanese (sometimes even a translation), I bought them, all the while trying to convince my very sceptical self that I was actually gonna read both.

 

But rather than infotainment, I usually find my guilty pleasures under the 科普 (popular science) category. This is where I currently idle my fast ebbing life away...

 

TBZ 

[Woodford]

@TheBigZaboon, I think that's the word I've been looking for. 科普! Although I also read a bunch of other things (like history, fiction, autobiography, etc.) to grow/maintain my vocabulary, I think 科普 is my favorite genre.
 

After seeing this thread emerge on the homepage again, I was inspired to return to it and comment. I thought, "Wow, it would be fun to look back an entire year and see what my goals were, and how I've accomplished them!" The alarming thing, though, is that my original post in this thread doesn't feel old at all. It's like I posted it yesterday. Where did these past 11 months go? I witnessed the birth of one of my children, traveled to Europe for the first time, and a bunch of other things, but 2023 feels like it just whizzed by.

Anyway, my effort to learn traditional characters really didn't last. I got my feet wet, and I can manage to read them (even if awkwardly and more slowly than simplified), but in my context (where all my engagement is with mainland Chinese friends, mainland Chinese books, mainland Chinese podcasts, etc.), I just didn't see the point. It's cool, and I wish I could read those characters comfortably, but I put it lower on my priority list. Maybe later.

 

Same with learning classical Chinese. I'd like to do it, but I didn't have the motivation to follow through with that effort. I think I'd like to purchase the simplified edition of the classical Chinese book I have (I have the traditional one). That will make it more comfortable for me. This ambition is more like "I definitely plan to get to it later," rather than (as in the case of learning traditional characters) "maybe later." In the meantime, I'll struggle through all the modern books that quote a bunch of impenetrable classical texts.

 

I had a good run with German, but I haven't maintained that. It proved useful in my trip to Austria (especially in navigating, reading signs, and understanding about half of what people were saying), but I always go back to Chinese.

I also threw out my massive flashcard tests (about 23,000 cards), because I was spending all my time on a bunch of stubborn words that I kept forgetting endlessly, and it was consuming too much of my time. I still do a Hanzi writing test (about 6 cards a day), and I review words that I learn from the books I'm reading. This time, though, I eliminate words that I get wrong more than X number of times, or words that surpass a certain score. 

Since last year, I've listened to many hours of Chinese audio and have read about 15 books (approaching a lifetime total of 45 native-level Chinese books at this point). The more I've done it, the more fun it has become. I think I'm entering into a "golden age" in my Chinese study where I can really enjoy things. As always, my listening comprehension lags behind my reading skills. I started with the question, "Will I ever be able to listen to Chinese? Or do I need to be immersed in China to do that? Is all this practice just wasted time? Is listening comprehension possible?" This year has begun to answer that question--I've improved in listening skills, and will continue to. News broadcasts and podcasts are starting to make sense to me. Listening comprehension (even if awkward and not exactly perfect) will happen with practice. I can attest to what many in these forums have claimed: It can take the better part of a decade (or more) to get accustomed to Chinese. I've been going for about 6.5 years.

It's been fun, and I'm looking forward to another year!

[TheBigZaboon]

@Woodford My willingness, rather than ability, to fiddle around with 繁体字 is purely an artifact of trying to read prewar Japanese Imperial army military materials when I was beginning to study in grad school in Japan. Before and during  the war, in Japan, they used the same character set as the Taiwanese use today. Now, modern Japanese uses a more simplified character set that lies halfway between the characters used on the mainland, and those used on Taiwan. That, plus my eternal debt to the late, great Professor John DeFrancis, whose life's work I used to start studying Chinese, means I don't have to struggle so hard with Taiwanese stuff.

 

In addition, my wife, who is Japanese, feels much more comfortable in Taiwan, because when she's lost or has a problem, she grabs the closest septuagenarian she can find, and starts explaining her problem in Japanese. It's amazing to see that person's face light up like a summer sunrise, and soon the two of them are babbling away like lifelong friends. Most educated people in their eighties received their initial education in Japanese. They don't have any way to use that language now, except for watching TV, so my wife's approach, without any preliminary "Do you speak Japanese???" is a source of unexpected delight. So naturally, we tend to go to Taiwan rather than the mainland to play.

 

Just sayin'...

 

TBZ 

[PerpetualChange]

This year has largely been a "break" for me. I did read a couple of novels, but ultimately, I just allowed myself to explore other interests. Namely, I've been taking a guitar lesson, I started working out regularly, and I've also started casually learning Japanese. I'm still interested in Chinese, though, and thinking that maybe it's time to set some tangible goals for 2024. Just not sure what those should be yet.