Learning Chinese - Week 12

I am starting week 12 of my New Year’s Resolution to learn Mandarin Chinese and a lot has changed over the last 10 weeks since my last post.

Update

Quick update on current status:

• currently studying lesson 10 (the last lesson) in the Integrated Chinese Level 1 book. I have been pacing at about 1 lesson per week which was aggressive, but comfortable given my time investment.
• by the end of lesson 10, I will know and be able to recognize over 600 Chinese words/characters
• in addition to individual words, I have learned many basic grammar structures and sentence patterns

Reflection

Some reflection on the first three months of study:

Routine

The biggest key to larger goal success is to find a rhythm and stick to the routine.

My routine:

• wake up at 5:30am
• study listening/pronunciation practice until 7:00am
• before bed: 30 min of practice listening and/or reading sentences from TCB app (more on that later)

Be Honest about Strengths and Weaknesses

Find out what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you don’t know, ask a partner, teacher, or friend. They will know.

Then apply those to your goals:

For me, learning new things comes easily. So, it has not been surprising that learning new vocab has been very easy

However, translating English or being fluid in speaking full sentences has taken more effort. This is where I need to focus and not gravitate to learning more and more new vocab because it’s easier.

Create a Great Learning Space

This awareness has given me direction in what to focus on when I am practicing…and also, where.

Reduce distractions when doing more difficult tasks. Since learning vocab is easier for me, I can do it anywhere. However, practicing speaking, requires a quiet room without a lot else going on.

Tips for success

Find some way to practice what you are learning outside of your coursework, but make sure it is appropriate for your level.

I do two things:

• every week participate in a meet up group that speaks Chinese for 2 hours
• read Chinese news on The Chairman’s Bao (TCB) app.

By the way, I absolutely love this app. It allows you to filter the news articles to just those written to your level, you can listen to someone speak the text and there is an easy way to search on characters your don’t know to look them up.