On what I have been doing over the past year in terms of studying... First, I want to say that I have been studying. Lately, I have been studying hard. I have been pounding Anki everyday, and it runs me between 1.5 hours and 3 hours every day lately. I mentioned in a previous post that I had been focusing on a pronunciation deck and starting with writing... Well, I finished the pronunciation deck, and now I am up to my neck in the Character writing deck. Right now, I am overwhelmed. I have about a 1500 card backlog, and I am adding 25 cards per day. I study around 340 cards per day, and I will work my way up to at least 350 cards per day. I hope to seen be able to chip away at the backlog. The pace I am working at now, I figure I will be finished with all new cards in the early part of November, or late October... It is hard to say for sure right now.
Although I am focusing on Anki, I am also doing other work. I am also using paper flashcards, studying Chinesepod, using a reading textbook, a grammar textbook, HSK practice exams, and I meet with a group of Chinese friends on Sunday to drink tea, and I use this time to practice speaking. I am also dabbling a bit with Japanese, and learning to recognize traditional script.
I would say that my Chinese at this point is 'OK'. I am reasonably fluent at the conversational level, and my reading is pretty good as well. Handwriting is not so good, but lately, I have been practicing writing more often than before.
I decided not to renew my subscription to Chinesepod right now. I have enough lessons right now to hold me over, and it is somewhat expensive to do. Maybe in the future, I will purchase another subscription to download more upper and advanced lessons and pdf, but right now, no plans.
One thing I would like to do is hire a tutor to help me with my learning. I think it would be useful, but I would need to be somewhat picky. I need someone to help me work on speaking. I don't necessarily need someone to practice with, but someone to teach me how to speak Chinese well.
Guess that's all right now.
