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.
George - keep up all that hard work! I have been studying only spoken Chinese for about 4-5 yrs now....sometimes I feel like I have made alot of progress - and other times I feel like I know NOTHING....it is very difficult but I do enjoy it. I underestimated how long it would take...I thought I would be fluent by now....far from it!
ReplyDeleteBest of Luck to you
Frank Collins
Hey Frank,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment... Looks like we have both been at it for about the same amount of time, you focusing on the spoken side, and me focusing on the characters. My speaking is not so good, but it is good enough to get by. I would consider myself language independent here in China, not to say I can say what I mean perfectly, but I am able to handle most, if not all day-to-day affairs between the use of the spoken language and using characters to fill in the gaps, or to communicate with someone that does not have a good grasp of putonghua. So, Im curious, are you in China now, or are you elsewhere?
George