01 year 14 weeks into study

Hello everyone,

I wanted to do this week's update earlier than normal. I have switched from posting at ChinesePod to using Blogspot because of a number of reasons that I may or may not get into in a later post. In the last few days, I have really gotten back into the swing of studying Chinese. I have entered a relatively relaxed period academically, so I can focus on the Chinese learning. It is going well, and it feels good. As I mentioned last week, I have tried a new strategy in my studies. I emphasize the speaking/listening part more than the character acquisition focus that I had previously. When I did focus on acquisition, it was very effective for my learning of the written vocabulary. With this being said, the verbal/speaking suffered. I have learned over 600 flashcards, but only 68 lessons after over three months of study. While I would say that I was doing well before, I think that now I am beginning to lag when compared to others who have started learning Chinese back around late November. Here is a summary of my routine;

On days that I have no work or academic demands -

I spend one hour listening to podcast shows and audio reviews. I listen to one new lesson and learn those words during this time. After this, I normally listen to audio reviews of lessons that I have listened to in the past so that I can really get those terms down pat. Because this is the part that I enjoy the least, I do it first before moving onto the flashcards.

I have a learning stack, of which I add 5 terms a day. I use a similar method of rotation that I have used in the past. I also review a subgroup of my acquisition stack each day.

On days that I have demands -

I make the best I can do with the above idea given the amount of time of which I have to work.

Here is the lastest stack photo. Obviously the stack is not growing as fast as it was before. I plan on stepping up the studying in a huge way when the semester is over.