01 year 33 week into study part 2

Hello everyone,
I have been doing some thinking the last few days, and I wanted to take a moment to offer some suggestions and words of encouragement for the newcomer to ChinesePod.

Podcasts:

• I originally studied the podcasts in any order in which I desired, without keeping track of which lesson I studied and which I had not. I don't recommend this, I had better success when I organized the lessons and started keeping track of those lessons I studied
• At the beginning, the learning was very difficult. It often took me over an hour to master a newbie lesson when I first started. This is because I didn't know any of the words. If you are experiencing this, take heart! it does get better. I found that as I continued to study, I knew many words in subsequent lessons. This means that I might only need to learn a few new words per lesson, instead of every single word in a lesson.
• Do the lesson until you are able to pronounce each word. After reaching this level of proficiency, move onto the next lesson. Don't freak out if you find that you forget words, as they are repeated in subsequent lessons, and you can always go back and refresh on old lesson.
• Ken Carrol from ChinesePod frequently points out that it is best to learn language in chunks, and also says that learning different contexts for words is helpful too. My experience supports this idea. Listening to the entire podcast is helpful even if you know all the words because it provides the use of these words in different context, and I feel it helps me remember the terms better. At the very least, each podcast give a little insight to Chinese culture, which is important to someone like myself who has never been to China.
• I make good use of the 'audio fix' in each lesson. I use the reviews to test myself on the vocabulary. At first, I couldn't make much use of 'now lets use these words in context' portion of the review. I suggest you listen to them even if you cannot get it right, like I mentioned already, greater context helps me remember. As your Chinese skills improve, you will find that you can do the context exercises. To me, this shows that, not only am I learning the vocabulary, but I am also able to produce Chinese.
• Using the listening test has been helpful to me in showing that I am learning the language. Lately, I typically test at either newbie or elementary level. This is good because I think that is about what my proficiency level is.
• I find that I have a better study session if I am walking around rather than sitting when listening to the podcasts. I believe this is because my heartrate is faster, and blood is flowing quicker. I also find that I get tired if I try to sit for an hour listening to podcasts.

I hope these tips are useful. Please let me know abit about the study methods that you use in the comment section, or what you think of what I suggested.
Thanks

01 year 01 week into study

Hello everyone,

I have decided to write a weekly (or thereabouts) post to give an update on how my studies are going. I must say that, overall, I am pleased with this week's study. I have written flashcards for 198 terms, obtained acquisition on about 170 terms, and proficiency on about 100 or so. The explanation on how I am using these terms follows;

Acquisition - This means that I have been able to recall this term at least once. I have not mastered the term yet, and I may mix it up with terms I learned earlier.

Proficiency - I can typically identify these terms immediately, or with short delay. I might mix these up with newer terms, but I am able to discriminate quickly. I would say that I know these terms.

I read in an article that a well educated Chinese person can understand between 6000-7000 characters, and that a person needs to understand between 2000 and 3000 to read a Chinese newspaper. With that being said, I also understand that simply understanding the characters is not the goal. I also need to understand the grammar and the actual usage of the language in order to understand what I read. On the other hand, 100 words is 5% of 2000.

The verbal side is an area where I wish I were doing better. I have achieved acquisition on about 8 lessons, and proficiency on about 5. I am having difficulty with the spoken part, some of the sounds are difficult for me to make, i.e. the term for very 'hen'.

My curve seems a bit slow; however I must juggle these studies with my part time job, and full time enrollment in college. In a few weeks or so, the semester will be over and I can devote more time.

As I remarked elsewhere, overall I am happy with my experience with Chinesepod so far. Some of the things I think are good are the lessons shows, dialogues, and fixes. Ken and Jenny do a good job. I agree with the idea that it is important to understand how the language is actually used, rather than just understanding the language without such specificity. I think that while the community isn’t very strong right now, this aspect could have real potential. I wish to be helpful in making a stronger Chinesepod community.

Some of the things I don’t like so much are the things like the interface. It is so cumbersome, and it is a bit awkward to navigate around the site. The vocabulary tab is nearly useless except to enlarge the characters while I transcribe them to flashcards. Sometimes, when I click on a word, it doesn’t get added to my vocabulary list. This can be annoying because this results in me having to return to the lesson and clicking on it again.

The good far outweigh the things I don’t like, so I plan to stick around. After all, I can’t expect everything to be the way I want them. I guess that requires a little giving on my part.

Feel free to leave your thoughts and other feedback