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Hey guys,
I want to talk a bit about some changes I have made to my studying plan. I have, for the time being, dropped the Japanese learning. I did this in order to focus more on the Chinese. In my last entry, I wrote that I decided not to renew Chinesepod, but I had a change of heart. A few days ago, I did a practice HSK 4 exam. It was a humbling experience, but I learned a little bit about my abilities. I have areas that I am really strong, and I have areas that I need to work. I felt that it was a bit hard, and I don't know how the exam is scored, so if I had to guess, I would say that either I barely passed it, or barely failed it. I did good with writing, it was a piece of cake, but I had some trouble with the listening. I felt caught off guard, and felt that, although I understood most, the questions were difficult to answer, and I needed more time to think. For the reading, I knew almost all the characters I saw, but I didn't know all the words. There were a few words that appeared on the exam more than once that I don't think I had ever seen. To sum up the experience, I felt that the way that I am learning Chinese is not really matching the curve of the HSK. In some aspects, I might be a strong level 5, in others, maybe a 3.... if you know what I mean. Couple this experience with a meeting I had with a potential tutor, I feel that a change was needed in the way I was studying. Ive been meeting with people to find a potential tutor. The process has not been easy, and I have met with many excellent, seemingly qualified people who are willing and eager to help me improve my Chinese. Choosing one is not easy, and I have more people to meet with. The day after taking the practice exam, one of the interviewees suggested I use a system to learn Chinese. I am thinking that maybe she is right, but it would be hard to find a good system to jump onto at my level.  Anyhow, taking a practice HSK is an eye-opening experience. In light of this, here are the actions that I am taking to learn Chinese....
1. Suspend Japanese (mentioned this already)
2. Suspend learning traditional characters for the time being.
3. Renew my subscription to Chinesepod.
4. Try to spend at least an hour per day diligently working on listening to difficult stuff.
5. Still using the paper flashcards, grammar textbook, and reading books, but backing off a little on these to focus more on Chinesepod.
6. Really drill down using Chinesepod, especially doing the hard stuff. The harder the lesson, the better I feel. Oh, by the way.... I am listening to Advanced lessons on Chinesepod now....
So yeah, increase my listening and vocab (not necessarily individual characters) using Chinesepod. I am working on grammar using a textbook and Chinesepod. I use Anki to learn and review individual characters. I will find a tutor to help me improve my speaking, to become more accurate and natural. I have a reader that I use to help me improve my reading.
Thats all for now.

February 14th, 2011 ChinesePod Profile Update

Updated on February 14th, 2011 -- I started learning Chinese on November 23rd 2008. I am still studying Chinese. I do notice some improvement, especially with my speaking and listening. In recent months, I haven't been focusing on reading and writing as much as I was before. I plan on getting back into my reading and writing practice. I will continue to keep working at it.
You can keep track of my progress at;
(http://amesbury georgechinesestudy .blogspot.com/) without the spaces or paranthesis. I must confess, I have not updated this page in quite a while because I cannot log onto this site while I am in China. If you do go to that page, I would be interested to know that people are reading it. Feel free to follow the blog, or comment so I know of your presence.

The life of a Chinese learner living in China... part 3 As posted on Facebook

At this point in the game, I can do alot in China. In this way, I am fairly independent. As I commented on before, people speak with different accents and dialects. Some are easier to understand than others. With some people, it is like I can't speak Chinese at all. With others, they can understand everything I say. I talk with one Chinese woman who runs a gift shop downtown. She can understand me. I am able to speak what is commonly understood to be the main dialect of Chinese. If I am in Beijing, I can talk with almost anyone. I have a fairly decent vocabulary, but my grammar is awful. From what I'm told, my accent isn't that bad, but not that good either. People are able to understand me. My listening is not that good. I can read some Chinese, but there are limitations to what I can do. I can understand a basic text message from a Chinese friend, but I cannot read a newspaper. What I hope to improve on is listening and grammar. I think that if these things improve, I will be able to speak Chinese quite well. I guess that is all I want to say right now.

Year two pretty far into the year

I still study Chinese almost everyday. Since December, I have kept a semi-rigid regimen. When I am not teaching, I work harder than I do when I am teaching. For speaking/listening, I work on Elementary level lessons. I listen to a show for three days, then work on audio reviews for the lesson that I am currently on, and the audio reviews for the previous two lesson I studied. In this way, I really master the words that I am studying. I don't feel too satisfied with the difficulty level of the lessons, but I do spend much time teaching. I will focus on studying more difficult lessons when I have fewer classes to teach.

I have been working out of a Chinese writing textbook for a little over two months now, and I am not doing too much with reading. At this point, I am able to do many things around town. I can talk to people about basic things, and if I am controlling the conversation, I can appear to know more Chinese than I really do.

I still have much work to do. I hope to be better about updating my progress in the future.

02 year 06 weeks into study

After I arrived to China, I felt discouraged about the amount of Chinese that I knew. It is very difficult for people to understand what I am saying, and it feels overwhelming at times. In the past week or so, I have been studying much harder than I was when I first arrived. I am focusing more on speaking/listening than I did when I first started. It is something I wish I did more of when I was learning in the states.

01 year 38 weeks into study

Hi,
I am still studying the Chinese, but speaking/listening is still slacking. I am doing better so far this week than last week. Not much to say.

01 year 34 week into study

Hello everyone,
I really feel improvement in all areas of my Chinese study this week. I haven't done much writing practice, but I did do a little bit of work on the Pinyin chart. The flashcards and speaking/listening study is essentially the same as it was in recent weeks, with similar pacing. It turns out that I will not be leaving for China until September, so that means I can dedicate much time to doing Chinese studying until I leave.
Currently, I am spending an hour studying 3 newbie lessons, and I am spending an additional fifteen minutes or so studying older lessons. I am considering changing this up down the road. One of the ideas I am toying with is doing one elementary lesson, one new newbie lesson, and one old newbie lesson each day. I am not sure, but that is what I am thinking of doing in a month or so.

01 year 33 week into study

Hello everyone,
I am glad that I stuck through with the Chinese studying last week even though I was feeling discouraged. This week, I feel much better about my progress. Doing the speaking and listening studying an hour each night has paid off, I feel like I am getting very good. I think there are only two noteworthy things to do on the blogger this week; the first is to say that I learned how to count to 10, which I feel will be essential for bartering in China. The second is to load my latest stack photo. I can't bring myself to feel that the photo is representative of how much progress I have made in the three weeks, I added about 100 cards since the previous photo.

01 year 32 week into study

Hi everyone,
I have been doing well with the Chinese studies, but I feel that I am expecting too much of myself. I have felt discouraged because I am not achieving perfection in my learning of this difficult language. I get upset every time I make a mistake.

I would say I have made good progress this week as well. I did the writing practice I described last week for a few of the days last week. It is not something that I plan to do every day. I feel that I am really developing with my speaking/listening performance. I guess that is all for right now.

01 year 31 week into study

Hello everyone,
Another week has gone by with good progress. I even had a good weekend of flashcard study. Most nights, I had studied an hour of speaking and listening. I plan to continue this work. I bought two books to hopefully fill in the gaps that Chinesepod does not seem to cover. I wanted to learn more about writing and grammar, and the two books I bought address these topics. I will discuss the books. The first book, Schaum's Outlines: Chinese Grammar, by Dr. Claudia Ross, will obviously address grammatical issues in the Chinese language. My other new book, Reading & Writing Chinese: Simplified Character Edition, by William McNaughton, will help me learn stroke order for the simplified Chinese Characters.
I started with McNaughton's book today, and I devoted 20 minutes to the study to help ensure that I don't get burned out too quickly. The characters are difficult to write. Over the next week or so, I am going to see how I can fit my new study resources into my study to diversify my work. As noted in previous entries, my strongest area is reading chinese characters. I am improving in speaking and listening, but remain very week in other areas of study. I am determined to continue, and I am about to step out to do an hours or so worth of spoken study.

01 year 30 weeks into study

I must say, that it has been a good week overall for Chinese studying. I feel like I hit a good rhythm. In the past, the speaking and listening had been the weakest area, but I feel that the work I had done in those areas had reached parity with my flashcards. I don't do much studying on weekends on account of work, but I do much during the weekday. I will normally learn 3 podcasts per day at newbie level. I know that I forget much of what I learned, but the podcasts have much repetition. This means that when the vocabulary comes up again, I remember that I had learned it before, and I relearn it very quickly. My plan is to incorporate more elementary lessons into my daily speaking and listening routine. The newbie lessons are beginning to be too easy.
The flashcards are going good as well. It is frustrating that I typically forget many that I had learned, so I do much review.

Not much to say this week, no real changes to my methodogy besides my plan to include more elementary lessons. That is all for right now.

01 year 15 weeks into study

Hello everyone,
I have decided to stop doing these weekly updates, at least via the community forum. This will be the last one. If you want to follow my progress, I plan to continue to update my profile on a regular basis.
I have changed my plan of attack for studying Chinese. My new plan involves more speaking and listening, more review of terms that I learned already, and less emphasis on learning new written words. Not really in a talking mood right now so I am going to sign off.

01 year 10 weeks into study

Hello everyone,
The progress this week was average. Here are the specifics;
Currently, I have flashcards for 700 terms (more or less) and I have already selected 50 terms for next week. I have selected my terms for the next several weeks.
Using the flashcards, I had a good week besides today, but today was not a disaster, it just wasn't quite as good as I normally do.
I have decided to alter my routine as follow; Instead of doing new terms 6 days per week, I am doing them 5 days. I am going to set Monday and Thursday aside for reviewing the terms in the stack of words that I know. I want to try this change to see if it helps me retain words that I have learned.
Speaking and listening was on par for what I normally do. I completed 5 new podcasts, plus I have done lots of reviewing of lessons I have done in the past.
Please feel free to leave comments if you have any strategies for learning how to speak the language.

01 year 9 weeks into study

Hello everyone,
The progress this week started off a bit bumpy, but the last few days have been average. I would say that the progress of this week, like last week, was either average or a little bit under average. Here are the specifics;
Currently, I have flashcards for 640 terms (more or less) and I have already selected 60 terms for next week. I have started the term selection for the following week, adding a handful of terms that are repeaters from words that I learned previously. This is a delicate way for me to admit that I had forgotton some of the terms that I had learned. My stack has gotton so large that I review only half the stack each Wednesday instead of the entire stack. This is after carefully shuffling the entire stack to attempt to get random terms, which can be quite the task.
Using the flashcards, I had a good week besides Friday. I am averaging 10 words or so getting added to the stack every day, which is good because I am adding 10 words to the pile of words that I am learning each day. This means that I am keeping pace. I find that when I add words, I learn them at roughly three times going through them, which is good. This means that I am normally done with the flashcards for the night within an hour.
Speaking and listening started out a bit weak, but the last three or four days have been average to above average. On Wednesday, I did two podcasts instead of my normal one podcast. As I have pointed out in the past, the speaking and listening is more difficult for me than reading. I add 10 words to the flashcards everyday (except wednesday which is my review day), and the podcasts have about only 5 - 10 words each. Being that I do only one podcast per day, it is necessary to conclude that the speaking will continue to fall further behind the reading.
While speaking and listening are difficult, I have found one strategy that seems to help some. When listening to the audio review, and encountering a new term, I try to think of an english word, or sound that is similar to the term. Once I do that, I memorize the sounds and words instead of trying to memorize the word. On the next pass through, I focus on the sounds and words for the pronounciation. This ensures that I get the term correct. Soon, I don't have to remember the sounds and words anymore, and I acquire the new term in Chinese. Subsequently, I repeat the word to get as close to the model as possible.
I hope this is helpful, also please feel free to leave comments if you have any strategies for learning how to speak the language.

01 year 8 weeks into study

Hello everyone,
Like I stated last week, the study efforts have been scaled back. This is mostly because of the fact I have less time on account of the fact that my classes have resumed in college. The progress of this week was either average, or a little bit under average. Here are the specifics;
Currently, I have flashcards for 579 terms (more or less). I am studying about 80 or so of the 579, so that means that I have proficiency of about 500 terms. I am again adding 60 terms this week, and I am not converting any handwritten terms this week.
Each week, I plan on setting aside one day to do review of flashcards that I already know. If I identify words that I have trouble with, I put them in with the stack that I am currently learning. This week, I took a trip to Washington DC to watch the Presidential Inauguration, and that disrupted my rhythm a little bit. I missed Tuesday's flashcard session, and on Wednesday I made a decision to skip my weekly review session and do flashcards instead so that I would remain at the pace that I want to maintain.
For the speaking and listening, it was a mixed week. It started out strong, and ended up non-existent. I didnt do any podcasts at all since Saturday because of frustration. I was working at a podcast, and I seemed unable to learn any of the words. I grew frustrated and started listening to music instead. Tonight, I plan on starting the podcasts again. I am just dreading doing so.
Well, that is all I want to say right now.

01 year 06 weeks into study part 2

Hello everyone,
I had a relatively good learning week! My technology problems seem to be solved right now, and I am back into a good grove. I have flashcards made for about 520 words and word combinations. Out of this, I have proficiency on about 339. I have acquisition on an additional 90 terms. The verbal part is going slower than the written part, but I am doing better on both areas. The past week, I had done the taxi conversation series and a couple of other lessons. I like the idea of an audio phrasebook, and I also like when the lessons are grouped together like that.
As I have stated in an earlier post, I have found a way to print flashcards. This has the benefits of being faster than writing, and being more accurate. For example, it took between 50 minutes and an hour and 15 minutes to do 15 flashcards using the handwriting method. Last night, I printed off 100 flashcards in about 3 and a half hours. What I do is I use ms paint, do print screen and set up a paper with 5 terms as if I were going to print them on a sheet of 8.5 X 11 paper. What I actually do is use packing tape and tape my flashcards to the paper, and feed the paper through the printer. It uses very little ink, and it never jams up. I use the same flashcards that I was using for the handwriting method, so there is no conflict there.
My greatest gains are in reading. I am at a point where I can read much of the newbie expansions. I would say that half the time (50%), I get the essential meaning of the sentence right. another 25%, I might understand all the terms, but my lack of knowledge of how the terms are actually used prevents me from understanding correctly what is being said. For the remaining 25%, I generally will not understand a word or two in the sentence, or flat out get the sentence wrong. Elementary level expansions are more difficult for me. I would say that 15% of the time, I am able to get the essential meaning of the sentence right. another 15% or so, I might understand all the terms, but my lack of knowledge of how the terms are actually used prevents me from understanding correctly what is being said. For the remaining 70%, I generally will not understand a word or two in the sentence, or flat out get the sentence wrong.
Much of my study time is spent going through the lessons trying to find terms and words that I don't know. I don't bother going through the newbie lessons doing this anymore because I might only find one or two unknown words. I currently do well doing elementary lessons, but I figure it is just a matter of time before I feel like I am panning for gold in my bathtub. I notice that in the community page, people build vocabulary lists. I also notice that I can set to share my vocabulary lists. Is there a way to find lists that others are sharing so that I can get words from them? I am guessing that there is such a way, but I havent figured it out yet.
Guess that is it for right now, below (hopefully) you will find two photos that will show my progress that I have had since joining Chinapod. In the first photo, I have a small stack. It was taken about a week or so after I started the chinese lessons. The Bottom photo was taken on the 3rd of this month. I guess I will be doing these updates on Thursday/Friday instead of Sunday as I am scheduled to work on the weekends for the time being.

01 year 06 week into study

Hello everyone,
Things are much better than they were when I wrote the last update. For one thing, it doesnt take forever for me to type anymore. It took a bit of time to write that last post. Anyhow, this week I have had slow but steady progress. Like always, I struggle with verbal, and I do better with the reading. I am focusing on recognizing the symbols, but I haven't practiced writing them. I also found a nifty way to print off flashcards instead of doing them by hand. This saves time, and it also helps ensure that I am getting the correct character.
Physically, I am not feeling so hot, so I think I will stop talking now.

01 year 02 week into study

Hello everyone,
Once again, I am posting this a few days early on account of having to work over the weekend. This week was another slow one, being that I am consumed with final exam week at my college. I have flashcards for about 280 terms now, acquisition on about 250 or so, and proficiency on about 75. Study has been slow and steady. I have been working at it every day except for those days where it is not possible to do so.
I haven't started my pinyin studies yet, and I plan to do so in the upcoming weeks. I don't feel as enthusiastic about my chinese studies as I did when I first started. It is hard work, and it is slow going, but like someone said to me last week, the words will 'snowball' and soon I will find that I have a range of vocabulary.
I am really weak in the spoken side of my learning. Since the email from last week, I have completed three lessons. I really struggle with pronunciation. Also it seems that I have difficulty retaining the spoken words. For example, I will listen to a podcast, repeat a vocabulary word ten times, play it again, and not remember the word I was just pronouncing. This is quite frustrating. Anyhow, I am still trudging despite these discouraging events.
Feel free to leave thoughts or other feedback

01 year 01 week into study part 2

Hello everyone,
I have to work tonight, and all day Saturday and Sunday. Because of this, I will give an update now as I won't be able to on Sunday.
This week was challenging and a bit discouraging. Currently, I have flashcards for about 235 terms. What was frustrating is that I began to forget terms that I learned early on in my studies. I don't think that I was doing as well as I thought I was last week. This week, I have acquisition on 190 terms, and proficiency in about 60 - 70. I have about 10 or so lessons studied, and like last week, I am not doing as well on the spoken part as I am in the written part.
I have been quite busy with college, as we are heading into finals. I have also been occupied with interests outside of college that have taken a considerable amount of my time. I am also working a lot over the next few days. I have backed off from the studying of the Chinese in comparison to what I was doing last week because of these reasons. I plan on getting at least one good study day in next tuesday. Once finals are over for the semester, I plan on doing a lot of studying. One thing I would like to do is master the pinyin chart. I know that will likely take a while, but I figure if I can read and pronounce any pinyin term, then my learning will improve considerably.
While I do feel discouraged right now, I plan on continuing the studies of Chinese. The only thing I can think of right now that would alter my plans is if I learn that I will be unable to go to China. Should that happen, I will likely scrap all plans of learning Chinese, and pursue other interests. Right now, I am still on course to go to China, so I will keep going.
Feel free to leave your thoughts or other feedback

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