So I, at least for the timebeing, have returned to the original title format that I used when I started this blog. Anyhow, a few days ago, I decided to develop a more focused plan of study. It is rather ambitious, and seems a bit too much right now. I will go ahead and describe the plan that I have designed...
- I plan to study an upper-intermediate and an advanced Chinesepod lesson each week
- Work my paper flashcards and Anki every day- specifically, I want to catch up on my hanzi deck. Right now, I have about a 650 card backlog (yeah, and lately it has been whipping my ass).
- Do some type of practice test once per week, either out of the HSK exam book, or on Chinesepod.
- Continue to transcribe the Qing wen lessons to my notebook
- work on listening extensively, i.e, while on the treadmill at the gym, I will listen to Advanced level lessons.
- other stuff to a lesser extent than before.
Well, I started off strong, but yesterday and today, I just... basically... Don't fucking feel like studying Chinese... period.... Yeah... so I am going to put my notebooks down and ... like do no more studying related work at all this evening. I hope I feel better about this tomorrow than I did today, or I may need to rethink my priorities, or scale-back the plan that I have.
Thats all for tonight.
Showing posts with label setback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label setback. Show all posts
Friday, July 26, 2013
Friday, June 12, 2009
01 year 26, 27, and 28 weeks into study
These past few weeks have been mixed in terms of effort that I have placed in Chinese studying. During most days, I have put at least some effort into studying. I have done well in the past few days especially, really studying the verbal part. I experienced a setback concerning my flashcards. When I went to Florida, I had accidentally left my bag with my flashcards at my sister's house. I asked someone to grab my bag, and while the bag was en route, it got wet. Many of my flashcards got wet, and I am less than thrilled (gross understatement). I am also missing four flashcards as well, and I am hoping that they turn up. I understand that I am probably more angry than I should be about them, but I did put a lot of work into making them, and I am trying hard to learn Chinese.
Chinese is proving to be a very difficult language to learn. I do keep at it, but sometimes I don't feel that I am making progress. Other times, I feel that I will never learn the language because I am too old (I think I have discussed this in an earlier entry, but the thoughts continue to arise). I plan to continue to study, I have lots of time until I leave for China. Currently, my plan is to hopefully be able to speak enough Chinese to get my basic needs met. Well, that is all that is on my mind right now (I feel like I am beginning to sound like Phil DeFranco).
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13jun09-1633h... edit
Here is my latest stack photo;
Chinese is proving to be a very difficult language to learn. I do keep at it, but sometimes I don't feel that I am making progress. Other times, I feel that I will never learn the language because I am too old (I think I have discussed this in an earlier entry, but the thoughts continue to arise). I plan to continue to study, I have lots of time until I leave for China. Currently, my plan is to hopefully be able to speak enough Chinese to get my basic needs met. Well, that is all that is on my mind right now (I feel like I am beginning to sound like Phil DeFranco).
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13jun09-1633h... edit
Here is my latest stack photo;
Friday, May 8, 2009
01 year 23 weeks into study
Hello everyone,
Not much to report this week. It was a slow week studying-wise. I am beginning to ramp up my efforts. There was a considerable period where I was getting many cards wrong on my daily review, but I have been doing quite well in the past few days. Those days should clear out of the stack in the next couple of days. I have finished much of the work that I need to do in order to graduate from college, so I plan to pursue Chinese studying full time in the next three months. I should have much to say starting next week!
Not much to report this week. It was a slow week studying-wise. I am beginning to ramp up my efforts. There was a considerable period where I was getting many cards wrong on my daily review, but I have been doing quite well in the past few days. Those days should clear out of the stack in the next couple of days. I have finished much of the work that I need to do in order to graduate from college, so I plan to pursue Chinese studying full time in the next three months. I should have much to say starting next week!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
01 year 16 & 17 weeks into study
Hello everyone,
Well, I must say that essentially, no Chinese studies happened while I was in Spain. It was just too much. I was struggling to recall the little bit of Spanish that I learned years ago, and the Chinese was frustrating that effort. Well, it was for the first few days anyway. I resumed my Chinese studies in full swing upon my return to Massachusetts on Saturday. The 10 new characters per day totally fell flat, so I am back to the 5 per day.
I feel mixed right now about my progress. For the positive, I scored at elementary (low) on the listening test on the Chinesepod website. I feel that testing at elementary is an important milestone, and performing as such indicates that I am making progress. For the negative, I just struggle with the feeling that this Chinese studying is pointless, and that I will never master the language. I feel this way despite the overwhelming evidence to the fact that I am learning the language. I have been studying since November, but I am where I should be if I were studying since January. It's cool though, I am just going to continue to work at it everyday and trust that I will improve.
I hope to be able to speak enough Chinese to be able to express my most basic needs when I arrive in August. My trip to Barcelona, and the frustration resulting from the language barrier has demonstrated to me the types of things I will need to learn in order to communicate in a foreign language. Perhaps I should have traveled to China for the break, but I cannot take back the past, and I have to live with decisions that I have made.
My studying routine is the same routine that I have outlined in the update in week 16. If you are reading these blogs, I would really be interested in knowing about your presence. Please feel free to become a follower or comment.
thanks
Well, I must say that essentially, no Chinese studies happened while I was in Spain. It was just too much. I was struggling to recall the little bit of Spanish that I learned years ago, and the Chinese was frustrating that effort. Well, it was for the first few days anyway. I resumed my Chinese studies in full swing upon my return to Massachusetts on Saturday. The 10 new characters per day totally fell flat, so I am back to the 5 per day.
I feel mixed right now about my progress. For the positive, I scored at elementary (low) on the listening test on the Chinesepod website. I feel that testing at elementary is an important milestone, and performing as such indicates that I am making progress. For the negative, I just struggle with the feeling that this Chinese studying is pointless, and that I will never master the language. I feel this way despite the overwhelming evidence to the fact that I am learning the language. I have been studying since November, but I am where I should be if I were studying since January. It's cool though, I am just going to continue to work at it everyday and trust that I will improve.
I hope to be able to speak enough Chinese to be able to express my most basic needs when I arrive in August. My trip to Barcelona, and the frustration resulting from the language barrier has demonstrated to me the types of things I will need to learn in order to communicate in a foreign language. Perhaps I should have traveled to China for the break, but I cannot take back the past, and I have to live with decisions that I have made.
My studying routine is the same routine that I have outlined in the update in week 16. If you are reading these blogs, I would really be interested in knowing about your presence. Please feel free to become a follower or comment.
thanks
Monday, February 23, 2009
01 year 11 & 12 weeks into study
Well, I must confess. After my last update, I simply stopped studying Chinese. I felt burned out, plus I was thinking that I might not go to China after all. I wanted to get back into the studies, but I just feel too drained with the Chinese. I guess I am saying that I am through with the Chinese learning for right now, and maybe I will pick it back up at some point.
Friday, January 23, 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
01 year 04 & 05 weeks into study
How discouraging. I have done very little studying in the past two weeks on account of having technical problems and other life occurances. Nevertheless, I plan to get back into the swing of things very soon.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
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
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
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