Reflections on two years of CPOD

Thanks for sharing your experience. It sounds like you have no problems with intermediate conversational Chinese now. I am not sure what your ultimate goal is, but i maybe it is a good time to focus on more formal/written Chinese (newspaper articles etc). Or if you are more interested in spoken Chinese, I recommend to start listening to podcasts by Chinese people (I mean personal journals and not language podcasts). For example, there are several people from Taiwain and Mainland China producing podcasts about their experience living abroad (like "Princess Remy"). Also, there are several other podcasts teaching Chinese like iMandarinPod and CSLPod that are completely in Chinese. Their quality varies a lot, because a lot of materials are ripped verbatim from Chinese textbooks. (This is especially true for iMandarinPod). But these podcasts are completely in Chinese and not as difficult as CPod's advanced lessons.

In addition to my previous ramblings, I ask you to consider the following: Language evolves. If a construction is inefficient, I gets discarded over time (Does this apply to Latin? ;-) ). We can observe microevolution easily: It comes in the form of the introduction of neologisms or non-standard colloquialisms. Just like the ID- inspired hypothesis of "irreducible complexity" is utter rubbish, no language is fervently trying to be a pain in the figurative behind of the learner. We simply ought to take it as it is without bothering with the troublesome aspects too much. On our way to proficiency, we may eventually master even the tiniest problems that always tend to crop up. @Auntie A note of caution: Whilst referring to yourself as "mandarinistically (btw, a neologism ;-) ) challenged", you probably use this self-deprecating manner as a means of humour. However, if you keep telling yourself this, you could actually create a self-fulfilling prophecy even if you're not being serious about it. I have noticed this ever so often in my students, I wouldn't want you (or anyone who is, subconsciously, afraid of learning a new language) to suffer the same decline in success and enthusiasm.

Yes, I agree with you. CP was a great find for me too. I started studying Chinese 3,5 years ago now. It is not the first foreing language that I learn, but by far the most difficult. I has become a real challenge for me. One day I will be fluent in Chinese. So for the foreseeable future CP will be of the utmost importance to me.

CP has definately improved my Chinese for the past year I've been using. I still remeber my very first lesson! Sweet Watermelon.

Mark, Congratulations and well done on your efforts. I think there is always the compulsion to learn ever more words and vocab. However, in my experience, it is hard to consolidate ever more items if you're not using them. Sometimes they just go in one ear and out the other. Recognizing the meaning of a word it is just one step in knowing it. You also need to know how it functions, where it is likely to occur, and with whom it consorts, as it were. Much of this becomes clear, I think, through practice. I'm glad to see you'll be around for another year!

Mark, I really enjoyed your self-evaluation. Thanks for sharing that with us. It gives me hope. I'm not as fast as you, still struggling in intermediate, but I hope I can be as dedicated. Congratulations on your progress. If you want to skype me, we can practice speaking. It takes me forever to get a sentence out and I practice speaking every day!

Ken, I'm glad to hear you like having me around. I think your message is that I should now focus on consolidating the vocabulary that I have. I have considered your advice and don't entirely agree. Here's why: My goal is to know Chinese as well as I know English. When I was learning English, I don't think I would have learned it very well, if I were limited to only 4 or 5 pages of input a week. Further, Goulniky recently posted some graphs of frequency of encountering new characters. They showed a knee and then a long inclined slope. I'm pretty sure the pattern is the same for words, just the numbers are different. The fact that new vocabulary from CPOD lessons has tailed off tells me that I am at the knee. I know most of the common words which server as mortar for sentences. I just don't know the rare words that embed meaning in the mortar. So, I think I need more input. Also, it simply doesn't take me the same amount of time to study a week's worth of CPOD lessons as it used to. Its time for CPOD to be a bridge to something else. I'm just not sure what, yet. I'm not talking about memorizing dictionaries. And I'm certainly not abandoning CPOD. I'm just looking for the next step for someone not living in China to learn Chinese to fluency. I think CPOD is still part of that step, but its not the whole of it. I'm just not sure what is the most effective increment of input to add.

Hi Mark. I caught your OP when it came back, but didn't post any comments. However, just about every word you wrote resonated with me. On Ken's point: I think you may be able to consolidate your CPOD gains simply by continuing to follow the podcasts. For one thing, I seem to be detecting that CPOD is beginning to engineer elements of "spiral learning" into their course materials. And they're getting so good at it! Thanks for that, Ken... I really value these elements of "spiral learning" because it means that users not only learn the "new vocabulary" for any particular lesson, but they are also -- perhaps without feeling it -- are also consolidating CPOD's basic vocabulary for that level. But I am with you, Mark, on the question of "what next?" I won't presume to give you any advice, but perhaps what I doing might give you some useful ideas: 1. I am beginning to study classical Chinese (文言; wen2yan2) in parallel with CPOD's modern Chinese lessons. My sense is that you are already at a good level to have a go at this. The benefit to you -- and to your long-term goal of attaining true bilingualism -- is that studying classical Chinese can have the effect of bringing your "sense" for modern Chinese into a totally different dimension. It will be useful when you move into more formal, written modern Chinese, because the written form (Cf. lines of dialogue) is closer to classical Chinese. In the latest "Qing Wen", the word 非 (fei1) is a classical Chinese word. Another good thing about classical Chinese is that it is dense. So you can get a lot out of studying a single poem, can even consider memorizing it (recommended) so that it somehow becomes internalized. One practical problem is finding good materials. Most of the resources -- especially a textbook which I think would be perfect for you (it has good English notes + hanyu pinyin + simplified characters) -- are out of print. But if you p.m. me on this, I think I have a simple solution for you... 2. Another thing to consider is that being "bilingual" rarely means having a full match between the vocabularies of both languages. Not even in a bilingual person who was brought up in a "bilingual" environment, with a very high level of ability in both languages. But being a "functional" bilingual means that you can acquire new vocab in the second language nearly as efficiently as a native speaker, so for me it is a valid goal. In other words, being a mere "functional bilingual" means that you can absorb and process fresh language efficiently. For the rest of your life. Well, that is merely what I have concluded after reading a lot of articles and books on language development in bilingual children, for the sake of the Stunt Toddler... I don't want to discourage anybody. However I do think that making the effort to duplicate the vocabulary and syntactic command of the first language may not be worth the effort required, especially if the learner doesn't have the luxury of being able to be immersed in the second language. For me, this means that my general focus is on being a "functional bilingual", and I only aim for "total bilingualism" in very defined areas which correspond to my personal interests (eg. food, architecture, Formula One racing, certain kinds of music, etc) . If you allow your interests drive your learning, you stand a better chance of going deep enough -- at least in those areas of interest -- to give you a fighting chance to "know" the language in that area nearly as well as a native speaker who shares the same interest. And I like to think that the language-processing ability which that requires will spill over to other areas of language, perhaps enable you to approach those areas with the same basic receptive and language-processing abilities as a native speaker. Having said that, I need to add the caveat that this approach suits my needs and my goals, but it may not suit anyone! The greatest risk, with such an approach, is "shallowness". It's just that for me, it is like my only pass to a deeper level of "language processing". For Italian, my "areas" are cooking, wine, interior design, and -- of course! -- Formula One. If I have to miss a race telecast in Italy, at least I can go to a bar and ask people how the race went, whose engine gave out, who gambled with the set-up and got it wrong... And Italian Formula One news articles and opinion pieces are so refreshingly different from Anglo-saxon ones. The "cooking" Italian is really useful for me because I enjoy learning from my Italian friends in Singapore (or from the Italian cooks they employ in their restaurants, or their mothers/ aunts/ wives etc). Mark, thank you for being patient with his long-winded Auntie! Good luck! And well done, too.

Let me add some smoke here: As person who once spoke pretty good Chinese over 35 years ago and then did not have the ability to use the language for the following 35 years, my level is also questionable. Sometimes, even a Newbie Lesson is the "right" level for me. While I often understand the Advanced Lessons, there are times when these are also very hard for me. In a technical sense, I would have to be classified Intermediate. If is very difficult to find the right classification of what skills I do have. I have returned to serious study of Chinese this past October in preparation for this two month trip that I am currently on in China. There seems to be times when hearing and understanding Chinese is very easy. But there are also many times when it is a lot of work trying to get a grasp on what people are saying. I know part of it is my poor hearing; but also, even if I hear, I don't always quickly understand. The Chinese say accurately, 听不懂 (ting1 bu dong3). In part, I do not think in Chinese. As a result, it slows me up. ChinesePod has been a very important tool in restoring my Chinese ability. Much of what I have heard on ChinesePod, I am now using on a daily basis. ChinesePod has made the language real, not a textbook exercise. They aim at everyday spoken Chinese and that has been extremely valuable for me.

Well, I strive to become fluent in every language I learn. Chinese is my fifth foreign language and I honestly think I can reach my goal of becoming reasonably proficient in up to 12 languages, seeing as I'm still very young. A previous commenter stated that "Another thing to consider is that being "bilingual" rarely means having a full match between the vocabularies of both languages." Well, I have to agree. There are so many things I couldn't express in my mother tongue (Spanish), but which come easily to me when speaking English and vice versa. I think that when you're learning a new language you need to shed all your previous concepts of grammar and word formation and get into a totally different "mode" as well as receptive state. This is almost impossible, as we always depend on explanations/translations in our "base language" (as opposed to "target language"). Therefore, if there is no match between base and target language, it's difficult to make the words come naturally. It gets even worse when two languages do overlap slightly. We're all aware of the phenomenon of "false friends", unfortunately, we get suspicious about each word/construction bearing resemblance to the equivalent in our native language. Investigation into the neurological aspect of language acquisition suggests that information about a foreign is stored in different areas of the brain. Moreover, if you're older than 20, it's extremely unlike that you'll ever manage to attain a native speaker's accent. CP has been very useful for helping me with my efforts to learn the beautiful Chinese language, but obviously it isn't possible to learn just from one source, though if I were to venture a guess I'd say 70% of my vocabulary comes from the podcasts and expansion sentences. On a side note, I have noticed that after approximately 4-5 months of studying, I know (i.e can read) about 2000 characters, but I can write only about 100. Is there any way I can improve my writing skills (of hanzi) other than writing the character/radicals fifty times? In fact, I'm afraid of trying to piece together sentences because I'm sure they'll be wrong anyway. I have no opportunity to get tutored. *sigh* By the way: "I'm not talking about memorizing dictionaries." I've got a big fat 1500-pages unilingual English dictionary. Every evening, I try to memorize some of the vocab of 4-5 pages. Geeky, I know. It can be great fun, though. My tip for boosting your language acquisition speed: Listen to TV/read books in that language even if you haven't faintest idea what the text means. And buy workbooks that are (way) above your current level. Skimming through them, you'll A. feel humbled about your progress so far and be critical of yourself B. feel compelled to work even harder to be finally able to use the book. ;-)

You said it well Mark. For the same reasons It was a jackpot find for me as well. Every day I am suprised by how much I know, right before I am overwhelmed by how much I dont know. There is no stopping now. -RJ

Mark, I'm really happy to hear about your progress, since you've been listening to Jenny and me so much. Thanks a lot for letting us know! As for your conclusions, I think I agree with you that you DO need more input. Don't treat all input equally, though. Massive input is great, but you definitely don't need to be looking up every word you don't know. This is a trap I myself have fallen for many times in the past. It can turn a great source of input into a frustrating chore. So I think the best thing for you would be to expose yourself to as much Chinese as possible (that's always great), but don't actively STUDY it all... Just listen/watch/read and absorb what you can, and don't worry about the rest. Concentrate your studies on using what you have already learned, with incremental advances. Meanwhile, all the extra input you are getting in between "official study times" will be quietly improving your Chinese in the background of your mind.

John, do you really think it is a trap? Didn't the "looking up every word" phase leave any noticable advances in your passive vocab base? Because I do that and will continue with it. I even look up words I do know just to doublecheck I get the tone right (although I stopped trying to "learn" them in a classic sense) I also still look up every unfamiliar word in English(thanks to leo.org which will start a Chinese-German dictionary soon), although in English language I got to the point where the situation occurs rather rarely (still need to look up about 5-10 words a day). I attribute major chunks of my current English (passive) vocab base to the crazy lookup-strategy. Definately does not look like a trap for me.

I am with the "Henning School" of thought. I have started reading a modern Chinese Novel and am close to finishing the first chapter (13 pages) after several weeks. I am looking up every new word and also those I am not sure of. I am hopeful that my progress will speed up progressively during the rest of the book as I get used to the vocabulary. I am considering plotting the number of new words for each page/chapter as I progress to (hopefully) watch it diminish. I believe that if I hadn't looked up every word I would have missed vital clues to the plot

When I was young (a long time ago), learning foreign languages was often a lonely training without a good teacher, study buddies, up-to-date dictionaries, and sophisticated textbooks, however, thanks to Chineseopd and Internet, I have everything I need now, except for my diligence. Thanks, guys!

Dear mikeinewshot, now I'm really impressed, because I've never attempted to read any books in Chinese before! uncle changye - you are a great "study buddy" for this Mandarinistically challenged Auntie. Thanks! On the "dictionary" debate, I'm actually with henning and mikeinewshot. That is, I look up everything. But I think that's only do-able for me because my areas of interest tend to be very narrow, eg. gastronomy, Formula One, one subject which I don't wish to mention here, certain kinds of music, and architecture/interior design etc etc. John's advice makes a lot of sense if the learner in question needs to acquire a very wide general vocabulary that would serve in most general situations, I think. Since my focus is so narrow, it's normally well worth the initial time and effort invested in acquiring the "base vocabulary" required for exploring these areas of interest deeply enough to attain a great deal of satisfaction. This is a luxury I enjoy because I don't live in a Chinese-speaking environment, my daily comfort does not depend on my command of Chinese. So I don't feel any pressure to acquire Chinese for every situation. The challenge for me, so far, is finding an existing area of interest which is a good match with my present interests and habits. But I have just bought a book -- "Origins of Chinese Food Culture", only 150+ pages, and LOTS of nice illustrations -- which seems terribly interesting. Hopefully this may become the first "Chinese" book I read in my life! Mark, thanks for this thread. Wish you all the best.

I'll have to partially side with John on "looking everything up in the dictionary". It kind of depends on you and what you feel like though. Sometimes I'm in the mood to look up everything and take note of all the words I don't know, but I don't force myself to do it when I'm not in the mood. A lot of times, I just rather enjoy whatever it is I'm watching/reading/listening and be satisfied with contextual clues at meaning. The dictionary *will* do wonders for your vocabulary, but careful that it doesn't get in the way of learning or your enjoyment. changye, I couldn't agree with you more... technology has done wonders for language acquisition!

I have expressed my opinion on the dictionary look-ups a few times and it probably merits a separate thread. I will try to write up my thoughts on the subject, complete with specific examples and will open up that thread when I'm ready.

I'm inclined to agree with John, using your dictionary excessively might hamper your actual progress. If you really have look almost every word up, you're not going to enjoy the text, nor get much out of it in terms of broadened understanding of grammar or vocabulary. An obvious major drawback regarding Chinese is that you have to familiarize yourself with the character on top of its sound, perhaps pinyin, and meaning, especially in compounds. Languages relying on an alphabet are somewhat easier in this respect. So, speaking of "passive vocab", do you really expect to somehow subconsciously remember the majority of the words? Quite frankly, that's not very likely. Might work a treat in the long run, but I'm not convinced. Yesterday, I tried to read a Chinese article about a party meeting and today a faint clue of what the character for "province" and "communist" look like lingers in my brain. Jajaja, way to go...;-) I used to make flashcards of important vocab I encountered, or look them all up, but I came to realize how futile this approach was. Bear in mind that this verdict is coming from someone who likes to memorize whole pages of dictionaries. Nowadays, whenever I read a book in a foreign language, I make a quick note of any term which is not in my active vocabulary. I don't look these expressions up, however, as I'm usually able to infer from context. The next time(s) I come across one of these words in a different context, it almost miraculously transfers into my vocabulary. Become a living thesaurus, try to find as many alternative translations or versions of expressing a single idea. Find out about subtle distinctions later on. This will enable you to at least to spot inappropriate usage in your fellow learners' speech/texts. :-P On the subject of "conventional studying", I'm with the ChinesePod policy of not focusing too much with grammar, after a while you're just bound to get it right. All it takes is exposure. I mean, if you see a certain structure often enough, why would you have to think twice? The more rules you introduce, the more confused people will get. This even affects your mother tongue: A this cr** about "leísmo" vs castellano estándar, "de lo que" vs "del cual" is driving me, a native speaker and teacher of Spanish crazy. I usually use the right form, but awareness of there being rules for it increases insecurity. Rules of thumb are great, though they are unfortunately too general and don't take variations into account. @henning I know, curiosity killed "el pobre gato", but I'd like to read a few examples of the kind of English words you look up.

mark - You said it yourself... "I need more input". Get as much as you can in the form of TV, podcasts, and books in the topics that interest you. What would you watch/listen/read in English? Now sometimes watch/listen/read those same things in Chinese instead of English. If you listen to the news, start listening to some of it in Chinese (BBC has a daily chinareel podcast and there are several Chinese radio stations you can listen to over the web). If you browse the news over something like Google News, switch to Google News Chinese. Being a Harry Potter fan (yea, one of those), I'm currently "reading" the HP books in Chinese. My goal is to eventually read the major Chinese classics... 紅樓夢, 水滸傳, 三國演義, 西遊記 (maybe not all this year) and since I grew up watching Chinese TV drama adaptations of JinYong's wuxia novels, I'll be looking to read the original novels at some point. My recognition of characters pales in comparison to my listening + comprehension ability, so I'm "reading" while listening to audiobook renditions for now. This example is very specific to my interests; I think the specific input for you at this point is entirely dependent on your own interests... the important part is to increase the input flood.