Becoming overwhelmed, your study methods?
ahorriblemess
September 02, 2008, 04:46 AM posted in General DiscussionSometimes I get overwhelmed and my brain feels like a soggy gym sock. Does anyone have any personal study methods which worked for them? I'm crossing over between newbie and elementary lessons (which is great) but I want to improve so much that sometimes I listen to several lessons in one night and try to jot down vocabulary and sentences in addition to reciting them. It's like I either listen to one lesson once or twice a day, or I listen to five of them in two hours.
I was never good at studying when I was in school, so any suggestions at all will be much appreciated. Thanks.
dedsall78
February 07, 2009, 03:54 PMOver the last few months, I found another incredibly useful tool that I can not believe I did not get from the very beginning. A private tutor!
Since I started going to a tutor, I have seen much more improvement than usual. Tutors can correct your misconceptions, clarify things you don't completely understand, and really improve your speaking!
Just thought I'd add that bit in :)
henning
October 05, 2008, 08:06 AMMine has changed over time. I don't work as diligently through a lesson as I used to.
Basically now I proceed like this:
1. Listen to the new lesson
2. With Ele/Int/UI: Transcribe language points (see it as a focused repetition)
3. Expansion->Exercise->Audio Review
4. With UI & Adv: Relisten
No 1-4 for a Newbie lesson days
5. Read Goulnik's News or a Short Story. Look up everything approach - as soon as I am not entirely certain about meaning or pronounciation: C&P to the dictionary (that is a surprisingly effective way to inhale vocab)
6. Go to a competitor site for challenging exercises (alternatively: use an HSK Intermediate drill book I rediscovered last week in an old suitcase). Good exercises are something I really miss around here!
7. If time fits: Do a 红楼梦-chunk
5-7 sometimes need to be skipped due to time consraints (esp. when an Adv. lesson comes up)
Vocab / Repetition: Lots of "Audio Reviews" and old Adv & UI lessons on my MP3.
Speaking practice: My Chinese collegue helps me to get the Chinese percentage up in the office. When away from home (Tue-Fri) I have one longer Chinese phonecall with my wife in the evenenings.
pearltowerpete
October 05, 2008, 08:09 AMGreat suggestions from dedsall78 and mark. I have three basic suggestions:
First, learn radicals (部首 bu4shou3）. A firm grasp on the 100 must- commonly-used radicals (from the Latin for "root") will allow you to break apart characters and see them as collections of symbolic and phonetic parts, rather than squiggles.
Second, rehash, review and revisit constantly. However you learn new vocab, you should make a point of reviewing your new words the next day, then seven days later, then a month later. Words learned in this way will be much likelier to stick in your mind.
Finally, I recommend investing in a small notebook that you can carry in your purse or back pocket. Each time you see an unfamiliar character in daily life or while reading, write it down and learn it that night. This will help you keep your words in context. Obviously my method is low tech-- many people prefer a cellphone, Blackberry, etc. But the point is the same.
Great to see you around the boards, ahorriblemess. Keep on keepin' on and you will make real progress.
mattahmet
October 07, 2008, 11:54 AMAs a language teacher and avid language learner, I've found that the importance of repetititon cannot be overestimated.
This is what I've done to ensure constant repitition of material I've studied, and it seems to be a method that really works well for me:
On iTunes, I've created smart playlists for podcast reviews. I've arranged it so they're ordered with the least recently played files first.
Below are the playlist rules for the smartlist "ChinesePod Dialogues".
Make a second smartlist called "ChinesePod Reviews" just changing the rule for "dialogue" to "review".
Then set the order of the files in the playlist to "Last Played" with the arrow pointing up.
You now have two playlists. You can play either playlist, reviewing the dialogues and reviews that you last reviewed the longest ago. Next time you sync your iPod, the lessons you just reviewed will be moved to the bottom of the list.
ahorriblemess: I'm also newbie, just starting to get into beginner lessons. I'm trying to go faster, but really, without repeated reviews, you just end up spending lots of time studying then forgetting what you've studied. Best of luck to you!
mark
October 05, 2008, 07:23 AMI have developed a routine for studying. It has evolved over time. In general, it works like this:
I start with how much time I have per week to study and fill that time as best I can at my current ability. (e.g. I m studying two advanced, one UI and one I lesson every week now. Earlier, the regimine was one UI and one I every week.) Anyway, start with your capacity.
Then work out a routine. I collect the lessons for one week while I study the lessons from the previous week. In my case, every weekend I review the previous week`s lessons, and take a first pass at understanding the current week`s lessons word by word. Monday I review the previous week`s lessons with a native speaker. Tuesday, I memorize the new vocabulary from the new previous week. Wednesday I review to make sure that memorization stuck, and write a first draft of a weekly journal entry in Chinese. Thursday I have a free form conversation with a native speaker and do a final edit of my journal. Friday I edit the CPOD lessons so that I can play repeat-the-dialog while I commute. ... Sometimes I have to adapt the schedule, because of life happenings.
When the material entering the routine becomes too easy, I add more material.
solaristique
October 15, 2008, 12:13 AMRelax studying another language...and mathematics will help you a lot
EnhuiW
October 15, 2008, 08:17 AMChinesepod lessons are an important and fun part of my self-instruction, but they're not all of it by any stretch of the imagination.
Under the theory that the best way to learn a language is to experience the way people who use the language use the language, I expose myself to as much Chinese-language media as I can. I have numerous hours of Chinese pop music (most of which were recorded from streaming radio, but I've also purchased Bibi Zhou's NOW and WOW and Jang Nara's Dream of Asia albums), the first Harry Potter book, and the DVDs of 刁蛮公主 with Alec Su and Jang Nara.
This method works well for me because I learn best in small, frequent installments. I rarely spend more than 20 minutes at a time, but they add up to about 1.75 hours per day.
I'm also getting relatively painless constant repetitions of vocabulary, grammatical structures, etc. this way.
antony73
November 14, 2008, 02:18 PMI agree, exposure is everything. Get out there in the Chinese community, watch Mandarin (dialogue heavy) DVDs and CCTV 1 online, etc.
You menioned learning several lesson in one night. I wouldn't recomend this.
LITTLE AND OFTEN IS THE KEY
Most learning isn't when we're sat over a desk, it's mental, going over the learned subject in our mind, mentally digesting the subject. It's like eating. Eating food is enjoyable, yet the real benefit is when we digest it, which takes time.
I find what study methods work for one may not work for another, however, this is my basic routine:
1. Use Premium or above subscriptions (I use Guided).
2. Work through the assigned lesson at the start of the day.
3. Write out the dialogue, including the Hanzi.
4. Repeat, or even better use the dialogue, throughout the day and listen to the Cpod Fix.
5. Use weekends to allow your brain to rest and process the information. If you don’t rest because you feel you can go on, ignore it and rest or your brain will one day shout “STOP!” and you’ll find it impossible to take anything in for a long time. In other words, you brain will ‘Crash’ and you may loose some of that hard work of putting Chinese dialogue in there.
These are my processing tools, which I believe are absolutely essential.
1. Live the dialogue! Repeat aloud, above average speaking volume, using all hand gestures, facial expressions and modulation appropriate for the dialogue. Create emotional response. The strongest memories are those connected to emotion. Use it to learn.
2. Repetition. Transferring the lesson from short to long term memory you must repeat over an expanding amount of time. So day one, repeat throughout the day, then the next day, then in five days time, a weeks time then a month later, 4 months, one year, two years.
3. Use all new dialogue asap.
It's good to remember that what is said last is often remembered the longest. So end each lesson with the stuff you really want to learn.
doezeedoats
January 10, 2009, 04:21 AMJust wanted to "here here" what pearltowerpete said about radicals. The more characters i try to learn (like, well enough to write them from memory), the more i realize i should have done it the old school way - learn the 214 radicals backwards and forwards. Towards that end, this link is pretty good.
Going from passive to active is the key step for me to make things stick, so i bet writing things down and carrying them with me would work great, especially if i did it to try them out on a native speaker. I'll invest NT$50 and get a little notebook today. (I'll give an update on the experiment as soon as results come in).
BTW, i can't say how much i appreciate this site, these posts and all of you. There was nothing like this back in the day.
mattahmet
October 08, 2008, 12:24 PMI had inserted a screenshot of the playlist rules, but it's disappeared. The rules were:
Artist contains ChinesePod
Name contains Dialogue
(Uncheck Limit to 25 items)
dedsall78
October 05, 2008, 02:12 AMYeah, sounds like, in an effort to improve, you are not moving at a comfortable pace. Whenever you feel overwhelmed, you should just stop, even if you have not completed what you wanted to.
One thing I have seen many people do is try to cram things into their brain. This was especially true in Chinese medical school... I did this too until I realized something. Your brain doesn't work that way. You will forget that information if studied in that fashion. You will remember it for the moment, but will forget it soon thereafter.
What you should do is, whenever you go to learn new material, first do a quick review of the things you recently learned. Then learn the new material. Make sure you only bite as much as you can chew.
Wouldn't it be better to actually learn, and retain, new information rather than just learn a whole bunch of new stuff and forget most of it? Think of that next time when you try to do too much at once.
Hope that is helpful.