How do you plan/choose lessons?
kencarroll
April 07, 2009, 05:11 AM posted in General DiscussionI had some tremendously useful responses to my last post, so here I am again, trying to get to understand you.
How do you choose lessons? I know that most people tend to go with the lesson of the day - especially if its your level - but how do you proceed beyond that? Do you actually use a course-building approach: searching systematically for the stuff and putting them into your feed for future reference, then gradually going though them? Or do you explore more on an ad hoc basis, for example, when something hits you that you need to learn, or on the basis of related topics/vocabulary items? How far ahead do you plan/structure? Do you stick to it?
I'm all ears, as it were.
mark
November 30, 2009, 04:47 AMI am current with all of the lessons that have been published to date. So, I am on the lesson-of-the-day plan due to a paucity of other choices.
calkins
April 07, 2009, 05:43 AMHi Ken,
My selection of lessons has changed drastically since moving to Taiwan.
Before, I would study them as they came out, as well as study ones that interested me.
Now I study them for survival! If I have something planned (like opening a bank account, getting a haircut, etc.), I'll study the lesson needed to accomplish some basic communication for the specific task.
Obviously, the biggest difference is greater retention because I get to use the learned vocabulary immediately, in a Chinese environment. It's not always pretty, that's for sure.
I can tell you this...Cpod has been a life saver. I've yet to come across a situation that I couldn't find a lesson about. Well, except for ordering a pizza...which is not something you really want to do in Taiwan anyway!
billglover
April 07, 2009, 09:58 AMIf I go through and bookmark lessons in advance, my iPod becomes cluttered and I find I don't know where to start. I try to keep bookmarked lessons to a minimum and only add them if I anticipate studying them within a week or so.
Mostly I stick to studying lessons as they arrive. If I run out, I'll go back in the timeline and add some recent lessons I missed.
ilovetolearn
April 07, 2009, 11:17 AM@calkins
Hi calkins, did you never had a problem in Taiwan that you used expressions, words, etc. from CPod that are only used on the mainland but not never used in Taiwan and sometimes cause irritations in TW, like 出租车/计程车 or 垃圾(lājī/lèsè) or 和(hé/hàn), and many more...??
What about traditional characters and nearly no pinyin in Taiwan? Does this cause problems for your daily life in TW and/or studies?
tvan
April 07, 2009, 11:44 AMI use structured coursework outside of ChinesePod, mostly newspaper comprehension and business Chinese, and just take CPod as the lessons/Qing Wen's/Poems come out. I enjoy its randomness.
dave262
April 07, 2009, 11:54 AMI usually bookmark a fair few lessons (maybe have about 100 booked at any one time), and just go through whatever I feel like learning about in the evening. Some days I feel like learning about buying or selling things, other days it might be general conversation and so on.
On the train trips to work every morning (approx 25 mins - longer usually being Melbourne public transport!), I will review the lesson I studied from the day before on the ipod.
It's more "learning by saturation" i guess - flood with information so much that it feels like I'm really in China!
calkins
April 07, 2009, 12:30 PMHi Ilovetolearn,
I do have that "problem" every now and then, but it's not really irritating. On the contrary, I've noticed that it actually makes learning the new Taiwan word easier, while reinforcing the Mainland word. Even though I don't live on the Mainland, I think it's good to know the vocab. for both. And actually, I don't think it's much different than other dialect differences, like Shanghainese for example.
I'm impressed that most Taiwanese recognize and know a Mainland word if I say it. Most of the time, they politely say "We don't use that word in Taiwan, we use x."
I've been learning traditional characters from the beginning, so that's no problem. Neither is the lack of pinyin. I still learn using pinyin. I don't think it's completely necessary, but I have started learning Bopomofo, just to know it. When compared with pinyin (for westerners, not Chinese), I've found that the pronunciations are more accurate using Bopomofo. So I think it is beneficial for westerners to learn.
Hope that answers your questions. Apologies to others for being off topic.
punter888
April 07, 2009, 01:02 PMI always first choose the lessons that are part of a series (Beauty Pageant, Wang's Office, etc), because the vocab is repeated across multiple lessons. This repetition enables more retention relative to a random selection of lessons. Also, the story lines are interesting to follow over time and this adds a bit of spice to the study program.
jamestheron
April 07, 2009, 02:34 PMI mostly listen to the podcasts as they come out.
If I'm preparing for one of my meetups or study groups, I'll search the archive for related topics.
Sometimes I'll search for podcasts topics related to my current textbook lesson.
I'm not sure I would know how to systematically build a course out of CPod lessons.
jckeith
April 07, 2009, 05:36 AMAs I come across words and phrases that I think I should learn through movies, reading, conversation, etc, I'll search for them on ChinesePod's Lesson search. I'll usually find several useful lessons per search. Then I just bookmark them and save them for later.
I don't have a set time that I plan ahead, I just add lessons as I come across them. If I end up with 100 lessons, so be it! I go through a few lessons per week, and I'm pretty good about adhering to this.
I generally don't go through the daily lessons on the day that they are added because I typically have 20-30 lessons bookmarked ahead of them.
I used to browse through the lessons every once in a while just looking for ones that seemed useful. I occasionally still do this.
bigsteve101
April 07, 2009, 06:19 PM@schoofs
there is a book titled "Remembering the Hanzi" which was developed by a German named Heisig. It basically approaches learning characters by associating a story with each, rather than the ususal reptition and writing practice. I myself haven't tried it, since I began to read and write through university class, but some people swear by his method. Here is a link to an excerpt of the book, which has about 100 characters. (I don't know if we are allowed to post this type of stuff so feel free to delete if i am violating anything)
http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/miscPublications/pdf/RH/RH%20Simplified-sample.pdf
mickeytoon
April 07, 2009, 08:19 PMRandom, completely random... I just wander through the lessons on all levels and choose those that look interersting. This probably explains why my learning has been slower but much more enjoyable than expected.
One strange thing I've noticed with Cpod are the occasional pangs of nostalgia that make me have to go back and listen to lessons I studied ages ago. Cold from Bike (the first lesson I marked 'studied') still makes me smile. I'm sure this is symptomatic of the 'specialness' that makes Cpod work so well.
sebire
April 07, 2009, 09:07 PMI do them as they come out usually, though I'll occasionally flick through the older ones, though the old intermediates are still too hard for me.
I like themes in groups of lessons. I'll never forget the words 比赛 after all those olympics and beauty pageant lessons!
jckeith
April 07, 2009, 10:16 PM@schoofs
I highly recommend "Remembering the Hanzi" which bigsteve101 recommended for learning Hanzi. I've found its method of associating a vivid story with each character to be amazingly powerful. The book comes in both Traditional and Simplified versions too.
Amazon seems to have issues with keeping it in stock, so I ordered it directly from University of Hawaii Press.
WillBuckingham
April 08, 2009, 07:51 AM@schoofs
I'm working through Remembering the Hanzi, and it is very good, despite the curiously passionate debate (both for and against) that it generates. Mnenomic methods may not suit everyone, but they are undeniably powerful. After doing every chapter, I'm feeding the characters into Anki, so I can review them. So far, so good. John has written about Heisig's method on his Sinosplice blog here. The Heisig approach associates "keywords" with individual characters, and is deliberately limited in scope: it does one job (helping you remember the structure of characters in a stroke-perfect fashion), and does it pretty well.
Skritter is also very good, and they are a nice, friendly bunch of people over there. It supplements Heisig well.
The debate on mnenomics, incidentally, goes back a long way. For a bit of historical background, Jonathan Spence's The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci explores debates around mnenomics, as well as relationships between China and the West, in the 16th and 17th centuries, and is well worth reading (not least because it puts the heated arguments over Heisig into a larger context).
Anyway, Heisig seems to work if you take him on his own terms.
Good luck,
Will
schoofs
April 09, 2009, 01:09 PMThanks all for the useful tips, I will defenitly get this Remembering the Hanzi book!!
pretzellogic
August 17, 2009, 10:47 AMThis is an interesting post for me. Prior to coming to China, I did the random approach, and listened/studied lessons in whatever order they came out. Upon arrival in China, I realized that the random lesson order was a MISTAKE if you are actually planning on coming to China. I started doing what Calkins is also doing; listening to lessons by specific topics. For me, it was listening to all the taxi related lessons at all levels, then the travel related lessons up to upper intermediate. At the present, i'm stuck on the travel related lessons. I'm torn between business related lessons, and the few family household related lessons as the next set.
If anyone in the future is reading this, and you actually think you might come to China for more than just a week, and will not have family/friends/acquaintences as tour guides/chapperones, then I strongly recommend the following:
1) LISTEN TO THE TAXI/DIRECTION RELATED LESSONS FIRST- listening and practicing speaking is critical for your pronunciation. Taxi drivers are not likely to speak English, and you will need to get yourself around.
2)DO NOT READ THE PDFs AS A SUBSTITITUTE FOR LISTENING. Pinyin, as CPOD points out, is not a pronunciation guide, but the temptation is there to use it as such. Pinyin is a great guide for some sounds, and a horrible guide for others. People new to studying mandarin will not know which is which. LISTENING/SPEAKING IS THE BEST WAY TO LEARN (AT FIRST) SO THAT YOU ANCHOR YOUR INTUITION ABOUT TONES AND PRONUNCIATION. Then go to pinyin.
waiguoren
November 30, 2009, 04:00 AMCompletely ad-hoc and it has worked - to a degree - I have moved from newbie to intermediate in the space of 3 years.
In my newbie days, I was just concerned about being able to speak, and thus just listening to the dialogue. This continued when I reached the elementary level, but then I used to listen and write out the pinyin and English translations. Now that I consider myself an intermediate learner, my needs have changed a little bit. I listen to the dialogue and rewrite the dialogue in Chinese adding English notes/translations only when necessary.
My learning needs have changed quite a bit over my Chinese learning journey. At first I was only concerned with speaking, but now I'm taking a greater interest in the art of writing. I rely almost exclusively on ChinesePod for my study and I feel this has left me particularly deficient in the spoken (i.e. pronunciation) and written forms of the language. This of course, is not inherently a fault in ChinesePods delivery, but of my own learning style.
schoofs
April 07, 2009, 05:32 PMHi Ken, I normally pick about 5 related newbie-lessons a week, by searching on a topic (like shopping, or taxi, or family etc.) I study them by listening to my MP3, and by vocabulary, and especially the expansions I really think are helpfull.When I feel they are 'in my head' I mark them as studied, delete the full lesson on my MP3, but keep the Dialoge and .fix version on it, so I keep on repeating it.
I hardly use the daily lessons. (for now)
I just started 6 months ago, with learning chinese, and a love it, more and more... I really like the way you do your lessons, together with Jenny. First I only wanted to learn by using pinyin, but slowly I get more interested in Hànzi aswell. But maybe someone can give me a few Tips, on how to remember the caracters?? (having dificult times with it...)
Thanks a lot. and keep on going...You all are doing a great job!!
antony73
April 07, 2009, 05:26 AMHello Ken
My main course of lessons is what I'm given by my tutor through the Guided Plan.
If I've gone through my given lessons quicker than expected, I scroll through my level of lessons to see if anything catches my eye.
Occasionally I enjoy learning the new lessons on the release day, simply because there is often more focused community activity to engage in and to enjoy the community spirit, which can be fun.
Thanks Ken