My Study Tips

xueli

October 18, 2009, 07:17 PM posted in General Discussion

Hello Everyone!

Well the first thing that I do with a new lesson is I play the lesson first and just listen to what the new lesson is about so I can get the jist of everything.  I also like to listen to the lesson first cause they will often times share important pieces of information you will not get with just looking at the dialogue or vocabulary. (like how/why they use the words like they do, or a better explantion of the origin, etc.) Oftentimes, I usually play the lessson twice because there is always something you didn't quite get or hear the first time you played the lesson.

Secondly, I go to the dialogue tab and study the sentences.  I have a regular notebook and I write down the sentences in pinyin, then underneath I write what it means in English. ***(As I write down the words in pinyin I'm saying them aloud to myself and I'm concentrating on what tone the words are)** Afterwards I play the recording and mimic the sentence.  After that is done I go back and look and learn new chinese characters.  I don't neccesarily write all of them down, but if you go and look at them, you'll be surprised how quickly you will begin to recall characters! :)

Next, I go to the vocabulary tab and browse any new words or words I'm not yet comfortable with and I write them down in pinyin along with their English translation at the bottom of the page.  This tells me these are the words I need to study until I become more comfortable with them.  *it's important to become comfortable with them before moving on* 

Lastly, I test myself by reading the English dialogue and translating it into Chinese.  I re read the English dialogue until I feel that I've done well, then I make sure to do the Expansion and Excercises!  The magic of Chinese pod happens for me when I do this last step!  The expansion and excercises really do make a difference and if anyone is paying for them please get your moneys worth and take advantage of them!!  I used to not do them cause' I thought it was too challenging. 

I've been learning Chinese for awhile, but nothing compares to the lessons and resources I get from CPod.

Thanks Cpod, and I hope this helps someone out there! ^_^