My study tools
davidhallgren
April 16, 2007, 07:13 PM posted in General DiscussionI thought I'd just write a short post describing my current method of studying Chinese. I'd like to start by saying that I've only studied for a couple of weeks now so I'm no expert here but hopefully someone learns about a new tool from this.
1. ChinesePod
You all know why I use this! A great tool that just became even better. I've made an Excel-sheet to get better overview of which lessons I've listened to (I decided to listen to them from the beginning, currently have 71 newbie, 12 elementary and 2 intermediate lessons under my belt). Make sure that I listen to a couple of lessons during the day and then do the online expansion and exercises during the evening.
2. Wenlin
Easy to use dictionary with lots of entries.
3. Wakan
Unfortunately this tool isn't developed anymore the last release (1.67) is very useful to keep track of which Hanzi you've studied. I don't use it to study but rather to keep track of characters I've studied and which I should study next to make sure I know the most frequently used ones.
4. Skype
A great tool to practice speaking. I have a number of chinese friends with whom I've previously spoken English or Japanese but can now gradually switch to Chinese.
5. Textbooks
I have a couple of textbooks as well that I like to flick through every now and then just to get input from more than source and to get some grammar information.
6. Real media
This is where it gets really fun! Find the materials you wish you could understand and get started. For example I have a number of comics in both Japanese and Chinese which are quite easy to understand and removes the feeling of studying.
7. E-dictionary
I bought this in Japan for Japanese but it also contains a Ch-Eng/Eng-Ch dictionary that is quite OK and a huge Jap-Ch/Ch-Jap one which is great. Has a number of nice features such as a touchscreen allowing to write hanzi to look up words.
These forms the core of my study tools and hopefully you get an idea about how I study based on that. I plan to write more posts in the future about how I study and my progress.
fu2lei2de2
April 16, 2007, 09:46 PMI use ChinesePod to supplement and to compliment a Chinese class that I'm taking with 5 other students. We follow a text book that comes with a CD set. ChinesePod supplements with short lessons on a variety of topics that I can chose myself. I pick up things that I can share with my fellow classmates. I also find that when I hear vocabulary or language structures both in class and in ChinesePod they stick a lot better. And the more voices I hear, the better. I'm also looking to use ChinesePod to compliment my classroom studies with interactive tools. I want to put words from the text book lessons into my vocab lists so that I can use Flash cards and related tools. I would also like to find ChinesePod lessons that use the same words. Sadly, I now find myself stuck in that the searchable ChinesePod dictionary has disappeared. V3 does allow me to find ChinesePod lessons that use a given Chinese word -- if only I could enter that word!