Need Advice on Learning New Words - Newspaper, or Not?

Newspapers are good if you realize that many of the words that you will encounter are mostly for written Chinese.  If you want to improve your spoken Chinese, maybe they are not the best place to start.  That said, I think it is a great idea to learn any and all words, so if you feel motivated, I say give it a whirl.

I don't know if you are in China or not, but if you are, many bookstores have dual Chinese/English books.  Those can be fun, and they usually aren't too difficult to read.  Sometimes I get lazy and just read the English side, haha.

On the speaking front, I will say that I doubt you've flopped on your face more than I have. With taxi drivers, the staff at SPR Coffee, people at the grocery store, it's bad enough that I have to say something to them and can barely be understood some of the time. What really is annoying is that they'll say something at 800 mph and I think I understood the first 2 words. Some of them have accents so thick, even local Chinese don't understand them well. I remember going to an ATM, and there was a bank employee there helping a woman use her card in the ATM, and I swear, the guy just sounded to me like he was saying, "arararraraar.....arrararara....arr aarr, harara, araa....shararaaa". But then she would reply with "can I use my credit card?" and he would reply, "shsaarras, shararra, arraarhahaahaa, barrraaa", and she would say "good". Maybe she was pretending she understood him also. But i know that in cases less taxing that that one, I usually nod like an idiot and pretend I understand them.

I guess what keeps me learning and motivated is the sheer adventure of it all.

I agree. Listen to memorize is better!

我觉得你的中国朋友说得有点太夸张了！让孩子把一个字抄50遍的老师是恶魔！我是个中国人。

watercarrier, there is hope! I understood your post in Chinese for the most part, and the two words I don't know, well, I can infer the meaning. My Chinese friend is older, re-educated under Mao. Very old school.

pretzell, yes, I agree, learning new words without context makes them easier to forget, and that is my fear. When I read about people committed to learning so many words a day, I wonder, how do they retain them? Maybe I wasn't doing the right list, or the right way? (so I wonder) It seems that my progress is just so slow but I suppose I'll just keep going forward, however slowly, in a way that suits my capabilities.

xiaophil, I'm in the states. Gosh I am so tempted to take a class in China, but at the same time, so afraid. I'm an older adult and would be going alone. Scarey. I have found some sources here in the states for bi-lingual books but tend to want them only in Chinese for the reason you mentioned-it's so much easier to read the English lines LOL! I'm still working on my first Curious George book. 

I know i've stated in other posts that I learn words and count words, but I really do that in the context of sentences and phrases, especially recently.

And you'd be correct in asking how I retain those words/phrases/sentences. Right now, i'm doing a poor job of review. I can only hope that coughing up the cash for an iPod Touch and using tools like SRS and anki will help improve and standardize my review. Others on this site mention Anki/SRS as great retention tools.

I guess i'm not clear on why you're not learning new words through listening to the lessons you can download on Cpod. I've learned plenty of new words from Cpod. I would add that I do find that listening and focusing on learning a sentence, or at least a phrase, helps me remember the new word anyway. I have found that learning words individually made them easier to forget.

Your mileage may vary.

When I signed up for the subscription, I was thinking that if i could learn about 4000 new words in a year, I could speak decent Chinese. It turns out that the problem with that is that:

1) 4000 words per year is about 334 words/month, and that's about 84 words per week. or 12 words per day. In practice, I can start 12 words per day, but can't maintain learning 12 words per day over a month due to time committments.

2)as we've mentioned before, reviewing that many words needs to be scheduled into the equation as well.

3)I'm not focusing on learning characters, and learning the written language is a different beast from learning the spoken language in that it takes way more time to retain the character.

In practice, the people who can do the above are basically full-time students that are learning Chinese. That's not me.

Eupnea, actually, you didn't say anything how your character studies are working for you, or if they are working for you. Maybe all along you've been thinking about the written language, and i've been writing about the spoken language.

pretzel, actually, my character studies are going well, for the most part, although I now have so many flashcards that I can't get through them all on a frequent basis. Hopefully there will be so much overlap with common words that it won't matter over time.

This is one VERY rewarding experience I have: now and then, not often, but it happens, I go to write a character which I haven't written in months, and my body automatically starts writing it, before my struggling mind can kick itself into the process, if that makes sense. In other words, it all goes on auto-pilot and the character appears on the paper, just as they are magically appearing as I type this post. I think that is the reward of practice. I had been a musician in a previous life, and I recognize the process.

Conversely, on the rare occasion when I have opportunity to speak to a Chinese person (such as, when I notice a Chinese name on the nametag of the checker in the supermarket) I often get met with a blank stare because they can't understand me. So that's not going so well. 

I realize you've been writing about the spoken language, my very embarassing weakness. It's one thing to take the time to write characters on a daily basis. It's another thing to risk heart and soul trying to communicate verbally. All of those "flops" heard around the world could be me falling on my face.

I am going to "reply to myself" to make it clear: The one thing I do consistently, and very consistently in my Chinese study, is

1. prepare my flashcards for the lessons or stories I choose to study

2. I WRITE the answer as I go through those flashcards.

3. I SAY the answer, exaggerating the tones so I know how to write it in pinyin, which also results in teaching the body, the speaking muscles, to coordinate properly to produce the pattern accurately. It also helps me remember the tones.

Enough practice like this, for me, not only results (albeit very eventually) in the body going on auto-pilot in writing but also in speaking w/tones.

A lot of work, not so much in results, but what I AM practicing, I AM learning. It's just not enough to read a newspaper, have much of a conversation in Chinese, etc. etc. But is is something.

You are lucky, Having a Chinese friend is a great start for practicing the spoken part of the language.

I find News papers discouraging because there are too many words I can't read. Intellectually I know most other English people can't even pick out weather and Beijing but only getting two or three chars into a sentence before needing a dictionary is hard.

I'm hoping for an intelligent flash card app for my iPhone at some point!