2010 Introspection on Chinese Study

I would be really interested to learn more about your experience with the "Guided" weekly phone calls.

Are they really useful (only once a week) and worth the extra money you must spend for them?

Tage - it's great to know that you've had such a good experience with Guided - and that you plan to stick with it! Thanks very much for sharing it with us.

Bodawei, I think it's spelled geas, a practice that obligates a person to fulfill certain obligations, often with links to witchcraft. Here's a link to Wikkanweb if you're interested. http://wiki.wiccanweb.ca/index.php?title=Geas

@Tvan, thanks for rescuing me from my poor spelling.

@Hape, generally for someone living in a non-Chinese environment, organized speaking practice on reasonably complex topics is a valuable learning aid.  If you have some money you can part with, give it a try.

@bodawei, I haven't been in school for many years and my personal schedule isn't compatible with traditional classes.  I am not implying anything about their value.

Hape, to add to Mark's comment, I think it depends on the person. I get quite a bit of day-to-day speaking practice, so that aspect of the guided plan is probably less valuable to me than it might be to others. However, there are two improvements that I have noticed since signing up for the guided plan three months ago:

-- One, if I have a question it gets answered within 24 hours, usually much quicker. For me, on Upper Intermediate and Advanced lessons, I can work my way through the lesson. However, when I stretch myself on the Media lessons, I get to parts that I don't think I could solve without outside assistance.

-- Two, I know that if I don't study that I won't be prepared. Even if I've had a hectic work schedule, this makes me feel guilty. Thus, just the knowledge that someone will call acts as a spur not to slack off.

Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm sure the details are different for each person but, as Mark says above, "if you have some money...."

Thanks, mark and tvan, for your valuable answers.

Mark,thank you so much for sharing this.

It is great to learn how you have used ChinesePod and other resources to come this far - and that your efforts have paid off to such an impressive degree.

If you are aiming for fluency, I suppose that to find more opportunities for speaking practice and real-time interactions in Chinese is key. Hopefully this justifies a few more trips to China's mainland?!

May I be so cheeky as to ask, why do you feel so obliged to become fluent? And do you feel that this detracts in any way from feeling duly proud of everything you have already achieved?

Suxiaoya, I started studying Chinese because I have a lot of Chinese co-workers and I was feeling left out of a lot of conversations, but to be honest, later, I just got interested in studying Chinese for its own sake. I have never learned another language to fluency and I think my life would feel more complete if I did. Chinese is a challenge and the language and culture interests me more and more as I learn more about it. I'm not ready to sit back and be proud of myself, though. There is still a long way to go. I guess you could say it is the journey rather than the destination that interests me.

Thanks Mark, interesting to share learning experiences.  Did you not pursue formal classes because you doubted the educational value?  (I consider it one of the rites of passage.)

BTW what is a 'gias'?  Placed on you.    

When you mention gaps, are the gaps in your listening a result of missing vocabulary?  or patterns of expression that you're not familiar with?  If the problem is that you're forgetting vocabulary, then I think some form of SRS will be really helpful if you're not already using it.  Also, be sure that you have a test that only plays the sound or displays the pinyin, and from that you have to recall the meaning.  I personally use a dictation style test in Pleco, which I think has been very helpful.

I've also noticed somewhat of a deficiency in my own listening and ability to process spoken chinese at a faster pace.  To remedy this, I've been putting Cpod dialogs and textbook audio lessons on an SRS schedule using anki.  I think that this gives you an opportunity to really process the vocabulary you've learned in context at a real time pace.  I've only been doing this for a little over a month, but I feel like the results have been good so far.

Another issue that I've been thinking about recently is the ratio of listening to new vocabulary.  Sometimes I feel like the amount of vocabulary that we need to acquire to fully consume an audio lesson is a bit too high.  It's fairly common that I might need to learn 10+ new words just to be able to handle 90 seconds of a dialog.  I suppose that once our vocabulary gets to a certain point, say 15,000 words, we won't have this problem as much, but that is quite a big hurdle.

The "gaps" in my comprehension range from I vocabulary that I haven't learned, yet, to words that I know very well, but don't expect in the context or sequence that they occur in. I think if I managed to improve my proficiency enough to eliminate most of the latter, the explanation of new words in the lesson banter would be sufficient for me to fill in the rest. The next step would be getting my vocabulary to a point where I don't need the lesson banter. So, my immediate problem is probably more becoming facile with patterns of speech than vocabulary. My operating assumption is lots of input and lots of practice is what is needed to get over this hump.

Mark,

I totally agree with your assumption that "lots of input and lots of practice is what is needed to get over this hump."

I am amazed that you have studied every single ChinesePod lesson. I don't think there are many people that can say that. I also know people that have become fluent in Chinese without studying so much of the ChinesePod archive. The difference? They were practicing Chinese constantly.

Clearly, you're putting in the effort. I think it's simply a matter of getting more input and more practice. Remember, more input also means more reinforcement of what you've already studied. Give yourself regular input with no obligation to write down words you don't understand. Chinese radio might be good for that.

Speaking practice may be a bit more difficult... How much do you get now?

How about passive listening?  Seems like in his blog, Khatzumoto recommended passive listening and continuing to listen even when you don't understand.  Does anyone else out there feel like passive listening is an effective technique?

John, I suspect the difference with the other folks you know is that for them Cpod is a supplement while for me, it is my primary source of input.

To answer your question, I average about 4 hours of speaking practice a week.

koujiacheng, I do try to listen to movies and to Chinese radio. I can often get the jist of what is being said, but for the things that I don't understand, there really isn't an effective way of digging in deeper. So, it seems that for hour spent, it is not the most effective way, but who knows, maybe, I just haven't done enough of it.

Hkboy, in the US I don't feel comfortable speaking Chinese at work. When I am overseas, it helps, but recent economic developments have limited my travel opportunities.

The "Guided promotion" has been a succes with me - the weekly ten minutes (often more) of speaking with my teacher Crystal are very helpful in improving my ability to express myself in Chinese. The challenge of a weekly conversation also brings more structure into my use of ChinesePod. I have decided to continue the Guided plan when the promotion period expires.

They seems like good, sustainable reasons to learn!

I agree with you about language learning being about the journey. Actually I find it quite similar to my all-time favourite hobby, which is long distance running. The sheer challenge of taking on something huge, be it 100km or 4000 characters, and conquering it is incredibly satisfying, especially when you can actively enjoy the whole process.

As part of your own fun journey to fluency, I don't think it would harm to look back at how far you've come with plenty of pride. It would not be to "sit back", but to consolidate, refresh and keep motivated!

Anyway, let us know when you've cracked the nut you're currently working on... :-)