01 year 02 week into study
Purrfecdizzo
December 05, 2008, 12:10 PM posted in General DiscussionHello everyone,
I have to work tonight, and all day Saturday and Sunday. Because of this, I will give an update now as I won't be able to on Sunday.
This week was challenging and a bit discouraging. Currently, I have flashcards for about 235 terms. What was frustrating is that I began to forget terms that I learned early on in my studies. I don't think that I was doing as well as I thought I was last week. This week, I have acquisition on 190 terms, and proficiency in about 60 - 70. I have about 10 or so lessons studied, and like last week, I am not doing as well on the spoken part as I am in the written part.
I have been quite busy with college, as we are heading into finals. I have also been occupied with interests outside of college that have taken a considerable amount of my time. I am also working a lot over the next few days. I have backed off from the studying of the Chinese in comparison to what I was doing last week because of these reasons. I plan on getting at least one good study day in next tuesday. Once finals are over for the semester, I plan on doing a lot of studying. One thing I would like to do is master the pinyin chart. I know that will likely take a while, but I figure if I can read and pronounce any pinyin term, then my learning will improve considerably.
While I do feel discouraged right now, I plan on continuing the studies of Chinese. The only thing I can think of right now that would alter my plans is if I learn that I will be unable to go to China. Should that happen, I will likely scrap all plans of learning Chinese, and pursue other interests. Right now, I am still on course to go to China, so I will keep going.
Feel free to leave your thoughts or other feedback
mister_linguistix
January 25, 2009, 05:43 AMthe words which you have lost are not really forgotten. they are buried a little deeper in the subconscious mind.
it often occurs that a word you thought you forgot will pop up when triggered by (a) specific stimulus(i).
learning a language (or any knowledge for that matter) is no different than doing physical exercise (aerobic/anaerobic). the mind is both a physical and mental organ which is constantly evolving/changing. as an evolving process there is a natural balance of loss and gain. this is why language is often referred to as a "dynamic" process. language is living just like we are. it is never at any two points the same.
following along on this concept of physical/mental (language) exercise, lets think of some more effective strategies. one that comes to mind is as follows :
1. listen to CPOD lessons while doing aerobic exercise. during the state of exercise more blood (and thus oxygen) is penetrating the brain. this (and the hypnotic nature of exercise - movement and breathing) help to open the subconscious mind to more direct influence. i especially find it helpful to listen to the review exercises for the lessons at this time (as well as when i lay in bed before sleep). put the review exercise setting on "repeat" and let the input work its way into the subconscious mind.
hope this helps
Mister Linguistix at your service.
Learnin' language makin' you nervous?
Me gots lots of free ebooks and tricks.
Just fire an email for a quick linguistic fix :
misterlinguistix@gmail.com
Purrfecdizzo
January 25, 2009, 06:31 AMthanks
calkins
December 05, 2008, 12:34 PMamesburygeorge, sometimes it's hard not to, but try not to get too discouraged. Learning Chinese is time-consuming and very difficult. I've forgotten so much of the vocabulary that I "learned," it's not even funny. But I think the key is to just keep on it...it never gets easy, but things "snowball" with the more vocab., grammar, etc. you know.
One other small suggestion. Try to find more satisfying and inspiring reasons to learn Chinese, other than simply because you're planning on going to China (work?, pleasure?, experience?). Because it is so time-consuming and takes away from so many other pleasures, it really needs to become a hobby, something that you love to do and look forward to doing on a regular basis.
Best of luck to you and your studies!