learn Mandarin

I started a new job in June and I’ve been able to practice a lot with my co-workers. I think it’s really helping a lot.

I ended up dropping the class I was taking. Too much audio-lingual method. Also, I didn’t really have time for a six-hour per week class. I think I learn better on my own, and I wasn’t left with enough time to study outside of class. I get more out of a one or two hour per week class, just enough time to ask questions and get mistakes corrected, and still have time to study outside of class.

I’m thinking about checking out Chinesepod.com again. I had used it before, but I fell into the gap between their Beginner and Intermediate levels. Maybe they’ve addressed that issue by now, and even if not, I think I may be able to handle the intermediate level as it was before anyway, now.

I was listening to one yesterday and it was so interesting to hear a more standard accent. I’m so used to the Taiwanese accent. I kind of like hearing those retroflex sounds, that I don’t hear very much in Taiwan.

I signed up for classes at the local university. The teaching methods they are using are a bit outdated, but it at least provides some extra motivation to study outside of class. The speaking parts are below my level, but after taking a placement test I had to start in the beginner class because I can’t really write much of anything.

I looked at the Chinese Wikipedia entry for my University today and was so excited that I could actually read most of it. It’s just a stub, so there’s only a paragraph, but it was still exciting. I only know about 200 characters, but that’s often enough to give me context to figure out the ones I don’t know.

The best part, though, was finding a mistake and posting on the talk page about it (I didn’t quite feel comfortable enough with my Chinese to correct it myself) and someone else corrected it in the article.

I decided I need some specific way to measure this goal so I’ll know when to mark it as completed. Since a six on the HSK is generally the score needed to attend a university in China, I’ll check this off when I get at least a six, though once I move to China, ideally I’d like to stay long enough to get an eight.

I finished my second semester last week. The class has moved so slowly for me. I think I need to figure out how to study on my own better so I can move at the pace I know I’m capable of. I also need to teach myself characters. I’ve made attempts to do so in the past, but end up neglecting to keep with it. I’m going to try to learn 500 characters this summer. There’s a lot of characters I recognize already just from seeing them here and there, but I wouldn’t be able to write most of them.

I joined the Asian Student Association at my school. There’s a few Mandarin speakers in the group, and I was surprised to find out that one of them lives in my home town. I’ve been reluctant to have conversations in Mandarin, though, because I find all the stuff I can say pretty boring. I felt silly though for having a whole conversation in English with one of them (just a basic “Hi/How are you” in passing) when I realized I could have easily said it all in Mandarin.