wa hey! it’s finished!
I thought I had ~15 more lessons, but those turned out to be culture notes from the booklet that accompanies the hard copy.
on to Phase 2 of Pimsleur Chinese.

still (still still) need to sit down to some character study, but definitely appreciating the oral/aural learning. 4 days ago

Ripped a audio mp3 called “learn 100 Chinese words”. Happy I took my first step! 1 week ago

Ripped a audio mp3 called “learn 100 Chinese words”. Happy I took my first step! 1 week ago

Signed up for Chinese 101 for next fall semester! Yay! 2 weeks ago

still going – I tend to do a bunch on the days I’m traveling to campus and not so much on other days – this is something I’d like to change so I’m getting closer to a lesson a day with an extra here or there.

I’m finding repeating lessons sometimes helps – at around lesson 20 it felt like the difficulty meter suddenly jumped – perhaps there are more words being introduced that I’m not familiar with so I can’t focus on just a few new ones? I’m not doing any counting, but anyway. I’ve repeated a couple lessons at different points when a couple days have gone between lessons and found I had a more solid grasp on the words than I’d had immediately following the 1st time through (hope that made sense). I feel like I should have blasted all the way through this Phase 1 set and be well into Phase 2 by now, but I need to be more consistent for that; plus I have to remind myself that my language learning has skipped all over the place according to necessity and repetition of experiences (the reverse of ‘If you don’t use it, you lose it’ – use it repeatedly, especially within a short time period, and it /really/ sticks with you).

I’m trying not to be bugged – to think of the potential usefulness – by the fact that the last couple lessons have thrown in a couple words/phrases that are only used in Hong Kong and not on the mainland, but I’m wishing they could have put those in some kind of HK supplement and stuck to mainland Mandarin… I say this wondering what my ‘little bro’ in HK would say to that, but anyway… I’ve only spent 4 traveling days in HK compared to 5.5+ years in the mainland… and do all travelers studying Mandarin plan a stopover in HK? Ah, I don’t know, maybe they do and I’m just out of the jetset loop.

So my meandering thoughts aside, still loving the Pimsleur. Tonight I reviewed lesson 24 and did lesson 25 on a great if damp early evening walk through the city, with a bonus of finding a wood and a good place to run that are very close to where I live (wa hey and huzzah!!). I’m halfway (!!!) through Phase I of Pimsleur Chinese – Phase II is already loaded on my iPod as encouragement and added push, and Phase III is in my audible library ready and waiting. Maybe I need to sit down to that writing/Chinese character study I was thinking about?? But for now my biggest focus is on the oral and getting more study in. 2 weeks ago

So I just got back from my 2nd lesson and I’m loving it. Everything is so confusing but actually makes sense… I can’t wait to be able to have a conversation 4 weeks ago

I know – that sounds like an ad. I was trying to remember when I first heard about Pimsleur’s technique and the audio programs that had come out of it – I think it was back when I was looking for more tools to study Turkish – wish I’d used the Pimsleur program for Turkce too, but I’m not sure it was available at that point in time (2003?). Well, and there is the question of whether I would have gotten as much out of it prior to an immersion experience such as the one I’ve been living for the last 5 1/2 years, but it’s very possible the game-like set up of the program would have helped me overcome my bad habits with regard to language programs. At this point I think I’m deciding that I think the best way to learn a language is using this kind of program coupled with immersion and followed by textbook study after the student has an internalized sense of the sounds of the language and how it’s used daily – looking back on it, I really hate, or at the very least am seriously disappointed by, every classroom based language class I’ve taken in the past – don’t worry, this disappointment is hugely connected to disappointment with myself and my lack of discipline and lousy study skills.

I have a friend who is studying biblical languages right now and when I mentioned my experientially-based hypotheses he thought it was a case of difference in learning styles, and while I think that’s partly true, I also wonder – he certainly has a much much stronger grasp on grammar terminology and on the grammar of the languages he’s studied, but I’m not so sure he could have a conversation/steady communication in them in between the pauses to consider the different rules. Of course, we’ve studied none of the same languages, so it’s difficult to test this hypothesis. I’m withholding conclusion and certainly not judging either of us on this, just trying to find my way in practice as well as theory.

Oh, and re: this goal – I haven’t been using the programs every single day, but when I do I’m listening to 2-3 lessons and, as before, it seems to grow my vocabulary as well as my pronunciation in a way that’s noticeable with each 1/2 hour lesson. They do focus on tones in a way that is really really helpful, but also cement it into the mind so that it’s a natural part of speech instead of something I have to focus on when using words. Yay! I’m halfway through Mandarin Phase 1, with Phases 2 + 3 already waiting in my audible library. :D 1 month ago