爬中文山

Due to my work schedule, I had to take a lesson with a different teacher than my usual one. She was friendly enough, but she did this common teacher thing that I find so irritiating: go through the vocab list before studying the unit and saying to me: "给我一个句子“。 I fail to see the point of me making a completely random sentence, with no context using 往返票 ， 决定，etc。 I tried to explain to her that this was a useless activity. In the end I said lets just spend the rest of the lesson chatting. Pretty much a waste of a lesson. For the life of me I cannot see how a teacher thinks making a random sentence, with no prompts or anything to give you ideas, is a useful learning method. ?

Hit another milestone as I finished the last Chinese Breeze Graded reader tonight. Started the first one back when I had just started learning characters and remember really struggling to read it. Got the next level and probably let them sit on the shelf for a long time, read one, let them sit, read one, etc - reading is something I always have to really force myself to do. The last level (4) was kindly given to me by Chinese Forums member Becky82 and I breezed through them (pun intended) very quickly and easily.

21 books in all, 4 levels. The green ones I already gave to another learner after I finished them. I have to say that although the stories are a bit cheesy, I quite enjoyed reading most of them. There is no question that they are excellent practice for Hanzi, vocab, grammar, listening and even some culture. Also love the illustrations! I'm going to pass them on to Chinese Forums member TaxiAsh when he visits Beijing at the end of this month.

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Now on to some Intermediate Level Sinolingua Readers I bought...

I've switched up my language learning schedule several times over the years, I'm really enjoying my current routine(somewhat influenced by Matt vs. Japan/AJATT). It's also simple to  follow:

1/3 time spent on textbook - currently Hsk Standard Course 4 and CME 4

1/3 time spent on reading (including videos where I read all hanzi subtitles line by line) - currently 奋斗 tv drama and Du chinese

1/3 time spent just listening - currently "Free to Learn videos", Native YouTube videos(on topics that I'm familiar with)

Other: 3-4 italki classes per week, Srs Flashcards, real life 

My wife was busy doing something and asked me to cook. I said ok you instruct me something (in Chinese, of course) and I'll do the footwork. So I made these 2 dishes, nothing complicated, but they turned out damned tasty! 

1)String beans 豆角儿 

cubed Beef 牛肉块儿

potatoe 土豆儿条 ?

green onion 葱

garlic 大蒜 ?

oil 油

oyster sauce 蚝油

soy sauce 酱油

cooking wine 料酒 ?

sugar 白糖 

salt 盐?

Thirteen aroma 十三香

2)Water spinach 空心菜,

garlic 大蒜 ?

green onion 葱

soy sauce 酱油

red pepper that I have been drying for months 辣椒 ?️

oil 油

salt 盐?

Well, I took about 10 days break from studying Chinese while the virus news started breaking. However, over the last week, I've resumed studying.  I'm still somewhat distracted and finding it harder to focus. Partially because of the virus and partially because I've temporarily left China, in S.E. Asia at the moment. But, I'm with my wife and mother in law, so there's still plenty of Chinese spoken around me. I've doing a lot of Chinese podcasts and other online study material. I probably did about 3 hours worth today. I have been keeping up my Skype lessons with my teacher, who lives in Hubei. She looks totally normal, but I still worry for her and feel sorry for her that she's locked down in her house. I think she enjoys doing the lessons though as something to keep her busy.

 I'm going to really try and take advantage of having no work this month and do as much Chinese study and practice as I can.

Today marks exactly 3 years from the day I signed up for my first Chinese course, studying Beginning Chinese. I’ve studied at least an hour, pretty much every day since then. I made a video of me speaking to record my progress. Still cannot speak very fast, but I’m not reading from a paper or anything, just trying to speak from my mind. Feel free to point out any mistakes or problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL30qb3HLY4

I hand an off hand compliment last night. I was at a 湖南饭馆 last night. I was sitting around a corner kind of out of the way. at one point, I called out 服务员， the waitress instantly stopped and looked around for who was calling her. She turned to the guy sitting at the table behind her and asked him what he needed, he said he hadn't called her. She did the same with another customer. I then called her again and she made eye contact with me. This was a small victory, because when I first started, I could never seem to get a response from saying 服务员, last night the waitress thought it could have come from a native speaker?

The project I am starting now (inspired by Imron's  https://www.chinesethehardway.com/article/train-what-you-want-to-learn/  ) is to record myself speaking about a topic freely - no reading, no stopping/starting Audacity and no editing out mistakes. I may record several times to listen for mistakes i can catch myself and trying to improve on it, choosing the best of the lot to post. I will try first to speak for one minute and gradually increase it. My aim is to improve my fluency, speed, pronunciation, grammar and vocab speaking about a topic. That being, for me, the most difficult aspect of learning Chinese.

I am going to post these on my blog to motivate me to keep doing this activity and maybe get some useful feedback as well.  Although I realize listening to a Lower Intermediate level 老外 is not a joy - feel free to listen if you feel like it and give any kind of feedback if you like.

Here goes, topic #1 慢跑 / Jogging

主题 慢跑.wav

Been really looking forward to this roadtrip, setting off tomorrow morning. Tentative(very much just penciled in), trying to stick mainly to smaller cities. Route looks like this:

First stop Datong 大同, around 4hrs drive.

Day 1: 北京-大同

Gorgeous day for driving! Rest stop in 河北， and some rest stop Chinglish

Walking around 大同古城 (old town). City walls are re-built, but still has a really nice vibe. Everyone we talked to today was really friendly, different accent from Beijing. People are much more surprised at me speaking Chinese than in BJ. Actually, they seem friendly in a way that's aiming to make tourists feel happy in their city, not a bad thing at all, just my feeling.

Day 2: 大同 - 太原：

Absolutely beautiful weather at the Yungang Grottos. Definitely a place worth visiting. Interestingly on Trip Adivsor all the comments say you cannot take photos in the grottos, but this is certainly not true anymore(all the comments seem to be pre-covid). Caught a bit of the 山西 section of the Great Wall on the top of the mountain, couldn't get much of a shot from the moving car. Hear a lot of fangyan when the locals are talking amongst themselves, not even recognizable words. A local 山西 beer.

I decided to make a change regarding teachers. After having studied for quite a while with teachers in the 18-22usd an hour range I decided to experiment with finding a cheaper main teacher. Six weeks ago I found a teacher charging 10usd/hr to go through the Hsk 4 book with. She has a nice standard accent(哈尔滨）and is engaging. I also found 2 teachers that charge 5usd/hr. to do discussion/speaking only exercises with topics I provide them.

The last "pricey" teacher I had was more skilled and experienced, but probably only 20 percent "better". Now I can have 4 lessons a week for less than I was paying for 2 lessons. In the end I think the loss in quality, is outweighed by more time spent listening and speaking.

A while back I watched a unit in YoYo Chinese upper intermediate video course where they went to a restaurant in Beijing and ordered duck. Just for the hell of it and to go somewhere I haven't been, I emailed them and asked for the name of the restaurant. They wrote back telling me it was 青年餐厅( qīngnián) Fēngtái branch and the other day I finally got around to taking the subway down there. Turned out to be EXCELLENT roast duck! My wife is not a fan of duck, so I got a half all to myself. 半只 was 118块, not the cheapest, but not terribly expensive either. Service was great. I also had a little win moment in that I did all the ordering for myself and my wife, including some adjustments and requests - all the while the waitress did not once ask my wife for any clarification, confirmation, or even look her way?. It also reminded me that I don't go for duck often enough. So now I'm going to make it a point to try as many duck restaurants in Beijing as I can and see which one I like best. I already passed by a random one in a Hutong near 东四 and tagged the location in my phone, so that will be next.

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I've achieved a big milestone recently. Up until the last few months my significant other(a native) would never speak mandarin with me. When I first started, I pushed it but she wouldn't budge. I let it go and decided not to push it anymore. Still had her mother to speak Chinese with.

As I've improved, expanded my vocabulary, grammar etc, I casually - even accidentally would slip in some mandarin and she kind of naturally started replying in mandarin. It has happened quite naturally. Lately she's even been starting conversations with me in Chinese sometimes. Also, if she says something in English to me that I want to hear in Chinese or that is well within my understanding, I say "再说一遍“, she's a good sport about it and says it again in Chinese. Other than that, I'm still not pushing it. I also don't bother her with grammar questions and the like. 

Right now I suppose it's 25 percent Chinese 75 English, but a huge change from zero. I'm sure as I continue to improve my skills the percentage will shift further.

A nice milestone tonight: Finally finished the 5 book series of Chinese Made Easier. I started Book 1 with a teacher 5 years ago, the book was recommended to me by the school as being good for someone living "in country" and wanting practical everyday language. The series definitely lived up to that reputation. There is lot's of crossover with HSK books, but CME has plenty of vocab that is very useful in everyday life, but outside the HSK material. The overall level feels similar, CME 5 feeling roughly like HSK 5, with a more practical bent. The book did an excellent job of slowly weening off pinyin and a particularly good with introducing Surnames and given names - new ones in every story, adding up to a lot over the course of 5 books.  There is no "小明“ or ”马克“. Lots of place names, jobs, household items, office, countryside, medical etc language. The author was kind enough to supply all of the pdfs and mp3s free of charge, as the book is out of print. I did book 1 to 4 straight through but took a year break while doing different resources before starting book 5. Altogether it's been about 5 years, all done with various tutors, so it feels like an accomplishment to finally have finished. Tonight, on the last unit of book 5, I couldn't help but noticing how much smoother I was than even Book 4, let alone Book 1. Thank you Martin Symonds for an excellent and fun Chinese learning series!

**I have added a few more observations in the comments section below...

The last few days I've been moving up to some Intermediate ChinesePod lessons. The thing I love about them, compared to Elementary ones, is the Chinese host speaking completely in Chinese(at least the John Pasden and Fiona Tian episodes) while the native English speaker speaks English. This 50/50 banter is great listening practice and nice grammar and vocab reinforcement. I had been getting pretty tired of listening to Jenny, etc speak English to be honest, as its kind of a waste of time. Looks like theres over 700 of them in front of me, yeehaw!

Thanks to this post about improving sentence structure https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/62960-improving-sentence-structure/page/2/#comment-492407

, I've decided to do the Kubler Intermediate Spoken Chinese book. I purchased the Kubler Basic Spoken and Intermediate Spoken at the same time a few years ago. I finished the Basic and Basic Practice years ago, which I loved:

but never got around to the Intermediate Kubler books because I wanted to move away from Pinyin. Well, now I've embarked on the Intermediate Spoken and Spoken Practice Book.

However, after getting through part of the first unit of Intermediate, I had this nagging feeling that I should re-do the audio drills of the Basic book. I decided to revisit them and go through them at a fast clip, just the audio drills and the translation role plays. I've already finished half of this basic review. I can't decide if I'm wasting time or it's a good check of the foundation. I'm hoping to get through it is quickly as possible, and get back to the Intermediate. I guess about an hour and a half a day for 5 more days should do it.

I'm really enjoying the 奋斗 series, which I found on a forum thread here listing various tv programs with descriptions and levels. This is my first time following a Chinese drama. While it is definitely above my level, it's still comprehensible. The way I've been attacking it is to first watch each scene without stopping and get what I get. I then go back and pause each sentence and read the 汉字. I look up a minimal amount of words. The ones that seem very useful / hsk 4-ish level / easy to remember / or keep coming up - I add to my srs. Next, I re-watch the whole scene again without pausing. Finally, I watch the whole episode(45 mins). I'm on episode 5 of 32 so far.

For me 奋斗 almost perfect: Tons of Northern accented Mandarin, all kinds of everyday situations(restaurants, arguments, home, work, bowling and barbecuing,...) engaging story, cool characters, scenery of Beijing 15 years ago. The one con is that they sometimes speak very, very quickly, but I expect that can only help my listening skills. 

For the month of January, I am going to stop doing flashcards entirely. I am going to try following the advice thats often seen on this forum: practice whats hard for you (or something similar). I find it incredibly easy to repeat single words. However, full sentences keeping the correct tones, natural flow and the right grammar is another story. Even if just repeating them is a much harder task for me than single words. I think the reading and listening I do will act as natural spaced repetition for vocab anyway. My goal is(with the exception of naturally one word answers) no Chinese comes out of my mouth unless its a complete sentence. 

It's been about six months since I last posted a recording, I've been studying and practicing a lot, but also busy with work. I think it's a decent amount of time to see if there's been improvements or 退步. So here's a short recording I made today. Did a few takes, but nothing written down. I don't know if the grammar is all correct or not. Feedback always welcome.

blog may 2021.wav

Have not posted a recording in a long while, so here goes. This one is done with no editing, no stopping the recorder, no reading. I realize there are of grammar mistakes and I am speaking very slowly. Not sure, but I do "feel" like I sound more natural than the last recording I posted. This was my 5th take.

The file is slightly over the max size, so I had to put it on a Dropbox link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ixumvia9oiudfad/我不高兴.wav?dl=0

I found an excellent site called Journaly where you can post writing and native speakers will offer corrections, while you help them with your native language. I am challenging myself to write about a topic I studied recently in my online class. One a day for the next 30 days.

Day 1:

https://journaly.com/post/30412

Day 2:

https://journaly.com/post/30429

Day 3:

https://journaly.com/post/30454

Day 4:

https://journaly.com/post/30509

Day 5:

https://journaly.com/post/30533

Day 6:

https://journaly.com/post/30578

Day 7:

https://journaly.com/post/30636

Completed this book in record time(for me), about 5-6 weeks cover to cover. Felt like an accomplishment as there is zero English or pinyin, and I was able to follow the analysis of all the questions and answers pretty well. This was all review, as I've already taken the HSK 4, though I learned some new vocab that was used for question analysis. My rationale in doing this book was just more repetition or sentence structures and vocab usage. I did 5 complete listening tests, plus 2 hours of audio breaking down listening questions into categories like "place questions", "attitude questions" etc. Also read every tape-script. 3.5 hours of audio with this book. Completed the writing section as well with broke the questions down by grammar type and included 6 practice tests with answers/sample answers. Not the most exciting book in the world, but certainly some good review. 

Next up is HSKK Intermediate. This will again be review, as I've already taken and passed the HSKK Inermediate. However, I took the speaking test with almost no specific test preparation, so I think this will be even more useful for when I take the HSKK again along with HSK 5 test sometime in the future. Over 4 hours audio with this book, and I'm looking forward to hearing the sample speaking answers/photo describing. I'm going to try and knock this one out in the same amount of time, around 5-6 weeks. 

Along with this, I'm still working my way through Kubler (on unit 15 of 24).

Current study schedule:

1. Kubler Intermediate Spoken and Practice

2. HSK 1-4 Vocabulary Master

3. HSKK Intermediate

Fun:

Chairman's Bao

《幸福的方向》 (kind of sappy soap opera, but language is easy enough to follow quite well.

Random Youtube videos

Various books

So I found a teacher on Italki and sent him the first of these recordings. I found a male with good standard pronunciation who is not very expensive. I told him i didn't want a lesson, but rather use the time to listen, correct any grammar, vocab or pronunciation mistakes. I also asked him to send back a recording of him saying the same (corrected version) dialog in his natural speaking voice and normal speed. I will then use this to shadow and work on better sentence intonation, speed, etc.

Finally finished Growing up with Chinese just before the new year. Glad I never have to look at it again to be honest.

I also tracked down a recent video from "Mike" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44i7rygeWnc&lc=Ugym_GTr8qvjsclGksJ4AaABAg.9y3gqn74miU9y8TEP_3vZ4

His Chinese is sounding very good.

It took me quite a while to knock these off since I only did one lesson a week with a teacher on this book. (I'm also busy working my way through Chinese Made easier - book 1 and 2 done, halfway through book 3.) I feel a sense of accomplishment having stuck with the BASIC series consistently and finishing the Spoken, Written and Practice books. I think it's a fantastic set of books and found lots that has been useful in real life. I also found it to contain quite a bit of language that I haven't come across in other places and even enjoyed some of the more "dated" vocab. The books ( especially the practice book) feels like a somewhat modernized version of FSI. I am now going to begin the Intermediate level books of the same series.

OK, this is barely cooking, but so delicious. Had this home 烧烤 a few days ago. The beef was sent frozen and vacuum sealed as a gift from my wife's friend in Guangzhou. She sent it to us to have during the impending BJ lockdown...which never happened - hooray!