One year to Mandarin Chinese

[Random Review]

Finally got my visa for China for a job I was offered 3 (yes 3!) months ago. What a saga, wish I'd just gone back to Spain TBH. Anyway, onwards and upwards!

If everything goes well, I'll be there for a year (more details to follow) and my goals are:

1) Continue trying to take my Spanish from B2 to C1

This was a goal last year. Bloody hell, B2-C1 is never ending. My Spanish is much better than when I posted my goals a year ago, but I still wouldn't call it C1. This year it is happening, pase lo que pase.

2) Continue trying to reach B2 German

I know what is lacking: active vocabulary. Again this is happening this year come hell or high water.

3) Get past the 2-month trial at the place where I will be working

This isn't strictly a language goal, but I have never taught children before, it is a completely different job to teaching adults and if I don't make it past the trial period, this will probably be the shortest language log ever.

4) Mandarin to B1 or B2

This will be my third attempt, but I know a lot more about language learning now and they do say a la tercera va la vencida, plus it looks like I will be in the country (fingers crossed for a year), so that is an advantage too.

It will be my main focus and my unrealistic what-the-hell-you-never-know goal is B2 in speaking and reading and B1 in writing; my more realistic goal (which I will be happy with) is B1 in speaking and reading and A2 in writing. Anything less I will see as a failure.

5) Finally do something about becoming a bit more computer literate.

At least make some sort of start. Again not a language goal, but I won't be writing too much about it and there are enough techies on here that someone might find it interesting.

I'm fed up with my procrastinating, so I hereby make a public commitment to take the Spanish C1 exam, the German B2 exam (both of these no matter what happens) and one of the HSK exams (if I survive the two-month trial period) before the end of December 2017, with no excuses accepted except (God forbid) major illness (i.e. serious enough to require lengthy hospitalisation). If I don't do so (sit them, I mean; I'm not saying pass ), I commit to give the cost of these 3 exams in euros to the charity of the mods' choice or have my accounts here and at HTLAL terminated.

I will post more soon on where I am now and what methods I will be using. I hope some people might find it interesting and drop by to help me. Thanks in advance to anyone who does.

[qeadz]

4) Mandarin to B1 or B2

5) Finally do something about becoming a bit more computer literate.

4) Since you mentioned you'd be disappointed if you didnt have improvement up to some level in your Mandarin, I'm just wondering how you'd measure it? It may well be that in the absence of some kind of measurement, your critique of your own progress will be mostly up to how optimistic you're feeling at the time.

In that regard many non-language-related things may have unwarranted influence on your opinion of whether you meet your language learning goals.

5) As someone who is a computer programmer, I wonder what is meant when people talk about computer literacy. So it interests me somewhat to see what you mean by this and how you're going to address it.

Good luck though with the language study! I always take my hat off to people who are working on multiple languages. It seems like such a huge amount of work

[iguanamon]

Wow, Random, big changes. You can follow China in Spanish through China Files en español, which has mostly native Spanish-speakers writing about current affairs and culture in China. There's CCTV en español- I like the cookery show. I downloaded a free and legal course pdf in Spanish (and Portuguese) last year with clickable audio called Chinés en 500 palabras which looks like a fun introduction to Mandarin (from the Taiwanese government).

For improving Spanish, read, read, listen, listen, speak and write. The B2/C1 interactive lessons/exercises at the Centro Cervantes Aveteca can help along with Gramatica De USO Del Espanol - Teoria Y Practica: Gramatica De USO De Espanol + Soluciones - Level C1-C2.

Looks like you are in for a busy and exciting year, ¡Suerte!

[Random Review]

4) Mandarin to B1 or B2

5) Finally do something about becoming a bit more computer literate.

4) Since you mentioned you'd be disappointed if you didnt have improvement up to some level in your Mandarin, I'm just wondering how you'd measure it? It may well be that in the absence of some kind of measurement, your critique of your own progress will be mostly up to how optimistic you're feeling at the time.

In that regard many non-language-related things may have unwarranted influence on your opinion of whether you meet your language learning goals.

5) As someone who is a computer programmer, I wonder what is meant when people talk about computer literacy. So it interests me somewhat to see what you mean by this and how you're going to address it.

Good luck though with the language study! I always take my hat off to people who are working on multiple languages. It seems like such a huge amount of work

4) I'll take one of the HSK exams. It seems that might be a thorny issue, as the ECFR levels that correspond to the HSK levels are disputed.
German, I'm just guessing my level TBH, I guess I may get a rude awakening when I take the test. Spanish I'm pretty confident I'm a strong B2 as I've actually done most of the things you are supposed to be able to do at that level.

5) Interesting question, I refer you to that great Philosopher, Donald Rumsfeld:

Perhaps you can help me with that. At the very least I would like to relearn Excel and learn some basic coding.

@ workload, it should be fine because it is 3 languages at very different levels and I will be doing very different things for each. My main energy will go on Mandarin Chinese.

[qeadz]

Feel free to shoot me any questions which are Windows-machine or coding related (not Mac). Just PM me. I dont mind.

I was always under the impression that those formal tests were ones which kind of tested how well you studied for them and a bit less well if you did your own thing Sounds like you're going to have a lot of work to do!

[Random Review]

Wow, Random, big changes. You can follow China in Spanish through China Files en español, which has mostly native Spanish-speakers writing about current affairs and culture in China. There's CCTV en español- I like the cookery show. I downloaded a free and legal course pdf in Spanish (and Portuguese) last year with clickable audio called Chinés en 500 palabras which looks like a fun introduction to Mandarin (from the Taiwanese government).

For improving Spanish, read, read, listen, listen, speak and write. The B2/C1 interactive lessons/exercises at the Centro Cervantes Aveteca can help along with Gramatica De USO Del Espanol - Teoria Y Practica: Gramatica De USO De Espanol + Soluciones - Level C1-C2.

Looks like you are in for a busy and exciting year, ¡Suerte!

Hi, Iguanamon. Thank you very much for the first two links, I will certainly use them as a fun way to practise my Spanish while learning about China! The Chinese in 500 words link is also very kind of you, but I already have a plan for Mandarin and will be using English as a base language (I have used Spanish as a base language for German in the past).

Yes, I totally agree with you about the plan of attack for Spanish, mate. I was very depressed last year and that made me "lazy", I didn't really study much Spanish at all (unless you count listening to music, which I did plenty of). I was living in Spain and towards the end I was pretty much immersed for 2-3 months due to circumstances, so I got a lot better (fewer errors) and more fluent at what I could already do and also filled in a few gaps (i.e. became a much stronger B2), but didn't really push my level upward much. Thank you for the advice.

I don't know if you remember me asking for advice about music in Spanish last summer, as it was the only kind of Spanish I could stomach at that point. Music is, it turns out, almost magical for fossilised errors. For instance I know and usually used correctly the structure of second conditional sentences in Spanish, but with the verb "poder" I had a horrible tendency to say things I knew were wrong like "si podrías..." because I had learned early that "could" = "podría" (thanks, Michel Thomas ha ha ha) long before I learned the imperfect subjunctive and this error had fossilised. Nothing seemed to shift this until I discovered, quite by chance, that singing along in my head to songs containing "si pudieras", etc did the trick. My favourite example for this structure would be Hoy es el principio del final by Amaral:
.

[Cavesa]

I'm fed up with my procrastinating, so I hereby make a public commitment to take the Spanish C1 exam, the German B2 exam (both of these no matter what happens)

You are obviously my kind of crazy! I want to do those two as well next year! Ok, I don't pile HSK on top of that, but perhaps my medicine exams can count as a worthy substitute

[Random Review]

Inspired by a question in the main forum about what you would do differently, I wanted to share what I was going to post there by way of sharing something about myself:
************************************************************************************************************
Interesting question. One thing I would change is that I would spend some time on pronunciation before learning anything.
I immediately think of Spanish when you mention this. I can say straight away what I wouldn't change: I would still use MT, Pimsleur, FSI, Assimil (though I would uses Pimsleur I before MT now and I would use Assimil much earlier.
To answer in more detail, I need to know if this is a "go back in time and do it all again" question or a "start again from scratch here and now" question, because the available resources (far more now) and my disposable income (I hardly had any back then) are very different.

Here is what I actually did AFAIR with some commentary in italics:


1991-93 Did a couple of years of Spanish at school.
The instruction in the first year was poor (much worse than for French, though I must say that wasn't the poor teacher's fault, he was a good teacher) and the second year at a different school very poor indeed (worse than useless, actually, and I now realise the teacher didn't speak Spanish herself). The only thing I learn from this is "Me llamo Martin, tengo el pelo marrón, tengo los ojos azul [sic]" and "soy [sic] cansado". These errors are entirely due to the second year. That school didn't offer Standard Grade Spanish and I took up the option of a vocational certificate in the language.
2003: MT Foundation Course
It wasn't called that back then, it isn't actually a bad start at all, but I wish I had done some work on pronunciation first
2004/2005 Nothing much in terms of study (I looked up a few things in grammar books that I thought I needed), because I got fascinated with German, but I often talked to myself in "Spanish".
This was my first bad error. Note the scare quotes around Spanish. MT Foundation Course doesn't cover a lot of stuff, so by talking to myself in my reduced idiolect, I was forming a very mistaken model of the language, especially regarding the subjunctive. I knew about it and roughly when it is used, but that's not the same as learning it
Late 2005/ early 2006: I discover that the library of a nearby city has Pimsleur and that I can join!
You can imagine the happiness this gave me! I whizz through Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese I-III
2006-2008: Mostly another gap and more talking to myself. I made some flashcards from Colloquial Spanish and tried a bit of TY Spanish.
Thanks to Pimsleur, the talking to myself wasn't quite as damaging to my pronunciation this time, but was still hurting my grammatical model of the language. Colloquial Spanish is OK (though I never finished it), TY Spanish is rubbish unless you are an experienced learner who knows how to adapt such things (e.g.) shadowing dialogues. This wasn't my case.
2008: I have the opportunity to move to Spain (on the coast, washing dishes) for 10 months and nearly complete Platiquemos (essentially FSI Basic Spanish).
I finally get serious! Platiquemos is a serious course and I worked through it diligently. I lived and worked in an English-speaking bubble and so didn't get much conversation practice (I got the occasional practice with the Columbians who ran the local locutorio); but I did a lot of study and watched lot of Spanish television. I knew I had really achieved something when I had to return to the UK (the restaurant where I was working closed down due to the economic collapse) and my sister was watching 'My name is Earl' (a series that I had seen before) and it got to one of those bits where Catalina speaks Spanish. I got a big (but thrilling!) shock when I understood her and it turned out that what she is saying is... well, I won't spoil the surprise for anyone learning Spanish who has seen this show.
2009-2014: TV series, audiobooks and study.
I would have done very little, I wasn't planning anything, but I missed Spain and got hooked on HTLAL, so I ended up finishing FSI (I switched from Platiquemos) and 3 generations of Assimil (and a chunk of Using Spanish) and continued downloading and watching Spanish and Latin American TV shows (my favourites were Aída, El Chavo del 8 and Aquí no hay quien viva). In a strange coincidence people in the 30-40 bracket (I am currently 39) in Spain all seem to remember and like El Chavo; but older and younger people have mostly never heard of it. I also watched almost all The Simpsons and played with a few other resources, such as audiobooks and Linguaphone. Nevertheless my main focus for most of this time was elsewhere (especially German) I think I reached a low B2 in Spanish by doing this.
Sept 2014-May 2015: I get my first English teaching job in Madrid!
I was mostly stuck in an English-speaking bubble again (this time not out of laziness, but rather because it is hard to break out of that). Nevertheless I tried to practise and would hang around reception where I gave my classes for up to half an hour most days to talk to the receptionists and security guards. I didn't dare stay longer in case it looked bad and someone complained. I also studied every night.
June 2014-October 2015: Almost nothing. I listened to some Spanish music.
I went back to the UK for the summer and got a job washing dishes again at a place I had worked before. For personal reasons I went off Spanish in a big way at this point. The only Spanish I could stomach was music. I dd get through quite a bit of German, though.
October 2015- July 2016 Almost nothing in terms of study, I was basically immersed for the last few months of that, though.
I didn't really want to go back to Spain, but did so because I strongly preferred teaching to washing dishes. I quickly develop the worst depression of my life and to this day I have no idea how I held down my job. I didn't study and I didn't make the effort to talk to anyone. Then, through circumstance, I spent the last few months in a hostel and I found one away from the centre that was cheap and clean (a difficult combination to find!) and had quiet rooms to work in. Some of the staff and most of the guests were Spanish speakers, so I was basically immersed without any effort on my part. This rekindled my interest in Spanish to some extent (though it has never approached the heights of 2008 or early autumn 2014- late spring 2015. Around April/May my depression went away. I say "went away" rather than "got better" because I don't think I am "better" TBH. The world doesn't seem quite real to me anymore and I'm not 100% convinced I want to stay either TBH; but I'm not depressed in the sense that things seem interesting to me again (or I wouldn't be writing this), everything doesn't seem 100% hopeless, I'm not seriously thinking of killing myself and I can feel a lot of pleasure at nice things again (conversely things like losing money or breaking a personal belonging hurt again). It's hard to convey how this feels, I'm not saying I know the world is real, but it doesn't seem quite real; I'm saying that it seems so obviously "not quite" real that even intellectually I have my doubts now, though obviously I have little choice but to act as if it is real. I don't know why (my depression wasn't caused by anything hurtful anyone said to me), but for some strange reason I am a lot more aware of how my words and actions can hurt people now, and am a lot more careful with what I say, so at least something positive has come out of it. I think by this point I had reached a very strong B2 in Spanish.
July 2016: present: some study.
I returned to the UK for the summer again (and the autumn too as it turned out in the end) and got a job cleaning at a supermarket. I have been doing a bit of study, because I want to get the C1 certificate, I'm still doing the same thing now, so I'll give more details in my next post. I decided not to go back to Spain and accepted a job in China. Due to a delay with the visa, this meant I didn't go to Spain in October but rather came here to China just over two weeks ago.

Yes, I'm in China now. I do miss Spain, I had two of the happiest years of my life there.I also had the worst year of my life mostly there, but in hindsight I think that would have been even worse in the UK. Perhaps I wouldn't be here. I will update my log today with a post about how I am doing regarding the goals in the OP.

[Tati]

3) Get past the 2-month trial at the place where I will be working

This isn't strictly a language goal, but I have never taught children before, it is a completely different job to teaching adults and if I don't make it past the trial period, this will probably be the shortest language log ever.

Will you be teaching a language or something else? In my experience teaching children is a mixed blessing. You're working on a white canvas so to speak, and that makes some things easier but it's also a huge responsibility. If you don't mind my offering advise I wolud say one of the most important things in teaching children is to never deny their feelings. For instance, if a child says something is difficult never reply that it's not (even if that's the case). Something along the lines of 'OK, you feel that it's difficult so we'll work more on that' usually does the trick. Always aknowledge their feelings and offer solutions. That's my two cents!

5) Finally do something about becoming a bit more computer literate.

At the very least I would like to relearn Excel and learn some basic coding.

Definitely drop me a line if you need some help! In particular, I can help you choosing what programming language to use depending on your needs and/or more long term goals. I could also point you to some useful resources if your langueage of choice is one of those I work with.

¡Buena suerte y a por todas!

[crush]

Hey Random, i'm also teaching in China (have been here off and on since 2012, though i left for a little over a year at one point). And like you, i came here directly from Spain. I miss Spain. I also miss having internet that works, basically all my language resources are offline now. And also kinda like you, i'm currently enrolled in an Android development class

Whereabouts in China are you? Are you at a training school (培训学校)? Or an elementary school? I've found most places just use that "2-month" trial thing as an excuse to either give you a lower salary for a couple months or withhold your salary as an excuse to keep you from leaving. Either way, i doubt you'll have any issues with your contract.

I haven't touched my Spanish in years (since coming to China, really) other than occasional reading, music, movies, and writing/recording a couple rap songs in Spanish, and it depresses me. I used to be a bit proud of my Spanish, but now when i come across Spanish folks here i find myself stumbling over my words as i try to think of how to say something. Generally lots of Mandarin words come up in place of the Spanish ones.