alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

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alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
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Location: Kaoshiung
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Sat Jan 14, 2023 8:56 pm

I'm failing to log, but my study routine is up to around 2-3 hours per day, which is now finally approaching pre-Corona levels. It's unbelievable how much I forgot and practically everything I'm learning I have learned before at some point, but I'm feeling it coming together again.

I'm still practicing writing. I can now write around 400 characters in all variations again (Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese). I'm also doing language exchanges, two per week for Chinese.

My Japanese and Korean have suffered, I failed to speak Korean when I was with Koreans, and I spent an evening with two Japanese guys where I noticed my comprehension dropped from close to 100% during my last social period with Japanese people in September to maybe like 85%. That's quite a drastic drop. I'll have to spent some time refreshing and working on those two languages soon again.
5 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
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A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Sun Jan 29, 2023 11:49 pm

--- Chinese

This is like my 3rd consecutive month writing Chinese characters daily again (30-60min). I can now write almost 600 Characters again now, enough for the HSK3 which I will retake in 6 weeks. I'm working myself through the HSK4 characters now a bit quicker this time. I studied all the characters before, and I'm in quite a routine so in theory it should go fast.

I'm going through my Chinese vocabulary deck from 2017-2019. My hope was that those old words are still in my brain somehow and would be easier to relearn, but they are totally not :lol: - I went through 500 cards so far (of 2000-3000).

Still after now 3-4 months of study, I have not reached the Chinese level I had when I started blogging here. It's really astonishing for me, since I never forgot a language that I studied that much, even if I neglected it for a year or two.

--- Korean

I'm re-checking into Korean now after the 3-4months break where I studied Chinese, because I'm afraid the same will happen. Just translated this song called Haru - was a bit wondering about the use of 가 behind verbs, didn't find much grammar about it even when I tried searching the web in Japanese and Korean.

I just figured it has to be a question to yourself like 지 (because in Japanese it's also ka か)

멍하니 혼자 하루가 또 지나
so I translated it to: "Do I spend another day alone staring blankly?" (or into Japanese: ボーっとして一人一日がまだ過ごすか?)

--- other
Spoke some Japanese - had quite a long delay and wasn't quick with replying and keeping the conversations going. Will also speak Portuguese next week.
3 x

lichtrausch
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Joined: Thu Jul 23, 2015 3:21 pm
Languages: English (N), German, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby lichtrausch » Mon Jan 30, 2023 1:36 am

alaart wrote:I'm re-checking into Korean now after the 3-4months break where I studied Chinese, because I'm afraid the same will happen. Just translated this song called Haru - was a bit wondering about the use of 가 behind verbs, didn't find much grammar about it even when I tried searching the web in Japanese and Korean.

I just figured it has to be a question to yourself like 지 (because in Japanese it's also ka か)

멍하니 혼자 하루가 또 지나
so I translated it to: "Do I spend another day alone staring blankly?" (or into Japanese: ボーっとして一人一日がまだ過ごすか?)

지나가 is the stem of the verb 지나가다.
1 x

alaart
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Location: Kaoshiung
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Mon Jan 30, 2023 8:26 am

Ah, thanks! That makes sense, yes. :)
0 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Tue Feb 14, 2023 2:34 pm

I kept up my 20 hour / week study goal for 3 weeks now and I want this to be a continues thing that I will do every week. It's tough sometimes because of other life commitments and when I suddenly have not studied 2 days and have to push up the hours the next days it's stressful.

I do around 1 hour of writing Chinese per day now, and I'm writing new characters from conversations and from the HSK4 Hanzi list.

Spoke Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese with friends and on international parties. My Portuguese was in good shape even though I haven't used it at all for a long time. My Chinese is still not there.

I have Chinese language exchanges with a friend and I started to chat online on tandem.net in Chinese.

Still there are so many characters I don't know, but my recognition is good enough that conversation is now possible.
I can also do it in Traditional and Simplified character and I mix it up speaking with a mix of Taiwanese and Chinese people.

I'm still in re-learning territory. When I add words or character to Anki, it tells me I have studied them before in 2019. But I don't remember any of that. 2019 I did this crazy period of time where I studied Chinese like all day for 3-4 months very intensively, but then I stopped learning Chinese afterwards because I wrongly assumed I reached a stable level. But yeah I guess, if you learn them quickly you forget them quickly. So this time I have to keep studying.

I translated 3 or so more Korean songs. Would love to do more Korean, but I try to stay focused.
7 x

alaart
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Sun Mar 05, 2023 8:17 am

I kept up my 20 hours / week study-commitment for 6 weeks now. Mostly Chinese nowadays, I can write around a 1000 characters now. Doing some language exchange and working through my old Anki decks from 2019 with the occasional input from videos, music and such.

Motivation-wise I could study more, but other areas of my life need some attention. Only if I make progress there will I increase the study time.
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alaart
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Mon Mar 20, 2023 12:20 pm

I'm keeping up my 20 hours / week commitment.

I did test exams, language exchanges and took the HSKK basic level for speaking and the HSK3 Chinese language ability test.

Writing is tough. One day without writing practice and I can't write the next day, this is the harsh reality. I'm now finishing working on all the HSK4 characters. Reading, Translation of Chinese Netflix series and more speaking is planned.

In 5 weeks I will take the HSK4 and the HSKK intermediate level speaking exam, as well as the medium level of the official Taiwanese language exam TOCFL... so more book study and more language exams coming up, will keep you updated.

As for other languages, I used Portuguese, Japanese with people. Haven't used any Korean or Dutch lately. Well it's hard to keep it all up.
6 x

alaart
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Location: Kaoshiung
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:12 pm

First note to myself:
I've been mostly focusing on relearning the Chinese characters and writing them, and I have trouble remembering the Chinese tones. One friend of mine suggested I just write the tone down next to the character when I do writing practice, and I must say that this very simple adjustment helps tremendously.

Second note to myself:
I'm losing Korean again, I should make an effort learning it 1 or 2 days per week where I don't focus on Chinese but on Korean instead.
5 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Thu Apr 06, 2023 12:23 pm

The HSK4 is in 1 month and it will be very challenging to pass it, but I'm trying hard. There are still around 250 characters left for me to relearn until the test, as well as a lot of grammar points and some vocabulary. I can still write around 1000 characters, but I'm feeling that learning more is not working very well and my brain doesn't soak them in as easily anymore. So after the exam I will stop learning characters for a while and will try to use the language with the characters I know and ignore the rest for a while.

Tone memorization has been better if I write the character with the tone while doing writing practice. Another method is if I speak in my head, and then after I have spoken it I remember the correct tone. So I might know some tones unconsciously from speaking, but the error rate is still high.

I'm also doing language exchanges. Other languages I am using are Japanese (with 2 friends) and Dutch (television) - still no Korean, I plan to work on my Korean after my exam though.
6 x

alaart
Green Belt
Posts: 338
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:58 am
Location: Kaoshiung
Languages: DE (N), EN
B1: NL, JP, PT (BR), ZH
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A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Mon Apr 24, 2023 6:49 pm

I've still 100 characters left to learn for my exam. I also studied most of the grammar points by now, I'm getting more confident about facing the HSK4 now.

I hope to finish learning the remaining characters this week and then focus on test exams. Reviews are up to over 2 hours a day which eat up my progress, some people on the forum have suggested to limit reviews to an hour, which I might try - but not during exam preparation.

I'm doing a lot of language exchanges and I'm in contact with quite a number of Chinese and Taiwanese people. Soon I'll plan it so that I meet one almost every day and have daily Chinese around me and emulate immersion. I had a glimpse of feeling conversational fluency again for the first time since I lost my Chinese talking abilities. I couldn't say everything, but I could ask and get most of the words I needed and talked 3 hours in Chinese. Also some old words came back from my brain during that time which I haven't restudied yet. This just happened once and I couldn't reproduce that during other occasions when I talked Chinese yet, but it's a good sign.

Tones are still wrong half of the time and I pronunciation is wrong too, especially c and zh get mixed up.

Another side note, I'm planning to move abroad again soon, doing a lot of organization.
6 x


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