alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

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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
A2: KR
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 » Sat Apr 29, 2023 10:28 am

I still have 60 characters left to learn for the HSK4, and two weeks left.

I'm making more and more breakthroughs, a lot of my Chinese ability has come back. I was able to have lengthy conversations in Chinese again, and to my surprise also in group situations including discussions. I don't get everything, but the ability to express my thoughts fast is there again.

One assumption I have is that complicated words like over schools of thoughts, politicial issues etc. often are the same in Japanese and Chinese, so maybe it is easier in a way.

By chance I was also surrounded by Koreans in university the other day, I didn't say anything as I was with a Chinese friend, but I was listening to them talking and understood quite a bit there too. Then as I went home I started thinking and speaking to myself in Korean.

Korean and Chinese have kind of not worked in my brain together the whole time, it was either one or the other - but now I might finally be at the point where I will be able to use both.

I have neglected Korean to an extreme extent, but it is still there. I plan to reactivate it after my exam and push it up. Maybe I could even take a course next semester, I'll see.
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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
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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HSK exams

Postby alaart » Mon May 08, 2023 12:54 pm

I finished learning all the material for HSK4 and HSKK Middle Level and did a test exam. The knowledge is there, but it is not solid, I had to look up some characters and spent a bit more than the required time. Passing will be hard - but it is doable, I think I can pass with a low score. I'll spend the whole week doing test exams and will try my best.

I got the exam result for the HSK3 (result 287/300), and HSKK basic level (result 79/100). I got around the same scores then 2020 when I did them the first time. Though at that time I did them pretty much without studying, and I hadn't even used Chinese much for a long time and this time I prepared a lot and I use Chinese daily. Gets you thinking, right? But I just have to accept my rusty brain, and I hope this time everything will stick better. This is just the start.

HSK3.png
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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
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
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took HSK4 test

Postby alaart » Sat May 13, 2023 12:42 pm

I decided not to take the TOCFL even though I registered, will do that next time.

I took the HSKK Intermediate Level and HSK4 yesterday.

HSKK Intermediate is pretty similar to the basic level test, and because you can describe things in your own words you will not really struggle with words you don't know. It's hard if you really try to speak with correct tones, I don't know how they grade it. I didn't bother with that too much and just spoke what is naturally to me, but I think I maybe could work on that and speak slowly with correct tones.

HSK4, well I struggled with character recognition, the required reading speed, and sometimes concentration. I rushed through the questions and took an educated guess of what the answer might be instead of fully understanding the meaning and subtleties of each problem. Sometimes I also fully understood, I might still have passed with a very low score, but I also might have failed. Results will be available in 1-2 months.

----

I can summarize that for the past 6 months, I relearned around 1200 Chinese characters and I wrote almost every day (mostly for around 1 hour, sometimes a bit more). But as soon as I don't write for lets say 3 days -which now recently happened - I almost instantly lose my ability to write and read some of the characters. This is very frustrating, and I also took the exam like this with some holes in my character recognition ability.

I can still guess a character somehow through context from the surrounding characters even if I don't know it, that's also like I was reading Japanese in Japan.

I'm not sure how I will continue. I don't really want to learn more characters for now, maybe I will try to maintain this 1200 character as a base and focus on speaking. Maybe some graded reading. Maybe I will try to refresh some of my other languages (Portuguese and Korean could need some watering). We will see where my motivation drives me.
5 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
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1027

Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Sat May 20, 2023 9:48 pm

Writing Chinese is really tricky, if I don't write a day I forget characters immediately. Unfortunately I have not written some days and have accumulated a couple hundred characters which I'll have to relearn, this is very demotivating. I will try to keep the HSK4 1200 character set vivid in my mind, repeat it and repeat it, and plan to move to regular reading of HSK4 learning texts and want to keep that alive so that I have at least a minimum of reading knowledge.

I'm slowly preparing to move back to Asia, so reading / writing will be essential soon.

Currently I do a lot of conversations: Over the past half year I have accumulated Chinese / Taiwanese contacts which make up a significant part of my social life. Almost everyday I'm meeting learning partners, I'm invited somewhere or I join some activity. I'm speaking Chinese with a lot of people.

For example, this week:

Monday I was meeting with one of my friends, who is a Japanese guy for beers.
Tuesday I was meeting with a Chinese women who is a student of Buddhism and she told me some things about Buddhism in Chinese.
Wednesday I was meeting with one of my study partners, which is a Japanese-Chinese mixed girl. Her character is very Japanese but we speak in Chinese.
Thursday I was discussing politics with a guy from mainland China.

I also talked with my roommate, who is Chinese, but I have a very bad relation with him. He insulted me in Chinese, so that is also an experience.

Tomorrow I'll meet with a study partner from Beijing, and in the evening I will go with a Taiwanese friend to a party in a mixed German / Asian group.

I'd say it's fair to say I've been living for this for a while now, and I have been speaking Chinese a bit for maybe 5 days / week for a couple months. So I'm starting to live immersion again, like I used to do before Covid. I'm not always happy with it as it eats a lot of my time and I'm struggling to keep my live together and I often get tired after listening to too much Chinese. But I also enjoy it.
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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
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1027

Re: alaart's log (Chinese, Korean)

Postby alaart » Thu Jun 01, 2023 10:40 pm

Writing frustrated me so much. After not managing to keeping up my daily commitment of writing characters I quickly started to forget quite a lot of them over the last few weeks until finally this weekend I stopped writing completely. I've been writing the characters stand alone or in words. Not in sentences or texts.

I assume I'll do better writing whole texts, or I should start to read a lot, or best would be to combine reading and writing. But I decided to take a short writing break, maybe for a week or two, now I just enjoy myself and do what I love, focusing on speaking.

I've continued to speak a lot in Chinese. Last week I joined a group where I was the only German and had to deal with 5 hours of Chinese. I'm not there yet, it's pretty tricky, but I'm getting there - I'm doing around 4-5 language exchanges per week normally.

I allowed myself to not only focus on Chinese, but do some Japanese too. It's been a while since I really studied anything and I had a conversation with a friend and allowed myself to take notes and studied them later. I also watched 1 episode of the drama Sanctuary in Japanese, it's about Sumo.

My Japanese, although a bit neglected during the last 2 years is still sharp enough. I was wondering if I can still understand, but it's fine. I don't even remember when the last time was that I really watched Japanese entertainment, so maybe it's about time again to watch some series.
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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
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1027

HSK4 result

Postby alaart » Thu Jun 15, 2023 1:14 pm

I passed the HSK4 (224/300), and also the HSKK with a low score (64/100). I got quite a decent score mark in the HSK4 although I didn't really fully understand what was said / written in the problems most of the times. I don't think I will take another test of this sort for a while as I doubt their usefulness.

I have now returned to studying mostly from conversations and other forms of input, although study time is quite a bit less then before now as I am figuring out other things in my life.

Last week I traveled with a group of Mandarin speakers of mixed nationalities and spoke the language all day. I also watched the second episode of 'Scantuary', that Drama in Japanese I started. Other than that my usual language exchanges. Oh, almost forgot. I spoke Korean on a party - I noticed I'm quite rusty, but I just can't find the time to study more at the moment.
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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
A2: KR
A1: ES
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=10867
x 1027

A lot of changes: Full immersion coming

Postby alaart » Thu Aug 24, 2023 9:31 am

I haven't been inactive, just busy. Very condensed short version:

Japanese: After my Chinese exams I started using Japanese again: Reading, Netflix (the series Vinland and a Drama), talking to Japanese people. - I thought that my Japanese was still fine, and so I applied for a translator job, had to do some trial work and will soon start working part time as a translator. So Japanese will be one of my main languages, because it provides some income (I'm chronically poor so that is very important).

Chinese: I got a scholarship at a Taiwanese university and I will move to Taiwan next week. I've been busy with organizing the change.

So the goal will be full immersion: I will try to live the full immersion experience and move abroad to the countries of the languages I'm learning, consume entertainment in my target languages, social life in target language, and also work and so on. So an interesting time ahead. - hope I will find the time to keep the log updated, maybe with some interesting stories from abroad again. - Cheers.
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