The Real CZ wrote:So in the first week being free from school and an overbearing work schedule, I've been easing myself back into language study. I have been going through the Teach Yourself Complete Mandarin Chinese course that I have. I am on lesson 10 and notice that past few lessons have ramped up the amount of new words and sentence constructions. For now I am just going through each lesson once , hoping to get through the first pass of the book by the end of May. Then I plan on going back to things that gave me trouble while working through other courses.
In addition to textbooks, I have started reading Mandarin Companion's The Prince and Pauper. I feel like I am at around 90% comprehension, so not at the 98% they expect for extensive reading as there are words/characters here and there that I don't understand that they expect you to know going into the books. I try to read a page or two a day and want to try to increase that as I get more comfortable reading in Mandarin.
I have also been going through the beginner lessons on Mandarin Bean. I find the site to be pretty helpful even with all of the free stuff. I am focused on trying to read and the audio helps a lot in getting down the reading of the characters as well.
I have been addicted to the Taiwanese drama on Netflix called "Light the Night". I finished the first season/part and will start the next one soon!
Congrats on finishing your degree! Extra time for language learning, huh? Sounds like you are making the most of your new-found time with a multi-track approach. If you're enjoying Mandarin Companion and want more, there is a bundle package on the Pleco app that includes all of their published books. I think it is more cost effective than buying the ebooks individually, but you might want to double check. I just checked out Light the Night, I think I'm going to like this.. Thanks for sharing that here!