Mostly Mandarin

[Dani]

I just finished recording my first ten minutes of audio as preparation for the Output Challenge. Turns out my voice sounds horrible, how can anybody stand to listen to me talking?!
I can already see that I need a list of things to talk about. At the moment I still have my trip to Japan to talk and write about, but soon I'll be done with that and I need to find other topics. Maybe Science? I also said 'um' a lot.
I won't upload any of the recordings I do in December, because I want it to be as stress free as I possible; you will hear me in January anyway.
I think I need to buy a headset, the audio was a little hard to hear at times, because I tend to speak lower when I don't know what to say.
I know I can read things aloud as part of the Challenge and I will definitely do that, but I want to speak as much as possible. That way you'll all hear my embarrassing mistakes, but I will also get better. Hopefully. At the moment I still feel I just repeat the same words over and over, I need to learn other ways of expressing "good" and "difficult".

I also finished writing my first 200 characters, so for today I did what I wanted. 加油我自己！

[Dani]

新年快樂！ Happy New Year!
2016 is here and with it the Output Challenge. I recorded a couple of words about myself and I realized, that a. my tones and pronunciation are abysmal and b. I have nothing to say. So the most important thing to do to finish the Output Challenge would be a list with topics I could talk about. Also, notes. Talking with people is a lot easier, because you're getting new input, but sitting in front of the computer and talking to myself is surprisingly hard.

So, here it is. I'm sorry, it's dreadful... Hopefully at the end of next year there will be an audible improvement...

[Ezy Ryder]

挺好啊，聽懂妳很容易。祝妳得到自己的抱負，加油！

[rdearman]

新年快樂！ Happy New Year!
2016 is here and with it the Output Challenge. I recorded a couple of words about myself and I realized, that a. my tones and pronunciation are abysmal and b. I have nothing to say. So the most important thing to do to finish the Output Challenge would be a list with topics I could talk about. Also, notes. Talking with people is a lot easier, because you're getting new input, but sitting in front of the computer and talking to myself is surprisingly hard.

There is a list of topics on the first page of the Output Challenge Discussion, and you might find some of the mini-challenges last year useful. I'm thinking of the tour guide challenge which might be useful.

[Dani]

There is a list of topics on the first page of the Output Challenge Discussion, and you might find some of the mini-challenges last year useful. I'm thinking of the tour guide challenge which might be useful.

Thank you! Some of those sound really fun; I'll definitely do a couple of those through the year.

[Dani]

So, the first week of 2016 has started. I guess I won't get that much done yet; I'll sit my midterms this week, but this will be a good test of how well I am able to use dead time. However, I think it's best for me if I don't aim to record or write a certain amount each day, but rather each week. Especially for writing, because I tend to write slightly longer texts.
I'm going to try to do weekly updates in the hopes of being motivated to do more during the week. We'll see.

I've started reading a non fiction book about blue whales called 藍鯨志. I really like it, so far it seems really easy to read. I guess that means I'll be on the lookout for documentaries about whales... I also added a lot of series to my to-watch-list.

I already know February will be hectic, so I'll try my best to prepare.

[Dani]

Since there's now a ton of people studying French here and because it's very high on my list, I listened to yesterday's edition of RFI's Journal en français facile, just to see how much I remember from school. The verdict: I understand about 95%. This is kinda upsetting, because I haven't touched French in about a decade and I'm still able to follow news and documentaries without any problems, even though any productive ability is gone. If I did this with Chinese I'd lose it all in half the time...
I am now tempted to allot about half an hour to an hour to work on my French in 2016, because so far it looks like I can start with a grammar and native material straight away. (Unless it's too slang-y.) I don't know, I'm torn, because I do want to revive my French sooner or later. But every minute I spend on something else is a minute I don't spend on Chinese, so...

The wanderlust bug has found and bitten me.

[Dani]

WEEK 1

I didn't do much this week language-wise, but I finished all my exams, so I'll hopefully be more productive next week. I did however go on a hike with friends. They are Chinese, so I spent the six hours talking nothing but Chinese. I met one of the in October (the other today) and she said I made a leap in my speaking skills, because when we first chatted my vocabulary apparently was much smaller, I talked slower and made more mistakes. She also said my pronunciation has improved, which made me very happy. I'm really glad. Speaking about a variety of topics is not really a problem any more, even though all my skills still need work. It is even fun to use Chinese now.

The last six months also have given me the feeling that becoming fluent in Chinese is actually possible for me, so I want to make an effort this year to get closer to that goal.

[Expugnator]

How do you vouch your current level? I had my first long conversation in Mandarin yesterday. I'm probably halfway from B1 to B2 but I don't think I could handle six hours of conversation. Yet I start to think that fluency is possible.

[Dani]

How do you vouch your current level? I had my first long conversation in Mandarin yesterday. I'm probably halfway from B1 to B2 but I don't think I could handle six hours of conversation. Yet I start to think that fluency is possible.

I don't know, I have never taken any of the HSK exams, so I have no hard numbers. I have no problems with conversations at all, but when the topic strays from what I'm used to I start struggling with my lack of vocabulary. I still make grammar and tone mistakes. I can read books, but I have to gloss over parts here and there that are too hard (less likely in non-fiction, more likely in Wuxia), and I'm slow, I probably read about 15 pages an hour or so. Magazines are my best friends right now, especially 天下 magazine.
TV is fine unless their accent strays too far from the standard, but I understand southern Mandarin far better than northern. Thanks to the subtitles on everything I get probably about 90% of what I watch, but it would drop without them. Very official, classical language poses a problem. 鏘鏘三人行 is great, unless the topic they are discussing requires a lot of specialized vocabulary.

I would put myself between B1 and B2, maybe even B2, but not higher, I'm making far too many beginner mistakes still. But I'm now confident that with time it will be fine.