Mack's log: Mandarin, damn the torpedoes!

[rdearman]

I feel your pain. I want to scream with frustration when listening to Korean because I don't know anything. Especially when I compare it to my Italian or French. I don't know why I keep starting new languages, especially when I already know how hard it is and how long it takes. But good luck with Spanish when you eventually start.

[jeff_lindqvist]

The Dreaming Spanish YouTube channel is frequently recommended so I thought I’d give the “super beginner” comprehensible input videos a go.

Thanks for mentioning this channel!

For what it's worth, I had a look at one of the superbeginner videos and understood everything. This being said, I consider Spanish one of my stronger languages. Still, I think the format is very good. Is there something like this resource for other languages?

[Dr Mack Rettosy]

I feel your pain. I want to scream with frustration when listening to Korean because I don't know anything. Especially when I compare it to my Italian or French. I don't know why I keep starting new languages, especially when I already know how hard it is and how long it takes. But good luck with Spanish when you eventually start.

Keep at it! The pain period is going to be longer for slower learning languages but it will be well worth it!

The Dreaming Spanish YouTube channel is frequently recommended so I thought I’d give the “super beginner” comprehensible input videos a go.

Thanks for mentioning this channel!

For what it's worth, I had a look at one of the superbeginner videos and understood everything. This being said, I consider Spanish one of my stronger languages. Still, I think the format is very good. Is there something like this resource for other languages?

I'd recommend exploring this google doc (warning: potential rabbit hole). It's a compilation of youtube channels that have comprehensible input videos across a breadth of languages. There is depth too, I learned of several new Mandarin channels even after two years of collecting my own materials.

[jeff_lindqvist]

I'd recommend exploring this google doc (warning: potential rabbit hole). It's a compilation of youtube channels that have comprehensible input videos across a breadth of languages. There is depth too, I learned of several new Mandarin channels even after two years of collecting my own materials.

Thanks a lot! I have added it to my drive and will take a closer look later.

[Dr Mack Rettosy]

Oct 14th 2020 – Oct 15th 2022: Two Year Update

Hi all! Crazy that it has been TWO YEARS since I've started Mandarin. This update feels a bit underwhelming but want to get this written up before I leave for a work trip.

Listening
Using the Refold comprehension scale, as a reminder:
Level 0: Nothing
Level 1: Something
Level 2: Bits and Pieces
Level 3: Gist
Level 4: Story
Level 5: Comfortable
Level 6: Automatic

Here's how I peg my listening:

Learner's videos: Level 3-5.
Learner's podcasts: Level 2-4.
Translated children shows: Level 3-5.
Native TV/Movies/Vlogs: Level 3-4.
Native podcasts: Level 2.

Subtitles typically give me a 1-2 refold level bump. Language domain also makes a huge difference. Comprehension for "slice of life" material is better than niche topics. The big win with listening is that I'm following enough content in native video materials (with subtitles) for it to be enjoyable. Although these days I prefer using my limited time on material for learners because it is more comprehensible and efficient. I see now how I fell for "incomprehensible input". I misspent hundreds of hours listening/watching material above my level. I sometimes think starting with a more accessible L2 (ahem Spanish) would have quickened the meta language learning cycle and saved a lot of time. On the other hand, without the naive ambition and enthusiasm, I probably would never have gotten this far into Mandarin. I suppose this is the earned wisdom one can only get from experience.

Reading
In summary I've read hundreds of (edit: graded) news articles, 53 graded readers, 6 translated children books, 7 native children books, and 8 native short story collections/novels. I am beyond graded readers and translated works and exclusively reading native materials. My language learning goals are to continue acquiring vocabulary and gradually shifting to a monolingual dictionary. More generally I am excited to continue exploring Chinese literature, authors, and subjects.

Speaking
I really need to just throw myself into speaking. I have so many ideas and will flesh this out in a "study update" post hopefully in the near future.

Writing
I'd like to start daily writing practice. 5-10 minutes a day focused on the top 200 characters. Ahh there's just so much I want to do with Mandarin!!

Statistics
Studied a total of 1549 hours over 730 days, averaging 2 hr 7 min a day. Study time took the occasional hit (work, vacation, health), but for the most part I've been fairly consistent and am proud of that. How time breaks across categories really shows my immersion-first approach. Two-thirds of my time has been reading 503 hrs (+55 hrs reading in news articles in pinyin) and listening to a mix of videos and podcasts for 481 hrs. The other one-third of my time has been spent using the HelloChinese app (280 hrs), flashcards (142 hrs), character study (84 hrs), and speaking / writing (2.3 hrs / 1.4 hrs, lol!)

Tracking my reading speed is a huge source of motivation and really enjoyable. Right now I'm reading (lighter) native materials at a fairly comfortable 50-70 characters per minute. I do have a long-term goals of hitting 250+ cpm which should get me close to a college-educated native reader. I recently re-read the hardest Mandarin Companion graded readers and compared speeds: 30-50 cpm in Sep 2021 vs 110-140 cpm in Sep 2022. It felt great to read something at a quick pace without needing to use the dictionary.

Mandarin goals:
Conversations in Mandarin: 0 / 10 / 10 sessions
Read: 1319000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 1549 / 5000 / 5000 hours

Besides the reading speed goals discussed above, I'm not very goal oriented these days. No changes in my "completed" and "suspended" goals, see past updates for those.

Study Time.png

Study categories.png

Reading Speed.png

Reading Speed one year later.png

[Dr Mack Rettosy]

Writing in my lab notebook:

“Brot pH to 7.561 w/ stepwise addion of 1N HCl”

Brot - Brought
addion - addition

I do this all the time now. Maybe I’m getting older, maybe I’m just getting lazy, but maybe just maybe my brain’s language center is losing some English and gaining some Mandarin. That’s my hope anyway

Also, I’m not the only one apparently:
https://youtu.be/6ZpPfgPc-LI

[grayson]

What a wonderful log! I just read the entire thing and am impressed and inspired. I wanted to pop in and say that if you like reading science fiction and your first taste of 刘慈欣 was enjoyable, then I highly recommend his 地球往事 series. I read the trilogy in English translation and very much enjoyed it. I look forward to someday being able to read it in Mandarin!

[Dr Mack Rettosy]

What a wonderful log! I just read the entire thing and am impressed and inspired. I wanted to pop in and say that if you like reading science fiction and your first taste of 刘慈欣 was enjoyable, then I highly recommend his 地球往事 series. I read the trilogy in English translation and very much enjoyed it. I look forward to someday being able to read it in Mandarin!

Thank you friend! Happy that you are enjoying the log.

流浪地球 was a fairly challenging read for me, I’m thinking I should acquire more science vocabulary before cracking into 三体, perhaps reading some non-fiction science books first. Don’t want the language to be a barrier to enjoying the series!

Currently I’m working through 余华 works. He has a lot of short stories collections, some are pretty abstract and experimental, but all use fairly simple language. Really fantastic for intermediate level native reading. For his longer novels, 活着 is frequently recommended but I actually think 许三观卖血记 is an easier read and just as compelling.

[Dr Mack Rettosy]

Oct 14th 2020 – Jan 16th 2022: Two Year and Three Months Update

Listening
My listening skills have made big improvements the past few months! I credit this to a few changes. First, selecting appropriate material. A majority of my listening time goes to podcasts and videos made for learners (three main sources can all be found on youtube: 大鹏说中文, 每日中文课, Comprehensible Chinese... most of this content is geared towards mid-high intermediate).

The second change has been utilizing listening strategies to make the audio content more comprehensible. Sometimes I pre-read transcripts. Other times I'll watch the video with subtitles then re-watch the video without subtitles, or with podcasts use a blended L-R method. More recently I have been using pure listening. I'll listen to the same podcast or video on repeat until I am satisfied with my understanding. This is best done with shorter podcasts. 大鹏's daily chinese expression has been perfect for this. My goal for the first listen is to parse the daily expression, usually a Chengyu or a colliqual/informal phrase, sometimes I'll get the gist right away other times I'll zone out and pick up very little. By the second or third listen I'll have usually understood the phrase and then the rest of the episode's content (descriptions, examples, explanations) rapidly opens up to comprehension. It's amazing how just one or two key words are crucial for comprehension, when I get these words the rest of the content blossoms. It's like starting a jigsaw puzzle whose scene is unknown. You may have a lot of pieces in place and still not recognize the scene, but laying one key piece (i.e. a word) suddenly gives away the scene (i.e. the podcast's topic) and then the rest of the pieces fall more quickly into place. The fourth through sixth repeat I am picking up small phrases or noticing specific words that escaped my attention the first few listens. I typically learn one to three new words per podcast. Sometimes I can understand their meaning through context, but often I still look them up to lock in their meaning. Finally after a half dozen listens I'll L-R the transcript then listen one or two more times but I find my attention span wanes as there is no longer any unnoticed language/meaning to squeeze out of the podcast. Total time takes about 30 min for a ~4min podcast. Afterwards, I typically spend another 30 minutes listening through the previous ~week worth of episodes. My retention is high for these and it is fantastic listening, almost fully comprehensible. Fully understanding a foreign language podcast, albeit short and made for learners, is really quite amazing. For someone who enjoys new cognitive experiences I give it 5/5 stars lol. I am hooked and excited to keep improving my listening in this way.

I do still watch travel vlogs and try the occasional TV show/movie. I bit the bullet and bought a new laptop which has made watching youtube content much more comprehensible (and thus enjoyable). Much content has soft-coded subtitles and using the Zhongwen Chinese dictionary popup I can point and click translate much like I do when I read with Pleco. I probably should have been doing this a long time ago but I had a really old laptop and watching with my phone was convenient and I am lazy...

Reading
I will update my Massive Input Masterlist with all the books I have read. By way of suggestion from a poster over at Chinese Forums I've acquired a translation of Agatha Christie's collected works (85 books). Putting some of the books through CTA they appear to be in my extensive reading zone of ~95-98% comprehension. I am branching out from the "slice-of-life" domain and building pretty solid comprehension in the "murder-mystery-crime" genre. After this domain I would like to start learning science language, both because it is relevant for my career and because I want to read science fiction.

Speaking and Writing
I am really kicking these cans down the road aren't I? I set an ambitious goal to converse for 100 hours in 2023. I think I'm going to throw money at the problem and hire a few tutors for weekly conversations.

Cheers everyone, hope your 2023 is off to a wonderful start!

Mandarin goals:
Conversations in Mandarin: 0 / 10 / 10 sessions
Read: 1680000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 1744 / 5000 / 5000 hours

[Dr Mack Rettosy]

I have really thrown myself into conversations! In just two and a half weeks I've had 10 iTalki tutor sessions with 8 different tutors, totaling 6 hours of conversation. This is effectively triple the total time I've spent speaking in Mandarin since starting over 2 years ago!

I obviously have a lot of thoughts to share but just wanted to give a quick update since I completed my “short term” goal that I set for myself 9+ months ago

Conversations in Mandarin: 10 / 10 / 10 sessions