Mack's log: Mandarin, damn the torpedoes!

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Re: Mack's log: Mandarin, damn the torpedoes!

Postby rdearman » Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:42 pm

Wow, you're a machine. :)
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Dr Mack Rettosy
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Re: Mack's log: Mandarin, damn the torpedoes!

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Wed Apr 21, 2021 4:19 pm

rdearman wrote:Wow, you're a machine. :)


Beep boop beep.

It helps that Mandarin is my L2. Had I learned any other language beforehand, I would be scared off by the enormous time commitment. Ignorance is bliss!

=====

I'm rewarding myself for completing Heisig's RTSH Vol I with an analysis of the Spoonfed deck. Note: I believe some tabulating errors occurred during the data curation, but the numbers are close enough to satisfy my curiosity.

Across 8017 Spoonfed sentences there are 70,760 characters, averaging 8.8 characters per sentence. There are 2815 unique characters, 2595 of which can be found in RTSH Vol I and II, 220 of which will have to be learned independently. For every unique character there are just under 3 sentences. It appears that RTSH Vol I has 50 characters and Vol II has 373 characters not found in the spoonfed deck, so original sentences will have to be made to practice these readings. Between RTSH Vol I, II, and Spoonfed there are 3238 unique characters. Overall, the high degree of overlap between RTSH and Spoonfed suggest these two resources complement each other well: RTSH to introduce characters and Spoonfed to begin reading those characters.

spoonfed vs heisig characters.png
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Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours

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Re: Mack's log: Mandarin, damn the torpedoes!

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:27 pm

Heisig RSH Vol I: 1500 / 1500 / 1500 汉字 [31 Jan 2020 - 22 April 2021]

Heisig's RTSH Vol I is complete!

It took 81 days to cover 1500 characters, averaging 18.5 characters/day. I spent 78.2 hours with the book and 44.3 hours reviewing with Pleco flashcards, for a total of 122.5 hours, averaging 1.5 hours/day. The time invested into learning each character was just under 5 minutes/character.

My Pleco review success rate fluctuates around 80%, +/- 5% depending on my state of mind. Considering the 20% of characters I forget, I'll often remember the mnemonic device but not remember the keyword OR recall the device after seeing the keyword. But there are always a handful of characters whose mnemonic devices I've forgotten completely. I take special note of these characters and refresh the mnemonic the next day.

So, what has RTSH done for me?
-Recognize characters and relate meaning to them i.e. English keyword(s)
-Break down characters into their components
-Intuitive sense of stroke orders
-Distinguish between characters I know and don't know
-Characters now have a memory 'hook' that I can use to pair more meaning to (like pronunciation and words, see below)

What did RTSH not do for me that?
-Pair pinyin pronunciation (except for the handful of characters whose keyword was in fact a pinyin syllable)
-Use in context of words

Over the next few weeks I'll continue the Pleco reviews and reference RTSH as needed to refresh the mnemonics. But my priority will be Spoonfed, because until the characters can be used in context, my knowledge of them is isolated to the mnemonic and they're at risk of slipping quickly from memory. I've already noticed positive effects of reading characters. It takes time getting use to, but the quality of cognition behind reading is more robust than the mnemonics.
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Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours

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Re: Mack's log: Mandarin, damn the torpedoes!

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Tue Apr 27, 2021 8:56 pm

Small immersion breakthrough. 20 minutes into episode 23 of 我是老板, I experienced a tipping point where my comprehension, although not 100%, allowed me to get the gist of a prolonged exchange:

"吗总啊,说实在的。您是个好人。可是当老板,我就真的不敢恭维了"


How I understood in context: "Boss Ma, let me tell you something. You're a good person. But as a boss, I truly don't __(think you're any good?)__"

Actual translation: "Boss Ma, to be honest. You're a good person. But as a boss, I'm less than impressed."

The irony being this single phrase works as a synopsis for the entire show!
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Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours

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Study plan update - graded readers

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Tue May 04, 2021 8:00 pm

I read my first graded reader! "Cao Chong Weighed an Elephant", a Rainbow Bridge 150-word vocabulary starter book. It went surprisingly well. The story was 900 characters in length and took two hours to read, which included new word/character look up, re-reading, translating, and listening. I have nineteen more starter books to read, then I'll move to the advanced bundle (15 additional books) that go up to a 2500-word vocabulary.

This is an important milestone, perhaps the most significant yet. My knowledge of Mandarin has reached a threshold that makes reading possible. And let me tell you, I've missed reading dearly. I have completely devoted myself to Mandarin these past seven months, and in doing so, dropped a lifelong reading habit. I miss the companionship of the written word. Now the path to literacy lays before me and it consists of reading and more reading! That makes me very happy.

But funny enough, I don't have the time to read. Between Pleco's RTSH and Anki's Spoonfed, I've been averaging two hours a day with SRS alone. So I'm going to make some changes to my routine. The order of priority for a given day will be: read graded material (60-120 minutes) > listening immersion (30 minutes) > Spoonfed deck (30 minutes) > Pleco RTSH review (left over time). I'll probably have to adjust Spoonfed down to 10 new sentences to keep the time under 30 minutes. Pleco RTSH reviews will likely build up, but that's fine. Reviewing characters in isolation is becoming less valuable to me, and through reading I'll encounter greater numbers of characters with the benefit of being in context.

Eventually I'm going to begin encountering new characters. The original plan was to revisit RTSH Vol II for a final round of mnemonic creation. More recently, I've been playing with the idea of creating mnemonics as I encounter characters through reading. The workflow to do this sounds cumbersome because I'd have to pause my reading to record a character, then reference the book, then create a mnemonic device, then create a flashcard, and so on.. More recently I have been questioning whether I still need mnemonics. I have a developing sense that mnemonics are neither necessary nor sufficient for learning characters, and often they are distracting and at odds with authentic use. So I'm unsure what the future looks like. Maybe I'll keep making mnemonics, or revisit the Imron method, or perhaps pick them up passively. Who knows? For now I'm just going to get on with reading. Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!
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Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours

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Re: Mack's log: Mandarin, damn the torpedoes!

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Sun May 09, 2021 9:31 pm

Another week in the books. Logged 23 hours, nudging my overall daily average study time to three hours.

I think three hours is my personal sweet spot. Any more I hit a cognitive wall with steep diminishing returns, any less I forgo potential progress.

Due to (positive/exciting) professional and personal changes in the near future, I suspect only a few more months with so much time to devote to language learning. This motivates me to keep pushing hard into Mandarin while the going is good. I eventually want to coast my learning into something more leisurely, but I don't know when, if ever, this will happen. I keep thinking I'm on the brink of intermediacy, but then a passage or phrase will slam me right back to feeling like a beginner.
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Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours

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Oct 14th 2020 – May 15th 2021: Seven Month Update

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Wed May 19, 2021 3:11 pm

Oct 14th 2020 – May 15th 2021: Seven Month Update

A little late on the seventh month update. I've been very busy with work and family life.

Current Course of Study
Really happy with my decision to prioritize reading and listening over flashcards. I'll probably be done with my graded reader goal next week, and I'll have a lot to say in a separate post.

I'm considering dropping my Pleco reviews (of the 1500 RTSH Vol I characters). I often get characters wrong that had I come across during reading would cause me no problem. This isn't surprising because many characters by themselves are not actual words. And this is consistent with the phenomena of native speakers not recognizing certain characters without context. The flashcards are certainly not an authentic way to use the language, and I'm not going to hold myself to the expectation of having to replay a mnemonic just to recall an English keyword. Now that I have some reading experience, I realize that the cognitive process behind reading is entirely different than the process behind mnemonics. With reading, my mind simply recognizes the character with the aide of the surrounding context and then imputes a consonant sound, and guesses the tone based off a (still developing) intuition. Having written all this out, it seems pretty obvious that I would benefit just dropping the cards and spending that time reading.

That said, Heisig's RTSH was still helpful. I've noticed it's much easier to read characters I've covered in RTSH Vol I compared to characters I haven't yet learned in Vol II (or that are all together not in the RTSH series). How to describe it... RTSH makes characters sticky. When you're reading and you come across a RTSH character, it is familiar and you have a vague sense of meaning. Then when you learn the pronunciation and meaning its usage starts to fall into place more readily. Apologies if this is all confusing, I'm trying to describe what's occurring in my brain as a learner of the language.

Immersion
Ongoing Immersions:
[TV shows]: Home with Kids; 家有儿女. This is a sitcom produced in mainland China in the mid-2000's, well known by many Chinese. It's not great and a little cheesy, but it is fantastic immersion material. I'm about 6 episodes in and it's starting to grow on me.
[Youtube blogs]: Mandarin Corner

Recently Finished/Highlights:
Finished 我是老板, I think 马一明 will always have a fond place in my memory. I'd like to circle back to this show after my comprehension improves to get more out of it. I also watched two Wuxia movies on Netflix. The first was The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, such a fun movie! Really brings to life the best of 70-80's martial arts. The second was Shadow, which despite the slow start picked up with pretty much solid everything: story, writing, acting, and gorgeous picture.

Quantitative Summary
Total unique pinyin word (拼音) exposure: ~2500 (stopped recording on Feb 6th 2021)
Total character (汉字) exposure: 1512
Total time of intensive study: 635 hr
Average time studying per day: 3 hr 0 min

Qualitative Summary
Listening [>HSKB2]
Listening continues to improve, and is definitely being bolstered by subtitles now that I'm beginning to read. I improved quite a lot over the course of watching 我是老板. At the beginning of the show I recognized maybe less than 10% of spoken words and comprehended less than 5% of what was said. By the end of the show I was recognizing 50-60% of spoken words and comprehending around 25% of what was said, getting the gist of many sentences and in some cases understanding whole exchanges.

Speaking [HSKB1]
Beginning to wonder when and how I should start conversations. I have a few ideas that I keep kicking down the road. I'll get to speaking eventually, lol. For now I'm just really enjoying input.

Reading [>HSKB1]
Between prioritizing graded readers and continuing spoonfed, I'm seeing rapid progress in my reading abilities. At this point I'm floating somewhere between HSKB1-2, which is 500-1272 vocabulary words. I'm not really tracking my vocabulary so hard to say.

Writing [<HSKB1]
None.

Cultural
The graded readers are basically condensed stories of Chinese history and folklore. My favorite have been the legends that gave rise to contemporary holidays such as Lantern, Dragon Boat, and Qingming festivals. I am surprised how much I enjoy (and learn) reading these graded materials.

Personal Goals
Ongoing goals:
Rainbow Bridge Graded Readers: 10 / 20 / 20 starter books
Anki Spoonfed Chinese: 620 / 8017 / 8000 sentences
Study: 635 / 5000 / 5000 hours

Completed goals:
✓ HelloChinese Maincourse [14 Oct 2020 - 29 Nov 2020]
✓ HelloChinese Immersions [1 Dec 2020 - 6 March 2021]
✓ Read ~250 HSK1-3 TCB articles in pinyin [1 Dec 2020 - 25 March 2021]
✓ Heisig's Remembering the Simplified Hanzi Vol I [31 Jan 2020 - 22 April 2021]
5 x
Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours

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Re: Oct 14th 2020 – May 15th 2021: Seven Month Update

Postby cjareck » Sun May 23, 2021 7:14 pm

Dr Mack Rettosy wrote:With reading, my mind simply recognizes the character with the aide of the surrounding context and then imputes a consonant sound, and guesses the tone based off a (still developing) intuition. Having written all this out, it seems pretty obvious that I would benefit just dropping the cards and spending that time reading.

Did you consider learning phrases or sentences in SRS instead of just characters? It could use the reading skill to remember the meaning and pronunciation of the characters.

I've noticed that learning characters alone is difficult for me. It seems strange since I learn vocabulary by pictures (picture on one side of the flashcard), and the characters are, in fact, such pictures that should help me remember the word.
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Please feel free to correct me in any language


Listening: 1+ (83% content, 90% linguistic)
Reading: 1 (83% content, 90% linguistic)


MSA DLI : 30 / 141ESKK : 18 / 40


Mandarin Assimil : 62 / 105

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Re: Oct 14th 2020 – May 15th 2021: Seven Month Update

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Mon May 24, 2021 4:49 pm

cjareck wrote:
Dr Mack Rettosy wrote:With reading, my mind simply recognizes the character with the aide of the surrounding context and then imputes a consonant sound, and guesses the tone based off a (still developing) intuition. Having written all this out, it seems pretty obvious that I would benefit just dropping the cards and spending that time reading.

Did you consider learning phrases or sentences in SRS instead of just characters? It could use the reading skill to remember the meaning and pronunciation of the characters.

I've noticed that learning characters alone is difficult for me. It seems strange since I learn vocabulary by pictures (picture on one side of the flashcard), and the characters are, in fact, such pictures that should help me remember the word.


Yes, I have considered it. But when I started RTSH I could not read, so finding appropriate i+1 sentences would have been difficult. Now that I have some reading skill, I might try this approach for RTSH Vol II!

But this is essential what the Spoonfed deck has been doing for me. The upside being it is convenient (not having to make my own cards) and the attached audio files (pairing sounds to characters). The downside it's a premade deck, so the characters being introduced are not in order with RTSH.
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Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours

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Re: Mack's log: Mandarin, damn the torpedoes!

Postby Dr Mack Rettosy » Mon May 24, 2021 5:53 pm

Rainbow Bridge Graded Readers: 20 / 20 / 20 starter books [04 May 2021 - 24 May 2021]

I finished all twenty Rainbow Bridge "starter" readers. I expected an 'ah-ha!' moment, but never had one. Reading logographic script just works. There's nothing profound about it. I see the character and my mind knows the sound. It's guess-work at first, and requires frequent look-ups to confirm the sound. But after seeing the character 20-30 times, my brain imputes a sound and I'm able to read to a fluency approaching the latin alphabet.

For each book, I recorded the time and total characters to calculate my reading speed (characters/minute). This also includes time looking up words, recording unknown characters, and reading translations (if needed). In total I've read nearly 20,000 characters in 25.5 hours. As I progressed there's a positive trend toward faster reading speeds, quite satisfying to see. The first few books were painful, spending an average of a minute and a half on each sentence. But I'm at a point now where reading is noticeably smoother, each sentence taking maybe 30 seconds and relying less on translation.

reading speed graded readers.png


I also recorded all the characters that I hadn't learned from Heisig's RTSH Vol I, but that are in Vol II. The median for each story was eight characters, some having as low as two, others as high as fourteen. There were occasional characters not present in either Vol I or II. These were rare, maybe one per story, often used for names or places. I didn't bother recording these. The short-term plan is to create mnemonics for the RTSH Vol II characters and create sentence flashcards, like cjareck suggested. Long-term, I want to use flashcards to reinforce vocabulary encountered through immersions. But I've been too busy to start mining because the spoonfed deck takes that time. Although I'm not even 10% through Spoonfed, I think I will temporarily pause it to start creating my own. I'll then re-read the story and listen to the MP3 recordings to hear pronunciation and cadence (Pleco's document reader voice is quite good, but not natural enough).

After re-reading, I'll forge ahead with the "Rainbow Bridge Higher Reader" bundle. There are 15 graded readers going up to a 2500 word vocabulary, with a total 100,000 characters of material. Should keep me busy for awhile!

Finally, I'm setting an ambitious long-term goal to read 10 million characters. Based off some threads over at chinese-forums, I anticipate my reading speed to be ~225 cpm around this mark, which would put me just in the low range of a native speakers reading speed of 255±29 cpm.
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Mandarin goals:
Read: 2146000 / 10000000 /10,000,000 汉字
Study: 2006 / 5000 / 5000 hours


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