Hey everyone, long time no see!
I started spending more time on other hobbies this year, and somehow language learning fell a bit by the wayside since spring. ;__;
On the plus side, I don't need to write a lot in the way of updates of what I did, language learning-wise. ;D
The only language I studied and used a bit was Japanese, really, where I actually ended up taking the JLPT N1 at the beginning of the month. I won't know the result until around the end of January, but I'm pretty sure I passed (even though I didn't manage to study even one-third as much as I originally wanted for it XD), so that'd be at least a small success. ^^"
I also continued my weekly French movie nights, and that's about it.
But of course I didn't return here with empty hands, but rather with a new LR project
sorry for the wall of text:
Chinese LR ExperimentPreamble I really want to make some progress in Chinese again and I really want to give LR another, more extensive, spin, so Chinese LR seems like the perfect way to combine those two things. As opposed to my Italian experiment, I already have some previous knowledge of Chinese, but I consider that a good thing, because I think doing LR "from scratch" for an opaque language like Chinese would be more trouble than it's worth. I think there are quicker and less painful ways of learning the basics of a distant language, although ymmv.
MaterialsI've got the perfect materials already prepared: one of my all-time favorite novels, which is originally Chinese to boot, "The King's Avatar", features a rather literal English translation and an audiobook version. The novels is
long (published in 19 volumes in Chinese) and hasn't been fully translated yet, but the first 1381(!) chapters have been translated, which equates to over 200 hours of audio. Yep, I should be all set with that. Since I've already read the novel (or well, the first ~1060 chapters anyway), I've also already taken care of step 1: know your source material.
SetupAnother difference to the Italian experiment is that this one will run for quite a bit longer. 30 hours wasn't a lot to begin with and for Chinese I expect to need longer to get results. but since my chosen novel has over 200 hours of material, it shouldn't be a problem. Since I'm not in a hurry and am unsure of how much time is needed, the experiment will be open-ended. In general, the whole experiment will be somewhat more lax than the Italian experiment, for a variety of reasons. I will, however, endeavour to work on it regularly, so as not to leave any large gaps that will impede the learning progress. But as before, while I acknowledge that LR probably benefits from consecutive work over several hours, my job and other commitments don't allow for that, so I have to make do with a somewhat modified version for corporate slaves. D;
EvaluationOne thing I don't have a satisfying setup for is evaluation. Unfortunately there is no Dialang test for Chinese and I don't know of a comparable test I could alternatively use. (If someone knows of one, let me know!) All that's left then is the natural listening test, but that's sadly not as objective as I'd like. 
I'll do my best to report on my progress to make up for it.I will be using the DLIFLC ODA Listening test to evaluate my level before and after the experiment.
I scored at the lower end end of ILR 1 (comparable to CEFR A2) in the pre-test.
Method This time I will skip the L2R2 step because
a) it didn't seem as useful as L2R1 last time (except for learning to read with good pronounciation) and
b) it would be a pain to try and do with Chinese.
Thus, I will only be doing L2R1 for this experiment. Naturally, this means that if the experiment works well, my listening comprehension would far exceed my reading comprehension and I'll have to do something to remedy that afterwards. I might do L2R2 to that end, or I might do something else, but in any case it will not be part of this experiment.
Previous knowledgeSince there is no good before-after evaluation, as mentioned above, here's a short self-evaluation of my current Chinese skills: I dabbled in Chinese a bit in winter 16/17 (doing the first 6 chapters of New Practical Chinese Reader), before finally putting in some real effort last winter for (checks log) about 4 months, during which time I read (& listened to) 18.5 low-level graded readers. Having done basically no Chinese since March (;__;), my current status is still at approximately a level where I can understand Chinese Breeze lvl 2 (500 words/characters) readers with only a little effort (although reading is easier than listening). For Rainbow Bridge Readers, the Starter level (150 words/characters) are rather easy, but the level 1 (300 words/characters) readers would require me to look up quite a few words to understand. Sad, but true. So, I'm somewhere in the advanced beginner range, still far off from understanding audiobooks or dramas, but I do know a lot of the basic grammar as well as some vocab and expressions...
ExpectationsI'm not expecting some magic pill that will make me understand all Chinese, of course. But then again if I invest some 200 hours (or more) into a study method, I'd expect to make significant progress with most methods. Whether LR would beat other methods in efficiency is something my experiment is unlikely to show (I think), but I think it can be a good indicator of whether or not it's efficient enough to be worth my time. So, expectations: If, after about 200 hours (~1300 chapters), I could stop LRing and just continue listening to the audiobook for the remaining ~400 chapters of the novel, I would consider the experiment a success. Staying within the realm of this novel, there will be a lot of repetition of vocabulary and even whole phrases, so if I learn something from LRing, this should naturally be possible. As for understanding other audiobooks, I think it would depend on the semantic similarity to TKA. I wouldn't expect to just be able to follow another audiobook after 200 hours, but who knows?
TL;DR:
Open-ended Listening-Reading experiment in an opaque language (Chinese)DLIFLC ODA pre-test listening: ILR 1 (comparable to CEFR A2)
Time frame: 20.12.2018 - tbd
Actual learning time: tbd
LR Material: The King's Avatar / 全职高手 (Runtime: >200h)
Learning method: Listen to the audio while reading along in English
DLIFLC ODA post-test listening: ???
Edit: Added evaluation information and summary.
