Well, it's been a long while since I was here. Language learning has been a side activity for many months, but fortunately doing YoyoChinese has been perfect, as I've kept up with the daily schedule and here I am, just finished unit 3 and the half-way point of Intermediate Conversational Chinese. I can't say I've made substantial progress, although I do use and understand a certain amount of 'daily' Mandarin. The course does need a lot of reviews to master the material, which I don't do enough of.
It's summer, so more spare time. And I've decided to make a serious attempt at mastering the basics, which means complete my TY Complete Mandarin Chinese book. I have about 9 chapters outstanding of that, apart from reviewing the earlier parts. The motivation is that I'll regularly be interacting with mostly (or solely) Mandarin-speaking people for the foreseeable future, and I do want to be able to meaningfully interact. So, my natural laziness has to be overcome.
(Oh, I did earlier mention a visit by mother-in-law. Unfortunately, this has been postponed - some kid crashed into her while racing to school on his electric bike, and broke most of her ribs. Somehow, she survived, but summer plans are still a bit uncertain.)
Plan
The plan is four-fold, two learning activities and two demonstration activities:
- Finish Intermediate Conversational Chinese - along with sufficient reviews to have a good grasp of the material
- Finish TY Complete Mandarin Chinese
- Read the four Mandarin Companion books that I own (up to level 2, 450 characters)
- Externally validate progress by passing the sample HSK 3 tests on Mandarin Bean.