Mandarin 2days, 2 weeks, 2months, 2 years

[rdearman]

Haven't posted in a long while. I've not had a lot of time to work on my language learning mostly because of the sheer amount of work in my new job. Also administration of this site is a bit more of a timesink than I'd anticipated, although the moderators do most of the heavy lifting. However I have managed to keep up the work with my ANKI decks and I've added a new deck based on the phrasebook I paid for and loaded into ANKI.

Between the phrasebook and the word of the day stuff in anki I'm becoming much better at listening comprehension and I'm learning a lot of words. Although I have the hanzi on the card as well, I'm not doing so good at character recognition so I need to get back to tracking out the characters as smallwhite recommend ages ago!

[rdearman]

I cannot help but feel my language learning has stalled completely. I've not really done anything for the last few weeks other than using anki to review cards, and even those are backlogged. In order to do something for French & Italian I have loaded a couple of subs2srs decks back into anki to review. This is Hero Corp & The Hobbit. I have used every opportunity to speak to native Mandarin speakers, but honestly there isn't that much chance for me to speak to natives. I was in Chinatown in London on Friday and managed some very brief exchanges, but my level is so poor that it quickly becomes evident and I am stuck.

I've a bit of a conundrum. Because what little time I have has been using anki with no other resources I'm slowly but surely losing my Italian & French, and I'm not gaining in Mandarin in exchange. I need to make a plan for getting back on top of this, but just can't whip up the enthusiasm. I find it interesting that people say "Speaking with natives really pumps me up to learn more." this has almost the exact opposite effect on me. I find it frustrating that I cannot hold a full conversation and just begin to wonder why I'm bothering.

Sorry about the moan, just writing down my frustrations. Any recommendations for getting somewhere with only about 3 lots of 15 minutes each day would be appreciated!

[smallwhite]

I would, first of all, drop Anki.

Anki is completely droppable. Firstly, because delays in doing reps are taken into consideration when calculating intervals. Secondly, because when you return to Anki later, you can adjust its settings so that getting a card wrong doesn't get penalised so much; instead of starting all over from an interval of 12 hours or 1 day or whatever it is, you can tweak it to start from the last interval instead, ie. to go back just 1 interval step. Thirdly, because when you return, you can pass a card even if you actually failed it (no one would know), and you can wait until the next rep to decide whether you really can or cannot answer the card. You can answer "Hard", tweak the settings before you answer, or create a re-revision deck to re-revise a few days after your return (ie. do your reps on Oct 1, then again on Oct 5). Fourthly, because Anki is just an estimate of when you will forget a word, not a guarantee. Yes, you have 100 words due, but that does not guarantee that you will definitely forget these 100 words if you didn't do your rep. You may and you may not forget them; no one knows. Simply believe that you won't. Fifthly, because Anki IS droppable, at least if it's just for a few months. When you do return, you will still remember a lot of what you had learned, and for those things you forget, they will be easy to re-learn. Pausing Anki is simply not a big deal.

And with the 3 lots of 15 minutes each day, I would do real revision instead. Like re-reading the textbook I had previously used, re-listening to mp3s I had previously studied, re-reading articles or books I had previously read. Nothing new, nothing beyond my current level.

Progress is good, but a solid A1~A2 foundation is good, too, and it often shows. If you don't have time to progress at the moment, then see it as a good opportunity to strengthen your foundation.

[rdearman]

I would, first of all, drop Anki.

Anki is completely droppable. Firstly, because delays in doing reps are taken into consideration when calculating intervals. Secondly, because when you return to Anki later, you can adjust its settings so that getting a card wrong doesn't get penalised so much; instead of starting all over from an interval of 12 hours or 1 day or whatever it is, you can tweak it to start from the last interval instead, ie. to go back just 1 interval step. Thirdly, because when you return, you can pass a card even if you actually failed it (no one would know), and you can wait until the next rep to decide whether you really can or cannot answer the card. You can answer "Hard", tweak the settings before you answer, or create a re-revision deck to re-revise a few days after your return (ie. do your reps on Oct 1, then again on Oct 5). Fourthly, because Anki is just an estimate of when you will forget a word, not a guarantee. Yes, you have 100 words due, but that does not guarantee that you will definitely forget these 100 words if you didn't do your rep. You may and you may not forget them; no one knows. Simply believe that you won't. Fifthly, because Anki IS droppable, at least if it's just for a few months. When you do return, you will still remember a lot of what you had learned, and for those things you forget, they will be easy to re-learn. Pausing Anki is simply not a big deal.

And with the 3 lots of 15 minutes each day, I would do real revision instead. Like re-reading the textbook I had previously used, re-listening to mp3s I had previously studied, re-reading articles or books I had previously read. Nothing new, nothing beyond my current level.

Progress is good, but a solid A1~A2 foundation is good, too, and it often shows. If you don't have time to progress at the moment, then see it as a good opportunity to strengthen your foundation.

That is good advice. The anki decks i don't need to drop since i only do that when i am walking the dog before going to work or standing in a queue for a sandwich at lunch. The vast majority of my cards are in Mandarin, so perhaps i will make it Mandarin only and save my limited time when i can sit down and read or study to get back on track.

I had a long think about you advice and your previous advice on the old forum regarding using a spreadsheet to revise vocabulary rather than anki. I think for French and Italian this would be better than anki, since i dont need sound or images for these two language. As you've said before this is a much more efficient way to review vocabulary and fits into the small chunks of time i have available.

I took a leaf from James29 and started listening to French radio on the way to work. Luckily i am close enough to the English Channel to get the broadcast in my car.

[rdearman]

WARNING! This post is boring!

I've been making slow and steady progress with my ANKI cards. I have re-loaded all the basic Hanzi cards and I've worked through almost all the backlog of cards I've had in Mandarin, French & Italian. The only remaining backloged deck is the Hanzi deck which has 300+ cards to review.

I've purchased a graded reader which was recommened by Aozu in his log. I purchased "The secret garden" in simplified mandarin. I've only managed the first two pages, and that was using the dictionary as a crutch heavily.

When I was in Singapore someone suggested a Chinese name for me 龙光蓝, others have commented and suggested I use: 光龍 or 蓝. She suggested it because I was born in the year of the dragon and my blue eyes. I wasn't really sure, but others have assured me it was a ligitimate suggestion and she wasn't just trying to get me to tell people my name was frog-face or something. However with typical indecision I've decided to wait before putting this on my signature, although I did memorise the pronounciation!

[Expugnator]

Sounds great, quite similar to the ones by Chinese Breeze. I am even tempted to buy the Kindle edition (if I am allowed to do so). "The Secret Garden" was one or the first movies I saw on the movie theater and I have good childhood memories of that.

[Arnaud]

deleted

[Aozu]

龍 / 龙 is an actual surname, way down at #85 on the list.

So it's got that going for it in the family name spot. I dunno how odd it is to have it in the personal name, but it can't be that strange: 李小龍.

[rdearman]

The kindle book in Mandarin is far to "fiddly" for me at the moment because I have to look up everything. However previously I'd established a LWT (Learning with Texts) website at home, and this weekend I uploaded my electronic copy of 1984 into it. Because LWT lets me look up the definitions for characters and tracks what I know and what I don't know, and has a nice method of dumping out anki cards, I decided I'd read 1984 first then go back to the kindle later. The theory here is by the time I complete 1984 then I should have enough characters in my brain to read more books.

For me LWT is more of an intensive reading thing and can be painfully slow to read things with it. However it does seem to work perfectly for this "ramping up" at the beginning stages. Certainly it worked well for me in French. I read a couple of books with LWT and used the generated flashcards. After two or three books I was good enough to work with the extensive reading program commonly called "The Super Challenge".

Obviously you need some e-books to read if you're going to use LWT, but I've never had a problem finding material at Gutenberg for any language I wanted to read in. There is some good book resources for Mandarin mentioned in this thread http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=999

I'm still working with my anki decks, the Chinese WOTD deck and the deck I made from the Beginners travel book mentioned in this thread http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1002

[rdearman]

And most importantly, try not to go crazy.

It might be a bit too late for that!