Zomxilla's Log 2018 (廣東話 － Cantonese)

[Zomxilla]

Summary of the last few days:

Cantonese:

• 4 more Memrise levels (+28 new vocab)
• Anki flashcards in my spare time
• Two episodes of 金枝慾孽
• A few more chapters of Complete Cantonese
• Listening practice with family

Japanese:

• Duolingo - a few more levels
• Ditched Duolingo for LingoDeer. Completed Introduction and Nationality

[smallwhite]

He gets frustrated with my pronunciation and tires easily correcting me or teaching so...

Chances are he'll be more frustrated and tired if you talked like that podcast. Up to you, of course; just sad for me to see.

[Zomxilla]

He gets frustrated with my pronunciation and tires easily correcting me or teaching so...

Chances are he'll be more frustrated and tired if you talked like that podcast. Up to you, of course; just sad for me to see.

Don't worry, I'm not listening to it for the pronunciation - more for useful vocabulary, if that makes sense? I'll pick up a word, add it to my Anki deck (with a different, more accurate soundbyte) and practice from there. The podcast also takes place outside of their studio, where you can listen to common situations like going for 飲茶 or grocery shopping - in these contexts you can hear native speakers talking.

[Zomxilla]

Today's efforts (a sick day, so somewhat productive):

Cantonese:

• Memrise review
• Tried out Pimsleur, lesson 1
• Finished reading Complete Cantonese, chapter 4
• Watched some Peppa Pig in Cantonese??
• Episode 4 of 金枝慾孽

Japanese

• Lingodeer - finished Gender section plus review

My approach to the Complete Cantonese book is to first read through it, then go back and work on the exercises and read through it again. I don't mind that it's not as efficient, I just enjoy reading the book.

The Pimsleur is interesting. I like the encouragement to repeat aloud, though without feedback I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right.

[Zomxilla]

Relatively productive day. I'm slowly refining how I keep up my learning but again not too worried about the process. I'll get there.

Cantonese:

• Memrise review
• Level 33 + 34 - 15 new words
• Chapter one of Complete Cantonese including exercises

Japanese:

• LingoDeer review
• LingoDeer "Questions" level

I decided to go back to the beginning of the Complete Cantonese book and make sure to complete the exercises and note down the vocabulary into my Anki deck. The exercises ask for the answers in Jyutping but I found it more helpful to use written Chinese. The only thing I worry about is the spoken vs written characters - for now I'm not worrying about it. If I learn to read a character that's normally spoken only, it's not a big deal.

[Zomxilla]

With the assistance of a new bullet journal, I'm able to organise my language goals a little easier. I also note down the vocabulary I learn, and it's where I do my exercises for the Complete Cantonese book.

18.5, Friday

Cantonese:

• Memrise (review)
• 3 more episodes of 金枝慾孽 (it's getting juicy)
• Complete Cantonese chapter 2

Japanese - just LingoDeer review.

Tracking my vocabulary is a little difficult. It's easy to count it on Memrise, but my Anki deck is missing some of those, and also has extra words and phrases. So at this point I have no real idea of how many words I actually know, making my monthly goal of around 200 new words hard to track. Oh well!

I also went for dinner with my boyfriend's mum, and had some very frustrating pronunciation lessons. The kind where you feel like you're saying the same thing over and over, and you get it right sometimes, but wrong most of the time. I'll just keep trucking on.

I also remembered that the last time I was in Japan I bought a Beatrix Potter book in Japanese. I think a good goal for my trip in November would be to be able to read it aloud.

[Zomxilla]

The last couple of days have been along a similar vein: Memrise, Anki, and another Complete Cantonese chapter. I ordered the physical book from the library which I'll go and pick up today. I'm not sure if it has the audio with it but the kindle version I have lacks it. I've been writing the dialogue and exercises in Chinese characters instead of Jyutping - it's helping my writing a lot.

Japanese - just more LingoDeer. I feel I'll get quite far just working slowly through that.

[Zomxilla]

A belated update!

I got the Complete Cantonese (Beginner to Intermediate) course book from the library. It came with the audio CD, so I've been able to listen and repeat the sounds. It also appears to have a lot more information than the kindle version. I think I'll keep this for as long as I can, and maybe buy it one day. It says by the end you'll be able to speak at a B1 level. I hope that's the case, I love quantifiable measures of progress.

The only thing is the dialogues (at least the first one) are spoken very slowly. The FSI course plays the dialogues somewhat closer to native speed.

I feel like my comprehension is improving slowly. Learning vocabulary through memrise, then having it reinforced in conversation really helps.

For Japanese I'm continuing on with LingoDeer. My pace has slowed a bit as I tend to review more than jump to new lessons, just to make sure I have the concepts down.

[Zomxilla]

My books arrived!

I have here Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (traditional characters) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (simplified - my mistake). Underneath that I have Reading and Writing Chinese and Basic Cantonese.

Basic Chinese, the workbook, uses romanisation only (no characters) so I'll probably get in there with a pencil and mark them all in.

I'm not sure yet what my plan with the Harry Potter books will be yet. Probably work through it sentence by sentence, and make a page goal for each week. I know the story so well I could probably derive a lot of it, but my vocabulary and grammar is still pretty lacking (I know only around 300 characters so far).

I'm excited my language book collection is growing!

[zKing]

Basic Chinese, the workbook, uses romanisation only (no characters) so I'll probably get in there with a pencil and mark them all in.

This is probably too late to be helpful to you, but the new 2nd edition has the characters:
https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Cantonese-Grammar-Workbook-Workbooks/dp/0415815592/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1527809144&sr=1-1&keywords=Basic+Cantonese%3A+A+Grammar+and+Workbook+%28Grammar+Workbooks%29

I re-bought both the Basic and Intermediate books, in 2nd edition on the Kindle just so I could have characters and have them on my phone.