Not all those who wander are lost

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sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Sat Aug 06, 2022 11:44 pm

That's a money tree , I think. Our neighbors were moving out and left it near our door since they know we grow stuff.


I just wanted to drop a note about how much I am enjoying Chinese so far. I think I'm going to do Mandarin first, and I think I'm going to concentrate on the Spoonfed Chinese deck and another deck I modified from a shared Heisig deck.

I've got a lot to learn about China, bit I actually have a background on this from a living and traveling in Asia and Hawaii and California. I've had good Chinese friends for decades... Maybe I can make some more :D

I've got to figure out how to type in Chinese... I'm a long way from texting, but I hope that day will come. I've taken the first steps to get a tutor, but I'd like to know a little bit first..

I hope that international relations with China can calm down. We might be able to visit there next summer as part of a trip to the Philippines.

I'm starting working as a substitute teacher next week, and my main goal is to pay for some travel for the family next year. We'll see...
11 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

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rdearman
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby rdearman » Sun Aug 07, 2022 1:23 pm

sfuqua wrote:I've got to figure out how to type in Chinese... I'm a long way from texting, but I hope that day will come. I've taken the first steps to get a tutor, but I'd like to know a little bit first..

Strangely, it is probably easier to use your phone for Mandarin. You can install the Chinese keyboard from Google, and it uses Pinyin for typing. I found it a lot easier than after I'd installed a Chinese keyboard on my machine.
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User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
x 6299

Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Tue Aug 09, 2022 2:02 am

I'm still fascinated with my new toy, Mandarin. It is appealingly logical and also exotic, all at the same time. :D

Right now, I am plugging away at a Heisig character deck that I modified from a shared deck and both the traditional and simplified Spoonfed Chinese decks. It is probably madness to study both kinds of characters at the same time, especially for identical sentences, but I can't make up my mind about traditional and simplified characters. Since I am not in a big hurry about reading, perhaps I will just continue with both...
I've modified the Spoonfed deck to make it only comprehension. The front of the first card just has audio of the sentence, while the sister card only has the written form of the sentence with no audio on the front.
I'm going to run for a while without English->Chinese cards, since I think my first goal with Chinese should be to get more familiar with Chinese.
Of course, there are theoretical reasons why one might want to emphasise comprehension first.
Right now I am reading the Spoonfed sentences in Chinese by recognizing the length of the sentences and perhaps recognizing a character or two. If I fall apart on this, I will change them back to English->Chinese cards.
The Heisig deck seems shockingly easy. By providing a mnemonic for each character, it is pretty easy to remember their meanings. We'll see how this goes as I increase my number of cards. The Heisig deck also has a gif to show me how to write each character I learn. Right now I am "writing" them on my palm with my forefinger. Even this simple, half-baked practice of writing seems to help me remember the characters.

I'm still doing the Spanish deck that my wife is working on, and I am still working hard without learning much. But it is something to do with my wife.

My retirement looks like it will end on Thursday. I'll be back to work for a while as a substitute teacher. I have strange feelings about it. I've always considered myself to be on the lazy side. Even so, I am finding myself excited about getting back to work, to getting paid for my time.
This feeling will probably last until the first kid in my class will decide to try to drive me crazy. :shock:

This won't work; I already am crazy :lol:
9 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
x 6299

Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Wed Aug 10, 2022 3:48 am

OK, I backed off the Reading cards and replaced them with a translation card: English->Hanzi+Audio+Pinyin.

It's clear that I have to get hundreds if not thousands of cards into my head before Chinese will get easier.

I'm actually tempted just to slam my way through my Heisig deck, since it seems like the fastest way to get a bunch of characters into my head quickly.

I have my Heisig deck set up so that I type each character in as well as recognize it's meaning. There are several closely related ways of typing Chinese using pinyin and Zhuyin. You have to know what character you are trying to type of course, but what would you be doing typing if you didn't know what you were trying to type...?


I really need to stay in low gear and grind at this. Too many new cards would quickly lead to too many review cards.

I'm looking forward to sending my first text in Chinese, maybe this weekend. Maybe just a sentence or two to my daughter-in-law. I hope I can make sense. I'm not going to use Google Translate to write the message, and I'm going to type it myself... "Me Steve, you E." "I good." or something brilliant like that. I hope I don't frighten her. :D
3 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

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rdearman
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby rdearman » Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:23 am

For me it was easier to learn characters by writing them on a physical piece of paper with a pencil than using anki cards. Don't forget that you will also, if you ever need to write, know the stroke order of the Chinese character.
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User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:30 pm

I've got a .gif of the strokes for most of the characters, which should help me with this. I've been writing them with my forefinger into my palm.
I've decided to work more on the Heisig deck first, even though I still think that speaking should be my main goal. Many of the materials that seem like they would be good for teaching speaking, seem to assume a greater knowledge of reading than I have.

With the Heisig deck, it seems like it might be possible to get to a point where I could start to readi Chinese books in just a few months. This seems too good to be true.

In my life, I have learned that whenever something seems to be too good to be true, it usually isn't true. :lol:
3 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
x 6299

Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:55 pm

I usually don't talk that much about Tagalog, but I watch TV in it and speak it every day.

There have been some big developments in our watching over the past few weeks; Ang Probinsyano is coming to an end after 7 years on the air. I think they have completely run out of story ideas. I sort of lost interest; one episode last week Cardo, the main character, killed 63 people during the second half of the show. Don't worry; they were all bad guys. Last week, Cardo killed the guy who "slept with" his deceased wife. The guy who actually killed his wife got shot with a rocket. Later in the week, he tore into three pieces the guy who killed hist grandfather. He used trucks, not his bare hands. He ran over the pieces with his truck after the guy was torn apart. My wife cheered for this, and it reminds me that I can't let her get too angry with me. :?
I think the show has long since moved so far into unreality that shocking things seem normal. Sort of like the Itchy and Scratchie show on the Simpsons. :o
A relatively new show we have started recently is called A Family Affair which seems to be going through a fairly typical plot line of two brothers in love with the same girl, played by Ivana Alawi. The only thing unique about this show is that I believe that the show runner wants us to think that Ms Alawi's character is a very clean person. The first few episodes included long sequences of her in the shower, which I guess shows what good hygiene she has. I see trouble ahead. :lol:
5 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
x 6299

Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Sat Aug 13, 2022 4:48 am

Well, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Or so the author said. :D
I'm sort of that way about Chinese. I'm making steady progress, but it is starting to dawn on me what a huge project it will be.
There is a ton of material. There is a ton of good advice on this forum and around the web. Millions of people have been down this path before me, so there are a lot of opinions.
I am unworthy to have opinions at this point. :lol:
A few things I have learned so far:
1) Typing Chinese on a phone is easy, as long as you know Chinese.
2)Herisg's approach to character learning is too good to be true. There is no getting around the hard work needed.
3) Many of the anki shared decks for Chinese have serious problems, but many of them are pretty easily fixable. I think some of the wonderful people who prepared shared decks have a lot of problems with CSS and even HTML.
4) A lot of the people who review anki shared decks are very unfair to the decks. Many of them complain about things that are very easy to fix. I guess they are terrified to edit a deck.
5)The world needs a comprehensive free stroke-order font that will display properly on my phone. Maybe I need to learn a little more about CSS myself, but I can't make the font at https://rtega.be/chmn/index.php?subpage=68 display properly on my phone. It looks fine on my computer, but in ankidroid it blurs all the numbers for the stroke order, which is sort of the point for the font. I was trying to replace the little .gifs of the stroke order. I find them slow, and if you miss a stroke it is easy to have to wait 15 seconds to see the order a second time.
6) Even with my limited knowledge of characters, the stroke order seems to follow patterns that make the proper order for many unfamiliar characters pretty easy to figure out.
7) I need feedback from a native speaker (Monday) and a lot of work to make sure that my spoken Chinese is comprehensible. :(

Of course, I seem to be falling back on my favourite ways of studying. I like the look of Assimil, at least at the beginning. I suspect that the two volumes of Assimil Chinese will just be an introduction, but it looks like a good introduction. I'm going to start working through the pronunciation lessons at the beginning of the books tomorrow. I've been using FSI Mandarin while I'm riding in the car, and it has been helpful for getting a handle on the tones.

My anki decks look like they will take a long time to complete. Maybe in about 4 years I'll be through them.

I'll be teaching Physical Education on Monday, my first time with live students since the start of COVID. I was a science teacher, so I won't know what I'm doing, but such is a lot of a substitute teacher. :D
7 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...

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rdearman
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
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Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby rdearman » Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:27 am

There are rules for stroke order have you seen them?
1 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
sfuqua
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1642
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:05 am
Location: san jose, california
Languages: Bad English: native
Samoan: speak, but rusty
Tagalog: imperfect, but use all the time
Spanish: read
French: read some
Japanese: beginner, obsessively studying
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9248
x 6299

Re: Not all those who wander are lost

Postby sfuqua » Sat Aug 13, 2022 1:50 pm

I keep seeing the same pattern for the same shapes. Of course I am early in the Heisig/Richardson sequence, so they may have picked similar ones. Most of what I noticed is covered on this page, https://studycli.org/chinese-characters/chinese-stroke-order/
For instance, 四,口,日,田 all have box patterns which are drawn identically. 月 has the same pattern forming top of its box and the cross pieces fill in just like the bottom of the squares in the characters with complete box.

Years ago I had a friend, who seemed to speak pretty good Chinese, who claimed that he was crippled in his written Chinese because he made up his own stroke order when learning characters.
1 x
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天の川

the rough sea / stretching out towards Sado / the Milky Way
Basho[1689]

Sometimes Japanese is just too much...


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