Chinese Studyblr + Study Productivity

My plan for improving Chinese this year is more by setting myself daily/weekly habits with my yearly goal in mind, instead of simply having a goal, I am going to attempt to dedicate a certain amount of time to each activity each day for a shrot period, which will accululate over the year instead of going hard and slow at points in the year.

1. Improve active vocabulary and comprehension

 - 30m translating EN>CN articles I find online (should I share my notion link with you guys?)

 - Reading books in Chinese (slowly)  (would you like to see my  to read list?)

2. Improve vocabulary

 - Anki 10m per day (3x per week, building a habit to 7x week)

3. Improve speaking

 - hanging with the roomie (who doesn’t speak English, bonus :)

 - Listening to Chinesepods in the morning

4. Improve listening

 - Listening to Chinesepods or YT 自媒体新闻 in the morning whilst doing make up (the first thing I do when i work up is urn this on, then my getting ready schedule takes about 30m, I squeeze in a good half hour of study right there... I highly reccomend this as first thing your brain is soo concentrated and easy to absorb info)

Non-language related learning goals

 - read books (listening to non-fiction audiobooks whilst walking ANYWHERE)

- study Chinese history (by listening to audiobooks whilst walking)

 - spend 1 hr in the morning on any learning project non language related (currently wanting to work on learning marketing/economics)

 - podcast news/politics listening (at the gym)

In all honestly this is not many, right?

To update you guys on me, I am currently doing an internship here in China, as well as some on the side tutoring and writing my paper. Hence my study time is non existent except for the above. It’s still possible to squeee in study

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Hi there, if you go to China then yes, otherwise its not so necessary. Names are usually comprised of three characters (sometimes two). Your last name is one character and first name two.

1. Based on your English (or wherever you are from) name, create a phonetically similar name. For example Anna becomes 安娜. Although with such a name its evidently a foreigner name, you might prefer a more authentic name (I know I certainly prefer my Chinese name now that if it was LU XIN DA  (my names Lucinda!)

2.  Find a name that uses the first syllable of your name. For example, my surname, first and middle name start with S, L and M respectively, thus my Chinese name uses characters who’s pinyin starts with the same sound. You can ask your friend to think of a name that sounds most contemporary and that suits your personality.

3. Ask your teacher or and online exchange partner friend to choose a name for you. Make sure to ask a Chinese native because only they have a ‘feel’ for what sounds weird and doesn’t. (have you ever met any Chinese person with an ‘odd’ sounding English name? Clearly a native didn’t give them that name but they looked it up online maybe.... to avoid the mistake in Chinese as a Chinese person you trust, haha! Ask them to suggest several names and pick which you prefer the sound of.

Overview:

This is a 自媒体 talk show about economy and politics. I really enjoy the format of the videos and Wong Kim speaks very clearly and methodically that his videos keep you interested.

Access the resource:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8UCbiPrm2zN9nZHKdTevZA

Whats good about it?

Updated twice daily, videos are 1 hour long, the news analysis section is about 30 minutes

Some videos include subtitles that you can select in either English or Chinese

The format of each video is the same, discussion of a topic and then an analysis of the news and then discussion with viewers at the end. Once you listen to a few videos you'll become familiar with the format

Keep up to date with current events as well as improving Chinese.

On a side note:

I know of a bilingual podcast, where an Australian speaks English and a Chinese speaks Chinese and have a conversation together, because its half in Chinese its easier to follow along. The link is below! Hope that helps :D

Overview:

Contemporary social topics such as smoking, travel

Free talk in a bilingual format to help with the beginner-intermediate transition

No longer updated

RSS feed

Overview:  This is a talk show that is no longer produced but talked about current topics, even touching on some politics in a casual, relaxed talk show in a free talk format

What good about it?

interesting topics, related to current affairs

free talk format

often in short 2-30 minute segments

Resource link: Go the YouTube channel here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbi-ZrTUyuReTqPpqVGJ8pg

working on a spring 2020 updated intermediate listening master post (primarily mid-upper-intermediate). please recommend me any listening resources you use as an intermediate I can check out to help create the list :D

STUDY “ODE TO JOY” WITH JEN WHO BREAKS DOWN EACH SENTENCE LINE BY LINE IN A QUICK AND EFFICIENT WAY TO HELP YOU LEARN CHINESE SPOKEN IN TV SHOWS, [NO INTERSPERSED BITS OF ENGLISH SPOKEN BY THE TEACHER OR TOO MUCH EXPLANATION OR ‘FLUFF’]

What’s good about this resource?

1. Very little English is spoken, as we all know intermediates looking step up to upper-intermediate want as little English as possible when learning.

2. Sentences are repeated several times both in the show and by Jen to help you hear clearly and remember

3. You can almost watch it like a TV show as it cuts each sentence and repeats several times but goes straight back to the TV show and plays the next sentence. There is little ‘fluff’ for example when the teacher says “XXX means YYY” and “if you want to say ZZZ you can say AAAA”. We don’t want this English interspersed in our learning!

4. there is a round up of important points and the end where the teacher speaks a little English and gives extra examples to help clarify new words. this is useful for bridging the intermediate gap or you could skip it because its the same content as the first part.

The full playlist is below:

1.       Find a language partner on Hellotalk/Tandem

Talk over the phone with your language partner, it may be daunting at first but stick with it and you will really see the benefits in terms of your every day speaking. It's free and you can make a new friend. If you are uncomfortable, try sending audio messages through the app and build the confidence to speak on the phone. It may be best to find a partner who is willing to do half the time entirely in chinese, half entirely in English, or you speak entirely in chinese, them entirely in English. If you have a partner who doesn't seem genuinely willing to help you speak Chinese and only wants to practice English, move on!

2.       Pay for 1-1 lessons on iTalki etc.

Over Hellotalk it may be difficult to make your teacher explain everything clearly and keep repeating certain things you missed because you may feel it's just for chatting. With a teacher they also have better experience teaching so you'll waste less time, they know what you are trying to say already (because teachers do have the magical power, they've seen hundreds of students before too)

I myself last semester hired a Chinese teacher and during our lessons I came prepared with all my questions and things I wanted to practice and the lesson must have been really boring for her, but I paid for lessons so I wanted to get the most benefit for myself, ha!

Additionally, if you have Wechat/Alipay you can find a teacher over Hellotalk and cut out the agent fee on apps like iTalki!

3.       Listen more! (and repeat the audio material out loud)

Listening to podcasts, especially situational ones, such as ChinesePod and CSLpod are the best for improving everyday speaking, you can get used to the rhythm and words used in everyday speech. You can also listen to bilibili or Youtube content creators who are speaking naturally to a camera. Listen more and you naturally can improve your speaking also. Haven't you ever met those English non-natives who have good accents and speak well, ask them why and they often say they watch a lot of American TV?

4.       Record yourself on your phone talking about a topic

Sometimes there are times when I want to learn about a topic but don't have a partner to discuss. It also gives you time to 'slow down' and really think about the words you want to say and how to get your point across because you are less nervous. For example, I am interested in politics and nutrition, but when talking with somebody the conversation may go into a different direction and I can't practice the words I wanted, I therefore occasionally record myself talking on a topic. It is also good to keep as a record of progress and to re-listen for your own mistakes, particularly in tones and grammar!

I made an account, not really sure what to put on there though! Anyone else using lofter?

Today I am going to show you how I use the toggle function in OneNote to hide/show notes to use as an active recall tool when learning/reviewing listening lessons. I don’t recommend it as a replacement for pleco/anki but it helps me keep vocab related to that particular lesson in a place where I can see it easily when I review.

As you can see I am studying a ChinesePod lesson (really recommend this platform btw, I will do a separate post on it soon!)

I have noted new vocabulary under the lesson. In OneNote simply hover to the left of the word and a small arrow appears, double click with your mouse and the text indented underneath with collapse.

You can then use this to hide the Chinese when reviewing vocabulary, forcing you to actively recall vocabulary.

Recently I have discovered a lower-intermediate appropriate podcast which introduces an expression in a 5-10 minute mini podcast.

Check out the Apple podcast link below!

I do feel it gets easier as you progress to memorise more characters. As a beginner i spent lots of time writing out characters. I still dedicate a lot of time to spaced repetition or vocabulary practice (using Anki or Pleco flashcards is best). If you are on the bus or have a spare few minutes here and there, play some flashcards on your phone and it can easily add up to 30m+ per day. 

Additionally, listening to podcasts and, TV shows can help reinforce vocabulary and help to discover new vocab. Often reviewing and re listening to podcasts you have already studied will help reinforce the new vocab you learnt from the podcast

Lastly, sometimes I come across vocabulary that all seem quite similar and I get confused which word to use when. For example, today I happened to have a little confusion about in what content I should use certain words related to ‘making promises’ as there is a few ways to say this in Chinese. For this I usually make a note in what a i call a ‘brain dump’ note section on my OneNote (Evernote or Notion would also work), and I set aside time to review this each week.

This is what I did today. I went onto Baidu Translate and looked up some example sentences to demonstrate the difference. 

As a beginner it takes a bit of time to become accustomed to be able to hear the difference in tones, yet alone pronounce them very correctly. By the time you get to intermediate you probably can hear the difference in tones but you may still have trouble pronouncing every single word correctly. However you most likely have a number of words that you have heard so often that you do pronounce correctly. For example 中国 zhong1 guo2, I bet most intermediates pronounce this is the correct tone as it is a word occurring so often that our brains automatically imitate pronunciations. However, when we encounter a new word we may have difficulty getting the tone just right, and then you need to remember it too.

I have two bits of advice that may help with this, that I myself am using to improve my tones over time:

 As soon as you learn a new word, repeat at least 10 times in the correct tone.

As I said when speaking Chinese, you are speaking at a speed that you don't have time to remember which tone the word is, you say it how you remember it. So when you learn a new word you want to try to cement the correct 'rhythm' (or tone) of the word in your head. If you remember the incorrect one it may be difficult to undo this. (i remember I pronounced 文化 as wen2 hua2 for the longest time and it was difficult to change this to wen2 hua4 in my head when i discovered i had been saying it all wrong!)

 Memorise a few 'tone pairs' to remember the 'rhythm' when you learn a new word.

Hacking Chinese ( https://www.hackingchinese.com/focusing-on-tone-pairs-to-improve-your-mandarin-pronunciation/ ) has a great article on tone pairs and it's merits. Recently when i learn a new word I recall the 'model' word that I have for that particular tone pair, say it a few times to remember the 'rhythm' of the word, the n say the new word I want to learn in that same rhythm, therefore it will help saying the word in the correct tone.

For example, lets say I learnt the new word  生活 sheng1 huo2, this has the same tone pair as 中国, therefore when i learn 生活 i can easily recall how 中国 is pronounced and imitate the same rythym when i said 生活. I created a table for myself with the tone pairs and so each time I encounter, for example any word that is first tone-second tone (such as 中国), then i can recall the rythym easily in my head.

This table has a list of words that I subconsciously pronounce with the correct tones as a result of hearing them so many times, there are however too many words that i don't pronounce in the correct tone, hence i use this method to help :P

(ignore my terrible handwriting!)

You may all know the TV series 非诚勿扰 but, whilst searching for some episodes of that show to watch whilst eating my dinner, I stumbled across this film. It was quite enjoyable and I think upper intermediate appropriate, there is nothing too specialized. You can watch the film below, unsubtitled. However if you are able to access Chinese media sites you can find subtitled versions.

#listeningresources #upperintermediate #film

If you don’t have anything to do on a Friday night, I recommend this film... happy weekend :)

非诚勿扰