#april progress

https://www.youduzw.com/4/438/12771.html

The answer is yes. Yes I can read it in chinese.

A reminder that 1. Translated stuff really is easier to read sometimes (except for the English names they're awful in hanzi to figure out sometimes) 2. Stuff you've read before is easier to figure out 3. This book was not a complicated read lol - I only ran into like 4 words I didn't know and 3 were American locations I didn't know the chinese word for.

*This is a show that WAS recommended to me, if you want to watch a simple show for kids that’s easy to comprehend - 大头儿子和小头爸爸 (and it is cute, it reminds me a little of Arthur and shows I watched when I was little)  : https://youtu.be/bpO2W9Xaigc

Ok back to Peppa Pig discussion, of all things lol.

So on reddit, someone was discussing how they’d been studying chinese 8 months and still could not understand Peppa Pig. I found the discussion between everyone very interesting. All I really think on my end is like? I also could not understand Peppa Pig (or any shows super well) that early on so it is partly a matter of “you just gotta study chinese for a while.” (The reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/mk4665/fed_up_with_my_poor_chinese/ )

But also? I am a big believer in “it gets easier the more you practice.” So if you want to do something in a language, try to DO it. And try to keep doing it - because partly yes, you will likely realize you need to learn more words/grammar and the ‘doing’ may just be a catalyst to ‘make you study more’ so that next time you try to DO you know more and its easier. But also, doing it involves building the skills of getting USED to listening, used to recognizing words you studied in a different context, getting used to recognizing and understanding grammar in real time instead of on a delay (like in a textbook when you can slow down and really look at something and figure it out) etc. So partly, how ‘easy’ it is to read or listen has to just do with how often you’ve done it. Have you done it enough that the parts you HAVE studied you can grasp immediately? Or have you done it so little that even things you ‘studied’ don’t click right away - but they might on a rewatch or if you pause and read a subtitle slower, replay a line, etc. The part of the skills you pick up by DOING you really have to just... do to get better.

I found a few responses from people who are years into studying chinese and still find Peppa Pig difficult. And I think in that case, it might be the same situation as my japanese was (studied for 2 years and could still barely read a manga for bare gist). I think partly at that point, lack of understanding has to do with not practicing understanding by Doing. Someone who’s studied a couple years, likely knows a few thousands words+? If they practiced listening or reading regularly for a few months, they’d likely see a TON of improvement. Because they probably ‘learned’ a lot already they just need to develop stronger skills to comprehend what they studied when engaging with shows/audios/novels etc. And if they just ‘wait’ to engage with material until it feels ‘easy’ they may be unnecessarily holding themselves back. Because a major part of ‘why’ it might feel difficult is simply that they don’t practice the skills of USING what they learned. If they practice more, it will get easier. But if they wait to immerse until ‘easy stuff FEELS easy’ when they first try? Then they aren’t challenging themselves nearly as much as they can probably handle...

Like? I’m not that good. I still only kinda comprehend a LOT of things. But that doesn’t stop me from watching chinese dramas I wanna watch in chinese only. And I think a big reason I can comprehend ENOUGH now to follow the plots of shows I wanna watch? Is because when i was 8 months, 10 months, 12 months into learning - i would watch 12 minutes and look up lots of unknown words, or watch an episode and pause to read hard sentences, or make myself watch when i ‘just’ got the gist of an ‘easier’ show and hope that the more i did it the more i’d understand. And somehow, that did work out. (Also it motivated me to keep studying new words in other activities lol, hoping that would make watching easier). Now I’m at a point where i can turn on new shows I want to watch, and watch them, and follow the main gist and pick up some details. Its nice. Its nice and its getting a bit easier each time i do it. And if i had ‘waited’ until ‘easy stuff’ like Peppa Pig was easy? Or until stuff like “Granting You A Dreamlike Life” was easy? I probably would not comprehend this much right now. I tried to watch gyadl like 8 months in and it was pretty rough... even rougher because i only paused a handful of times an episode to make things go faster. But now? When i watch a show ‘about that hard’ that’s mostly slice of life? I can pick up a ton more easily than before. Doing the ‘hard’ thing eventually made it easier. 

So if there’s anything I think about all it, its just... don’t be afraid to challenge yourself sometimes. Sometimes doing hard things makes the ‘easier’ things finally Actually easier. And sometimes waiting until you can ‘understand’ the easy things means just never trying the easy things - when its trying and doing, that will eventually MAKE them doable for you. At least that’s advice to myself ToT I wasted a ton of time in japanese when I didn’t do this, and helped myself a lot in chinese by doing this. I also did it with french even though i wasn’t really aware what i was doing back then.

Some links:

Peppa Pig in mandarin (let me know how much YOU can follow an episode! - if you can... sit through one): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1dhSMSAXxI

Konglongmandarin - a site that teaches mandarin utilizing Peppa Pig episodes. Which, while I do not like that cartoon much, I really appreciate the concept behind this site and its lessons. And I think its a really cool way of making comprehensible input lessons (which I think are a quite easy and Direct way to teach things that click well with my learning style and probably some other peoples’). I am checking the site out currently: https://www.konglongmandarin.com/lessons/

AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER IN MANDARIN - its on WeTV! I didn’t know that! It’s all just free to watch so like?!! I guess I’m doing a rewatch! The downside is these have no subs. The upside is I guess it makes good listening practice since you can’t rely on reading skills. Also, if you’ve watched atla before like me, then you likely have enough context already you should be able to follow what’s going on and pick up some new words: https://v.qq.com/x/cover/m0t0ud0mjg6td5t/v00225ojbpd.html

Again 大头儿子和小头爸爸 - its a show that was recommended to me by a language partner, and its good if you want a show for kids to practice comprehensible input with (I find it a lot more nice to watch then peppa pig but that’s just my preference): https://youtu.be/bpO2W9Xaigc

This tool is useful for figuring out how difficult a text is compared to something else you’ve read, and it generates word lists! So you have something to study from (if you aren’t using Pleco, want like a Graded Reader experience with intensive reading word lists, etc). You can think of meanU as the “easiness rating” - the higher it is the easier the text is to read. 

**This list gets long below the cut, but will hopefully help serve as a reference. For a rough estimate I’d say anything from 1.9+ seems to be manageable for someone who knows HSK 4 words and is using a click-dictionary (like Pleco, Zhongwen Chrome Extension, Mandarinspot.com Annotator Bookmarklet, eReader dictionary, etc). Some ~1.9 ones are easier or harder depending on genre familiarity. For example I think 论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主 is extremely easy if you’re used to wuxia genre as its very simple for the genre, versus something like 魔道祖师, also if wuxia vocab isn’t an issue for you then priest novels like 天涯客 tend to be easier than 镇魂). For ease’s sake, ones 2+ seem to be the most ‘doable’ for actual extensive reading though. Again, this depends on which genres you’re more familiar with - but in general the ones scored 2+ below are novels I had more success reading without dictionary lookup in general. 

Anything marked *** I would recommend as ‘easier,’ and anything as ** I would recommend as possibly easier depending on your genre familiarity.

Update: I have gone through this list and now most text samples analyzed were generally between 1900-2100 words, so now the scores should be more comparable. While a 1.9 may or may not be easy based on your level, in general if something is scored lower it will still be harder and if scored higher will still be ‘easier’ than a 1.9. Your genre familiarity will also affect things. So when looking for “similar difficulty” material and “slightly” harder or easier, these scores should hopefully be a bit more useful now. 

* Unique unknown is the count of the Chinese words not in the public common word filter, nor in your user known word list * meanU is the average frequency of all words. Here, it is the average of the log(10) frequencies. It is a very rough measure of text difficulty. A value of ~1.9 is somewhat difficult, and ~2.6 is probably easier. (Ref: [http://www.soc.cornell.edu/hayes-lexical-analysis/])

First, novels I’ve heard recommended as ‘easier’ to read:

***小王子

Characters:3196 Word Count:2192 Unique Words:744 (33.9%) Unique unknown*:608 (81.7%) meanU(log10)*:2.004

**So it’s ease rating is 2, fairly easy! That makes sense, at least based on my experience reading it right now. 

***地图 by 倪匡

Characters:3005 Word Count:2094 Unique Words:681 (32.5%) Unique unknown*:551 (80.9%) meanU(log10)*:2.072

**This author was recommended as very approachable on chinese learning forums, sci-fi short stories (around 100 pages per story) for people who know HSK 4+. (Also again shout out to this text analyzer tool because the vocabulary lists it generates are super useful for looking through ahead of a reading to help prepare).

***他们的故事 by 一根黄瓜丝儿

Characters:3085 Word Count:2172 Unique Words:730 (33.6%) Unique unknown*:613 (84.0%) meanU(log10)*:2.008

**Score of 2 makes sense, it was the first webnovel I was able to read (with the help of Pleco Reader click-definitions). It’s definitely on the easier side. If there’s unknown words in this, a huge portion of them are very common daily life words or simple novel description words so they were worth learning for me. 

***论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主

Characters:2403 Word Count:1766 Unique Words:691 (39.1%) Unique unknown*:565 (81.8%) meanU(log10)*:1.962

**This is The Wrong Way To A Demon Sect Leader and I recommend it hands down as an intro wuxia or bl novel. The reading is actually fairly easy, and if its not then learning any of the words here are pretty basic wuxia genre words you will keep using. (Also its a great listening reading method novel to do since its audiobook matches perfectly to the text, and it’s english translation is pretty literal).

I think it’s just I have something to “latch” new words though. I really struggle when I have no cognates or associations I can make with new words (even in English when I learn new words). So like? Chinese gets nicer with time since the more Hanzi known the more eventually I have at least 1 association I can make to new words cause I hopefully know at least one Hanzi in it. Association can be anything: a radical is familiar, the sound is, I know the Hanzi in another word. In French it would be I know the word ending or it sounds similar to an English sound, then eventually similar to another French word ending I learned or French sound I learned etc. But French has a lot more cognates so there’s a lot more obvious material to latch onto.

So many Japanese words use the Hanzi differently, but just the fact they use them gives me something to “latch” onto so I can make an association and remember it easier. Like cooking in Japanese is 料理 - りょうり. 料理 Liao Li in chinese. As far as I know in chinese it’s more like manage/take care of. Material in? But just knowing those Hanzi already a little makes them easier to recognize as ok well maybe in Japanese they have to do with material - well cooking the materials into a meal? Bam ok easier to remember.

I am making up mnemonics to remember the tones. Since I know most of the meanings so far ToT. (Also?? If anyone’s ever had Tuttles Learn Chinese Characters book, it’s one of my favorites, has 800 common characters, and notably it’s mnemonics system included how to remember meaning and sound. It would make a story up involving a Hanzi meaning, then include a giant, fairy, teddy, dwarf, robot in the story and a sound word similar to the pinyin. They corresponded to level 1st tone, rising 2nd tone, 3rd tone, dropping 4th tone, and neutral tone. The system worked back when I used the book and I still remember it sometimes when I can’t get tones to stick - since after a while radicals became enough for me to remember meaning and sound usually except for the tone... anyway that book was really helpful).

I am practicing writing in hopes my memory sticks better regarding their radicals and recognizing Hanzi in reading...

I am gonna be going through many I still need to memorize tones and writing for before I actually run into the ones I don’t remember radicals for unless I’m looking at them.

I am thinking about how in chinese class way back in high school I wrote all the strokes odd cause left handers just kinda do that (mainly bottom to top) and how my chinese teacher never cared about stroke order he was just like ur left handed??? Mm??? Uh do it how it works then! And like unless I’m actually following stroke order consciously like I am rn I never naturally write this way so that’s fun training my hand to do it the opposite of usual -3- (tho to be fair back when I did Japanese I was strict on stroke order so with kanji and Hanzi the usual stroke order my hand usually will do nowadays on instinct)

Currently doing:

finish reading hanshe (currently doing, on chapter 52 out of 155 haha rip me)

finish reading guardian english translation (currently doing, also dang my reading speed got slow lately lol)

finish listening to chinese spoonfed audio (on like 12 or 15 out of like 39. i’d like to finish it so i can say i’ve done it, and at least have some exposure to everything it’s got to offer word/sentence wise once)

exercise 5 times a week. 50 crunches, 70 pushups, 15 minutes cardio at least. until the end of the month (i tried this last week then bam twisted my ankle lol - someone tried this to get fit and it worked and you know me i Love proving to myself if things work and i also Love simply things i can remember that are flexible. i have been switching between jogging or HIIT that’s mainly muscle building, depending on how i feel... gonna count it all as long as i do something consistently 5 times a week. maybe next month i’ll do that kpop dance challenge i found that looked cool but for now i just wanna do something i know i can stick to because its simple and flexible)

finish reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide (i almost forgot ToT but unless i’m giving up japanese again lol... well... we’ll see... either way i am in the process of doing this and there isn’t really a good stopping spot so i should just finish reading it)

Also just general watching chinese shows, reading chinese (so hanshe OR whatever i feel like). I’ve been pretty consistent about that and it helps even if i jump around to different materials so i don’t have to really list anything specific.

And for japanese? I would really like to try one of my games in japanese this summer but that is Highly dependent on how prepared i feel. i’d like to try maybe though, just because like... even if i never learn as much as i’d like, a big goal had always been just to play my favorite games the way they were originally written. if i can follow enough to just see a lets play and look up words i want to understand, follow the grammar, catch some line differences between the original and localization, i will already be so happy. even though more in depth understanding will be a long way away from now.

Going to do soon:

listen-read method guardian (because i literally have avenuex’s wonderful audiobook that PERFECTLY matches the webnovel chapters - i plan to listen-read with just the eng translation tho)

read guardian chinese print version (while i may push this off a while... it would be appropriate to read in august as an anniversary of watching guardian drama lol... i also kind of think the closer i do this to the listening-reading method, the more i will comprehend and easier it will be and more details i’ll get out of the sections that are unique to my print novel version... after hanshe i would love to put this as my actively-reading chinese novel)

read His Evening Star (<3 <3 asap! like as soon as Guardian eng translation read, i’m starting this)

read Silent Reading english translation

continue doing Nukemarines LLJ memrise decks (i made some progress, and wanted to go back after reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide... again IF i do this is highly relevant on if i can keep managing some time for japanese study we’ll SEE lol ;-;)

Going to do eventually...:

listen-read method Silent Reading (at least TRY, although i already know the chapters and audiobook-episodes do NOT end in the same place so like... its valid if i try and give up... I would just love to do this because i WANT to listen to the audiobook... and if its too annoying trying to sync audio to text when i know the audio varies off from the text half the time, then i might just try to listen to the audiobook ON its own)

listen to DeFrancis Chinese Readers Audio (i can look at the book, optional, if i’d like... i should USE the books since i bought them lol. Emphasis on trying to shadowing the dialogues because so much is basics i should be able to speak decently. I’m thinking this would be a good replacement for ‘background listening’ for when i finish chinese spoonfed audio. Also i really want to utilize these textbooks since i bought them ToT)

read 2ha

read Can Ci Pin!

read Tian Ya Ke (extensive reading like guardian, the eng translation then the chinese chapters... reading might go faster this way then with constant word lookup in Pleco, tho i can of course read in Pleco instead if I want)

read Qi Ye (same thing as above - read the eng translation, and then the chinese version either extensive or in Pleco with word lookup)

read yuwu

read the new priest novels E Danglars translated!

FINISH tamendegushi (the chinese novel i keep reading HALF of then giving up)

FINISH tamendegushi COMIC (i literally own the manhua print but when will i finish reading ToT)

Possibly Listen-Read to MoDaoZuShi, SVSSS (both have audiobooks now. A plus of mdzs is i have never read it so it would be a surprise. A plut of svsss is i’ve l-r method 8 chapters before and the audiobook matches VERY in line with the chapter endings so its super easy to follow along)

(with some major caveats: yes it looks odd, yes skip the intro and just tune out the parts about how ‘their method’ is great and others aren’t, and play the video at 1.5 playback speed or something Faster to make it a decent pace)

i watched 5 cure dolly videos and they were worth my time. while the train metaphor feels like just another way of making sense, i liked the comparison of ga to ‘it’ and how even in english we omit ‘it’ as children or speaking fast (my dad hates the word it he wished we were More explicit in english lol). i liked seeing the explanation of the ni particle, and how the verb or ‘is’ are one half of the core sentence and the ‘it’ is the other. 

also how objects of verbs aren’t the point OF a sentence (which idk maybe is confusing to me from an english perspective?). Like in: she eats fish - kanojo ga sakana o taberu. i’m used to seeing it as NEEDING she(subject)-eats(verb)-fish (object). But the point is like... the main idea expressed in the sentence was “she eats” - the ‘fish’ is just a detail DESCRIBING the specifics of eat. that helps me idk visualize how adjectives and objects in japanese work better? because i notice often these things go before verbs or subjects but i couldn’t figure out a way to reason out the position? (and in english im glad i don’t have to learn now cause i’d struggle with adjective positions in english i already did with french).

mainly though the VERB explanation. how ‘taberu’ is really the ‘not-past’ tense, often about the future, and how in english we use ‘eat’ and other non-past tense words. we say “When i go to grandma’s house, i eat cookies” and things like that all the time. And in present tense we sometimes say “i am eating cookies.” In japanese, the te form plus “iru” is like “ing” on verbs. they are “doing” activity right now. i have NEVER seen the te form explained this way (and also the first time i see a reason why existence verb iru is present in those situations). i could only ever understand te form + kudasai means “X please” (maybe like the verb ending ais in french?). So seeing this explanation on how te form can form the “am doing” of verbs really is helpful. I see it SO much in japanese and always kept reading it as “verb te form” plus “exists” and going “wait what exists is the whole thing just a big descriptor clause of something existing in a room? i dont get how it connects??? is a cat in the room idk?). Also the video covered da/ta form, as past tense, and again it helped so much to see how the forms relate. When i first ‘learned’ them we only learned some verb endings per time (so not as one full unit), and overall i was just quite confused on when it was ta/da form or actually a different conjugation thing altogether.