Sunday, January 7

Note to Self - 1

汉字 "hanzi" study for most of the week. Class on 星期六 was a reminder of how important it is to spend copious amounts of time listening to the language. When instructor Kai begins speaking in Mandarin, even sentences we have reviewed many times over, I am lost. I have to ask him (several times) what he is saying. As the words are repeated and slowed down my mind pieces it together and I understand what he is saying. It's so embarrassing!

The flip side of course is that it keeps my learning in perspective. I find it easy to become excited about how much I seem to be learning only to forget how much I don't know.

I'm considering an MP3 structured course for a while, forcing myself through some program. I found an interesting post on the CPod blog which in turn led to a link to the Foreign Service Institute's MP3's of old cassettes that someone digitized. I'm listening now as I write this. I would love to try the Rosetta Stone course but don't have the cash to fork over for it now. I understand it's total immersion which I find fascinating. I would love to hear any feedback about that course (or any of the other standard courses available).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

man i think your getting yourself into a trap - if you keep looking for more and more sources to learn the language - the sources you have allready won't be used properly,

you'll confuse yourself!

Be careful here -

could your mind be playing tricks on you? Like instead of getting down to the nity gritty your still seeking for methods to learn the language = in essence, putting a barrier in the way (before you Begin learning 中文 )


e.g. once this is sorted out...then i will be fluent


?