Listening and Understanding

I wish I could remember the point in my life when I heard "don't touch that" and knew what it meant because I knew what the words "don't" "touch" and "that" meant. Of course we know based on the corrective tone and fierce look in our parents eyes. But when do we "get it"?
It reminds me of the classic Far Side comic:


Brendan over at Peeling Mandarin and Edwin at Tower of Confusion have both mentioned this. During one of my Practice phone calls I told Vera that I struggle to understand what I'm hearing in the Podcast dialogs. When I hear or read the words out of context I understand most of them.

It all points to something Steve Kaufmann has said was essential: tons of time spent listening to the target language. I admit that I neglect this, much to my chagrin. I believe part of it is laziness (just being honest!). The other part of it is lack of comprehension. My brain just hears it all like the dog in Gary Larson's comic. Sure there are words I understand from time to time but the rest is meaningless. But what really gets me is that if I stop and see a transcript from a lesson I know some of the words I was unable to distinguish when I was listening.

Now that I've stated my delima, I'm hoping that some fellow language enthusiasts will post about their experience in regards to comprehending their new language.

Week One - Recap

The first week of ChinesePod Practice is complete. Five elementary lessons in five days. Five phone calls from China. Five days of anxiety, excitement, and amazement. Anxious because I never felt prepared enough. Excited because I finally had a chance to practice Chinese. Amazement because I remembered more after each ten minute phone call than I had after listening and studying some elementary lessons for hours!

Overall I would say it's been a great week.

I have a few observations from the first week.

The most beneficial part of the phone call (for me) is translating from English to Chinese. Vera will give me a sentence in English which I must translate. Typically half the words are from the lessons, the other half they assume you know. Some I do and some I don't. If I don't I just tell her I don't know it and she tells me. I then proceed to translate. It's like working out for the first time. You use muscles you didn't know you had. You strain to do the minimum repetitions. When you're done you're exhausted . The next time you work out that muscle it's still difficult but not quite as difficult.

My translation muscles are nearly non-existent. I have to work very hard to squeeze out the simplest of sentences. Sure, I can translate "hello" but "I study Chinese everyday" and I'm almost in tears. I know the words individually but putting them together into a coherent sentence is hard work.

There were a few times Vera had to correct my tones which is a relief. People tell me my pronunciation is good but it's not perfect. If she never corrected me I would be concerned.

I want to come up with some sort of review for the end of the week. I'm somewhat surprised CPod doesn't have anything like this already. I plan on reviewing all the lessons tomorrow and working on some more English to Chinese translations.

Oh No!

That's my new slogan for evenings Sunday through Thursday. I work a compressed work week (from 8-7, Monday - Thursday) and get my daily call from Vera at 8:10. There just doesn't seem to be enough time to spend with each lesson, to dig into it and internalize the language.

Stephen King said in "On Writing" that the late Kurt Vonnegut would work on one page until it was perfect. He didn't write a book and revise it. He wrote and revised all at once. He would apparently, if Mr. King is correct, throw entire pages away and start rewriting until the text was perfect.

My mind works this way too. It wants every pronunciation, ever possible shade of meaning, every tone just right before it moves on to the next word. Because there is a fear that if I let it go now it will never be right. Talk about maddening! One of the beauties for me working on the Practice plan is that I have no choice. I have a set of lessons in a set order and I have to go through them in that order. I don't have time to get every word and I don't have time to care if I get every word because once one lesson is done there's another. And another. And another. For 7 more weeks. The interesting thing (so far) is I believe my vocabulary is increasing. Not enough for my tastes but more than it did before.

I'll post a recap for the week on Friday or Saturday.

Lesson One

Last night I had my first Practice lesson with a ChinesePod counselor. How was it you ask?

In a word, excellent. For me, reviewing with someone who knows the language (or knows it far better than I) is critical.

After speaking with Aggie a couple of times I was concerned that whoever I got was not going to be as qualified. After all, Aggie was the great Frank Fredella’s counselor. Thankfully my fears were for nothing. My counselor, Vera, is terrific. Sympathetic, encouraging, and available for questions via email at any time!

To begin Vera had me read the dialog from the transcript for this lesson. She said my pronunciation was good. Next we reviewed critical vocab from the lesson. She would pick a word and ask me the meaning. Then the difficult part: translating English sentences into Chinese.

I seem to have great difficulty here. I know the words but putting them together to form sentences is a problem.

Here is an example from last night.

Translate “I want dinner first’.

In my mind I have 我 “wo3”, 先 “xian1”, and 想 “xiang3”.

Dinner is a bit tricky. I’m thinking 吃 “chi1” but not sure if this is correct and not sure what should follow it. Should it be 饭 “fan4” or should it be something completely different?

I’m lost.

Then there is the word order. Is it 我先想 or 先我想

So the combination of not knowing the order or the correct word was stressful.

After some struggling and help from Vera I got 我先想吃饭.

This continued for several minutes with different key words from the lesson. Then the call was over. I walked away from the call with my mind racing, thinking over everything I said and what she asked me to review for tomorrow.

Overall I was very impressed. My only concern would be over the tones. For instance one of the phrases Vera asked for was “wash hands”. I knew hand was? “shou”.

What I could not remember was the tone. I said it with the first tone but was doubtful. Later I checked and it should have been the third tone. Vera didn’t correct me I assume, because of the phone connection. There were a few moments when she started to cut out so maybe she didn’t catch it. Or maybe she’ll mention it today. I don’t know. But I want to be sure I get them right. I’ll keep my proverbial eye on it.

I don’t intend on posting about every single lesson, but I’ll be posting as much as I can over the next couple of months. Hopefully I’ll get some more chances to use the language too!

The Final Countdown

I couldn't help myself with the title, especially being a big fan of "Arrested Development".

Anyway, I got the assessment call from Aggie on Friday. And, and...

I'm at an Elementary level!

I was in shock, and somewhat horrified because she said they would assign 40 Elementary level lessons to me over the next 8 weeks. My comprehension of Chinese grammar is weak so I'm hoping this will help.

What I found interesting is a conversation I had with a friend this weekend about learning. He said that to become better at something required you to practice AND to push yourself beyond what you are able to do. So if you're listening to Newbie lessons and can breeze through them the push yourself and start working on Elementary. I'm preaching to myself here I know.

For some reason this seems more terrifying than when I originally signed up for Chinese classes in the first place. Maybe it's because I have some idea of what I'm in for now?

Aggie was terrific and very encouraging during our phone call. To assess my "level" she read a number of sentences and asked me to tell her the meaning in English. When we were done I got the results. She also said (as some others have) that my pronunciation was good. A little encouragement can do wonders to your enthusiasm and willingness to keep going.

Time to study. I get my first phone call in 3 hours.

再见，，
j

Newbie Comics 2

From the lesson "I'm Not Hungry".

The Countdown

I received my first phone call from Aggie at ChinesePod last night. After a week or so of emailing back and forth and missing the first call due to a misunderstanding of the time/date difference we finally connected.

The introductory call was an explanation of what will happen during the next 8 weeks. For those who have not read about it on the CPod site participants in the 8 week program receive an introductory evaluation of their abilities. The counselor then picks 40 lessons to be covered over the 8 weeks. Each day (Sunday-Thursday, or Monday-Friday Shanghai time) I will receive a call from the counselor to review that days lesson.

I hope this reinforces each lesson and will write it to my long term memory. Getting it in the short term is "meiwenti". Retention and the ability to use it are difficult for me though.

I plan on posting updates on the blog more often than I have been. Really, I do.

Chinese Comics for Newbies

I spend a little bit of time reviewing characters at work. I thought it would be so much easier if there was some context for them, incorporating some visual aid. Comics are great at that and my dad is an artist/illustrator and that was it.

Here is the result. I hope there will be more but he's a busy guy so it depends on his availability.
The dialog was taken from this lesson.

Hope you enjoy!

The End of the Beginning

Saturday was my last class session. I'm really going to miss the group.


From Left to Right: Bridgitt, Kai (laoshi), me, Elizabeth, Eric, Fred, Johnny, and Michael.

I've been meeting with some incarnation of this group for the last 45 weeks! Bridgitt and I were there from the beginning. I think this group will continue to meet sans Elizabeth and myself. I hope to see them on Saturdays at a local Chinese restaurant (hint, hint!) or the Chinese mall in Atlanta.

For the next couple of months I'm going to try out the 8 week program offered by ChinesePod. I've mentioned in previous posts that I was interested in this but didn't think it was going to be possible. Recently I received an email from Eileen at CPod with an offer to try it out (yes, I still have to pay!)

I hope to be reporting on my progress in the near future.

Honestly I haven't been spending too much time with the language lately. I've been entirely too occupied with this. I thought about posting a screen shot of how much time I've spent on it but I would have to hang my head in shame. I'm almost done with it so that won't be an obstacle after next week. Hehe...

Enough for now. I just hope I haven't forgotten too much.

PS: For all of those who have posted comments I promise to respond at a later date. So sorry...

Long Overdue

Well, it's been some time since I've been back here. Not intentional mind you, just 很忙。 I've been promoted at work (yea!) after a month of semi-intense training. On top of that we've just been exceptionally busy (people leaving, people getting hired, lots of calls) which has left little time at work to study. Sounds crazy but I have been able to learn so much while there. In between calls and waiting on hold are great times for me. The last month or so they have been few and far between.

Thanks to the change in weather though I've been able to get out at lunch and walk the parking lot, listen to CPod and mumble to myself while sneaking glances to make sure no one heard me. Can you image what it must sound like to someone walking by to hear "you kong de shi hou" and "wo jue de"!

I'll have some news about class in a few weeks but nothing at the moment. We have had great classes the last two weeks though. The Saturday before last we had a visitor from China (who I hope to spend more time with soon) and this week a 美国人 who speaks exceptional (he took exception to the term fluent so I'll say exceptional) Chinese. He speaks a number of other languages too so I'm not too surprised, and he is currently learning Korean.

Enough for now. Past time for bed.
Later...

What Helps 我

The first year of my 中文 quest is coming to a close. As a result of this, my previous post, and continued discussion on the CPod Blog, I've nailed down a few things that I find essential for my learning experience in no particular order.

1. Dynamic Input- This has taken two forms for me. Classroom experience and ChinesePod podcasts. I have six discs of audio to accompany two textbooks, a brief audio course I downloaded from Audible, and other miscellaneous resources. I will add Chinese films but these have not helped me learn any new words, rather they have enforced what I have already learned.

2. Speaking-I didn't know how much this helped until I stopped doing it for a couple of weeks. I need to repeat back what I've learned the way an actor rehearses lines. I don't know if this would be as important if I were learning a non-tonal language. Since the tones are important it helps me to practice them. Initially in isolation and now in sentences.

3. Reading-Initially this meant 拼音 and only 拼音。Now it means 汉字。In the grand scale of things I know this is for the best. But the reason I started paying attention to 汉字 is they are so damn interesting. Sure they may seem to be endless and impossible to distinguish, but now they are like little mysteries to be discovered.

4. Time-I can’t take it for granted. It takes time and lots of it to learn any language or accomplish any great task. I hope I’m not accused of claiming learning Chinese is a task I will ever complete because I don’t believe that. However I do believe there comes a time when I could become proficient enough to have a basic conversation with a child and if I continue a basic conversation with an adult, etc.

5. Determination- Will power, effort, whatever you want to call it. The things I love the most in life require a certain measure of effort. Learning Chinese will no doubt be in the top five of difficult tasks. And that’s OK.

I’ll be changing direction a bit in the coming months and look forward to seeing the outcome. For one I’m looking into the Octagon, a program that ChinesePod is promoting. Eight weeks of lessons with a ten minute call each day from a native speaker. Author Frank Fredella was the guinea pig for the program and saw definite results. I mentioned Chinese language boot camp and that it might be useful. This is as close to it as I can get and since there is a time frame (as opposed to an open ended God only knows when it’s going to end scenario) I’m interested. It’s not cheap though and it’s tax time. And I’m not getting a refund (insert tears).
So if it’s still going in a few months I’ll probably sign up.

Enough for now. Gotta get to bed soon. Class tomorrow morning.

Language Debate

Last week I was reading about Steve Kaufmann, a gentleman who has learned 9 languages over the years. His approach focuses on massive amounts of input in the target language. From what I've read he does not promote pressuring a new learning to use the language until the person has heard enough to produce the language naturally. I suppose this is like taking in so much that at a certain point you just have to let it out.

I haven't read enough to have more details that that. There was quite a post going on over at the CPod blog about him though the day after I started reading about Steve. Wow, what timing! I guess the one thing I've taken away from all of it is the desire to hear more and more Mandarin. I suppose there's some note of progress from listening to all those classes, CPod podcasts, and Mainland Chinese films (Zhang Yimou- the man!). Jenn and I were watching "Infernal Affairs 3". Part of the plot involves a Hong Kong triad leader linking up with a corrupt arms dealer from Mainland China. I was shocked to discover I could tell the difference between the Cantonese dialogue and the little bits of 普通话 (putonghua) dialogue.

Ken Carroll has mentioned total physical response (TPR) in language learning but I am having a hard time finding any material at my beginner level. There have been a couple of CPod podcasts that involve listening to the lesson and following the directions on a map. I'm interested in finding some good children's DVDs. I came across "Muzzy" which sounds promising but terribly expensive. The one justification I could have for that is when we have our own child we will already have something for her to watch. The most intriguing aspect of the videos is, from what I can tell, they are completely in the target language. I also found some children's DVD's at a store in Chinatown in Atlanta, Ga. 6 DVD set for $13.95. Even if they are terrible it may be worth it at that price.

But the reason we went there in the first place was to find some children's books with no English and limited 汉字 (Hanzi). Believe it or not I couldn't find anything that was exactly what I wanted. I might have to make my own.

In the mean time I am listening the Newbie lessons from ChinesePod and digging into the premium content (especially the expansion sentences). I'm also taking some of the pressure off internally, just not worrying so much and enjoying the ride. Having started learning 汉字 has added a new dimension that keeps the experience fresh and exciting.

FSI-RIP

I quit the FSI course. I might come back to it later. I did learn quite well about asking where someone is from and what their name is.

I'm back to CPod again. Having used bittorrent to download all the lessons and getting then organized into levels (so I don't have to right click, save as, etc on each lesson) makes it much easier to choose the lessons and put them on this.

After spending more time with the podcasts and especially the Premium features I have finally put my finger on why I don't like the other materials I've come across. There is simply too much there.

I have a short attention span. I need information, of nearly any kind, in small chunks. I go to class for 2 hours a week but I know going in that I will only retain a portion of what I heard. That's why I take as many notes as I can and record the class on this. I can always go back and dig in later without worrying about what I might have missed. With ChinesePod I know I'm getting portions appropriate to my learning ability and level of proficiency. The podcasts are interesting. I actually enjoy them. I cannot say that much about the discs that came with either of our text books. They are not overwhelming. Though we are spending 2-3 weeks on a chapter with 40-50 new words, it seems like too much. If they gave you 10 new words here, then a few pages over another 10-15 words, etc, I would enjoy it more.

I'm almost disgusted with myself, I sound like an advertisement but I swear I'm receiving nothing (other than what any other Premium subscriber gets) from CPod.

I'm going back to early lessons and the premium features are somewhat lacking. I'm looking forward to getting to the lessons which included additional sentences that you can click on for expansion. You can click to your hearts desire. I've noticed I will repeat sentences after the reader, working out the tones and repeating them back. It's helped a lot. I liken it to acting, imitating what someone else is saying.

Ultimately I've found that the material I've worked with and enjoyed from ChinesePod has stuck with me the best. Even the non-language stuff like Jenny talking about dressing her mother in leopard print from this lesson.

Just some observations to note at this point. More on characters another time.

Time

So little time lately. Very frustrating. 我 很 忙 with work this last month. I've been so focused on it that my study time has suffered. I feel like I'm falling WAY behind (mentally anyway).
The toughest part will be over this Thursday after I've given my presentation to management. I'll be able to breath a bit easier.

In the mean time, I've gone through the first FSI module on introductions and places. The repetition has helped a lot though the material seems a bit dated. When I asked Kai if they still use 同志 (tong2zhi4) = comrade he said only for officials and official documents. If it ever comes into vogue I'll be ahead of the curve!

I spent about 30 minutes going through lesson 9 last night in our textbook and was having a hard time with it. Maybe I'm spoiled with ChinesePod. Somehow the lessons along with Ken and Jenny's comments bring it alive for me and I retain much better. I've got the discs that come with the text and they help a little. And I mean a little. It's so frustrating wondering if I would be learning more in a different context but there's no way to know. Sorry to be venting!

On a final note I think the community of non native Chinese learners should put together a list of movies that are good for beginners. That there are words and phrases that a beginner is able to understand. "Not One Less" comes to mind. I watched "Riding Alone for 1000's of Miles" for the second time this weekend and loved it. It is interesting from a linguistic point of view because of the inability of the main character who is Japanese to understand all those around him who are speaking 中文。 The dialogue was a bit too fast for me to understand much though. I saw a preview for "Saving Face" and understood a little of the dialogue.

再见
j

星期六 二月三号

大家好，

We have officially started Chinese 201. Classes are for 10 weeks, 2 hours a week. Myself and a handful of others have continued through 101-103 and chosen to stick with it. I don't know enough about the stats for the school but it seems that many people lose interest before they get to the point we are at. I've enjoyed getting to know fellow travelers who are on the same quest.

This week we were joined by two gentlemen who are interested in the class. It's interesting to see what new people will add to the experience. Last semester we had a Korean 小姐 who was very bold and was not afraid to speak up in class. It was great! It certainly helped me speak up. She now teaches a Korean class at the same time so she is not able to join us any longer.

We reviewed the first half of Lesson 九 and added a few vocab to the previously assigned list:

东西 dong1xi = things, objects
要 yao4 = to want to, to have a desire for
钱 qian2 = money
多少 duo1shao = how much, how many
百 bai3 = 100

We discussed the differences between 想 xiang3 = (to like, a personal wish, also meaning to miss someone) and 喜欢 xi3huan1 = (to like), and 要 yao4 = (to want) and 需要 xu1yao4 = (want, in the sense of needing something).

I noted that 想 was somewhere between 要 and 喜欢.

Earlier in the week I asked Kai to bring in his brush and ink to write some characters on a thank you cards we are sending to the adoption agency we are working with. Once he was done with the cards he asked if I would like my name written out, which of course I did. As always I was amazed at the beauty of the characters and mesmerized watching him write. Here is a scan of my name: