64天00小時18分鐘31秒鐘

Tweet

    『膠片很快沖出來了，他開始檢視哪張值得放大洗成照片，在第一張就發現了一件離奇的事。這張拍的是一個大商場外的一小片草地，他看到底片正中有一行白色的東西，細看是一排數字：1200:00:00。
        第二張底片上也有數字：1199:49:33。
        整捲膠片，每張底片上都有小小的一排數字！』－《三體》

Seeing the "Completed Draft of M.A. Thesis" countdown clock go live on my blog, I was instantly reminded of 汪淼's first discovery of the countdown timer in the Chinese sci-fi epic 《三體》, which is where the quote from above appears from. Although, unlike 汪淼 I know exactly what my countdown timer is counting down to-- April 17th, 2014, my self-imposed deadline for for a printable 草稿 of my graduate thesis. 

Due Date: April 17th, 2014

Why the 17th of April, one might ask? Aside from being the day Pui (my 未婚妻) is flying into MKE to spend some time with me, it's also a week before I step onto a plane for Taipei, and the day my parents get home from their vacation to Florida. In the days after this due-date I plan to:

• Find a place to live for three years 
• Buy a Subaru Outback Sport 
• Drive said car across the country to Fremont, CA
• Finish all wedding planning
• Head to Taiwan on April 28th and live there for two months while fixing all the terrible mistakes I've made in my draft and preparing for my oral defense, while trying to 寰島 on my bike and party like a rockstar!

This is all so that I can defend my thesis in June and make final revisions (while still in Taiwan) before getting married on July 12th, and (hopefully) returning to UW-Milwaukee to continue teaching in it's Chinese Department as a Lecturer of Chinese. 

While I could probably delay and finish the thesis after the wedding (which might allow me to age with slightly more grace and less gray hairs) Pui made it very clear to me in San Francisco last week that, and I quote: 

"If you don't finish the thesis before we get married, I (Pui) am going to be very mad  at you..." -Pui L. 

Considering the fact that she still hasn't let me live down ordering my own beer from Sushi Express and not asking if she wanted one too, I'm guessing I don't want to find out what "mad" means in this instance... would there even be a wedding? 

Oh... did I mention... the thesis needs to be written in Chinese!

"So... how's your thesis coming?"

Pui and my mom seem to have a knack for asking this question on all the days I never have anything to report. Which is probably because I put off the writing for just about anything else that I could be doing. I could chalk it up to being afraid of failure, or fear of the unknown or something like that, but for now... let's just say that I'm being lazy, and some days I just don't feel like writing. With that being said, it isn't like I'm starting my thesis today from scratch. Here's what I've currently accomplished:

• A workable 6 page Introduction Section (第一章：緒論)
• 10+ pages for the Lit. Review (第二章：文獻探討）
• Raw Data that has been crunched and partially interpreted (pending changes)
• 45 slide PPT presentation of my M.A. research, presented at ACTFL in 2013
• 168 peer-reviewed papers that have been catalogued, ranked based on relevance to my own thesis, with notes included on those with relevance of 7/10 or higher
• Other stuff that makes me sound like I have more pages written than I actually do... 

I'm writing all of this on my blog not to brag, but to get my 屁股 back in gear on finishing this thing. Months have past, and while I've made progress, I still have a long way to go. Rather than keep my writing process locked away I've decide to make the entire thing public and open to any one who's interested in following my goal to the end. 

What will be public?

Everything! Eventually. Every missed character, every bad grammar pattern, every day of agony as I punch the space bar and delete key back and forth, trying to thing of something "smart" to say on the page (I'm doing it right now). The plan is to put links to a Google Drive folder, so that people can see what I'm working on, and maybe give me their thoughts, impressions, ideas etc. I'll try and keep my blog updated as well with the project. I don't want to spend too much time re-capping a given day. What can't be said in less than 25 minutes a day will be ignored on the blog for the most part. 

Tomorrow I'll be organizing my notes and data, but hopefully I'll have time to knock out a page or two about cognition and the theory of cognitive development as it pertains to non-native Chinese vs. Chinese speakers. I also want to create a spreadsheet that tracks some of my data, and displays it like a video game, because I think it would motive me to work harder.

Stay tuned for lots more in the days and weeks to come!

Translation Practice 2.0

Tweet My mini translation challenge continues this week with another post from Seth's Blog. I ran into some issues with this one, and ended up putting my work on Lang-8 to be checked by a native speaker. My biggest issue was whether to add a subject to the sentence or not, or when to add "mistake," since Chinese is a pro-drop language.

I wrote the post in simplified Chinese, since most Lang-8 users are from Mainland China.

Here is my original work, as you can see there are parts that were unclear to me:

两种错误
Two kinds of mistakes

一种错误是过分的防守现状, 投资太多的时间与力量放在保持目前的状况。
There is the mistake of overdoing the defense of the status quo, the error of investing too much time and energy in keep things as they are.

 
另外一种产生于创造（这里需要主题吗？）未来，就是小小的研究变坏了。
And then there is the mistake made while inventing the future, the error of small experiments gone bad.

第二种错误很少害我们受伤，但我们还是依旧的持续做第一种。（需要加错误吗？）
We are almost never hurt by the second kind of mistake and yet we persist in making the first kind, again and again.

Here is the Lang-8 user corrected version:

两种错误

一种错误是过分的防守现状，错误地投资太多的时间与力量来维持目前地状况。

另外一种错误在创造未来的时候产生了，即使再小的实验也会因为一个错误而失败。

第二种错误很少让我们受伤，但我们还是依旧续犯第一种错误。

Truth be told, I don't know how well the corrections capture the original meaning, I'll need to discuss with a native speaker. The confusion, for me, comes from the 即使再...也 portion of the third section. I understand that 即使...也 and 再...也 can both be used as a sort of concession of a truth or outcome, for example: 

• 即使你去了也沒用 (Nothing would have changed even if you had gone)
• 你到了北京，時間再緊也要去看老師 (When you arrive in Beijing, however tight your schedule is, you must go to visit your teacher.

But, can they both be used together? Furthermore, is that what Seth is saying with the line "the error of small experiments gone bad? I don't think so.

I'll have to give this one some more thought, but I would encourage anyone who has an opinion to comment below. I look forward to uncovering the mystery, and of course, learning a great deal in the process! Stay tuned for the next episode of this mini challenge sometime next week!

The original blog post from Seth can be found here.

Sounding like a native (or trying anyway)

Tweet Winter break seems to be filled with tons of mini challenges that have been keeping me quite busy. In addition to working on a translation challenge (new post on Friday hopefully), and a news reading challenge (15 articles in the bag so far!), I'm starting a parroting exercise in the hopes of bringing my Chinese pronunciation, speed, and general delivery even closer to a native level.

The idea has actually be festering in my mind every since I saw a video on Youtube talking about 蔣勳's book 《漢字書法之美》. The first viewing blew me away. It wasn't really about the content (although I will be buying his book), but also the way he simply spoke Chinese. His voice, like mine, is deep... and the speed seems perfect for delivering a lecture to eager language learners. After a second and third viewing I decided to figure out a way to work on mimicking him to the best of my ability. He has effectively become my Chinese 發音/口音 muse.

Now, just a month or so later I'm actually on my way. The purpose of this parroting challenge is to see just how close I can come to sounding like this master of Hanzi by the 17th of February, the last day of my winter break. For the sake of making this as public as possible, here is my plan of action.

1. Transcribe the speech
2. Split the speech into manageable language chunks (as they are spoken by him)
3. Benchmark
4. Mimic every line as close as possible (every single day)
5. Memorize 
6. Post results

I worked on step one and two yesterday, and spent around 20 minutes today trying to get a proper benchmark (see my soundcloud upload below). While I'm still way off the mark from the original I was able to get close on speed. Working on the audio file today, made me realize that this is the first time I've actually shared any of my own spoken Chinese on the Internet, or at least since my Chinese was beyond a beginner level, so I'm actually a bit nervous. After giving it a few listens I'm already aware of some tone issues and the crazy pronunciation of the "度" in“適度," but like I said before... it's a benchmark.

I'll be working on cleaning all of those things up over the next few weeks, and I'll probably do a follow-up post before the end.

Well, without future ado, enjoy!

News Reading Challenge: 新聞閱讀挑戰

Tweet Winter break used to be about catching up on video games, TV shows, and movies. It used to be about finding a job over break that would put some cash in my pocket. These days, however, winter break is the best opportunity for me to spend heaps of time improving my Chinese.

As the title suggests, one area I'm working on is my news reading ability. After an intense discussion with Olle from HackingChinese, we've outline a few goals for taking our Chinese to the next level in a short period of time. Our short-term/ semi-long term goals are identified as the following:

• Pass TOCFL (and later the HSK)
• Be able to produce academic text in Chinese
• Be able to participate in academic discussions
• Be able to explain Chinese (grammar, vocab etc. in Chinese)
• Expand vocabulary beyond current comfort zone
• Be able to write 5000 characters

 Identifying goals was an important first step, but we also needed to figure out why we weren't already able to do the above mentioned goal, which meant identifying the things that are currently lacking, and then (naturally) coming up with a plan of action.

After taking the TOCFL last year, I already knew where my problems were regarding reading, but I was missing the latter--a proper plan of action. Thankfully, that has all changed, and I'll be ready to face the exam with the confidence and reading speed that I'll need.

So how am I going to do it? That is what my "News Reading Challenge" is all about. Here are my personal goals for this challenge:

• Read articles in as many different areas as possible
• Read for speed (pretend it's an exam)
• Read for content and/or language
• Plug obvious linguistic holes (but only important ones)
• Quantity > Quality

In order to accomplish these goals, Olle and I have decided that reading 5 articles a day for speed is an excellent challenge. With lots of other things on my plate, this also is something that I can finish in less than two hours. In order to eliminate too much personal bias, we have decided to stagger the articles we personal choose, so one day I pick five articles, and the next day they are provided by Olle. The articles, all written for native speakers, a selected from the following sources:

• 維基百科
• 自由時報 (The Liberty Times)
• Yahoo 新聞
• 紐約時報中文網
• RTI: Radio Taiwan International
• 大紀元 (Epoch Times)

Once the five articles have been selected, we head over to the ZH Tool Kit, for a character count. The application also provides a word list, but we are really just after the number of characters that appear in the text we've selected. After that we read. Since we are using this challenge as a way to A) improve reading speed and B) prepare for an exam, we've been timing how fast we can read the article accurately... that means no dictionaries, and now slowing down to work through characters we "might" know. Once I've read the article I record the time it took me to read it and move on to the next.

26.3 minutes of reading with an average speed fo 136.06. It's slow, but a great benchmark.

After reading for speed, it is time to "plug obvious linguistic holes." I'm sure Olle has his own method for doing this, but I prefer to take the text and plug it into Chinese Reader for Mac, an app created by Skritter user Byzanti, and give the article another read. 

This time I look up everything I didn't know the first time, and actually read for details. The great thing about this app is its integration into Skritter's API. Any words that I want to study on Skritter are added with the click of a button. The think I really like, however, is the ability to sort words by occurrences and frequency. While it's not my only guide for what words I should already know, it makes selecting "important" linguistic gaps much easier. 

Chinese Reader's summary interface

After that I can call it quits for the day and move onto another task. Over the past two days I've added 60+ new words to Skritter. Hopefully by the end that number will be reduced. And of course, I look forward to seeing my average reading speed drop dramatically.

I look forward to sharing my results after classes resume on the 17th. I have a feeling the are going to be quite dramatic!

Translation practice 1.0: Seth's Blog

Tweet Inspired by Dr. Kubler's lecture on advanced learning strategies (see last weeks post) I decided to try my hand at a translation exercise this past weekend. Rather than pick something I've personally written in English, I used Seth's Blog as inspiration. For the past year or so Seth's (short) words of wisdom have been filling my inbox. His blog covers a wide variety of topics and uses language in a powerful and inspirational way--something that is perfect for translation. By using his words I'm forced to step outside of my own Chinese comfort zone.

I'll be following up on this translation practice in the weeks to come (once finals are done and I've had a week or two to decompress), but for now, here are the results of my first translation challenge:

你到底作出啥？

決定。

你並不是個勞工，你所要做的事情就是做決定

問題是，一位種玉米的農場主對自己所有的任務一清二楚。他不會避免種玉米或拖延收割，並且他絕對不會去說服鄰居過來替代他種玉米。

你必須多決定，才能進一步。

I learned a few new words like 農場主、 拖延、收割 during the writing process, and can't wait to write another one of these again in the near future. The fact that Seth's post was A) awesome and B) short made this that much more fun to do! Got any suggestions on how to make my translation better? Please leave them in the comments below.

Original post from Seth's Blog:

What do you make? 

Decisions. 

You don't run a punch press or haul iron ore. Your job is to make decisions.
The thing is, the farmer who grows corn has no illusions about what his job is. He doesn't avoid planting corn or dissemble or procrastinate about harvesting corn. And he certainly doesn't try to get his neighbor to grow his corn for him. 

Make more decisions. That's the only way to get better at it.

Developing Advanced Language Skills

Tweet Part of me wishes I could go back and start my program in Taiwan over again. Not because I got bad grades or didn't learn a lot over the past three semesters, but because there is just so much I didn't know about the program then that I do now. One of those things happens to be the importance of the small lecture series that is always going on in our program. The past four weeks have been very exciting for me in this regard. I've heard lectures for Enya Dai (Associate Professor at Monterey Institute), participated in Taiwan's 2012 International Conference of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, and heard a compelling lecture from Cornelius C. Kubler (顧百里: Professor of Asian Studies at Williams College).

All of these events have changed my life as a Chinese language student/teacher, giving me new ways to think about teaching, research, and my own linguistic development. I've made some amazing connections with professors, scholars, and students like me from all over the world. I wish that I could go back and start my program over so that I could have attended even more of these events. Since I'm not a Timelord I'll just have to keep calm and carry on (or something like that). 

Today's post, however, isn't really about looking back on missed opportunities, but rather about pressing forward. After yesterday's lecture by Dr. Kubler I realized for the millionth time that there is so much more I can do to bring my Chinese to an even higher level. Dr. Kubler has been studying Chinese for the past 40 odd years, and while he might not have a perfect accent, he speaks Chinese at an incredibly high level... I'd be lying if said I wasn't a little bit jealous. Thankfully, his entire lecture was about developing advanced language skills. While he was speaking from the perspective of an educator, and what we can do to help learners develop high-level proficiency, I was thinking about the question with a personal vested interest.

One thing I felt his lecture was lacking was student accountability for the learning process, but since he was talking to a group of teachers (not students) I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. So, here are a ideas of things we can do to develop advanced language skills, according to Dr. Kubler.

1. Memorization: It's never too late in your journey of Chinese to memorize 三字經， or 三百首, in fact exposing yourself systematically to this kind of language will help solidify it in your brain for natural recall later. I did this a lot with Tang poetry while living in Beijing, and nothing stops people in their tracks more than a properly quoted line from one of those poems.
2. Paraphrasing: Open up an old textbook that you've used and see if you can take colloquial sentences and make them formal, or the other way around. Take basic grammar patterns and make them 書面語 etc.
3. Transcription: Listen to audio files from native speakers and transcribe them into Chinese (or English). This forces us to step away from language we would usually use in Chinese, and helps to solidify grammatical patterns and word phrases that are used by native speakers. 
4. Get a tutor: I'm not talking about a language partner, or even a person who simply talks to you in Chinese. I'm talking about the kind of person who is anal-retentive about every single mistake you make, someone who will force you to say something again not because it was wrong, but because it is High School level Chinese, not professional. 
5. Translation: Translate Classical Chinese into Modern Chinese. Translate academic Chinese into colloquial Chinese. Translate colloquial Chinese into academic Chinese. Translate English into Chinese etc. While translation is a hotly debated topic in SLA, there is no doubt that translation of any kind forces you to think about the language in different way, exposing you to a lexicon that is not your own, which can be crucial for further linguistic development. Of course, this should probably be done with the help of a tutor, at least at first. 
6. Read Scrolling Text: Part of advanced language levels is the ability to read massive amounts of text in a short period of time. This skill is something that must be acquired through practice, it isn't going to come over night. This skill might be developed by taking text and putting it into a scrolling text program, or even watching Chinese TV shows or movies without sound on. 
7. Parroting: Do you like the way a certain actor talks in Chinese, then why not try to sound just like him? Like memorization, we can work on parroting native speakers to help increase speaking speed, regional accent, and even tones and pronunciation. This again isn't something that will come over night, but it could be very useful at high levels of Chinese. I'll be trying this out in the coming weeks and will be sure to include more details at that time.
8. Stamina：Increase it! To quote from Dr. Kubler's own lecture notes: the ability to maintain high level of accuracy and fluency over a period of time (often under various kinds of stress) is very important to function at a professional level. How long can you speak Chinese in a single day before you get sloppy? How accurate can you be when giving a lecture or presentation in Chinese? These might not be things that the typical language learner needs, but it is certainly something that I have to work on. I have noticed that after about an hour of giving a presentation in Chinese I tend to get "sloppy" with tones. It is something I'll have to work on. 

The above is not a genearl guideline to language learning, but rather things we need to consider when trying to reach incredibly high levels of fluency in our target language. I for one will be working on these skills for the rest of my life. There is so much more to be said about these individual topics, but today I wanted to just get the big picture idea on the page. In the coming weeks I'll be writing about some of the things I'm trying out to increase my command of Chinese. 

Stay tuned! 

Eight New Words

Tweet I just finished reading a New York Time's article about the latest greatest iPad. In the spirit of this blog I read the article in Chinese. Armed with my PeraPera popup dictionary I was ready for whatever wacky words the NYT Chinese translators were ready to throw at me.

I enjoyed the article and what it had to say about the propensity of tech companies to release new products every year. I also enjoyed the commentary about what this could do to the industry, especially since most large tech producers are all aiming for products that are more-or-less similar in design and feel. As a language learner, however, I had to quell the urge to "learn" everything I didn't already know from this single article. Instead, I asked myself what was important, and what kind of language would actually help me talk about similar topics with my friends?

In the end, I would estimate that I used the popup dictionary on roughly 50 Chinese words. Out of those 50 words, I decided that only eight actually fit the "talk about similar topics" criteria. They are:

矩形- rectangle
計劃性淘汰- planned obsolescence
更新- replace (I didn't know it was pronounced gēng)
營銷策略- marketing strategy
高端產品- high-end goods
款- version of software, device etc.
把戲 - trick
壽命- life span (who knew it could be used for inanimate things like phones?)

As for the other 41 I had to look up... maybe I'll learn them the next time they appear, but for today I can say with certainty that I learned eight new words. And that's good enough for me.

My serious problem with academic Chinese writing

Tweet Well it finally happend. My teacher called me out in class and told me that I need to work on seriously improving my academic Chinese writing ability. She then proceeded to pick apart sentence after sentence of mistakes and translation errors with a look of disgust (okay the last part only happens in my dreams). I've always guessed this was the case, but now I actually know it, and my classmates do too.

Before entering graduate school I had never actually written a research paper in Chinese. I'd never taken a Chinese literature class. Heck, I've only taken three years of formal Chinese language classes in my life; most of which took place in the US, and was not focused on formal writing at all. I have no problem speaking Chinese, cause that is where the focus was, and has always been.

The sad reality is that most of my graduate studies focus on massive input, not output. The average lecture is three hours long, and (we) as students are lucky if the teacher can put a name to a face by the end of the semester. In my first year in the program I wrote roughly 20 papers, some of which were 10 pages or more, but the majority were 2-3 pages of very colloquial writing.

Aside from the grades posted at the end of the semester, the amount of feedback I received by the end of one year was zilch. No corrections, no comments, not a single "hey 高健 you write like a foreigner! Knock it off!" But now I'm expected to change... and fast, because I have a 100 pape research paper due in just 28 months, and I'll be damned if I let my thesis board call out the way I write.

This isn't me playing the blame game, it is simply the harsh reality of where my Mandarin is, and why it got there.

So, how the heck am I going to fix this?

• I've signed up for a private tutor on iTalki, with the sole purpose of fixing my academic writing. We start class tomorrow, and I have to email them a paper in a little under two hours.
• I'll be using Lang-8 to focus more on the translation of English academic articles into Chinese (something I'm going to have to get very good at in the next 24 months). Nothing too long, just key phrases or ideas that I'll need to talk about in my own thesis.
• I'm going to read more academic journals (in Chinese), about the topics I need to know (got about 30 that I've been putting off cause I never seem to have time).
• I'm going to write more, and with more focus (more on that later).

I don't know if it will be enough, but it's a start. Cause right now the only thing I wanna to hear my teacher say is "wow, your academic writing is really getting better!"

For now or Forever?

Tweet Before your next 聽寫 ask yourself, do I want to learn these characters for now or forever?

If you just want to get a good grade on the next day's quiz than by all means copying characters over and over again. It doesn't take much time and you'll probably get an A. 

However, if you want to learn them forever this isn't going to work.  Instead: deconstruct characters, make up mnemonics, don't overload on information, and review old material often. It takes A LOT more time, but you'll remember things for much longer.

Researchers know it. Teachers (generally) ignore it. And students get to make the choice. So, what will it be? 

For now or forever?

The "社會" section

Tweet I've got three days left here in Taiwan before I head back to the states, and I'm up to my ears in 報告s and the general laundry list of crap one needs to do before they leave somewhere for months on end.

Rather than regale you all with the various ways I've thought about pulling my hair out, or smashing my head on the desk as I try and analyze Case Grammar structures, I'll just say that I've discovered a new love at my breakfast shop... the "society" section of the 自由日報 (Freedom Daily). Everyone talks about needing to understand 3000 characters or so to read a news paper, but what is the fascination with reading newspapers anyway? I would much rather know how to tell my friend that their fashion sense in that one photo from 4 years ago, which I only found cause I was Facebook stalking them, makes them look kinda like a serial killer. Seriously, that (to me) would be much more useful, and, let's face it, way more fun to teach.

That being said, the 社會 section of this newspaper is sort of a blend of both. You get the "street cred" of reading a newspaper (this is why we try in the first place right?) plus a Facebook feel. It's full of pictures, it covers a broad variety of topics, polarizing opinions, and most of all, language that I can use right away! Here are two articles I found particularly funny yesterday. I can't really remember what useful stuff I learned in the process, and I didn't look up things I didn't understand, but after reading them I had a smile on my face. I'm sure I'll be back for more, which more than I can say of the collected works of Laozi or some textbook about Cross Straight Relations... seriously who writes that crap?

Without further ado, enjoy! I'd tell you the parts that I thought were interesting, but they you might not read the articles yourselves.

辣媽, what is that like the Chinese version of MILF?

Three parts to this discussion about yelling at kids.

The wait is over... Skritter iOS is here!

Tweet

After a year and a half of development, months of beta tests, tweaks and bug fixes, more tweaks and even more bug fixes... the #1 web app for learning to write Chinese has finally made its way to the iTunes App Store! If you haven't had a chance yet (and haven't run off to download Skritter), be sure to check out the awesome video George and Nick put together to get a real feel for what you get out of the Skritter iOS app, and check out the Skritter blog for the full development story.

If you've never used Skritter before, do yourself a favor and go download it now! All new users get a one-week free trial to check things out, and amazing App launch deals after that. With over 150 Chinese textbooks, thousands of user generated lists and integrated ChinesePod support you'll be studying and reviewing from your favorite material in no time. If you've never thought about learning to write Chinese characters before, be sure to check out Skritter's Chinese 101 list and get acquainted with over 200 of the most common (and instantly usable) characters while you learn 75 unique radicals, the basic building blocks of all Chinese characters. 

For those who have used the site before, you'll find the app has just about everything you can do on the site only in a much more stylized way. Things like example sentences, individual list study modes etc. are in the works as we speak, and will be available in future updates. I think you'll notice that the iOS version of Skritter is way quicker than its web counterpart, which makes catching up on reviews easy as pie. However, the largest improvement over the web app is just how smooth the native version runs. Add in the fact that there are two cool and unique themes and you'll probably give up using the website altogether (much like I did in February). 

I could go on and on about this thing, but I really feel like the best way to really appreciate what the app is capable of is to simply try it out yourselves. I'm proud to be part of the team that brought you this app, and I hope you all enjoy it just as much as we have been. Just to give you a taste of how addictive this app is, here is a screen shot of my study results the first month I got my hands on the alpha build...

47 hours in a single month, all while attending graduate classes... yeah the Skritter iOS app is really that addictive!

Requirements: Skritter Chinese requires iOS 5.0 or newer, so that's iPhone 3GS, 4, or 4S, iPod touch 4th generation, or any iPad.

3G or wi-fi only?: Nope. Need to be on 3G or Wi-fi for the download and initial updates, but after that you can just add a bunch of new words while connected to the wireless network and do your reviews on the app. 

Price: After the one-week free trial, it's $9.99 for a one-month subscription, or $39.99, $69.99, or $119.99 for six-, twelve-, or twenty-four-month subscriptions. (These are just cents per hour for the typical Skritter user.) Subscriptions are required to add new words, but you can review forever for free. School and institutional licenses are available.

Any questions or comments? Leave them below... and happy Skrittering! 

A wealth of English phrases (in Chinese)

Tweet

I'm a huge fan of idiomatic phrases, a topic I've covered quite extensively on the Skritter blog last year, I find they are such a rich way to express your ideas, especially in Chinese; a language that has thousands of years of history. And yet, familiarizing yourself with all of these phrases is never easy. Yet, growing up as a native English speaker, there are already hundreds of idiomatic phrases that I do know and understand. Phrases like: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," or "early bird gets the worm." 

I would love to use these expressions in Chinese, but I'm not a translator. Although I can usually explain my way around these phrase, my lack of confidence has left these linguistic gems out of my speeches and reports... at least until I came across THIS website. The blogger, who goes by the net-handle 阿靖 (ajing), has complied a list of hundreds of English idiomatic phrases complete with their Chinese counterparts; some of them are pretty literal, while others are simply Chinese phrases that hold very a very similar meaning.   

The key, however, is that instead of using Chinese to figure out the English phrase, we can attack the problem the other way around, using our background knowledge of English to learn similar Chinese expressions. Let's take the above expressions as an example:

Don't put all your eggs in one basket- 別把雞蛋擺在同一籃子裡。不要孤注一擲。
Early bird gets the worm- 早起的鳥兒有蟲吃。


Awesome right!


The site is great for intermediate and advanced learners who have a good feel for how these types of phrases can be used in reports or speeches, and I would highly recommend that everyone add it to their Chinese idioms bookmark folder (surely I'm not the only one who has one of these.)

Some other characteristics of 著（着）

Tweet Today our Modern Chinese Grammar and Syntax class started talking about Case Grammar Patters (格語法), but our teacher is fond of going off topic today and decide to further look at three functions of 著 (or 着 for you Mainland students), and I thought I would throw that part of the lecture up on the blog (or at least what I understood of it), since using English to work out what my teacher said in Chinese always seems to help me better understand the material. Anyway, lets take a look at 著!

著
Grammatically, we often think of 著 as a durative, or as representing a continued state... as expressed in the following explanation:

表示動作或狀態的持續

The focus here is on the continued state of an action or condition. However, from what I gathered in my lecture today, that is only one of its several functions. I don't pretent to be an expert on the patter (so take the follow with a grain of salt) but this is what I understand.

著 can be used as a "manner adverb" expression, for example: 他慢慢地吃著 (nibble at food). Here the state of being slow and nibbling is being modified by 著 and thus serving as sort of adverb.

For like a million other examples of this occurring check out the link.

著 can also represent a period of time. Let us take the example 紅著臉, or the English to be red in the face (with a blushing face w/e). Here the added 著 is serving as a time marker to indicate that (當下時間) during this present time, so-and-so has a red face. This is not a continuous state, but only a time marker.

Lets look at another example: 忙著讀書 (to be busy reading). Here again, 著 is being used as representing a current period of time, not indicating a continued stated of being busy.

Finally, 著 on a third level can serve as a focal point marker (in an abstract way). Take the example above again 忙著讀書, the focal point (焦點) is on reading (讀書), and since this example phrase is incomplete, one might imagine that you would use this to describe someone perhaps busily reading before going to take a test... or leaving for the day, or something...

It should be noted that 著 is not simply "-ing" in English... it is a little more complicated than that. Again, going back to the 忙著讀書 sentence, if we just wanted to say that someone is reading, we would just say 在讀書, because we cannot say 忙讀書.

I don't know if this helps anyone better understand 著, but if it does please leave your comments below. I hope that from now on, you have a little better grasp of this characters functionality when you see it in the wild.

Why Chinese?

Tweet A few weeks ago, Hugh Grigg, over at East Asian Student (a super awesome blog)wrote an article titled "Why I decided to study Chinese." It was great to hear his own personal story,and I thought I would share my own about getting started down the path of studying Chinese.

Flashback to 2006. A friend and I have just dismantled our personal company. After spend four years in the automotive industry building drag cars and doing custom engine fabrication for local and national customers, our business is failing to live up to our expectations. Working 80 hours a week at three jobs is taking a toll its toll on us both, and while learning a great deal in the process, we've both come to realization that building and fixing cars is a lifelong hobby, it isn't our ultimate end goal. We both decide that going back to college is a good idea. After traveling to Indonesia in 2004, I've got a taste for all things new and international, and I'm eager to begin my studies. I end up enrolling in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for the Fall 2006 semester.

Although I didn't know it at the time, my path toward Chinese can be boiled down to one fateful evening at a local diner with close friends. Although we would meet there ever week to catch up while sipping coffee late into the night, this particular evening was different. We were joined by a few other people who happened to be a mix of linguistics majors, with a focus, respectively, on either Chinese or Japanese. Their individual passions for these languages is fierce, and a small debate breaks out about which language is "better" to learn.

Personally I've had a strong passion for studying Japanese since I first read Shogun in high school, and I'd even started to teach myself some Japanese while I was running my company, since a large portion of our business involved importing rare Japanese tuning products to the United States for customers who were willing to to pay, and wait three months for the products to arrive stateside. With that being said, I was certainly intrigued by Chinese, and my friend was making a strong argument about the economic incentive attached to learning the language... in short, China's economy was going to overtake Japan in the next few years (which it did).

Coming home later that evening I was giddy with the idea of studying a foreign language. I had picked up quite a bit of Indonesian during my month of travel, which broke my "I can't learn a language spell," that was cast on me by my high school German teacher. I thought, what the heck, and decided to add a language class to my first semester. At that point I tossed economic incentive out the window and decided to choose Japanese, a language (and culture) I had been interested in learning about for years. However, when I went to pick Japanese 101 from the foreign language enrollment page I was met with a dilemma, Japanese 101 was completely full up.

Having skipped my college orientation (80 hour work weeks keep ya busy), I had no idea that I could've just walked into class the first day and asked one of the teachers to sign a class add sheet. Rather, I chose the next best option-- Chinese. I must have been destined to learn Chinese all along, because when I went to pick Chinese I was delighted to find that there was one seat left in the class, and it was all mine! I figured if I didn't like Chinese I could always switch to Japanese during my second year at school.

A few weeks later I was slacking off at work, reading a New York Times article about learning languages via podcast (a relatively new phenomenon at the time) and they were highlighting Chinese, and one company in particular-- ChinesePod. My full-time job was data entry, giving me the luxury of listening to whatever I wanted while I worked, so I decided to give ChinesePod a shot, and signed up for their 7 day free trial.

That summer before college I poured over the material, mimicking their short dialogues and paying close attention to tones. I had been a musician in high school, playing guitar, trumpet and African hand drums, and perhaps that helped me to feel the difference in tones quicker, cause I started practicing them from day one. That whole summer I worked on the basics of Chinese, learning how to ask simple questions and introduce myself. I didn't fly through the lessons, but I put a lot of effort on the material I was studying, and the things I studied I knew well.

When I arrived to my Chinese class on the first day, I was ready to put what I'd learned to the test. It was my first real world interaction in Chinese. We were going around the room, with students giving their name, year in school and major. When it was my turn to speak I went for broke: "大家好，我叫Jake, 我是一年級的學生, 我的Major是Linguistics." My teacher was impressed and actually praised my "good pronunciation" and tones. I would find out later that both of these things would still need lots of work, but it didn't matter, from that instant I was hooked.

My teacher  gave me something that day I had never received when studying German for four years in high school... praise and encouragement. From that moment onward Chinese classes were the highlight of my week. I worked hard the entire semester, and my efforts were rewarded when I took fourth place among first year college students during our state wide Chinese speech contest.

The rest then, I suppose, is history. I moved to Taiwan during my second year of Chinese study and pushed myself to the limit. One year later I worked at a summer camp teaching Chinese, and then packed my bags to spend half a year in Beijing, figuring I should learn a little something about the mainland as well. During my forth year of Chinese study I picked up a job teacher Chinese to Taiwanese-American kids at a weekend school, and made the decision to become a teacher shortly there after, while attending a four day, all expenses paid, Chinese Teacher's Conference in Beijing.

Now here I am, in Taiwan, earning a Master's degree in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. After five years of studying Chinese I'm really starting get the hang of it, but there is still so much more to learn. As a teacher, however, I learned the most important lesson there is from my first Chinese class in 2006... give your students the praise and encouragement they want and need, and you will create a life long language student. 


Got your own story to tell? Feel free to leave it in the comments below.

Why the heck are there Simplified characters in Taiwan?

Tweet

Taipei Main Station uses the Simplified (台) instead of (臺)

Pick Simplified or Traditional....that's the choice many of us face when we start studying Chinese. When I first began the language journey in 2006 those were my options, and they were clear cut. I was suppose to pick a text book and focus all my efforts on one or the other. But as someone who had their heart set on studying abroad during college, this also meant that I was making an even bigger choice: Mainland China or Taiwan, I decided to say screw the system, and choose both... but more on that another day.

This is the way that many of us look at the world of Chinese characters, especially as a student of Mandarin Chinese. Teachers don't generally talk about Hong Kong, or talk about what might be useful if you're living near a strong overseas Chinese community. The options we have, from the very beginning, feel political.

Anyone who pretends the argument isn't about politics is fooling themselves. Putting that aside however, language learners still tend to focus on studying one form or the other until the inevitable day arrives when you stumble upon a website, a Facebook message, a Tweet, or even a book that uses the other character system.

For those readers who have spent time in Mainland China, you'll know that you are bound to run into Traditional Chinese characters from time to time. Places like restaurants, temples and museums are notorious for having the Traditional versions of some characters, and while guessing the meaning (of a character you might already know in the Simplified form) can be somewhat of a challenge, you eventually get used to it. However, things are little different here in Taiwan, because everything is already in Traditional characters, or at least we like to think so. But then you start to notice some little inconsistencies on the streets, Simplified characters are here too if you look hard enough. The first time I noticed it was at Taipei Main Train Station, where the Simplified "台"(Tái) took the place of the Traditional "臺" in the Chinese for 台北(Táiběi).

As time went on I began to notice a few other similar instances of Simplified characters being used. Two of the most prominent examples are found on Taiwan Mobile's street signs, and on the cans and bottles of Taiwan Beer, where the Simplified "湾"(wān) is used instead of the Traditional "灣" (pictured below).

 

Showed using the Simplified （湾）instead of the Traditional （灣).

 Initially, a lot of people didn't really take notice of the change, but once they did, questions were raised about the meaning behind the switch. In one Yahoo News Article a Taiwanese citizen said: 「改繁體字會比較好，又不是大陸，我們是台灣人。」(Translation: Changing it (back) to the Traditional characters would be better. We're not Mainland China, we are Taiwanese). In the same article, a representative from the Taiwan Alcohol and Tobacco Company responded to the question of character simplification by stating:

「我們不視為它是簡體字，就像很多商標同樣一個字，它會畫龍點睛會彎繞，它的位置就是讓它跟一般的字有區別，讓它視覺效果好一點。」

"(rough translation)We don't consider it to be a Simplified character, its more like those other company trademarks (logos). It is meant to bring the bottle to life, it curls and winds. Its design is to make the character stand out from the others, and give it a more visual sense."

While the answer sounds like the perfect marketing response when put under pressure, I would like to posit that there is nothing wrong with using these Simplified characters in the first place, because they aren't political, they're just simplified. The character 湾 much like 台 has actually been in use since the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and are part of a Simplified character group known as the 宋元以來俗字, a group of nonstandard characters, or a demotic writing system used by the common people of the time. A book entitled 《宋元以來俗字譜》，or "A Glossary of Popular Chinese Characters Since Song and Yuan Dynasties" actual researched and outlined 6,240 of these kinds of characters and published the results in 1930 (more info can be found here).

These characters are actually referred to as 簡化字 (jiǎnhuàzì) in Chinese, but are often translated into English just as Simplified characters, where as perhaps something like abbreviated characters might better capture the meaning. Some other such characters that are in common usage today in Mainland China include (but are not limited to):

实、宝、礼、声、 会、怜、怀、搀、罗、听、万、庄、梦、阳、虽、医、 凤、义、乱、皱、台、办、战、归、党、辞、断

While over 330 of these abbreviated characters have been worked into the system we know call "Simplified Chinese," which is used by the UN and the People's Republic of China, it is clear that their origin goes well beyond this past half-century. Furthermore, many people, even here in Taiwan, use many of these abbreviated characters when taking pen to paper. In that way then, what better choice is there than to use the "common mans" character on something as common and everyday as beer or a cellphone?

So, next time you come across a Simplified character here in Taiwan, I hope your first thought is historical, rather than political, cause many of these Characters have been around a lot longer than people who have been arguing about whether they should be studying Simplified or Traditional.

Writing Assignment: Week 1 （新年願望）

Tweet

As mentioned in my previous post, I've decide to turn my goals into a plan of action. Since one of my plans was to write a weekly journal entry, my first post reflects on that idea and trys to capture some of my thoughts in Chinese. Any comments or criticisms are welcome, the purpose of these posts are keep my goals (and plan) public, while also improving my Chinese writing over the course of the year. In the interest of keeping this blog dedicated to learning Chinese, I've also included a selected vocabulary list below. 

Enjoy!

新年伊始，許多人就迫不及待地宣布自己的新年願望。有的人宣布為了減肥要天天運動，有的人要開始學習一門新外語，有的人要戒煙，但是一旦遇到困難，他們就會放棄。就這些人而言，這些新年願望，只是口頭上說說而已，並不是一種真的可以實現的願望。如果有人對我說這種崇高的願望，就對他所說的感到有些疑惑。經驗告訴我，這些願望太高遠，而很有虛偽的意味。宣布者之所以不知道如何達到願望，是因為他們實際上沒什麼計劃。對此，我深有體會。今年我的新年願望和往常一 樣，但我沒有採取實際的計劃與行動。因此，我們得淘汰這些空白的願望，只有穩定的計劃，才能達到我們所要的願望。

怎麼樣的計劃呢？這些計劃應該循序漸進，應該漸漸的呈現。要讓自己每天都有成就感，而不是挫敗感。如果我們真的要減肥，那我們冰箱裡所有的東西應該對身體 健康。此外要對自己每天，每個月有明顯的計劃。我們這樣才不會⎡無所謂⎦地過日子。我現在對自己不能接受失敗，因為我今後制訂了一個計劃，這樣我所有的進步都會從比較出來的。

你自己擁有的到底是個願望還是一個計劃呢？這兩個之間的差別可很大，而且只有一個會讓你成功。

1. 伊始 (yīshǐ n. 〈wr.〉 ①beginning ②from this time forth)

2. 迫不及待 (pòbùjídài f.e. ①too impatient to wait ②urgent)

3. 願望 (yuànwàng* n. desire; wish; aspiration)

4. 崇高 (chónggāo s.v. lofty; sublime)

5. 疑惑 (yíhuò* n./v. ①be perplexed/uncertain ②doubt)

6. 虛偽 (xūwěi* s.v. sham; false; hypocritical)

7. 循序漸進 (xúnxù jiànjìn v.p. proceed step by step)

8. 呈現 (chéngxiàn* v. present; appear; emerge)

9. 擁有 (yōngyǒu v. possess; have; own)

The massive input strategy

Tweet For many students (myself included), the study of Chinese is largely facilitated through textbooks, podcasts, and other learning materials. We work on one lesson until we grasp the material and then move onto the next.This is how I have spent nearly 5 years studying Chinese and I've learned a lot about the language in the process. However, when I was sitting in my Computer Assisted Chinese Language Learning class a few weeks ago, my teacher brought up a different strategy, which I'll call massive input.

What is the massive input strategy?

 

Massive input/output is essential opening the floodgates of a language and letting the information wash over you. It is not studying in the traditional sense-- no flashcards, textbooks or fancy iPhone Apps necessary. Massive input is about increasing exposure to a language during your daily routine and giving you a better feel for that language. It doesn't matter if you don't understand everything that you are hearing, the point is that your brain is still  subconsciously processing some of the information.

This means trying to expose yourself to more of the language in its natural form. Music is, I think, the most obvious way to use this strategy, but we should really be using the same tactics with other materials as well: books, poems, movies, TV shows, radio broadcasts and blogs are all great ways increase your exposure to the language. By understanding that you are not going to understand everything from the beginning, it makes it easier to just let the language flood over you. Don't understand a word, a sentence, a paragraph... who cares cause you're not going to look it up anyway (at least not yet). 

The reward doesn't come from "learning" new things, rather, massive input is about linking together everything  you already know to estimate, guess, and predict the meaning of what you are being exposed to. 

As my teacher metaphorically described, massive input is about building a skyscraper not a house. Massive input helps us build the "skyscraper" by stacking a ton of information higher and higher. Traditionally, studying and the material to study from is very controlled. Vocabulary and grammar patterns are presented systematically, which is good for building a foundation for a language (or a two story house), but there is nothing natural about it. However, it is also something that we should not, and cannot, ignore, it helps fills the gaps of information that are missing for our skyscraper... it is the cement in our metaphorical language building. 

My own experience with massive input

Ever since that lesson I've been trying to apply this strategy to my own life to better understand what my teacher was saying. On top of reading a an article from a Chinese newspaper every morning during breakfast, and watching the news or movies when I have some time, I'm also currently reading two books in Chinese:《安德的遊戲》,a translated copy of Ender's Game , and《大小雞婆》.  Since Ender's Game is a book I have read quite a few times in English I'm not looking anything up... ever. I'll probably go back through once I'm done to start and cement the gaps in the language, but right now I'm just reading for pleasure. It was frustrating at first, but after a while I started to get a feel for the text and the translation a way that looking up every other word cannot provide. 

With  《大小雞婆》, a book originally written in Chinese, I'm reading it chapter by chapter. Instead of stopping to look up words that I don't know I'm just highlighting them and making guesses about the meaning based on context. Once I'm done with the chapter I will go back and check the dictionary for every word that I highlighted. I've found that this process takes about an hour a day. 

More than anything I've found that my reading comprehension is increasing at a very rapid pace. I'm beginning to notice how certain nuances contained in grammar patterns, simply because I'm seeing them in a space that isn't controlled by a textbook. Since I don't worry (as much) about individual characters or phrases, I'm able to focus on the overall meaning of a text without too much effort. Hopefully this should pay off greatly when reading academic articles or taking any kind of standard test in Chinese. 

Do any of you use a similar strategy with your language learning process? If so please leave a comment below. 

Why Benny's "Fluent Mandarin in 3 Months" challenge is good for the Chinese community.

Tweet It is true, I'm a little behind the game. Admittedly, I only heard about Benny the Irish Polyglot yesterday when Confused LaoWai wrote a post (more like an essay really) titled: On Learning Chinese in 3 Months. Basically, for those still in the dark, Benny has moved to Taipei, Taiwan and will be spending three months learning Mandarin Chinese, with the goal of reaching somewhere near a C1 oral proficiency during that time.

This mission has cause quite the stir in the Chinese language learning community. For a moment, I too wanted to join the masses. While I still take umbrage with the notion that conversational fluency is equal to C1 aptitude, I applaud Benny Lewis for his overall mission statement-- speaking from day one. For a better understanding of his own advice, check out this video from the recent TEDxSanAntonio below.

 

As with the countless other languages he has learned, he has made a goal (and made it public) and will work at that goal regardless of the outcome. No matter what level his Taiwanese Mandarin reaches, it will be far better than it was three months prior.

As for the Chinese language learning community, his challenge has us talking about learning and studying the Chinese language. While most will (still) admit that Chinese is a relatively hard language to learn, Benny's own mission is to find ways to make studying languages easier... for everyone. This is what sites like Chinesehacks and Hacking Chinese (confusing I know!) do as well, provide ways to make learning Chinese easier and hopefully more fun.

Based on Benny's first week blog I noticed a few things that certainly deserve some praise.

1. He is relying a lot of context. This is a crucial part to understanding any language. Making assumptions about what the other might be saying will help you figure out appropriate ways to respond to the situation and clue you in on some vocabulary that you can pick up for later use. It is also a great way to fill in the gaps on information you don't know. This works great for both listening and reading (something I covered in some depth over on the Skritter blog).   
2. He is cultural minded. Handing over money to a cashier with two hands is certainly a good way to make a great impression here in Asia, and these kinds of cultural practices can open doors for further conversation, or at least a little more patience on the part of the locals. I've certainly gotten a lot of conversation out of learning how to drink with Chinese hosts, but lets save that for another post.
3. He is getting out there. Rather that sit at home and watch TV (which can be a great way to learn some Chinese) he has joined a gym. Basically, he is trying to live his life as he sees fit. Not letting a language barrier get in the way of doing what you would like to do is an important part of language learning and self discovery. I had a similar experience in China when I decided to go to the park and learn how to play the Hulusi (albeit poorly). Sometimes we need to go out and learn by doing (again, something I've covered before.)

So what about the goal: fluency in 3 months? Fluency is a very relative term, and it is his own goal, not ours. However, making goals like this (or maybe something a bit more modest perhaps) are what keep us going on the language learning journey.

I for one will be pushing myself a little bit harder when I'm out living in Taiwan. Speaking more, and trying to be a bit more ambitious. While I personally think that setting a goal that one cannot possibly achieve can be as bad as doing nothing at all, setting goals that strive for us to work harder are how we see positive results.

It reminds me of a great story that Dr. Michael Everson  told my fellow classmates and I this summer. When asked the question of how much effort was needed to learn Chinese (or any language for that matter) he turned to some of the college level athletes and asked them how often the practice their respective sport. The general response was three to four hours a day (seven days a week). The message is quite clear, language, like anything else takes effort, and time. It isn't something that is going to come overnight.


Regardless of the outcome, I hope that Benny's journey will help inspire others to stop making excuses as to why they can't do something, and at least try.

Self-study with online materials

Tweet It's no surprise that digital technology has revolutionized our access to information. In the area of language acquisition this means that we have more ways to study than ever. Researchers in the field of educational technology (Beatty 2004, Blin 2004, et al.) find technology as a great way for students to find information that fits their own individual learning styles and abilities. Unlike even the best student centered classroom activities, digital technology (for education) creates "student-initiated, self-managed interactive learning by students at their own pace" (Kubler 2011).

Digital technology is the ever "patient" provider of content. No matter how many times we replay a Youtube video, or hit next on a flashcard program, we will always be the first to call it quits at the end of the day. Now, more than ever, we can access information that is relevant to our needs, and (hopefully) increase our language output. While this instant access to information may be a wonderful thing, it is important that we find out ways to effectively use the digital technology (in this case online materials) as a study tool.

So how do we go about self-study with online materials? To begin to answer this question I've adapted some information from Cornelius Kubler's article titled "Promises and Perils of Educational Technology in Foreign Language Curriculum and Materials Development" with a typical ChinesePod lesson (covering dialogue, vocabulary, expansion, and exercise).

Step 1: Get in the zone.
Regardless of what kind of online material or digital technology you are using, it is important to dedicate focus and concentration on the task at hand. As recently mentioned on Lingomi's blog multitasking isn't the way to go about studying (especially listening skills). While the Internet is rampant with Podcasts and mobile learning apps, there is a lot of research out there to suggest that multitasking while trying to study is a serious impairment on our ability to learn. Therefore, even before you are ready to study the latest lesson, get yourself mentally prepared. Turn off Facebook, step away from Twitter, and find a quite place to focus on whatever it is you are trying to learn.

Step 2: Listen to (or read) the new material (more than once).
Listen to the dialogue for a ChinesePod lesson two or three times. Don't be concerned if there are things you don't understand. The goal of this step is to familiarize ourselves to the general context and new linguistic material. Don't look-up new words, or pause the dialogue if you are getting lost. Instead find out what information you can gather from the dialogue.
(For a typical ChinesePod lesson this step should take about 5 minutes).

Step 3: Drill the lesson.
Now it is time to read the dialogue (closely). Check the words that you didn't understand during step two, but be sure to check them in context. Read the sentences over and over, repeating them out loud until until you can repeat them back in a fast manner. The more you practice saying sentences or vocabulary words, the more natural they will come out when you are actually trying to use them in a real situation. Listening (or saying) a word or sentence once simply isn't enough.
(This could take about 20 minutes... even more if you are focusing on how to write the Characters, but you need to take the time if you actually want to learn, and be able to use the materials)

Step 4: Study the notes (or listen to the entire lesson).
Now that the vocabulary and sentence patterns are familiar, it is time to actually listen to the entire ChinesePod lesson. If you have done step two and three, you should find that the words in Chinese are no longer foreign to you, and you will be able to benefit from the English explanation of a particular word or grammar pattern and its usage. Think of this as the lecture portion of a class. You don't get much out of a lecture if you haven't done the homework beforehand.
(For a typical ChinesePod lesson this section will take 15 minutes)

Step 5: Expand on the material.
Now that you have heard the new material multiple times it is time to check out any expansion material that has been provided. In the case of ChinesePod this means looking at the key grammar patterns or vocabulary words from the lesson. Read through each of the expansion sentences (out loud), thinking about the meaning. Try and make your own sentences (which you can post in the discussion section) to see if you real understand the material. Ideally, you should memorize any vocabulary or grammar pattern that you find necessary. As Kubler states: memorization "is a very important step," which "firmly establishes in your brain the sounds and structures of the language for you to drawn on later in your own speech."
(Expansion materials and working on new sentences could take around 15 minutes)

Step 6: Test you mastery.
In the case of ChinesePod this means doing the exercises. Now that you have the vocabulary memorized, you've listened to the dialogue, and you understand the grammar patterns, this should be a breeze, after you have crushed the test, mark the lesson as studied... and really mean it!
(A set of exercise drills should take 5 minutes)

What I am suggesting in this post, is taking the time to turn online materials into your own sort of virtual classroom. If you follow all six steps, you'll have spent an hour fully learning the materials that you set out to study. This might not be something that you can do everyday, and you certainly can't do it on the bus or while you're working, but if you are conscious and active in your learning approach you will ultimately get more out of it. 

Confucius, in The Analects, is quoted as saying "工欲善其事，必先利其器 (Gōng yù shàn qí shì, bì xiān lì qí qì 'If a craftsman wants to do a good job, he must fist sharpen his tools.' It is important to have the right tools and to "sharpen" them, but we also need to know that these tools only help us do a job, we are still the ones who need to go out and do it.

Reflecting on my summer in Beijing

Tweet A day doesn't go by that I don't think back to the wonderful experience I had this past summer in Beijing at 中央民族大學(Minzu University of China). I spent six weeks attending Hamilton College's ACC K-12 Chinese Language Teachers Institute for Non-Native Speakers of Chinese with 9 other Chinese teachers. Our goal over those six weeks was to not only improve our Mandarin Chinese, but also explore new ways of teaching Chinese language and culture.

During the course of our program we learned to push our Chinese language skills to a new level (with large help from a Chinese Language pledge) and cover an incredible amount of material: from cultural lectures, and curriculum design, to class visits and Chinese teacher conferences. Now, only a few months later, I still marvel at how much we learned and accomplished during those six weeks.

 

A rough outline of events for the first three weeks. We really had quite the busy schedule.

While I cannot emphasize enough just how much better my Chinese became after those six weeks, I think that even more importantly, I gained a new found confidence (and passion) for teaching Chinese to others. The ability to collaborate with other K-12 Chinese teachers from the United States, and teachers trained in China was, in a word, priceless.

One of the most important lessons I learned, came from the first day of class when we started talking about the "Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century." These standards, developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) are commonly referred to as the 5Cs: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. These five concepts allow for teachers to provide students with a comprehensive learning experience, that will ultimately allow them to interact (successfully) in the target culture.

Inspired by our summer program and ACTFL's 5Cs, I would like to propose my own Standards for Learning a Foreign Language in the 21st Century, otherwise know as the 5Cs of language learning: Commit, Create, Consider, Crave, and Contribute... to language.

1. Commit yourself to the language you are studying. You don't need to be a genius to speak Chinese, but you certainly have to put in time and energy. During our summer in Beijing we did this by signing a six week language pledge. No matter if we were in the classroom or visiting the park, every word we spoke was in Chinese. This level of commitment isn't for everyone, but it certainly is possible to create your own language pledge in small doses. Giving yourself a commitment, whether it be by only Chinese, or making the time to study everyday is a key to success.

My language pledge (and desktop background for the program) was not only a contract with ACC, but also a contract with myself.

2. Create a study system that works for you. This summer we learned the importance of 因材施教 (yīncáishījiào), or the ability to teach according to a student's individual abilities. We faced this rather daunting task by playing games, making videos and overall thinking about the way that different students acquire new information. However, this is something that we as language learners should consider as well. If something isn't working, don't be afraid to try something else. With the availability of free teaching materials online, trial and error until finding something that works should be encouraged.  

A classmate learns how to teach bargaining by practicing her own skills in our classroom market.

3. Consider your environment. The classroom, the Internet, the streets, the people around you, these are all tools and ways that we can learn something new. A huge part of being a successful language learner is having a spark of curiosity. No matter where we are, there are new things to be learned and absorbed all around us. If you're not in a Chinese speaking environment, that should stop you. Let every encounter with a second language (spoken or otherwise) be a chance for new discoveries and insights. Our program took full advantage of our environment. We even had a class in Black Bamboo Park, where we all had the task teaching our classmates one of the many activities we learned that morning. 

My adventure in Black Bamboo Park had me learning to Chinese waltz!

 4. Crave more than you think you can handle. Push the boundaries of what you think you can do with Chinese. Sometimes we have do something that we think is over our head before we can learn what we are capable of. I never thought that I would be able to speak in front of a group of native speakers in Chinese (without being completely self-conscious) until I found myself doing just that for around 200 Chinese teachers who were heading to American and wanted to know what they should expect. At that point my confidence went through the roof. While those opportunities don't come around every day, it is never to early to start a blog in Chinese, sign-up for a speech competition, or switch your computers operating system. Just be sure to keep telling yourself that you can do it!

My classmate and I leading a two hour presentation on media technology in the classroom. Something we never thought possible before the ACC program.

5. Contribute to the language learning community. No matter if you are a teacher or a student don't be afraid to share your opinion. My summer in Beijing taught that my role as a non-native speaker teaching Chinese is incredibly important.  As non-native speakers we can relate to the mistakes students make, and share our own experiences from learning Chinese. As students, contributing to the language learning community is even more important. Let teachers know what works and what doesn't. Sharing input about what you want to learn will not only make lessons more meaningful, but also encourage initiative and independence in the language learning journey. 

Of course, my 5Cs aren't ACTFL certified, but they are way to keep language learning fresh. Now, living in Taiwan as a grad student, I realize just how much I learned during my six weeks in Beijing. My confidence as a second language speaker, and as a future educator has increase tremendously, and if I could go back again I would.  If you are a non-native Chinese speaker and have a career in teaching Chinese as a second language, or are considering one, I would highly recommend looking into the K-12 Chinese Teacher Training programs.

If you have questions, please leave them in the comments below, or send me an email.

Students and Teachers of the 2011 K-12 Summer Program.