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baiyijian · 3 years

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before i got sick in august i had gotten my chinese good enough to watch the Humans cdrama adaptation with no english subs.

cannot wait for Ice Fantasy Destiny to inevitably test me on if i retained that level of chinese lol for when i end up watching Ice Fantasy, want the sequel in the modern era, and need to watch in chinese only since subs aren’t done for that sequel and the youtube version has no subs at all.

i skimmed a little of ep 1 of Ice Fantasy Destiny last night and? i could follow what was going on, so i must have retained some level of understanding lol. i imagine it would be easier also once i know the story-specific fantasy terms and words from watching Ice Fantasy with both english and chinese subs. it does feel like it’d require a bit more focus from me than it did when I paused watching Humans midway through though, so i’d probably have to rebuild the skill of reading the chinese subs super fast/skimming them that i had gotten good at once I got used to the Humans eps.

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other things: watched My Beautiful Man jdrama lately and realized what japanese I have managed to retain over the years I Really DO retain… actually hearing japanese again, so many of the daily life phrases I have ingrained so much that I don’t need to look at subs for those parts and hear them so fast I recognize by hearing before I see subs.

I think a big thing that really HAMMERED in my japanese recognition was back when I did that experiment with Clozemaster app back in the summer of 2021. Back then, I bought Clozemaster so I could use radio mode. Then I went through the Japanese course’s like 600 most common words - half of the time doing the multiple choice, half of the time just playing ‘radio’ mode in the background while I did other stuff and hearing the japanese sentences/english translation over and over. I really feel like all that exposure helped me get better at recognizing more casual/natural speech and grammar that had been less familiar to me before (cause I didn’t see it much in my old textbooks), helped me with recognizing familiar words quicker through sound, and helped me just ‘parse sentences’ much better when listening by just hearing the word boundaries and word endings easier. So like, now when I hear phrases in My Beautiful Man? Its much easier than it used to be for me to hear ‘oh he’s speaking casually’ and ‘oh that’s a grammar form i don’t quite remember but i recognize its just kind of a tense thing’ now.

(I’m sure it helps My Beautiful Man uses a LOT of easy super common words like gomen, wakatta, matane, birthday, thank you, do you like guys, and both main characters speak pretty simple concise sentences with unknown words I hear being pretty obvious in meaning in context to figure out which english-similar word in the subs it might mean).

I’m fairly sure if I got back on Clozemaster, reviewed the 600 sentences I’ve done just listening, whatever I forgot would come back pretty quick and I could jump into moving forward again. Also: My Beautiful Man REMINDED me of all the jdramas I’ve wanted to watch like Death Note jdrama, Miss Sherlock, Criminologist Himura (all I wanted so much I ended up buying the dvds ToT). Who knows if jdramas are going to drag me into getting back into japanese study again.

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On the chinese study front: realistically this is the only language I PLAN to make any significant attempts to get back into studying. And even then, at most I’m probably just going to go back to reading/watching like I’d been doing in the summer.

I went through Clozemaster chinese again recently, just playing radio mode and listening to the chinese audio/english translation while reading the hanzi, refreshing my memory. A LOT of hanzi I still recognize (more than words I remember the sound of tbh), and a lot of word-pronunciations I still recognize, its just that I am rusty at instantly-recognizing them. I lost my recognition speed a bit - now it takes me a few times re-hearing the word to get back the ability to instantly recognize it when listening, to get back the ability to recall it when trying to speak/type. Also my sound/hanzi recognition is not equal right now its all over the place with some hanzi I read easily but forgot how to say, some words I instantly recognize when I hear but had forgotten what the hanzi looked like until I saw it again. So… I’m not surprised at the recognition speed loss. It could be much worse lol. As it is, I just feel like everything looks very familiar but its all ‘at the tip of my tongue’ or back of my brain and won’t shake loose! Like I tried to say some stuff to myself to re-remember words and I could NOT recall enough to say: wish, win, stupid, please, cat… just some basic words I KNOW if I saw/heard I’d still instantly recognize. Now that I’ve remembered them again I feel so silly for them having disappeared temporarily from my ability to recall lol. (But like lol that happens with english too, forgetting the word for like mailbox ToT)

I also went through chapter 1 of Guardian again, and chapter 1 of Tamendegushi. My reading skill is in a… really weird place? Like… I can TELL I pretty much retained a lot of hanzi meaning recognition. Because when I look through Guardian its still perfectly readable, its just I forgot how to pronounce SO much and forgot ‘oh this hanzi combo is THIS word’ until I see it again on the page, so my reading speeds slower than I’d gotten it to in Summer. Since now I’m slower again at recognizing what I know. The major sound-recall is throwing me off a LOT though. When I looked at tamendegushi, as expected its easier to read than Guardian, and the hanzi all looked familiar (its an easier reading level in general than priest novels), but SO many simple hanzi i forgot the fucking pronunciation for. So I kept pausing and looking up the pronunciations OVER and over. Because I know I used to be able to pronounce all/nearly all the hanzi in that story, they’re common ones. So I think… to an extent if I want my listening-recognition skill back I need to do some audiobook/reading combo again so my mind can remember all the pronunciations it let go of ‘quick-recall’ for. Watching a show with chinese subs could also help me recall the hanzi pronunciations, but that’s way less hanzi/sound per minute. That said… I’m much more likely to just watch some chinese shows before I get the energy to read alongside an audiobook again. I may attempt just like… listening to an audiobook in the background like I used to, like maybe the guy who did Guardian or the Silent Reading audiobook, just because I KNOW I know a lot of those words so hopefully hearing them will recall them again. I think just anything where I hear words I knew again and read words I knew again will return my recall skills a bit. I think a lot of my ‘loss’ right now is just the lack of chinese exposure I’ve had for the last few months. It just feels rusty… like everything that used to be fresh and easy to recognize/recall in the front of my mind got pushed into the back and dusty.

By the way this is the nice voice guy reading Guardian audiobook: https://fm.qq.com/show/rd002ED4aN0mYz2L__

I do miss my quick recall I’d developed in summer lol… I’ve got to work on quickly recognizing things I’ve ‘learned’ again ahhh…

Also? While I didn’t JUST use Clozemaster for chinese back in summer, I do think my study plan back then of “a LOT of chinese exposure” really did help make recall/recognition quicker when I was doing that study plan. What I was doing back in summer was: reading novels alongside audiobooks (to pick up new words/reinforce known words), and then in any downtime I’d just play the audiobook (reinforce known words). Other times during downtime, I’d play Clozemaster radio mode (or the chinese spoonfed audio files) to hear chinese then the english translation (so learn some new words, and reinforce known ones). Basically I did a TON to hear stuff I knew/was studying frequently, and the more I heard stuff the quicker my recognition got. The easier it got to follow audiobooks without text reference, then without paying attention so intensely. (I was basically doing the same study plan with Japanese in summer, just ONLY with learner materials and never just with only-japanese stuff like audiobooks).

I am sure the study plan sounds obvious? But it wasn’t to me. It had been a ‘test’ at the time to see if it worked. To see if I kept listening to the same audiobook file, if each consecutive time I would recognize more words/sentences even if I was NOT using any additional tools like a reference text. If I just listened to chinese on its own, would I eventually recognize more? And like… it worked. In summer I started with a recognition of a few isolated words/phrases and dialogue lines when I’d listen to an audiobook chapter, then I’d listen to it 5 times and recognize many more words/full sentences (and realize how many words I had ‘kind of known’ but just didn’t have enough practice recognizing quickly). Then I’d listened to an audiobook chapter 10 times and could follow almost every line. Could understand enough from sound alone to start guessing the words I still didn’t recognize. So like… repeated listening? it works. If you’ve got Some initial comprehension, then repeated listening definitely increases that comprehension level the more times you listen. (Yes you’ll eventually hit a limit where you no longer comprehend more if you aren’t making other efforts to learn new words, but that limit is a LOT higher than I thought it was…and I still haven’t hit it. And if your top-comprehension gets you to a level where the material becomes ‘mostly comprehensible’ then at that point you can start learning some new words JUST by actively trying to figure out those few unknown words from context if you want).

I remember in summer I was also trying repeated listening for some condensed-audio show files (to no surprise, Guardian episode condensed audio). By August I had gotten to the point where I could listen to those audios and follow the plot/story fine and most lines except a few unknown words. Which was fun! Whereas when I had initially started, just Da Qing’s intro about haxing and genetics had confused me/been hard to understand. Condensed audio also works good for repeated-listening because if you’ve seen the show before the lines/context should be somewhat familiar (so with MORE exposure to the audio/practice listening, you will comprehend more), and the variety of words is lower than audiobooks (less descriptions, more conversational sentences which are easier to follow the point of).

Wow do I miss the quicker-recall of chinese I’d gotten back in the Summer lol! I’m listening to the Guardian audiobook again right now and I lost like 50% of my instant-recognition, I just keep hearing words I fully-recognize then words that sound familiar but I can’t place quickly enough… I’m sure if I listened several times some more words will get easier to recognize. My brain just keeps going “OH that sounds familiar but I can’t place it! OH I can almost remember but?? OH I got that bit! WAIT whyyyy can’t I remember that word…I knew it before…” But lol I miss when I could follow a full sentence just hearing it in the background. Back in summer I’d gotten to the point where i was turning on the Love and Redemption audiobook and following the general plot even though I haven’t read that novel yet, turning on the 2ha audiobook (there’s a nice one on youtube here:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsxEOGKlBMaFa6CS6Hf5ndy6qTtUL0Au_), I remember following along to the Tian Ya Ke audiobook on missevan when I used to do chores ToT. (Also, obvious, but repeated-listening to stuff you have prior context for is a lot easier so you can figure out a lot initially the first few listens from information you already knew about the story, then once you have a better base level of comprehension then using that for the unknown/less-known words).

Also I realized back in summer I put some resources together so I could like… read an english webnovel chapter, then jump right to the chinese webnovel and read it with that prior context, etc. And I was contemplating finally finishing reading tianyake and qiye and realized oh man I could read it easily in Both if I wanted to fry my brain and make it get back into reading chinese novels soon…

For fun, here’s dmbj 1 audiobook: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTJaWZoVPdT1Tm3eKtcxtDWRnPKDBHDbL (blows my mind I used to know like 98% of the words in the first 4 chapters of this… now like 50% sounds like ‘gee its in the back of my mind i just can’t place it’ or ‘I can’t place it this fast!’ ToT)

again, the nice 2ha audiobook with a smooth voice: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsxEOGKlBMaFa6CS6Hf5ndy6qTtUL0Au_

Silent Reading audiodrama with english subs: https://youtu.be/DsdmeQBMD_M

天涯客 audiobook on bilibili (with chinese subs if you turn on the scrolling comments!): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14p4y1t7sB?from=search&seid=8174931125488953052&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0

七爷 audiobook on bilibili (nicest audio one I’ve found for this novel): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1F54y1j7AP?from=search&seid=913159267515817669&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0

tian ya ke audio drama: https://m.missevan.com/sound/120279

天涯客 audiodrama with chinese subs here: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1qC4y187ak?from=search&seid=11843512594873021638&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0

Guardian audiobook on bilibili WITH CHINESE SUBS (how nice there’s subs??): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV124411V7jX?from=search&seid=3375106997416853282&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0

PoYun/Broken Cloud audiobook: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1sh411n7Hz?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0

2ha audiobook (man’s voice): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Pw411R743?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0

Modu/Silent Reading audiobook (woman’s voice, I like this one because it actually sticks to the original novel text, whereas the offiical ximalaya audiobook omits entire passages and changes some sentences): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1b5411N7aa?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0

Modu/Silent Reading audiobook (man’s voice, this is the ximalaya version so there are passages removed/changed): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Gb4y1e7z8?from=search&seid=16682226077510869656&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0

tgcf/heaven’s official blessing audiobook (man’s voice, has chinese subtitles which is nice): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV12y4y1H7tS?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0

can ci pin donghua: https://www.bilibili.com/bangumi/play/ss26265

《间客》(有声小说) 双人全集配智能生成的字幕（I don’t know what this is but it’s nice to see chinese subs on an audiobook): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Rf4y167jC?from=search&seid=8174931125488953052&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0

LiuLi The Glass Maiden/Love and Redemption audiobook youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH_aGSaKXFeHSofRd4LF1Hl8fpCSREVBW

LiuLi The Glass Maiden/Love and Redemption audiobook (ximalaya version with multiple voice actors): https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1tb4y1a7Rt?from=search&seid=13306833075713872379&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0

some god tier video maker made an english/chinese sub movie trailer concept for Can Ci Pin with Zhu Yilong (I am NEVER going to get an epic production show of Can Ci Pin probably but god it would make for an excellent fucking story, its one of my favorite novel concepts ;-;: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1bb411P791/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.3

Useful words when searching for audio:

type the story name in chinese

字幕版 or 字幕 is subtitles, also sometimes 字子 (you can also use these when looking for subs on a show/movie/play this is how i’ve found chinese subbed japanese musicals on bilibili).

有声 (for any audio)，有声读物 (audiobook)，广播剧 (audio drama)

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baiyijian · 3 years

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Some September 1st Updates

the READING SPEED difference of a novel at my level! I read the first chapter of 撒野 yesterday and this author is at exactly my reading level right now. I hit 0-2 new words each pleco page, which is usually the sweet spot to either guess the word or if I look it up I can pretty quickly adapt to recognizing it in context. Its also the sweet spot where if I only rely on guessing for new word meanings, on a second pass through I can fairly well guess the meaning quickly.

It was a 32 page chapter in pleco and I read it in 20 minutes. Compared to the 20 pleco page per chapter pingxie fic i just finished (like 124k characters! WOW I read and FINISHED that much!), which was taking 30-40 minutes per chapter (mainly because of number of new vocabulary per chapter being a bit higher). If I’d wanted to speed read saye I could have, I’d have missed some small details but I could have tried if I wanted.

Then I did a second pass later in the day with the audiobook just following along with the text. Realized 1. I knew most words in the audiobook and did not follow as well as i thought - but those first listen throughs without having seen the chapter I did manage to figure out the main character just broke up, just travelled somewhere, ran into a girl and somehow the girls brother showed and the two guys interacted a little and someone was being somewhat helpful, then the main guy met his father trying to ‘pick him up.’ Which is a true but very rough summary of what happens in the first chapter. By reading I could confirm the words I thought were names AS names, figured out WHY the girl was interacting with the main guy and that there were actually two girls in chapter 1, and figure out who helped who and who was the girl’s brother. Also somehow before I looked at the chapter text I never caught that the audiobook mentions a motorcycle despite me knowing that word and it SOUNDING like mota-che/motorche! it sounds like the word and i knew it and didn’t hear it! Then later following the audiobook with the text I realized another issue I had, is I’m not used to listening to soft voices with such faint pronunciations of the final sounds. I’m much more used to deeper crisper pronunciations and being able to rely clearly on initials and finals AS much as tones to recognize the words, whereas this particular audiobook i needed to mainly rely on tones and initials to figure out what word was what - that probably threw me off a bit. It’s probably good for me to get practice listening to such a different voice to what I’m used to. I have definitely learned the deeper the voice, the more I have a far easier time figuring out what’s being said. Also standard accent more like beijing but without a huge amount of ‘er’s just some, and taiwan accent are the easiest for me to hear when i’m not pa

For anyone curious, here is the audiobook for SaYe I’m listening to: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2w27tfjeeaySbMK272NpXwUtsBc-e3YN

Also here’s a chinese audiobook youtube I found: https://www.youtube.com/c/%E6%9C%89%E5%A3%B0%E5%B0%8F%E8%AF%B4%E5%90%AC%E4%B9%A6%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8Cyoushengxiaoshuo/playlists

Which includes The King’s Avatar: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTJaWZoVPdT1ZhIQIKxVci7fVEHr-oX6k

And ErHa: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsxEOGKlBMaFa6CS6Hf5ndy6qTtUL0Au_

Anyway, its a great book right now for reading practice. It’s very much around my level. I will probably stick with this author for a little while and solidify what I know/my base reading level.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I am apparently living proof listening-reading, heavy emphasis on re-listening a TON in the background as you work or type or walk/drive whatever, works for learning new words.

I re-listened to guardian chapter 1 audiobook at least 20-30 times by now, just a tremendous amount. Chapters 1-10 I’ve listened to at least 5 times by now random chapters at random days, and some probably also 20 times.

I have listened to these chapters enough, that I can officially follow so much that I know nearly every freaking word I hear, I know it immediately on hearing in at least 3 different audiobooks, and the few ‘less familiar’ words I recognize a second after hearing (like hearing ‘audacious’ or ‘glum’ in english it just takes me a second to re-remember), and the very few still forgotten words/specific details I learn From those words I can actually pick up from the context of listening.

I hear ‘powei’ and somehow forgot it AGAIN? Oh it means ‘rather’ in this context. ‘anli’ well i always hear ‘anlishuo’ as in ‘people say/generally speaking’ so ‘anli’ in this context must mean ‘generally/generally speaking.’ chuanghu? can’t remember it because i was just typing this JUST now and only hearing a few words from the audiobook in the background - well in context its obviously window, but out of context my brain said window and i just couldn’t remember if it was window or curtain but felt curtain had something more complex than ‘hu’ as the second half - just looked it up and my guess was right, even with no context which i’d have had if i’d been listening better and it had been clear it’s window, it still made me think ‘window’ immediately just hearing the sound. ‘xiang yi ge ren’ sounds like ‘looks like a person’ which is the next phrase i just randomly heard. ‘hua le yao ming’ shouted for their life/in awful terror? or that would be ‘huo’, so maybe ‘streaking toward him to take his life’? would make sense in context of a horror scene - i just looked it up and 划了要命 would be the second one. even IF i heard the wrong line, both of those are pretty close to a good guess in context and hua is the only unknown because without context i can’t place if it was hua or huo. i still confuse the words wu and wo for hold etc, but in context i can tell which one it is (wo is hold a hand, hold a face, etc).

I’m genuinely at a point where I can just completely follow the plot through at least the first 20 chapters from listening. And for most scenes, follow every detail too including stuff like guo changcheng spending half a year not working at home after he graduated, being so afraid of the phone, da qing being fawning to shen wei when they meet and rubbing against his leg, the specific conversation details when da qing runs across zhao yunlan’s car in chapter 2, what zhao yunlan’s room exactly looks like, etc. Its super cool to be able to follow the audiobook so well I can follow the story and details even when I don’t have time to read! It’s so fun! And it was not very hard!

It took 40 minutes of upfront study where you set time aside to focus: 20 minutes to have a program read the chapter aloud while you either see unknown word definitions pop up (like in Pleco) or look them up with some click dictionary as you listen. 20 minutes to go through and listen to the audiobook as you follow along with the text. Then after that, just play the audiobook chapters you’ve done this with whenever you want, either paying attention like when going to bed soon or walking, or in the background like when cleaning or doing busy work or driving. Since background listening can be done easily whenever all you have to do is remember to click play when you want something to listen to.

I’m honestly blown away by how much 3 months of studying mainly like this (which is quite fun and only requires me to carve out a small amount of actual study focused time) has improved my listening skills. I can now also listen to the 2ha audiobook okay and follow along (provided its a chapter I’ve read before so I have at least some prior context to help me out) - at least so far as that’s what I’m listening to right now. Basically, I can tell Guardian has both upped my vocabulary significantly and also improved my automatic recognition of many words I half-knew and learned since.

I recently found a new Guardian audiobook read by a deep voice and its lovely (and utilizes music and echo for effects, its lovely to listen to) I hope the poster keeps updating: https://fm.qq.com/show/rd002ED4aN0mYz2L__

I’ve been listening to it lately.

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Also! Directions for using Pleco Android for screen reader:

1. To get any page bookmarked online:

Open a page in your mobile web browser you want to read. Click the menu, click share, click Pleco Reader (or ‘more’ or ‘…’ then Pleco Reader).

Go to Clipboard Reader. Now when you click text, dictate text megaphone will be an option.

*Since Clipboard Reader is free, you can do this to read in Pleco and have things spoken aloud with no money spent. (Though I find the Reader tool worth the money and add ons).

2. To have any text ‘dictated aloud’:

Go to Pleco’s menu, Settings, Audio, click ‘use TTS if no recording,’ then for Sentence Audio section area System TTS Setting click Speech Services by Google (you can also experiment by clicking other options I am just stating what worked for me, it didn’t work at first I had to make that my default TTS in my Accessibility-Talkback Settings menu on my main phone first and restart my phone before all this).

Then click the area right below to mess with speed and sound of the TTS voice.

(Note, to test if TTS is working you can go to any dictionary entry sentence, click the speaker next to the sentence and see if it plays audio. If it does not, you will get an error message and directions on what to change in your phone settings. That is what initially happened to me: I had to go to phone Settings, Accessibility, Talkback, TTS Engine, TTS Engine voice and settings. Pleco recommended I choose Speech Services by Google, and uninstall then reinstall the Chinese voice. Then restart the phone. That worked for me. An additional note: I have Talkback setting on ‘on’ and just have it in my toolbar to use if desired but am not actively using it. If you turn Talkback setting ‘off’ in the actual Settings area of Accessibility, I am not sure if it will affect Pleco’s ability to dictate).

3. How to put it together:

Now go to Clipboard Reader and read the page from the internet you wanted or text you pasted, or go to Document Reader and open the document you wish to read.

Click a word as a place to start. Now you should see both the loudspeaker (for pronouncing the single word) and the Megaphone next to it to start dictating all text. (If your phone is weird like me, you may need to press the megaphone a couple times before the audio works).

If you wish to change dictation reading speed, simply hold down the megaphone and select the speed desired.

Now that I’ve figured this out I really want to take pictures of my print book, make a pdf, and listen to all the changes.

(Now I just have to fix my weird dictionary in Idiom app and I’m all set on the new phone!)

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All I’ve been doing the past august study wise is just reading pingxie fic and finishing, and listening to audiobooks. It’s been a busy time for me ToT

I do think it proved you can be lazy and still make some improvements though:

1. Reading in Pleco (or click-dictionary tool of your choice): pick something and read a chapter a day (that’s what I did, obviously the easier this is the less time you’ll need, but aim for around 30 minutes a day and reading material closer to your level if you don’t want to read too long)

2. Listening-Reading Method something above your reading level that you enjoy. Should take 40 minutes a couple times a week to several times a week to hours a week, depending on how intense you want to get with it and how much you’re going to alternate/include the reading portion. I did like 1-2 chapters a week so I was only spending 40 minutes to 1.5 hours a week doing this, or 3 hours one week no time another week. This is definitely something where you can do 6-12 hours one month then coast on it for another month just repeating older material’s audio/re-reading sections (which is what I did with guardian, doing 22 chapters then switching to just listening to audio a lot).

Once you’ve done a little L-R steps 2 and 3 (in either order, whatever works for you - and doing step 1 if you want more context prior to steps 2 and 3), then just make time during your days to play the audiobook chapters you’ve studied. You don’t need to be focusing every single time (although focusing on actually trying to follow the audio the first time you listen without text to aid you will probably speed up your comprehension a lot by giving you a lot of basic-context to help you comprehend more later). Aim to listen whenever you’ve got down time! Or time where you’d play music or some background youtube video or podcast - walks, exercise, drives, when cleaning, when browsing the web goofing off, when working if you have times when you’d listen to music with lyrics or a podcast in the background without issues, times when you don’t need to focus 100% on listening just putting it on to hear in the background).

That’s all I’ve done for study since May. It takes me about 30 minutes 5 days a week, plus 1-2 hours listening-reading actively a week. So 2.5 hours plus 2 = 4 hours of active study a week. Sometimes more like 8-10 if I got really into reading something or Listening-reading to several chapters. Then after that (very easy to fit into my life 4-10 hours per week of study) I just play the audiobook whenever I have downtime at work (that’s usually 0.5-4 hours where I just let it play because I forget its on while working on spreadsheets, updates, emails, etc, or play the audiobook while messing around on the internet in my free time at home, sometimes I put on music instead), while walking so 15-30 minutes maybe 3 days a week, while driving far so maybe 20 minutes - 2 hours per week. maybe lets say 2 hours*4 days a week (I don’t remember to listen every day) so 8 hours random listening+1.5 hours walking+1 hour driving per week. That’s 11.5 hours listening in the background or paying attention plus lets say 4 hours of active study a week. So 15.5 ‘study’ hours for chinese per week - an average overall of ~2.21 hours of chinese ‘study’ per day. This isn’t counting when I get into weibo and goof off, get into some chinese show with no english subs and just start watching it (I watched 16 episodes of Humans cdrama in August which is ~10.66 hours for a total of at least (15.5*4 weeks = 62 hours + 10.66 hours -> ~72.66 hours spent ‘with chinese’ in August at minimum. 4 weeks*7 days = 28, so over around 28 days or most of august I did 72.66 total hours/28 days -> or ~2.595 hours of chinese per day as an average. So… my guess that I spend at least 1-2 hours on chinese per day as the average was a decent guess. Looks like I’m usually 2 hours to 2.5 hours daily as an overall average. It’s not that hard to get in that much without a ton of time in the day once you get some listening skills built up ToT Deciding to build up my listening skills has been one of the funnest goals in chinese so far.

Notes on Listening Reading Actively - it also doubles as increasing your exposure to listening to your target language, and the more hours the better even if its passive in the background, just more hours adding up toward your mind getting a better ability to parse the sounds of the language is going to help your overall listening comprehension in general. So even if you don’t pay attention much and can’t follow the whole plot and only catch certain scenes, you will be improving at least comprehension of: hearing words you know, hearing colocations and common phrases and recognizing more automatically which will help with speaking/writing indirectly and reading recognition of those things, overall ability to hear things correctly in different combinations and getting used to the common combinations.

You will be surprised how much more you can pick up of plot and details the 3rd listen compared to the first, the 5th listen, the 10th listen. It’s wild. Like… I’m listening to the 2ha audiobook and even having never read it in chinese, just knowing basic context, the 2nd read through I caught so much more of the plot throughout just because I had forewarning of when scenes change a lot, what audio plays during some parts I recognized in previous listens, and so I have more focus for figuring out the new details I missed. Whereas the first listen, I didn’t always know WHAT the scene context was until I heard a familiar line or description I remembered from the english version of the scene, but on a second listen I now have a better guess at the scene the lines are probably taking place in before and after those lines I recognized in the first listen. And this continues etc each time you re-listen to something. (So yes, that initial context of knowing what you’re listening to with a previous read of its translation or target language transcript will definitely speed up comprehension pick up - but if you just wanna test what your basic listening comprehension to new content is then it works fine just going into new audio with no prior context its just more difficult at first lol until you build an idea of the context from listening).

The original Listening-Reading Method person did like 40+ hours a week, 8 hours most days, no wonder they made fast progress! They often included reading in some form (hence the name) and later translation, so they also were constantly working on listening AND some reading skills AND eventually often some speaking/writing skills. Doing it my way results in mostly listening comprehension of stuff you could already read to a degree, more automaticity in recognition, and for picking up new vocabulary both in listening and reading. I do extra reading on the side with other stuff to get more reading practice in an isolated way (since I’m trying to push my reading speed up above speaking speed). I always try to do it the way the creator originally intended, but I am not able to focus on things for more than 20 minutes at a time, 40 to a couple hours if I take a break every 20 minutes. So doing it 8 hours just doesn’t work out.

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I’m fairly happy!

I am on plan for my main goals that started this style study plan:

1. Improving my reading level to get to start being able to extensively read actual danmei novels - we got there! I am at a reading level appropriate for SaYe at 98% comprehension when I checked, and at a bit above 95% comprehension for Guardian! I’m now continuing with that goal while adding on increasing reading Speed in general.

2. Improving listening skills so I have better automatic recognition of partly-known words from reading (working super well so far - I can tell because ability to watch cdramas in only chinese has improved noticeably and gotten much easier), and so I can start following the main plot and key details of audiobooks of things I’ve read before (working great for guardian, starting to work with other audiobooks provided I listen to the chapters a few times or several times if its brand new material I have no context for, however reading level matters and while things I have prior familiarity with are going very well - brand new materials are still quite challenging in that they require multiple listens for the full plot and several listens before I start picking up most non-plot-critical details).

#long post

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baiyijian · 3 years

Text

@betweencrossedblades ok let me hook you up.

I am reading TTWTADSL - the wrong way to a demon sect leader. It’s danmei, it’s light so far, it’s funny and cute, it’s full of pickup lines.

This is the Chinese txt: https://www.sto.cx/mbook-181887-1.html

This is the English translation: https://www.wattpad.com/793935882-论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主-the-wrong-way-to-a-demon-sect

https://www.wattpad.com/793935882-%E8%AE%BA%E5%A6%82%E4%BD%95%E9%94%99%E8%AF%AF%E5%9C%B0%E5%A5%97%E8%B7%AF%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA%E9%AD%94%E6%95%99%E6%95%99%E4%B8%BB-the-wrong-way-to-a-demon-sect

This is the audiobook:

http://xima.tv/s9ZXwj?_sonic=0

(Ximalaya has a free website and app, if you search the Chinese title 论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主 and 有声读物 you can find the link in a web browser, if for some reason this link doesn’t work for you).

I use MandarinSpot.com annotationbookmarklet to read in my web browser either on my phone or computer (it’s a popup dictionary when you click, very minimal but good). This is the link, it’s free and is not a download (which I like), just follow directions: https://mandarinspot.com/bookmark

Here’s how it looks:

Alternatively they have a copy paste area, that is another way to use it to read: https://mandarinspot.com/annotate

Alternatively, any dictionary popup reader would work. (Or if you prefer, just copy and pasting words you don’t know into a dictionary etc). Popup dictionaries/readers I’ve used - Zhongwen Chrome Extension (free, decent translations, but I don’t like using extensions), Pleco reader (Pleco app in general is god tier to me, I use the purchased for $10 reader so I can bookmark/import PDFs etc, but there’s a free copy/paste text into it Clipboard Reader in Pleco that’s completely free and has good definitions).

I’ve just been reading through it with the mandarinspot annotation Bookmarklet tool.

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Now, I had PLANNED to read it through by listening-reading. Which is what I’m doing later, after reading a certain amount of chapters lol. If you’re curious, listening-reading for me is:

Step 1: read in chinese (optional, look up unknown words - for TTWTADSL, I am looking up all unknown words).

optional additional (or alternate) step 1: read in English once so I can compare words (much more helpful when I read Chinese Without looking up words, since this fills in gaps I had).

Step 2: read in chinese while following along to Chinese audio.

Step 3: look at english while listening to Chinese audio - trying to follow along to the meaning of Chinese audio, and using the English as a ‘transcript’ to figure out any unknown words/phrases.

My listening-reading method has been varying a few different ways, but this is how I’ve been doing it for TTWTADSL. I think it’s been helping a lot.

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FYI if you ever want txt/translation/audio links hit me up. (Ximalaya is great for looking for audiobooks). I’ve been trying to do listening-reading more so for novels I’m interested in reading I’ve looked up the Chinese/English/Chinese audio links already. (Like LWSS, Qiang Jin Jiu, Silent Reading, Guardian, Ever Night, The King’s Avatar).

Also, if you are okay with machine audio - Pleco will play audio of any text in either the free Clipboard Reader, or the Reader I use. So in a pinch it’s a way to hear pronunciations/practice listening to chapters.

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Finally, another Easy Read rec I would Loveeee someone else beside me to read: 他们的故事 by 一根黄瓜丝儿

Link: https://www.52shuku.vip/chongsheng/hywK.html

It is a danmei, it is modern setting, it is very grounded in reality lets say. It’s a transmigration story sort of. I tried to do a translation the first chapter before, if you’d like a taste before getting into it: https://rigelmejo.tumblr.com/post/625197846248013824/just-an-attempt-at-translating-the-beginning-of

It’s the first novel I properly tried to read without having seen any English translation first, and it was challenging but also actually something I could manage to slog through only knowing 1000-2000 words. I read half of it and plan to go back to it soon, since I imagine it’s a way easier read now. I really loved it.

#long post

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