#and if i want to use a click dictionary - which just means like 30-40 minute chapters. which is slow but

[rigelmejo]

Update; Read dmbj 1 chapter 1 last night, only used dictionary for a handful of words to double check I guessed the meaning (and hear the pronunciation). Took 20-30 minutes to read (so reading speed is still getting worked on ToT).

The main point though is, dmbj 1 is now within reading comprehension level. I can read it without a click-dictionary and did for the second half of it because I got lazy and was sleepy and wanted to get to the end. 

However, I should note I’ve read it before a year ago or more in english/chinese parallel text, so I probably already pre-studied the dmbj 1′s intro chapters vocabulary a long while back when I looked up unknown words during that first time. 

But as for actual reading ability of it right now, it is in a good range. It was also a bit easier to read than SaYe to be honest and I think that’s because I’m much more used to npss’s writing style and guessing his word choices, and in general I’m more familiar with tomb stories/shows than I am with daily life. 

SaYe is also within reading comprehension ‘without a click dictionary needed’ range. I notice my main issue when reading it seems to be similar to dmbj: 

1. If I’m reading along with audio, some words I just do not know as well in audio and I don’t have enough time to fully look at the hanzi that correlates and so I make more ‘vague guess’ on words I do actually know if I’d read slower, and end up having to re-read those chunks of text to realize I knew all the words I heard while reading-fast. 

2. If I’m just reading, needing to read slower sometimes because again I knew the words, but for some reason wasn’t expecting those words in that context, so I didn’t parse out the 2-hanzi word or 4-hanzi saying or multi-hanzi phrase I’m used to reading until I finished reading the sentence - then I needed to go back and re-read the sentence knowing better what I had been looking at that first time. This adds a bit of reading time, because I have to backtrack slightly whenever this happens - and its worth backtracking, since I knew the words and was capable of understanding the sentence, I just needed to backtrack to comprehend it all clearly. I’m not surprised by this as I do this when reading english print novels too (in english I backtrack more because a specific phrase of imagery or a detail I skimmed over, and I want to fully soak it in/contemplate it before I move on). And I remember when I first read dmbj in english, I did this a lot for details, so I’m not surprised I’m doing it with dmbj in chinese. However... it does slow down my reading speed, and I’m doing it even MORE often for these ‘comprehensible range’ chinese novels because its also just some actual words/phrases and meaning I don’t fully catch at first glance and need to backtrack for. Whereas in english its usually more only needed when something is phrased different than I’d put it, there’s a lot of description/imagery, or character/key object info/details are being mentioned. With chinese I’m doing it for all those reasons, and just because I didn’t clearly grasp a word/phrase during the first pass. Maybe this is how my english reading was at like age 9-12?

Right now the main books I am ‘reading’ through (not sure which I’ll drop but I’m reading a chapter in at least one of these a day):

Alice in Wonderland chinese translation - this one is a parallel text, has audio, and is also in my ‘comprehensible reading’ range where if I backtrack I know most words but if I listen alongside audio I ‘vaguely catch’ a lot more words I fully know if I was just reading at my comfortable speed

SaYe - using a click dictionary as needed or when I want to remember how a word is pronounced, playing audio when desired. This ones going fine (and written well!) its just not particularly my favorite genre. One benefit of reading in Idiom app specifically right now (over Pleco) is that Idiom app provides one literal word definition (which is sometimes right sometimes wrong unlike Pleco’s thorough word definitions - but the positive is it keeps me guessing actual word meanings in context), but it provides a FULLY translated sentence/paragraph every time. So I can read overall english translation of the content for context like a parallel novel to help guess new words/overall context of sentences, so grammar itself/phrasings are not daunting. The full sentence translation isn’t perfect, its wrong about as often as google just in different ways (curse words sometimes translated right and sometimes super wrong, some verbs I know well clearly translated wrong) but its enough to help me fill in any gaps I happened to have. I think this full-sentence translation feature might be nice if I try to read priest or 2ha. I keep considering just reading SaYe faster, not looking up unknown words/forgotten-sounds so much? I feel like I could just do one of these as full on ‘only extensive reading’ but then I keep getting perfectionist and want to full grasp Anything Moderately Unclear.

dmbj 1 - using a click dictionary as needed/when I want to remember how a word is pronounced. Reading in Idiom. It went very well, I read first in chinese then go over again while listening to the audio of each section. I learned 铲子， 耗子， 吆喝，匣子炮， 绳子， 挖出. Those are the ones I still remember by sound this morning anyway. Listening to audio at some point helps me reinforce the sound aspect of any new words. 

Zhenhun - still at chapter 23. Debating if I will go back to reading the print version extensively, or continue doing Listening-Reading Method with the webnovel version (which I’m at chapter 23 for). Just listening to the audiobook is all I’ve been doing lately, and I can understand that mostly, so I’ve been missing the print novel with all the added scenes ToT. Zhenhun is a case where last time I measured my comprehension (like a month ago) it was 95% or more depending on the page (about 95% for brand new chapters I had no context for). And so my extensive reading comprehension is a bit rough - I can do it, but it takes some effort. However, I know and love the story, and I’m used to priest’s writing to a degree, so even though comprehension is not up to 98% yet I do have a very good idea of when I’m reading additional description versus key information, a good understanding of the key information portions (and important details in the description portions), and I’m better at guessing the unknown words sometimes (because I know what kinds of words/imagery priest likes to use usually - so if I can make out most of the phrase I can usually guess the unknown word has to do with X at least). So despite a lower comprehension, its more like dmbj than SaYe to me - I have a better ability to guess what the author roughly meant when I run into less comprehensible parts. And yes... this is all probably me ranting just because I miss the print version of the book... even though it means no click-dictionary to pronounce words aloud that I don’t know. ToT In my defense lol, every time I read zhenhun I understand it significantly better, and its a really fun motivating feeling. I was just transcribing the Kunlun intro the other day for practice, and I translated that whole section twice before (once like 10 months into learning, once like 16 months in). And I’ve read it 3-4 times before in chinese. And every single time it gets clearer to me. (Also let me know if you’d like a link to the kunlun intro translation I did - its not great as its some months old, but I know that section didn’t get translated as much since its not in the webnovel version. A couple other people have also translated that intro if you go looking around).

[axelsagewrites]

Simon Lewis*Human

Masterlist HERE

Wattpad HERE

Set before Simon was a daylighter

According to the Oxford, dictionary vampire has 3 definitions 1.    a corpse supposed to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living by biting their necks with long pointed canine teeth. 2.    A small bat that feeds on the blood of mammals or birds using its two sharp incisor teeth and anticoagulant saliva, found mainly in tropical America. 3.    (in a theatre) a small spring trapdoor used for sudden disappearances from a stage. And I’m not in a theatre and I’m not a bat. I’m a corpse. The shadowhunters consider us as diseased and broken; cast offs. Mundanes are-well were terrified of us, till a certain film franchise. But still, if they would get scared if they saw us in real life. The one thing no one seems to see us as is human. We were born human, raised human, turned vampire. If you had cancer that doesn’t make you cancer itself. You’re a person with an illness. You can still feel things. Sure, we’re closed off by nature, but we have reasons. A, we literally died which is traumatic enough, B we know we’ll outlive our families, C shadowhunters hate us, D we’re forced to be nocturnal. And that’s the short list. Due to our sleep schedule and the sun we’re kinda forced to be friends with our own. Mundanes are dangerous to befriend as a vampire, shadowhunters hate us, Werewolves despise us, Faeries hate everyone. That leaves us with warlocks I suppose but they’re not nocturnal. Being alive for so long and not aging hurts. It does. You see people around you age and die and you can’t help since you don’t want them to suffer as you do. That takes its toll on you. I make the best of a bad situation. Or I try. I’ve made a few warlock friends and a few more vampire ones. A lot of vampires become closed off though, so those friends are only so good. Raphael was always closed off but he’s still one of my closest friends. Magnus Bane is another. He’s a peculiar person, to say the least. We met at his parties and since he’s a decent person if a vampire visits him he puts up enchantments, so the sun doesn’t leak in. Our friendship was a fun one. Parties, a similar humour, and a carefree life. He’d seen a lot in his time but never made you feel less of a person. He was like a brother who wouldn’t leave me. I had the option to stay in the dumort, but it was grim, to say the least. Sure, I could move into an apartment but it's hard to rent a mundane one due to our odd hours and downworlder landlords always have another tenant waiting for every room. Magnus had seen my predicament and told me I could stay with him for the time. Being roommates with Magnus was great. He could conduct his business in the day without me disturbing him and I could help at night and hang out. Originally Magnus said he would look for  a place for me, rent it in his name, and I’d pay him, but honestly, we had so much fun together we decided to just be roomies. Well, it was fun at first. Our friendship was always strong, but my mind wasn’t. part of the reason Magnus was reluctant to let me move out as he was worried. I couldn’t blame him. I’d lived the length of an average life with the same amount of pain if not more. But I was still alive and still suffering. Sometimes when warlocks get old they become emotionless or crazy. Although not a warlock I think us vampires get the same thing. Mundane medicine doesn’t work on vampires and therapists don’t often see clients after dark. Magnus had helped, so had Raphael, but it still hurts. It’s no one’s fault but that doesn’t mean theirs a cure. I was still alive however and I did my best. I would put on a face if I had to. Somehow Magnus befriended a group of shadowhunters. It was during the day they normally met so our paths never crossed. When Magnus started dated one of them I had a mix of feelings; nervousness, happiness, and curiosity. It wasn’t till then I began to get to know them. I got on fine with Alec, Isabelle, and Clary. Jace and I had a strange hatred yet friendship, swapping insults but not hits. He was okay, to be honest. Then there was Simon. Simon wasn’t Magnus’ friend but he was Clary’s friend who was Jace’s girlfriend, who was Alec’s parabatai. Sometimes it’s like living in a mundane high school. It’s not that I didn’t like Simon, it’s that Simon didn’t like me. According to Raphael, he didn’t really click with other vampires, viewing us as evil or bloodsuckers. I can’t blame him, I was the same at first. Simon would never sit next to me, never talk to me, never even really look at me. When I talked to Magnus about it he said I was paranoid. We were never left alone so it was okay. Till now. It was daytime and everyone had decided to go to Magnus’s for lunch. The apartment was enchanted so the sun didn’t affect vampires unless a window was open. While everyone was talking amongst themselves Alec got a call. You could see him holding back a groan. “Okay. We’ll be right there,” He sighed and hung up, “Some Mundanes went into an old vampire den. They're okay but apparently, we need to survey the place first,” Jace groaned but forced himself up of the couch. “How long do you think it’ll take,” “Not long,” Alec said, “We’ll be back in like 20, 30 minutes,” They said a quick goodbye before going. When 30 minutes had passed there was a slight bit of worry, but we all knew despite Jace’s antics you could trust them. When 40 minutes past it was worrying. Clary decided to phone Jace. When he picked up he didn’t say anything, but you could hear them. There was clearly commotion going on. “Hey!” Jace yelled before the phone call ended. The group looked at each other. Isabelle was already on her feet, grabbing her stuff. “Come on,” she told Clary. But Magnus also got up. “Magnus-“ “He’s my boyfriend. I’m coming with you,” He said. Isabelle nodded in understanding  and they all began to rush out, Simon following. Isabelle turned and stopped him, “It’s daylight outside. You stay here.” “But-“ “Stay,” It was final. The door closed behind them and it was silent. Simon walked back to the sofa and sat far away from me. They’d be fine. They always were. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Nothing. Simon was pacing, “Aren’t you worried!?” He lashed out. I looked up from my phone, “Yes,” “You don’t look it.” he crossed his arms and glared at me, “They could be dead for all we know,” I held back an eye roll, “They’re not,” I told him, going back to my phone. “You know this is why I can’t stand you, vampires. You just don’t care about anyone but yourself do you?” “News flash Simon, you’re a vampire,” I lash out. His eyes narrow on me, “Not like you,” “Enlighten me, Simon,” I say, standing up. “What did I do? Huh? What did all of us vampires do to piss you off so much?” The look on his face is incredulous, “For starters turning innocent Mundanes! Killing them for blood! Not caring about anyone! You are all monsters,” I shake my head in disbelief, “Wow Simon. Wow. Guess what? We were Mundanes once. We weren’t born like this! We didn’t ask for this! I don’t like blood, but I don’t want to die, again! For crying out loud you're mad at us for existing!” at this point I’m yelling. “We were human too at some point,” “Doesn’t seem like it. Your friend could be dead for all you know!” “You think I don’t know this! He’s over 500 the fact he isn’t dead already is amazing. Simon, it’s not just parabatai who know if someone’s in danger. if Magnus dies then the wards here go down meaning we will be toast. So, get off your high horse and see other people’s side!” Simon sits down, still glaring, “You all don’t get it. I’m not like you. I didn’t want this. You’re all-“ “Monsters?” I cut him off. He nods, “Simon you don’t get this, we’re all the same. We all went through it. I would do anything to go back to that night and tell myself to turn left and not right. Not to fall into that trap.” I sit down on the other end of the sofa,  he shuffles away, “You can’t even sit on the same sofa as me. Do you realise how bad that is?” I shake my head in disbelief and begin to walk to my room, “Vampirism is a disease. It doesn’t make you less human unless you let it,”

Silence echoes through the apartment, deafening me. Laying on my bed, I just stare at the ceiling. Am I human? Am I a bad person? Is it my fault? Theirs a knock at my door. I glance up as Simon walks in. He’s looking at the floor turning his phone over in his hand, “Clary called. There okay but they're going to the Institute for treatment. Magnus is okay but he wants to stay with Alec,” I nod from my bed, not looking at him. He doesn’t leave so I turn on my side away from him. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t ask for this,” I hum in response, “It's just all the other vampires are so…cold. I-I’m sorry,” He goes to walk away. “Simon,” I say, and I hear him stop, “You are right. We are monsters. But I’m still human enough to feel pain,” “I know. And I’m sorry. I really am,” “It’s okay. Your scared, I get it,” Simon scoffs, “I’m not scared” I sit up to look at him, laughing slightly, “Yes you are. We all are. Especially when were first turned. It’s a new world  to adjust to. It's okay to be scared,” “But I’m not,” I roll my eyes “Simon you are. I still am. You need someone, we all do. Just don’t burn all your bridges with immortals and vampires. We’re all you’ll be left with,” He nods but doesn’t leave. This silence is somewhat awkward. Simons eyes dance around my room, inspecting it. it's not the tidiest but it's cosy? His eyes land on a poster and his eyes light up, “You like that show too?” Somehow Simon and I manage to have our first proper conversation and its on my bed geeking out for angel’s sake. When Magnus gets back I check him over myself, not trusting the shadowhunters. When he sees Simon still here when the suns down he gives me a look. “I’ll explain later,” Alec had come back with Magnus but had gone to bed not long after. Simon left with an awkward goodbye. Once the door was shut Magnus looked at me, “Okay you gotta explain,”

[rigelmejo]

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.

---

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!)

---

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. 

---

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). 

[rigelmejo]

Comprehension Levels

I did the actual words-known/words-on-page to find out my comprehension % of chinese (so characters known/characters on page to make things simple to count). i wanted to see how close I am to reading at that 98% sweet spot they tell people to read. so here’s my comprehension % of some novels of mine, as of 7/20/21:

撒野: 98.9% comprehension (I should just extensively read it, I could speed read the page I glanced at and guess the unknown words once I saw them)

SVSSS: 97.9% (pretty much at a comfortable reading level, the unknown hanzi were mostly parts of multi-character description words I could roughly guess the meaning of, but I was marking every unknown character)

小王子: 96.8% (again, this is as of today, I flipped to a random page so I wouldn’t have myself remembering the plot to affect how much I ‘knew’)

DMBJ 1: 96%

Peach Blossom Debt: 96% if I count name characters as unknown, 97% comprehension if I ignore character names. (I imagine part of the difficulty is my lack of xianxia reading vocab, so if I intensively read a few beginning chapters I could probably fix that).

Guardian: 95.7% understood (I picked the last page of the first print volume, as I figured if I picked the first chapter which I’ve studied and reread my comprehension level would be higher than if it was a part of the novel I haven’t read)

Update: the current fanfic I am reading 夜半衣寒，I tested my comprehension of the new chapter 16 I started. Out of 705 characters, I didn’t know 9, 695/705=0.987 so I have 98.7% comprehension! This is interesting to me, because I would guess (since I didn’t actually measure at the time), that I did not have above 98% comprehension when I started reading it (of course I’ve read like 34k+ characters of it now so I’d hope I’m more familiar with its vocab now). So this is just info for me, that if something starts out as ‘hard’ as this fic to start, if I intensively read for a while (and I’d guess probably the first few chapters since that’s where author’s own specific language is the most new and their setup/genre words hopefully get introduced), I might be able to learn enough words to put it into a more comfortable regular comprehension level for myself. I do think, at least now that I’m into the flow of this story, I’m reading it a bit faster (still on the slower end since I look up every unknown or ‘fuzzy’ word to double check the pronunciation). To be fair to me? These chapters are 20 pleco pages, which used to take me 1-1.5 hours ToT. Now they take 30-40 minutes, since I slow down to look up things and listen to certain sections, but considering they’d take 15-20 minutes to follow along to someone narrating out loud, I’m getting closer to a normal reading speed. If I sped read/extensively read these chapters instead of intensively looking things up, I may well be at 20-30 minutes a chapter. 

Last night I read 4496 characters, chapter 1 of 福尔摩斯  血字的研究. I used the click-dictionary for new words, and there was definitely a lot of new vocab (though mostly places and names confused me). All of the experiment related new vocab it was nice to see though and learn, since I like reading mysteries I’m sure those words will come up again in other stuff I read. 

Some things I find interesting about this information: I read 小王子 extensively months ago so presumably when I comprehended a bit less than the current amount (since I learned a lot of new words from context or from glancing at the english translation for some words). So whatever my personal ‘minimum’ level of comprehension I can personally tolerate when reading extensively is, it’s below 96% comprehension. 

Listening Reading Method and other activities I’ve been doing has helped my comprehension a LOT. I did NOT expect the comprehensions of all these to be as close to 98% as they are. Particularly Guardian, being at 95% - that isn’t very far from the comfortable reading material level of ‘98%’ I’m aiming for. I’m not sure how fast I can boost up my comprehension just a BIT more, but wow is it close to the goal...

On a related note, that explains why Guardian and Silent Reading have felt relatively easier for me to ‘extensively read’ when I feel like it lately. While I still have some difficulty, since I have familiarity with the general story (Guardian) or have read the english translation (Silent Reading), the new words are not super hard to guess and therefore following the main idea is not an issue. Guardian is above the 95% comprehension level for me now, and its likely I extensively read a novel I had NO prior knowledge about -  小王子 - also at 95% comprehension or less.

I looked up the comprehension level I had because I just read this article about how to pick reading material when learning a new language, and it made me curious how far Below that 98% comprehension level I usually try to read.

For comparisons, I’m curious how my personal comprehension compares to the general-vocab-difficulty tool and results I got from that (which can be viewed in this post more in depth). 

This was the novel’s ranking, from easiest to harder, based on that tool (lower number = more difficult):

小王子 2.004

DMBJ 1 1.992

撒野 1.98

SVSSS 1.9

Guardian 1.9

Peach Blossom Debt  1.858

I am guessing the difference in order of difficulty compared to my personal comprehension levels, might have to do with the materials I learn from? Or may have to do with the fact the tool sorts by full words, not characters, so 2-4 character words/phrases that are unknown would only count as one unit. Whereas when I calculated my comprehension I counted by character (since I was physically counting on paper it was easier to just go by character when counting unknown versus amount-of-content on the page). Also, the tool took a bigger sample of 2,000 words for each novel, whereas I used 300-500 characters per page samples.

It’s also possible, because of the small amount of characters in my comprehension % samples - Guardian overall may have more unknown words and put it lower than 95% overall, and stuff like DMBJ may well have a lot more words I know and potentially be more comprehensible than 96% overall. 

For the most part I had 4-15 unknown characters per page. Which could realistically affect my reading more or less depending on what role they served in the sentence. Characters in descriptions I can figure out the rough meaning of easier when reading because they’re often part of 2-4 character words and phrases where I know the rest of the characters, or they’re an emotion/mood description another word I know on the page will also re-state, but unknown characters for critical verbs or nouns affect story comprehension a lot more. Xiao wang zi is a good example of my overall actual reading level, since some unknown hanzi were in descriptions and I could ‘guess’ well enough to follow just ine, but some of the unknown hanzi on the page were verbs and nouns which makes those sections harder to comprehend. 

Some promising notes from articles!

From FluentU: https://www.fluentu.com/blog/reading-in-a-second-language/

So I am at the spot for most novels I want to read right now 95%+, where if I read with a dictionary it probably feels okay and I will learn a lot, but it will feel challenging at times.

And for a few (at least SaYe) I can really just extensive read the way its supposed to feel. 

Reading Rockets: https://www.readingrockets.org/article/fluency-introduction

This article puts 95% as the minimum comprehension level for a person to read to improve reading fluency.

This https://readingmatrix.com/articles/september_2011/prichard_matsumoto.pdf

is an interesting paper, and puts 95% as the minimum for comprehension to read unassisted, but also mentions it could be a spectrum rather than all-or-nothing. Readers who use strategies to comprehend more can improve their comprehension a bit, and readers who have background knowledge on the subject can improve their ability to comprehend the reading material a bit. 

This part was also fascinating: “ Hu and Nation (2000) sought to examine the lexical threshold more deeply. They tested the comprehension of a narrative text by 66 advanced learners, adapting the text to include frequent words estimated to be known by all the subjects. They replaced uncommon words with nonsense words in order to set coverage levels to 80%, 90%, 95%, and 100%. Comprehension of the various versions of the passages was measured by a multiple-choice comprehension test and a recall measure. Subjects at the 95% level had a mean score of 10.2 points out of 14 on the multiple-choice text, while the readers with 90% coverage averaged only slightly lower at 9.5 points. There were a wide range of scores at these two coverage levels with 7 of 16 subjects at the 90% level getting a higher score than the mean score of the 95% coverage group. The results were similar on the recall measure. Overall, while there was a clear and strong correlation between coverage and comprehension, the existence of the 95% lexical threshold was not supported by Hu and Nation. They estimate that if there was a comprehension threshold at all, it may have been between 80 and 90% since all the readers with 80% coverage had difficulty comprehending the text. Hu and Nation state that learners at the 90% were able to reach comprehension through reading skills and background knowledge. They also hypothesize that 98% may be the coverage required at which most learners can comprehend the text adequately. The mark they set to determine this was about 85% comprehension, which was much higher than that used by Laufer (1989, 1992). “

“ Lower threshold: A percentage at which comprehension becomes possible; a percentage at which few learners below have any significant comprehension of the text (referred to by Hu & Nation, 2000, as potentially being between 80 and 90%). 211 

Significant increase threshold: A coverage point above which learners’ mean comprehension increases significantly (95%, based on Laufer, 1989). 

Adequate comprehension threshold: A percentage at which most learners achieve “adequate comprehension” (suggested as 95% in Laufer, based on 55% comprehension; hypothesized as 98% coverage in Hu & Nation based on 85% comprehension). 

Upper threshold: A point above which an increase in coverage does not lead to improved comprehension (Laufer, 1992). If it exists, it is likely 98-99%.

That study may explain why some people with lower vocab knowledge ‘feel’ more ok with reading at lower comprehensions (that’d be me lol ToT). When I was learning french, I started reading extensively at a somewhat low vocab level, and in english I knew in elementary school I’d pick up novels for adults and read some sometimes, and by end of elementary I had a college reading level, so mm.

[rigelmejo]

January Goals Update and Notes

Chapters I studied with Listening-Reading Method: Notes lol:

i do not control wtf motivates me. perhaps it literally just is i have to get really attached to a book.

anyway, february is here. i am thinking i may just start listen-reading to Guardian this month. I know I’ve been debating whether to finish Tian Ya Ke first before I started guardian, or do both at the same time. I am leaning toward starting Guardian, sooner rather than later. Even though it’s still me ‘not finishing one thing before starting the next.’

In the end, any studying is better than no studying. And I haven’t been motivated to read chinese lately. However, I have been motivated to read english - and listening-reading will be 1/3 english reading which may help push me to keep progressing. And the 1/3 chinese reading portion is more passive, since I follow along with the audio, so I can have a break from the dictionary for a while. Also... why did I initially start learning Chinese? To read Guardian. To read it in chinese, and english translation. If I’m thinking about my most prioritized goals, this task is more directly in line with what I want to accomplish than finishing reading Tian Ya Ke. Although, both ARE related. 

Also, I think anything I learn from listening-reading to Guardian, will improve my reading/listening skills when moving onto any other priest novel. So it won’t be a detriment, it will only make going back to Tian Ya Ke easier afterward - since I will know more words, and recognize them in listening better (and ideally, pick up some words visually in reading better). So I think... if I do get motivated to start listening-reading to Guardian this month, then I’m just going to start doing it.

A note about Tian Ya Ke and difficulty: I am still noticing improvement. I am getting to the point where 1 page has a handful of unknown words at most, usually only 1-3 getting in the way of me easily following the plot. I am noticing I’m getting better at guessing what an unknown word is supposed to mean, guessing what the idioms that seem vaguely familiar mean (and remembering at least some of the words in them). Reading Tian Ya Ke has gotten much closer to reading Han She in terms of ease. I think I’m running into a similar number of unknown words now. I haven’t measured yet if the chapters are taking me under 30 minutes to read yet. Mainly because lately I can’t get myself to read more than 5-10 pages in short bursts at a time. So I’m not sure if reading speed has improved. But I can say that my reading recognition for Tian Ya Ke is currently better than my listening comprehension. I’ve been scanning the pages I read lately pretty fast as I read, guessing most words fine, and then just double checking their pronunciation/definition by clicking them for audio afterwards. Its currently the checking for precise sound/meaning that’s slowing down my reading of Tian Ya Ke. If I were reading it extensively, only looking up words for crucial meaning clarification, I would probably be reading it decently faster. 

On a general goals note: I am still for some reason managing to focus easily on reading english books, which is not that usual for me (usually I can read 20-40 pages in a book, then can’t read more than 10 pages an hour or slower and eventually drop the book). So I’m going to keep taking advantage of this ability to focus while I’ve got the chance. It’s been really nice to finally start getting through more of my books. Right now about half are mental health related books (which I’ve been meaning to read for ages), and fiction (mostly historical romances as I’m trying to find an author that Clicks well with me lol). I’ve read 5 so far, with 2 non-fiction books in progress and 1 fiction in progress. That is a LOT in one month for me, each book being 200-500 pages. Lets say 350 pages average, I’ve read over 1750 pages so far this year in January. Yes, that might only be the same as 2 ‘big’ books... but in my defense, non-fiction is soooo much harder to focus on (like i said, i get about 10-20 pages read in an hour of non-fiction even now that i’m focusing -o- ), and I just have not managed to read anything considerable in a while. So... while I still have long term language goals, I’m not going to be upset if they end up getting sidelined again this month. Reading more is something I’m enjoying getting back into, and I truly have so many books to finally read... so I’m glad I’m doing it now. 

Things accomplished in January:

Chinese novel chapters read in January: 8 (I’m on Tian Ya Ke chapter 27, page 10. I’m around 33% through the novel. I read around half as many chapters this past month compared to December... and honestly like 4 of these chapters I remember reading one Saturday that I managed to focus. I just wasn’t in the mood to intensively read very much in December).

Chapters I studied with Listening-Reading Method: 2 (Wow that’s not much... both were Tian Ya Ke chapters. Doing both intensive reading AND listening-reading to a single chapter really burns me out. Again, I just wasn’t in a reading mood, so I mostly skipped l-r to speed up how long chapters took to read).

Japanese Audio listened to: 14 (I was listening through Quicksleur - which is pimsleur but with the silences cut out, there are 3 sections, 30 audio files in each section. I completed 14 audio files in section 1. I’ve been listening to Quicksleur to try and refresh the japanese I used to know. Is it working? Yeah, I’m remembering a fair bit of what I used to know. I definitely think re-reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide or Japanese in 30 Hours would help reaffirm the grammar I used to know - but I haven’t been motivated to read grammar books. I was listening to quicksleur while playing video games, and that worked well as a low effort way to include listening. I will probably just keep listening to quicksleur, then change my audio to japanese and see what vocab I can refresh. Then maybe in a few months, once quicksleur is completed, I may move into using Japanese Audio Lessons and my actual grammar books. At the moment, realistically, I have 0 time for my grammar books. And I want to focus on audio primarily anyway for now - I do NOT want my kanji/spelling knowledge of japanese to affect my chinese reading skills right now. And I know, having tried, that for me they definitely do affect each other - I’ll see kanji and the pinyin pronunciation will jump in my head, or I’ll know a word in japanese and see it in a chinese novel and have to remind myself its a new word there. This mix up happened a lot when I first started studying Chinese - as I’d just come off of studying Japanese for 2.5 years. Which was very weird, it made learning chinese words harder, but the more chinese i learned the easier manga got to Read for a while. Anyway now that I’m refreshing my japanese, even Without seeing kanji on purpose - when I see them in my chinese reading i’m re-remembering the japanese pronunciation and word that hanzi also goes to. Which is already a bit awkward. So I don’t really want to add kanji included study on purpose for a while. I’ll just keep trying this audio focus for now... with the added benefit its easy to include, and doesn’t have to compete for my energy level I have to make myself read. I am well aware I’ll need to go to my long term, more well rounded, japanese study plan later on. But for now this is fine).

Chinese Spoonfed Audio: 0 

Manhua chapters read: 0

Chinese shows watched: 1 (Watched anti fraud league ep 1 in chinese, and again I think some small videos and partial eps of other shows. I haven’t watched many shows period this past month though, so I’m not surprised this is low. 

Personal goals met:

Personal books read: 5 (3 non-fiction , 2 fiction novels, 2 non-fiction in progress, 1 fiction in progress. This is really where my energy has been happy to focus on this past January. The non-fiction I’m particularly happy with as its a lot of mental health books I’ve been meaning to read for ages, and some of them I really think have helped me to cope with my panic attacks better. Lately my panic attacks have been less overwhelming, to a degree I think because my inner thoughts during them are having an easier time getting back to self-soothing patterns so I can calm down, and I’m more willing to openly express I’m feeling so bad which I think is helping me process the emotions faster, which helps them end sooner. I read a few as mentioned, although I literally cannot recommend complex ptsd by pete walker if the subject material is relevant to you. That book definitely helped the most, and the books he recommended within it are what I’m reading through now. The book was compassionate, informative, very supportive and encouraging of the recovery journey and its steps, and had a ton of very helpful exercises that can be put to practical use).  

Continued to get my stomach to not hurt, also got it to work better without medicine. Avoiding very processed carbs - mainly white breads like biscuits, pizza, pie crust, cinamon rolls that come in those cans - has kept my bloating down and the pain down. Eating apples again every day with coffee/tea is helping, both with not needing my medicine, and with foods not hurting me/not bloating me so much. So I guess I have to keep eating apples every single day -o-. I ate pizza several times this past month (with my lactose medicine) and I only bloated a little, it did not hurt, which was GREAT. Eating biscuits from a can still hurt though - happily the bloating only happened a little, but the pain sucks, and definitely is caused by those kinds of carbs specifically. Other then minimizing dairy and that specific carb type, my stomach’s been tolerating other carbs pretty well. I’ve kept my daily bloating low even with some foods that ‘could hurt’ per day, to 1-2 lbs. Which is great. The worst I’ve bloated this month was by 4 lbs (biscuits), which hurt a bit but thankfully subsided after a day, and that is a big improvement over the 7-10 lb bloating I’d get in a single day from one ‘less tolerated’ food choice. I’m very happy I haven’t had to take my medicine daily, hopefully I’m on the way to getting my stomach as happy as it was this summer. 

Goals for February: 

Listen-Read Method Guardian, until I’ve gotten through the entire novel. I will probably start this in February, not sure yet if it will be postponed. This, and goal 2, are the main priorities for chinese and I don’t mind which one happens as long as I do some of either of these goals.

Continue reading Tian Ya Ke. Work on reading through my first complete novel in chinese. This goal has not changed, though I predict it may be postponed as I’m not sure how much time I will dedicate to it in February.

Optional. Audios. Keep listening to Japanese Quicksleur when there’s down time (like playing games), and Chinese Spoonfed audio if I feel like it. 

Personal. Keep reading while I’ve got the motivation to. I am really enjoying getting through all these books I’ve wanted to read for so long. 

So same chinese goals as last month - and I imagine these goals will remain the same into the spring and possibly as summer starts. For japanese, just continuing to progress to refresh my memory is all I am planning at the moment. 

And a note to myself: it is shocking how motivating making a little line item in my notes saying “Personal books read:” managed to be. I added that to my to-do list in the middle of January, and since then have read a TON. So just as it motivates me to read chinese chapters, it looks like that particular motivator can work for more things.