#when i could JUST start to watch shows without word lookup but it was BRUTAL then just got vaguely easier

[rigelmejo]

Read 7 pages of an actual Japanese novel in Kindle app today, looking up some words as I went. Definitely easier than when I tried in summer. Took like 10 or 20 minutes for those 7 pages but hey its better than 5 minutes per page! Which was my initial speed in chinese lol.

I have been using the free lessons in Satori Reader (a japanese graded reader app), so it made me cocky and I wanted to see if I could handle a japanese novel better than last time. I can confirm at least THIS TIME I'm overall following the plot, back in summer I couldn't even do that. I still am vague on some details even with word lookup though, partly due to grammar and partly cause kindles japanese dictionary sometimes gives NO RESULT and neither do its other 2 "definition boxes" giving any result so I'm like well fuck I guess I'll just GUESS this word only then.

Reading a real novel is exciting! And cool! My first time ever in a way, doing it in Japanese.

I'm reading いもうと（新潮文庫), by 赤川 次郎. This author was recommended to me before as someone easier to read with nice novels.

I have been eying the novel: 彼岸花が咲く島 by Li Kotomi, an author who's written in Japanese and Chinese. I heard this novel conveys some story elements by writing only in Kanji, then only in hiragana, etc with very creative ways of using writing changes to tell some of the political ramifications of the story. I am assuming that means it will be a HARD read. (Since for starters I can't read words in hiragana-only well, for seconds I don't have the best grasp on Japanese grammar so altering it could drown me). But the concept or the book is SO COOL oh man do I WANT to read it.

[rigelmejo]

Took 40 minutes to finish that chapter of guardian in my print book ToT so like 10 pages.

Upside: that’s without a dictionary or any word lookup (the completely unknown words are obvious - I need to look up those Hanzi they’re new I should just like underline them or something)

Eh: again, I read the translation a week or so ago so having context helped a LOT with figuring out any unknown words spelled with Hanzi I know. I’m sure going in blind trying to read like Can Ci Pin with no prior context I’d still drown. (However after reading a translation first? Maybe all the priest novels I got might be doable). What I do like is that with this context, I can read it the way I wanted to (exceptions being 1-2 unknown words a page). I can actually read for details, actually enjoy the sentences and meanings and descriptions. (And I’m sure I will be able to more in a year but just... this was basically the “at minimum dream goal” I had when I started learning... which I thought would take 4 years.. so I am cool with managing to do it earlier than expected if it means I just gotta have read the translations. Also? A nice possible benefit is since words are pretty easy to pick up from the context, hopefully learning these words will help me read some other priest novels a bit.

Interesting: the print novel HAS extra scenes. I mentioned this before (also it has edited scenes with different wording, meaning it does not match word to word for Avenuex’s audiobook which follows the webnovel). I also have bad memory so combine only my blurry memory of the translation chapter with scenes changed and scenes added and every page still has some surprises. This chapter featured a bit more discussion on the guardian order/token then I remember happening this early (it’s the chapter Li qian jumps, they mention the guardian order in the hall in the building - da Qing and zhao yunlan talk about it for maybe 2 pages). Every extra scene is interesting I mean 1. Because I’ve never seen it lol in the webnovel or translation. 2. Because being able to read it really makes me feel like I’m achieving what I wanted when I wanted to read the book way back when I first watched guardian lol. 3. Most fun is me wondering why priest decided to make some changes for the print novel! Like Zhu Hong is introduced earlier and differently in a way that matches the show, in the print novel - but in the webnovel she’s introduced later and some random ghost makes guo changcheng faint in the SID. Now this earlier guardian order scene (if it’s not my bad memory just forgetting it in the eng translation lol) means priest might have decided to scatter more info about it earlier on, and to hint maybe at zhao yunlan being Kunlun earlier. I wonder if more added detail like this will continue. Another scene change - unless the eng translator just CUT out sentences - is that when Shen wei is introduced in the book, zhao Yunlan considers his beauty and appearance. Also it matches up to the show intro as far as petting the cat and their name convo. I don’t remember the webnovel eng translation waxing poetic about Shen Wei’s beauty in that intro scene.

Also interesting: back when I’d extensively read more, what I liked was how when I couldn’t look up words I really tested how much I Actually knew and Actually remembered. Because I had to make my mind remember. I also had to work harder to recognize metaphors, idioms, word boundaries, recognize when it’s one word or 2, etc. Because I don’t have a button to click that automatically sorts those. Also with metaphors and idioms etc I actually think through them and if they make sense I understand them (versus when I read in Pleco and look them up it’s more like me memorizing a word block means “tired” and not the actual phrasing). Also with words - when I figure out a word in extensive reading it’s a more natural process of me going “these Hanzi word parts combine and mean this” and if it’s logical it’s apparent why because my brain had to block them together as a new word to understand the sentence (and had to figure out the meaning of the new word). Again, in Pleco I could just click the word for clock-needle but seeing it and figuring it out myself makes it much easier to remember. Related - sometimes made up words are Easier to figure out in extensive reading. In Pleco, reading hanshe, the word 界结 comes up a lot meaning like a boundary (it’s a spell Xiaoge puts up to protect the hanshe from spirits). I believe it also comes up in love and redemption as the barrier protecting the bottle and the lake in the opening eps? It’s not a word in Pleco’s dictionary but in context and with those Hanzi it makes sense. Guardian has words that might be real or might be terms to describe zhao Yunlan’s magic stuff, but the key point is reading and figuring out the meaning myself tends to make more sense than if I run into them in Pleco, click definitions that make sense but not together as one word and skip the obvious of noticing and trying to understand before I looked it up. Then related to these points? Reading Extensively now that I read the translation first? Makes this process all way funner to me. Because now I can do it will all sentences, all words. I don’t find any paragraph or sentence so difficult I have to skim over it and give up figuring out Anything beyond maybe a phrase or word (whereas in like month 8 that was what I had to do a ton with MoDu and i was lucky if I grasped the overall meaning of a paragraph from the scraps of parts of sentences I could figure out). So like.. it’s a more complete reading and figuring out experience? Compared to before where I had lots of like blank spaces where I had no idea what to do with certain regions. Learning more Hanzi has likely also helped a lot. Like I said in guardian I’m running into 1-2 unknown Hanzi a page rn, whereas in mo du I probably knew 500 Hanzi total? Maybe 1000? Idk it was a low enough number every paragraph had several unknowns at least. Compared to now, especially with prior context from the translation (so if I only vaguely recall a Hanzi and haven’t learned it well yet, I can still guess the realm of its meaning from context) it’s going a lot smoother.

Downside: wow is that a long time ;-; I think 5 pages took me 20 minutes? It was pretty brutally slow. Although on the upside IF print pages correlate in length the way I think they do, 20-30 minutes was how long 20 digital pages was taking me for 天涯客 in Pleco with a click dictionary looking up words. And I think priest chapters are generally like 5 print pages in the webnovel chapter lengths? Because that’s like the translations general page length for chapters? But then my print chinese copy combines some chapters so like the chapter I just read was 25 print pages total ;-; anyway my... point... is just that if 5 pages is taking me around 20-30 minutes that’s pretty normal for me and a priest novel chapter so. On the upside it’s not taking much slower to read print pages compared to in Pleco (provided I have context from seeing a translation at some point). I remember the 5 page chapters in this book took me 20 minutes last time I read one of the short ones? So that’s pretty comparable to my digital reading speed. Which is still pretty slow for priest novels... but much better than the much worse time I was taking before I tried reading After seeing a translation lol

[rigelmejo]

Progress made over past few months June - Sept 2020

I think it’s time I make an updated study plan I’m more likely to follow/that’s more in line with what I’m doing now. But first, I wanted to post some things I did manage to get done! I didn’t stick exactly to my original study plan, but I did make some progress! ovo)/

Goals met these past few months:

Chapters of chinese read: 45+. Chapters read since start of September: 30+ (Breakdown of novels: Tamen de Gushi, Hanshe - pingxie fanfic, 818 - pingxie fanfic, Modu - priest, some random short fanfics, and a lot of manhua strips which I ended up counting as just ‘1′ chapter combined. What is worth noting to me is I did much better with consistently reading when I jumped around reading whatever I wanted, instead of sticking to a specific story until finished. I did not end up reading any of the novels I had originally ‘planned’ to read. Also by the end it could’ve been closer to 40+ since September, in September I stopped remembering to count)

Episodes watched in chinese (no english subs), since start of September: 19.5 (Breakdown of shows: Guardian rewatch, Bureau of Transformers rewatch, Love and Redemption, The Lost Tomb Reboot, The Lost Tomb 2. Again, worth noting that I do better just randomly watching something I want in chinese instead of trying to dedicatedly stick to doing this for certain shows etc.)

Got through 1000 cards in 2 months (0-1000 most common words, 6/14/2020)

Got through 1200 words (6/28/2020)

Got through HSK 4 flashcard words (1400 words, 6/3/2020)

Got through 1500 most common words (7/18/2020)

Got through 1750 most common words (7/23/2020)

Got through 2000 most common words (7/26/2020)

(You may notice a pattern, I motivated more when I counted by smaller intervals, seeing DONE in my progress notes really motivated me and kept me studying)

Get through 250 Heisig characters

get through 500 Heisig

get through 750 heisig

Get through 1000 heisig (8/30 - also FYI I do think it’s helped my reading speed/comfort noticeably)

Read through Mandarin Companion Sherlock (this was an interesting experience, the only thing I read that was on my original list - when I started it the reading was a bit difficult, but I’d already read 14 chapters of tamen de gushi. Once I was done with this it was easy, and i went back to tamen de gushi and THAT was noticeably easier too. This showed me extensive reading does help improve my skills, and also doing something hard makes other things easier later).

Watched 3 tprs chinese videos on youtube (i like tprs videos, i have zero ability to focus on youtube though and just procrastinate)

It wasn’t a goal, just an experiment, but I ended up doing some Listening Reading Method in September. Silent Reading: 5 Chapters, Daomubiji: 1 Chapter, SVSSS: 2 Chapters. So a total of 8 chapters studied with l-r method. This is only counting chapters I’ve done Step 3 Listening in Target Language, Reading in English. It does not count time spent on Step 1 or 2, or any repeated steps I did. I am aiming to do more in October, as I plan to switch my study method up a lot. In addition, with several of my chinese-novel chapters, I’ve been reading them intensively, then going back and listening to the audio, to work on both reading and listening more. 

Personal goals met these past few months:

Finished writing WMMSD - which amounted to writing 60k words this September! And finishing my first ever long piece of writing at 266k words! I’m really proud of myself, and now I know I can finish long projects! The key is an outline of major events in each chapters/arc, apparently. And playing kingdom hearts ost instrumental music, and just getting in the right focus to write. I did about 1 chapter every 2 days (so 20 pages every 2 days). Also toward the end I started learning to be a bit more concise at 10 pages a chapter, which I was happy about.

Completed Chloe Ting 2 Week Workout Shred, doing 2-4 exercises a day but not always the extra ones. I lost no weight but noticed significant improvements in my stomach and arm muscles, which was nice since my surgery/health had made my stomach muscles very weak. So its good its more up to what it used to be now.

Things I noticed:

Not a surprise, I don’t stick to flashcards long. I am going to stop kidding myself - and probably will not go back to them except to cram through some section on an as-needed basis. For example, if I need to pick up X more words concretely, or if I need to study more hanzi concretely. This past September I totally dropped flashcards, despite doing them through the summer. That said - my summer flashcard study proved to me my brain is good at retaining the crammed info (or remembering it quickly) so I am not too sad over missing reviews. I’ll make it up later, if I need it and go back to cards.

I really want to work on listening skills more. These past few months, my focus went into dongchinese’s tone trainer and pinyin/tones guide (which I’ve found very helpful and am still going through meticulously), into the Spoonfed Chinese Audio files I have (which seem to be helping me much more than the actual flashcards - I focus more on listening, and analysing what I hear - and this is good since the cards are more for reading which I practice by actually reading a lot already). I have also been adding just random listening to audiobook chapters, shows without subtitles, and Listening-Reading method in attempts to improve listening skills more. I very much want to drag up listening comprehension closer to my reading skills. L-R Method I have been seeing potential in... I already notice it improving my listening comprehension a bit, and if I do Step 2 with word lookup (or after Step 3 with knowledge of the meanings fresh in my head), or do an alternative extra-step 3 which is english audio with chinese text (like with DMBJ on MTLnovels with siri voice), then I can use L-R to work on reading skill as well.

I’ve been very motivated by reading lately as well. So I’ve been reading a lot. I’ve been switching between extensive reading and intensive. I plan to keep doing this generally, and see if it helps. With Hanshe (the pingxie fanfic), the first 4-5 chapters were brutally hard and I intensively read them. Then I went back and extensively read them and just looked up problem words I still couldn’t remember - while listening to the audio and trying to follow along. So the first time I’m intensively reading, then the second time I either practice extensive reading and/or practice listening. After the first 4-5 chapters I noticed myself picking up some new story-specific words, and getting better at reading some parts extensively. So I do think overall this experience is helping me. With the audio-addition I don’t think its helping my listening skills much, but it is helping me attach sound to new words/characters. I am picking up new characters but more slowly (compared to new words spelled with hanzi i already know).

In general, I’ve noticed improvements from reading. So I’ll continue reading. I’d like to keep working both intensive/extensive practice in, and in listening to audio to help keep listening skills matched to new words.

In general, I plan to add more Listening-Reading Method and variations on the method. I think its helping me a lot with listening, and to some degree with reading just because in Step 2 (before or after Step 3) I often read the chinese and start noticing some words, especially when I look up a few problem words. Just in general though, the repetition of subject matter and words is helping me to pick up a lot. And I REALLY want to drag up my listening comprehension. I noticed with dmbj, which I did L-R steps 2-3 over and over a few times with, that I know nearly every word in chapter 1 now lol. So something about those steps, although I’m still not sure which order would be most effective, definitely improves listening and reading skills.

I need to continue to do some extensive reading. While I think I pick up less new words, it consolidates the things I’ve learned (which is why I’m trying to reread Hanshe chapters extensively after doing it intensively). And I think it makes me actually practice the problem solving of reading - like when i read MoDu physical copy. 

I do still think mnemonics for characters will help me with new words, so I’d still like to read through Alan Hoenig’s Learn Chinese Characters book... as for my mnemonics flashcards, I may go back to them when i either feel i need to cram them to boost my abilities, or when i feel in the mood to focus on flashcards.

new ios Speech Screen feature is great. I can open up MTLnovel.com, can put on ‘show raws’ to see a parallel chinese/english text, then swipe 2 fingers down from the top of my screen for a screen reader. The chinese voice sounds almost as good as Pleco, and it ALSO READS the english. So I can look at chinese when hearing the english, look at english when hearing the chinese, or any combination of ‘listening-reading method’ approaches! I can also play it as background audio, to hear sentences compared in chinese then english. This is something I’ve wanted - english/chinese audio of novels, in the same format as my Chinese Spoonfed Audio files. I know that audio has been helping me - hearing the comparisons. So I think listening to these novels parallel text in the background is also good ‘comprehensible’ input to study from. I don’t even have to record it (although I could if I wanted to). I can just play it then listen. And I can also play it while reading. It’s very useful. I’ve been desperately wanting a tool to allow me to do this - make audio of both chinese and english read in sequence without the automated voice skipping half. 

My goals for October will likely be: listening to comprehensible audio in down time like Chinese Spoonfed Audiofiles/MTL parallel texts with Speech Screen (so in the bg walking, at work, etc), Reading (intensively mostly, but also extensively rereading chapters sometimes or as desired with random stuff), some manhua reading extensively if desired, Listening-Reading Method (try to do it earnestly for a while since I’ve got several stories to do it with), and maybe read some of Alan Hoenig’s book (just reading through - don’t be a perfectionist!). Knowing me... I’ll probably be able to do at least some of these, I doubt I’ll read the Alan Hoenig book because reference books are hell to me but we’ll see... I do think it’ll help. Regardless, I think as long as I do some of this I should at least maintain progress and improve a bit. A lot of this is what I’m mostly doing currently. I plan to track chapters read, and listening-reading chapters done. I won’t track audio files - but ideally I’d like to go through something (With Chinese Spoonfed audio I think I should listen to 1 new, and 1 older as ‘spaced review’ as I progress. With mtlnovel I think I should just progress through a novel since words often repeat).