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12 Months of Mandarin

isaak.net

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Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#211

Post by thirdacc »

jmyeet wrote: post #78
lxe wrote: post #68

I don't think I can do SRS. My dopamine system is at a point where I can't do anything for a long time that isn't interesting, has immediate or intermediate rewards, or can capture attention for a long time. And on top of that, repeating that habit requires all these criteria. Examples: Scrolling on the phone?: Basically direct dopamine injected into my brain. Can do indefinitely. Not good. Programming? Sure I can pu…

You're quite literally describing textbook ADHD symptoms. If you haven't already, you may want to get assessed.

I have severe ADHD and do spaced repetition just fine, even when I'm not on my meds. The only reason I've paused my Japanese learning is sleep issues and stress from trying to find a tech job. What GP is describing sounds like the sort of resistance to tedium that can happen to anybody, not just to those with ADHD.

The issue with software like Anki is that it can feel like a complete chore or like a fun game depending on how you use it and the quality of premade cards available. Only using SRS, doing it for 1hr+ straight with no breaks, and DIYing all the cards is how a lot of people use Anki, which is insane to me.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#212

Post by snapetom »

umbra07 wrote: post #210
gljiva wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I had the impression that Chinese will likely become very useful during our lifetimes... With the momentum their economy has, I expect knowledge of both English and Chinese to become a very sought out skill

That was what was told to kids in elementary school 10-15 years ago, yes. We seem to be moving away from that future (or perhaps it was never really true to begin with).

When I was very young in the 70's, I was told to study French because it was the international language.

In the 80's, it was Japanese because they were going to take over the world.

In the 90's, I was told to take Spanish in college because the US was going to be a bilingual country.

As an adult in the 2000's, I watch US helicopter parents scramble to put their kids into immersive Mandarin courses, mimicking the Japanese fad of the 80's.

I'm at least proficient in four languages, none of which are the above four, and my life and career has been just dandy.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#213

Post by duncancarroll »

cmuguythrow wrote: post #74

I’ve been learning Mandarin via Comprehensible Input (CI) for about 9 months and really admire OP’s dedication and consistency. In the first 4-5 months of being truly consistent with ~1hr a day of Anki and Peppa pig I got to around 2,000 words and was able to have a great experience when I traveled to Taiwan, so I can vouch for the core methodology in this post. It’s not “easy”, but it’s definitely the most effective…

Your app is good, I'm between HSK1-HSK2 and there are often scenarios I want to practice that aren't covered in the standard dialog options in other popular Mandarin apps, so I see the appeal.

Some feedback: - It took a while to generate my first session, I almost lost interest before I even knew what the app was.

- I tried to click on the buttons in the splash screen screenshot, mistaking it for the app itself.

- I would have liked to not to have to enter the prompt myself the first time, and just click something pre-made, only because the first time I use an app I have very little patience and just want to see what it actually does, so if it makes me think (or wait a long time) I may churn.

Maybe if you had a default prompt's audio baked into the APK it would feel more snappy (for those who select the default prompt.)

Anyhow nice work

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#214

Post by shepherdjerred »

kenrick95 wrote: post #206
shepherdjerred wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doing hours of Anki practice and new note taking, some of it while running on a treadmill? I studied with Anki on long 1hr walks and it worked incredibly well for me. I’d definitely recommend trying it! Some things I learned were DS/algos, Greek alphabet pronunciation (so that I could read math symbols), the periodic table/chemical properties, and misc LeetCode interviewing stuff.

> DS/algos How do you study that on Anki?

I started with these decks:

https://github.com/teivah/algodeck

https://github.com/teivah/designdeck

Essentially I'd have a question like "invert a binary tree", "implement union-find", or "structure of a topological sort". All of these are small enough that I can keep them in my head.

For small algorithms I would just regurgitate the code line-for-line in my head. For more complex ones I would just go over the structure (not actual code), e.g. I know that topological sort can use a stack or queue, you need to track indegree, add nodes to the stack/queue when their indegree == 1, and so on.

I also used this to help learn (and really understand) common runtimes which helped me when deriving the runtimes of my own algorithms.

Since I started with premade decks I had to look at lot of things up during my walks, but that slowed down as towards the end of my studying.

I did all this to prep for interview (which I wrote about on my blog: https://sjer.red/blog/2024/job-hunt/) -- I would say it worked fairly well for me though you definitely need to pair it with LeetCode or similar.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#215

Post by kaliqt »

chemmail wrote: post #200
msvan wrote: post #174

I kind of see myself from ten years ago in this blog post! I also obsessively studied Mandarin Chinese in my late teens for the sheer fun of it, before doing a math undergrad. I even wrote comments on Hacker News about it a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622940 . At the time I had seemingly limitless motivation for grinding away on flashcards and other learning materials. My progress was strong and…

This is nuts, if i learned Mandarin, i would probably move to Taiwan, where the CoL is almost 1/4th of where I am right now. I know some other languages, but loss the will to study anymore lol.

You can go without knowing Mandarin, you can learn while you are there at a language school or university.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#216

Post by slim »

msvan wrote: post #174

I kind of see myself from ten years ago in this blog post! I also obsessively studied Mandarin Chinese in my late teens for the sheer fun of it, before doing a math undergrad. I even wrote comments on Hacker News about it a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622940 . At the time I had seemingly limitless motivation for grinding away on flashcards and other learning materials. My progress was strong and…

I guess the chinese content is disappointing because lack of freedom of speech. but why don't you travel to china ? to have real conversations with real people

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#217

Post by jajko »

dgacmu wrote: post #72
pragmomm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your posting history seems to primarily consist of an anti-China narrative. For example, "Also, they could just remind people that China released COVID which killed millions and cost countries billions." (which, well, those are definitely words.) China is ... complex. But you seem to be consistently pushing a specific agenda in the way you choose to address it. Why?

Noticed the same, sometimes few extra clicks can shed some good light on other actors when they act so obviously. Well at least its not some state actor skillfully and gently pushing some hidden agenda.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#218

Post by jdkoeck »

latentsea wrote: post #195
gljiva wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I had the impression that Chinese will likely become very useful during our lifetimes... With the momentum their economy has, I expect knowledge of both English and Chinese to become a very sought out skill

Except that lots of Chinese already speak English, and their Chinese is better, so I don't ever see a large market for mandarin skills in non-native speakers on the same scale as English.

There are very few Chinese speaking English, actually. Go there and you’ll see.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#219

Post by aebtebeten »

gljiva wrote: post #183
msvan wrote: post #174

I kind of see myself from ten years ago in this blog post! I also obsessively studied Mandarin Chinese in my late teens for the sheer fun of it, before doing a math undergrad. I even wrote comments on Hacker News about it a decade ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7622940 . At the time I had seemingly limitless motivation for grinding away on flashcards and other learning materials. My progress was strong and…

Interesting. I had the impression that Chinese will likely become very useful during our lifetimes... With the momentum their economy has, I expect knowledge of both English and Chinese to become a very sought out skill

There was a soviet era joke: optimists practise their english, pessimists practise their chinese, and realists practise stripping their Kalashnikovs.

Four decades later: I guess some fraction of the optimists have emigrated; the pessimists might be finding their language skills freshly in demand; and the realists teach their grandchildren: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE3UUbBKDS8

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#220

Post by naniwaduni »

owenpalmer wrote: post #122
naniwaduni wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The importance of an SRS system like Anki cannot be overstated. This is definitely an overstatement. It is a useful tool for the specific purpose of blindly memorizing associations. This is a hurdle people frequently run into when deciding to learn a language, but it's a pretty tight problem to be having and SRS is not like, critical.

> It is a useful tool for the specific purpose of blindly memorizing associations. Then you're not using Anki correctly.

Look, all I can say to that is that the name isn't a coincidence.
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