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12 Months of Mandarin

isaak.net

261–270 of 310 posts

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#261

I don't care about learning Mandarin, I want to find out how this guy's motivation system works and then download it into my brain. Doing a PhD and learning Mandarin as a side project ?! Doing hours of Anki practice and new note taking, some of it while running on a treadmill? There's just a crazy amount of drive (and what sounds like an epic memory) here. I don't think people consider base motivation enough when thi…

https://structuredprocrastination.com

See also "The Art of Procrastination" (2012).

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#262
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to focus on some things but not others is perfectly consistent with ADHD. Disordered attention is the whole deal. You might find it easy but that doesn't mean others will.

> The ability to focus on some things but not others is perfectly consistent with ADHD. This is an insanely broad definition that literally the entire population would fall under. > You might find it easy but that doesn't mean others will. No one finds concentrating on any and every subject easy. Assuming this is due to ADHD, and not something in their control, is a cop out.

Overly literal bad faith interpretations are a waste of everyone's time.

Try using context and engaging in good faith to deal with the intended meaning of someone's words or don't bother interacting.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#263

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…

I wish more people would talk about incomprehensible input. Just feeding input in your brain, like an LLM, so that with time you can detect pattern. Like playing the radio in the background, or watching Chinese movies without understanding much, or watching educational chinese youtube videos while you sleep, etc.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dynamic keyboard layout? What is that? The keys change place?

Probably using a QMK firmware-based keyboard where you can access different layers and shortcuts. I'm using one right now (though mine runs off ZMK which is similar but wireless) which is a split with just 42 keys. The rest--numbers, symbols, function keys, etc. are all under layers. The layout is dynamic because holding down different keys makes the layout 'change' as you do so. Holding down the left spacebar and pr…

I have never heard of "left spacebar" before. Sounds very interesting. So there can be two different spacebars on your keyboard?

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#265

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…

I also use Netflix to great effect for practicing Chinese, especially when paired with the Language Reactor[1] extension in Chrome. * Note: Netflix has much more Taiwanese content than mainland China content, so do note the difference in the accent / dialect you'll be learning. [1] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/language-reactor/ho...

I tried but all the content was sooo boring! The only show I could sort of watch was aiqing gongyu back then, because it was a pure rip off of Friends but at least it had some humor, but most of the content on Netflix is pure drama and is really boring to watch.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also use Netflix to great effect for practicing Chinese, especially when paired with the Language Reactor[1] extension in Chrome. * Note: Netflix has much more Taiwanese content than mainland China content, so do note the difference in the accent / dialect you'll be learning. [1] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/language-reactor/ho...

How do you pass the initial language barriers? I'm trying to learn Spanish with Netflix shows and the Language Reactor, but I find it extremely hard to understand spoke Spanish. The characters speak so fast that I couldn't discern individual words or phrases. For a lot of times, they speak as if they are murmuring. When I was learning English, my ability to understand spoken English grew with my ability to read, but…

this is akin to incomprehensible input and you need it, after listening to a lot of it your brain will start recognizing patterns and decompose things on its own, for now just brute force through as much of it as you can.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#267
post #89

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…

Peppa Pig is hard :-) What would a be a good child animation for learning a foreign language? I'm trying to learn a little of French for a coming trip.

I remember watching haimian baobao (spongebob squarepants). Back then you could download this pptv app and watch a bunch of shows for free, I'm not sure what's the equivalent today.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#268

The stated goal of comfortably reading 三體 (3 body problem) is a tough one. The first chapter is full of Cultural Revolution era vocabulary and later parts of the book contain a lot of science / philosophy jargon. If he can read that book comfortably, without researching and speed-running its exact vocabulary, then I'd say he's definitely an advanced learner.

I gave up in the first paragraph

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#269
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "joke" really fits current Russia. - hundreds of thousands run away after the Ukraine invasion to not get drafted (learning English was probably very useful for that, lingua franca of business and generally of the world) -China is looking to make Russia their puppet state / due to embargo Russians cannot buy stuff from the West, so they try to get stuff via China (on a side note, they also get embargoed there to…

Without picking sides, but Russia does not have forced conscription. Ukraine does on the other hand force people via the notorious TCC. Russia is not a puppet state of China. Their relation isnt very strong. Naturally they dont get along with each other. But they are both forced to stick together and form a block against the west. Did you know that most Russians learn english on school?

[flagged]

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#270
post #150
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>download it into my brain "it" is the youth. The guy looks to be mid-20ies. Back then in those years i could go for 3 days without sleep while working, studying, drinking, etc. and many of my friends and classmates at the University were similar.

Noone goes without sleep for three days and doesnt pay a severe heavy price for it. Stop it with that dumb sleep machismo...

I didn't take it as machismo, more like "you can do that when you're young"
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