12 Months of Mandarin • Hacker News Board

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#251

Post by blakedzc » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

famouswaffles wrote: post #188

kjellsbells wrote: post #168

This is impressive and inspiring. Not to detract at all from his dedication, but it really helps that there are so many content/resources in the target language: news, kids shows, anime, tutors, emigrant diaspora. As a side quest, look at another reputedly-hard language like Vietnamese, where there is not nearly so much. As an example, Google and Microsoft Translator apps speak different variants of Vietnamese (North…

You should try any of the SOTA LLMs (4o, Claude, Gemini) for translation rather than Google/Microsoft Translate. They are much better.

In my experience, if you ask 4o or Claude for the definition of a word, they can fumble the tone and get meanings of toneless words mixed up.

For instance, when prompted for the meaning of "da", it correctly provides skin, but also provides "already", which is a confusion with "đã". I don't believe I had any notable difference in error rate between Claude and 4o, and it's looking like I will create a system to have someone manually review what is generated.

My main motivation for working on this is that there is such a drought of materials. SOTA LLMs are certainly great and have a pretty good effectiveness, but I wouldn't say they make great teachers of more obscure languages yet. I recall the Llama models explicitly state what languages the model is proficient in.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#252

Post by snozolli » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 3:26 PM UTC

I happened to watch a snippet of the anime Demon Slayer in an obscure Chinese fan dub. Ironically, this caught my attention.

How is that ironic?

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#253

Post by blakedzc » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 3:27 PM UTC

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…

> Learning a language? Well, unless I can get imminent rewards, or be continually interested and engaged, there's just no way I'll be able to do this. And I feel like rote, deliberate practice is just impossible for me to build a habit out of.

Create your own environment. Set your devices to the language you want to study. Consume content in that language. Instead of doing X in English, do X in your target language. It can be a processes of enriching substitution. This helps with technical skills as well, as there are also far fewer resources when you search an error message, and you need to be able to mentally grep the text quickly for what you're after.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#254

Post by snozolli » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 3:29 PM UTC

hbn wrote: post #143

haliskerbas wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel similar to how the parent commenter feels, but describe it using different words. Therapists and psychiatrists will use similar language, dopamine, motivation, and executive function. How do you recommend one does this? > I strongly recommend trying to break it I currently try to hack my main activities to prevent myself from being too lazy to do them. Would be happy to hear your suggestions!

Controversial take but I think the state of therapy/psychiatry has become a bit of a joke over the past handful of years where people have normalized the idea that everyone needs to be speaking to a therapist. With the fact you can shop around for a therapist, and the fact that most people like being told their problems are others' faults, you have an industry that from my view has mostly just taught everyone to exte…

Everyone wants to get a diagnosis of ADHD and/or autism so they can spend the rest of their life never growing or improving

If you ever saw someone get an ADHD diagnosis, along with appropriate medication and mental tools, you might not hold this antiquated, bigoted view of others.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#255

Post by whispersnow » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 3:36 PM UTC

The Chinese translation of those sub titles are pretty decent! Great achievement in just 365 days!

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#256

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 3:40 PM UTC

snozolli wrote: post #252

I happened to watch a snippet of the anime Demon Slayer in an obscure Chinese fan dub. Ironically, this caught my attention. How is that ironic?

[deleted]

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#257

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #236

TheEzEzz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote my own dynamic keyboard layout to optimize typing speed while procrastinating on my dissertation. 15 years later I'm still using it. My dissertation not so much. Procrastination is (sometimes) awesome.

Structured procrastination is highly underrated.

It is so underrated, that I have been led to put off doing more structured procrastination until I have more time. If more people had told me how great it could be, I would be doing it now!

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#258

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 6:01 PM UTC

I took a break during my PhD and lived in China for half a year taking Chinese lessons. I wasn’t so diligent but it got me to some fluency at least, and got me out of a funk that allowed me to finish my PhD eventually.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#259

Post by holoduke » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 6:02 PM UTC

rvba wrote: post #241

aebtebeten wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#260

Post by andai » Sat, Oct 05, 2024, 6:10 PM UTC

TheEzEzz wrote: post #181

jcla1 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not underestimate the urge to procrastinate (by still doing productive things, like learning Mandarin) while pursuing a PhD. I am not sure if this will be the author's experience too, but pursuing a PhD will often leave you exhausted without any hope of ever finding "the final missing ingredient" to solve the problem you are currently tackling. So turning to entirely unrelated problems, however productive they may…

I wrote my own dynamic keyboard layout to optimize typing speed while procrastinating on my dissertation. 15 years later I'm still using it. My dissertation not so much. Procrastination is (sometimes) awesome.

>I find that when someone's taking time to do something right in the present, they're a perfectionist with no ability to prioritize, whereas when someone took time to do something right in the past, they're a master artisan of great foresight.

-xkcd 974