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12 Months of Mandarin

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Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#81

Post by pessimizer »

hintymad wrote: post #71
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…

> I don't think I can do SRS No need. :-) Comprehensible Input and immersive language usage can be your superpower.

With old-school graded readers. Turns out that the people in past centuries who we ridiculed for their antiquated approaches for learning languages all spoke multiple languages.

They didn't have comic books, though, which are another good source of interesting reading material that also comes with elaborate visual hints to what is being said. If I were trying to learn Mandarin, I'd scour the internet for bootleg scans of Jademan comics from the 80s.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#82

Post by bigstrat2003 »

alexawarrior4 wrote: post #38
CollinEMac wrote: post #29

I'm always surprised when people mention watching shows in their target language as a study method. For me, I don't understand much and my mind starts to wander pretty quickly.

I had the same problem, the solution is to start with extremely easy content, either from a language learning site/channel or content targeted at toddlers. Even 2 year olds already have quite advanced language skills! Peppa Pig is a perennial favorite. You build up from there with childrens' shows, cartoons, and at some point later on introduce graded readers. Watching full-speed native TV shows is like the final exa…

Besides watching things aimed at young children, another tactic I have found effective is to watch something you already know very well in English (or whatever your native language). For me, this has been South Park. I'll watch episodes that I practically know by heart already, so that even if I don't understand all the Spanish words I can pick up things from knowing what is happening.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#83

Post by kulahan »

_lvbh wrote: post #2

This is really impressive. Its not an easy language > 1 hour of Chinese content before sleep, e.g. anime dubs or books There are also anime (donghua) originating entirely in China. I think those might be more helpful than Anime dubs since the content fits better with the language. Swallowed Star, 斗罗大陆, and 一人之下 are pretty fun.

I've come across so many donghua that seem really cool, but the English translations are just so bad. Could be a cool way to get a little further into their culture.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#84

Post by jmyeet »

edent wrote: post #7

While I haven't the same proficiency, I had the same "local celebrity" experience when visiting Beijing. While it is fun at first seeing people double take and then ask to take a photo with you - it gets old fast! Mind you, I'll never tire of (partially) understanding what people say about me when they think I don't understand. One thing not mentioned is that it is often a good idea to have some formal testing. Frien…

So ~20 years ago I went to Kuala Lumpur. For those not knowing where or what that is, it's the capital city of Malaysia with a population of ~1.8 million people. It once held the title for the world's tallent building (ie the Petronas Towers). So this is a modern city not that far from Singapore.

I happened to catch a train to one of the shopping centers while I was there so this was the mass transit system in a relatively modern city. This boy of 7 or so kept gawking at me. He was with his father. I looked up at him, curious, and his father said in passable English that his son has never seen a white person before.

That was quite a surreal experience for me, particularly given the environment.

I can't imagine what it must be like in rural China with few Western visitors.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#85

Post by gwintrob »

Love this :) Does anyone have similar experience learning Cantonese? I've been using Anki for a couple months now and it's great. ChatGPT and Claude have been a big help but they do sometimes get confused with Mandarin or go to a more "formal" Cantonese that sounds very traditional.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#86

Post by hintymad »

pessimizer wrote: post #81
hintymad wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think I can do SRS No need. :-) Comprehensible Input and immersive language usage can be your superpower.

With old-school graded readers. Turns out that the people in past centuries who we ridiculed for their antiquated approaches for learning languages all spoke multiple languages. They didn't have comic books, though, which are another good source of interesting reading material that also comes with elaborate visual hints to what is being said. If I were trying to learn Mandarin, I'd scour the internet for bootleg scan…

Yes. That's how I learned my native language and that's how I learned other languages. Super effective, and super fun. No rote memory whatsoever. BTW, Chinese didn't have a tradition of producing comic books, but they were big on turning classics into so-called 小人书，a perfect source for learning authentic, highly contextual, yet simple Chinese. Here is an example: http://www.laohuabao.com/xiaorenshu/gudian/9/113957717.html

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#87

Post by cmuguythrow »

CollinEMac wrote: post #29

I'm always surprised when people mention watching shows in their target language as a study method. For me, I don't understand much and my mind starts to wander pretty quickly.

Yeah this is a huge problem. AFAICT the "solution" currently is basically to just grind to the point you can understand Peppa Pig or the rough equivalent at ~40%-50% comprehension, and then sentence mine each episode painstakingly using something like Migaku + Anki flashcards until you can watch a brand new Peppa episode at ~80% comprehension. Its painful but after this you really "unlock" content and its a lot smoother and more interesting after that (the stone finally starts rolling _downhill")

I'm making an app to try to help with low level comprehensible input, posted elsewhere in this thread

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#88

Post by mncharity »

cyberlimerence wrote: post #13

I don't know Mandarin, but I found this browser extension [1] very useful for quickly translating some words. It doesn't translate sentences unfortunately, but I guess you can use machine translation for that. I'm curious if/how anyone here has integrated LLMs for their language learning process. Also after you learn a certain amount of basic words in any language, I recommend trying to learn that language from insid…

> browser extension

I've pondered doing a browser extension which invasively replaces bits of english web text with some other language(s). Mousing to get english (which also signals I haven't learned that bit yet), and spoken, and discussion. Bit selection probabilistic on commonness (in both the language and the web page), and on learning. Plus an "I want to learn this bit" list. A replacement aggressiveness slider for "not now please". Basically making all web pages into code-switching polyglots, and shifting general web surfing into an "always learning something" zone.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#89

Post by neves »

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…

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.

Re: 12 Months of Mandarin

#90

Post by udit99 »

thatsnotmepls wrote: post #36
kentosi-dw wrote: post #12

The importance of an SRS system like Anki cannot be overstated. However I can see how this might be a burden to some when it comes to entering in your own sentences. For this, I highly recommend making use of your OS's dictation (speech to text) feature. You get to practice speaking _and_ enter sentences much quicker.

I have ChatGPT create 20 sentences for a new word I want to learn, works super well with Anki. Front -> Word. Click button, shows random sentence out of 20. Back -> Word and sentence translation.

Wait...how do you do this in Anki? The randomization part.
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