Understand Every Word

A record of my attempts to learn foreign languages.

[understandeveryword]

[understandeveryword]

Mandarin update: June 1, 2015

Today was the first day I was traveling a new location since starting my pronunciation flashcards and diligently studying them each morning. I did them on the minibus (aka van) on the ride from Ubud to Amed in Bali.

Good news: I stuck to my new habit of reviewing the cards in the morning. Bad news: Reviewing flashcards on my phone makes me carsick (just like reading). Unexpected good news: Listening to podcasts seem to help with the carsickness. These weren't Mandarin podcasts, but maybe next time they will be.

[understandeveryword]

I am also a big fan of "Benny the Irish Polyglot" who runs the website Fluent in 3 Months. He recently posted about getting to the "upper beginner" level, or A2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

I have been telling people I want to learn a little Mandarin, because LEARNING MANDARIN seems way too intimidating. The A2 level seems just about right, and I really like that he broke down the A1 and A2 levels into "mini missions" to help make concrete next steps.

This also makes me realize I am probably around A2 in Arabic (after 3 years of study), which makes me sad. But I will pick that project up again later.

[understandeveryword]

Learning the sounds of Mandarin with Anki

I'm using Gabriel Wyner's pronunciation trainer flashcards to learn the sounds of Mandarin along with the pinyin writing system, which is the official phonetic, romanized writing system for Chinese. It has plenty of non-logical spelling and pronunciation rules to keep me busy. Gabriel's flashcards are excellent, with audio and visual elements, and every sound has example words so I am picking up a little vocabulary. The audio drills you on the 4 tones used by Mandarin speakers, which are typically the hardest thing for foreign speakers to hear and produce. There are also lots of cards for "minimal pairs", which give you two examples that sound very similar, and ask you to identify which one you are hearing.

The flashcards were created for Anki, which is a program using SRS, or spaced-repetition-software. Gabriel explains in his book, Fluent Forever, that the most effective way to remember new information permanently is to make yourself recall it just before you forget it. Anki keeps track of this for you after you give it feedback on how well you know each flashcard. Once I learn a new card, I tell the software I know it and it will schedule it for me to review in a few days. If I still know it the next time it comes up, it increases the number of days (aka interval) until I see it again. Eventually, the interval will become long enough that it is permanently embedded in my long-term memory. If I can't remember, the software resets the card to a shorter interval and starts the process over again until I can remember it. Using SRS, I am using my study time much more efficiently because I don't review the same cards every single day like I used to (try to) do with Arabic. Each day the software automatically gives me several new cards to learn, along with any cards that are scheduled for review. It keeps the workload manageable - I'm spending about 30 minutes a day reviewing flashcards - and hopefully will make all the information stick.

So far I'm 4 days in with the pronunciation trainer, and 16% of the 900 cards have been introduced. I'm hoping to have at least seen all the cards and have a decent familiarity with the sounds of Mandarin by the time I fly to Taiwan on June 7th.

[understandeveryword]

First project: Mandarin Chinese

So, the language I've decided to focus on is not on my list of languages I've studied to non-fluency. I didn't even mention it as a passing interest. Why start over with Mandarin?

The biggest reason is that I traveled to Taiwan in February, and really loved it. So much, that I'm going back in June for 12 days in between other destinations in Asia. The absolute best motivation I can think of for studying is being really excited about spending time in a country where they speak the language!

I'm also planning to travel to China in July. I've got multiple opportunities to practice with thousands of native speakers in the next few months. I love Arabic, but I don't have any plans to travel to an Arabic-speaking country any time soon.

I wanted to start a language from scratch to try out one of Gabriel Wyner's pronunciation trainers. I read his book, Fluent Forever, in which he makes a case for learning the sounds and pronunciation of your target language before spending much time with words and sentences, so that you don't create bad habits that you have unlearn later on. He is producing pronunciation trainers for many major languages, and the Mandarin Chinese one was recently completed. (I'm looking forward to trying out the Arabic and Russian ones in a few months.)

Finally...Mandarin seems hard and I like a challenge!

I am going to primarily be focusing on listening and speaking, and not learning the characters. This is pretty common among new Mandarin students because the characters require so much time to study on their own. They are also said to be slightly easier to learn once you already know the word and it's meaning.

Not learning characters yet means ordering from menus in Taiwan and China will still be highly challenging, but luckily I have a decent translation app called WayGo that really helped on my previous trip to Taiwan. And hopefully, I'll have a few phrases under my belt to use on restaurant staff!

[understandeveryword]

Introduction

My name is Katie. I am serial student of languages. The problem is, I can't speak any language fluently, beyond my native English. I studied Spanish in high school, took French for a year in college, and recently spent 3 years attending Arabic classes. I thought learning German might be useful after a trip to Europe in 2006. I've wanted to learn Russian since my teenage years. I can order food in Mexico, and say my name and where I'm from in Arabic. I was recently in Vietnam and learned as many food words as I could, along with the numbers to try my hand at better bargaining (marginally successful). I have a passing familiarity with so many foreign words...but no fluency.

I have decided it's high time I get serious about learning a language - most importantly, learning to speak. I am starting this blog to help chronicle my language-learning journey.

[demo]

It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.

Wisdom of Confucius (via demo)

A sample post while setting up this blog - oddly appropriate to my topic.