#if you made your goal to read say 30 chinese novels. even if you made it hard for yourselr and did NO

[rigelmejo]

I will say if you're learning chinese to read novels, it's a win win in some ways. To improve? You gotta read. What do you want to do? Read. Is there adequate interesting reading material just a literal glance in any direction? Oh wow you bet. You can't even fathom how many good novels await you in whatever genres you're looking for, many of which will be free and accessible online, with audio books too!

[watch-grok-brainrot]

wrt the new discourse on zhiji by pumpkinpaix and hunxi, has your stance on zhiji that the other anon asked about changed?

ok. so i think it’s unfair for you to think i follow the same folk you do even if i recommend them and that i read everything from them. while the first one is true, i do follow both of them, i don’t read everything from them. i follow a few hundred folk and it’s just a lot to actually read everything so i just kinda look at my dash when i have bandwidth (i don’t have much lately) and see what i see.  if you could actually link me to things in teh future if you want my opinion, that would be greatly appreciated. i’m not mad -- just pointing out different folk curate their tumblr experiences differently. 

Anyway, I found @pumpkinpaix‘s post and skimmed it. I didn't see an addition by hunxi. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s 6:30 am when i started this endeavor. cut me some slack. lol

tl;dr: my feelings haven’t changed. i don’t actually think my stance is that different. the point cyan made about "to use “soulmate” as a catch-all translation for 知己 changes the axis upon which the relationship moves” is more or less what i was trying to say when i rambled about all the different ways i would translate soulmate depending on context. I did say “if I were to see it in a novel or show I was trying to translate, I may translate it differently each time.” 

also, the goals of our posts were different. cyan wants to vent and contemplate and hers is a salt post. i was toasting in a warm fuzzy spot of shan he hell and wanted to share the joy and love. so of course out answers are gonna sound different.do i agree the way the english speaking fandom uses soulmates misses the point? yup. am i gonna do something about it? nah. i am so tired right now from irl. fandom isn’t something i want to spend excess bandwidth on to make myself upset. 

i get cyan’s ire. she is valid. I think cyan’s solution to translate as some sort of knowing/to know works fine. it changes the key word from a noun to a verb but it’s a nice solution if it works for her. 

cyan's point that the fandom misconstrues things and applies all the English connotations to Chinese concepts and then leans in on all the (inaccurate) english concepts while ignoring the layers of connotations of that original word is spot on. I don't think I'm quite as angry as cyan had managed to get over this one translation choice... But 1) you end up getting whiplash about different things (my annoyance lately is found family and yi-based family vs actual blood relationships and how fandom just throws familial terms around and remove all subtlety... and THEN get upset when you ship yi-based relationship folk because it’s suddenly incest? uh... what?.... *breathes in* but i’m not gonna make this a salt post....) 2) I agree it is an inherent problem with translation:  remember there are often not 1:1 translations of words from one language to another. i still maintain there are times where the word soulmates work but zhiji lets you pretend it’s never romantic if you need to. the lu xun line was not a romantic one, iirc. but i have seen soulmate, the person who knows me, bosom friend, kindred spirit, etc and they are all valid. even “this person SEES me” or “someone who gets me”, “someone i vibe with” works depending on context. as i said in my post, i would translate zhiji on a case by case basis. and let me be a little cheeky: if we don’t really look at what we’re translating and picking the words on a case-by-case and contextual bases, we risk producing something that sounds like MTL.  

anyway, i don’t really know where i’m going. this ask dragged me out of bed way too early and now i need to shower and start my day. 

have a good day nonny. and anyone else reading this. remember if you don’t actually know the language and culture, please be careful in the assumptions you make that aren’t crack posts.

i also know i leaned into the “how did this get past censorship” stuff for shl -- but the things i posted about are actually tropes/references that are usually romantic applied to wenzhou. the soulmate things is cute but i read a LOT less into the use of a single word than all the visual clues in that show... i’m still rambling. crap. need to shower. 

[thistransient]

obligatory retrospection, 2019

I have zero desire to contemplate the entire decade, one year is already enough for me. Where I’ve been since I started writing here is already listed in the blog description anyways. 

2019 was an odd time. Felt like a year of learning where my limits and boundaries are. If 2018 was full of being sad to leave places, 2019 had a lot of being perfectly fine, dare I say even excited, to move on. I was quite happy to leave New Zealand, where I’d been significantly depressed. My plans for Russia fell apart (thankfully), my mental health was largely in shambles as I bummed around Eastern Europe waiting to meet my father for the Camino de Santiago (which generally made things worse), until my partner refused to even ride the Kyiv subway with me due to my crazed reaction to the ear-rending screech of the rails (really guys, it could do with some updating). I don’t think I really calmed down until after spending a month in the woods of northern Sweden, at which point I started to worry about moving to Australia instead. I’ve been suspiciously chill here though, some minor panic incidents aside. I’d like to blame the HRT for balancing out my mood, or perhaps having enough money and my own vehicle. I don’t think my plan to circumnavigate the continent is going to pan out in the long-run, but I’m pretty content with how things have gone so far. All’s well that ends well, they say. (To be fair though, the first part of the year wasn’t all bad: my best friend and I did start dating, I read some good books, met some cool people, ate a lot of cinnamon buns and burek, and sorted out some priorities.)  

Goals for 2019

- Make it to Australia and buy a car when I get there Done and done

- Turn 30 in a country I haven’t visited yet  Well, we chickened out about going to Transnistria cause I didn’t feel like dealing with corrupt border officials in any way, shape, or form, but we did go to Iași instead, so at least I spent my birthday in a new city. 

- Keep improving my Russian - Oh, I failed miserably at this

- Keep improving my Chinese - 成功啦～～～

- Finish the stream-of-consciousness autobiographical graphic novel I’ve started drawing - I finished the first segment before leaving off because it was too stressful, does that count? 

- Start HRT Thank you Ukraine for your laissez-faire approach to what western countries consider controlled substances ❤

- Do more linocut printing I finally figured out that it was my roller and not the paint that was causing me so much woe

- Share less of my precious bodily fluids with parasitic insects  - The bedbugs of the Balkans have won this battle fair and square

Goals from 2015 - 2018 yet to be achieved:

-Travel more in Ukraine It finally happened 

-Learn to white water kayak - still not likely in the near future

-Learn A2 Arabic - this is so far on the backburner I’m not even sure it’s on the stove anymore

-Actively work on my French speaking/listening skills - I’m just crossing this off because I had to listen to the French comrades on the permaculture farm

-Go to Xinjiang - I don’t think Xinjiang is really the place to be right now

- Experiment with anxiety reduction techniques/chill the fuck out a bit - after everyone and their dog telling me to try meditation, I’ve discovered that painting is what actually works for me. Not just drawing, the magic is in colouring it in too. 

Goals for 2020

- Travel by train between Harbin/Irkutsk/Ulanbaataar/Beijing 

- Take a massage class

- Get a tolerable job in east Asia

- Look into artist residencies 

- Continue to improve my Mandarin

- Continue to improve my Swedish

- Buy new sneakers (sounds simple but god is it an ordeal) 

- Do something nice for my golden birthday 

[aion-rsa]

Mortal Kombat: The Challenges of Making the Movie Reboot

https://ift.tt/3tyN06z

“Respect is the word I just kept using over and over,” says Simon McQuoid about his directorial debut, the Mortal Kombat movie reboot. “Elevate and respect the material. So it was all just born out of respect for the characters.”

For McQuoid, it’s a challenging beginning to take on such a long-running and venerated franchise. Since 1992, there have been 14 editions of the video game, two animated films, two live action films, an animated series, live actions series for TV and the web, a novelization, and even a live stage show. McQuoid and 30+ year industry veteran, producer Todd Garner (xXx, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2), sat down with Den of Geek and other members of the press for a virtual roundtable to discuss making a movie based on one of the most successful fighting games ever. 

Cole Young’s Place in Mortal Kombat Lore

This version of Mortal Kombat is completely new, not beholden to stories told in the previous films. McQuoid had several discussions with Ed Boon, one of the creators of the original video game, but says that NetherRealm Studios weren’t involved with the film the whole time.

“There was conversations back and forth at key moments,” McQuoid recalls, “and they were really helpful and great guys.”

But overall, the reboot does its own thing, as the gargantuan continuity of the Mortal Kombat franchise would be too daunting for newcomers, Garner explains: “How are you able to have somebody come in, sit down in the theater, and watch this movie and not be completely confused by the unbelievable lore that Ed and John [Tobias, the other creator] have created over 30 years?”

Garner compares trying to grasp franchise’s deep lore as a newcomer to showing up for Avengers: Endgame without seeing any of the previous MCU films. Audiences would have no idea what was happening. Every installment in the game series also introduced new characters so there are dozens of them, plus there were outrageous cameos from characters from other franchises like Rambo, the Joker, Freddy Kruger, Spawn, and the Terminator.

“If I could spend nine hours, like they did in WandaVision, just with two characters falling in love, I’m in,” Garner says. However, the project was only greenlit as a lone feature film. “Would I love to make the Snyder Cut of this movie and have it be four hours? Sure. But my goal is to tell every story and tell it well and tell it honestly.”

To solve all this, Mortal Kombat adds a new character who discovers this universe along with the audience: Cole Young (Lewis Tan). With so many popular characters already on the roster, a new one may seem superfluous, but Garner says the difference here is that players are invested in all the previous characters because they played them. He knows that longtime fans would feel that their favorites were poorly represented, especially if they weren’t in the lead role.

“Cole is the audience surrogate because he doesn’t know anything,” Garner explains. “He has no backstory in the game…We just needed a character that was a cipher that came in and went, ‘Okay, I’m going to connect the dots between the fans and the non-fans, so that by the end of the movie, we’re all in the same place.’”

Tan is an up-and-coming martial arts star and second-generation stuntman. His father, Philip Tan, has been in the stunt business since 1987. Tan had major roles in AMC’s Into the Badlands and Netflix’s Wu Assassins, but this is his first lead role in a feature film. “Lewis is an incredibly gifted martial arts fighter,” McQuoid says. “He also has a great presence on camera that connected.” That combination sealed the deal for Tan.

However, Tan isn’t the only cast member with a strong martial arts background. The film is packed with many of the top martial actors in cinema today. After all, Mortal Kombat is based on a fighting game, a brutal one at that, so it is critical that the fight scenes be next level. 

A Martial Arts Film, Not a Video Game Movie

One of the foremost priorities for the filmmakers was to cast actors who can fight well on screen. For martial arts fans, the Mortal Kombat cast list is impressive: Max Huang (Chinese Zodiac, Dragon Blade) as Kung Lao, Ludi Lin (Power Rangers, Black Mirror) as Liu Kang, Hiroyuki Sanada (The Twilight Samurai, The Last Samurai) as Scorpion, Tadanobu Sato (Zatoichi, 47 Ronin) as Raiden, Joe Taslim (The Raid, Warrior) as Sub-Zero, plus Elissa Cadwell (Nitara) and Daniel Nelson (Kabal) are formidable stunt people. There hasn’t been a major Hollywood picture with a fight card this stacked in forever. 

It made casting more challenging because finding this level of martial talent dramatically narrowed the field, but Garner claims it was a non-negotiable term. “The first thing we said out of the gate was: I’ve got bad news for you, Warner Brothers. Not only is this going to be diverse, they got to know how to fight.” McQuoid concurs that they wanted real martial artists. “We needed people who had the ability to fight when they needed to fight and have that martial arts skill that not everyone has. That’s something that comes from having years of training.”

Garner says everyone is saying this is a video game movie, but he insists that it is a martial arts movie. The filmmakers didn’t want to overuse stunt doubles because they felt it would detract from the authenticity of the action. “I watched Max and Lewis go at it. I watched Ludi and Lewis go at it. I mean, these guys are phenomenal artists, and that’s what we wanted.”

Read more

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Inside the Mortal Kombat Movie’s Bloody Love Letter to Martial Arts

By Matthew Byrd

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Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat: The Many Ways the Crossover Almost Happened

By Gavin Jasper

Garner shared a production anecdote about working with martial actors: “When you have somebody like Max Huang come on set and go, ‘By the way, guys, for the last six months, I’ve been practicing doing a 540 with no wire. Watch this.’ And he does it. You go, ‘Oh, you bet your ass we’re putting that in the movie.’ Because I don’t care, Tom Cruise can’t do a 540 with no wire, right?”

Garner claims that Mortal Kombat has one of the most beautiful fights he’s ever seen, one of the coolest fights he’s ever seen, and one of the most brutal fights he’s ever seen. That’s three separate fight scenes and there’s more. The video game was notorious for gratuitous violence. Characters get their spines ripped out, their heads blasted through their bodies, their bodies torn asunder, and so much more. The original was so over the top that it was censored and banned in many countries.

“Compared to the game, we’re like Bambi, right?” confesses Garner. “We’re like a G-rated movie compared to the game. The game is just incredibly operatic in terms of the violence.”

Mortal Kombat’s Diverse Cast

The cast of Mortal Kombat is not only well trained, but also conspicuously diverse. No whitewashing here. According to McQuoid, from day one it never crossed anyone’s mind at any point to do it any other way. “Perhaps the guys at New Line are just braver than most.” With racial tension on the rise, particularly anti-Asian hate, a diverse cast without an A-list actor is a bold gamble for a Hollywood production. “The thing about Mortal Kombat is it’s a rich, textural mixture of really great things. Many different cultures.”

Garner hopes that by the end of the movie audiences aren’t stuck on the cast being predominantly Asian, or Mehcad Brooks (Jax) being African American, or Sisi Stringer (Mileena) being Black Australian. Racial issues need not interfere with their escapist film. “You’re just going to go, ‘I just love them. It was great.’ And the color will just wash over you.”

McQuoid understands the diversity issue. “It’s important because it’s just the right thing to do, right? It’s that simple.”

Easter Eggs

When it comes to easter eggs, Mortal Kombat wrote the book. The video games are packed with hidden codes, references to previous games, and the legendary “Toasty!” taunt which dates all the way back to Mortal Kombat II from 1993. The game was ahead of its time in that respect.

Reboots today are judged by their easter eggs, and Garner says Mortal Kombat will make for good hunting with long time fans. “What’s awesome is that every single person on this movie, I’m telling you down to the set painters, loves Mortal Kombat.” When the production began, he sat down with fellow producers Richard Brener and Victoria Palmeri, Dave Neustadter from New Line, and screenwriter Greg Russo and discussed what easter eggs they could put in. “And James Wan came on, and he’s like, ‘I got some easter eggs for ya.’ And then every person from the set painters to the prop to the costumers to Simon to Ludi to everybody said, ‘Well, what about this? What about this?’” 

According to Garner, there’s even an easter egg in the trailer when Sub-Zero grabs the barrel of the gun and fires. “If you look behind him, it’s the cheat code for that exact move that Sub-Zero does: in, down, left, right.” 

“The intent was to respect the material,” McQuoid says. “That had to be first and foremost.”

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Mortal Kombat premieres in theaters and on HBO Max on April 16, 2021.

The post Mortal Kombat: The Challenges of Making the Movie Reboot appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/30SQh4q

[bigyack-com]

In a City Under Lockdown, Hope Arrives by Motorbike

The delivery driver did not want to go upstairs. The driver, Zhang Sai, hovered outside an apartment building in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak. He had been ordered not to bring food to customers’ doors in order to minimize the risk of infection. But the woman on the phone was pleading. The food was for her mother, who couldn’t come down to meet him. Mr. Zhang relented. He would drop off the order and sprint away. As he placed the bag on the floor, the door opened. Startled, he rushed away. Without thinking, he jabbed the elevator button with his finger, touching a surface he feared could transmit the virus. That was how Mr. Zhang, 32, found himself speeding back to his delivery station with one finger held aloft, careful not to touch the rest of his hand — a quarantine in miniature. “I was very scared,” Mr. Zhang recalled. “Because I ride a scooter, I felt the finger was like a flag.” For many in China, delivery drivers like Mr. Zhang are the only connection to the outside world. Once a ubiquitous but invisible presence on the streets of nearly every Chinese city, the drivers are now being heralded as heroes. Throughout China, at least 760 million people — almost a tenth of the world’s population — face some form of residential lockdown. The restrictions are particularly strict in Wuhan, where government efforts to contain the virus have barricaded most of the city’s 11 million residents in their homes. Image

Zhang Sai, a delivery driver in Wuhan, said he never considered taking time off, even after the danger of the outbreak became clear.Credit...Zhang Sai Each household can send someone out for necessities just once every three days. Many residents do not venture outside at all, for fear of infection. Of the more than 2,100 deaths and nearly 75,000 infections linked to the new virus, the majority have been in Wuhan. But people still have to eat — which is why Mr. Zhang and legions of delivery drivers find themselves on the street each day. As Wuhan and the rest of the China hunkers down, they have become the country’s vital arteries, keeping fresh meat, vegetables and other supplies flowing to those who need them. Updated Feb. 10, 2020 What is a Coronavirus? It is a novel virus named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people, and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to more dangerous conditions like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. How contagious is the virus? According to preliminary research, it seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS, and is possibly transmitted through the air. Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures. How worried should I be? While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat. Who is working to contain the virus? World Health Organization officials have praised China’s aggressive response to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets. This week, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived in Beijing to offer assistance. What if I’m traveling? The United States and Australia are temporarily denying entry to noncitizens who recently traveled to China and several airlines have canceled flights. How do I keep myself and others safe? Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick. It is grueling and dangerous work. Mr. Zhang, who works for Hema, a supermarket chain owned by the tech giant Alibaba, crisscrosses the city armed only with the face masks and hand sanitizer that his company supplies each morning. His company uniform, bright blue with a hippo logo, tells the local authorities he is allowed to be on the road. At night, he tries not to think about the epidemic. He listens to pop songs and looks for good news on TV. The dozens of trips he makes each day are born not just of Wuhan’s necessity, but his own. His wife and 4-year-old twin boys, as well as his father, rely on him for financial support. He never considered taking time off, even after the danger of the outbreak became clear. When his family asked him to stop, he ignored them, too. Mr. Zhang’s family lives outside Wuhan, and he cannot visit because of the outbreak, but he video chats with them daily. If he goes fast and works long days, Mr. Zhang said he could make about 8,000 yuan a month, or just over $1,100 — more than he made in his previous job as a mail courier. The average monthly salary in Wuhan in 2017 was about 6,640 yuan, according to the data provider CEIC. Mr. Zhang and his colleagues offer one another a constantly updating stream of advice. It was one of Mr. Zhang’s colleagues who told him to use a key to press elevator buttons. Another afternoon, someone said in the company group text that a suspected coronavirus patient had died in Neighborhood 125. Don’t enter that area of Wuhan anymore, the message said. “So damn unlucky,” a colleague said. “Those orders were assigned to me.” So far, none of Mr. Zhang’s co-workers have fallen sick, he said. The epidemic has brought some unexpected bright spots. Before, Mr. Zhang said, he sometimes ran red lights during rush hour in order to meet his delivery goals for the day. Now, the streets are empty. He has no problem getting around. People are nicer, too. Some customers barely opened the door or avoided eye contact. After the outbreak erupted, everyone said thank you. “There’s a saying: ‘A man’s words are kind when death is close,’” Mr. Zhang said. “Everybody is very tired. Everybody has been suffering for so long.” Those interactions are rarer now. This week, the Wuhan authorities ordered neighborhoods to establish “contactless delivery” points. When Mr. Zhang has a delivery, he brings it to a designated checkpoint in the customer’s neighborhood and leaves. By far the best change, though, has been to Mr. Zhang’s after-work routine. Usually, he’d watch a movie or spend time with friends. Now, every night, he writes in a journal. Then he sends the entries to various online publications that — much to his delight — have begun sharing them. His first post was published Jan. 30, in the online magazine Single Read. It was called “Self-narration of a Wuhan takeout worker.” Since then, he has published five more. He writes of calling a friend to ask him to support his sons if he gets sick; of watching two older men play chess outdoors without masks; of taking in a crisp Wuhan day, with few around to share it. “Normally, you would see more people sunbathing, playing chess, grocery shopping, doing nothing,” he wrote in that entry, dated Jan. 30. “Usually, I think they’re too noisy. Only now do I discover a city without people yelling is boring.” Mr. Zhang said he had always harbored literary aspirations. He has written novels, poems and fairy tales, but none of those earlier writings were published. He has only a middle school education, and thought that would put off editors. But they have published his entries after making only some grammatical changes, he said. He reads every comment left on his posts. Many people say they cannot believe a delivery driver wrote them. “I think people like me because I’m just one of them,” he said. Mr. Zhang plans to keep writing after the outbreak ends. He has already started taking fewer deliveries, to have more time to write. If outlets stop publishing his work, he’ll keep making deliveries to earn money. But he will not stop writing. “The epidemic has made many people close their mouths. It has made many of the unlucky among us close their mouths forever,” Mr. Zhang wrote in one post. “I want to talk now.” Read the full article

[rigelmejo]

this is gonna be just a mash of things this article made me think about - “why chinese is so damn hard”

In it, they wrote that:  At the end of three years of learning Chinese, I hadn't yet read a single complete novel.

Ok so. To be fair to them, one of the books they tried reading for pleasure (as in without a dictionary) was The Dream of the Red Chamber after 6 years of study. Which is like reading Shakespeare - its literary, its older, its fair if that is difficult especially for pleasure. (As in english speaking countries, we’ve been in school 9+ years before we’re asked to read Shakespeare and other classical type literary works).  

But back to focusing on the “end of three years” thing. 

When I started learning chinese, I was basically motivated by a person who wrote an article about how they looked at a little grammar, some radicals explanations, then brute forced 2000 common words memrise decks, then started reading with a click dictionary for pleasure. And it worked for them! And so, being me and very curious to ‘test’ if things work: I wanted to try it too. I did more prep work, more extra hanzi work than that article mentioned. And I don’t think it felt pleasurable with a click dictionary (I used pleco) for a while - but it was doable with a click-dictionary at that point so I do think that person who wrote the article was pretty honest about the progress they’d made. For me, and I think them if I remember correctly, that was around 8 months to start reading with a click dictionary. 

I read another article back in the middle of this, by Timo (who made Timo’s All in One Chinese anki deck), where he said he’d learned enough to pass HSK 4 in somewhere between 6 months to a year (I can’t remember exactly how long but it was a year or less). I think I covered all the HSK 4 words in memrise by 10 months, and probably felt comfortable with most of them around 14 months? And Now its been almost 2 years and if I were to take an HSK test that’s probably the one that I would pass with some study (I imagine I could try an HSK 5 one with some prep beforehand maybe?). HSK 4 is what I “aimed for” since I’d also read articles around that time of people saying that’s about when simple webnovels got “doable with a click dictionary” and when learning words FROM what you read started helping reading percent comprehension more than HSK. Which is a statement I agree with - I learned vocabulary mainly from reading after that point, and as a result it has definitely improved my reading comprehension and vocabulary (like it made Xiao Wang Zi pretty readable without dictionary etc, Zhen Hun is now readable without a dictionary, Daomubiji is), but these words I’ve picked up only matched maybe 50-70% with HSK 5-6 words (which is why I’d need to prep if I wanted to take an HSK 5 test probably).

So. I do think: if you WANT to read, if your GOAL is to read chinese novels? That is doable in 3 years. Certainly doable in 6. Especially if you are willing to study, and to read a LOT. 

General opinions I’ve found surrounding the topic of reading in Chinese include: reading through several books (10,000 pages) will help reading speed/ease, the more you read the easier (and faster) it gets. The more words you know, the easier it gets (WORDS not hanzi, and words generally being 5,000-15,000 for ease-feeling depending on your own tolerance for ambiguity). So basically: yes it will be super slow going at first, YES the speed will improve, yes you don’t need to dread not being able to pick up a book until X years into studying. I’ve seen people who started reading after 8 months (the guy who used a click dictionary who inspired me), or people that started after 1-3 years (me at around 1 year, a lot of people around HSK 4-6, a lot of people once they’ve learned 2k hanzi or 2k-5k words etc). 

I personally noticed a page used to take me 30 minutes... then 20... then 15... then 5... now a bit under 5 minutes (and ‘easier’ books less time). So reading speed will eventually get better. Mine still has some improvements that need to be reached eventually lol. I can say at about 1500 hanzi reading and picking up hanzi IN reading (provided you have an audiobook or click-dictionary with audio to hear the hanzi sound) seemed to start working pretty well. So I do think 2000 hanzi is actually a fair estimate of ‘reading will get doable without a dictionary by then.’ I may be around 2000 hanzi known now, and most of the time the hanzi I see are either brand new words (which I SHOULD learn) or part of descriptions/similar words to things I know and I can guess (and with audio also learn them). Hanzi have gotten easier to guess now, to remember, to make connections with.

My point is just that if you want to read - read early, read often, you do not need to be afraid it’s impossible. 

There are people who got into reading way faster than me, people who did much slower. And also tolerance of ambiguity is a big deal - I do think chinese requires more tolerance of ambiguity when making the transition to reading native content (versus learner materials and graded readers) since there’s unknown hanzi you won’t be able to avoid. I’ve got a pretty high tolerance, but yeah there might be ‘slogging’ for a while depending on where your tolerance level is. If you can comprehend the ‘overall main idea’ of paragraphs, sentences? You can understand it enough to learn from it (though how ‘draining’ it will feel will depend on difficulty of the reading and your own tolerance for ambiguity). I saw one translator estimate 3-4 years to read webnovels for pleasure (so no dictionary necessary) and I think that’s a pretty fair estimate (if you’re studying regularly, trying to practice reading with graded readers and click-dictionaries). I’m at almost 2 years and some webnovels I can read for pleasure without a dictionary, many feel better with one but somewhat doable without one, and some I slog through even with a dictionary. I think 3-4 years is a pretty good estimate if you’re studying regularly. 

My other main thought is just... oh man. Reading that someone did not complete their first chinese novel in 3 years MAKES me want to finish a chinese novel before August (that’s my 2 year mark -3-)! I mean technically I finished Xiao Wangzi and a Xiao Mao book but those are both for children and quite short. But yeah nothing motivates me like a challenge to see if something is doable or not...

Somewhat related to this, but I got a new version of Zhen Hun recently (the traditional character version because the covers are SO freaking lovely). And it seems to match up to the webnovel chapters?? So unlike my simplified copy, this one doesn’t have extra scenes and changed scenes and added details in each chapter. I only skimmed (and its chapters are broken up differently than the webnovel which is pretty normal) so I’m not sure if my traditional version has the extras or Shen San extra (my simplified copy does). It does not have the Kunlun prologue my simplified copy has. But, since this traditional copy matches up to the webnovel pretty close (just a few wording changes like next/then/after etc), I could read it very easy! It’s my first time reading traditional chinese in longer novel form since MoDu or The MDZS, so its cool seeing my progress from 6 months in to now. 

[kootenaygoon]

Nobody knows the Kootenays like Greg Nesteroff.

A celebrated historian and journalist, he first made a name for himself as a columnist and reporter for the Nelson Star, eventually moving up to the editor position. He then became news director of Juice FM, a gig he inherited from veteran broadcaster Glenn Hicks.

Last year Nesteroff decided to take some time off to work on two full-length book projects — one will be a collection of his popular Place Names columns, while the other will be a biography of Sandon founder John Morgan Harris. Meanwhile he started a blog: The Kütne Reader.

Kootenay Goon caught up with Greg to chat about the world of blogging, his obsession with the past and the future of journalism.

#1. For many of the posts on Kütne Reader, a historical document or photograph ends up being the jumping off point for a deep dive into the life of some historical character most have never heard of. (I loved your story about "The Midnight Nurse", by the way.) Your investigative skill-set is honestly staggering — I can't believe you successfully dredge up some of the information you do.

It seems to me like this would be a lengthy process, and I'm curious what your strategy is when building these stories. What are your go-to sources? Are you constantly haunting the archives, or looking this stuff up in books, or some combination of both?

Gee, thanks! My hat will no longer fit. 

I had a stockpile of unpublished stories I was able to drawn on initially. I've exhausted most of them, so now I'm putting up new posts at a slightly slower pace. Although I have no shortage of ideas, it takes longer to assemble each post. You're right about a single photograph, document, or artifact inspiring a post. It doesn't take much to get me interested and headed down a proverbial rabbit hole.

Go-to sources: ancestry.com plus the ever-expanding list of digitized newspapers, particularly the early Kootenay papers available through UBC's BC Historical Newspapers site and the ones on newspapers.com. The recent addition to the latter of The Vancouver Sun was particularly exciting. I visit archives and libraries less often than I used to because so much is available online now. But I spent 20 years taking notes from newspapers and local history books (the room where I write is groaning under the weight of those books), so there is lots I can search even on my own computer desktop.  

Even though an amazing number of books have been written about this region (with more added each year) there is no shortage of subjects left unexplored or under-explored. The digitization of newspapers and books is giving us the tools to explore topics and questions in previously impossible ways. It's fun to be part of the first wave of historians to take advantage of this technology. 

Some of my posts are wholly original; you won't find anything about those subjects in any history book. Others are a matter of presenting existing information in a new way. My post entitled "15 curious things about Peter (Lordly) Verigin's death" contained nothing that hadn't already been published, but it was presented in a novel way. Whereas "A phony dentist in the Slocan Valley" recounted the life of a career criminal which had never been presented in full. 

#2. You took 2018 off to focus on writing your books. Now that 2019's staring us in the face, how much progress have you made?

Alarmingly little. I blame the blog. 

I can throw something up in a hurry without worrying too much about being artful and get instant feedback. Whereas the books are long-term projects that require more care and thought and will not bear fruit for a long time. So the quicker, shorter stuff is much more attractive. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel productive in spite of the lack of progress on the books.

I will say that I have reorganized my Johnny Harris biography in a way that should make it more compelling. But I haven't added very much. It still sits at about 43,000 words with a huge amount left to do.

The place name series is more a matter of compiling and condensing than writing, since the basis for it has been a series that has appeared in local newspapers for the last six years. But even then, all I've accomplished so far is a sample chapter for letters P and Q.

Fortunately, my literary agent and wife are both prodding me to get going on the books before my nest egg runs out.

#3. Your other big project has been this blog, and you've been churning out content on the regular. How does it feel to switch mediums, to switch from your home in the pages of the Nelson Star and unleash your work online? Obviously there's no word count limits, which is nice, but what else inspired you to make the jump?

It was probably just a procrastination tool. 

It seemed more fun than what I was actually supposed to be doing. I had no goal initially and didn't give a lot of thought to how it would look or what it would contain. I didn't even really envision anyone reading it. (Which is not unusual, since I've written lots of things for my own amusement and never bothered to share them. Some have since been posted on the blog.) 

Now I do pay more attention to what I'm doing and actively try to increase page views, although I view it purely as a game.

#4. In a number of your historical posts you write about about the First Nations residents of the West Kootenay, including the Sinixt and the Ktunaxa. (Cool postcard of those pictographs, by the way.) This is a subject I don't know much about, and surely I'm not the only one. In your research, what have you learned about their history and how do you feel it informs your understanding of First Nations issues today?

I don't pretend to be an expert on local First Nations. But I am very interested in overlooked stories and overlooked people. 

The First Nations of West Kootenay certainly fall in that category. For generations we experienced a sort of collective amnesia, with descendants of European settlers claiming there never were any First Nations people here, or that they were only transient. That attitude started to shift about 30 years ago, and today you will hear aboriginal acknowledgements at the start of city council meetings, but we still have a long way to go in recognizing local indigenous history. 

Other visible minorities have also been given short shrift in local history, including Chinese Canadians and Japanese Canadians. For many years their stories in this area were not well told, but that has changed in the past few decades, thanks to a few key writers and curators. There is still much untapped ground: for instance, no one has ever written in detail about South Asian pioneers of this region, but I would like to. There were many Indo Canadian sawmill workers in our area, and there is even a West Kootenay connection to the Komagata Maru.

#5. I know you have a special relationship with Sandon, the ghost town just outside New Denver. (For those of you who haven't been, it's worth it just to check out the fleet of historic Vancouver buses randomly parked there.) If memory serves, you've been researching the founder — who was apparently quite the character. What is it about Sandon that initially won your attention?

Sandon has held generations of history buffs in thrall, probably because of its setting and the heights it reached before its lengthy descent into a ghost town. I am no exception. I was taken by it during my first childhood trip. Even though it was hardly an attractive place at that time, it still made a deep impression on me. I recall thinking that I'd somehow like to contribute to the study of local history, but assumed everything there was to know had already been discovered. Well ...

I became particularly interested in John Morgan Harris, the subject of the biography I am writing, when looking into myths about Sandon. There was a story he killed someone before coming to the area. I didn't believe it, but it turned out to be true. I spent a few days in the Wallace, Idaho library reading newspapers about that incident and the rest of his exploits there. 

I've also been to his birthplace and grave in Virginia.

#6. You spend a lot of time living in the past, but you also produce stellar journalism about the present day. Is it hard to switch back and forth, and do you think the two pursuits influence and inform each other?

It's not hard to switch. 

But it is nice to bring a historical perspective to a current news story, to tell your reader how typical or atypical an event is, the last time it happened, or just supply some trivia that enlivens your copy. 

In writing history I use the genealogist's toolkit more than the reporter's. The same resources people use to compile family trees I use to pursue obscure historical figures. Most of the time my subjects are long dead, so I'm not able to interview them or anyone who knew them. But I use ancestry.com and the BC archives vital events index nearly every day in addition to the aforementioned digitized newspaper sites. 

Thank goodness for those pioneer papers. Despite their biases and blind spots (those visible minorities mentioned earlier were routinely condemned when they weren't ignored), without them we would have a much poorer understanding of what went on around here.

[zombielovescore]

Reading List 2016

Another year, another reading list. I honestly barely read anything in 2016, so I don’t even know if this is worth posting. I keep making myself the goal that I’ll read at least 50 books in a year and every year the amount I actually end up reading keeps getting shorter and shorter.

“The Opposite of Loneliness” by Marina Keegan - January 13, 2016 - January 24, 2016 - So, this is an anthology of short stories that were written by a very promising graduate from Harvard who ended up being killed in a car accident within a few months of her graduation. These stories were collected by her friends and family and published posthumously. All the stories were definitely a great read. I think my favourite of the bunch of a short horror/sci-fi piece by the name of “Challenger Deep”. I’d probably put it in the vein of “Sphere” by Michael Crichton.

“Dreamcatcher” by Stephen King - January 27, 2016 - March 7, 2016 - Stephen King tends to always be a bit of a hit or miss for me. I’m more of a fan of his fantasy than I am of his straight horror. This book, while extremely long for someone with my attention span, was actually a good read for me. I enjoyed it a lot. Too bad I can’t say the same of the movie (it’s a piece of trash, don’t even do it). I can’t say that I was a big fan of the magical disabled kid trope, but I’m going to excuse that as a product of its time.

“The Falconer” by Elizabeth May - February 6, 2016 - February 15, 2016 - I’ve been following Elizabeth May from back since she mostly published photography on deviantArt, so I was pretty excited to get my hands on her debut novel. Elizabeth is a great author and it’s very clear that she puts a lot of time and effort into her research of the culture and etiquette of Victorian Edinburgh, as well as Scottish lore on faeries. While I’m not exactly a fan of the formulaic YA romance (female protag falls in love with broody beautiful male character; love triangle between broody boy and childhood boy) that’s evident in the book, I’m definitely looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

“Havemercy” by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett - March 10, 2016 - March 14, 2016 - This one was a re-read. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this series, and this book in particular, because while I love it and I find all the character’s viewpoints very interesting, I always feel that the authors squandered a lot of potential with their idea because they spend waaaaay too much time character building and not enough time actually telling the story and much of the defining moments of the book (like, y’know, the war that’s been raging on for a 100 years and the fact that there are FLYING MAGICAL STEEL DRAGONS) all pretty much happen off screen. And it’s made worse that the hype of Havemercy is the dragons and (SPOILERS: they all get destroyed at the end of this book - there are like, three more books after this).

“Shadow Magic” by Jaida Jones an Danielle Bennett - March 15, 2016 - June 6, 2016 - Another re-read. Sequel to Havemercy. I think I was re-reading these books because I bought “Steel Hands” which is book 4 of this series and the only one I haven’t read before, but I stopped after this book and still haven’t read it, so when I get time this year I’ll have to re-read “Dragon Soul” (book 3) and then read “Steel Hands”. So, this book follows the events of Havemercy and the aftermath of the war with four different viewpoint characters - which is something I don’t really like in sequels because I get invested in certain characters. This is probably my least favourite book in the series just because I don’t particularly care about the viewpoint characters, at least not as much as I did in Havemercy - and after a while all of their viewpoints sort of start to sound the same. One character who I really liked in “Havemercy” is one of the viewpoint characters in this and he was honestly so annoying and not at all like he was in the previous book, so that was a bit disappointing. I did like that we got to see the other side of the war, however, and the culture of the Ke-Han (which is an amalgamation of Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian culture), whereas “Havemercy” took place solely in Volstov (influenced from Russian and various European cultures). Still a lot of wasted potential, as the most interesting conflict again took place mostly off-screen.

“Steeple” by Jon Wallace - June 10,2016 - June 30, 2016 - This was...an interesting book. I was really confused because the story kept referencing events that had happened as if they had happened in previous narration and I was getting really annoyed, until I realized that this book is actually book 2 of a trilogy. There is seriously no indication anywhere that this book belonged to a series. This book (and series, I guess) follows a very common sci-fi plot in where man creates A.I. and the A.I. have rebelled and every one is living in a dystopic nightmare. Fun times. Your main character is a A.I. turned human who is down on his luck, in that he fucking hates being human, but apparently in the first book he was poisoned (?) by a fellow A.I. which fucked up his nanites and basically turned him into a human. I’m honestly not sure how the A.I.s are supposed to work in this universe. Anyways, basically this guy and his companions have to fight their way up a giant fucking tower that had originally been designed as a metropolis before the A.I. rebelled and is now a cesspool for refugees and killer A.I.s. Oh, and Ken is being hunted by some other A.I. because apparently he’s responsible for destroying Control (again, this must have happened in the previous book because I have no fucking clue). It’s a good read if you like straight sci-fi, but I didn’t find the writing that good.

“Anansi Boys” by Neil Gaiman - July 2, 2016 - October 15, 2016 - I read “American Gods” a few years ago and didn’t actually really like it that much, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about its sort-of-sequel. Surprisingly, I liked it a lot better. Neil Gaiman tends to be a bit hit and miss for me as well as King. I like his writing, I like his ideas, but there are some books I like by him and some I just don’t really. 

“The Aeneid” by Virgil - October 15, 2016 - January 1, 2017 - I have no idea why I decided I was going to read this book. I hate it. It’s so long-winded and boring, and I know it’s because it was written 2000 years ago as basically a propaganda piece of Augustus Caesar, but GOD DAMN if it doesn’t make me want to blow my brains out. I’m very amused by the fact that EVERY character has a name. It doesn’t matter if character x is introduced and killed in the same line, he will be named. In book ix in particular while their in the middle of a war between the Trojans and Turnus’ army it will tell you the name of the character who is doing the killing, list of everyone he just killed, and then will move on to the next character killing, and so on. It’s hilarious. And I can pronounce about 10% of all the names. Yay Ancient Rome.

---

And that’s it. This is definitely the shortest one of theses I’ve done.

[mastcomm]

In a City Under Lockdown, Hope Arrives by Motorbike

The delivery driver did not want to go upstairs.

The driver, Zhang Sai, hovered outside an apartment building in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak. He had been ordered not to bring food to customers’ doors in order to minimize the risk of infection.

But the woman on the phone was pleading. The food was for her mother, who couldn’t come down to meet him.

Mr. Zhang relented. He would drop off the order and sprint away. As he placed the bag on the floor, the door opened. Startled, he rushed away. Without thinking, he jabbed the elevator button with his finger, touching a surface he feared could transmit the virus.

That was how Mr. Zhang, 32, found himself speeding back to his delivery station with one finger held aloft, careful not to touch the rest of his hand — a quarantine in miniature.

“I was very scared,” Mr. Zhang recalled. “Because I ride a scooter, I felt the finger was like a flag.”

For many in China, delivery drivers like Mr. Zhang are the only connection to the outside world. Once a ubiquitous but invisible presence on the streets of nearly every Chinese city, the drivers are now being heralded as heroes.

Throughout China, at least 760 million people — almost a tenth of the world’s population — face some form of residential lockdown. The restrictions are particularly strict in Wuhan, where government efforts to contain the virus have barricaded most of the city’s 11 million residents in their homes.

Image

Zhang Sai, a delivery driver in Wuhan, said he never considered taking time off, even after the danger of the outbreak became clear.Credit…Zhang Sai

Each household can send someone out for necessities just once every three days. Many residents do not venture outside at all, for fear of infection. Of the more than 2,100 deaths and nearly 75,000 infections linked to the new virus, the majority have been in Wuhan.

But people still have to eat — which is why Mr. Zhang and legions of delivery drivers find themselves on the street each day. As Wuhan and the rest of the China hunkers down, they have become the country’s vital arteries, keeping fresh meat, vegetables and other supplies flowing to those who need them.

Updated Feb. 10, 2020

What is a Coronavirus? It is a novel virus named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people, and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to more dangerous conditions like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

How contagious is the virus? According to preliminary research, it seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS, and is possibly transmitted through the air. Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures.

How worried should I be? While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat.

Who is working to contain the virus? World Health Organization officials have praised China’s aggressive response to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets. This week, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived in Beijing to offer assistance.

What if I’m traveling? The United States and Australia are temporarily denying entry to noncitizens who recently traveled to China and several airlines have canceled flights.

How do I keep myself and others safe? Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick.

It is grueling and dangerous work. Mr. Zhang, who works for Hema, a supermarket chain owned by the tech giant Alibaba, crisscrosses the city armed only with the face masks and hand sanitizer that his company supplies each morning.

His company uniform, bright blue with a hippo logo, tells the local authorities he is allowed to be on the road.

At night, he tries not to think about the epidemic. He listens to pop songs and looks for good news on TV.

The dozens of trips he makes each day are born not just of Wuhan’s necessity, but his own. His wife and 4-year-old twin boys, as well as his father, rely on him for financial support. He never considered taking time off, even after the danger of the outbreak became clear. When his family asked him to stop, he ignored them, too.

Mr. Zhang’s family lives outside Wuhan, and he cannot visit because of the outbreak, but he video chats with them daily.

If he goes fast and works long days, Mr. Zhang said he could make about 8,000 yuan a month, or just over $1,100 — more than he made in his previous job as a mail courier. The average monthly salary in Wuhan in 2017 was about 6,640 yuan, according to the data provider CEIC.

Mr. Zhang and his colleagues offer one another a constantly updating stream of advice. It was one of Mr. Zhang’s colleagues who told him to use a key to press elevator buttons. Another afternoon, someone said in the company group text that a suspected coronavirus patient had died in Neighborhood 125. Don’t enter that area of Wuhan anymore, the message said.

“So damn unlucky,” a colleague said. “Those orders were assigned to me.”

So far, none of Mr. Zhang’s co-workers have fallen sick, he said.

The epidemic has brought some unexpected bright spots. Before, Mr. Zhang said, he sometimes ran red lights during rush hour in order to meet his delivery goals for the day. Now, the streets are empty. He has no problem getting around.

People are nicer, too. Some customers barely opened the door or avoided eye contact. After the outbreak erupted, everyone said thank you.

“There’s a saying: ‘A man’s words are kind when death is close,’” Mr. Zhang said. “Everybody is very tired. Everybody has been suffering for so long.”

Those interactions are rarer now. This week, the Wuhan authorities ordered neighborhoods to establish “contactless delivery” points. When Mr. Zhang has a delivery, he brings it to a designated checkpoint in the customer’s neighborhood and leaves.

By far the best change, though, has been to Mr. Zhang’s after-work routine. Usually, he’d watch a movie or spend time with friends. Now, every night, he writes in a journal. Then he sends the entries to various online publications that — much to his delight — have begun sharing them.

His first post was published Jan. 30, in the online magazine Single Read. It was called “Self-narration of a Wuhan takeout worker.” Since then, he has published five more.

He writes of calling a friend to ask him to support his sons if he gets sick; of watching two older men play chess outdoors without masks; of taking in a crisp Wuhan day, with few around to share it.

“Normally, you would see more people sunbathing, playing chess, grocery shopping, doing nothing,” he wrote in that entry, dated Jan. 30. “Usually, I think they’re too noisy. Only now do I discover a city without people yelling is boring.”

Mr. Zhang said he had always harbored literary aspirations. He has written novels, poems and fairy tales, but none of those earlier writings were published.

He has only a middle school education, and thought that would put off editors. But they have published his entries after making only some grammatical changes, he said.

He reads every comment left on his posts. Many people say they cannot believe a delivery driver wrote them.

“I think people like me because I’m just one of them,” he said.

Mr. Zhang plans to keep writing after the outbreak ends. He has already started taking fewer deliveries, to have more time to write.

If outlets stop publishing his work, he’ll keep making deliveries to earn money. But he will not stop writing.

“The epidemic has made many people close their mouths. It has made many of the unlucky among us close their mouths forever,” Mr. Zhang wrote in one post. “I want to talk now.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/business/in-a-city-under-lockdown-hope-arrives-by-motorbike/

[rigelmejo]

I respect the idea that it takes a long time to learn a language, and I usually refer to the FSI scale as a guide (plus some additional time if you aren’t a very focused studier, and plus some more time obviously if you want to be native like fluent instead of B2ish).

But today I saw so many massive immersion approach/10,000 sentences to fluency method users videos, where they insisted you either massively immerse (like all day every day), or it will take you like 30 years to learn a language. That is... that is a bit of an exaggeration.

There are plenty of people who primarily studied languages only in school, either as a program or for a degree, who learned enough to function in that language. Every foreign college student in America learned English for 20 years or less, and they can study in America and live functionally in English. I imagine a huge portion of them also did NOT study English the whole 20 years... so saying it takes 30 years to learn a language super different than English if you don’t do tons of immersion, for an English speaker feels like... a huge exaggeration.

Just my chinese as an example but. It took me about a year to go from 0 knowledge to HSK 3 knowledge. I imagine if my goal is HSK 6, then as long as I keep studying about the same frequency, even if HSK 4 and 5 and 6 take me much longer to learn, I could certainly get a grasp of those levels by say... 5 years. Probably under 5 years.

I know they’re changing the HSK tests so it may change in the future, but presently HSK 5-6 levels are what chinese jobs and universities tend to expect for non-native to be able to function in the country and study/work. Based on my pace, I would say a person studying in school along with a little in their free time should certainly be able to reach that goal in 4-5 years. Or a person self studying consistently. Yes, they won’t be fluent as a native speaker in that time (unless they’re very skilled). But they’ll be functional in society which is good enough to work, study, communicate and understand the language and learn in that language etc.

A more reasonable video gave an estimate of say 2-6 hours study/immersion a day, for a few years. Some days more, some less. Steve Kaufman who made LingQ suggested such a plan for learning languages, depending on the difficulty of the language and how fast you want to learn it. His suggestion followed FSI recommendations on the time it takes, and certainly implies it will take years to learn a language, but not decades!

And honestly, taking decades to be as knowledgeable as a native speaker is fine. It takes native speakers years to become adults and get to the level in the language where They know advanced specific topics and specialized knowledge too. A 10 year old cant always read a college level book! A 10 year old cant always read an adult novel, or pick up all the nuance and alternate meanings in a text or show or speech! But they’re fluent in their language, and they have the ability to keep learning and get to that point one day. It’s totally reasonable that it should take us, learners of a language, years to learn nuances and increased speciality topics levels too. We might struggle with different areas than a native speaker, but it does make sense we’d take years to improve overall until it’s not noticeable anymore. I think... It’s fine if that process of perfecting our skills takes decades. It makes sense it should be a lifelong experience...

Anyway ugh. I just. I realize those videos are trying to emphasize why their method is done the way it is, and why they choose to do it and think it’s the best method. I just... really think there’s multiple avenues to reach the same destinations. And I’ve met plenty of people who arrived to those destinations somewhat differently. There are a lot of people in my city who speak English as a foreign language, and a lot of them did NOT study English for decades or immerse themselves in English constantly. Did they study for some time in life, yes. Did they consume English content sometimes, yeah eventually (especially once they moved here and are living with it). But most of the people I’ve met didn’t live and breath English all day most days. They had their study time, or interest time that involved English (like shows, games, friends) and then the rest of their life was other things as expected...

I just... that claim that “It will take 30 years at 1 hour of immersion a day to learn a language very different from yours”...

Yeah ok, but most people study some days a few hours, some one hour, and all engaging with a language counts not just the immersion time. And most people’s goals are to be able to do something in a language, which can be accomplished a LITTLE faster then full native-like fluency. And once people get to a certain level of skill they will naturally immerse more cause they’ll find it easier to (watch shows, have conversations, read, etc). Like... okay realistically maybe it will take a slow studier without much spare time... say 10 years to learn Japanese to a level pretty fully functional in a society. But 10 years is fair! It’s a hard language. And most consistent determined studiers with goals will probably reach their goals in 4-8 years depending on their free time/the goal. And some real talented/dedicated people will yeah get it done in under 4 years but... it’s not like that high speed is realistic for most people either.

Aghhhhh the claim of 30 years If a person doesn’t constantly immerse though... wow that irks me...

—

Anyone who’s LEARNED a language to the fluency you needed for your goals (a job, school taught in that language, using the language for whatever you use it for), how long did it take? How many years did you study? I imagine you’re still studying since most people prefer to keep improving. But how many years until you reached that first solid fluency level goal you had? I’m guessing it wasn’t 30 years...

[rigelmejo]

May Progress Update, and June Goals

6/1/2021  - I just want my goals to be “like last month” lol. But I realize its probably not gonna turn out that way.

My Chinese May goals were:

1. ***Read anything

I did this! Looking back though, a majority of what I read was actually the “hard” stuff on my list though lol. I read mostly Guardian, hanshe, and then I finished one of my easier extensive reading materials. I also read a random few chapters of a few things extensively, just testing things out (like Poyun, dmbj 1, svsss, dage, The Rebel, just a ton of random chapters).

Chinese chapters read (during May): 63 (unlike last month, this number isn’t inflated much - most were 5 page priest-level print reading or 15-20 pages in Pleco reading on the phone, with ~5 hanshe 10-pages-in-pleco chapters so even cut down to my usual reading-length-chapters comparison this month would be ~60 chapters read)

Chinese stories finished (this year): 5 - 笑猫日记之会唱歌的猫 is the only one finished this month, with 3 (intensely long 55-pages-in-pleco) chapters read of  猫城记, intro skimmed of 许三观卖血记, intro skimmed of 撒野.

2. ***Continue listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio 

I also managed to do this one! 20 audio listened to so far! (I think I’d listened to up to 12 of the files in April). So I listened to 8 this month  - yes, not a huge amount. But as there’s 36 or 39 files, I’m over halfway there!

3. Optional: experiment with Listening Reading Method. 

This is what I mean when I say I sideline off my intended study plan sometimes! I ended up doing some form of Listening Reading Method a TON this month. 

Guardian: 12 chapters*40 minutes each (roughly)=480 minutes= 8 hours Alice in Wonderland, other L R Method random chapters: 2 chapters (one 30 minutes, the other 80 minutes) =110 minutes= ~1.8 hours Silent Reading: 6 chapters, approximately 1.5 hours. SVSSS: 1 chapter, 10 minutes = ~0.2 hours  (I only did step 2 with this - chinese audio with chinese text, I am debating if I want to bother with step 3 as I can follow the story fine)

~11.5 hours spent doing Listening Reading this month (steps 1-2). Also including random audio I’ve listened to throughout the month, mostly repeated listens of L-R’d chapters but also other things, in a previous post I calculated to be: 22.8 total hours listening to L-R material. Then add more hours of listening to random things in the background, and its up to ~30ish hours total listening this month. This is by far the most dedicated listening I’ve done in a month.

With just what I’ve done so far of increasing my listening, and doing L-R more, I’ve seen good improvements. So I want to keep trying. I checked a few novels and there’s a lot I should be able to do this with (especially since with using Pleco for the translation for step 3, I do not specifically require either a translation or a parallel text). I also have tried some variants of using listening/reading to study japanese and French this month which I’ll talk more about a little below - and those variants were fun and pretty effective too!

4. Other optional: listen to misc audio, watch shows, read Alan Hoenig’s Chinese Characters, do some of my Radical-hanzi book.

Hilarious to me? Maybe so? I actually ended up doing a surprising amount of this I guess? Kudos to me - I think I did my whole study plan I made for once? Although honestly I barely did any reading-only until like May 20th.

I listened to almost 10 hours of misc audio at LEAST (see above) - any chance to listen to some chinese and I did (although with 30ish days in a month I probably can find ways to do more). I watched pieces of shows - half of 2 episodes in Viki Learn Mode (Granting You a Dreamlike Life, Guardian), and some random Reaction Videos in chinese so ~5 ish episodes as far as lengths of stuff watched. I read 28 pages of Alan Hoenig’s Chinese Characters book this month (not a lot of pages but its something - also I put it on my phone which definitely increased my ease to open and read it randomly). I think I did a couple pages of my hanzi book (but I decided to put that back on the shelf and stop prioritizing it).

Chinese stuff done in May that wasn’t on the study plan:

Practiced some pronunciation/shadowing with my apps (maybe 2 hours total but its something). Also hearing more from others really makes me think I want to try more shadowing particularly of audiobooks and/or certain characters in dramas, to specifically get better at my own speaking when in sentences.

had my first convo in chinese where I was understood, without prep time to help my active vocab or correct myself (so that was super exciting). Also texted a bit in chinese this month but not really much just real basic stuff.

while I said I only ‘watched’ around 5 eps worth of content, I did a lot of ‘listening’ this May. Just in the sense of like - when I did watch shows with english subs (which I did a bit) I made an effort to specifically grasp what I was hearing (actually trying to listen only, then replay and glance at eng and chinese subs to figure out any unknonw words). Because of that I only watched a few show episodes this month (and its why I switched to Viki learn mode so I could just click to replay audio/get definitions). And in viki, although I only watched about 1/2 of each of the 2 eps, I relistened to each piece of dialogue until I both understood all words in the line when seeing the chinese subs AND could listen to the line without looking and understand all the words (so ‘intensive’ show listening). So those ‘20′ minutes of each ep took me more like 1 hour each. Since I kept replaying and replaying each scene. I read someone on Reddit did this ‘intensive’ show listening activity and it improved their listening/speaking a LOT, so I tried doing it a bit. If you’re using Viki Learn Mode or Learn Languages with Netflix extension I do recommend trying it, since its very easy with those tools. But doing it on youtube like I did at first, with shows just replaying scenes? It would’ve been easier for me to just take off my glasses to not see the chinese subs and try to listen lol. 

My Japanese goals this May were:

1. ***Continue: Nukemarine’s LLJ courses

AHAHAH! Ok so last month I marked this as the PRIORITY (and I was right)! Guess what I did absolutely none of this month? (Or at least, if I did, it was 400 crammed reviews of previously studied flashcards then not actually doing any new content lol). I... just was not in the mood to do srs flashcard study.

2. Hopefully: Continue some kind of grammar explanation 

I also marked this as priority. Past me was wise. Past me, I do not listen to well all the time. This was a mixed back - genuinely, I think my thoughts back in April remain true: finishing either Tae Kim (unlikely but i was at chapter 10 before), Cure Dolly (i’m on 6), Japanese Audio Lessons Grammar, Japanese in 30 Hours while writing japanese in (I’m on page 24) - will result in a good foundation and is a priority.

What did I actually do?

I read more Japanese in 30 Hours (I’m now at page 60 and 1/3 through it). I will probably finish it in June. I also read a smattering of random stuff, and “Reading Japanese” a book I have to learn reading skills specifically (not grammar). My guiding principle ended up being: just read/study whatever you want, follow your interest, its better than doing nothing. For May, that worked out pretty ok to be honest and I’ll probably continue that principle in June.

3. Optional: Reading in any form and Optional: listening in any form

Strangely I did a surprisingly high amount of this for someone who didn’t plan to?

I found the site Wasabi Japanese - and experimented with their Read Aloud lessons (Yue-muffin linked to a bunch of graded japanese resources here which included Wasabi Japanese). My opinion: I LOVE their lessons, I love the structure, I love that they have a free grammar guide course to go through (which I’d like to read after Japanese in 30 Hours). Their lessons go from N4-N3, which is a good spot for me to learn, and the way they teach is a bit like Listening-Reading Method and a bit like Re-Reading Technique (video by PolyMathy) which I’ve linked to before. 

Their lessons have really nice instructions, which amount to: 1. Listen to the audio several times or even dozens, trying to grasp what all the sounds are/understand what you can. 2. Read transcript with audio to fully match audio to actual words and look up any unknown words. 3. Re-listen with and without transcript until you feel you’re hearing all the words okay. 4. Shadow the audio a few times with/without transcript. 

As you can see, its a lot like L-R Method and Re-Reading Technique, with a lot of emphasis on listening and shadowing. I did it and I feel even just with one lesson I could tell my listening skill was improving a significant amount. When I have more time I want to dedicate to japanese, I’d definitely like to go through all of Wasabi Japanese lessons - I think they’re really cool. I also used their lesson-structure, and applied it to listening to a few eps of the podcast “Slow Chinese” which I think was very effective. So I really think their site is worth checking out at LEAST to read their article How to Proceed with the Read Aloud Method, so you can apply it to your own study materials more if you want. I’m definitely considering applying this study method to Nukemarine’s memrise courses, stuff I might listen to in the future etc.

As for other small japanese stuff I did - just a lot of ‘random manga chapters read, random small lessons done’ sort of stuff. Here’s what I wrote a week ago:  I read 3-4 manga chapters, 50 pages of a 160 page grammar book, listened to a short story several times and studied it, read a short story chapter (very short though), read 3 very small graded readers, read a page of parasite eve. In addition to that, I know I watched a few bits of lets plays and just in general tried to read a bit of japanese here and there.

All in all I probably only did 5-10 hours of japanese study this month, so not much. The bulk of it was probably reading Japanese in 30 Hours. But I did find stuff I like learning from, which is always nice. And japanese isn’t the priority right now. 

French goals from May:

***Continue watching Le Francais Par Le Methode Nature videos. 

I did this - 6 chapters out of 50 total. I do think it helps, I actually studied them doing the Re-Reading Technique linked above - since the guy used Lingva Latina to demonstrate so I figured it would be a perfect to do with a similarly structured French book. Also just listening to 10 chapter’s audio while out walking. Just kind of refreshing my memory.

Read???? Read???

Idk I read a few random pages, French not a priority rn. I do plan to read Carmilla in June though.

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Next Month’s Goals!

I want to stick to a pretty similar plan tbh, this past month’s worked well. I don’t know how much will get done though, I’ve got a lot happening lately.

Chinese June Goals:

1. Read! - this goal I’ve been able to consistently do, so I’m gonna keep it. Would like to do some extensive reading with easier novels (猫城记, 许三观卖血记, 撒野), and some intensive reading with stuff like hanshe still. However whatever I read, is good to me.

2. Continue listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio - if I just keep doing this I’ll be happy. Would like to get to a point where I’m just playing it in the background when I work, so I can both finish it and get some repetition-review from hearing more chinese (and some increased comprehensible listening practice each day). But we’ll see - I had success the past couple months playing it in the bg while I played video games. Its just as audiobooks/audio dramas/condensed show audio get easier to comprehend, they’re obviously more interesting to listen to in the background lol.

3. Listening Reading Method - this went real well in May, and I want to keep doing it (and its fine if I only do step 2 sometimes tbh). Would like to keep doing Guardian specifically (but any novel done will be good). I would love to have Listen-Read all of Guardian by the end of August (and in a dream world also have read the entire print novel!). If I can do that, then it means by year 2 I will have read and listened to the novel that originally pushed me to study chinese. Which would just be really really cool to me ;-; It will also mean that by 2 years in I will have finished reading a book by priest (and again the book that got me into the author ToT), so I can start reading future books by priest with hopefully a LOT more vocabulary I know specifically tailored to making those books easier to read. 

When I started learning, I had guessed it would take 4 years to even struggle through priest chapters slowly with a dictionary - since I was guessing chinese would take me around as long as japanese to hit milestones (and 2.5 years of japanese was when I just barely started grasping simple manga with a dictionary). So already everything I do with listening and reading in chinese blows my mind a bit, just because I never thought I would even get Here, let alone here in this amount of time. Its not perfect by any means, but its much better than I’d assumed it was gonna take (which probably says a lot about how much more per day I studied and how much more effectively I studied chinese compared to japanese, if I had to guess WHY it took so much less time). So yeah, reading Guardian is a really big goal of mine. And yes - jumping on that, I’d also love to rewatch the show at the 2 year mark without english subtitles. And I don’t want to rewatch until I’ve read the novel because I tend to mix up details lol if I do both at the same time ToT

Practical goal for June: L-R Method Guardian to the end of the sundial arc, and read print novel to end of sundial arc. IDEAL goal for June: also L-R Method Guardian to the end of the 2nd arc, and read print novel to the end of the 2nd arc - and ideally that puts me finishing the first print volume in June. God mode goal for June: L-R Method ALL of Guardian (reading print novel can happen slower cause no way that’s happening in 1 month lol - I say that and now watch it happen cause I said it wouldn’t lol). 

I’ve calculated it before so here it is again: Guardian audiobook is about 35 hours, so 70 hours to finish L-R Method steps 2-3. Add in time to read the english translation (step 1) lets add 8 more hours (probably would take me 2-5 hours to finish the english but I’m being generous). I’ve done 12 chapters already which is 8 hours. So I’ve got 70 hours left to do. If I did 2-3 hours of L-R a day (or on average), I could finish the novel in June. Like 1 hour Mon-Fri (20 days = ~20 hours), and 5 hours each weekend day (10 days = ~50 hours). That would have me finishing around July. However... that’s unrealistic lol. Now if for half the days per month (15) I could do 4-5 hours a week (the other days doing nothing), I could get done by the end of June. So like... realistically either I get super into Guardian and do a lot in a couple weeks (in which case its totally possible to finish just like I managed to watch ~60 eps of Love and Redemption, ~40 hours, in like 4 days because I was so into that show). I’m starting to get why the writer of L-R Method tended to do this in a focused burst for 8-10 hours a day for a couple weeks - much easier to make the time, if you’re just super into it for a short period of time. Its much harder to make a few hours to do this for multiple months (also why I think a lot of ppl did HP when testing this method, since the 1st audiobook is like 9 hours total so its only 18 hours to L-R the whole book). So I guess... either I get super into Guardian, or I might only get through the 1st-2nd arc by end of June. We’ll see.

Also... what a cool experiment it would be... to see where my listening and reading skills would be at after the whole book. And that’s without the shadowing/translation steps 4 and 5 which I’d like to try eventually lol.

4. Optional - do anything in chinese, shows, manhua, misc audio. My new feelings are: if I feel like doing something, I might as well do it as its better than nothing. 

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Japanese June Goals:

Finish reading Japanese in 30 Hours - or any other thing that strikes your interest. My new feeling for japanese study is just doing anything I feel like is better than nothing lol. (But grammar guide is still priority)

Continue Nukemarine’s Courses - if I can get into srs flashcards, if not don’t worry just keep remembering its ultimately a priority. (vocab priority)

Optional - whatever I want in japanese, shows, manga, lets plays, video games, reading scripts, wasabi japanese lessons, my Reading Japanese book etc. If I feel like doing something go ahead and do it tbh. (Long term I’ll want audio study to replace Chinese Spoonfed Audio though, like Core 2k audio files or Japaneseaudiolessons files, to study listening skills).

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French June Goals*:

*all optional

Keep listening/reading Le Français par Le Method Nature. I just. want to finish that book... and its good review...

Read/listen to whatever, if I feel like. Hi Carmilla...

[rigelmejo]

A personal note: I’ve been thinking lately of the most effective study plan for my goals moving forward. My primary goal is to expand my vocabulary in a way that makes reading easier.

I am currently at a point where shows are watchable, and if I want to increase my vocabulary to make them easier I can just look words up as I watch. With reading the vocabulary amount is so great that I am not sure if simply looking up words as I read is effective enough on its own.

I read a few articles lately mentioning how learning words based on what I am trying to DO will get me to comprehension faster than learning General overall language frequency words would. One article in particular showed how learning frequent words in one novel, will boost comprehension for reading the authors future novels, and will even boost novel reading comprehension generally, more than learning overall language-frequency words would. Perhaps novels have their own specific more frequent words, compared to shows or conversation etc. This is the article: https://www.chinesethehardway.com/article/learning-from-general-word-lists-is-inefficient/

It’s from Learn Chinese the Hard Way blog, which I’ve generally found quite good advice from. So, in light of those ideas, this is what I think I’ll try for a few months.

1. I’m going to continue to go through my 1000-2000 most frequent words flashcards until it’s complete. These cards are based on chinese shows specifically, and I have found them to boost my comprehension noticeably. Pretty much all words I’ve seen in this deck have been useful overall in shows and reading, so I’ll keep studying them. I think they’d be a good “basis” for me to branch out from later (compared to say the HSK 5-6 word lists). Simply because I know this deck will take 1-2 months to learn, which is short, but all the words are likely to pay off because I encounter them a lot daily. They also tend to help in conversations.

2. Keep going through the Remember the Hanzi deck, and or do other things to study and remember characters. I think for many people, simply being able to visually recognize characters makes learning to read easier overall down the road. For me, I think I remember new words way easier when I know the characters in it. So it would pay off in making my future easier.

3. Other then that, really focus on immersing. Lots of reading. In reading, looking up new words as I desire/run into them, hopefully learning them over time. If I desire, I might make some sentence mining sentences flashcards from some reading material. I want to do this for a few months, and use that as my “method” for studying words frequent in my novels (though not necessarily in general overall language high frequency). Then see if over the months this is giving me improvement. Later on, after a few months of this looking-up when reading, I may take sentence mining more seriously. If I do, then I might experiment with using my own self made sentence mining flashcards, and clozemaster. Clozemaster is a general overall frequency based sentence mining app - but I think since it’s sentences, even if learning the words don’t pay off in results as fast as novel-specific words might, the sheer practice of reading in Clozemaster and practicing comprehension in small manageable exercises will help me with reading skills. (Ideally I’d love to go through a Clozemaster track and see if it’s effective for making progress in learning, but I’m too lazy).

4. If, after a few months of simple novels (mostly following foxghosts advice recs), I am seeing improvement, then I would like to try a Priest novel. If Novel-related frequency vocabulary focus is helping, I’d love to prepare for better comprehension of Priest novels in general. (So I guess, ideally, starting a Priest novel this fall sometime).

5. Meanwhile, keep watching shows in chinese. Some with no subs, to improve my listening comprehension. Some with chinese subs, to keep practicing my reading skills (in more managable short chunks). Also I get some reinforcement of sounds with the spelling (I tend to be able to actively produce words in conversations easier if they’re words/phrases I’ve heard a lot). Also, in general, I know more words in dramas than novels, so my comprehension is higher. So it’s easier for me to low effort pick up new vocabulary from context watching shows. So hopefully, though not that many words an episode, over time this easier vocab acquisition will help indirectly with improving my novel reading comprehension a bit.

Right now, novels I’m reading or about to read:

*1. “他们的故事” 一根黄瓜丝儿 - danmei, I like this author a lot, every new word I learn in it is generally pretty common and valuable. It’s a decently short length, at around 50 chapters. It takes about 30 minutes for me to get through a chapter and I’m over 1/5 through it right now. I’d recommend this, it’s enjoyable so far if you like gentle melancholic realism with a simple romantic touch. If you start reading it, please let me know, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

2. 那些年,我们一起追的女孩 - mandarin book club over on Reddit is reading it for July, and it seems the same reading level as the other novels I’m checking out right now. Also it’s quite short at around 30 chapters.

3. “万人厌而不自知” 一根黄瓜丝儿 - another novel by this author. I really like how approachable the author’s writing is. Again, most new words seem very useful to learn in general (and some descriptive words in the opening of this is all about main roles, heroes, villains, good vocab if you’re into stories).

4. “那些风花雪月” 公子欢喜 - danmei, this is from foxghosts recs, said to be pretty approachable if you’re HSK 4 level and I agree. It looks about the same reading level as all of the above novels. This is a novel suggested for working ones way up, eventually, into reading Priest’s novels.

All of these novels I think are very approachable if you’re around HSK 4 in terms of vocabulary and grammar knowledge. I was a little under HSK 4 vocab when I started 他们的故事 when I started and it went fine. And they aren’t too hard to get through if you’re okay with looking things up, as there will be some new vocabulary (though most new words seem pretty useful). I’m reading them with click-definition readers (Pleco, Zhongwen Chrome Extension, MandarinSpot Bookmarklet, ChineseFromZero Reader, LingQ, Idiom app, Language Tools program if on a computer - any would work) and I’d suggest doing that if you want your word-lookup to minimally affect the flow of reading. I am hopeful that once I finish one, the next will get easier and so on.

Also, for even EASIER stories that I should be reading, but am not because I just love skipping ahead into harder stuff I guess:

1. Mandarin Companion books - any of their books, I 100% recommend if you’re HSK 3 or up. I have two, and they both got very readable once I hit HSK 3. At this point for me, they’d be good extensive reading practice. Extensive reading practice is always good.

2. Butterfly Lovers on Pleco. It’s got 500 characters, so it’s very approachable for me at this point. Again, I’d say when I hit HSK 3 level knowledge it would have been a good book to go through and learn a lot. I can still learn a lot, but it’s easy enough now to be mainly extensive reading and guessing words from context (rather than needing the dictionary). Good extensive reading practice at this point. I also like using it as an audiobook, since listening wise it’s very comprehensible to me so it’s good for practicing listening recognition of words I know.

3. 500 and 1000 Word Graded Readers by Sinolingua. There was a study done and Mandarin Companion vocabulary is targeted toward HSK 2-4 people, whereas these Sinolingua books don’t really get approachable until people know about the amount of characters/words in HSK 5. Even the 500 word one. That said, I’m around HSK 4 level and think these books are BOTH super approachable at my level. So it may depend on your personal background. I think regardless the 500 word and 1000 word ones are both a little easier than the Chinese web novels listed above, so these Sonolingua books would be good beforehand practice to ‘ease into’ the books above. These books also have handy glossaries and footnotes so dictionary lookup isn’t necessary, which is convienient.

4. Beginning Chinese Reader by DeFrancis - extensive reading practice, vocab reinforcement and acquisition, and character reinforcement and acquisition. It’s easy, but super useful. I need to chug through this book (and the other ones in this series).

5. 小王子 - The Petit Prince Chinese translation. I greatly recommend. It has something like 2,500 unique words and is SUPER approachable for HSK 4 learners. It’s probably just slightly easier, or the same difficulty, as the web novels listed way above. I should also read this because it’s a great French book I never read... and I have the Chinese, French, English copy. I’ve specifically seen this recommended for Chinese learners getting into reading. Also, while I’m not sure exactly how popular this book is in China, it is popular ENOUGH that I regularly see it mentioned on Weibo and other chinese social media sites I’m on. So it would be nice to know the same experience of the Chinese version of the story, that so many people fell in love with.

[rigelmejo]

ok so i’ve been studying since august and it’s now december, so 4 months of study so far.

last night i opened up guardian and just started trying to read the last few chapters (i wanted to see if i had the guardian-extra chapters on my notepad txt copy) -

and i was impressed to find out!! that i could read some of it!!! i could not comprehend the full gist of what was going on. but i could read most of the dialogue, and i could read when characters were smiling or planning something. i could read a LOT more than last time i tried to read guardian. about a month ago i tried to read guardian, and i could only really recognize action-related dialogues and a few action/verb parts of some sentences. basically, a month ago i could skim and try to find a piece of dialogue or action that would match the english translation enough for me to then copy paste that chinese section into a translator for more precise translation. 

but last night, i was able to actually follow the gist of some of the paragraphs, of some full sentences! Which is amazing! I’m so happy!

It’s not much but its so much more than I thought I’d be able to do, more than I thought I’d be capable of last month!

I was able to read enough that, if I had been reading inside the Pleco app, I probably could have gotten through the chapters and understood the overall-gist of the entire chapters, if I had just translated the particular words that kept coming up over and over and preventing my understanding because I didn’t know those words yet. Which means for me, I should be able to start reading through webnovels in Pleco soon, since now I am at a point where if I looked up a few words a page I could start comprehending the main points. So for my short term goal: I want to read through the Butterfly Lovers and Sherlock in Pleco ASAP. 

I am very excited, because reading was and is my main goal for learning chinese! And I’m going to be at the point soon where that’s something I could start becoming capable of!!!!

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Things I noticed:

Some characters I know the meaning of, but not the pronunciation. I am not overly concerned with this, because with continued study of the characters in textbooks/pleco, I should eventually get the pronunciations. I was happily surprised to find for most characters I recognized, I knew the general pronunciation usually, even if I didn’t know the tone (although for the most part, I know the tones if I know the pronunciation).

I definitely have more knowledge of ‘characters’ than ‘words’. A lot of the reason I was able to figure out the gist of the paragraphs/sentences I understood, was because I guessed at what two characters I knew independently might mean when combined together. But that is not actual vocabulary knowledge. So I think, once I work through my character textbooks, I should pick a textbook that focuses on VOCABULARY (so my 1000 most common chinese words book, and my 500 characters by frequency dictionary since it has words, and then finally words as i come across them in pleco). Because vocabulary is definitely where I was the weakest.

As for character recognition itself - I am doing surprisingly well. I found that overall I think there were only maybe 5-10 characters a section I didn’t know the meaning of, and their frequency was high enough that I think if I would have looked them up, then I probably would have COMPLETELY understood the gist of the section I was reading (instead of only somewhat). So I definitely think I’m making progress in learning more useful characters. I know more characters for sure than I did last month! Because last month I barely recognized a LOT of the characters in Guardian. Last night, I recognized a solid portion of them, maybe 50-70 percent depending on the paragraph. For improvement in this, I think just continuing to go through my character textbooks should improve this over time - it has so far, clearly. Those books are HSK 800 characters, and Tuttle Guide to 2,500 characters. In addition, my memrise deck of the 1000 most common chinese words in dramas. 

I should note that I am not sure how my character recognition translates to NON-novel content. I can recognize a decent amount of characters in Chinese Drama subtitles (maybe 70 percent, a little better than my recognition in reading), and I can recognize maybe 55 percent when reading Guardian (a novel). But when reading things like Chinese Youtube Titles???? It’s a hit or miss - I either understand 90 percent and can read the title, or 30 percent and have very little idea what it says. So I do think the things I am learning are definitely prioritized based on if I am exposed to them in the dramas I’m watching/books I’m reading, and I’m sure I will find later that I have gaps in knowledge in the kinds of material I don’t normally consume. 

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PLAN as of now:

FOR BOOKS:

Continue to get through HSK 800 characters. 

Once complete, go through the 2,500 character book.

Continue working through my Memrise 1000 most common words deck.

NEXT:

Go through my chinese 1000 most common words BOOK.

Go through my 500 character by frequency DICTIONARY.

FOR PRACTICE:

Read through Butterfly Lovers, particularly listening to the audio and trying to follow along.

Watch The Lost Tomb on Viki and make note of the subtitles. 

Read Silent Reading (and maybe Dao Mu Bi Ji?) through Baidu webpage translate, so you can hover over the lines and compare the english to the chinese - I think this helps me with recognition of grammar patterns and with getting familiar with new words.

Try reading whatever you want - obviously, this is going to be the easiest gauge of your progress. As reading gets easier, you’ve made progress.