So basically learning Chinese from lingQ and typically know Words and basics already. So I won’t say I’m a total beginner.
But while reading through the stories I always feel pressured to Replay audios, re read stories and new words because I feel like I’d forgot them or might not see them again or something.
And whenever I tend to do stuff like this which is leaned towards trying to play audios again and re read again and stuff I tend to get bored at a point. But if I feel If I don’t do it, I forget.
So I need an advice on this and how I’m supposed to use lingQ. Do I read through the stories while casually checking new words ( Even though they’re lots) and Making lingQ of them and reading on ( and sometimes not necessary Playing and replaying audio? ) And reading on to get to more and more stories and stuff? I need an effective way to make the best to lingQ with
At the beginning stages, to me, it makes some sense to repeat these short stories a few times. It’s what I did initially. Mostly because it starts giving you a better foothold. In my opinion you should NOT try to memorize or learn every word before moving on. Some words simply won’t stick very easily, while others you may learn rather quickly. Also don’t make the mistake of staying until you feel like you could “use” the word in an output setting. Some people do, but they’ll be left with a wall of yellow words for a verrrry long time. And LingQ isn’t particularly geared towards output in this way, so use it at what it’s best for.
So, yes, if you can tolerate, do some repeating. However, don’t feel like you have to. You WILL see these words again. The beginning material and the mini stories have words that you will see over and over again as they will be using the most common words in the language. So after a few repeats, or at the point you get bored with a story. Move on to the next. Many people here never repeat anything, even at the beginning stages.
Now Chinese is a bit of a different animal and some learners of that will hopefully speak up. It may simply be hard to get much of anything to stick =). The words aren’t going to likely sound like anything from your own language so learning them will be more difficult. Hopefully though it is an enjoyable process to get into it and find some things about it that will keep the motivation high.
Oh you have chosen one of the hardest languages… I am learning Japanese through Lingq and it is not easy because the romanized stuff disappears if I put it as a known word, which is annoying for me. I can read a bit of hiragana but it is strongly triggered by the hint of the roman letters. It stays on my mobile which is confusing.
On Japanese I do not use lingq like I use languages I can read the alphabet well. I have found the channel Kurzgesagt in Japanese (as one exmaple) and used the import feature. I have made a course for Kurzgesagt and will listen to the COURSE (not just an individual lesson) on repeat, with the speed turned up.
I don´t know how relevant it is for Chinese, but James Heisig has a book series “remembering the kanji” and as far as I understand the symbols are the same in Chinese. You will not make anywhere near as much progress until you really have the alphabet.
But I would say this - start really easy (kids content, I think BBC has simple news articles in Chinese) and then build yourself up. In my opinion you should listen to the mini stories about 10 times each (about 40 hours of listening) as you need a strong listening foundation to attach to the signs. This is good in some ways, you can literally do anything else whilst listening (walking, exercising, cooking) and you´re still putting something valuable in the bank, as it is anchored to the scripts.
My stats are different depending on the language, before I started in Swedish on Lingq I already had thousands of hours of listening in real life, so not really important to listen. I instead read Swedish on Lingq whilst having Japanese/Russian/Slovak/German in the background. Saves time.
Although many characters are similar or even exactly the same, there are some differences in the way of writing or meaning between some of the Chinese traditional and Japanese one’s.
For that reason, James Heisig has not only written the Remember the Kanji book series but also 2 extra books on how to remember the Chinese characters specifically.
The book titles in the topic starter would like to know:
Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1
Remembering Traditional Hanzi 1
I’m not sure whether those are still in print. According this Wikipedia page, the last print was in 2012.
The Japanese ones are quite easily available! They are sold on Amazon.de and in other places too, even Swedish versions on sale on bokus.com so I´m sure it won´t be hard to find a copy from a reputable source, or just on scribd.
Thanks for this! And for me I won’t say I’m a complete beginner at listening. I watch Chinese drama Like all day every day and now learnt most of what I know from there. So I feel that help both my listening and even pronunciation with some word and phrase pick up and stuff. But I won’t say I have completely built up my listening but I can say I already have a almost Solid ground in listening. If I know and word and you use it in a conversation of a long sentence I will detect it
I’m learning French so I can’t address the additional issues of learning Chinese. However … a few thoughts:
Yes, don’t burn yourself out! If I find myself getting bored or tired, I’ll push a bit, but if that doesn’t work, I’ll move on.
When I started with LingQ, I worried about how often to repeat sentences or lessons. I worried about when I could mark a word as Known.
I’ve cut the worry out as much as possible. It slows the process down and makes it less fun. The point is to be engaged with the language. So long as I am engaged with with the language, I’m learning and that’s the job.
When I encounter a blue word, I look it up, I write the definition down in my chronological notebook, then I mark the word Known in LingQ. For the next few days I review the latest words, then a month later I review that notebook again. I am spared the mental overhead of shepherding a word through LingQ from blue to yellow to white.
BTW, I’ve learned I have no assurance that a word I marked Known, however often I’ve reviewed it, will not be crickets the next time I see it.
Aside from the basics of read/listen/speak/understand, it’s up to LingQ students to find their way. Feel free to try different approaches and discover what works for you.