As of last Friday I have been studying Chinese for three years. I am going to take some time to reflect on my progress so far, what went well and the the things that didn't go so well. This is going to require a fair number of blog posts ;) and at least a few weeks, I am starting a new job soon and also have lots to write about internet technologies. Each post will be tagged with chinese_learning_experience. There are also likely to be a number of related post that are referenced (one reason I blog is for my own benefit, so I can come back much later and see how my thoughts are organized).
I have a tendency, to write things out of time context, but for this exercise will be posting events roughly as they happened. firstly though I went looking for something to compare my experiences against. I was very lucky to come across an excellent free available book that documents and analyzes the experiences of a number of successful language learners. I have not read the entire book yet but have gained some powerful insights from what I have read so far.
The page at the Language Geek site where I found out about the book, the pdf can be downloaded from here. Naturally like language learning some people won't agree about he book, but I think it is a great resource.
Along with the book, I don't think there is one best way to learn a language, but I believe that when learning anything it is a great advantage to be reflective about your learning and to work out which of your own strengths are applicable.
In the beginning there was a void (my brain is usually empty enough to be described as a void) and not a single word of Chinese moved within the void ...............
3 comments:
waiting... waiting... waiting...
Have you heard the definition of a panda? Eats, shoots, and leaves.
I have read that pdf about the seven successful language learners. Some of them are very interesting to read. Unfortunately, as I remember, the author doesn't draw any general conclusions or summaries of how successful language learners learn.
I think there probably is one best way to learn a language. But we have to have an open mind to accept it.
Thats what I like about that PDF, I can draw my own conclusions.
I am not confident in the one best approach but may change my mind.
Interesting study. But you never see one that explains why people are poor language learners, and what they can (or can't) do about it.
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