Thai Experiment

I may be quiet here for a little while. I didn't start language learning until quite late in life, Mandarin was my first serious attempt but now I want to apply what I have learned to other languages (whilst continuing with Mandarin of course). For the last eight weeks I have been learning Thai. I have been keeping a private blog (over 20 posts so far) that will be made public soon (within two weeks at the most). I have discovered some surprising things about my language learning.

Pinyin revisited

Summary

I haven't posted about Pinyin (the romanisation of Chinese characters) for some time. Thought I would raise a few observations for comment.

Remember the tones with 5 new letters

Here is the weird bit, tones in pinyin are represented with those fiddly little marks over letters that we don't use in English, we find them hard to remember. There are plenty of learners who learn a lot of vocabulary but don't know the tones, they can remember "hen" remember the sound but not the little tick mark that goes over the 'e'. Of course you get those that can but there are plenty of people that don't. Actually a lot of Chinese people that use use pinyin on a daily basis for texting or as in a hanzi computer input method never bother with the tone marks and don't know the rules for where to put them and probably don't know how to input the tone marks on a computer, they don't need them.

Now for the weird bit, all you need to do is add five more letters to your alphabet and you can remember the tone if you remember the pinyin spelling. ying1guo3 tells me how to say England and the tones to use. After all we use letters for numbers in number bases above 10 so FF in base 16 is 255 in base 10, so why not use numbers to help writing and memory? I never bothered setting up a computer so I could type those little tone marks. If I write pinyin with a pen or computer I use numbers and that really really really helps you remember the tones.

It is not a Crutch

It seems a popular misconception amongst some people who haven't learned Chinese or only been learning for some time, that pinyin is a crutch for learners. In reality it is a tool and a tool that Chinese people use themselves, it is used to enter Chinese characters into mobile devices, used as an input method for typing Chinese on computers by most Chinese people, used in Chinese character dictionaries etc. etc.

Older Chinese who don't know pinyin are at a disadvantage, they may have to use a writing tablet to write Chinese etc. etc. so investing time in learning pinyin and learning it well is not going to be a waste.

If someone doesn't progress to learning characters don't blame pinyin.

The Chinese advantage

In Chinese every syllable counts, has a meaning, is a building block. If you master pinyin quickly you can hear words and have a very efficient way to look up the words you have heard in a dictionary

Pop-up Chinese Resource

Trying to remember to keep posting resources, this time we have Popup Chinese a whole bunch of stuff going on here including help with HSK testing and a variety of podcast lessons. I don't know much about the subscriber facilities for now but you can listen to the lessons for free.

Usually I would look to be practicing with Chinese radio or video now, but recent work pressures and another language project have loaded my brain somewhat, I have quite enjoyed listening to popup Chinese in the background on a few occaisions now. Even on the simpler elementary lessons it is still worthwhile because they tend to introduce a few less well know, more authentic words and phrases and because the speech can often be fast or involve people with accents (as in real life). The scenarios are often outlandish, which I like, it is the speech patterns and words that you need to learn if the scenario is a bit wierd I think that can help you remember.

Definitely worth checking out if you are learning Chinese.

Passion in language learning

Summary

I was going to write a comment on this post by Benny but decided to write a post here instead (lest I be accused of negativity). I see more and more of these kind of messages, I don't think they are particularly helpful, I think they are so off the mark in regard to human nature that they are actually harmful.

If you find winging helps you then go for it (I might not want to listen though), if you find you have have a slightly miserable outlook on life yet still achieve then read on. If you hate sugar saccharin sweetness then read on. If on the other hand you have an over active gland somewhere in your brain that truly means you are always upbeat never doubt etc. then leave now and and have a nice day.

Besides is the post entirely positive, aren't people just getting a buzz out off feeling they aren't on of the slackers, getting a buzz out of complaining about the cry babies?

The Commentary

This is going to hurt but here goes, as Benny says this applies to many things in life, you can apply the same positivity logic to many often more important things, people who ruin their health with smoking or over eating or drug addiction. You can move into socially sensitive areas ("stop winging about not having children, you made the life choice that left it too late") but most people don't feel comfortable when you do that etc. etc. Actually for most instances language learning isn't important enough to warrant the worry in comparison to much more important ones (although learning a language can be vital for some to be sure).

The truth is many of the wingers didn't want it enough and some of them may be stable geniuses and satisfied over achievers in other areas, it is human nature to blame something else, whether failing to lose that two stone of weight or pass the MBA exams. People that achieve things often successfully apply this attitude in one area or another and yes it is important, but we are humans which means that very few people can take this approach in every area of their life or we would all be enlightened beings by now ;)

It is easy to find negativity in any endeavour but also easy to find positivity, yes people whine about tones in Asian languages but I picked up a book from a charity shop today about Thai that was very positive and upbeat about tones and that was written 20 years ago, go back over one hundred years and the famous Mr Giles tells us that spoken Chinese is quite easy to learn and six months or so should have you chatting away about all sort of matters (and they didn't even have mp3). When I started Mandarin I found lots of negativity but lots of positivity also and advice, and bloggers telling a more compelling message than the textbook, a message that supported my own positivity in knowing that I could learn to talk with Chinese people on my own in England (not being negative here I didn't actually want to travel at that time :O ) The Internet opened up my language learning world and there is plenty of positivity there when you need it.

For anyone who is inspired by the positivity post, then congratulations you have learned a life lesson but not about language learning, rather about learning or achieving almost anything. Now the good news is you can skip any similar post on any other area you become interested in and save time (a positive message).

For anyone who reads the post and feels guilty because they are one of the wingers then either get stuck in or decide that actually you don't really care enough about languages and be what you can be somewhere else, be positive about the things you have achieved :) You probably have a bigger car or a bigger $%^! than these successful language learners anyway and hey remember you play the saxophone like a god... (a positive message).

The danger is that life is a balance, be too positive and you can be positive that that evening course really is going to teach me to speak Mandarin this side of age 100 (and where would that have left me). But it runs deeper some of the greatest achievers are those that are never satisfied no matter what, they always award themselves 1 out of 10 no matter what, or they are often tortured by self doubt or other negative emotions. Not sure I want to be like that but I reap the rewards offered by those that are, the artists (I don't think Van Gough was on the whole very positive), the writers (Hemingway, Poe .... ) the scientists ..... and quite frankly if people like that want to winge or wake up some nights in a cold sweat of self doubt I say let them.

Take away the negative and you take away Punk music, you take away Joy Division Love Will Tear us Apart, you take away so much that is me, my tongue can taste both bitter and sweet and every aspect of my life is the same including my own attitude to life.

If you like this comment then be aware that it was mostly driven by negativity (with a twist of passion) but I guess most people can find positive messages in it if they are positive enough in their outlook (a kind of negative-positive mobius strip). I really, really do believe however that too much positivity is bad, like too much sugar, there are some things that taste better with lemon, sometimes a touch of wistfulness and melancholy with a glass of good wine is better than happiness at that moment. No I didn't skip the post but being human I often forget to apply my own life hacks (doh).

If someone is always positive then why change anything?

The next level doesn't even require you to be positive or negative, be the language, the language just is... learning Chinese? then be Chinese, at that time, (maybe a Chinese amnesiac who has to learn his own language again ;)). Don't judge the language, accept it. If you drive your language learning on positivity alone there is a danger that the energy can run out. IF you can find a way to drive the learning from both positive, negative and neutral feelings you will drive forward and learn something every single day, it will be impossible to go a single day without engaging with the language you will be in love with the language (and love of course is both bitter and sweet).

Maybe some will feel this is an inappropriate comment on Benny's positivity post but look again, can you feel the passion, I am passionate about some issues, and in a fight of emotions I would take passion over positivity any day. Think of passionate people (are they always positive?) even with negativity they can achieve their dreams.

How much do you want to learn like a child?

I am working on a mini-project at the moment that is helping to focus my views and opinions on language learning. One big battle that is raging is between natural methods and academic methods, although I guess very few people sit right at either extreme. Part of the battle rages over learning like a child (natural) and the view that once we have passed puberty we can't use certain abilities (that help us absorb language rather than study language for example). My approach is developing into a mostly natural one but with some big exceptions, I justify my exceptions on the basis that in many ways children suck at learning languages.

Children and nature do some really dumb things when it comes to learning language, some are their own fault and some are just down to plain circumstance, here are a few examples.

Firstly they start learning languages before they have the cognitive ability to do it properly (or maybe they need the language to develop the cognitive ability it doesn't matter either way). So even at the stage when they have a growing vocabulary a good ear for their mother tongue they are still missing some abstract thinking capabilities, the ability to see things from someone else's point of view etc. this really restricts their progress and understanding of the language.

Secondly they spend a lot of their formative years hanging around with and conversing with other learners of the same language (other Children in fact). Don't they know that they should live in the target language not hang around with a bunch of 'expats' that don't speak it properly yet.

Thirdly they are lazy, very lazy most of them don't try, they can learn their target language far faster if they apply themselves rather than let nature take its course, the occasional precocious child or bookworm show quite clearly how much faster they could learn.

Fourthly they consistently try to talk even before they are ready (whoa there you are going to get fossilized little fella stop that meaningless babble and wait until you are ready to say it properly).

Fifthly as they get older many of them not only hang around mostly with fellow learners they even actively resist the target language, often going so far as to make up their own words, change the meanings of words or adopt language from another culture/dialect just because it seems cooler. They can carry this to the extent that they will alienate any of their fellow learners who appear to be too good at the target language ("grown up").

Sixthly there is no consistency each child depending on circumstance and interest bumbles around picking up what they can, so a bunch of little classmates may have some who know how to say their primary colors, a precocious child who loves learning colours and knows the difference between tope and aqua-marine, some annoying child who loves cars, won't say any colors and points at red saying "brake light" and little billy who seems happily oblivious to any color language and if you don't pull up your socks young man I am going to have to fill in a bunch of forms, talk to your parents and get a specialist in to test your vision (sigh!).

Do I need to continue? There are many more stupid things that Children and nature do when it comes to language, perhaps because it is compromise, perhaps because talking apes aren't natural at all, perhaps because the selfish meme idea is correct (do we speak languages because we evolved that way or did we evolve this way because some ape like creature got infected with proto language and from that point there was no going back).

Because of all this and because of the fact that I was already almost 40 before I started learning foreign languages (and I want to learn about five of the damn things mostly becasue it is best hobby I found for a long time) I will cherrypick. I am happy to listen to language I don't understand (when I think it is helpful). I am also happy to watch video WITH subtitles, and without, unlike the Child I have already been infected with one language I can use it to speed things up (if I am careful). I am not afraid of fossilisation (I don't see how some naturalists can argue that yes I can absorb like a child but no I can't avoid fossilisation of my mistakes like a child).

I am a naturalist, I disdain grammar study, ignore textbooks, I will use the most natural effective approaches I can and armed with my Ipod touch ERRRK (not exactly natural), armed with my Video ERRRK (also not very natural), my mp3's ohhh damn this isn't looking anything like when I learned my mother tongue!

Sighh nothing is ever simple is it? Perhaps I should just grab the language when and how feels good at the time, apply meaning to it when and how I feel like it, check back with reality every now and again to ensure I am making progress avoid stress and have fun. I do want to make reasonably rapid progress though so when that stops happening I will think again.

SocialMandarin and Chinese swear words

I will keep trying to interleave my posts with links to resources, today we have socialmandarin.com this site is very young at the moment and needs users to join and contribute so why not give it a go. It is a place for Mandarin learners to share and comment on Mandarin resources.

I am confident that you will already find something of interest there, I found the following on Chinese swear words and slang now I know why someone I follow on twitter occasionally drops 靠 into his tweets..

My Chinese Reading Experiance

Summary

My last post described my experience learning to read English this one extends this to my experience of learning to read Chinese so far. Let me say that I haven't completed this process yet and that this post may summarize some details and opinions that will be elaborated on in later posts. My approach has been more about acquiring characters than learning them and it has progressed far enough for me to think that it is successful.

First appraisal

Here is what I quickly found out when I started, Chinese is not phonetic, did you hear that Chinese is not phonetic. This means that Chinese as it sits on the page and unlike my mother tongue has no sound ... it is silent it has no sound except the sound that I give it and that sound may be completely different depending on the language/dialect that is applied. That is huge, that makes me instantly stop listening to anybody who is European and tries to justify approaches to reading based on European languages or how they used subtitles to learn Spanish etc. To be scientific it about it their conclusions may or may not be correct but they are completely unconnected to their reasoning. Everything changes, a Mandarin speaker may be able to read and understand the writing of a Cantonese speaker despite not being able to speak each others language he will have no idea what it is supposed to sound like, whereas an English speaker can quickly learn to "hear" the writing of a German speaker even if he has no idea what it means. At first glance the Chinese have the upper hand but consider that the Mandarin speaker cannot learn Cantonese from the writing but an English speaker could conceivable get most of the way to mastery of German entirely through the written form, and that the advantage of meaning over sound comes at the price of having to master a harder writing system.

Process (or lack of it)

I have long ago decided that dictionaries are unreliable, they are not even particularly good at defining a word in a language, in its own language, if I know the definition of a foreign word in my own language I have often barely started to learn it. If I started intensively learning to read Chinese when I started learning Chinese, I would be learning to read words I didn't know, learning to read English meanings for characters that have no sound. If I wait however I will be learning to read words I know, I will be hearing Chinese. I decided I AM NOT READING CHINESE UNLESS I AM HEARING IT.

Acquiring characters means that I have learned to write some but never really stressed about it, I have learned the stroke order rules by occasionally trying to write a character and then watching an animation, have learned reading a lot of characters by watching subtitles for Chinese when I can understand the audio (I understand a lot of learners work this the other way around), extended my learning by using Chinese subtitles on English audio and recently using Chinese subtitles to understand material were the audio is in a language I do not understand, have used a genuine zidian (Chinese character dictionary) to look up characters by radical and stroke count (only a little), have acquired familiarity with a number of radicals and character components and phonetic elements without really studying them etc etc. I have noticed characters by looking at them when looking up words but not learning them. I have run pop-up translators over text to read (but always strived to use them less because it slows me down), have modified pop-up translators to only give pinyin for characters (no definition). I hope that big mush of text above gives the impression that I have been attentive to characters but mostly concentrating on learning Chinese not Hanzi. I can almost exclusively only read or understand written Chinese I can already speak and when I read Chinese I hear Mandarin in my head (sometimes now the really familiar stuff goes straight to pictures and meaning).

This means that my handwritten Chinese is poor, I can use my finger to write things like 我是一个英国人正在学中文，下一步是什么？ on misty a bus window but not enough characters in my handwritten repertoire to make many sentences. I hardly ever need to handwrite Chinese though. When I read, I read the stuff I know well fast, and can quickly work out a whole bunch more, sometimes I can read a few paragraphs from a personal email with hardly a pause. I still have many problem areas and am particularly weak with news articles, I did worry about the news thing but discovered some Chinese people I met who had lived in England for years, worked in England and who I considered to have good English, still struggled with our news, so news is awaiting an assault later this year.

I read a lot, starting to read novels, but cutting my reading teeth on snippets from Twitter and bits I find in Google when searching for words and phrases. So I can read 上个月家里用了 1,000 kW•h 的电，怎么搞的，我还在想是不是什么漏电了。 and just need to look up 漏电. Or I can read 孩子不肯睡觉有许多原因：怕黑、担心自己不能醒来、害怕一个人睡觉等等。同睡觉相比，他们无疑更喜欢玩或看电视，而且他们愿意你总在他们身边关照他们。 Pushing it somewhat I can read 建工作正在进行中的奉节县城，迎来一男一女两个山西人。 　　男人韩三明（韩三明饰）来自汾阳，是名忠厚老实的煤矿工人，来奉节为寻十六年未见的前妻。前妻是他当年用钱买来的，生完孩子后跑回了奉节。寻找前妻的过程中波折不断，韩三明决定留下来做苦力一直等到前妻出现。女人赵红（赵涛饰）来自太原，是名沉默寡言的护士，为寻多日不曾与自己联系的丈夫而来奉节。丈夫与她的夫妻关系早已是有名无实，这点她虽然深知，仍想让丈夫当面给她个说法。赵红的找寻过程也不是一帆风顺，丈夫在有意无意地躲着她。韩三明和赵红虽不认识，却因为要做相对意义上的“拿起”与“舍弃”抉择，在冥冥之中有了某种神秘的联系。 　　本片荣获2006年第63届威尼斯国际电影节金狮奖。 © 豆瓣 with the aid of looking up a few words and having watched the film in question.

I still have far too many gaps and gaping caverns, my method of learning to read Chinese would be useless for passing tests in college (good job I don't need to pass tests) but now I am in a virtuous cycle, the more I read the better I get.

This post is a summary, it is hard to describe what is going on in the sub-concious, apologies it won't be of interest to most people, but I decided I didn't need to stress about learning Hanzi and it appears that in my case I was right, and when I read I hear Chinese, when I learn a new phrase from reading, I can say it if I wish, job done.

The Sound of Reading

What sound does reading make? At first glance this may appear to be strange question but I believe the answer to the question is key to how you should approach learning a language. First let me map a typical path to reading mastery of English (should also apply to many European languages and languages with a simple phonetic script) as a mother tongue.

I was lucky because when I went to school in England they hadn't started the stupid approach that means they try to cram "measurable" and "iterative" learning of reading English (based on letters and writing and testing etc.) as early as possible into a child's life, this means that I was already over five years of age before I starting doing any formal learning of the English alphabet and that I can remember learning to read (my mother and her contempories were wisely told NOT to try to teach us to read prior to attending school). The sound of reading was my mother or father reading a story to me, I knew somehow the story was encoded in the page (becasue every time they told the same story it was the same words and they turned the pages at the same point) but I was more interested in the picutures and hearing the story they were telling me. So the sound of reading was my parents voices and besides I had no real time to worry about the writing becasue there was the story, there were the pictures and there were the many new words that I was hearing and learning in the stories. By the time I started schooling I guess I could probably recognise a few words that were of special interest in my life "toy" "sweets" etc. and that were important to recognise on signs especially when out shopping but I certainly could not break them down into their component letters and sounds.

At school the sound of reading suddenly took a turn for the worse, the sound of reading was a teachers voice whilst pointing at letters and expecting us to learn that "a is for apple", "b is for ball", ......, "i is for indian" etc. etc. I can still remember vividly the chart that we had on the wall. At home I was not longer interested in the book when my parents read a story to me, I liked stories especially adventure stories, if I was lucky enough to get a story I just want to listen and enjoy now. Sometimes they read to me and I was supposed to pay attention to the words, I hated it, those times the stories weren't the least bit interesting, they weren't even stories "Dick is sad." actually "Chris is SAD", "Jane helps Dick", bring back the dragons and griffons and pirates.

Next the sound of reading was my own voice, me reading the awful Dick and Jane stories and adults expecting me to read out aloud what was on the page. This code of letters to sounds was complicated (especially as English often cheats and throws a curve ball). I had to read the things out loud and then I simultaneously understood, it was boring and tedious and it was my voice uttering the boring words but I guess it was kind of fun and motivating when I got it right and the adults were happy.

The voice in my head retreated internally, reading was my voice still, but I didn't have to say the sounds to understand the reading, I heard them in my head. Some kids took longer it seemed and were embarrassed or cheated by saying the sounds in a not saying them kind of way "His lips are moving when he reads". As time progress I may hear other voices in the my head as I read that were the characters I was reading about but I guess that was just my internal voice imitating. Steadily I was getting to the point where I could read anything I could say and sound out words that I couldn't understand, which meant I could ask an adult the meaning of word I didn't know. Via reading I could actually hear words I didn't know the meaning of and say them out aloud or even listen out for them being used in speech. I didn't connect all the dots just then but amazing don't you agree?

Wham, I can read the stories, the real stories the interesting ones, the adventures, if I get past this silly color graded reading scheme I am on the teachers would let me take the real books on the shelf, the ones meant for the older kids, "The Hobbit".

Quickly I came to love reading, the more I read the faster I got and the more I learned. At some point the internal dialogue was too slow and somehow my mind started to connect words and groups of words in such a way that once I got into a book then the words vanished and a movie played in my head, fastest during descriptive seactions and perhaps slowing for dialogues. I don't know if this is way that everybody learns to read faster than speaking (an I think many people don't get to this point) but I have talked to enough people to know that many do it the same way. For example a friend of a friend at school read many books, very fast (if you check a book out from your local library in the morning and check it back it at lunch time, annoying them because before computers they hadn't had time to move the cards around to the right place, you are reading fast). One day he had to submit a book report on his favorite book, he picked a new one that was very popular with all of us "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". A major character in the book is called Ford Prefect, in his report he mistakenly called the character Ford Perfect. Many people wouldn't believe that he had misread the name throughout the book so many times, but actually he only misread it once, the first time after that he never read the name at all just saw his image of the character or heard "Ford Perfect" whenever he saw the word, a weakness of this approach for sure but more than compensated by the fact that you can read more and fully remember the story even if you get the odd name wrong. I was lucky I knew that the Ford Prefect (the character mistakenly chose it for his name because he thought it was human name) becauswas a car my Mum had one once.

I learned my mother tongue through sound at first, then I extended my knowledge of the language through reading which as you can see was intimately connected with the sound. Only when completely acquainted did reading begin to go straight to meaning.

Now most European languages use a written system that is similar enough to mine that I can very quickly learn how to "hear" the language by reading the text, stage one think about how people from that country accent English when they speak it, stage two practice with some text and audio and very quickly I should be able to get to the point where I can read the language and "hear" it in my head, even though I do not understand it, or I could read it out aloud without understanding, yet a native speaker could understand what I read. Combine this with a little passive acquisition over my lifetime, a few cognates splattered around and then the following occurs: my wife gives me a toy that has no English instructions, we know that it is a Dinosaur Egg but don't know what to do with it, on the back I have the instructions in German, French, Italian and Spanish. I can fairly quickly decipher an English translation from the combination, starting with my strongest suit (German, more on that in a later post) and then cherry picking sentences from the other languages to fill in the gaps with all the languages in their phonetic glory and a strong dose of context this could probably work quite well in a number of circumstances. Nobody in their right mind would say that I can speak any of these languages but of course being a European I have at least acquired some passive knowledge and also share a language that has connections to them.

Die Suche nach den letzen dinosauriern hat begonnen, Place ton OEUF DE DINOSAURE in warmes Wasser et regarde, es magisch beggint. etc. etc. The magic truly does begin.

Starting any of these European languages I would of course engage with reading straight away.

Chinese however, now that is a completely different story, I have a busy week, next week but in a week or so my next post will describe how I have been learning to read in Chinese and where I have got to.

Old Chinese Movies

I am going to make sure I regularly post Chinese learning resources on this blog, particularly resources that are less obvious or well known. When it comes to media resources, us internet users are truly spoilt for choice. I had a brief bout of enjoying old Chinese movies a while back and am going to revisit the genre again, now that my Chinese is a little better.

A good place to start is archive.org, I will give you a link to a search for mandarin in their movies category, a few strange ones in there but a whole bunch of older Chinese films you can download right now for free. My personal favourite so far is Street Angel there are plenty of reviews and information on the page I have linked to.

The dialogue in these movies can be quite accessible to learners, and not too dated (although the first time I heard a Chinese person say the infamous 马马虎虎 was in Street Angel) in fact a Chinese person told me that the dialogue in most of these movies that are contemporary to their time should be better for learners than watching a modern Chinese historical drama (that is set a few hundred years ago and often use slightly funky language to sound "authentic"). Obviously you will encounter some propaganda also.

Archive.org usually provides a number of downloads of differing quality, what are you waiting for?

Chinese vocabulary lists

Sometimes apparently a picture tells a thousand words, in this case I think a video does a much better job, first let me make it clear, I do not like vocabulary lists and I do not like language learning approaches that rely heavily on them. Recently I had a go at some Cantonese learning material I was given, it started with a lesson on a dialogue with a fruit seller, part of the lesson material is a long list of fruit to learn in Cantonese, part of the review and audio exercise is to test you on your knowledge of fruit in Cantonese when you barely have any other vocabulary. A lot of language learning material seems to take a similar approach, take a fictional situation and give you a whole bunch of supporting vocabulary around that situation, surely better by far would be to introduce two common items of fruit and extend the vocabulary around areas in the situation that can be applied elsewhere, more fundamental language learning areas.

If I need to learn a lot of fruit, then a good dictionary and/or Internet allow me to compile my own vocab list easily, a list relevant to me. I can cope with this kind of material, usually I would just learn one 'fruit' and substitute that but some learning material would make that approach hard. To extend this further I deliberately decide not to learn many words (whereever I find them), leave them until later. For the longest time I only knew 3 or 4 colors, could only count to 100 etc, I was aware of others but didn't feel the need to learn a long list of colors before I had enough vocab. to have meaningful conversations about colored objects. You can only learn so much a once so learn what seems most naturally relevant.

Once I attended an evening class for intermediate learners, the teacher approach seemed very similar to the trainer in this video (although obviously not for self-defence). It quickly became clear that although the teacher was very keen to try to put her students in a very good light in comparison to me (a self-learner) they had no real ability to range outside of the situations they had been taught (the 'pointed stick' situations). This didn't make the teacher change her mind about her approach however, the final conclusion was simply that I am the exception that proves the rule. I never bothered returning to the evening class after the experiment.

Increasingly I am studying linguistics related material that I can find, I think this article Vocabulary Size, Text Coverage And Word Lists - 1997 has some relevance to the topic and is an interesting read besides. The following section in particular.
We are now ready to answer the question "How much vocabulary does a second language learner need?" Clearly the learner needs to know the 3,000 or so high frequency words of the language. These are an immediate high priority and there is little sense in focusing on other vocabulary until these are well learned. Nation (1990) argues that after these high frequency words are learned, the next focus for the teacher is on helping the learners develop strategies to comprehend and learn the low frequency words of the language. Because of the very poor coverage that low frequency words give, it is not worth spending class time on actually teaching these words. It is more efficient to spend class time on the strategies of (1) guessing from context, (2) using word parts and mnemonic techniques to remember words, and (3) using vocabulary cards to remember foreign language - first language word pairs. Detailed description of these strategies can be found in Nation (1990). Notice that although the teacher's focus is on helping learners gain control of important strategies, a major function of these strategies is to help the learners to continue to learn new words and increase their vocabulary size.
Not everything in this paper agrees with my views, but then I will hardly learn and develop by only reading things I agree with will I?

I hope you enjoy the video and I hope you understand the message I am trying to convey, I can see the relevance of specialized vocabulary list of words to help you in a particular situation but would assume you already have a decent understanding of Chinese, vocabulary lists if used are a very personal thing in my opinion. However you may be learning Chinese, are you safe from the pointed sticks?