Pouiz study log

Study Logs
2

I’m in in a similar situation in that my brain loves the SRS game (getting questions right yay), and that we’re probably somewhat similar level (so take what I say with a grain of salt). I’ve also very recently cut down my new items a day (and I wrote a bit about why here).

But I am slightly different to you in that I’m pretty decent conversationally as long as we stick to topics I know the vocab for. I’ll happily have a full 30m iTalki tutoring session in Chinese (with say 2 or 3 English words when I need to ask for specific vocab (i.e. "怎么说’desert’？沙漠？谢谢” etc). Generally when I learn a word I try to learn it in a way I can use it rather than just learning it as an abstract item. I’d rather know 5 words I can use than 20 in abstract because my only goal is to be conversational.

There were 3 things I did that I think specifically helped me get comfortable talking:

  • My sentence Deck has 3 cards for every note specifically to force drilling output:
    • Reading (Hazi front → Audio + Eng back)
    • Listening (Audio front → Hanzi + Eng back)
    • Speaking (Eng front → Audio + Hanzi back)
    • All cards have audio, and when I get the speaking card I literally say it out loud, no just thinking it. Studying this deck takes way longer than simply Hanzi->Eng cards, but on the flip side it does wonders for getting comfortable with output. It’s basically SRS shadowing and I won’t mark a card right until I physically say all Tones correctly etc.
  • I intentionally practise talking with both iTalki tutors and randoms in a Chinese-English language exchange discord server. It SUCKS at the start, but find a tutor you like and keep at it, it absolutely gets better!
  • Since I cannot watch native content and follow it yet, I found lots of youtube learner material that matches my levels and try to watch a bunch of that each day

It’s very debatable how optimal my way is overall. Loads of people swear by mass cramming vocab to get to native media quicker, and that’s probably faster overall. But on the flip side I want to talk to people, so this way is more fun for me as I get to do the thing I want now, rather than waiting until I’m “good enough”.

2 Likes