I wasn’t sure whether to post this here or in the ‘Hangout’ section, but I thought Chinese has got some traits that may make the answer to my question different from that for other languages. Or maybe not!
I’ve got long, two-month long holidays in the summer, and virtually no free time the rest of the year. I commute to work every day for almost five hours, and when I get home I must still work a couple of hours. Even at the weekend, I work for at least four hours each day. On top of that, I’ve got this habit of eating, sleeping, having showers, cooking, tidying up the house… I don’t want to act the martyr or anything; I’m just trying to be realistic. I’ve got no free time.
When I first opened my HanziHero account, I thought it would be something I’d try for a week or two, and then I’d stop. But I’ve found I like it, and now I’d like to carry on studying Chinese.
I do know that languages require continuous study and exposure, not only to carry on learning, but also not to forget what you’ve already learnt. And that worries me, because I’m afraid it may be even more so with Chinese.
How would you approach studying Chinese knowing all of this? Do you think that studying at the weekend, though not ideal, would be enough?
As to HanziHero, I’ve got two options.
Getting an annual subscription. In this case, I’m afraid the most I’d be able to do during weekdays would be review, and then I’d do some lessons at the weekend. With my scarce learning abilities, I’m afraid ten items a day would be my limit.
Using the free version of HanziHero to review, using something else at the weekends, and then paying for monthly subscriptions whenever I foresee I’ll have more time (like near the Christmas or Easter holidays, when I usually manage to get a few free days). This would be useful only if HanziHero had a specific feature. This would fit better in the ‘HanziHero’ section, but having come so far I’ll ask it here. During the months when I haven’t paid for my subscription, will I be able to use only the 90 characters (etc.) of the free tier, or all those I’ve learnt during my monthly subscriptions besides?
Since you seem to be very experienced learners, I’m sure some of you will have found this problem of lack of time, so I’ll be really grateful for your advice!
First, yes, I think it’s entirely possible to make progress with the amount of time you’ve described. Daily study is ideal, but consistency matters much more than volume. Even if weekdays are mostly limited to reviews and weekends are when you learn new material, you’ll still make progress. It’s been mentioned before that this platform is great for learning to recognize new words and characters as opposed to reading and grammar. So, it’ll help keep you moving forward with the skill of recognition while you continue your other Chinese studies on the side.
If you’re already thinking about getting an annual subscription, then I’d look at it from the perspective of “it’s a marathon, not a race”. Meaning, you don’t have to worry about learning new material every single day, let alone maxxing out on the amount you’re learning in small period of time. One benefit I see to only learning max 40 items over the weekend is that you won’t ever have too many reviews throughout the week!
As for the subscription question, from a learning perspective, I’d lean toward the annual plan if you already know you’re committed long term, since there will naturally be periods where you’re learning new material and periods where you’re focusing only on reviews. However, maybe you should just do the monthly subscription for 2-4 months to see if it’s working out for you. My bad habit is jumping into subscriptions without being 100% sure that I’m going to use whatever product.
You should only have access to the characters and all other items learned within the free tier when you don’t have an active subscription
This is the essential advice, and I’ve betrayed it many times in some false hope that I could “progress faster”, which doesn’t happen… If I could go back in time to when I first started learning languages, it would be make the smallest possible routine that I could complete everyday. For example, only ten new cards a day, 10 minutes of reading, and then stretch goals toward 1hr reading or listening, whichever branch of the language you want to work on (speaking/reading/listening/writing).
As soon as you make your workload too high, you will eventually find a day which crashes the whole routine
Lastly, I think the trick is to be comfortable with doing things in 5 minutes or even less. e.g. if you have built up ~100 reviews by doing 10 new items a day, instead of trying to set a timeblock of 30mins or more to do all 100 reviews, try to complete only ~10 reviews at a time. This makes it easy to start and easy to fit in moments where otherwise 30 minute blocks aren’t possible.
You can achieve this “10 reviews at a time” by setting your Review Limit to 10. After you do the first ten, when you click on the greyed out Reviews button on the Dashboard, it will queue up the next ten. To better support this functionality, I think I’ll add the actual remaining review total somewhere in the popup when you hover over… or somewhere else, not sure yet
Thanks a lot everyone! It’s great to know that making some progress even when studying little is possible. I’ll try to think of a reasonable routine for the whole week, using that review limit feature (I’ve just checked that it’s taken 25 minutes for me to review the 260 items I already know, so that should help me determine what my limit should be). I’ll also follow @akitak9821’s advice and try one or two monthly subscriptions before committing to an annual one, just to see if I can make it. I’ll try, though I’m not very optimistic (I do know that once my holidays are over, in one or two weeks I’ll be so tired I won’t feel like studying or reviewing… But I’d like to try something new, if only to feel working is not the only thing in my life!).
Is your commute a time where you can listen to audio? Trying audiobooks for Chinese learners (I found a bilingual stories one the other day that plays the Chinese audio and then the English audio) or podcasts focused on ‘comprehensible input’ (i.e. basic Chinese intended to be simpler to understand) may be helpful as an optional way to get some extra time in with the language that doesn’t ask more of your schedule. Re-listen to a particular audio a few times spread out and you may notice sounds and tones more clearly or spot vocab you’re learning, etc. I agree, it’s the little things consistently that add up. Finding options for how to do different little things when my routine is pushed is part of what matters, for me.
Yes, I could listen to audio during part of my commute. The only problem is that I’m usually so tired that I fall sound asleep even if I don’t want to. I will try, though.
I’ve been having a look at some options that were mentioned in other posts, but I find them all too advanced for someone who hasn’t even finished HanziHero’s free tier and who isn’t doing anything else to study Chinese. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to understand anything but 你好, and that only because it’s said at the beginning of a sentence and with a specific intonation. Is there any place where I can find something like common sentences in English followed by their Chinese version?
Pimsleur or pretty much any other audio-based learning course that focuses on speaking+listening will probably have something like that, yes! Libraries often have one you can check out. In my experience with learning other languages most audio-based courses like that have some assumption that you’re repeating phrases along with the recording. I’m making the assumption that you commute via public transit (since you fall asleep), so more passive listening may still be a better fit for you if you’re uncomfortable practicing out loud with a crowd.
That all said, CI really can be handy for beginners (right there with you) without you needing to know anything at all. Hope this helps!
@gnargnar, thanks a lot! Yes, you’re right, it’s public transport I use, so speaking myself is out of the question (most of the people is also asleep, not only me). I’ve already watched that video about simple verbs, and I like it, so I’ve bookmarked that channel.
I’m sure everything all of you’ve mentioned here will help!
Ohhh than you’re in luck. There are loads of resources for learning while listening.
The two big ones are:
Pimsleur is the original “learn while you listen” company form way back (1960’s from memory). These days they’re subscription like everything is, but you can still find the original audio lessons and just get a few hundred MP3’s that take you from complete beginner to intermediate. It’s the classic “Repeat after me: ”. I’ve not tried their newer stuff but back when I started I found one of their old courses and ripped the CD specifically to listen on the train to/from work and it was great.
ChinesePod is another long standing resource. You can find a bunch of them free in places like ApplePodcasts - they have thousands of lessons these days, and once again, you can find a lot of their older ones in large packs if you go looking. This is less “repeat after me” and more “Mandarin dialogue explained to white guy by Chinese teacher in a conversational banter way”. At the beginner they’re quite good, but they’re very undirected - each podcast is a contained unit. So sometimes it’s hard to know what to listen to next as there is no real order.
But if you go looking for “Chinese Learning Podcasts” or similar there are quite a lot. Will you find them interesting enough to stay awake? No idea. But if you’ve got a way to listen to audio and motivation there is lots of stuff out there.
Thanks a lot! I’ll try Pimsleur’s free lesson first and see what happens. I’m not very confident that this will work, as I’m more of a visual learner. I don’t seem to be able to recall anything if I don’t see it too. Besides, as I say, I’m usually so tired that I can’t help falling asleep. And it’s not because of lack of things to do, as I always carry a book with me and most days I don’t even open it. Since my holidays end in ten days, I’ll try some free resource before committing to any subscription.
