Anki + Input Output Pairing

In my continued slow burn learning of Chinese I have added another tool: Anki.

For those unfamiliar, Anki is a tool for training knowledge with flash cards. It supports lots of different formats for each card in the decks. And, it has some nice techniques for showing cards over increasing periods of time to assist with long term recall.

I had used flashcards and flashcard like systems (Duolingo) in the past and without much success. I actually progressed most the way through Duolingo’s older Chinese course due to simply memorising the short-term tasks for each section and some luck from the limited input options.

I have found Anki to be much better than Duolingo for a few reasons:

• I am able to customise the decks to have either single characters, words, or full sentences.

• The use of audio on some card decks is useful

• The algorithm for showing new cards over time and recurring older cards has led to better long-term rather than short-term retention

But most importantly, I have been able to pair memorising the symbol with writing the symbol:

When given the English prompt for each card, I will make my guess by drawing out the character by hand. This has greatly improved my ability to recall the written symbol instead of an amorphous concept of the symbol.

Before this, even common symbols like 你，对 or 的 I would be able to recognise when reading but if asked I would fail to correctly replicate.

With this change the recall and memory when using LingQ for reading short stories has greatly increased comprehension.

Input	Output	Tool
Chinese Characters/Sentences (汉字)	Speak english definition	Anki
Chinese Stories (汉字)	Interpret the story	LingQ
English definition	Written 汉字	Anki

This solves the input -> output and output -> input problem I was having.

I still need to figure out the right way to handle listening and speaking that is comfortable and easy to practice. Once that is at a decent basic level I will hire a tutor and practical progress can really begin!

LingQ - Immersion Learning

I have been using LingQ. It is definitely helping but I am running into lots of interface design problems and a lack of proper definitions for words in Chinese.

The problem seems to be a lack of content on the Chinese side of the site. Other languages appear to have a lot of support. The website pushes uploading your own content to help with reading and learning, which I think will be great if my level of Chinese reading reaches a point where simple articles are feasible. Unfortunately at the beginner level this is not something I am able to find and decide if it is appropriate! I tried importing an article from the Global Times, but it was almost 100% lost on me.

There must be something other people using the site are doing which may be able to help guide me to make better use of the resources which are available.

目前这是不好

Introduction - 导论

In my continued attempts to not be stuck as that English person at the event who assumes all others will speak the same language as me, I once again set out to try and learn another language.

In this case, the language is Mandarin Chinese. In the past I have tried duolingo and other applications which proclaim to help you learn a language. These applications and books have never been very much use for me to learn to speak or write the language. Only really providing me with a lot of vocabulary without much context.

Instead I will be trying the “immersion” approach to learning a language. This is where you overload yourself with frequent genuine and context heavy content in the hope that by reading it, trying to understand it and doing this repeatedly, the brain will simply adapt and the language will be picked up “naturally”.

This approach relies on lots of input at first and then some output in time. With less of a focus on speaking or writing early on. As I have some experience with Chinese - although very very basic experience. I am adding this page to my website as a place where I can try and write simple output.

The reason for a blog and not just a notebook or empty text file is that this approach should give some context to what I am doing, as well as a running history and log of my thoughts as I go through for me more than for anyone else. It can also serve as a place to point people when they ask how my language learning is going.

Let’s start!

这是个博客。 我是学的中文。即使很难和我是很忙。今天我的中文的不好。 我要有的中文的好。我的工作是在一家中国公司工作。他们帮我学习。