I exceeded expectations in some ways on day 1 but missed the mark in others. Still, not a bad start. I won’t be writing a journal here every day because 1. I’m not interesting enough to do so 2. I won’t have the time, but day 1 deserves its own entry.

 

• Read the first lesson of DeFrancis’ Beginning Chinese Reader
  • Only 10 characters were introduced along with a few interesting words. No exercises, passages to read, or anything else, though. It only took about 10 minutes!
• Learned 50 Hanzi using Anki and Heisig’s RSH/RTH
  • It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Then again, it looks like the first few hundred characters are very easy to memorize. Many of them are radicals.
  • Since each Hanzi has two cards, I actually learned 100 cards today, which is why I studied 132 in total.

View post on imgur.com

• Listened to 150 Glossika sentences
  • Although it’s been 10 years since I took any Chinese, many of the Glossika sentences reawakened my latent Chinese knowledge. I definitely won’t be able to do this many in the coming days.
  • Here is my sentence transcriptions look like for sentences 50 – 100 (dashes are for sentences I found too easy):
  • 1. 你是學生嗎？
    2. 對我是學生
    3. 我遲到了嗎？
    4. 沒有你很準時。
       1. 準時= zhun3shi2 = on time (standard/exact + time)
    5. 你母親在家啊？
    6. 不在， 在出去了 **chuqu hard to pronounce
    7. 你父母在家嗎？
       1. 父母=fu4mu4 = parents
    8. 不在。 他們出去了。
    9. 你房間裡冷嗎？
    10. 嗯， 有點冷。
    11. 你的鞋不錯。 是新的嗎？** remember that shoes are xie2
    12. 沒錯。 是新的。
        1. Mei2cuo4 = that’s right, rest assured!, that’s good, can’t go wrong
    13. 你母親在哪兒？她在家嗎？
    14. 你來自哪裡？
    15. 我來自加拿大。
    16. 你的車是什麼顏色的？
    17. 是紅色的
    18. —–
    19. 他二十四歲。
    20. 你父母最近好嗎？
    21. 他們都很好。
    22. 這鞋明信片不錯。 多少錢？*** hard to say right correctly
        1. Ming2xin4pian
           1. Xin4 = letter, mail
           2. Ming2 = bright … explicit/overt
    • Pian4 = flat, thin slice, flake
    23. 這鞋一塊錢。
    24. 這個擼管不是特別好。 為什們這麼貴？＊＊＊＊ Difficult to pronounce tones correctly in series.
        1. I always forget the bu shi in front of the te bie – why not just bu te bie?
        2. Lv3guan3 = hotel
    25. 你電話號碼多少？
    26. 那個男人是誰？
    27. 他是老闆。
        1. Lao3ban3 = boss
    28. 你的朋友在哪兒？
    29. 他在洗手間。
    30. 你父親最近好嗎？***
        1. Zui4jin4 = recently
        2. Fu3qin1 = father
    31. 他很好
    32. 你累了嗎？
    33. 嗯， 我累了
    34. 你餓了嗎？
    35. 不餓， 但我可了。
    36. 你朋友是中國人嗎？
    37. 對，她是中國人。
    38. 這些是你的鑰匙嗎？****
        1. Yao4shi4 = keys
    39. 是的， 是我的鑰匙。
    40. 那是我的位子。
        1. 位子= wei4zi4 = seat
    41. 不, 這不是。
    42. 相機在哪兒？***
        1. 相機 = xiang4ji1 = camera
    43. 在你包了裡。
    44. 你的車是藍色的嗎？
    45. 不是， 是黑色的。
    46. ——
    47. —-
    48. 我遲到了嗎？
    49. 是的。 你遲到了。
    50. —–
• Read the Glossary of Grammatical Terms in Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar
  • I had forgotten what subjects, objects, verbs, and predicates were. I hadn’t forgotten how tedious learning about them can be. Maybe studying grammar isn’t going to be a good idea after all…

What I didn’t do

• Didn’t even look at Integrated Chinese
• Didn’t listen to a Chinesepod less. I had some technical issues transferring them over to my phone. I hate itunes.