Heisig 2 - past 2000 characters

Hi all

The last you heard about my progress studying book two of the Heisig method [of learning to read & write Chinese] was in January, where I admitted that I had started studying the book again, after failing to get off the ground a few months before that.

Back in July 2012 I kinda started the book for the first time, but because I didn't get into a regular habit, the days between picking up the book kept increasing, and after a while I just shelved it. Literally.

So why was this year's attempt more successful? Mainly because I went with the flow more, put less pressure on myself, and took time to enjoy it more. And three months later, I'm still progressing nicely, according to plan.

So this is how it looks:

• I had to accept that although I did Book 1 in three months - that was right for that book at that time. This book is different, and this time is different. So this year's goal suits this year's circumstances.
• Thus I have set myself the goal of completing the book by the end of 2013, which amounts to just over 4 characters a day. That doesn't seem like much, but given that I'm also doing podcasts and other full-sentence flashcards, this is on top of that. It's enough. 
• I completed the first 500 characters of Book 2 (making it a total count of 2000) on 9 April, which is about 5 characters a day - not bad.  I don't do it every day, I'm still not fully into the habit, but it's regular enough.
• I'm much better about revision than I was with Book 1, which is part of the reason I'm taking longer to finish the book. I am OK with that :)
• I use TWO METHODS to revise: (a) I keep going back in the book, sometimes the most recent chapter, sometimes even earlier chapters; (b) I also started using an Anki flashcard pack (downloaded off the site's free collection of packs) - which tests Chinese-to-English. I began that in late Feb, setting it to introduce five 'new' characters a day, so that it will also reach the end of the set by the end of the year. Of course, I will always be slightly further ahead with the book than with the flashcards, so actually it is a pure revision mechanism.
• Although I complained in January that the characters in this book were much more complicated, actually it's not that bad. Of course, on average, they are more complex than Book 1, but they're really not that bad. So far.

So that's where I am.  Is anyone else reading this post also doing Book 2? Or anyone who has already finished Book 2 that has comments or suggestions? Would love to hear from you.

I have begun Heisig Book 2. Kinda.

If you've been following my posts, you'll know that I have been preparing for a while to study the second book in the Heisig & Richardson series about learning to read & write Chinese. And I've been re-discovering good things too!

I set myself a goal to begin on 1 July (after fully re-studying Book 1), and to finish by year-end. Although I did the first book in about 3 months, I decided not to get carried away this time.

The bad news: I'm already behind schedule.
I thought I would begin at about 10 characters a day, expecting to slow down as I needed more time to revise. As of last night (21 days in) I had learned just 170 characters. I have also done a lot less revision than I should have done by now. Damn.

The good news: I am 170 characters further than when I started 3 weeks ago. (Even slow progress is progress, right?)


Here are some of the things I've noticed along the way:

• It is definitely going more slowly that Book 1 - but that isn't a surprise, right?
• The average number of strokes in the first couple of hundred characters looks to be about 10, which is quite a bit more than the first book
• My retention in the early weeks of the first book was nearly flawless - it was easy enough to remember the stories because the images were clear & obvious
• I'm not suggesting that there is a massive step up from the first to the second book - it's all about progressing slowly from character 1 to character 3000
• I'm mainly behind schedule because of work-based time constraints, and not because of a lack of interest in completing book 2
• There are some really strange keywords (the preface even explains this was necessary in order to ensure each character has a unique keyword), like: "father's sister" (maybe it would be easier if my father had a sister :-), "smidgen" (OK, I can cope with this), "cinnabar red" (erm ...), "flouds" (you'll get there, don't worry), "paulownia" (uhm ...), "vermilion" (sheesh ...), "succor" (hello dictionary), "brick heated bed" (seriously?)
• I got a little confused by 1559 ("widowed") until I realised that the 'head' primitive is actually written in traditional (not simplified) style
• And I smiled when I saw their copy-and-paste screw-up in character 1663 ("sow" - verb)
• It's so nice to finally get to know characters intimately that I have only come across in sentences in my flashcard pack
• It's clear that the authors have learned from Book 1, and they are improving Book 2 with this. For example, certain sub-primitives are getting different images to what they were allocated in the first book - I like what they've done here with Eiffel Tower and Disneyland
• And finally, I have created a Harry Potter themed image in all my Heisig work ("snitch" - I know it's not the way the authors intended it to be interpreted, but it made the story/character very clear for me)

So I'm really enjoying myself. Time constraints prevent me from doing any more time than I'm doing at the moment, but I'm enjoying the progress - and the fact that I'm already recognising characters from around, shows it's already adding value.

Something happened to my Mandarin!

Have you seen it too?

Over the last couple of weeks, I've noticed something has changed in my Mandarin.  I'm focusing here on the difference between (mentally) translating, and (intellectually) understanding.

I would love to be able to tell you that I woke up one morning and discovered I was perfectly fluent - but that's not true. And I don't know exactly when it happened, but given the level of the material & discussion partners I've been working with lately, I can see signs of it now.

Basically, I'm understanding without understanding. Bruce Lee would have been proud of this statement ("The art of fighting, without fighting"), but it makes sense if you think about it ...

I'm sure you know what it's like in your Mandarin world too ... when someone says 你好 (nǐ​hǎo​) to you, you probably don't have translate nǐ​hǎo​='Hello' (thinks: "Ah, they're saying hello to me. What friendly people."). You just know they mean 'hello' and you respond to that.

OK, so in recent months I've mainly been listening to elementary-level podcasts (ChinesePod equivalent), and I could understand most of what I heard. The conversation was at a slow enough level that I could pretty much translate sentences, word-by-word, and understand it all as I went along.

But my language partners have been speaking a bit faster to me, and I've been listening to intermediate-level podcasts, and although it's too fast for me to be able to mentally translate  word-by-word, I still find that I'm reaching the end of the conversation with a rough idea of what I'm hearing.

Of course, there are plenty of cases where I can understand (without translating) most of the sentence, but because I don't get the main word, I don't fully know what the sentence actually means. But I still get enough to know that I'm on the right track.

So I'm responding to this by trying to shut down my conscious mind, and just listen (without trying to translate). And although it's still managing to evade me, I have noticed I am definitely operating at a higher level.

Something has definitely happened.


Have you experiened something similar? Do you remember the first time you understood what someone was saying to you even though you didn't seem to hear the words they were using? Or is this something you're still waiting for? Please leave a comment - I'd love to hear from you.