As a Mandarin learner, it can be hard to know how much time to allot to different kinds of activities. What’s the best balance between naturalistic approaches, e.g reading books/ conversations vs structured and deliberate study, e.g. grammar rules, memorising vocab, and repetition drills. I discussed these issues with a fluent Mandarin speaker who acquired Chinese while living in Beijing for seven years for the latest episode of my I’m Learning Mandarin podcast (see link below). His learning methods were more structured than mine, particularly at the beginning, so it was interesting to exchange ideas about our experiences:
Let me know your own experiences:)
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I’m Learning Mandarin podcast (see link below). His learning methods were more structured than mine, particularly at the beginning, so it was interesting to exchange ideas about our experiences in 8rental.com / rent-car-driver-spain :
More and more I believe language acquisition is about getting a ton of input, asking questions and seeking answers. These answers apply structure to what’s going on “underneath”. Kind of like a hint that organizes all the information you’ve already digested.
The asking questions and seeking answers is where I think a structured course can help. If I remain curious forever it might be possible that I ask all the relevant questions and get those answers, but it’s more likely to leave gaps that never get filled.
A course or a teacher can help by shining a light on those details that someone didn’t notice on their own. It may be a bit reductive, but “by definition” if a course covers “everything” it’ll point out all the things you never noticed on your own. The thing to be mindful of is this might front-load too much too much before you’ve had enough input to be “ready” for the answer.
It may not be optimal but this is the method I use now:
92% of the time is just “normal” input and output.
- Reading books
- Having conversations
- Writing
- Etc. etc. etc.
1% of the time asking specific questions and getting the answer. (Disclaimer: these questions are after I know the answer the questions are generally not this polished, and would have been way more elementary a year ago.)
- How can I tell a “haben” vs. “sein” verb?
- How can I tell a “strong” from a “weak” verb (or mixed).
- What is Konjunktiv I?
- How can I tell what case a prepositional phrase will have?
5% of the time is trying to apply what I’ve learned. This active monitoring I do while doing some type of input or output. I always pick a specific topic to test myself on.
- What was the gender on that noun?
- What was the case of that noun?
- Was that a strong verb?
- What object does this prepositional phrase apply to?
2% of the time doing Mono-Lingual SRS:
- Here’s an image > what is it or what’s going on?
- Here’s a word or phrase > what does it match?