Now that we are a few weeks into the new year, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on what I achieved in my Cantonese studying over the course of the last year, and to set my intention for 2021.
2020 In Review
If I were to summarize the goal of the last year’s worth of study, it would be to develop basic Cantonese competency, and to improve my studying methodology.
Material Studied
This past year, I spent most of my active studying time on reading and listening to learner level material, including:
- Teach Yourself Cantonese
- all Cantonese Learning Centre website material
-
two Greenwood Press learner books
- Listening To Cantonese Basic Skills
- A Fung Shui Master
- Olly Richards Cantonese Conversations dialogues
- Remembering the Hanzi 1 character book
Changes in Studying Methodology
I made a few changes to my study habits in 2020 which I think have helped. Most of these changes came as a result of looking at what methods others have used effectively rather than my own discoveries. They include:
- started learning characters for real; transitioned from “guessing” to reading when looking at written Chinese. This includes beginning to develop the skill of quickly discerning constituent parts that a more complex character is comprised of
- started creating flashcards exclusively from sample sentences, rather than individual words. Vocabulary sticks better when learned in context rather than in isolation
- started a habit of passively listening to Cantonese while working
2021 Goals
The theme for 2021 is “comprehension”. I will again be focusing primarily on lots and lots of reading and listening, with a bit of new character study. At a high level, my goals include:
-
complete all remaining learner material in my possession
- Storybooks Canada Stories
- Living Cantonese
- Cantolounge Transcripts
- Cantonese Academy dialogues
- How To Study Cantonese Children’s Stories
- complete Remembering Traditional Hanzi 2, resulting in a total of 3000 characters studied across 2020 and 2021
- transition to using native television and movie content as a primary means of active study and sentence mining
I also would like to read my first native Cantonese book. I have a copy of the Little Prince in Cantonese, which I believe is also one of the only full length books to have ever been produced using written Cantonese characters rather than standard Chinese; super cool.
Regarding listening comprehension, my level is still quite low; I can tell when listening to native content on YouTube that I probably understand something like 20% of what is being said. I would love to bump that up as high as I can this year. To achieve this, in addition to studying the learner material above, I plan to begin actively listening to native content every day in addition to the passive listening I already do. This will mostly take the form of watching an episode or two of a show most days, as well as the occasional movie. Once I complete the learner material, I will also use this active listening/watching time to sentence mine.
Although I don’t plan on focusing on extensive speaking practice in 2021, I do have a stretch goal of taking my first iTalki lesson with a tutor by end of year. Once I begin speaking more I know that I will need to practice this skill a lot, and I think iTalki is going to be a good method for this, so I’d like to try it out at least once.
Finally, because I’m nerdy, I’m using a JIRA board to build out a studying “roadmap” for myself to ensure I continue to make progress at the pace I want. I’ve mostly planned through the spring, and I’m happy to report that I’m already a bit ahead of schedule as of this post!
The road to fluency
That’s all for now. I will report back on progress in the coming weeks/months. Take care and happy studying! 加油!
-Robert