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rigelmejo · 3 years

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i think 1500ish hanzi has been the sweet spot where, although i do run into unknown hanzi all the time (which means i still need more tbh), i know enough hanzi to run into many unknown words per day that are formed using known hanzi.

and since i can easily pick up new words made up of hanzi i already know, and can usually sound those words out myself, there is a lot of vocab i can pick up nearly effortlessly in a day.

per reading session i probably run into 10-20 words that i can easily learn within a few times of seeing them - because i already knew their hanzi, and can sound them out myself.

then i usually run into other words of course with new hanzi, and while maybe 1-5 of them will start to stick in my mind after i’ve seen them, many of them will still escape me even after seeing them for the 20th time.

but, the more of the first kind of vocabulary word i run into, the easier it gets to focus on the completely unknown-hanzi words. because the first kind are easy to pick up, its like building a foundation of stuff i find easier to grasp, then make more solidly reliable, from which i can branch out and depend on when trying to figure out the rest.

i think before knowing this amount of hanzi, i ran into just such a sheerly large number of words with at LEAST one unknown hanzi (and often 2 unknown) that it was good if i picked up 1-5 new words period.

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other notes:

1. i still definitely should go through my 2,000 most common hanzi book, and my 3,000 hanzi deck... not all the hanzi i know are ‘common’ and filling in gaps would further make this easier. the less unknown hanzi, the easier time i have.

2. i should go through my grammar book when i feel like trying to do production again.

3. i think me skipping listening-reading and JUST reading, i am seeing why that may be less beneficial. i’ve read 28 chapters of ttwtadsl the last few days, and i realize that when i also listen i get a better grasp of understanding the full sentences in real time/recognizing the words more quickly. Also it gives me 1-2 more ‘review’ sessions for all the new words in a chapter (seeing the words a 2nd time when listening-reading chinese-chinese, a 3rd time hearing them with listening chinese reading english), which helps me remember them better. also while me reading to myself aloud has helped me a bit with sticking their pronunciations, when i read in my head i start skipping thinking about the tones as much - and listening reminds me of them again and helps them ‘stick’. likewise, when i just read aloud if i’m reading at a certain speed i’ll sometimes fuck up tones (forgetting a new words tones etc) and that may temporarily be reinforcing bad habits. if i add listening, then that can correct any errors i’m making earlier on by reminding me of what is correct. so like... while i do notice i’m picking up all of this author’s favorite words to use, i realize i am getting sort of a half-understanding of these words. and the added listening component was really helping to fix that. so, today, i’m going to go through Pleco probably and just zoom through chapters 1-27 again. Just so i can hear a clear correct pronunciation for everything, reinforce the words i’ve learned, correct any mispronunciations i was doing, and review the old chapter texts (which i’ve noticed i’m more able to read without a dictionary now! wooh! o3o)/

alternatively i could use the audiobook, but i’d rather do that later. the audiobook i can listen to with the english (to test how much i can comprehend with just audio and no hanzi to look at). For now, i just want a clear easy to pause-play and easy to stop and lookup with a dictionary tool, Pleco, so i can review all the old material and catch any words I’m saying wrong.

*again, I’ll say ttwtadsl is an excellent book for practicing reading and listening. The chapters are short enough that even when you get into looking words up, the comedy/ridiculousness pushes you to finish figuring out the scene, then the scene seems to end SO SHORT as soon as you got into the rhythm of looking things up, so its super easy to want to keep reading another chapter. then another. (whereas like, priest whom i love, has giant dense chapters that feel like a slog to look up words as i go through it lol... too above my reading level). the other thing? This novel seems entirely well suited for beginners-intermediate readers.

Most of the new words I’ve been running into have been: wuxia ish related words, and very simple ones that are probably worth knowing (wulin, gaoshou, jian, jianke, meng, zhengpai, jiaozhu, motou, daxia, 武林，高手，剑，剑客，盟，正派，教主，魔头，大侠）

or they have been descriptive words that are pretty broadly useful in reading stories, stuff like physical descriptions of actions (or adjectives): zhou meitou, guixia, zhouqi meitou, ditou, dian tou, jijing, binglengleng, shense, mangran, yizheng, chenyin , chenmo, yinchen, bajian 皱眉头，跪下，皱起眉头，低头，点头，寂静，冰冷冷，茫然，一怔，沉吟，沉默，阴沉，拔剑）

or like sentence transition words like huran, jing, jiujing, xujiu, yingdang (should), ruoshi, cishi, 忽然，竟，究竟，许久，应当，若是，此时

as a bonus, so far most of the names have been hanzi i’ve either already learned or seem worth learning (jian 剑and gui 归 both seem useful to memorize for example, and zhao 赵 is so common in names - and ji han’s name’s hanzi 季寒 come up all the time）

of course there’s more new words, these are just the ones actually sticking in my head and starting to be recognized. though i think that kind of shows its working well so far as a vocab source - these are words i’ve gotten used to in just a few days. i do think this story would be quite good for picking up simple action words and adjectives. its just i was reading hanshe last month and most of what i picked up from that novel was action-descriptors so i already know most of the ones in this novel now.

#rant #october update #i keep saying i'll look at my hanzi book #but do i ever? no #i even KNOW mnemonics work for me!#heck even flashcards work for me!#but they take me like 10x what it takes other people #so like i get so sad it takes so much time #and i just... brute force

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