In my last bi-weekly post my goal was to focus on dictation practice and proverbs. I have been working on both those things with my language partner. After a brief discussion, we decided to combine both of those items into one activity. My language partner would prepare 10 proverbs for me to learn each class and those proverbs are used for my dictation practice the same day. This activity has been really useful in improving my writing/listening skills. It's also helped with preparing for my final presentations. Some of the proverbs given have Chinese origins and are used in a lot historical dramas and cải lương.
Instead of the situational talking practice, we decided to try having me talk about a given topic. For example, one topic my language partner gave was the political situation in Asia. This was an interesting activity in that it's just me talking and the vocabulary used is a lot wider and more academic than daily conversation. Through this activity I was able to learn new words such as communism, minister, imperial examinations, etc. Other topics picked was travel and history.
In the next two weeks, I think we will continue with the dictation and proverb practice. Additionally, I want to have a discussion with my language partner about what the final exam will look like and perhaps start some activities to prepare for it.
Comments
Hi Mae! I feel like proverbs in another language are usually more difficult to learn so I think it's really cool that you are able to to learn them in another language especially with the Chinese origins. This indicates that you are really advanced in learning your language. I think that the topics you have picked to study are very interesting.
It's really cool that you can handle really high-level/specific texts like proverbs or politics. Everyone in my family who grew up speaking Korean is really good at conversation and regular speech, but they find it really hard to talk about specific niche topics because they don't get the chance to use the vocabulary as much. This seems like a really good idea for achieving fluency.
Learning Chinese through analyzing proverbs is such an intensive activity. I could only imagine how much time goes into understanding just one proverb given its more abstract wording and the thinking behind them. I think it's a really good idea since you're able to really pick apart each word and what it means as well as the cultural, political and social values and thought systems behind those.