Chinese proficiency report 14

2012-01-28

This proficiency report won’t actually be a traditional proficiency report, but since it deals with my Chinese learning in much the same way, I’m going to put this among the rest of the progress reports to make things more coherent. If you want to read an update of my Chinese studies, you could look at the post from September last year. I have of course improved since then, but not in any significant way that merits a new progress report. Instead, this time I want to talk about this spring and what I intend to do. For once, I have lots of time on my hands and I need to invest it wisely. Before I start going into details, let us remind ourselves of my overall goal at the moment:

Overall learning goal: I want to take my Chinese to a level where I can manage an MA in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, taught in Chinese for Chinese-speaking students. Without dying. This mostly involves being able to swallow academic literature at a reasonable pace, being able to understand fast-paced, formal spoken Chinese, as well as being able to write formal Chinese with more fluency. If things go according to my plans, I might be required to do this starting from September 2012, so this is the deadline for most of the goals mentioned here.

What I’m going to do below is detail in fairly specific terms what I’m going to do this spring in order to achieve the above-mentioned goal. As usual, I’ve divided the goals and tasks into the four standard categories of speaking, listening, reading and writing. I have also added vocabulary.

Please note: These are my long-term goals. They aren’t the goals I will work towards on a daily basis. I won’t sit down thinking that now I’m going to practise listening for two hours. It doesn’t work like that. Long-term goals are broken down into manageable chunks and short-term goals, but I won’t discuss them because it would take too much time. Read more about goals here. All tasks mention below overlap if possible, so spending X hours reading book Y will also count against the read-a-total-number-of-Z-hours goal.

This Chinese idiom (成語) means “to study diligently”, but how diligently? If translated literally, it means to tie one’s hair to the rafters (so as to not fall asleep) and jab one’s thigh (in order to stay awake). In this way, the student can study more. Perhaps I won’t study that diligently, but I still like the story.

Speaking

In general, I don’t feel that speaking is a big problem. That doesn’t mean that I have nothing to learn and that my pronunciation is perfect, it just means that I think that I could survive with the language level I have now. Sure, I would probably need to adjust and start using more formal language, but I feel that this is very difficult to practise on my own. Also, this problem is connected to writing, since focusing on improving writing will at least give me the tools to speak more formally as well. Once I start a master’s degree program, I’m sure I can convert my writing skill into more formal speaking. I’m not saying that it will be easy, but I do think it’s the least of my problems right now. Let’s move on to more interesting areas.

Tasks to complete before September 1st:

  • None, social talking will probably be enough

Listening

I’m convinced I need both quantity and quality when it comes to improving listening ability. I’ve been focusing on quantity a lot during the autumn and it worked out fairly well. I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of radio, news broadcasts and podcasts. I’m not going to go into why I think this kind of aural immersion is essential, I’ll just say that I intend to continue doing it. Any material is good, as long as I can understand what’s being said (which is true for 95% of all the material I’ve found so far, so this s not a problem).

Quality has been sadly lacking, however. What I mean with quality is active listening where I spend time to really understand what’s being said and weed out any problems. I have several ideas on how to go about doing this, but here is one: I will pick a news broadcast (perhaps 10 minutes long), then I will try to transcribe what’s being said, then correct/complete my transcription with the official one. After that, I’ll go through the text in search for new words, interesting patterns and so on. Then I will add the news broadcast to a special review queue, which I will listen through occasionally. In general, I want to spend more time on fewer minutes of audio, delving deeper instead of just aiming for quantity.

Tasks to complete before September 1st:

  • Continue aural immersion (mostly passive listening)
  • Spend 400 hours actively working with listening material
  • Listen to, transcribe and check 100 news items (mainly from RTI)
  • Listen to one audio book

Writing

My main focus (compared to what I’ve done earlier, not in absolute terms) over the coming seven months should be writing. Being able to make myself understood in Chinese is simply not good enough, I need to be able to express myself correctly as well. This require s a awful lot of practise, including analysing my own mistakes and listening to other people’s advice. In my experience, writing an article might take an hour, but correcting it and understanding why the corrections were made might take three times as long. As for listening, however, I think there is call for both quantity and quality.

Another problem I need to fix is that my handwriting isn’t good enough. I need to learn this for many reasons, but the fact that I want to teach Chinese should be enough. There might also be tests, reports and so on during a master’s degree program that requires handwriting. Don’t get me wrong here ,though, it’s not as if I can’t write Chinese by hand, it’s just that I’m not good enough. I’m too slow, need to think too much and have forgotten how to write some characters.

Tasks to complete before September 1st:

  • Spend 400 hours actively working with writing of any kind
  • Spend 100 hours practising handwriting
  • Update twitter account daily in Chinese (everyday language)
  • Summarise everything I read in some way (reviews, analyses, chapter summaries)
  • Translate both my theses into Chinese (~60 pages about phonology)

Reading

I’ve already said that writing should be the main focus, but reading comes a close second. Reading is a less direct way to improve writing, but is still essential. Also, reading in itself is necessary because I need to be able to read texts on topics such as grammar, phonology or syntax without having to look up one word every sentence. I have read texts on these topics before, but not close to the amount I need. Just as for the other areas, reading is also about quantity and quality. I need to read more, regardless what I read, and I need to need more relevant literature in-depth, with 100% comprehension as the goal. Doing this, I will of course also pick up the vocabulary I need, but more about this later.

In the following list, “read” means just read through and “study” means read, understand and take notes.

Tasks to complete before September 1st:

  • Spend 400 hours reading any material
  • Study 漢語語法 (a comprehensive grammar handbook)
  • Study 華語文教學規範與理論基礎 (about the theory of teaching Chinese)
  • Study 漢字說清楚 (about similar characters native speakers often mix up)
  • Read 國音 (about the sound inventory of Chinese)
  • Read 中國文化史 (about Chinese cultural history)
  • Read 孔子的部落格 (about Confucius in modern Chinese)

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the glue that connects all the above parts. I currently have more than 20 000 active cards in my Anki deck, so pure volume is not my main problem. I need to focus on learning specialised words in areas I will need (anything related to language study) and I also need to start sorting out near synonyms and word usage.

Tasks to complete before September 1st:

  • Read, understand and take notes from the Chinese Synonyms Usage Dictionary
  • Read, understand and take notes from 漢字說清楚
  • Increase the number of characters I know to 5800 (I’m currently at around 4500)
  • Keep queues (including leeches and marked cards) in Anki at zero

Meta and miscellaneous

This category is naturally more difficult to discuss, but I do think I need to learn more about Chinese. Much of this will come from books I have already included  above, so I won’t mention them again. However, I do think that I need to learn more about second language acquisition in general, which is probably best done in English. I also have some other more or less ambitious projects going which can’t be sorted in any of the above categories.

Tasks to complete before September 1st:

  • Read, understand and take notes from The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (this is a 900-page monster)
  • Read, understand and take notes from The Phonology of Standard Chinese
  • Memorise and be able to handwrite 道德經 in classical Chinese (the Taoist classic commonly called Tao Te Ching in English)
  • Apply for master’s degree programs, along with associated scholarships (deadline: end of March)
  • Complete my thesis and graduate
  • Take the TOCFL test again, even though I have passed it
  • Make monthly updated on my progress on the goals in this post

A plea for help

This is an ambitious undertaking. I estimate that it will take about eight hours daily to complete everything on this list. Every day, including weekends. This means that any kind of longer break will severely increase the workload. Still, I’m not going to do much else during this semester (apart from taking some credits in Chines, but I think those will be largely incorporated into tasks already mentioned in this post), so it’s definitely possible. Leaving one day each week for things not related to studying, I’ll have 9+ hours workdays, which is quite a lot, but not impossible.

The major problem is that this is my own time and the only one keeping track of it is me. Nine hours a day might not sound like much if you spend that time at work everyday, but this is different. Very different. Therefore, I need your help. I don’t need any encouragement right now, because I’ve just started, but I need people to keep in touch, ask questions and read my updates. Cheering on is welcome at any moment. If you have any suggestions for what I should study you’re more than welcome to leave a comment. Likewise, if you have ideas on how to practise something I’ve written here, do let me know. Thank you!

in 101 in 1001, Chinese, In English | 2 comments

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The pancake omelette

2012-01-25

A while ago (over a year now), I discovered a really neat dish, more or less by accident: the pancake omelette. In essence, it’s simply an omelette with pancake characteristics or, if you want to put it bluntly, a pancake with more eggs. This has become my standard meal, usually for breakfast. I have also spread the word to several friends who perhaps aren’t eating it daily, but still frequently enough to be called disciples. I don’t claim that the pancake omelette is unique or anything (I haven’t even bothered to look for similar recipes elsewhere), but that’s entirely beside the point.

This post about sharing and enjoying.

First, why the pancake omelette?

Because it’s…

  • …really tasty
  • …quite nutritious
  • …easy to make
  • …quick to make
  • …extremely cheap
  • …variable

This sounds like the perfect food, tell me how to make it! Now!

Ok, calm down, I will, but first we need to know what ingredients we need:

  • Eggs (3)
  • Flour (0.5 dl)
  • Milk (1 dl)
  • Salt (a pinch)
  • Oil (not much)
  • Vanilla sugar (10 ml, optional)

Basically, making the pancake omelette is more or less identical to making a normal pancake. This following procedure works well as a springboard to more epic adventures in the kitchen:

  1. Start heating up the pan you’re going to use
  2. Beat eggs, flour, salt, oil and vanilla sugar
  3. Whisk in the milk
  4. Pour the mixture into the pan
  5. Turn the heat down, wait until the surface is solid
  6. Turn the pancake omelette over
  7. Wait a minute
  8. Put a plate upside down in the pan and flip the pan while holding the plate
  9. Ready for some serious om nom nom nom !

This can be completed in less than 15 minutes without stressing it, and that includes finding all the ingredients, washing up afterwards and putting everything back in order.

And now, a word on nutrition

So, what does one of these babies contain, you might ask? I haven’t done a detailed analysis, but this should be enough for most people. This is for the basic recipe.

Carbohydrates: 40.5 g
Protein: 28.2 g
Fat: 27.8 g

Energy: ~2200 kJ or 525 kcal

Variations

As I said in the introduction, it’s possible to vary the recipe quite a lot. However, not all experiments are successful, so I thought that we could share some of our experiences here. If you post a comment to this post with an experiment, describing what you did and how it turned out, I will update this section with the experiment and your name.

Perhaps we will be able to find a couple of new, neat variations!

Successes – you have to try this

  • The basic recipe (myself)
  • Adding vanilla sugar (myself)

Mediocre – edible, but no point in doing it again

  • Twice as much flour (myself)
  • Almost no milk (myself)
  • Adding berries (Andreas)

Epic failures – don’t try this at home

  • Adding cocoa powder (myself)

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Timeboxing physical workout

2012-01-13

Timeboxing is a concept which is easy to understand, easy to adapt, but that still is amazingly powerful when applied correctly. It helps preserving mental health and fights procrastination at the same time. A while ago, I wrote an article about using timeboxing to study languages (Chinese in this case), but the concept is equally applicable to almost any task you want to complete. Such as physical workout. Still, it took me until now before I combined the two and evaluated the result. In short, it works very well, and in this post I’ll share some thoughts with you. Since I’m lazy, some descriptions are borrowed from the article on Hacking Chinese, with some slight changes.

What is timeboxing?

The first part of the word is easy, but the second part isn’t that obvious. Are we about to engage in a fistfight with time? In a manner of speaking, perhaps, but actually the “boxing” part comes from the word “box” (i.e. a cuboid in which you can put things). It’s about dividing time into chunks and do something valuable with each chunk.

More time means less efficiency

The more time we have to complete a task, the less efficiently we work on it. This is quite obvious when you think about it and I’m sure most people have experienced this in their everyday lives. Didn’t you have homework assignments you didn’t complete until you really had to, because otherwise you’d fail the course? Having lots of time is not a guarantee for finishing anything, in fact, it’s usually an excuse to procrastinate more.

Realising this, timeboxing is about limiting the time you have available and creating for yourself a task you are 100% sure that you will be able to complete and that you will feel satisfied having completed. It means that rather saying that you’re going to clean your apartment before you go to bed, you say that you’re going to work hard on tidying up the kitchen for exactly ten minutes.

Deciding that you’re going to spend ten minutes doing as much as you can in the kitchen is guaranteed to be a success. You almost can’t fail. When you’re done, pat yourself on the back, take a deep breath and decide what you want to do next. If you feel up to it, you can set another ten minutes to get through the rest of the dishes or move on to the next room. If you get tired, spend the next ten minutes on a completely different task.

Making exercising enjoyable and efficient

The problem I have with exercising is that it sometimes becomes horrendously inefficient. I usually practise at home and it can take me hours to finish what I set out to do for that day, simply because I rest a lot or do many other things at the same time. This creates negative feelings related to exercising, and next time I feel less inclined to start.

However, during the last four weeks, I’ve experimented a bit and applied timeboxing to my workout program(s). It has worked out incredibly well, so well that I feel other people really should do this. If you already feel you know how to timebox, you can skip the next bit and start reading again at “Why do all this?”.

Below, I have described a program. Please note that this is a generic study and even if I do three exercises and use three minutes for each cycle, that doesn’t mean you have to do that. This is what I do. First, I start a stopwatch and put it somewhere clearly visible.

  • 00:00 – First set starts
    Exercise A, set 1
    Exercise B, set 1
    Exercise C, set 1
  • 03:00 – Second set starts
    Exercise A, set 2
    Exercise B, set 2
    Exercise C, set 2
  • 06:00 – Third set starts
  • 09:00 – Fourth set starts
  • 12:00 – Fifth set starts
  • 15:00 – Finished

The point is that each new cycle of sets start at a predefined interval, three minutes in this case, which is long enough to allow you to rest. This has several advantages, as we shall see. This could be done using any number of variations, but as long as you understand the basic principle, that will be enough.

Setting up your own timebox

You’ll have to experiment a bit and see what works, but here are some general steps to go through:

  1. Define a number of exercises you want to do
  2. Define how many sets and reps you will do (numbers can change through the session)
  3. Go through the program once with as much rest as you think is necessary
  4. Note how long each set took (or one cycle of sets if you do more than one exercise)
  5. Round that figure up to something nice and round (three minutes in my case)
  6. From now on, you should start a new cycle of sets each time that nice and round number has passed
  7. When you can comfortably survive a session, increase the numbers of reps

This mean that you should never fail a set because of lack of time. If you fail a set because you’re not strong enough, that’s okay. Simply move on to the next set. If you fail too often, you’ve probably made it too difficult for yourself.

An example with sets and reps

This is what I do for pull-ups and handstand push-ups at the moment.

  • First cycle (start 00:00): 9 pull-ups, 8 handstand push-ups, rest
  • Second cycle (start 03:00): 12 chin-ups, 11 handstand push-ups, rest
  • Third cycle (start 06:00): 9 pull-ups, 9 handstand push-ups, rest
  • Fourth cycle (start 09:00): 9 chin-ups, 9 handstand push-ups, rest
  • Fifth cycle (start 12:00): 11 pull-ups, 10 handstand push-ups, rest and stretch

As soon as I finish either the pushing or the pulling part of this program in a comfortable manner, I will increase numbers a little bit and keep going. The numbers you use will be heavily dependent on who you are, how much you rest, the nature of the exercises and so on. Sorry, I can’t help you there, but this guy can.

Why do all this?

There are two reasons why I’m convinced this approach is very, very useful. First, it means that when I start exercising, I know that it will take no more than fifteen minutes. If I do the fifth set for exercises A, B and C quickly, I might be finished before fifteen minutes, but never after. This is of tremendous psychological value. It suddenly becomes easy to schedule workout sessions. It isn’t very daunting at all, because it only takes fifteen minutes. Compare this to the vague concept of just working out a bit or engaging in a routine you’re not sure how long it will take to finish.

Second, this is excellent for benchmarking purposes. If you’re doing something like the 100 push-ups challenge (I’m not, it’s just an example), it’s very easy to cheat yourself into believing that more reps means that you’re making progress. However, you might be manipulating a variable you’re not aware of: time. If you rest longer, of course you will be able to do a few more push-ups. However, if you always start each new cycle after exactly three minutes, you know that if you make more reps, you really have become stronger (I am aware there might be other variables, but let’s ignore them for now).

Conclusion

Try this. Really. I’ve practised some sport or other since I was five. I’ve done various bodyweight strength work for many, many years. I haven’t tried everything, but I have tried a lot. And this works better than anything I’ve tried before. If you try, please share your experience below!

in Articles, In English, Physical | 4 comments

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Wonderful, ambiguous you

2011-12-15

This post is about you, even though it isn’t a rhapsody of praise to a special someone. Actually, it isn’t even praise for a person. Considering that I’ve spent the previous week labouring long after midnight with my linguistics exam, it only seems fitting that I write a short piece to extol the hugely undervalued qualities of an English pronoun, don’t you think? Yes, I mean you!

Various languages seem to have different quirks in their pronouns. In Chinese, he/she/it is pronounced exactly the same, in Swedish they/them differ only in writing and… drum roll… English only has one word for second person plural and second person singular: you.

This ambiguity is great. It can be deliberately used to create effects that is impossible (or at least very difficult) to achieve in other languages. The most prominent example has to do with potential partners. Let’s say that you’re interested in a girl (or a boy, but I prefer girls, so I’ll stick to that in this post) and you want to test the waters. What do you do?

Providing I have already established social contact of some kind (this is a prerequisite for my being interested in the first place) and I’m in a social situation with many people involved, it’s possible to start dropping ambiguous comments. Since the ambiguity arises from the fact that we can’t distinguish between second person singular and second person plural, there has to be at least one more person involved. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that the girl in question has a friend that I’m familiar with as well. I’ve met both of them (usually at the same time), but I communicate with the girl I’m interested in more often.

The following works best in text messages when we can’t hear or see the other person. Faces and voices are seldom ambiguous: text is to a much higher extent. I might write something like this if I feel adventurous:

“Hi! I’m going to go out and have a bite to eat, would you like to come along?”

The ambiguity here is of course that the receiver has no way of knowing if I meant you singular (meaning that I’m asking just her) or you plural (meaning that I mean both of them). Of course, depending on the preceding messages, the meaning might be more or less obvious, but it’s not hard to make it ambiguous. There are several ways to react to this kind of message.

First, the receiver might not notice that there is an ambiguity and just assume one or the other without thinking (or make a subconscious decision). This is probably bad, but might change if you try again. Subconscious decisions might also say something, but I would be very careful with that.

Second, the receiver might notice the ambiguity and choose whichever answer she thinks best. Doing this once is not an indication of anything, but I’ve seen answers to similar, more indirect questions change gradually over time, from assuming you plural to trying out you singular and staying there.

So, this was just one example of how wonderful and exciting ambiguous pronouns can be. Can you think of any other ambiguity that can be deliberately used to achieve a certain effect? It doesn’t need to be pronouns and it doesn’t need to be in English!

in In English | 4 comments

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Berlin 2011

2011-11-22

It might seem quite weird to go to Berlin to take an exam in Chinese, but that still was the principal reason for this weekend’s trip to the German capital. I arrived home safely earlier today after a three-day sojourn, and even though I don’t have much to offer by way of visual impressions of my journey (there are some photos on Facebook) , I still want to write a few words about both the test and about Berlin in general.

The test in question is the standard Chinese test used in Taiwan to assess the language level of non-native speakers and I attempted the highest level. I knew beforehand that it would be difficult (results from mock tests lead me to believe that I had a fair chance of scoring around 85%), but it turned out to be more difficult than I thought in two ways. First, it wasn’t easy to get to the test site in the first place. We went there on Friday evening to make sure I knew how to get there the following morning (our hostel was located in the north east, the university is in the south west). I took us little more than one and a half hour to get there and that included some serious detours.

I left the hostel around 7:30 and thought that two hours and fifteen minutes would be enough. It was, but only barely. It turned out that a station that was open during Friday was closed for construction work on Saturday, so I had to improvise a new route. I don’t know much German and if there is one thing I’d like to complain about regarding Berlin, it’s the lack of accurate information for tourists. I asked staff that directed me in the wrong direction, I spent an hour and finally ended up exactly where I started. I gave up and took a taxi to a station that had a direct link to the university. I ran the last kilometre and arrived on the test site five minutes before the test started, winded and a bit annoyed.

I’m going to write a long, Olle-style analysis of the test itself, so I won’t say very much right now, instead I’ll just say that it was harder than I thought and harder than the mock tests. I don’t think I passed, but it might be close. If I pass, it’s because I’m lucky, not because I’m good. And for those who don’t know me very much, I’m not being humble here. The test was really hard and to anyone who has managed it with reasonable grades, respect. This isn’t something anyone will pass without working very, very hard. To summarise, I will (probably) fail because I cannot parse spoken 成語 (idioms) that quickly and I suck at deciphering single sentences without a context. Also, I my reading speed isn’t up to par. I will lose approximately 10/70 points on the reading part because of this and that’s too much. Still, I’m not very disappointed. This is merely a sign that I need to study more, but more about this later.

What about Berlin in general then? Well, it was cold, seemed to consist only of construction sites and suffered from a lack of decently priced restaurants and grocery stores. Berlin did have some nice things to offer, too, such as several museums and some cool buildings (such as Berlin Cathedral and the new Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church). Still, the city wouldn’t have been worth a visit only for these reasons, especially not in mid-November (it was quite cold, especially on Friday). Fortunately, I didn’t experience Berlin alone, but was accompanied by two friends (Martin and Svante). In their company, the overall rating for the journey climbs above “it was worth it” mark. I probably wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t for the test, but I don’t regret going, even if it turns out I botched the test completely.

in Blog, Events, Personal | 2 comments

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Morning routines

2011-11-04

Emerging from a five-week long period of 100% business, I have now entered a much more peaceful part of this semester. That doesn’t mean that I’m not studying or that I have nothing to do (nothing could be further from the truth), but it means that I am, once again, in control of my time and how I spend it.

I’ve learnt before (from several experiments with sleeping, routines and productivity) that going up at the same time everyday (including weekends) is the best thing since sliced bread. It takes roughly two weeks to adjust to a specific time and during this period, it’s really hard, but after that, getting up in the morning ceases to be a problem. The body knows when the alarm is going to sound and waking up becomes as natural as falling asleep when tired. Provided that I go to bed at a reasonable time, that is.

So, what I’ve been doing now for a while is going up at 6:10 every morning. That might sound ridiculously early, but that was how early I had to go up in order to catch the bus and go to Norrköping for my teacher training. Now that I no longer have to go there, I’ve decided to keep the time anyway. Why? Because sometimes I got up at 6:10 even though I could have slept to, say, 7:00, and when I had that extra fifty minutes, I found that I could get an incredible amount of things done. I also like the feeling of being up early, which is weird because I’ve really never thought so before.

Having at least three hours extra in the morning begs the question what to do with the extra time. Thus, I’ve begun to structure the first part of the day, simply because it’s easy to lose momentum otherwise. I’m never too strict with my routine, I do what I feel like, but this is what it generally looks like:

  • 6:10: Alarm sounds, Taiwanese web radio starts playing, I get up
  • 6:10-7:00: Vocabulary work in Anki (including adding new words and drilling deeper into the meaning of old ones)
  • 7:00-8:00: Internet round (mostly related to Hacking Chinese, but also e-mail, social media, newspapers, etc.)
  • 8:00-9:00: Some kind of physical activity (handstand, walking, jogging, unicycling) plus stretching plus shower
  • 9:00: Breakfast

I’m still experimenting with moving things around and playing with the times. For instance, in the beginning, I thought that fifty minutes would be way too long to focus on vocabulary, but if I’m not tired (i.e. if I go to bed around midnight), I can usually keep going with Anki for at least an hour, sometimes even more. Basically, it becomes a matter of doing that until I feel that efficiency is starting to diminish, then it’s time to do something else.

After I’ve checked what’s going on outside my apartment (read: the internet), I sometimes start feeling sleepy. This is when going outside is a good idea. Having finished off with some stretching and a shower, I usually feel quite ravenous. What about after breakfast? That depends on too many factors to even start talking about, but usually try to focus on studying things I should be studying according to the courses I’m taking (none of which is directly related to studying Chinese).

I like this routine simply because it allows me to get a ton of things done immediately and usually before I would otherwise have got out of bed. Even if I don’t touch Anki for the rest of the day, I’m still okay because I’ve usually reduced all queues to zero anyway. Also, I’ve done at least one of the two physical things I try to do everyday (stretching and handstand).

Still, none of these things can be considered to be the main advantage. The reason I’m doing this is because it feels great. Having a shower and then breakfast after this kind of start  is a real treat. It sets the mood for the rest of the day and the positive effects last much longer than the morning routine itself.

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Zen, smart phones and the now

2011-10-27

Humans have used tools for millions of years and throughout history, our relationship to tools has been fairly straightforward. For good or ill, we have created tools to help us accomplish whatever we’re striving to achieve. Tools are extensions of our own abilities and allow us to control the world around us. However, with mass media, computers and the internet, things are becoming more complicated by the day. It is no longer obvious what is a tool and, more importantly, it’s no longer clear who’s in charge and what purpose these tools play. For the first time in my life, I feel genuinely worried about current technological development. Why? Because I’m growing old? Because I’m averse to technology? Not at all.

Before I introduce the technology I want to discuss and what challenges it brings, I’m going to discuss briefly my theory of happiness. Heavily influenced by Eastern philosophy (mainly Zen Buddhism and Daoism), I believe that being fully aware in the present is the key to being happy. People who live in the past (meaning that they think more about what they have done than what they’re doing) are seldom happy and those who focus all their energies on what’s going to happen next hour, next week or next year seldom lead happy lives either. Also, people like this feel hollow and not really there when you talk to them.

On average, I consider myself very happy and even when I’m not, it’s not actually that bad. Sure, I feel sad and dispirited sometimes, too, but I seldom feel that that is a problem. I think the reason I’m happy is that I have the ability to focus wholly on what I’m doing at the moment. When I’m writing this article, I’m not thinking about the take-home exam I have to hand in on Friday; when I practise gymnastics, I don’t think about my best friend’s personal problems. When I talk with you over a cup of tea, I don’t think about anything else. My mind is in the present, not some other place or some other time.

Talking of technology, I might give the impression that this state of mind was easy to achieve before the modern era. This isn’t true. Something like this is what I perceive to be at the core of both Zen Buddhism and Daoism. Perhaps not exactly like that and perhaps on a deeper level, but this is what I feel is a major component of both philosophies. What is enlightenment ? When hungry eat, when tired sleep. This is what Laozi is talking about when he says that man is the only being who has strayed off the path; we complicate things for ourselves. Life ought to be simple, but we make it complicated. What do we do before enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water. And what about afterwards? Chop wood, carry water. Enlightenment (or happiness) is not a different time or place, it’s the everlasting present. It’s a matter of perspective, not a matter of actually going somewhere else.

Having briefly described my philosophical background, it’s now time to move on towards technology itself, because I think technology mostly functions as a barrier between ourselves and enlightenment. This is not because technology is intrinsically bad, technology is nothing in itself, but we somehow manage to twist it into becoming more of a hindrance than an aid. Mankind has achieved some great things with the help of technology, but in doing so, we have also paid a price. In short, technology can help us with many things, but I don’t think that becoming happier is one of them.

Of all the inventions, the mobile phone is probably the one which has had the largest impact on our ability to focus on the present. Sure, there were ordinary phones, televisions, radios and so on before that, but they neither had the same impact on our lives nor were we as dependent on them. With the advent of mobile phones, it became possible to talk to anyone at any time. This is itself an incredible achievement, but if it isn’t handled correctly, it’s also one step away from mindfulness, one step farther away from Laozis path. Somewhere else is within reach, elsewhere is always in your pocket.

As you will probably have figured out, the logical terminus of this train of thought is the smart phone. After it’s introduction, the development exploded during the last decade and we’re only a few steps away from being able to bring with us most of what we’ve previously used computers for. It’s possible to read and send e-mail from anywhere on the planet, we can work regardless of the distance to our office and we can keep in touch with our friends effortlessly across space and time. Again, this is fantastic, but I still think the current development is ominous. I have two observations to support this view.

First, I have dealt with teenagers a fair amount recently, mostly because I have soon completed my teacher’s education and have taught English and Chinese to high school kids. It amazes me how bad they are at focusing on anything and how much time is spent using mobile phones in school, both during class and during breaks. Of course, this is usually not allowed, but some students become seriously distressed if they cannot use their phones for ten minutes. Some people argue that this is nothing new. These students are the same as those who stared out of the window or chatted among themselves before the arrival of the smart phone. I think there lies some truth in this, but it’s just not that simple. It is far more easy to be distracted by Facebook than an oak outside the window. It is the same phenomenon, but the incentives to let the mind escape the now is so much stronger. Even I feel tempted.

Second, more and more people are beginning to use phones when it was previously socially unacceptable to focus on anything else but the social environment. Smart phones are popping up all the time: during coffee breaks at work, when chatting with a few friends or when attending a meeting. Again, I’m not categorically saying that this is wrong or bad, but it is more prevalent now than it has ever been before, at least among people I meet.

Furthermore, I suspect that this trend with increased digital connectedness will continue. Naturally, people growing up with this kind of technology will be better at handling it, but I also fear that they will be more dependant on it, too. With risk of upsetting friends, I’m going to take gaming on smart phones as a concrete example. Last week, I was meeting a few friends and there were four or five people in the room. All but one were playing games against each other on their smart phones. Being the hypocrite I am, I took the opportunity to revise some Chinese vocabulary.

Perhaps these kinds of situations will be commonplace in twenty years, indeed they might become the norm, but I feel that I strongly dislike this phenomenon. I’m also guilty of it, I know, but I’m afraid that just make me feel more pessimistic. So, is this some kind of moral hysteria? I hear some people saying that that isn’t like me. And they’d be right. I don’t think this is a case of “oh, no, this new technology is dangerous”, I think it’s a case of “I understand this development, I have thought about it carefully and I don’t like it”. This isn’t purely for personal reasons, because I’m sure I can handle the problem, but I’m worried about other people who can’t.

Going back to my theory of happiness, I think a society in which all citizens were currently focusing on something other than where they are and what they are doing cannot possibly be a very happy society. Sure, if we reach a level where we can fully interact with each other digitally, then we would have to re-evaluate the problem, but we aren’t there yet and we won’t be for quite some time. I fear that technology is slowly tearing people apart and that we are just starting to feel the tremors of something much bigger to come. What will people growing up in a society like this be like? We have no way of knowing. Perhaps, they will be able to uphold society and trundle on. They will be very good at multi-tasking, but very bad on focusing. They probably won’t be happy.

So what should we do, blow up the world and start again? Leave civilisation and isolate ourselves in a cabin in the wilderness?  No, of course not. That would be so very not Zen and Laozi also tells us to join the dust of the world, to live in it and not seclude ourselves. I feel that I can follow this advice as I have some outlets. I do occasionally leave civilisation to walk alone in the forest. Practising gymnastics or diving allows me to escape from the dust just for a while.

Still, I can feel that other places and other times are slowly encroaching on my mindfulness and total focus on the present. I feel that the natural spaces in our lives where we simply can’t be anywhere else are diminishing in size and are inexorably becoming extinct. In other words, technology is making it gradually harder to live in the now.

I feel that I will always have such a space within myself, I am not afraid, I will prevail. Will others? It will become increasingly hard, and considering that it was already quite difficult before, I fear that fewer and fewer will realise the importance of the present. I’m not prescient, I can’t say for sure what lies ahead of us, but I have a feeling and it isn’t good. It isn’t certainty, but it is premonition.

in Articles, In English, Personal | 1 comment

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Becoming more ninja

2011-10-13

Some of you may just assume that I practise a lot and that I’m already quite ninja. This is true, but only to a certain extent. I practise a lot less than I have done, even though more structure and more coherence have made me stronger today than I’ve ever been before. This is what I do now in terms of physical activity:

  • Gymnastics, twice a week, roughly three hours each time
  • Occasional workout in the gym, perhaps a few hours per month
  • Diving, three or four times a month, approximately two hours

If we sum this up, it becomes roughly 36 hours a month or 9 hours a week. I think I’ve practised more than twice that amount a couple of years ago, so this doesn’t really count as very much (although I realise that it’s above average, but as usual, I compare only with myself, not with others). Also, take into consideration that some of this time is horrendously inefficient. It’s not as if I spend the three hours practising gymnastics doing handstand push-ups, no, I’m more likely to discuss said push-ups with a friend or simply chat.

A solid foundation, but no ninja yet

This is a solid foundation, but I do think there are some things lacking. I could identify more than two things, although I will limit myself in this post. Since I intend to spend more time in these two areas, they have to be fairly restricted and adding other areas will have to wait. These are the first two steps on my ninja course:

  • Become more flexible
  • Get good at handstand

The first area is quite self-explanatory, even though some introduction might be necessary. To begin with, I’m already quite flexible when it comes to the movements important for diving (such as pike). I’m also okay in some other areas, but the problem is that I completely suck at everything which involved bending backwards. This includes hip flexors, shoulders and abs, which are all too tight and stiff. Changing this takes practise over time, and even though I have improved, I’m not satisfied. Therefore, I pledge to spend at least 15 minutes/day stretching, with one day off a week. Stretching can be of any kind and of any muscle.

The second area might seem more puzzling. I can quite easily stand absolutely still on my hands for a minute, go from handstand to elbow-lever, do handstand push-ups and so on. This misses the point, however. I could do all these things a year ago as well. Simply put, having reached this level, I won’t advance if I don’t pay particular attention to handstand. I really like this kind of practise, so there is no reason I shouldn’t. So, to improve my handstand, I pledge to spend at least 15 minutes a day on my hands, also with one day off each week. This time should be interpreted loosely, I don’t meant 15 minutes effective time on my hands (i.e., I will count rests between sets and so on).

Encouragement and reporting

I’d appreciate any help and any encouragement, but remember that I don’t really need it now, but in a week or so. How about asking me regularly how things are going? I will probably write something about this later, but in the meantime any help is appreciated!

 

in Blog, In English, Physical | 2 comments

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Chinese proficiency report 13

2011-09-08

I haven’t written anything about learning Chinese for quite a while now, the previous proficiency report was written almost nine months ago. This is partly because I’ve been busy writing about how to learn Chinese. Although I have been studying Chinese on my own during this time, it hasn’t been the main focus in my life. Still, I have made considerably progress, even though much remains to learn.

In this post I will take the opportunity both to evaluate my own learning and plan ahead. I need more direction when studying and writing about that is one important step along the way. As usual, I will divide the post into several parts, but I will add two new areas, apart from the standard writing, reading, speaking and listening, namely meta-knowledge and vocabulary. Let’s remind ourselves of my overall goal first, though.

Overall learning goal: I want to take my Chinese to a level where I can manage an MA in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, taught in Chinese for Chinese-speaking students. Without dying. This mostly involves being able to swallow academic literature at a reasonable pace, being able to understand fast-paced, formal spoken Chinese, as well as being able to write formal Chinese with more fluency and accuracy.

Speaking

Reiterating what I said last time, I’ve spoken a lot more Chinese in Sweden than I ever thought I would, which is really good. I have improved my pronunciation, fluency and accuracy.

My pronunciation will probably never be perfect, but I feel that it’s getting quite good, at least when I have time to think (as when reading). What I mean is that I know how to pronounce Chinese really well, but I haven’t had enough practice to always speak that well. I don’t think there are many areas where I’m unable to pronounce things close to perfectly in a controlled situation.

I feel no big difference regarding fluency, although I no longer feel that it’s very taxing to speak Chinese for long stretches of time. I might also be able to discuss more complex topics, but having to clear benchmark it’s hard to say.

I think my main problem is accuracy. I can already make myself understood in most situations and I can do so with reasonably fluency, but I don’t always get it right grammatically. I find that this problem just grows bigger and bigger the more I explore it. At an advanced level, it becomes very clear that Chinese and English/Swedish are truly different languages.

The plan: I think I need to improve all the three areas I mention above, but some of them I do naturally without trying too much. Fluency will come automatically simply by speaking more. Pronunciation will slowly improve considering that I pay quite a lot of attention to how I speak even when I chat informally with friends. However, I do need to focus on pronunciation exclusively now and then to improve. Reading and recording texts and sending them to native speakers for correction would be a good idea. The problem of accuracy is more tricky, but can partly be solved in the same manner. In addition to recording my own speech, I can also ask people in my surrounding to pay more attention to how I speak and mistakes I make. I need this kind of negative feedback since it’s impossible for me to figure out these things on my own. So, here’s a distilled version of the plan:

  • Keep talking Chinese focusing on pronunciation
  • Record texts and have them corrected
  • Ask people to pay closer attention and correct mistakes

Listening

Even though I feel like I haven’t improved much since last year, I really think that I have. Last time I wrote that one tricky part was listening to a group of native speakers chatting and participate in that conversation. I could do that before as well, but now I feel that I can follow almost any conversation if I really pay attention. I feel less like the stupid foreigner and more like a part of the group. There might be other things that set me aside, but I do feel that listening ability is becoming less and less of a problem.

This, however, doesn’t include formal Chinese. I haven’t practised listening to news broadcasts nearly as much as I should. I’m mostly listening in a friendly environment and if I really don’t understand something, I can usually ask and have someone repeat it. If I want to achieve my overall learning goal, I need to be proficient enough to listen to formal Chinese and be able to follow along without too much trouble.

The plan: I have said many times that the key to listening ability is to listen more, quantity is king. Still, I haven’t listened to that much spoken Chinese recently, apart from what I get naturally by speaking Chinese with friends. I need to enter the daunting jungle of more formal spoken Chinese, such as that being used in news broadcasts and audio books. There is no shortcut here, but I have several ideas on how to make this more interesting or more connected with other things I’m learning.

  • Listen to radio broadcasts more, including formal Chinese
  • Devise exercises or tasks that connects listening to other areas

Writing

As usual, it’s tricky for me to compare articles I’ve written myself, but I can compare the content. A year ago, I wrote mostly about things that happened in my life, about books I read or certain ideas I wanted to express. Recently, I’ve spent a lot more time translating from English or Swedish to Chinese. I believe this is better practice because it forces me to express certain things that might be difficult (if I use my own words, I can change the content to fit my language ability).

Translating to Chinese has lead me to discover that Chinese is quite hard to master if accuracy is what counts. There are so many things I don’t know, so many words that might mean the right thing but cannot be used in such and such a situation. Still, I do think that this is extremely good and I intend to continue doing so. If you want to check how I’m doing, check out my Chinese blog.

The plan: The problem I would face right now if I were to attempt studying on an advanced level in a Chinese-speaking environment is two-fold: handwriting and formal Chinese. I think the translation will help me to acquire a more formal language and also express more complex and difficult topics, compared with writing diary entries and commenting on current events. I think I should diversify the sources a bit, including areas that lie close to what I would like to study in the future.

Handwriting does itself contain two problems. If I want to teach Chinese professionally, I need to be able to write Chinese more accurately and I need to be able to actively recall a lot more characters. I also must learn more character parts and etymology. In order to survive courses taught in Chinese, I also need to be able to write Chinese fluently by hand. I can’t do that now. I can recognise around four thousand characters, but I can write approximately half of them. That’s not good enough. Also, some characters require time before I recall how to write them. If I’m going to sit exams in Chinese, I have to be able to write without stopping to think too much on how to write any given character. Thus, more handwriting!

  • Deliberately focus on understanding character parts and etymology
  • Spend more time writing by hand, regardless of the content

Reading

Last time, I had just finished my first novel in Chinese. Since then, I’ve read several, all of them intended for adults and some with quite complex (although familiar) content. I feel that my reading ability is steadily increasing and I seldom come across things I don’t understand at all. I haven’t found a good way to measure reading speed, but I’m slowly beginning to get the hang of reading more quickly.

The plan: I can identify two problems with reading. First, I need to be able to read advanced texts related to my subjects, i.e. teaching and Chinese. I should start reading handbooks, articles and papers in Chinese about learning Chinese as a second language. I’m going to need that knowledge later and the content might prove interesting as well. Second, I need to improve reading speed. This just involves reading and reading a lot, it doesn’t really matter what it is. Increasing the amount of Chinese I’m exposed to is also a good idea in general, so I think I should go for a mix between difficult texts to learn more useful vocabulary and how to parse more complex sentences, and easier texts simply for quantity and strengthening feeling for grammar and word usage.

  • Read difficult articles in topics related to teaching and/or Chinese
  • Read as much as possible on any level and of any kind

Vocabulary

I’ve decided to separate vocabulary from the rest of this post simply because it’s relevant for all four of them and doesn’t belong simply to reading, where it was somewhat arbitrarily put before. I maintain that vocabulary is the single most important aspect of language learning, even at quite an advanced level. I still stumble upon fairly commons words I don’t know, even though they become more and more infrequent. There is also a plethora of more formal words I still need to learn, not least words related to education science and applied linguistics.

I seem to keep on learning words even though I often say that I probably will focus less on vocabulary. Last year, I had 12 500 words in my Anki deck. Now I have close to 16 500, which is an increase of 4000 words in nine months, resulting in about fifteen words per day. Not bad. Consider also that I have learnt how to write most simplified characters and that I also have a deck consisting of the 500 most irregular or special simplified characters.

The plan: I really don’t think more words is a reasonable goal to pursue, but I really like learning/knowing words, so I seem stuck with that. I should try to focus my learning more in the direction I want to go later, so reading difficult texts as I described above and extracting relevant vocabulary seems like a good idea indeed. Apart from that, I need to focus more on the words I’ve already learnt, which is tied to what I said about accuracy above. I know lots of words, but I need to understand better how to use them.

  • Keep on learning words as long as it is fun
  • Learn more advanced vocabulary in relevant areas
  • Focus on word usage more than mere recall

Meta-knowledge

I’ve always been a person who values meta-knowledge. I like to understand what I’m doing and I want to understand the processes involved. Simply knowing Chinese very well is not enough. Basically, the knowledge I strive for can be divided into two parts: knowledge about learning and knowledge about Chinese.

Knowledge about learning involves reading more scientific writing about second language acquisition and trying to find ways to apply this to Chinese. Knowledge about Chinese involves theoretical knowledge about etymology, phonology, semantics, grammar and many other things. I know quite a lot already, but far from enough.

The plan: My career is in one way or another based on knowing Chinese quite well, but it’s also based on being able to express that knowledge. Increasing my knowledge about Chinese is at least part reflected in my wish to learn more about characters, but it’s about more than that. I need to read more scientific articles and books. The same is true for knowledge about learning.

  • Read books about second language acquisition
  • Read scientific material about the Chinese language
  • Practice expressing knowledge about grammar, phonology, characters, etc.

Conclusion

This post ended up being horrendously long-winded, but I felt that I needed to talk through what I have to do if I’m going to reach my goal. I have few people in my vicinity who want to or is able to listen to and understand what I’ve written here. I don’t expect anyone to have read this far, but if you really have and feel that you have something to contribute or point out, feel free to leave a comment!

in 101 in 1001, Chinese, In English | 9 comments

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Back flip and muscle-up to handstand on rings

2011-07-15

A few weeks ago, I published a post about some things I wanted to achieve before the end of the summer. I also have my 101-in-1001 list that contain some of these (and some more). This post is about two of these goals, which I have achieved. I will also say something about practising in general.

Back flip

Being able to do a back flip on solid ground has been a goal of mine for quite some time. I think I have quite reasonable technique from practising diving, but that isn’t really enough to succeed. However, once I started practising this consistently, it wasn’t very hard. The following clip is far from the best back flip I’ve done, but it’s the best I have recorded and it will have to do.

Back flip

The next step is starting linking various moves together, so round off to back flip, back handspring to back flip are all on the menu. I just need to start learning to do proper round offs and handsprings.

Muscle-up to handstand on rings

This took a lot more effort than the back flip. It took a while just to be able to do the muscle-up properly (okay, I’m not saying that the muscle up here is very good, but I’m doing it with relative ease anyway). Then, learning to go from some kind of tuck planche to handstand in rings turned out to be a bit tricky, but I was able to do this the first time after practising quite intensely for a few weeks more. Again, the below clip is not the best I’ve done, but it’s still proof that I’ve accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.

Muscle-up to handstand

Some random thoughts

I think practising is going quite well at the moment. I’m slowly making progress in lots of areas and this post just shows a few examples. I’ve also been working on my tucked planche, with the aim of reaching a straddle planche (which still feels quite far away). For those of you who don’t know what a tucked planche looks like, this is me performing one in March. I should have become significantly stronger since then, though.

Tuck planche

Also, I occasionally try to approach the pommel horse, but apparently, I haven’t learnt how to ride a pony yet and often end up like this:

in 101 in 1001, Physical | No comments

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