User Comments - ElijahW
ElijahW
Posted on: Tips on How To Prepare for the HSK
October 28, 2018 at 9:00 AMDeathNevermore,
Congratulations on passing the 2 so quickly!
My experience is that listening and making sentences correctly are closely linked. The good news is that those problems are easily fixable. The bad news is that it's not necessarily a quick fix.
The way it worked for me is that I started with Pimsleur. It forces you in every single lesson to learn by making sentences, and speaking them out loud. Pimsleur is famously expensive, but in many places you can get it free at a public library. Also, Pimsleur started moving towrad a subscription-based business model recently that some people are excited about: https://subscription.pimsleur.com/. Pimsleur doesn't take you very far, so it's really just an introduction to spoken Chinese. Do not purchase the lessons, and do not pay for Premium. If you pay, get the cheapest subscription option possible. Anything else is a waste of money in my opinion.
After about 60 lessons of Pimsleur, I moved on to ChinesePod, where the critical thing I did was to memorize the dialogues. At the Newbie level, every single line of every single lesson I did was worth memorizing. After that, I re-listened to every dialogue 3 times a day for a month. I really had every phrase burned so deeply into my brain that I could "feel" when a sentence was correct or not. I did this for about 100 Newbie lessons, and well over 100 Elementary lessons. This was foundational for both my ability with grammar and listening.
As far as listening goes, are you familiar with "Hacking Chinese"? There's a lot of helpful discussion on listening here: https://www.hackingchinese.com/listening-strategies-an-introduction/.
Posted on: Five ways of seeing: 看、见、看见、看到、看出
October 28, 2018 at 9:00 AMDeathNevermore,
Congratulations on passing the 2 so quickly!
My experience is that listening and making sentences correctly are closely linked. The good news is that those problems are easily fixable. The bad news is that it's not necessarily a quick fix.
The way it worked for me is that I started with Pimsleur. It forces you in every single lesson to learn by making sentences, and speaking them out loud. Pimsleur is famously expensive, but in many places you can get it free at a public library. Also, Pimsleur started moving towrad a subscription-based business model recently that some people are excited about: https://subscription.pimsleur.com/. Pimsleur doesn't take you very far, so it's really just an introduction to spoken Chinese. Do not purchase the lessons, and do not pay for Premium. If you pay, get the cheapest subscription option possible. Anything else is a waste of money in my opinion.
After about 60 lessons of Pimsleur, I moved on to ChinesePod, where the critical thing I did was to memorize the dialogues. At the Newbie level, every single line of every single lesson I did was worth memorizing. After that, I re-listened to every dialogue 3 times a day for a month. I really had every phrase burned so deeply into my brain that I could "feel" when a sentence was correct or not. I did this for about 100 Newbie lessons, and well over 100 Elementary lessons. This was foundational for both my ability with grammar and listening.
As far as listening goes, are you familiar with "Hacking Chinese"? There's a lot of helpful discussion on listening here: https://www.hackingchinese.com/listening-strategies-an-introduction/.
Posted on: Tips on How To Prepare for the HSK
October 25, 2018 at 1:01 PMKlausthul,
I have not been able to dig up any more information on the HSK in Taiwan. If you try to use Hanban's official website to register for the HSK in Asia outside the Mainland, Hong Kong is listed, but not Taiwan. If there is some obscure possibility of taking the HSK in Taiwan, it would be some kind of special situation, and it's doubtful I'd be able to find out about it. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
Posted on: Five ways of seeing: 看、见、看见、看到、看出
October 25, 2018 at 1:01 PMKlausthul,
I have not been able to dig up any more information on the HSK in Taiwan. If you try to use Hanban's official website to register for the HSK in Asia outside the Mainland, Hong Kong is listed, but not Taiwan. If there is some obscure possibility of taking the HSK in Taiwan, it would be some kind of special situation, and it's doubtful I'd be able to find out about it. Sorry I couldn't be more help.
Posted on: Tips on How To Prepare for the HSK
October 19, 2018 at 10:58 PMThe further I get with vocabulary, the more I’m beginning to think that the HSK 6 vocabulary list is actually a stroke of genius. That was part of my reason for quoting Quinn Cash above, rather than making my own observation - I wanted to somewhat keep the door open to praise the HSK 6 vocabulary.
Instead of being the 5,000 most common words (which the HSK 6 vocabulary list most obviously isn’t), it’s a broad sampling of vocabulary across the entire spectrum. My current vocabulary is around 20,000 words (like an average high school graduate), and I’m actively pushing my way up to 30,000 words (like an average college graduate).
More and more I’m discovering that a lot of the HSK 6 vocabulary (even the chengyu) lie in this range.
But, due to China’s history of having two almost completely separate languages for speaking and writing, the words in that range are rarely spoken. Even after the May 4th 白话 movement, those cultural roots still run deep. Hence the complete absence of those words from 口语 curriculum - including ChinesePod. They stay almost exclusively on the written page.
Posted on: Five ways of seeing: 看、见、看见、看到、看出
October 19, 2018 at 10:58 PMThe further I get with vocabulary, the more I’m beginning to think that the HSK 6 vocabulary list is actually a stroke of genius. That was part of my reason for quoting Quinn Cash above, rather than making my own observation - I wanted to somewhat keep the door open to praise the HSK 6 vocabulary.
Instead of being the 5,000 most common words (which the HSK 6 vocabulary list most obviously isn’t), it’s a broad sampling of vocabulary across the entire spectrum. My current vocabulary is around 20,000 words (like an average high school graduate), and I’m actively pushing my way up to 30,000 words (like an average college graduate).
More and more I’m discovering that a lot of the HSK 6 vocabulary (even the chengyu) lie in this range.
But, due to China’s history of having two almost completely separate languages for speaking and writing, the words in that range are rarely spoken. Even after the May 4th 白话 movement, those cultural roots still run deep. Hence the complete absence of those words from 口语 curriculum - including ChinesePod. They stay almost exclusively on the written page.
Posted on: Tips on How To Prepare for the HSK
October 17, 2018 at 1:22 AMMisterXia,
I really don’t know how much employers depend on HSK scores. My current employer is Chinese and speaks very little English, and my impression was that the main factors for me getting the job were (1) recommendation from a friend and (2) our actual communication (interview). I imagine having a degree in Chinese was also big. I had the HSK on my resume, and I’m not sure how much that influenced the decision. I do know that the company is happy to know that they have someone with an HSK 6 certificate in the company.
If I were you, I’d give an HSK 6 practice test a single try. It will tale a couple of hours, plus the cost of the paper to print it. If you find it useful, you could continue with it. If not, I think you’d be fine to forget about it.
I find it to be a useful motivator with an objective goal. But, I do tend to prepare for it by NOT preparing for it. Even though the HSK has some obscure vocabulary and odd conversations, it’s still Chinese. The better I know Chinese, the better my score will be. I spend the vast majority of my time on advanced ChinesePod lessons (the ones with XuZhou), because at this stage, that’s what I like.
Posted on: Five ways of seeing: 看、见、看见、看到、看出
October 17, 2018 at 1:22 AMMisterXia,
I really don’t know how much employers depend on HSK scores. My current employer is Chinese and speaks very little English, and my impression was that the main factors for me getting the job were (1) recommendation from a friend and (2) our actual communication (interview). I imagine having a degree in Chinese was also big. I had the HSK on my resume, and I’m not sure how much that influenced the decision. I do know that the company is happy to know that they have someone with an HSK 6 certificate in the company.
If I were you, I’d give an HSK 6 practice test a single try. It will tale a couple of hours, plus the cost of the paper to print it. If you find it useful, you could continue with it. If not, I think you’d be fine to forget about it.
I find it to be a useful motivator with an objective goal. But, I do tend to prepare for it by NOT preparing for it. Even though the HSK has some obscure vocabulary and odd conversations, it’s still Chinese. The better I know Chinese, the better my score will be. I spend the vast majority of my time on advanced ChinesePod lessons (the ones with XuZhou), because at this stage, that’s what I like.
Posted on: Tips on How To Prepare for the HSK
October 17, 2018 at 12:33 AMNot really. Hanban also has the YCT (Youth Chinese Test) and the BCT (Business Chinese Test). Neither of them go as high as the HSK 6.
Hanban recently started an exam for prospective teachers of Chinese as a foreign language (info here). It’s fairly new. I’ll be looking into it more thoroughly in the future.
Posted on: Five ways of seeing: 看、见、看见、看到、看出
November 5, 2018 at 1:26 PMHello MayHaNN, and welcome to the world of Chinese learning!
I'm glad the interview was encouraging. I'm also glad to hear that you're going to give the HSK a try. I've heard of Zero to Hero before, but never had any experience with it. After you've used it for a while, would you mind coming back here and letting us know about your experience with it?
Good luck on the HSK 1!