Which TV shows do you mean? Which channel you mean (please give the name and the number, as I suppose in different cities the channel numbers might be different, I’m not sure) – and when (day, hour) are they broadcast? I am interested.

Great! It’s of course particularly interesting because you didn’t spend more time. Sure, if a method means it’s easier to spend more time and thus learn more, that’s great, but if you can spend the same amount of time and learn more, that’s even better. 🙂

Hi,
Just sharing my experiences since joining the challenge.
I have tried to follow your rules for 5-6 weeks now. I must say my progress has been great. I can’t past in the progress graphs here but if you bear with me I would like to give you a few figures.
nov 26 to dec 24:
char writing : -36
char definition: -58
char tone: – 65
word writing: +5
word definition: +17
word tone: -12.
In other words: I was losing it.
dec 31 to Jan 28
char writing : +72
char definition: +99
char tone: +67
word writing: +77
word definition: +81
word tone: +87.

In the first period I spend 13+ hours studying; in the second period almost 14 hours, so it is not as if I spent more time on my studies.

And success is also very motivating. Before starting with the challenge I often didn’t have the energy to spend more time on new (chinesepod for me) lessons, because I felt I should spend more time on memorizing the vocabulary I had already (sort of) acquired. But now, I feel I can go on, so I have been taking up more lessons this last month.

Marc

Yes. I do only writing in Skritter, the rest in Anki.

On the other hand, I learned rather quickly that when I gave my Chinese name verbally or on a telephone, I didn’t have the normal tool of spelling my name to verify it was correct. I have to explain which “Hwang” and which “He” I meant by saying in Chinese that my “Hwang” was the one that indicated the color yellow or was the same as the emperor Hwang Di, and that the He was the bird, not the river.

What’s the advantage with this approach? We you are actual able to verbally confirm what you have said without writing out characters or reaching for a dictionary. Some people try writing characters in the air (often backwards to the viewer) or on the palm of their hand. But this is a real communicative skill – confirming what you have said. And I cannot seem to find any texts that teach it. But it does serve two purposes at the same time; [a] enhances your ability to communicate, [b] creates another associative scheme that is based on the phonology of the character, NOT the written image.

I must say it sure helps when you want to tell a taxi driver a street name. You actually get where you want to go, not diverted to far afield.

Try to remember that you need to acquire a phonological knowledge and expressiveness just as much as a visual knowledge and expressiveness.

I think you can just turn off the tone cards. I only do writing and meaning cards.

Look under settings -> vocab

So I ended up collecting the tough characters and specifically reviewing them – for example the different trees like elm, pine, paulownia are hard to differentiate if you do nt have really strong mnemonics. so I wrote them out side by side and made sure they were differentiated enough. I stop and strengthen stories for every fail using visualisation and adding details. I also find that using themes for certain common components helps – for example the tree radical becomes an Ent from LOTR, giving it personality and stories to draw upon. I added this after failing too many tree cards.

Have not joined the list as I have a busy work schedule to juggle but I do support this effort and believe its a great approach. Brute forcing memorization is inefficient. The main reason it is inefficient is that if you fail, there is no fallback. Good mnemonics give you a fallback that will strengthen the memory each time they are used. Failure should be treated as failure of the mnemonic, not just the memorization.

Great tip on the anki leech limit, I think 3-4 is a much better limit for active study.

I wish you all good learning!

Oh, sorry, I said Japanese 201, but I meant to say I jumped into Japanese 202. While I tried jumping into Chinese 201, and failed.