{"id":7827,"date":"2016-06-14T15:37:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T14:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=7827"},"modified":"2016-06-14T21:02:29","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T20:02:29","slug":"dont-forget-to-consolidate-the-chinese-you-have-already-learnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/dont-forget-to-consolidate-the-chinese-you-have-already-learnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t forget to consolidate the Chinese you have already studied"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"consolidate<\/a>

Image credit: Severin Stalder<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

When learning Chinese (or anything else for that matter),\u00a0both students and teachers tend to put focus on conquering new territory rather than consolidating what you already have.<\/p>\n

This means an emphasis on learning new characters over becoming more secure in your knowledge of those you’ve already studied, or working quickly through a textbook without\u00a0caring too much how much of the content you actually learn.<\/p>\n

I don’t mean to say that you need to master everything on a certain level or in a certain area before you move to the next, but I am saying that never spending time on consolidating what you have learnt is really bad.<\/p>\n

Don’t forget to consolidate the Chinese you have already studied<\/h3>\n

This is part of the reason why this month’s learning challenge is about benchmarking<\/a>\u00a0(no, it’s not too late to join). That’s a great way of taking a step back and gain a better understanding both of what you do know and what you don’t.<\/p>\n

If you evaluate your current progress and really think that charging ahead at full speed is what would benefit you the most, then of course do that! I’ve done several such attack runs myself<\/a>. However, you can’t only do that, or you will end up with a top-heavy proficiency<\/a> (knowing lots of difficult things, but having a bad foundation).<\/p>\n

Full speed ahead isn’t always the best option<\/h3>\n

After evaluating your current situation, you might find that your main problem isn’t that you don’t know enough Chinese, but that you don’t know how to use what you have already studied. In my experience, this is much more likely to be the problem!\u00a0You can get far with limited knowledge if your foundation is very stable. It will also make it easier to build up to an advanced skill as you learn more.<\/p>\n

Here are a few examples of how you can consolidate instead of conquer, but before you try to implement any of these, make sure you understand the concept of time quality<\/a>. In short, you should do some of the easier things here when you can’t do harder things.<\/p>\n