I just finished my 2nd viewing of this Chinese TV drama at 11 AM. As I said before, I can understand a lot more in this drama than my first one. I probably understand double. It makes me feel like my Chinese is really improving a lot, but I know it's just a difference in the two dramas. At any rate, my Chinese understanding is definitely improving. Knowing what is going to happen next in the drama allows me to pick up on the meaning of more words. The first time I watched the drama, I never picked up on the word for "to run away." This time I caught the word and then it showed up several more times after that. It makes me wonder why I didn't catch it on the first viewing. When I picked up on it for the first time, it was very obvious that one person was telling the other person to run away. He had captured the guy and then let him go but of course the man will say he escaped. So he was telling that guy to run away. I could see the action. It made sense. Did I need a dictionary? No, of course not. Later times in the drama when the word was used again about another person who ran away, there was no action to be seen, but I knew the story and recognized the word. I was able to reinforce the meaning and reassure myself that I had understood correctly.
The thing I like about Chinese is that the words have only one form. Whether it is a command or a statement of the future, past or present, the word itself is always the same. In English, verbs may have up to 3 forms, for example, see, saw and seen. In Romance languages there are more conjugations. In Japanese, there are tons of forms. I posted an example of this when I counted 31 forms of the verb "speak" in Japanese.
Well, that's another 25 hours down. How many more to go? Lots for sure. It seems like I can do about 100 hours a month. I do need to get some more dramas though. Since my 3rd one is not suitable for repeated viewing, I only have 2 dramas. I did find what looks to be a great site online for ordering videos. I will let you know about it after I have tried it out.
It has been 3 months since I started on the TV method. Not every month has been the same number of hours. In the beginning I used only online TV but found myself spending too much time searching for stations that were airing something good. Then I bought a Chinese drama on DVD. I watched it the first time in a week, but the second viewing took 3 weeks. Then I bought a 2nd drama and then a 3rd. I also bought a portable DVD player. I like to call it a language acquisition device. Now I feel like I'm going at full speed. The next 3 months should yield some big improvements.
I won't rely on my memory. When I pick up new words I know that I'll need to keep hearing them. I won't expect to be able to use any new words. If a word is new then it hasn't been acquired yet. When a word becomes old is when it has been acquired. Hey, this will be a good topic for a new post! Thanks!
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