the TV method answers

The following are answers to the questions from my previous post, two thousand hours. I'm glad to see there are still some people interested in the TV method. Thanks to all my readers, especially those who left a comment or question.

The first set of questions came from William.

• How well do you feel that you understand dialog in TV shows?

two thousand hours

I have just completed 2000 hours of watching TV in Chinese. Hip hip hooray!

This completes my 2000 hour silent period, and I now give myself permission to speak Chinese freely. Except for one restriction! I will not speak until I'm ready (haha). That is, not until I am ready to record my first Chinese conversation with a native speaker.  Hopefully that will be sooner than later.  I wouldn't want to cheat anybody by having a warm-up period, that is, getting a little practice off camera. No, I just want to record my very first real conversation.  And hopefully when it's done, we'll be able to call it a conversation too.

I'm curious to see how I sound speaking Chinese and if I've learned any useful words or phrases from all these dramas I've watched.

2010 test results

This year I took 4 tests, all of them in the Japanese language, and I would like to share the results with you. Not all of the outcomes were necessarily good. In fact, one of them is embarrassing, but I won't omit it because I am not sharing the results to say that I am good at Japanese or any such thing. Those who have been following me know that I am not like that and I am very critical of my abilities. I am my 2nd biggest critic!

reasons to go for a native accent

Below, you'll find two articles that show how an accent will affect a listener. If you want to be more easily understood as well as appear more trustworthy, you'd better speak like the native speakers that you're talking to.