I’ve mentioned before that I like to keep track of the time I spend studying Chinese in an effort to keep me honest. I think it’s paid off in 2019 as I was able to keep going through the HSK books while also adding more materials to my studies. The amazing thing about 2019 was that I was actually able to spend over 500 hours studying Mandarin Chinese!
I did NOT start the year thinking of hitting that number but, as December progressed and it became clear the accumulated total number of hours I’d spent, I figured I’d go for a round number. You’ll see in that screenshot above that the total number of hours per day for the last few days was around 3 to 4 hours, made easier by the fact that I listen to a lot of Chinese radio. Sadly, speaking has yet to become a regular fixture in my studies but I’ll work on that in the new year.
Anyway, in an effort to help others keep on with their studies and to keep track of how I have progressed, I’ve decided to publish the spreadsheets tracking my study hours over the entire year. The spreadsheets start with December 2018 (but the 2019 annual total doesn’t include it) because that’s when I made the conscious effort to actually begin studying the language in earnest. You’ll see, as you scroll through them, how I slowly added more time studying every month. This wasn’t a conscious decision but I attribute it to things getting easier. That is, I was able to study more efficiently and incorporate studying into my daily routine.
I see now that it took me from February until August to completely pass through HSK 3, from textbook to test. Currently, I started the HSK 4 books in August 2019 and will probably (hopefully) finish by the end of February. After that, I’ll try to schedule the test for March or April meaning it would take about about 8 or 9 months to get through the whole level, provided I pass the test on the first try. This is also an indication of how long it could take me to complete level 5 which requires knowing about 2500 characters, up from the 1200 in level 4. We’ll see how this progresses.
2019 Did see me complete my first full book in Chinese. Granted, it was an illustrated history book but I did read it through and made a vocabulary list. That is one accomplishment for the year. You can read about my progress through HSK 4 so far in this other post.
Towards the end of the year, however, I started reading more “real Chinese” by way of newspapers, delivery menus, and now magazines and another history book. I figure if I can’t start using the language now for something more purposeful rather than simply as a study subject, then I probably won’t be able to sustain my motivation to keep going through the HSK books.
And so, going forward, I am going to keep adding to my “real Chinese” usage while also making my way through the HSK 4 books and the Basic Chinese Grammar book. I’d like to see if I can increase my contact time with the language overall and possibly double the number of hours throughout 2020. I figure if I could hit 90 hours of contact time (including passive listening and focused study) in December, then I could probably do it again and make it a regular habit. Ninety hours x 12 months = 1080 hours for the year. I can only imagine how my language would develop over that time.
The one other benefit of having tracked all of my study time is that I can finally see the structure of my studies and how I’ve been able to incorporate the language into my daily activities. This now gives me a better idea of a structure to use should I decide to pick up another language after Mandarin or should I decide to revisit some of the other languages I’ve studied before.
Anyway, you can find the spreadsheets for my Chinese studies for 2019 below:
