How do you study a year's worth of language in two months?

[yummymangosdigested]

My Chinese teacher has permitted me to study a year of Chinese over the summer, and this will put me into IB Chinese B SL. The course progression of foreign languages goes like this: freshman year -- Chinese 100, sophomore year -- Chinese 200, junior year -- IB Chinese B SL (300), and senior year -- IB Chinese B SL (400), and then we take the IB Chinese B SL test in our senior year. Since I will be studying over the summer, I will be taking IB Chinese B SL a year earlier and have the chance to study IB Chinese B HL (500) if I find myself truly loving the subject and language. I learn languages fast, but I have never done it in two months before.

However, I am not a native speaker of Mandarin, and therefore, I will naturally struggle with studying Chinese. Are there any studying techniques available specifically to retain what I study over the summer?

[IBPRO]

On 6/2/2019 at 1:02 AM, yummymangosdigested said:

My Chinese teacher has permitted me to study a year of Chinese over the summer, and this will put me into IB Chinese B SL. The course progression of foreign languages goes like this: freshman year -- Chinese 100, sophomore year -- Chinese 200, junior year -- IB Chinese B SL (300), and senior year -- IB Chinese B SL (400), and then we take the IB Chinese B SL test in our senior year. Since I will be studying over the summer, I will be taking IB Chinese B SL a year earlier and have the chance to study IB Chinese B HL (500) if I find myself truly loving the subject and language. I learn languages fast, but I have never done it in two months before.

However, I am not a native speaker of Mandarin, and therefore, I will naturally struggle with studying Chinese. Are there any studying techniques available specifically to retain what I study over the summer?

Hi,

There are several techniques that can support you in retention techniques; it's important you find one/s that work best for you. Languages, for better or worse, require time and much review: not many people can learn a language without putting in many hours memorizing words/phrases/structures etc. 

A system that is well researched and effective (again, there is no one system for everyone) is the daily/weekly notes review.  Every day, review the day's lessons.  Every week, review the notes from your daily lessons. It is simple and not necessarily time consuming, but the consistency is key. Apply this to your language learning and see how it goes!

I'm happy to give more support, just let me know.  You can check out my bonafides in my profile.

Good luck!

Cheers,

Rob