What a year... I got sick with a respiratory bug this month (not SARS-CoV-2, fortunately) and couldn't muster the breath to do any good pronunciation practice for a while. Today I felt recovered enough (yay!) to get in some decent pronunciation practice with Pimsleur and Mango Languages. I'm ready to rack up those listening hours next month. Hope everyone is having a fabulous New Year!

Long, long day. Got 15 minutes in with Mango, but I think that’s all that’s in the cards for me tonight. Looking forward to a better day tomorrow.

* Viewed and practices with Chinese Zero to Hero Phonetics with Chinese Characteristics video, "Pronouncing er and using erhua"
* Practiced better pronouncing words I knew better (会，说）and a couple more with Mango languages lesson
* Continued to hypothesize about how every bit of Pinyin should sound, noting when I was wrong. Super-tedious, but I'm almost done. In a few more days, I should be able to turn to practicing stuff I got wrong and moving ahead.
* Review notes Outlier Mandarin Pronunciation & Accent Masterclass notes. There's a lot there. The Pinyin review is driven by their advice. Looking forward to moving through that an onto tone combination practice, their next recommended step.
* Listened closely to Immersive Mandarin Lesson 14, trying to build a betters sense of how all that familiar vocab should really sound.

Tough night. Kinda low motivation, but I still powered through learning some new vocab in Mango Languages, spending extra time on the pronunciation, natch. Next, I completed all the tone exercises in Lesson 4 of the Outlier Linguistics Mandarin Pronunciation Accent Masterclass.

* More progress on various bits and bobs. Tried Bluebird for a second time, but using the daily lesson instead of focusing on a section like Tessa is doing. Seems like the latter is probably a more smarter way to use the app. Also did another lesson with Mango, using the audio compare tool frequently. I think I'm going to stick with Mango for the rest of the challenge and come back to Bluebird later.

* Continued testing my expected pronunciation of Pinyin vs. correct pronunciation. But now instead of listing trouble sounds, I'm highlighting them in my own Pinyin table so I can see more clearly the clusters of sounds that I need to work on. It's still really tedious, but I like the idea of having a stronger grasp on Pinyin.

* Mimicked a bunch of short phrases from Chinese Zero to Hero. Despite the tediousness of doing that, it feels like it's giving me the most immediate payoff. An John suggests in the Outlier pronunciation class, "Don't practice until you get it right; practice until you can't get it wrong." That's the goal. What's required to get there? Advice from John again: "Focused and intensive listening, imitation, and repetition."

Onward.

Mixed bag today. Did some work in Mango Languages and made some further progress with the Outlier Mandarin Pronunciation & Accent Masterclass. Fell down a rabbit hole looking for an affordable copy of Donald N. Larson's "Guidelines for Barefoot Language Learning: An Approach Through Involvement and Independence." Wont' do that again.

Switched things up today. Worked on mimicking all the phrases in lessons 12 and 13 of Immersive Chinese, then spent some time in Mango Languages. I forgot that Mango offers that great audio recording feature that allows for playback of my own audio at the same time as the native speaker audio! It even shows the waveform for both. Good stuff.

• Continued searched for pinyin sounds I need to work on, looking at each initial/final combination, then saying it ahead of listening to a native speaker recording. When I'm wrong, it goes on the list for review and practice. It's a very tedious process, especially after having studied Mandarin for nearly two years now. But like so many people, I breezed through the pronunciation section at the beginning of my textbooks and, though I've developed decent pronunciation, still have a long way to go.

My motivation for this project stems from the Outlier Linguistics Mandarin Pronunciation & Accent Masterclass. From my notes: "汉语拼音 (Hànyǔ pīnyīn) is a system of notating Mandarin sounds using the Latin alphabet. Some of the letters may denote sounds that you don't expect them to, and others may denote multiple sounds that change depending on what comes before and after. However, it's a very consistent system, and once you learn all the rules, you'll easily be able to look at a syllable written in pīnyīn and be able to pronounce it correctly in Mandarin. It's the most common system." New combos I added to my to-work-on list this evening: tai, tou, tun, nou, nuo, nun, nian, nüe, lou, leng, long, luo, lun, lüe

• Watched/practiced with Chinese Zero to Hero "Phonetics with Chinese Characteristics" course videos "3.3 - Pronouncing zhi, chi, shi and ri" and "1.4.3 - Pronouncing the character 一 ." Also reviewed "Pronunciation 1.4.2 - Pronouncing n and ng consonants." It's a free course and is in my opinion *really* good for English speakers trying to get a handle on good pronunciation. It's not the same depth-level as the Outlier course, but it's super-clear and fun. https://chinesezerotohero.teachable.com/p/phonetics-with-chinese-characteristics

• Practiced saying "我不是美国人." a bunch of times. LOL! Don't know when I'm ever going to need to say that. But now I can pronounce it pretty well.

* Searched for pinyin sounds I need to work on by using my favorite male-voiced Pinyin Chart (http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/). Looked at each initial/final combination, then said it. When I'm wrong, it goes on the list for later review and practice. Combos I need to work on so far: bai, beng, bi, bian, bing, pou, peng, pie, pian, ping, mai, mao, mou, meng, fou, feng, den, diu, dian
* Reviewed notes from Outlier Linguistics Mandarin Pronunciation & Accent Masterclass
* Chorusing: Working in Audacity, as suggested by John Renfroe, to chorus with audio clip of Jon Long saying "我是学上." Over and over! But got a bit better as I went.