I'm currently on a Chinese language-learning roll, thanks to two recent developments. The first is that I decided to try out some Chinese flashcard software on my iPod Touch, and ended deciding to buy the flashcard add-on to my brilliant Pleco Chinese dictionary. The Pleco flashcard functionality turned out to be also brilliant, so I've been adding and reviewing new words for a couple of weeks now, and have already learned about 150 new words. Since vocabulary is by far my weakest area, this is, as I have already alluded to, brilliant.
The second development is my decision that all words are equally worth learning. For a long time, I ignored words that didn't seem immediately useful. But now I think I've reached the point where I need to learn everything I can, as it's surprising how many apparently obscure words come up in ordinary conversation. So for example, I've recently learned the word for "yeast", the phrase "socialism with Chinese characteristics" (i.e. capitalism), and the word "hétóng", which is actually the Chinese pronunciation of a Japanese water sprite. I shouldn't exaggerate; most of the words I'm now learning are still what I would classify as core vocabulary. For example, the five new words I've added most recently to my flashcards are "puppet", "rubber", "washer (the kind that goes on a screw)", "rust", and "design".
In that list, one out of the five words, "washer", is arguably less common. When I get to the point when four out five words is uncommon, then I'll probably feel that I speak fluently. I don't know how long that will take, but it will be a fraction of the time that it would be without the Pleco flashcards.
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