I have completed 400 hours of viewing, which is 1/3 of the total planned time for my experiment!

Today I updated some tables, statistics, and graphs to provide a summary of my experiment thus far. I will not assess or comment in much detail on my progress or results obtained. I am doing that each time I complete an additional 10% of my experiment, so I will provide the next progress update when I reach 480 hours, or 40%. If you are interested in my progress, you can read about my recent careful self-assessment conducted at the 30% mark.

As the following graph illustrates, I am averaging nearly 41 minutes per day, above the minimum 30 minutes I planned at the outset. I began my experiment on January 17, 2014. Last December, January, and February were the months I did the most Chinese viewing. Since then, I have been averaging about 30 minutes a day again.

In previous versions of this graph, I also included my daughter’s progress, but in the past few months, she has done practically no viewing.

Though once again I would refer readers to my June post for discussion of the results, I will reproduce the graph in which I contrast the time I have spent on my experiment to my estimated comprehension.

I created a new graph today to track my vocabulary acquisition. The data comes mostly from my word-a-day database, in which I make note, by means of a phonetic approximation, of words I am able to decipher from the movies and other viewing sources. I developed a simple spaced-repetition system within the database. When I watch that same video a second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc.) time, my database provides me with a list of the words I wrote down for that specific source. As I watch and review the words in context, I assess my own mastery of them as hard (not at all mastered), medium, easy, or mastered.

My database now has nearly 560 words, of which 209 I currently consider “hard,” 228 “medium,” and 120 “easy.” Of course, I have picked up many words that have not made it into my database—in particular, words I learned before even starting the word-a-day system. For assessment purposes, I am most interested in words I would classify as “easy” or “mastered,” which assumes I would be able to pick these words out and understand in natural standard-Mandarin conversation on a regular basis. I am roughly guessing there are at least 50 words in this category, outside of my database. Thus, the total of “easy” words (including “mastered”) comes to 170. For the medium and hard categories, I am including only words in the database.

Most of my viewing is of movies that were originally made in Mandarin—approximately 222 hours. In second place is my viewing of “Toddler” content. In this category, by far the most important source is Qiao Hu, which I have written about extensively. In third place comes cartoons, namely the Boonie Bears. Next, are Disney movies dubbed in Mandarin, followed by music videos, gleaned from movies, such as Nan Zi Han in the movie Mulan, and music for kids, namely Little Dragon Tales.

Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to produce new Qiao Hu Study Guides since I started studying Law again. However, today I did finally update my Films table. I have watched 60 movies in Mandarin since my experiment began, and my favorites I have watched numerous times. I think anyone studying Mandarin will find this table very useful, whether viewing authentic sources is central to their study methodology or just an occasional side exercise.

You can download the complete Chinese Film Table. For those who just want a taste of the information, here are the top ten movies and their aggregate scores (according to a formula I designed).

In sum, after 400 hours of viewing, I am greatly enjoying my Mandarin experiment, and in terms of outcomes I consider it is being moderately successful, in that I am learning, but slowly.