中文 Literacy Speedrun III: Symbolhead Syndrome
7000 words or die trying. That was the deal I'd set myself. I wasn't going to read more than a line of text until I'd cleared that recognition goal.
I had a pair of logistical bonuses. The first was a bitterly cold Midwest winter. The second was a temporary health issue that benched me from cardio. In conjunction, they made it almost reasonable to lock myself in my room!
Day 0: The last day of my previous leisurely pace. I have no idea what's coming. 2520/7000
Day 1: I ease in slowly, exchanging my prior reading time for adding new words. 2575/7000
Day 7: I miss a day traveling home for the winter holidays. I still feel pretty good. In the first week I've been diligently at it two hours per day. 2790/7000
Day 8: In between talking to family and stuffing my face with home-cooked food, I make up for the previous day and then some. 2980/7000
Day 9: I get a little cocky. In a holiday lull between two days of house parties, I almost double day 8's input. It is a satisfying afternoon. 3310/7000
The thing to know about spaced repetition systems is that they're exactly what they say on the box. They space things out, insidiously.
Learn the word once and it will come up tomorrow; with consecutive correct recognitions most algorithms exponentially scale up review times e.g. tripling the review interval each time. Every new word, even learned well, was a debt that would have to be paid off later.
Day 18: I've traveled back to Chicago. I flip to a fresh page of my notebook each session. Each time I'm unable to recognize a previously learned character, I write it out. I'm beginning to notice that my practice is expanding. This is the first day my mistakes fill an entire page. 4250/7000
Day 19: I have an appointment in the morning and only start studying in the early afternoon. The dashboard says 900 reviews. I sit there until dinner to knock it down to zero and decide to call it a day. The page is full again. 4250/7000
The thing to know about me is I would rather die than admit to myself I've made a mistake.
The other thing to know about me is that I'd rather take the guillotine than death by a thousand cuts.
Day 20: Fuck it, we ball! I wake up at 7:00, finish my morning routine and sit down at 7:45. Breakfast is a bottle of Soylent. Brunch is a few hundred words. Lunch is a bottle of Soylent. In the afternoon I knock down reviews to zero and feel a euphoric high as the new word interface comes up. Dinner, mercifully, is not a bottle of Soylent. 4600/7000
Day 24: I start seeing characters in the shower before I even begin. I realize I can read the chili crisp ingredients list. I have my first dream in years in Chinese. 5500/7000
Day 30: I'm cleared for cardio again, and take a brisk walk mid-day. Every other waking minute is dedicated to parsing symbols and tapping the keyboard with my left hand while I hold a pen in my right. I'm not sure I remember why I'm learning, except that I promised myself I would finish. I log 11 hours in front of the screen. Every part of my anatomy from my elbow down to my pinky is on fire. 6200/7000
Day 39: Out of the warzone, and time to read again. 7000/7000
Up next, we take a brief detour into handwriting.