u/vcconut

I'm honestly not sure what I'm looking for in modern cdramas, but very few seem to hit the spot for me.

I don't usually like full-on romance, but don't mind it when mixed in with other genres (slice of life, mystery, etc.). My weakness is detective shows, but I don't usually like the "all cops are good (or at least do their best)" moral posturing. No office/business-focused dramas, please. I'd like for the main character to be female, but a male main character in a drama that treats its female characters well (existences beyond romantic object/murder victim/sexual assault victim) is fine. Taiwanese recs are fine, as well.

For reference, my favorite modern cdrama is A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower. Other than that, I also enjoyed To the Wonder, Shining for One Thing, and Derailment.

My favorite Taiwanese dramas are Someday or One Day and Oh No! Here Comes Trouble.

Historical/costume dramas I've enjoyed include Heroes 2024 (fav), Nirvana in Fire, Flourished Peony (not part/season 2, too much romance there), Ripe Town, Blossoms in Adversity, and Kill My Sins.

my mdl for further reference

I’m probably somewhere around upper intermediate right now. I currently consume native content, practice speaking, practice writing, do flashcards, etc. I plan on working through these textbooks as guided practice, while continuing most of my other study activities.

I’ve looked at a few pages of the Intermediate and Advanced levels of several of the 发展汉语 books, and they seem pretty solid. I’m mostly interested in working on my speaking and writing, but I’m not opposed to working on my reading. I’m not interested in working on my listening through this series.

Has anyone used these books with a tutor? What was your experience like?

Do I miss out on much if I skip the comprehensive books? If you recommend doing the comprehensive books, would it be better to do them before, alongside, or after the speaking/writing/reading books?

Has anyone taken a non-beginner class that does not revolve around reading a main text, and then gleaning grammar points and vocabulary from that text? If so, how was your class structured? In terms of both individual lessons and overall course structure, whether intermediate, advanced, or specialized.

What materials, textbooks, or reference books did you use? What were common activities in-class, and what were you expected to complete at home?

My main purpose is not necessarily to find a course or school or tutor. I'm trying to see what I can do to improve my current self-study routine, whether there are activities I can add to improve my weak points.

edit:

I guess I should also mention that (1) I am already engaging with native material, and (2) I'm a heritage speaker, so listening and pronunciation are not huge problems. I'm mainly having trouble with (1) talking about topics beyond basic daily life (including things like remembering the right word, getting sentence structure right without lots of pre-thinking), and (2) writing more sophisticated sentences, as well as being able to connect sentences together better.

I ask about the main text thing, because I've found a lot of textbooks structured that way, from HSK to New Practical Chinese Reader to Princeton Modern Chinese readers to children's 语文 textbooks.

I’m looking for advice from upper intermediate or advanced learners on what I should be focusing on at this point, assuming that my goal is to be well-rounded.

At this point in time, I think I am relatively ok in passive understanding, but not as good as I would like in production.

My biggest problem in listening comprehension is unknown vocab, especially common-but-not-most-common terms (eg., hip replacement, siphon, secretary-general, etc.) and chengyu/sayings. With the help of a dictionary, I can read news articles, which I started doing about two months ago, but I have difficulty with shortened proper names, and have to machine translate a few sentences every article because I’m afraid of missing something. Reading novels, I also encounter sentences/terms I don’t understand. For terms, I look them up maybe half the time, other times I can guess from context; for sentences, most of the time I don’t bother to translate, because reading the next sentence(s) usually clarifies the meaning.

In output, when speaking, I have a hard time recalling words I want to use. I think I’m a bit hesitant about using “new” words that have not yet settled into a comfortable groove in my mind. I also end up word-souping my sentences, because I don’t have time to figure out how to structure them properly. Most of the time, I can kind of sort of get my point across, substituting in English words when necessary, but it’s not pretty. For writing, I can construct relatively simple standalone sentences, but I have a hard time connecting sentences together to form longer, cohesive chains of thought. I probably also have grammar and word usage issues that I myself cannot recognize.

My current study involves a lot of reading (avg ~10k per day), including 1-2 hours per week when I read out loud and get pronunciation feedback from a native speaker. I do conversation sessions 2-3 times per week, plus an italki comprehensive class once every week or two weeks. Then, on my own, I review and re-organize my italki class notes, do the italki homework. I do not record or take notes from my conversation sessions; for reading sessions, I mark down the words/characters I don’t know or pronounce incorrectly. In addition, I independently do sentence form writing exercises (based on a textbook/reference book), vocab flashcards (indiscriminately selected unknown/unclear/pronunciation problem words from my readings), and handwriting recall exercises (common characters and short sentences). I watch cdramas pretty often, mostly with English subtitles, as a kind of easy/lazy activity (not understanding all of the dialogue is incredibly frustrating, so no Eng subs would make me not want to watch at all). Less often, I watch variety shows, listen to podcasts and audiobooks, browse Chinese social media.

My short-term goal is to raise my output level to a point I think is commensurate with my current level of understanding, and my longer term goal is to broaden and deepen my Chinese skill overall. To achieve these goals, with my current issues, what should I be focusing on now? What should I add or subtract from my study routine? I am not above using textbooks, but for now, I’d like to avoid books that teach toward standardized tests (HSK books).

One last bit to note, if it is relevant, that I am a heritage speaker and I’ve been actively studying for about one year. I did some weekend Chinese school as a kid, so I didn’t start from zero, but my domain has been pretty limited (home/daily life/parents’ regional accents) up until recently.