Freedom!

School is out for the summer! Which means its time to gear up my Chinese studying! Learning Mandarin in a university class setting is very beneficial, but now that school is out, I get to study WHAT I WANT TO STUDY! No rubrics or weekly quizzes- only topics that interest me! In one of my next posts, I will highlight the study routine and resources I will implement this summer.

First Year Final Examination

Tomorrow morning I will be waking up early and heading off to class to take my Mandarin final! Rather than spend hours and hours studying, I have interspersed 15 minutes of practice in throughout the day over the past week. Cramming for a language test seems very impractical and silly. Learning a language takes consistent practice for months and years, so cramming before the test is of little help. I am relying on the daily hard work of the past year to help me do well tomorrow! We will see how it goes!

Starting next week, I am officially on summer break! This means I will be working part time jobs, sitting by the pool when I can, and practicing Chinese every day- studying the topics that I choose! I will also be making youtube videos chronicling my progress and practice routines in an attempt to connect with others studying Mandarin as well!

Here's to my last blog post of the school year!

"Material Over Method"

This week, while perusing the internet, I came across a presentation given by Tim Ferriss at ted.com. Tim Ferris is an author, motivational speaker, and achievement guru, so I was interested to learn he is also an avid language learner! Most language advice on the internet focuses on method as the means to language acquisition- "use this method, learn a new language fast." Tim Ferris offers an interesting alternative to this idea. He endorses the idea of "material of method," noting that 20% of words are used 80% of the time in any given language. For this reason, he recommends studying lists of the most commonly used words, so you don't waste time on words you will only see occasionally.

Tim Ferriss discussing his language learning experiences (starts at 6:37):


A blog post by Tim Ferriss about language learning here

And a list of the most commonly used Chinese words here

Two Essential Resources

If you have ever tried to look a character up in a Chinese dictionary, you know how difficult, confusing, time-consuming, and impractical the process can be for a novice language learner. Thanks to the internet, we can bypass the dictionary in favor of more practical and quick methods. Here are two resources I use often when I need help with a Chinese word:

Online Chinese dictionary with handwriting recognition

Another online Chinese dictionary with handwriting recognition

Animated Chinese character stroke order

Tudou.com: China's youtube

Listen to Chinese radio here