I began reading Beginner’s Chinese by Yong Ho on November 11, but quickly decided I needed to do more Pimsleur first. I do like the book, which was recommended by one of my readers, but it is…
Since I began studying Chinese a month ago, I have marveled at the complexity involved in refusing or denying something. Simple negatives do not work the way they work in English or, as far as I can remember right now,…
Yesterday I went to Brooklyn’s Chinatown, which is in Sunset Park, well into Brooklyn and just north of Bay Ridge. 8th Avenue Stop, New York City Subway I took the N train to the 8th Avenue stop and started…
I have continued along, slowly, with my Pimsleur lessons. The four tones of Mandarin are not quite as scary as I had expected, but then again, I’m not sure how well I’m replicating them. Pacific College of Oriental…
Among other things, over my Christmas vacation I went to the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), located at 215 Centre Street in Chinatown. MOCA! If you haven’t been there, I recommend it. I spent my time there in an…
Recently I have received fascinating e-mails from people who live in rural parts of the United States with much less diversity than, say, New York City, but who are nonetheless highly dedicated language learners with ambitious self-study programs. New York…
Recently I had jury duty. I seem to have jury duty more than anyone I know. If you have jury duty in Manhattan, you end up on the western edge of Chinatown. I was kind of happy about it, because…
Today I was on the website of a Portuguese bookseller, Atlantico Books, when I noticed a Portuguese-language edition of Fifty Shades of Grey. This got me thinking. It is sometimes hard to keep people motivated to pursue language…
Today I got a Chinese massage. The woman who gave it to me is from Beijing, and she has given me a massage before. Unlike some of her co-workers, she knows quite a bit of English. I like to demonstrate…
I have been meaning to try out Fluenz, a multimedia language-learning product, for ages. Tonight I finally sat down and did it. This Is My Fluenz Chinese Teacher As regular readers may know, I am not keen on being tied…
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