1.  ChinesePod – This site hosts a daily podcast with a 20-minute or so Chinese lesson.  They also have lots of resources for studying characters, etc.  I don’t actually spend a lot of time on the site, but I subscribed to the podcast and listen to them on the way to work in the morning; they’re not only good practice, but fun as well.  The whole cast sounds like they’re having fun at work, which makes the lessons quite inviting.  Unfortunately, this month, they changed the format so that the free iTunes feed only contains newbie lessons (they have Newbie, Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced-Intermediate, and Advanced).  I will probably start paying for the advanced content, because it is such a good way to practice.

2.  Pimsleur Language CDs – I’ve actually done Pimsleur for two languages now (German for 8 CDs and Chinese for 90) and can’t recommend it highly enough.  The Pimsleur method is entirely audio-based, so you won’t learn how to read, but you will learn how to speak and understand some simple sentences very quickly.  These are a bit more interactive than ChinesePod and work best when you actually respond outloud, so you probably shouldn’t do them on the subway.  Also, they are timed so that you optimally do one half-hour lesson a day and the next day get reminded about the material from the day before; this helps it move to your long-term memory.  I set up my computer to play one lesson a day as my alarm clock and did them in the morning before getting out of bed.  Altogether, there are three months of lessons available.

3.  Set up your computer to allow you to type in Chinese.  This is extremely simple on a Mac, since Chinese support is installed by default, but on a PC you’ll have to install the East-Asia Language Pack, which is a little bit of a hassle (you need the CD).  Before you do this, however, you should make sure you really know pinyin and can write the pinyin for a word after hearing it.  Typing in Chinese is a bit different than you may be used to – if you use the pinyin input method, you type a few syllables at a time, press space, then are presented with options for each of the characters.  Since so many characters in Chinese use the same pinyin (especially when it’s toneless), you have to be able to decide which is the right character, which can help with character recognition skills as well.

4.  Install Firefox and use the Chinese Pera-kun extension.  I used to recommend WordChamp, but this extension is like that except that it works so much more smoothly.  With this extension turned on, when you go to a page with Chinese text, all you have to do is hold your mouse over the characters that you don’t know.  A small popup will appear with the pronunciation and the definition, and it will try to find whole multi-character words in the text as well.  This is great, because as you learn to read more, you use it less.  Plus, it provides a one-to-one mapping between Chinese characters and meaning.  Translation tools like Google Translate will usually translate the whole page at a time, losing the information about the characters, how they sound, which character relates to which English meaning, etc.

5.  Online Chinese-English dictionaries.  There are a lot of them; I usually use www.mandarintools.com, but that’s just because it’s easy to remember; the design is actually not that good (you can’t directly link to the dictionary, for example).

6.  Finally, don’t forget that you have to use a language to really learn it.  Make friends with Chinese people and surprise them with some Mandarin phrases.  It can be a bit nerve-racking at first, but once you’ve reached the level where they can understand you, it will help a lot.  It will also make you realize how little you really know and give you inspiration to learn more.

Of course, all these tips aside, classes really help a lot.  A good price for Chinese classes is about $35/hour.  Even $50/hour is ok if you have an engaging native-speaker for a teacher (who also knows enough English to answer questions easily) and a good class.

Hope this helps.  Have fun studying Chinese; I know I do!

好好学习天天向上！

昨天我工作一年了。  很长吗？我听说这是很段的时间工作。  但是这也是我最长的时间只作一个计划。  在大学我的计划都是三个月的。  虽然这是很长的我有时候觉得我不太孳。  我觉得这个感情是因为工作总是有别的问题。  我做完一个问题就开始别的。  很有意思的感情。  我想一个“feeling of completion”。

hmm有别的吗？  有。  今天晚上我看了我的姐姐的履历表。  我体认了我喜欢读履历表。  上大学的时候我做这么多面试所以我也想一想我的履历表。  用LaTeX写。  我觉得我现在知道很多履历表的东西。  要是你想我帮你，当然可以。

今天我也看了我的同事的blog。Lis是一个公司的作家所以她的日记很好。  名字是A Millenial Speaks。  我建议这个。

明天我要写很多中文的电脑工具。  我现在用了很多。

再见！

有一天

I just got my Chinese visa!  I dropped the application off at A. Briggs Passport Expetitors near Downtown Crossing last Friday, then just had to wait.  I’ve heard some horror stories from people whose visas got stuck in the consulates for weeks or months, but I was optimistic (and perhaps foolhardy).  Today, it showed up at work at 10:00!  My passport is back with the actually-quite-attractive Chinese visa on page 12.

The only strange thing is that it was issued in 华盛顿 (Washington D.C.), even though I thought I’d have to get it from New York…

Regardless, it’s here, and this trip is really happening!

This time, however, I’m headed to East Asia. Specifically, Korea and China. My flight leaves Boston the morning of August 9th, heads to Chicago, where I’ll pick up my sister, Laura, then goes direct to Seoul. From there, we’ll head to Busan/Gimhae, back to Suwon, and Seoul again for one day. Then, I’ll leave Laura in Korea with her friend Diana, and I’ll fly to Beijing. I’m not going to stay long, however, because I’m going straight to Shanghai for a few nights, before returning to Beijing to watch a few Olympics events and visit my friend Mike from high school.

Right now, I’m trying to work out how to travel between Beijing and Shanghai. I’m thinking about the Z5/Z6 sleeper trains, but am unsure of how to book them online. I’ll make it work, though.

Finally, if anyone wants a postcard, just email me your address and I’ll put you on my list. Wish me luck!

星期六我下中文棵以后我有疑点时间所以我去了中国城里 。我想吃叉烧包可是我找不到所以我买了一个猪肉pie.我再说中文！厨师还好。我旁边的白人看来我很诧。说中文很好玩儿。我应该常常自己在中国饭店吃反说中文。

I have enjoyed having Dad, Mom, and laura with me in Ireland. I think they all had a good time as well (other than the cold and rain in the last few days). Laura’s a lot of fun to have around; she and I sing and tell each other how to say things in Spanish and Chinese. For example, I now know that in Spain, the proper way to greet a young lady is “Hola, chica bonita.” In turn, Laura now greets young Chinese women by saying “Ni hao. Wo gege hen shuai.”

Actually, beyond seeing sights like the Rock of Cashel; Newgrange (a tomb built before the pyramids and still intact), Trinity College and the Book of Kells, and the Jameson distillery, I have actually spoken more conversational Chinese than I have in quite a while.

Our first night in Dublin, we had been traveling all day and were absolutely famished. Unfortunately, most of the pubs we saw mysteriously did not serve food. So, when we say the tempting signs for a reasonably priced Chinese buffet, we ran in. The first thing we noticed upon entering was a large list of rules on the wall. First and foremost was the rule, “One plate per customer!” This rule even had subsections: “You must clear your plate before getting more food”; “Our waitresses are not allowed to throw away food. Please help them reduce waste and Eat Everything!”; etc. This language quite frightened us, so everyone got small portions. Good thing, too, because the food was terrible.

Dad had to ask for some sweet-and-sour sauce to go with the spring rolls. At first, the lady didn’t know what he was talking about, and started yelling, “You must pay! You must pay!” over and over. Dad got a little upset as well, but eventually received some soy sauce. The next event was our complete lack of tea. What is Chinese food without green tea? So, to show my family that I had actually learned soemthing at school, I told the waitres, “Women xiang he cha.” She said, “Cha ma? Lucha hao bu hao?” Turns out she is Korean, but studying Chinese, so she knew barely more than I do. I told her that green tea would be fine, so she brought out a kettle and a couple of cups. By a couple, I mean exactly two cups for four people. Eventually, we convinced them to give us two more cups and no more tea (when we first asked for two more cups, they thought we meant more tea).

After that, the meal went relatively smoothly until it was time to pay. Then, we discovered that they had charged us €12 ($16) for the tea; €3 per cup. First of all, what Chinese restaurant charges for tea? Secondly, why did they charge us for two empty cups? Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to debate it because we were late for the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl that we had scheduled. Suffice it to say, that was the worst Chinese meal I have ever eaten.

Also, this morning at the hotel, there was a Chinese lady at the front desk, so Dad told her I knew Chinese. I said, “Wo baba shuo tai duo le.” She laughed, and we talked for a little while; she immigrated to Ireland four years ago.

I think I’ll stop here, since we are about to land in London (it was a very short flight). Until next time…

Zúotiān, wŏ yŏu yī jiān Zhōngwén zuòyè, kĕshi wŏ de diànnăo bù néng xiĕ hànzi. Suŏyĭ wŏ de zuòyè hĕn nán. Xiànzài, wŏ de diànnăo kĕyi le.

I don’t really know enough Chinese to say what I’m trying to say, unfortunately. Yesterday, I had some Chinese homework to do, and the teachers requested that we type it up. However, my computer wasn’t set up to let me input either pinyin or characters very easily, so I had to look up how to do so before I could do the homework. Luckily, Mac OS X comes with options that let me set up the correct inputs pretty easily (under System Preferences/International, using US Extended for pinyin).

Now, I can type the pinyin spelling of a character, press space, then select from all the characters that match that pinyin and pick the right one. It’s a lot of fun… Hence, this post.

Casablanca was a fun movie. I liked the story and the setting, I could understand the characters, and the end wasn’t entirely predictable (I sort of knew what was coming, but I kept flipping options, and it was nice to see it all played out). As an added bonus, the movie has good music, the humor is not too oppressive, and there were a lot of famous actors in it.

World Trade Center, on the other hand, is not a movie I’d recommend to people who are looking to go to a movie to be entertained. I think it could probably have been entertaining if it hadn’t actually happened. As it is, I felt like the director did a good job just telling the story of these two men. It was certainly a view that I had never heard/seen of 9/11, and I’m glad I went. If you go, just take it in and appreciate it as something to remember. Perhaps this is how WWII vets feel about Pearl Harbor films – I don’t know; this is just the first movie I’ve seen that relates to a significant event that I can really remember actually happening.

On Sunday, I didn’t actually do much. I mostly stayed in the apartment and slept or talked to people. I did get some work done on my website, though, which is good. Now the photo map will automatically set the correct length of time to display, and the map index page looks a lot better and does input validation. The last thing I did before going to bed last night was to submit my resume on Google’s job page.

This afternoon, I got two emails and a call from people at Google looking to hear more about me and possibly get together before I leave for the school year again for an interview or something. I’m not really sure yet, since they were a little vague, but I’m still excited. I think this is a really good time for me to check them out, since I’m Silicon Valley for another few weeks. Oh, one other thing sort of related is that I signed up to go to the Churchill Club Startup Success 2006 seminar this Thursday. FindLaw even offered to pay my way, which is awesome. I’m hoping to learn a lot and possibly meet some interesting people there.

Finally, I had an interesting day today outside of the Google stuff. Work was a little frustrating, but at least I learned a lot more about NetKernel – I’ve heard so much about it that I’m happy we finally had a chance to see what it is and a little bit of how it helps the company. I’m not sure I really understand why NetKernel is FindLaw’s environment of choice, but I can see how it’s useful.

Finally, I tried to sell my car to Steven’s Creek Mitsubishi after work. Dad called them and talked to the used car manager there who said he was interested, but he really wasn’t. I could tell that he thought I was just wasting his time today. He also tried to insinuate that I was just trying to hide an accident and get rid of the car. I don’t get it; there are no accidents on this car’s history report. I kind of feel like he was just wasting my time today, and I don’t know why he wanted me to go over if he wasn’t interested.

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Edit: Sorry about the weird toneless Chinese pinyin at the beginning of this entry. I’m not sure why I did that, it just came out when I sat down to write…