#lostinchinese

Update on my Life

So I have been so bad at keeping this blog up-to-date I know.  Somehow even with my lack of updates I have acquired over 1000 followers now.  Just Crazy!!! But so great!  Now more than ever I feel like I really need to update my journey.

New Job

I have had so many exciting things happen over the past few months.  I have changed jobs twice... that has been fun.  I left Guess and returned to Forever 21 for a quick 6 months gig as lead project manager over the design of European and Asian market stores.  Few months ago I took a job with PATINA-V a mannequin company with HQs and factories in Los Angeles, New York, Paris and yes Xiamen... that is of course in China and is a rather lovely city with a what I think of a beach vibe.  I would recommend checking it out.

MeetUps

lostinChinese is back and we are starting to host MeetUps again in greater LA and SGV (that’s San Gabriel Valley for you non-SoCal people.)  If you think that there is not good modern Chinese food in the US well you haven’t been to the SGV!!!  For the past year I have been wanting to put up my list of favorites and I just might get to it this month.  I think we are now at almost 30 members.  Check out our free MeetUp this Saturday the 26th.  We have the extremely cool LA based Chinese Teacher Sarah Liu as part of our group... so you should join us for some extra study and practice.

http://www.meetup.com/lostinchinese-com/events/225024040/

LGBT language learners and friends is a new Chinese MeetUp group I have recently started.  In just a few weeks we already have almost 20 members.  We have a private wechat group and are looking to establish a verified network of AirBnB / Couchsurfing hosts to further expand the opportunities to learn Chinese.  We are looking for LGBT friendly hosts to provide travelers with a safe place to stay when traveling and learning some Chinese in the process.  Checkout our MeetUp page for more info!

http://www.meetup.com/Chinese-LGBT-Language-Learners-and-Friends/

zhimuLA... somthing NEW

I have started a new creative venture known as zhimuLA.  For those of you that know how to pronounce Mandarin that is 2 fourth tones zhi4 mu4... and well the LA part is just L....A.... :).  So a year ago I selected Zhimu as my Chinese name.  I picked it myself from a list of names I discovered while “googling”.  zhi4 志 means; purpose, will, determination... while mu4 means; long for, desire; admire.  To be honest I just liked the sound of the name, when I asked Xinwei and my Chinese friends they all told me that this was a really great name and seemed shocked that a laowai 老外 would have pick such a name on his own. 

With my recent career shift zhimuLA will serve as my creative outlet.  I’m very instrenstred in exploring creative ideas between East and West.  For the first major project I have partnered up with the up-and-coming Chinese artist DonnieDuan.  We will be working on a art project and documentary exploring the impacts on Western stereotype of Asian males and the impacts they have on people's personal lives.  We are very preliminary but do look out for us on Kickstarter very soon.

Current CHINESE Study

Chinese study has been great... Yesterday I just purchased another 100 classes from SpeakUpChinese.com.  Their CEO Henry Su has been teaching me a lot of great chinese and helping me prepare for HSK 3 & 4 tests.  I have just started their intermediate level course and I must say I am very impressed.

In addition to SpeakUpChinese I have continued using FluentU.com.  I have been taking my keywords from my lessons with Henry and creating flash cards in the FluentU.com system.  It provides me with additional video/audio study that really helps me retain the new words and grammar patterns.  I wouldn’t recommend it as your only study course... but I would say if you are not using this in addition to your current Chinese study you are missing out.

I’m still using Anki everyday.  I have started making cards on the fly from my keywords from lessons to words I can’t remember when having Chinese conversations.  Another app called Evernote has changed my life.  All day long I note words I might need, words I forgot, something that stood out in a song that I didn’t understand... It updates on all my devices, so when I open my MacBook air I have the list ready to review, lookup and the add to Anki.

Last but not least as of today I have decided to also enroll in a 12 week course that the Chinese Language Academy in West LA.  I had a look over the course work for there CLA 3B secession and it looks very complimentary to what I will be studying with SpeakUpChinese.com.  As I understand it... they have modified their 6 week schedule to 12 weeks based on students request.  2.5 hours a week of classroom instruction, one night a week should be fun!!!  With my continued 4 hours a week with Henry Su, I will be in active learning environments 6.5 hours a week... over a year later and still so crazy about Chinese!!!

Over the past year I have tried many different resources on my journey to Mandarin fluency, some without question are better than others. I have been asked recently what I am up to and what resources I am now actively using. So after a bit of thought I decided to get back into blogging this year by sharing my top 10 practices used in my personal study. I did a lot of writing and ended up with 5000 words, far too many to actually post in one blog entry. To help break this down I will be releasing a more detailed write up for each of the 10 areas over the next 2 weeks.

 Pleasesubscribe to my blog so you will be updated as I continue to post over the next2 weeks. I also really want to hear from you so please add comments or email me.

 FIRST: Listening to Podcasts as primary study material!

Listening to natural speech is key… Do not know which post cast to subscribe too? I’ll share with you which podcasts have worked the best for me. Warning all Chinese language podcast hosts are not created equal.

 SECOND: Studying with Native Speakers… DUH!

I will be sharing my top places for finding quality native speakers to study with… whether you live in a major city or a rural town you have options. Although marrying a native speaker has benefited me beyond words, I can’t endorse doing this just to learn Chinese. ;)

 THIRD: Reviewing the Chinese Grammar Wiki EVERYDAY!

One of the most important resources in studying Chinese grammar, it is free and it is amazing! When your teacher gives you a complicated answer to your grammar question, you can rely on this site to help you better understand.

 FOURTH: Practicing Tones with AllSet Learning Packs is a must!

This resource has helped my pronunciation a lot. You will want to start using these right away. I will be sharing a video clip of me putting these to practice on my own and then with a native speaker.

 FIFTH: No more American TV, unless it is dubbed in Mandarin of course!

So you love Revenge and Amazing Race… well lucky for you there are a ton of options for high drama and reality TV in Mandarin. I will share my top resources and streaming tricks this side (The West) of the great wall with you.

 SIXTH: Replaced Spotify and Pandora with QQ Music.

No matter if you like sugary pop or obscure indy music… there are some great Mandarin artists just waiting for your discovery. I will help you get started; however there will be some work on your part. Discovery is half the fun!

  SEVENTH: New Friends… must speak Mandarin!!!

No you do not need to kick your non-Mandarin speaking friends to the curb. You should however add both native speakers and people studying to you circles. I will let you know how I have made new friends from LA to Shanghai and everywhere in between.

 EIGTH: Time to make some Flash Cards

Flashcards are a great resourced when used correctly. I have gone from the most ineffective flash card study to something that really sticks. I’ll will share some top articles along with my personal practices when it comes to flash cards and SAS study.

 NINTH: Eating at lots of Authentic Chinese Restaurants

Luckily I live in Los Angeles and have an amazing selection of real authentic Chinese restaurants. These are amazing places that give you the chance to practice putting new speaking skills into action while enjoying great food.

 TENTH: Integrating FluentU into daily study.

FluentU is great but I think it is a tool that needs to be used in a specific manner. Just logging in and jumping into study may not be the best method. I will be sharing how I use this resource and why I think it is good.

 Special Thanks To:

Xinwei Huan (My Husband) – for putting up with my incessant studying and questions… I know this drives you a bit crazy at times (or all the time)!!!  Your continued patients is appreciated more than words can say.

 John Pasden (My Mentor) – for taking me on even though I was a bit intense and star-truck, instilling quality wisdom in me and helping me find focus in my studies… With your help I have become much more focused in my journey and honing my tone skills.

 Daniel Ying (My Friend & Teacher) – for starting to teach me when I could not understand a single word spoken by you in Mandarin… you have become a true friend even though we are 10,500 km apart (not for much longer)!

Today's Mandarin Singer Recommendation: 方大同

Here is a cool new lesson released on ChinesePod today that I wanted to share right away.  I will be spending my lunch reviewing this!!!!

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/switching-language-input-methods

This gives me a good opportunity to discuss my thoughts and experience with ChinesePod.

So I have fallen in love with ChinesePod ... quick bite sized lessons that teach daily life conversations.  Their premium account comes at a premium for sure... $29.99 a month.  Once you consider that the lessons go far beyond just a podcast to include exercises, homework and a message board one may start to justify the price tag.  Your first month is only $0.99, so I say try it out and see if it helps you in your studies.  Being a lover of Chinese food I find their Hungry Traveler course series very useful and interesting.  

Each course includes the audio podcast with a native speaker and an English host.  The conversations are preformed by voice actors, which sometimes can see a tad over preformed.  One of my friend's in Shanghai stated that it sounds so dramatic.  I find it amusing and at times helpful with understanding the emotions being performed by the vocal actors. Once you finish the podcast, usually no more than 20 mins, there are many options for continued study.  Additional audio options include the stand-alone acted dialog without any host commentary and a separate vocabulary review.  All audio files can be downloaded for you to keep.  

Beyond audio files the ChinesePod  site and phone apps include a discussion area, written dialog, vocabulary list, expansion practice and scored exercises.  You have the option to do all exercises in Simplified, Traditional or Pinyin Chinese.  Each lesson is again available for download as a pdf file for you to keep.

My top reason for my new found love of ChinesePod is because John Pasden is part of their team and one of the hosts for Elementary and Intermediate lessons.  If you are not aware of John's work you must stop what you are doing and visit his sinosplice blog right away.  I have mentioned AllSet Learning, another project of John's in a prior post.  This man I must say is a Genius (in my beginner's opinion) when it comes to teaching both Mandarin and Shanghainese to the western tongue.