Tag Archives: Chinese

乘风破浪的姐姐 – Sisters Who Make Waves TV Show

Posted in Language Learning, Random Thoughts by

This has been my latest binge obsession. I’ve always liked competitive reality TV, but coupled with my Chinese studies and it is even more fun!

So the show is about current celebrities and women who have “aged out” of the industry by committing the sin of being 30 or older. The name of the show itself is an idiom ride the wind and cleave the waves; advance rapidly – 乘风破浪。

These women are weathering the storm of the entertainment industry at the ages of 30 plus.

There are 30 contestants battling it out to become part of a girl group. The program began airing in June 2020, but I’ve only just begun watching in Aug 2020.

In my own way of plucking along and studying one of the most difficult languages on the planet, I get my listening practice in by watching these types of shows.

If you have something you are pursuing that is difficult, just keep going. I’ve been exposed to Chinese for 6 years, but have only seriously studies it for 2 years. My current short-term goal is to pass the HSK3 and continue on towards fluency.

My Favorite Language Apps and Sites!

Posted in Language Learning by

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So I may’ve mentioned I’m an aspiring polyglot, so I’ve taken and studied numerous foreign languages. Chiefly: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean. I’m actively studying Mandarin and Japanese and so I wanted to share my favorite tools and apps that I use for each language.

For Spanish: Duolingo is a fantastic free site that helps you learn in a fun interactive way. There are quizzes and games to help you stay sharp, as well as helpful study reminders. I studied Spanish for 6 years, but barely use it because I hate romance languages (yeah I said it -_- I wanna yell at someone in Russian lol, I don’t care so much for the flowery stuff). Ahem, anyway Duolingo helps me retain the years of hard work I put into the language in a fast and free way.

For Mandarin: I use an app that has its own website and a ton of features. I mainly use the app and I currently only use the free versions. The app is called ChineseWriter and the website is called trainchinese, and the webpage is available in English, Russian and Espanol ~

I also pay for Chinese tutoring from a woman named YangYang Chen on her site called YoYoChinese (yeah she went there -_-) . She’s supposedly a tutor to celebrities and has a very nice looking website lol. I have been using her services for about two years at $99/year, but honestly haven’t buckled down and followed the instructions to a T. So DON’T BE LIKE ME! Study hard and do your lessons every day. and DO pay for her Black Friday special. DO NOT pay any other time of the year because its ridiculously expensive (AGAIN, POST COLLEGE POOR KID, If you have money to burn, by all means pay full price).

For Japanese: I use an app called Kanji Study by Chase Colburn in the Educational section of the Google Play store. It’s about $6 to unlock the full thing and I do have the paid version. You get so much for your money, and I love helping developers who create wonderful things. It’s not currently iOS optimized but the developer notes suggest it will be at some point in the future.

For Korean: I actually haven’t found an app to write home about yet, but I do like a website a friend of mine showed me called Korean from Zero. It comes with a free PDF textbook and seems to be very comprehensive. My Korean is terrible and isn’t a huge focus right now, but I found the site extremely helpful!

What sites and tools do you like to use?

Hope this helped, until next time n_n

-TBG