I am starting week 12 of my New Year’s Resolution to learn Mandarin Chinese and a lot has changed over the last 10 weeks since my last post. Quick update on current status: -currently studying lesson 10 (the last lesson) in the Integrated Chinese Level 1 book. I have been pacing at about 1 lesson […]
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Chinese – Week 2
Quick update as I’m wrapping up my 2nd week of formal Chinese study. Technology I drastically narrowed the mobile apps I’m using to the following: -Pleco – dictionary, stroke order, Live OCR add-on-Translator app: Google Translate or Microsoft Translate–Anki – spaced repetition, flash cards If you don’t have a tutor or course book, I would […]
Chinese – Self Study Week 2
I’m two weeks into my Chinese study and have made a lot of progress. I’ve also gathered a lot of useful tips and some lessons learned over my studying during my first week. Goal For starters, I’ve landed on an objective goal for 2019. I want to pass (minimally) the HSK 1 and hopefully the […]
Chinese – Self Study Week 1
I just officially wrapped up my first week of self-study on Chinese. We’ll call this Self Study Week 1. 🙂 Here are some thoughts and lessons learned. This week I tried to focus on just getting familiar with Chinese, resources, pinyin rules/exceptions and not really worrying too much about vocab or Chinese characters. As I […]
Learning Chinese
As I’m working through my 2019 goal to learn Chinese, I am planning to gather some thoughts on my preparation and progress throughout the year. ChallengeLike any foreign language, the key (and biggest challenge) to fluency, will be immersion. This is going to be especially difficult for a guy that doesn’t live in a native-Chinese […]
2019 Goal: Learn Chinese
2018 was a great year of learning as I set out to read 100 books in just a year. 2019 will push me even harder as I commit to learning to write/speak Mandarin Chinese.
Book: Works Well With Others
Works Well with Others: Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You This was another used book store find… A quick read, packed with tidbits on work politics, getting ahead and staying out of trouble. The book wasn’t based around a single “thing” you have to do […]
Book: Subtle Art of Not Giving
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F_ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life I’ll admit it, the title of this book and the assumption that a lot of cursing would be involved drew me to make the purchase. I didn’t expect the content to be revolutionary, but a different spin on the […]
Book: Principles
No doubt, Principles by Ray Dalio will have been one of my favorite read books of 2018 (and lifetime). It is long, but well worth the time investment it. Time is like a river that carries us forward into encounters with reality that requires us to make decisions. We can’t stop our movement down this […]
Life Principles
Inspired by two of my favorite books: Principles by Ray Dalio and Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson, I am documenting my own Life Principles and Virtues. This will be a constant work in progress, but am sharing them [before perfect] as a public commitment and reminder to myself. 1. Never do harm […]