Both girls take swimming classes. Sue and I both feel it is good for them to be comfortable in water and to know how to swim. They may learn it in school like I did, but I think starting early is well worth the investment. Both kids are doing well in their classes. Emelia does not like the male instructors so it’s always a challenge to find a class that she can attend since there are few advanced classes and most are taught by males. The past couple of classes were held during the week so Sue has had to take time off to bring her. Caitlin is still in the more basic classes, which are plentiful, but crowded.

Emelia really enjoyed her dance class at the beginning of the year and I cannot tell you how many times Caitlin has watched the video of Emelia’s recital since June. It was a no-brainer decision to put both of them into dance class. There has only been a couple of classes, but Caitlin is doing well. She is a bit young, but has interest. The next month should tell if she is old enough to continue. Emelia is in a more advanced class this time and is doing very well. She’s very interested and loves the class. The instructor is the daughter of the person that taught her previous class.

Something new for both of them that we let them try this round is gymnastics. They saw a gymnastics class last year and they both were nutty about it. We broke down and let them both take the class. It’s not much of an investment and they both seem to like the class. Only time will tell if we continue with this class. These are recreational, not competition level classes. It’s not a bid deal if they choose not to continue.

That pretty much sums it up for Caitlin, but Emelia has two other classes. Both of her other classes are ones that we want her to take. The first is piano class. She’s taken quite a few music appreciation classes and short piano classes and she has enjoyed them all. Emelia loves singing, music and dance so learning how to play music may be something she will continue to enjoy. So far she loves the class and according to Sue, she volunteers eagerly for everything. We bought her a piano keyboard for practicing.

The other class that we put her in, mostly for her own good than for fun is Chinese class. Sue and I both strongly feel she needs to be able to speak fluent Chinese. There is a limit to how much Sue can teach her and sometimes having somebody teach her fundamentals in a classroom setting with other kids is beneficial. This does not mean that Sue and I are off the hook. If anything having Emelia attend class has invigorated the amount of teaching that we have to do at home. It also means that Sue speaks to all of us (me included) in Chinese nearly 95% of the time. Just like piano class this class follows the school year.

Come next September we’ll need to make a choice as to which classes Emelia will continue to take. She starts kindergarten next September and will not be possible for her to continue with all of these classes in addition to school. She won’t get much homework from school, but she will probably have some, which takes precedence over other classes and work. I expect her to continue with swimming, piano and Chinese school. Whether she continues with dance, gymnastics or both is yet to be seen. Sue feels she will drop gymnastics, but I feel it is too soon to determine which she’ll want to pursue.

Caitlin on the other hand will likely continue with her swimming next year. She may start to take a few music classes, just like Emelia did at the same age. We’ll have to see how she does with her dance and gymnastics before we decide if she’ll continue with either.

In the mean time having to attend all of these classes for both girls takes a toll on all of us. I’m responsible for taking both girls to dance and for taking Caitlin to swimming and gymnastics. Sue is on the hook for taking Emelia to gymnastics, swimming, piano and Chinese school. This usually means that we are busy running around 3 weekdays and all weekend for the kids. That coupled with normal jobs, chores, taking care of house and side work that I do is leading to two tired people. It sounds worse than it really is as most classes are only 30 minutes long, but we feel it is worth it. The kids love the classes and want to continue.

One pleasant side affect, which I’ve noticed during the past two weeks is that I hardly notice that Sue speaks Chinese to us anymore. I won’t claim I know what she is saying all the time, but I find it much easier to listen and be able to understand what she says without thinking too hard. The girls are showing improvements in their Chinese listening and speaking skills. Emelia is also learning how to both read and write Chinese. It won’t be long before both girls surpass my ability to understand and speak Chinese. Emelia is already showing that she understands how some words are pronounced better than I.

They also cannot view the show. No CCTV and no cable. So, we’re scrambling to get our VCR in order to tape the show tonight. We have two hunks of crap. One does great video and no audio. The other does great audio, but shaky video. Our third VCR is part of VCR/DVD combo, but doesn’t work with our ancient TV which does not have input for RCA cables.

I’ll probably be moving that big ass TV out of our bedroom and popping it onto the living room floor tonight so that we can simultaneously tape and watch the ceremony tonight. It’s a shame since we don’t have a TV stand that can hold it (yet) and it is the only TV that we have that can take in RCA input (it has 4 or 5 inputs!).

In the meantime I’m keep up to date with some running diaries posted by two bloggers that I frequent:

Jottings from the Granite Studio

bokane.org

The latest addition to Emelia’s library: Dr. Seuss books translated into Chinese. Oddly enough we have at least half of the English versions (in various conditions e.g. missing pages, torn pages, etc.). These versions have both English and Chinese words, which is great. No more translating odd stories and names on the fly for Sue. Somebody did the hard part already. We got some other Chinese kids books too, but these ones really made the biggest impression on me.

If you look closely you’ll see the the books run the gamete from cheesy “Teach Yourself Chinese” to a real 美中 dictionary and some old traditional Chinese school books (I believe from Taiwan).

I started out with the three John DeFrancis books (in the middle of the picture) and enjoyed them thoroughly until the day I showed Sue what I was learning and she kept pointing out that some of the words are simply not used anymore. I continue to use these books today, but I’m a little more discerning of which new words I choose to use.

A couple years ago while on our honeymoon we were able to spend some time shopping on Nanjing Lu and ended up in a big bookstore (新华书店). It was my  one chance to stock up on good books for learning; a higher class of books than what is generally available at Barnes and Noble. My favorite is the 美中 dictionary. That one has come in handy on numerous occasions. If I can’t find a word in my other dictionaries that one usually has what I’m looking for.

Besides some old traditional Chinese character school books (which are excellent learning tools!) my other favorite Chinese learning tool is the “kids” section in the 世界日报 (World Journal) newspaper. The WJ is a Taiwanese paper and every day there is a half page section with various school child reading level text.

More often than not the text is accompanied with pinyin, but every so often they print zhuyin fuhao (注音符号). Since my father in law gets the 2-3 papers a week I get 2-3 of these a week. Right now I’m not at a high enough level to read many of them without looking up every other word. I usually choose one and make my way through it learning the words as I go. Sometimes I’ll get one (like tonight) that I can read and understand without looking up any of the words, which feels good.

So, other than clipping from the newspaper I keep my Chinese literature collecting under control. I’ve started the learning part of the journey.

Farber has some good tips for language learners, although, the book does seem a little out of date. You should probably substitute any mention of “Walkman” with “iPod” or “MP3 Player” as well as references to “Rambo” with something a bit more contemporary.

Even though I never gave my approach much thought Farber’s suggestions coincide pretty closely with the methods I’ve been using to learn Chinese. However, he suggests a more aggressive approach that I haven’t been able to do myself due to time and energy constraints.

Farber’s approach is simply to use all possible resources available to the self-study student in a sort of round-robin or as possible/necessary.

1. Simple textbook
2. Dictionary
3. Traveler’s phrase book
4. Literature in your target language such as a newspaper or magazine
5. Student textbook, such as one as the 6th grade level
6. Portable audio player (he actually says tape player)
7. Audio courses
8. Blank cassettes and recorder
9. Flash cards
10. Blank flash cards

Nothing too out of the ordinary there. I have almost every one of those in some fashion. Books, textbooks and dictionary are no problem. I have plenty. Literature. Sue has dozens of Chinese books and I have many clippings from Chinese news papers. Literature is not a problem either. Flash cards and blank index cards; got them. Lastly for portable audio and courses I am using Sue’s iPod and the plethora of lessons from ChinesePod and other Chinese language podcasts.

Once you have your supplies ready you just keep attacking the language from all possible directions.

• Read the textbook for simple grammar.
• Read the traveler’s phrase book to pick up on common phrases.
• Listen to audio courses when possible.
• Attack the literature one paragraph at a time. Any words you don’t know get written onto blank flash cards with definitions (and in my case with pronunciation).
• Use the flash cards anytime you have at least 1 second of free time.
• Don’t move onto another paragraph until you learn all the words in the first.
• If and when the occasion arises use any people you meet that speak the language natively to help you.
• Don’t do any one thing for too long. Switch up.
• Use the hidden moments. If you have a few seconds refer to your flash cards. Test yourself instead of just day dreaming.

As I said after reading the book it looks like I’ve taken a similar route. I didn’t go out and buy any new supplies. I had them all. I always make sure to switch up how I’m learning Chinese. One day it is reading the next is listening to ChinesePod and the next day is talking and discussing language with Sue.

One key thing that Farber stresses that I was not following up with religiously is using the hidden moments. I usually use those hidden moments for resting and winding down. He suggests that these hidden moments are key learning times.

The second key thing that Farber suggests is the use of mnemonics to learn and remember words in your target language. I never bought into using mnemonics seeing as I never felt that they worked for me. Well, I believe I was wrong. After reading a couple pages of examples of mnemonics he hits you up with some questions and you realize that you learned the words he used in his examples with only one read and without trying. I was hooked.

I’m been trying out his suggestions and so far so good. I carry around my flash cards and always trying to learn mnemonics for the words I’m trying to learn. I think it would be easier with a roman alphabet or any alphabet based written language. With Chinese I have to look at the character and decide how to create a mnemonic based on the character’s design. That mnemonic must serve two purposes; pronunciation and meaning. So, it is a little more work, but I’ve had good luck so far.

I still find that many words are difficult to describe using a mnemonic, but there are just as many that are easy to learn this way. I’ve also started using the flash card technique to learn one of the many children’s story found in the newspaper every day. I’ve been clipping them out whenever possible, but now I’m putting them to work.

It works! I’ve nailed down quite a few new words that have appeared in other places like Sue’s books and on TV. So, I’m confident that my work isn’t for naught. I just have to keep going. Keep the ball rolling and keep on top of my studies. Otherwise, I’m likely to end up learning Chinese for the rest of my life and not being able to sufficiently keep up with the most basic conversation. I’d like to do that and more, but I’m realistic too. It will take time and plenty of energy. At least Sue and Amy are willing to help out and answer questions even if they are silly or I make a mistake.

One last thing. The book mentions something called the Language Immersion Institute at the State University of New Paltz. I had no idea it even existed. I’ve been to New Paltz many, many times and it never came to my attention that they have intense language classes available. Seeing as SUNY New Paltz isn’t too far away and the costs are reasonable this may be an option later if I feel I need a boost. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper and easier than going to China, although, I’d rather visit China for two weeks, but we can’t have everything.

Here we have a great example. Be sure the read the whole thing. It only gets better the farther down you read.

Only the best hotels offer their guests ”Man joy sex oil” and “Cunt cleaning spray” (for Man & Woman!). We must have stayed at some lousy places during our honeymoon (they were only 5 star) since the kinkiest thing they had to offer was a 元10 condom.

Lately, I’ve been using Windows Live Writer to write all my posts. It is freeware and works quite well. It makes it easy to add photos to posts and provides some decent editing functions. The spellchecker is big help for (increasingly poor spellers like) me. I’ve run into a problem with it though. I like to schedule posts for when I’m not available to write and post them immediately, but WLW seems to be screwing up the date/time. I specified a date one or two days from now and the post goes up with the date from 1969!? Odd. I have a work around, but it is a hassle.

Then I read about Blogdesk. I’m giving it a shot. I’m actually writing this article using Blogdesk. This one is an open-source project. It works quite well, but still isn’t what I would deem the best tool. It is certainly faster than WLW when posting and responds nicely when typing. I haven’t tried the image tools, but it does lack one thing I am starting to use more: Chinese characters. Enter a few characters like Emelia’s name and they turn out like this: ??.

So, if you are in the market for good posting tools either WLW or Blogdesk are not bad choices. If you have a tool that you use and you think it is worth a try let me know.

The materials and tools that you get when paying for a subscription are pretty well done. For the basic subscription you get a transcript and vocabulary list for each lesson. For the premium subscription you get almost everything they have to offer: exercises, supplementary vocabulary, flash cards and even games. Everything is well designed and the lessons are well done. You can also use the online tools to setup and maintain your own vocabulary list for testing and reviewing. You can track your lessons and progress for each.

The newest, and highest level gives you all the premium features, plus you get a 10 minute phone call from one of the teachers everyday to review your progress with and practice. Pretty good for somebody that doesn’t have access to a suitable and willing partner.

I think anybody willing to dedicate the time into learning Chinese without attending a class at a school could use something like this service. Having transcripts and already made online tools for testing and practicing are a big time saver. It also helps that everything is interconnected (add new vocabulary from a lesson to your own vocabulary).

The cost for subscription is pretty reasonable too, however, I’m not sure I am ready to shell out the bucks for it yet. The subscriptions expire after a while so it is tough to justify paying for something if I am not sure I’ll be able to dedicate the time to using it. If I knew I had the time and wasn’t going to be pulled into other things I would probably sign up, but for now I’ll just stick to using the podcasts, and my own materials, my own tools (like ZDT) and Sue.

BTW there are other services for other languages out there. The owners of Chinesepod are working on a Spanish podcast service now, too (based out of Shanghai China). I have tried out the other Chinese language podcasts and even took a look at the Japanese one. They don’t compare. The Japanese podcasts are just too much for me. They seem over done and not real.

I got a chance to review the Irish Gaelige grammar book he is reading and all I can say is “Wow!”. After reading the first chapter and skimming the rest of the book I told him to burn it and run for the hills. It is awful.

The alphabet is a subset of the alphabet that we use for English, but the sheer number of rules used to make up and combine words is overwhelming. Masculine and feminine words. Okay, got it. Sounds like the words in Spanish, except these words may be masculine or feminine depending on their ending characters, except for when the word has at least two syllables or some other situation.

Pluralizing? No real rhyme or reason. Verb tenses? Many rules depending on how the word is written and used.

Learning what sounds to make when reading a word is a challenge too. Each character or set of characters equates to a sounds. Add an ‘h’ to one of the characters and the sounds just changed completely. Add an accent mark and now the work is emphasized differently.

Some letters are short and others are long. Some vowels are short and others are long. They can be combined in certain ways, except for other instances where something else is in place.

It’s insane if you ask me. I can’t understand how a language ended up so complicated. I know English is no prize, but I don’t think the number of rules in English can compare to those in Irish Gaelige. Not to mention there is something called Scottish Gaelige, which is a little different from it’s Irish friend.

This all makes me appreciate learning Chinese. For the most part it is a very structured, very well thought out language. There are fewer rules and fewer changes depending on how you combine words. The most noticeable are the tone changes when saying certain words together and they make sense once you start speaking. Say to two third-tone words together and you sound like an idiot. Say the first third-tone as a second-tone and the last as a third-tone and you got it. It’s easier to say and sounds better.