Learning Chinese

I know that I haven't blogged in a couple years. I apologize to whatever audience that I do have. I blog for a different reason. I blog for personal reasons, for my sanity but also, I know that I have a presence on the internet for a long time and for whatever reason, I feel that blogging can change people's view of my persona online. I'm not the greatest writer and now that I'm older, maybe I will change the way that I blog.

For the past couple of years, I have been learning Chinese. In the beginning, I was learning 3-4 languages at the same time and I was overloading myself. I have been told to be focused on one language so I decided on Mandarin. Its the language of the local chinese congregation and I chose to learn for the ministry. I am also delving into Cantonese because its my mother's tongue. I have discovered many things about myself, the language and the culture. Its very interesting and yet frustrating because I feel like I am not learning fast enough and/or I am still shy about speaking the words and phrases that I do know. I have also discovered that I have this bad habit of responding back in English whenever people are talking to me in either Chinese or Laotian. Its my being a second generation Asian American. 

Here are some pictures that I have taken of my practices of Chinese character writing. On the cardboard pieces, I practice grouping simple characters together so I can remember them better as they resemble each other. I group them by similar strokes, and/or patterns of some sort. Like the one with direction: up, middle, down. And the different degrees of "GOOD".

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Studying chinese is a a lot of hard work. I have practiced by watching many youtube videos, following channels such as Yang Yang Chinese, Learn Chinese Now, Chineasy, Learn Chinese with Emma, Learn Cantonese with CantoneseClass101.com, EZ Cantonese, and Pierre-Francois Metayer's Cantonese in One Minute. All of them are pretty good, some are better than others but still learn from every one of them. I also been learning from language apps via my cellphone and Samsung tablet such as JW Language, Hello Chinese, Cantonese Lingo Cards, Learn & Play, Learn Cantonese Daily. 

I have also made flash cards. These words are more theocratic language from the publications that I study from for my meetings at the kingdom hall. I am getting the hang of writing the characters. Its a slow process but I am trying to learn fast and efficiently. Its a never-ending process of language learning...