Step by Step

I didn't learn any new words or sentences in my Chinese lesson yesterday I just focused on what I had learnt so far, as I am starting to struggle with the basics and I though it made more sense to recap on what I've covered in the lessons.

I so feel I had a good lesson even though I did drift of a bit toward the end, but lucky my fantastic teacher Yin-Pei Chen somehow manages to keep me on track!

Although I don't think she can grasp the fact that when she tells me a sentence structure I am unable to remember it straight away. But then I am learning one of the hardest languages in the world to speak.

Asking Directions

Today in my Chinese lesson I covered Asking Directions, I found this lesson really hard, I think it must be the mental effort of having to remember all the words and how to also say them correctly and in the correct context.

It must be a dyslexia thing because I generally feel so tired, after absolve all this information in, it's an odd feeling because in the working environment I have no problem in organisation and remembering schedule etc and taking in detailed manufacturing needs and client requirement is come very fluidly and naturally to me.

But learning Chinese I can really feel my mind struggling to work it all out and I get very tired and after about hour and half I'm feeling zonked out!

Dyslexic Chinese

I found my Chinese lesson a bit harder today, I think it's combination of tighter project deadlines and not sleep well, must remember to get too bed earlier on Monday evenings!

I also set up a blog called Dyslexic Chinese, where I post the home work and the words that I have learn from my Teacher.

Back Into Chinese

I have started to learn Chinese again, as I am finding it frustrating to not know what is been said in the meetings. I now have a privet tutor too visit me at the office after work on Tuesdays, which is much better for me I think.

Her name is Yin-Pei and she was recommended to me by my old MTC teacher Yatang. I have to say so far she has made lessons really easy for me and I am starting to construct sentences which is great, but I am still finding it hard to remember all the words and the correct tone!

I was reading Jonny blog and he was talking about his Chinese lessons and the fact that he was doing 6 hours per week plus extra study. So I think I will be hard pushed to make speedy progress but as long as I can learn the basics I should be fine.

I would love to put extra cash into the lessons but I just don't have the resources to afford it at the moment. I am paying 400 NT per hour and then I pay 200 NT for her to come to the office. It might seem like a lot but I worked out by the time I have taken the bus into town got to a coffee shop and order a drink it would cost me more.

Taipei Hustle Vs Braking Into Asia

I’ve been thinking about changing the name of my blog to Braking into Asia! Things have become so complicated Visa wise. And all these stories on Forumosa with sudents and visa troubles I really don’t know what say about it all.

But even just studying is becoming incredibly complex with all these new government regulations. This term at Shi-Da it has been really difficult you now need two types of stamps on your ID card to show you have been study after class in the library.

Previously you had to do a minimum of 2 extra hours of study after your class per week. But now you have to do a minimum of 8 hours per week. This is no bad thing but they only allow you to stamp your card for three hours of study time in the library for that day, because the extra hours you do after that now don’t count.

So in affect the maximum amount of hours your suppose to clock up over the week has to be spread evenly thought the week, in order not to get visa problems. I can see why they do this in order to stop students teaching English illegally but the problem is that if you want to do anything else with your free time like visit the south of Taiwan or take a road trip it starts to get complicated.

Teacher Luck

Well I am having a great time studying Chinese at Shi-Da, I think I am very lucky to have another good teacher who so far has made the lessons very interesting because she relates everything we learn in class to popular culture.

New Teacher 新的老師

I have a new teacher she seems quite young maybe only 25 years old, but are lesson was good fun and I think she could turn out to be another good teacher.

It was nice to have a recap on everything I had learnt before from 段文佼 and also relaxing to do a lesson which I fully understood.

Schools Out

Well this was my last class with this crazy lot. Our teacher had bought us all these little moon cakes to eat. We sang a few Taiwanese pop songs which was a bit of a laugh.

Precision.

Learning Chinese is still kicking my ass but I have signed myself up for another three months of study starting September.

The learning gang.

I got about 48% in my last exam which is below average for Shi-Da students, but I felt pretty good about the grade! Still have loads to learn though.

The Big Exam

I have an exam tomorrow it’s a bit of an important one. I haven’t taken an exam in about 5 years so should be quite a fun experience. Wish me luck!

Ali Shan Farm

The farm house in perspective, very traditional country living in Taiwan lots of little rooms which back onto a forecourt. Image should in large if you click on it.

Rita’s family and I drove up to Ali Mountain to see, a family friend who is a retired university professor and now runs his farther farm which is about 1,000 acres of jungle forest and lot’s of battle nut trees.

You can just about see the mountains in the back ground, cover in misty fog.

Rather nice decaying effect. Image should in large if you click on it.

Out back.

It was very quiet with maybe the odd scooter or car passing by now and again, it was much cooler in the mountains with only a nice warm breeze rather than a baking heat, which meant you could sit outside comfortably without getting hot and do a spot of MTC homework!

Doing my homework!

Me.

Making Progress at MTC, Shi-Da

Annoyingly I am only taking in about 40% of my Chinese lessons, the rest I just can’t understand what my teacher is saying to me. But today we had to make a sentence using Chinese Radical characters.

And even though I didn’t really know how to construct a sentence, I recognized all the characters I wasn’t quite sure what they all stood for. But I know if I can just spend more time practicing, I would be able to visually understand what they mean!

My First Typhoon

Well it's my first Typhoon sit out and apparently Taiwan is in for a rough ride! The worst of the rain and wind hit tomorrow. When the is a really bad Typhoon coming the government issues a warning to the news channels telling people to stay inside, this also means that you don’t have to go to work.

So today we have stocked the house up with lots of food from 7 Eleven and I lucky have a back log of movies which need watching. But I've also go some Mandarin home work which needs finishing off tomorrow and I also want to have a recap on what I've learn so far!

Day 30

This is my 30^th day of studying Mandarin at MTC, and this is one of my homework’s, which I found really complex to do I actually needed help from Rita to complete it.

If you click on the image you should enlarge!

The course is going well and I am still enjoying it, I am behind quite a lot now and I just find that I don’t have time to recap on everything I have learnt plus the fact I don’t have a full time study partner either which I think is a bit of a disadvantage too.

Studying Chinese at MTC

I had a really good day today at MTC and I feel I am slightly improving and making a little progress in learning this super complex language.

The class is still covering a lot of topics and I can’t really take it all which is slightly annoying but other than that I am still enjoying my studies.

Speaking The Lingo

I actually had a lesson today where I nearly understood all of it. I did have a morning exam, which I well probably have to retake, as I wasn’t too hot when it came to remembering the stroke order for the radical charters.

View from the classroom, where on the 9th floor and we have a little outside balcony which is really nice.

I am still behind in my study but I've stopped worrying about it and I am just learning as it comes. The lessons are still really good fun and enjoyable which I am sure is a good thing and we defiantly have a fantastic teacher teaching us who is very patient. I also managed to remember the stoke order for six charters which are used for measuring a words.

Classmate whos is from Indonesia. William doesn’t speak a word of English but he is a great guy!

More CAD

It will a busy week I recon design wise and hopefully my Mandarin classes won’t suffer too much and I can manage my time efficiently between work and study.

Feed Back

My exam at MTC went better today that it did yesterday, but I still got stuck on the other topics such as translating sentences, I found this particularly difficult. I just want to add, don’t go to 金色三麥 the food is expensive and not good, but they do have a few electronic dartboard machines at the back of the restaurant which were good fun to play with.

Exam Mode

My first exam in mandarin and it wasn’t a great start, I found it really difficult to remember the stroke order of all the radical characters and I don’t think my paper will get a high mark.

I have another exam tomorrow, which is to remember all my MPS initial tones. I have spent four hours in the library learning and remembering all 21 characters today, and I think I have them all under my belt, so tomorrow's exam should go well.

A Tad Behind

I think over the last few days I have fallen behind in my classes which is really annoying.

I need to project manage my time more efficiently between learning mandarin and design and not get to wrapped up in the design process.

My teacher is really good, but I have to learn a lot very quickly, I have an exam tomorrow I need to know all my MPS tones and practice my radical character writing, so I’ll be doing extract revision tonight!

Homework

Learning Mandarin is begging to get hard, especially the homework. If it wasn’t for Rita to guide me though what it’s all about I think I would really be struggling.

Another problem is that I am the only western in my class, so this makes having a study partner difficult, there are seven others, two from Japan, two from Indonesia, two from Vietnam and one Korean who is very nice but sometimes she tells me the answer, before I get time to think what to say which is frustrating, but sometimes helpful when I don’t know the answer, but other than that I am still really enjoying the course.