Doing well? September is over already, another spin around the sun has begun, annual vacation in full swing, travel planning. Languages languages languages.
Mandarin Chinese
It’s been a busy month since I haven’t been working very much. That might sound like an odd thing to say but, since I haven’t been occupied with getting to and from work every day and putting in time over there, I’ve been able to get quite a few other things done. Namely, I’ve been focusing on studying Chinese quite a bit lately, especially the HSK 5 characters. I try to spend about 30 minutes each day going through the vocabulary alone. This is followed by 20 minutes of concentrated listening and another 20-25 minutes of concentrated reading. By concentrated I mean I focus on what’s in front of me or being said rather than just having it on in the background. It’s getting easier, but I know I still have a ways to go.
Russian
I’ve stopped Russian classes for the moment, mostly because I’ve had this rejuvenation of energy to get through more of my Chinese studies. I guess the distraction worked because I figure if I can get through the majority of the HSK 5 vocabulary in the next month, I might be able to pick up Russian classes again in late October or November. I have decided I won’t write the A2 test in Beijing but will run a few practice tests and then start aiming for the B2 test in the middle of next year.
Python & other programming languages
I’m now trying to blitz my way through the 100 Days of Python course I started a few months back. It’s not like the May You Make Your Movie or Jamuary projects I did this year wherein I could have something publishable by the end of the day. And, although many of those mini projects did require me to learn quite a bit about each of the different tools and software I have at my disposal, they weren’t completely out of my realm of knowledge.
With Python, however, I’ve found I need to block out a chunk of time, ie, three to four hours a day, so I can go slow enough to develop an understanding but fast enough that I don’t get bored with trying to learn the minutiae of the language. Two hours isn’t enough and trying to do only one day at a time of the course is a little too slow as I’ve found. I still haven’t built anything myself just yet but the language is making more sense. I’m now starting to think that, although I have some familiarity with programming languages, I’ve never really become “fluent” in any one before. Studying Python in this way would be the first.
In addition to Python, I already see that there are other languages I could start looking at, namely C# which would be useful for game development in programs such as Unity. There’s also Flutter, which seems to be making the rounds now in the APP-programming community. It’s backed by Google and is cross-platform so it’s becoming more popular than other languages, such as Apple’s Swift. But I’ll scale into these if anything and, using what I’ve learned in Python, I should be able to apply some of the concepts to other languages.
Audio
Have you had a chance to listen to my daily audio blogs? You get to hear my voice just about every day. I’ve started taking the weekends off but Monday to Friday I’ve been pretty consistent. I recall that this type of “publish every day” idea was how blogging started out so many years ago. It’s something I’ve wanted to try out and to see how long I can keep it going. Head over to the Audio Blog page to read the daily write ups and download or stream the audio files. Though they do take me some time to get sorted every night, I am finding ways to make things easier and quicker. It’s good practice for something, I think?
Travel plans
I am hoping to get out of Beijing for a couple of weeks within the next month. I’m thinking that I might take the slow train all the way down to Chengdu and then fly back. I have another few weeks to go in my vacation so I have the time to get lots of studying done and actual vacation time. Flying back to Canada doesn’t seem to be an option right now and, to be honest, that sort of long flight doesn’t really sound appealing right now. I’m not even sure if there are still quarantines in place in Canada but there are in China, especially if you return from overseas.
Overall
I’ve been staying productive and active and I hope you are too. As far as I can tell, it seems the world is moving on from the pandemic but getting in and out of China is still a big problem. Not sure how much things will change in the coming months, especially with the Olympics just around the corner.