Using & Abusing a Language Exchange Partner

You already know about using a Chinese teacher as an essential part of your self-study program, and you know my thoughts on choosing a teacher, but one topic that I still want to discuss is that of using a language exchange partner.

For me, having such a partner is not an alternative to having a teacher - it is in addition to having a teacher. They play different roles for me.

I know that there are many people who have cost constraints (or limited choices where they live), and paying for a private teacher isn't an option. Fortunately there are alternatives - and this is where language exchange comes in.

One-way

As a beginner student you could always just grab a coffee with a Chinese friend or colleague, and ask them the questions you have. This was easy for me when I started because I knew several Chinese people working in the same office as me, and I could walk up to their desk, ask a really dumb question and walk off. They were really pleased with my interest in their language, and were generous with their time. My questions - and the desire to practise speaking - grew, and over time I graduated from desk-questions to a quick coffee together.

Even though these people were very generous with their time when I started this way, I became self-conscious after a while about how much of their time I used, so I decided to "move on". Note that they never expressed a concern to me about this, it was just my own concern for their time.

Two-way

I didn't want to dominate social time with my Chinese friends with too many questions, and language exchange seemed to make a lot of sense. I could connect with someone (face-to-face, email, Skype, etc.) and in return for their time to help me with my Chinese, I would offer the same time to them to help them with whatever they wanted.

• My first language exchange partner was an email relationship only - she lives in Fuzhou. I would email her questions, or write some text (originally only in pinyin!) and she would answer my questions, or correct my written work. Then she would send me some of her own written compositions, and I would feedback on that. (In those early days I avoided the telephone - I was too shy as a real beginner.)
• Over time we became good friends, and I even spent a weekend in Fuzhou hanging out with her, speaking a mix of English & Mandarin. I was one of three white people I saw that whole weekend, so you can imagine I was quite in demand when she took me to "English Corner" the one evening :-) - they loved speaking with a "real Westerner". She and I are still in touch today.
• My first face-to-face Exchange partner was with a Taiwanese woman in London - I wanted to practise Mandarin, and she needed help with her Finance degree. We met when I responded to an online post of hers.
• We too are still friends, and have met for coffee in London, Hong Kong & Taiwan.

I was much more comfortable with Language Exchange than I was with the interrogation of my Chinese friends. The give-and-take was balanced, and it's a great way to meet new interesting people!

Things to look our for!

Having had a number of language exchange partners over the years, these are some of the things I would recommend you keep an eye on ...

• Try to keep the time split fair, so there no sense of guilt or resentment on either side. If you only have an hour, then state up front that it will be half-half, and stick with that. There is always next time. 
• Their English is probably better than your Chinese - so try avoid your coffee meeting turning into an English social event. If it's too 'social' then you'll find yourself resorting to English, and you'll probably be the one to lose out. 
• Introduce some variety to keep both your interests up - something to read, topics to discuss, questions about the material you studied since the last time.
• From my perspective, although I continue to share with language exchange partners, time constraints means if I have a spare hour I would rather pay for that hour to be focused on my Mandarin learning, rather than losing half of that to speaking English. 
• You can do it one-to-one as I've described above, but you also always have the option of meeting in large practice groups - details of these groups appear below too.
• If you're not happy with your partner, find another. Remember that language learning is meant to be fun!

An exchange for language exchange?

Here are some of the sites I have previously bookmarked - either because I used them or because I once thought I might. Try them, and see which gives the best results. For obvious reasons, they're biased a bit towards UK and HK.

• Bilingual Chat: This is an online community of foreign-language learners, for meeting and exchanging.
• Language Exchanges:  As it says on their site, "The Mixxer - a free educational website for language exchanges via Skype"
• Livemocha: This is a full language learning website, but members of the community are usually quite open to exchanging one-to-one on Skype too
• Language Chain: This London-only group actually pairs up language-learners, pre-vetting them, and changing partners regularly for you to keep the variety going. 
• Gumtree: This site is more than just for buying & selling things. Choose your country & city, then take a look in the Community section under "Skills & Language swap"
• Global Citizen: Although they teach a variety of language courses in HK, they sometimes arrange language exchange evenings over a few drinks. And if you really want to try a new way of meeting people, check out their 'unique virtual worlds' where you exist as an avatar in a cyber world, and meet people that way
• Meetup: Search for 'Mandarin' and your city, and you could find a group near you. And if you can't find one, there's nothing stopping you setting up one of your own! (I've found great groups in both London & HK)
• Chopsticks: A language & culture exchange group in London for the more advanced Mandarin speaker, including lectures every now and then
• HK Language & Cultural Exchange Group: This group is for general language sharing - meet in a group, or meet others one-to-one

Others

If you know of other places for meeting language exchange partners, or have some advice to others, please write something below. And if you have any horror stories to tell about bad experiences you've had, leave a comment below ...

Choosing a Chinese Teacher

Previously I have written in broad terms about how I use a Chinese teacher as part of my self-study regime, and following that I'd like to describe how I choose teachers who are consistent with those goals. If you've used a different basis for making your own decision, please feel free to leave some comments below.

learning online

Although this is not really for me, there are many websites where you can get online teachers, ad hoc or pre-booked with them, and learn via Skype or other video software. A couple sites which I have previously bookmarked that provide this service include ChineseTeachers, TutorChinese and eChineseLearning- and there are a lot more.

I believe this type of site is quite popular, and maybe depending on your lifestyle or location this would be the only reasonable option. But I like the human contact of sitting opposite someone in a coffee shop, drinking a hot latte, and sharing Chinese. I like watching them write on paper rather than type on a screen, and I like their being able to underline words, use arrows to show where my verb should have gone, and cross things out.

So I choose live teaching for myself. For others I recommend whatever words best for *you*.

choosing a Real! Live! teacher  

I started off searching the web for Chinese teachers in my area. Especially in Hong Kong, a number of nearby language-specialist schools appear in the results, but I focus on those offering lessons as individuals. This choice was discussed in a previous post - I don't want to be constrained by attending pre-planned lessons or even have to wait my turn to ask a question in small group. And although these school do offer 1-to-1 lessons, they are materially more expensive than 1-to-1 lessons with private teachers.

Then I corresponded with each of the potential teachers I found, asking about costs, and possible times (weekdays/weekends, mornings/afternoons/evenings, and flexibility - because of my travel schedule). Additionally, I filtered out teachers for other reasons:

• There were some teachers who were insisting that they'd take me chapter-by-chapter through a text book - but that would have bored me to death so I rejected them. 
• There were others who insisted on a minimum number of hours a week - I rejected them too, because I'm in charge of my time, not them.
• For my most recent choice, I loved the fact that in addition to knowing English, Mandarin & Cantonese - she is currently learning French & Spanish herself, so truly understands the challenges of language learning.  

I tried one or two lessons with the 'finalists' :-) and rejected some of those for a variety of reasons:

• their inability to speak at a speed that I was happy with
• the fact that their pronunciation wasn't always 'standard' enough (one claimed to speak Putonghua but I struggled to get even half of her simple sentences)
• the quality of their explanations when I asked questions.

And that is how I decided.

As always, these thoughts reflect what works for me. Make sure you focus on what works for you - and follow that through. Good luck!

I would love to hear from you how you chose a teacher, or chose not to have a teacher. What things does a teacher do that bothers you? What do you really appreciate? And if you're a fan of online teaching, let us know how it works for you.

I have sexy legs!

Moving beyond the realm of the world's funniest joke in Chinese, here's something very funny that actually happened to me last week!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, a great way to practise your Chinese it to get a massage from someone who only speaks Chinese, and it's easy to find someone in Hong Kong like that, at a reasonable price.

So last week I was getting a massage from someone who I have not had before, and she was spending too long on my back, so I wanted her to move on to do the rest of the body, starting with my legs.

Chinese digression: The phrase 可以吗? (kěyǐ ma) literally means "is possible?" - and is often used in the context of asking permission, or making a request. So if I used the well-known topic-comment structure, I could say “电影可以吗？” (diànyǐng kěyǐ ma?) - which would literally mean "Movies, is it possible", but ultimately I'm asking "How about we go to the movies?"


So back to my massage, I was wanting to get her to move from my back to my legs, so using the exact format as above, the conversation went like this:
    Greg:  我的腿可以吗？  (My legs, is it possible?)
    Massage lady:  你的腿很性感！  (Your legs are very sexy!)

This left me very confused for a moment! Was she hitting on me? Did I mishear her? What else could 'xing gan' mean?


Then I realised, the sentence structure "X kěyǐ ma?" can also mean "What do you think about X?"  So if I said "diànyǐng kěyǐ ma?" while coming out of a movie, I could in fact be asking "What did you think of the movie?"

So while I thought I was asking her if she could please massage my legs now, she thought I was being weird and asking her what she thought of my legs. She probably thought I was hitting on her!


Comments 可以吗？

Is it "self-study" if you have a Chinese teacher?

I mentioned in my last post how my Chinese teacher helped me translate the world's funniest joke into Mandarin. Following that, I got a couple of DMs though Twitter and one email, asking me about how I can have a teacher when I also say that I self-study Chinese ... so I thought I would explain what I think the difference is.

In later posts I will explain how I chose my teachers, and exactly what a typical lesson looks like.

I have self-studied Chinese - I'm clear about that

About 99% of what I know is through listening to podcasts (90% was from ChinesePod and 10% was Popup Chinese), studying books & websites, working through flashcards (read my posts on the topic here), reading comics & children's stories, etc.

I have also learned by having conversations with people, asking questions, having language exchange partners, being corrected by strangers that I'm chatting with ... and having a teacher on & off.

I have not attended classes, lectures, or immersion programs. I therefore am happy with the label that "I have self-studied Chinese" - although I do gladly acknowledge all the help I have received from countless people along the way. (I am even grateful to one my one Chinese friend who, when hearing that I am learning Chinese, told me not to bother - as a foreigner I would never make much progress! Thank you thank you thank you for pissing me off enough to study harder :-)

my teachers

While in London, Athena and I would meet somewhere between once a week and once a month - and even though I haven't had a lesson with her in 1.5 years, we still stay in touch - it's wonderful how well you can get to know someone even when you're talking using really short sentences and simple words!

Now in Hong Kong, my teacher for the last couple of months has been Judy - we're meeting about once a week (though my travel schedule makes that a challenge!), and doing a variety of talking, reading, sentence dissection, etc.

your teachers

I am not saying that self-study is the only way, or even the best way. But for me, I wouldn't do it any other way. And of course people use their teachers in their own way.

• One of my friends (he's in his late 30s) is learning Russian, and he meets a teacher every week. She's strict - and he's a little scared of her. So usually the night before their lesson he stays up late, doing homework, memorising words. Their relationship works because it's the fear of the teacher that gets him to study. I don't know how sustainable this is, but for now he is further than he otherwise would have been. I can't work that way, but it works for him.
• Another friend (around 30) is learning German, and he also meets a teacher weekly. He doesn't fear her, but he uses her as an excuse. He seems to think that because he has a teacher he doesn't actually have to learn material himself. So he doesn't. He lived in Germany for two years, with weekly lessons, and I've watched him struggle to ask for a menu and a bottle of water in German. I couldn't let myself do this.

If a teacher helps you, then get one. If you can't afford one, then find a language exchange partner. But do what works for you. And remember that it's your life and your language learning. Please don't let a teacher dictate what & how you should do things ... when you stop enjoying you stop learning.

Ultimately you will only know a language when you can speak it, understand it, read it. There's lots to learn, and only you can do that - a teacher cannot do that for you. Successful language learning comes down to a massive chunk of self-study, so spend some time this year finding your self-motivation ...

The world's funniest joke (now available in Chinese :-)

I saw an article on the CNN website, where they announce: "The world's funniest joke has been revealed after a year-long search by scientists."

It's actually a joke I'd heard before, and it goes like this:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?"  The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead."  There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"



I memorised a joke in Mandarin about 2-3 years ago, and I've got great mileage from it since then - so I decided to translate this one, and will set about memorising it over the next few days. Because of the subtle wording required to make this joke work, I did this yesterday as an exercise with Judy, my Chinese teacher.


In case you'd also like to learn the joke, here it is joke in Chinese. (For an easy pinyin pronunciation of any of the words, here's a shortcut to MDBG.net's version.)

两个猎人在林子里打猎，其中一个突然昏倒了。看起来他没有呼吸，他的眼睛干瞪着。他的同伴打电话叫救护车。他说，“我的朋友死了，怎么办？” 接线生说，“冷静一点，我来帮你。首先确定他真的死了。”  安静了一下，那边穿来了一下枪声。同伴说，“好了，然后呢？”



So what was the first joke you memorised? You're welcome to copy it into a comment below, or at least provide a link if you have one.

I don't know nuffin' or nuffin'

OK, I know a little.  So I know enough to know that I don't know a lot, although for now I know enough.  But like most, I don't know what I don't know. You know what I mean? Oh no!


I. It was quite early on when I learned to say "I know" (我知道)(wǒ zhīdào). That was easy. And 'not knowing' was almost just as easy: 我不知道 (wǒ bù zhīdào).


II. It took a little longer to be able to say "I know everything": 我什么都知道 (wǒ shénme dōu zhīdào). Of course I didn't actually know everything, but even *I* could memorise that sentence.

Yet that sentence bothered me!  You see people told me that Mandarin was just like English: subject-verb-object.   I eat fish. I photograph people. I know everything. But look at the sentence above: (我)(什么都)(知道): (I)(everything)(know).

So much for Mandarin being just like English. Sigh.

And I'm sure that someone will be able to explain to me why the above still is consistent with English, by referring to compound verbs, adverbial phrases, the genetive case, or even transferred epithets.

But I'm not a linguist, I'm just someone struggling to learn Chinese. And to me, Mandarin is not like English.


III. So imagine how frustrated I became when I realised that basically I know nothing. "I know nothing" 我什么都不知道 (wǒ shénme dōu bù zhīdào).

Breaking the sentence down, it looks like this: (I)(everything)(don't know).  My mind translated this as "I do not know everything" - which did not match the actual meaning.  My mind was blown: I didn't even know how to know nothing!

Let me just make sure you're following me. In English, if I know everyone in my street, then this means I know every single person who lives on my street. And if I know no-one on my street, then the number of people I know is zero. Not one.  However when I say I do not know everyone, what I mean is that I know some people, but not all people.

So the Chinese version 我什么都不知道 (wǒ shénme dōu bù zhīdào) didn't make sense to me - because it seems to relate to knowing nothing, rather than not knowing everything. Very different!  But this wasn't the time for logic. 我什么都不知道 (wǒ shénme dōu bù zhīdào) means "I know nothing". Memorise it. And I did.


IV. At the back of my mind I continued wondering how to tell people that I don't know everything. I know something, not nothing though, but also definitely not everything either. Earlier this year I asked Maggie (Hi Maggie!) how to say it. And this is what she said was a good option to understand the difference:
     I do not know everything
     不是所有的事情我都知道
     bù​shì suǒyǒu de shìqing wo dōu zhīdào
     (not all the things)(I know)

With all due respect to the Chinese language, this feels really clumsy! Item IV is logical I guess, but it's not simple and it's certainly not obvious. Oh but it works. And as I keep reminding myself, this is Chinese. I can disagree as much as I want, but if this is it, then this is what I'll learn.


Apologies: I'm too scared to re-read this post before I press [publish]. I'm worried I'm going be so confused by my own confusion, that I'll just end up clicking [discard] and blame it on the entropy of the universe. Maybe you started reading this post believing that although you didn't know everything, you didn't 'know nothing'. But now you know for sure that you don't know what I thought you should know. But don't blame me. No! What you need to know is it's not my fault.

That's Chinese, you know.


(And if you think this post was long & confusing, make sure you do not click on this link.)

Discovering Mandarin

So I was sitting in a restaurant the other day, and I noticed some Chinese writing on top of a nearby building (on the right you will see the picture I took at the time). Unconsciously I found myself trying to read it, which I tend to do all the time. I can't help it.

I had earlier discovered that you reach a point in your Chinese studies where you kinda pick words up along the way, you learn new words without trying.

It becomes partly about discovering Mandarin, and no longer just about learning Mandarin.

Here is my stream of consciousness as I tried to work the sign out ...

• My eyes gravitated to 是主 which I immediately (mentally) translated as "is master"
• So then my eyes settled on the 耶穌 on the left
• I knew I had seen the first character 耶 before, but couldn't remember how to pronounce it, nor what it means
• The second character 穌 I know well, from Scotland (蘇格蘭) and soda-water (蘇打水) - but I only seemed to remember how it was pronounced , and I couldn't remember the meaning!
• For a fraction of a second, it felt hopeless - I couldn't work it out
• Suddenly I noticed the cross in the middle (why didn't I notice it before?) and realised immediately that there was something of a religious theme going on
• Right away, my mind clicked that the right probably meant "is Lord" ...
• ... so the left in all likelihood must be "Jesus"
• Another piece of the puzzle fitted in place with the second character being pronounced sū
• So I deduced that the first probably sounds like "ye" - making the left half sound like "Yesu"
• Got it!

Of course, the next time I see those words I won't have to go through that whole process - which probably took no more than a second or two anyway. But now I know a new word - and I wasn't even trying.


This has happened to me a number of times before - where I saw a word that I'd never known, and based on the context I worked out what it meant - and I've never forgotten it.

• 防水 (fángshuǐ): I know that 防 means defend (from the expression 防不胜防 which I knew) and 水 is water, and after seeing what they were selling, it was easy to see that every was waterproof. Yes 防水 means waterproof.
• In the shopping district part of Causeway bay, Hong Kong, there are a lot of signs with 水晶 (shuǐ​jīng) written out front - meaning "water bright", which I could similarly work out meant "crystal" from the context.
• In a store in Taipei one I saw a sign on the wall which read "手工" (shǒu​gōng) which literally means "hand work" - and it was easy to deduce that it was indicating that the items there were hand-made. Now I know.
• Other words that I discovered without learning included: 法院 (law court), 石油 (rock oil = petrol), 加油站 (add oil station = petrol station), 海绵 (sea cotton = sponge)

Chinese isn't easy, but it certainly seems to get easier over time!  And if you've discovered words this way too, please leave a note below, for others to share ...

A clever butcher uses a cleaver

If you were learning English, then the above sentence might be a good one to stick in your flashcards. Picturing a butcher who wears professorial glasses, holding a cleaver, might make it easier  - both visually and audio-wise - to remember the new word 'cleaver'. It's certainly more memorable then the sentence: "Use a cleaver to cut meat."

And this is the logic I've tried to use when finding new sentences to enter into my flashcard deck.

As you would have seen from my post a few months back about finding sentences, I use a variety of sources for my deck. But it was only when I was reviewing this sentence below, that I realised that there was a clever/cleaver trick that I was unconsciously using.

     Lennie stopped chewing and swallowed it whole
     Lúnní tíngzhǐ jǔjué, húlún yàn​le xiàqu​
     伦尼停止咀嚼，囫囵咽了下去
     倫尼停止咀嚼，囫圇咽了下去

While saying the sentence during my daily flashcard revision, I realised that this sentence had a clever/cleaver style of repetition in the words 'Lúnní​' and 'húlún'.  It's not a big thing, but I realised it was a bit of a mental crutch that I had indeed being relying on when learning the cards - and on a few occasions when I was trying to recall a word in conversation.

I went back through some of my flashcards, and found that so many sentences I'd chosen had inadvertently used this trick, and I've actually tried to be more intentional in this regard.


OK, so now that you know this trick, there really is nothing else to say. If you choose not to take advantage of this, that's your choice. But if you choose to use this, here are some sentences that I've found in my deck which someone was clever/cleaver in constructing.

If you'd like to copy these into your deck, feel free ...

     Bees store honey to get through winter

     mìfēng wèi guòdōng zhùcún fēngmì

     蜜蜂为过冬贮存蜂蜜

     蜜蜂為過冬貯存蜂蜜

     trick:  mìfēng vs fēngmì

     I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow
     wǒ tóu yi pèngdào zhěntou jiù shuìzháo le
     我头一碰到枕头就睡着了
     我頭一碰到枕頭就睡著了
     trick: tóu / zhěntou (although, you really should have noticed this without clever/cleaver sentences!)

     She sat there motionless, nothing can motivate her
     tā yidòng​budòng de zuò zài​nar, méiyǒu​shénme néng cùdòng tā
     她一动不动地坐在那儿，没有什么能促动她
     她一動不動地坐在那兒，沒有甚麼能促動她
     trick: yidòng​budòng / cùdòng

     If you lose a credit card you should report it to the police
     diūshī xìnyòngkǎ yào xiàng jǐngchá bàoshī
     丢失信用卡要向警察报失
     丟失信用卡要向警察報失
     trick: diūshī  / bàoshī

     Don't disappoint your parents
     bùyào gūfù fùmǔ duì nǐde qīdài
     不要辜负父母对你的期待
     不要辜負父母對你的期待
     trick: gūfù / fùmǔ

     Mr Li the shopkeeper has two assistants
     Lǐ lǎobǎn yǒu liǎng gè zhùlǐ
     李老板有两个助理
     李老闆有兩個助理
     trick: Lǐ / zhùlǐ


And here are a number of other sentences that appear in my flashcards, but I'll leave you to do the translations yourself if you want to use them. The trick might be around using the same sound, the same character, or anything else that makes it easier to recall one word using another part of the sentence:

这是违法的行为
我花了一些时间决定花钱买哪种花
我们可以推断会议推迟了
我们铸蜡成烛
纤维 / 维生素
租约下个月到期
耳朵, 耳环, 耳机, 耳语, 耳子
个人开户账户申请表
每个透支的支票
对于妇女来说就业就会有牺牲
薪水会直接汇入你的帐户
这个座位很小坐得很不舒服
非工作人员禁止进入
他们企图蒙骗公众耳目 (cheat! sounds like 'qitu')


Just to be clear ... this is not a miracle. This will not take you from a beginner to intermediate in record time. But it will make it a little easier to remember words, and since you're already investing time in learning Chinese, you may as well take advantages of clever/cleaver tricks like this.

Don't butcher it!

How many flashcards does it take to change a lightbulb?

Some people do it daily (some people wish they did it daily!), and others only do it infrequently, or even never.


For me, spending time on flashcards has become an (almost) daily routine. I have recently already written that you should just do it, about how effective it has been for me, and to tell you how to test whether you should be using flashcards - so take a look if you haven't seen those articles.

In this next in the series, I wanted to go personal (yes, even more personal than writing about my love affair - In fact, I'm going to let you look into my actual set of flashcards, through sample sentences, numbers & dates.

Deck Statistics
Anki has a feature which gives you a whole bunch of facts about your specific deck. Here are some of mine, covering the deck itself, as well as how I've used it.

total numbers

• deck created 2.1 years ago
• total number of 'facts' is 1530 (a fact contains english, pinyin, simplified hanzi and (sometimes) traditional hanzi too)
• total number of cards is 3680 (in the early days, a fact only generated two cards: english-to-pinyin & pinyin-to-english; but after a while I extended it to three: english-to-pinyin/simplified/traditional, simplified-to-english/pinyin/traditional, pinyin-to-english/simplified/traditional)
• according to Anki, 76% of my cards are 'mature' (I've basically seen these often enough that they're 'known', 6% are 'young' (I'm currently actively working through them), and 18% are unseen.

activity

• In the last week I did 500 cards, averaging about 70 a day. According to Anki, I missed one day in the last week.
• My average over the last 3 months is 45 cards a day, and over the last year is 52 cards a day. 
• Since the deck was created, I have averaged 53 cards a day, and used Anki just under 5 days a week.
• Since the beginning, I have added less than 5 cards a day, but this has only been around 2 a day in the last year. (Remember that by entering a single 'fact' Anki automatically generates a number of 'cards' - so I would say this averages about 2 new physical entries a day, that's all.)

sample entries

From humble beginnings ...

• The first six entries in my deck are:  (know / zhīdào / 知道), (formal / zhèngshì / 正式), (about / guānyú / 关于), (accept,approve / tóngyì / 同意), (after / zhīhòu / 之后), (agree / shuōhǎo / 说好).

To a long way down the line ...

• The six latest entries are:

1. profit commission adjustment request / 盈佣调整询问函
2. There were a lot of groupies at the Michael Jackson concert in Japan / 迈克尔·杰克逊在日本的演唱会招来了许多追星族
3. to accumulate over a long period of time / 日积月累
4. Unless you say it so that your word becomes another, then it's no problem / 除非你说的词变成另外一个词，否则没问题
5. tomorrow;daybreak / 明天;天明
6. You have to tighten up the handle, it has become loose / 柄松动了，你得把螺丝拧紧

I think you'll agree that I've improved my skill level over the last two years!  And don't let this mislead you ... I don't know all the latest ones. For example, I recently needed to know the word 'loose' while talking to someone and realised I didn't know how to say that. So I looked it up in the dictionary, found a good sentence, and entered it into my deck. A few weeks will pass before this sentence comes up to the top of the pack, and then I will 'learn' it through spaced-repetition.

So that's me

If you'd like to share some of your desk statistics, I'd love to see them - whether you're a beginner or really advanced.

Most interestingly, I would love it if you could leave a comment below to say what your first few words were, what your most recent entries are, and what the time period is in between.

And if you've just started a deck of your own, perhaps since reading this series on flashcards, let us know what your first few entries have been.

The 'Redneck' guide to flashcards

Using flashcards for the purpose of studying Chinese might not be for everyone. I gave my best recommendation in this regard in the first article in the series, but if you're looking for a slightly more 'personalised' recommendation, then this article will guide you on what is best for you.

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy and his "You might be a redneck if ..." series of one-liners.


You know you should be using flashcards if ...

• When you find yourself (again!) ordering "diet coke" in English in a Chinese restaurant instead of "Jiànyí​ Kelè" ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you keep getting confused between left & right in Chinese ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you keep asking your martial arts instructor if you have good sperm, instead of good power ('jing') ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you can never quite remember the difference between 必须 and 必需 ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you looked up a word last week but you can't remember the answer ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you listen to Chinese music, and there is one word you keep hearing in songs but you still don't know what it means ... you should be using flashcards.
• If there is a Chinese character you see all over town, and you keep forgetting what it means ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you keep saying 'foreskin' when you mean to say 'briefcase' ... you should be using flashcards. 
• If you find yourself asking your Chinese friend for the 8th time, "How do you say 'influence' again?" ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you don't know which of "我什么都不知道" or "我不知道什么都" is actually correct ... you should be using flashcards.
• If you can't remember the Chinese equivalent of "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" ... you should be using flashcards. 
• If you sometimes visit Chinese websites, and you're always seeing a button that says "取消" but you don't know what it means ... you should be using flashcards. 
• If you listen to conversations, Mandarin radio or Chinese TV and there are words you still don't know ... you should be using flashcards. 
• If you are studying Chinese ... you really should be using flashcards.

And what about you? What was it in your life that convinced you that you should be using flashcards?