My first speech in Chinese after learning for 3 years with GoEast Mandarin! I didn’t speak perfectly, but I’m pretty satisfied! It’s a bit above my language level, and I rehearsed pretty hard for this, the new vocabulary and sentence structures. This speech was given Saturday 4th of December 2021 in Shanghai — during the […]
This summer, I joined GoEast Mandarin‘s summer intensive course intended for students who finished HSK4. Here’s my brief recap and whether you should do it too. Why Spoken Chinese and not HSK5? Several reasons. First, I live in China, but I don’t need the HSK exam for my visa, nor am I studying at a […]
In high school, I was never good at languages. Not in Dutch — learning advanced grammar — and not in French, German, or English. The latter I actually learned most from playing computer games online, but because it’s so similar to Dutch, I never really considered myself to be bilingual. I never had to embrace […]
(Originally written for GoEast Mandarin.) I’m nearly finished with HSK3, starting from zero Mandarin skills just over a year ago. Here are 9 things I learned about language and myself. 1 — Learn to enjoy learning Don’t aim to learn faster and faster. Learn to enjoy learning, then everything else will follow. 2 — Keep […]
Learning Mandarin is often described as something deeply cultural or spiritual. Yes, it’s interesting that the character for home/family (家) originates from a pig underneath a roof, because livestock used to be in every home, or that 目 (eye) coupled the water radical becomes 泪 (tear). But it’s pure trivia, just as interesting as that […]