I am progressing through the HelloChinese app picking up more Mandarin.  I dip into it a few times a day – doing a lesson or two which each take about five to ten minutes.

The hardest part to learn by far is the Chinese script. I do not think I can yet recall any of the characters that I have so far covered in my lessons. Although I am starting to build a mental model of the stroke ordering to expect for any given character. An unconscious cognition as cognitive scientists might call it.

Pinyin – the romanization of Chinese script – helps a lot, although remembering the tonality to apply adds a layer of complexity.  My favourite word so far is mianbao (excuse the lack of tone marks) which mean bread – and is just nice to say.

But don’t let the complexity of Chinese script put you off learning Mandarin. Learning by listening and talking along with pinyin simplify the challenge a lot.  Also the lack of conjugation more than makes up for the complexity of script.

Playlist

Talking to you / Izzy Bizu

The first week has been an avalanche of starting projects. Probably too many projects. Some of them have sustained through the week and others have been put on hold quite quickly.

The core project, some theoretical research into AI techniques, is moving along. The availability of time to be able to work on it has sustained its pace of progress, if not yet significantly accelerating its pace.

Other projects include learning Mandarin using the HelloChinese app on Android (a DuoLingo style app for Mandarin.)  It is early days but Mandarin is actually quite a nice language to learn.  I think a part of this is knowing that I have time to learn it – rather than having to run to a self-imposed demand to try to get through the lessons as fast as possible, or to a given timescale.

Music has also come to the forefront.  As tracks pop into my head I now stop for five minutes, find it on YouTube and listen to the track.  The source of the playlists that I can hopefully sustain over the long term.  It has highlighted to me that I need to discover new music – and that there are tracts of time where I was just not engaged with the chart and so have no sense of what was the excellent music of the time.

Playlist

Whatever / Oasis

Wake up it’s a beautiful morning / The Boo Radleys

Somebody to love / Queen