Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook

I found The Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook for sale in the local post office. It was only $13.95 so of course I bought it.

So far it has been worth every cent. It's really well laid out for a traveler to locate the needed phrase and it has been great as a quick reference for my revision. I've been watching Chinese TV programs with the phrasebook in hand, and looking up all those words I've become a bit rusty with.

The only problem I have with it is that all the Chinese characters are in simplified form. I guess nothing is perfect.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Serge Melnyk

Last time round I didn't really pay a lot of attention to Serge's podcast though I was aware of them. The main reason for this was probably that back then there were so many free podcasts coming out from ChinesePod that I was basically swamped with stuff already. However now that I have gone back for a second look I found that Serge's podcast is in some ways better than what I was listening to back then. My MP3 player is now filled with Serge Melnyk podcasts. You can download them from iTunes or go to http://www.melnyks.com/.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

I'm Back

These is a chance I may be going for another trip to Taiwan in the not too distant future. I haven't decided on exactly when or for how long yet, but I have decided it's time to start brushing up on my mandarin.

It's been a while since I posted anything on here, and it's been a while since I really did any Chinese study. I have still been listening to ChinesePod, but that's really done little more than stop me from forgetting everything.

First thing I have to do now is revise what I learned previously. Time is a bit of an issue (I don't have a lot to spare) so jMemorize is now set for five minute lessons, that I will try and fit in between doing other stuff, or whenever I have a spare moment. While doing this I also intend to pay particular attention to learning tones. This is one area I really should have paid more attention to the first time around.