I’m excited to finally publicly announce a project I’ve been working on since last year. I’ve started a new company called AllSet Learning. It’s a learning consultancy focused specifically on solving the problems faced by expats in Shanghai trying to learn Mandarin.
I’m especially happy that in this new venture I have the support of Praxis Language CEO, Hank Horkoff. Hank is one of the most driven entrepreneurs I know, and he has had no small influence on my …
I’ve written before about SRS. I stated that I had my “misgivings” (a post still unwritten), but that I think it’s a good technology which will eventually become more pervasive. In the meantime it’s very DIY. It’s hard for most of us to like, and it’s easy to get it wrong.
Yes, it’s easy to get wrong. Khatzumoto frequently tells us about some of the mistakes he’s made and how to avoid them, and John Biesnecker has some …
I remember when I first arrived in Shanghai, thinking, “I wish that people in Shanghai, when riding the escalators, would stand on the right and let people by on the left, the way they do in Japan.” It’s just such a more courteous and efficient way of doing things.
But yeah, I know… this is China, not Japan.
So when recently riding the Shanghai subway for the first time in a while, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that …
There’s a Firefox add-on called Characterizer (originally Kanjilish, for Japanese) which replaces parts of words with Chinese characters. My initial reaction was that it was just gimmick without much real value, but I’m starting to wonder.
In the screenshot above, the characters are for Japanese; for simplified Chinese they would probably appear as:
读ead 练ractice 学earn
Unfortunately the add-on only works for older versions of Firefox, so I can’t try it out. The concept, as stated by the author, …
In a recent post entitled Why China for Grad School? I opined:
Aside from reduced cost, there is one main reason a westerner might choose to go to grad school in China over a western country: because one’s object of study is inherently Chinese. This includes Chinese history, Chinese art, Chinese language, etc.
There are definitely foreigners in Shanghai that have elected to earn their advanced degrees in China, but in fields other than those mentioned above. Curious about how …
I recently asked my readers to email me if they were interested in participating in a project focused on learning Chinese in Shanghai. The response was quite good, and I’d like to thank all of you that generously offered to participate.
I’m actually a bit reluctant to deactivate the email address, because the responses are still trickling in. Some of the details of the project are taking longer than expected to crystallize, however, so it’s not yet time to start. …
While reading up on one of my favorite topics, the technological singularity, I recently came across this interesting passage in an article by renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil entitled The Law of Accelerating Returns:
To appreciate the nature and significance of the coming “singularity,” it is important to ponder the nature of exponential growth. Toward this end, I am fond of telling the tale of the inventor of chess and his patron, the emperor of China. In response to
…
Just in case you missed these English language Chinese coinages, here’s a sample:
Smilence 笑而不语
vi. When you are expecting some answers from your Chinese audience, you may just get a mysterious smile and their silence only.
动词 当你期望从中国听众那里获得一些回答的时候，你只得到了神秘的微笑和他们的沉默。
The rest of the list is here, but here’s a taste of what you’ll find:
Smilence is definitely the best …
Overheard near Jing’an Temple, a conversation between a Chinese woman and an American woman:
Chinese woman: It is Chinese New Year, time for line dance.
American woman: Really, line dances? You do line dances for Chinese New Year?
Chinese woman: Yes, line dance.
American woman: What kind of line dance?
Chinese woman: You know, Chinese line. Like that stone line.
American woman: Oh, lion dance! OK, I see.
I don’t mean to make fun of anyone’s pronunciation, but the …
John has lived in China for
11.8
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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