一百天中文 (One Hundred Days of Chinese)

一百天中文

100 days from now I am going to ace the HSK 1 Chinese test. I’ve been in a bit of a slump lately when it comes to learning Chinese. I found myself using way too many streak freezes on Duolingo and doing other silly things to keep my “streak” alive instead of focusing on learning.

So my plan to do something about it is spend a minimum of 1 hour each day for the next 100 days focused on studying Chinese.

I’ll share my journey here for accountability by updating this page. I’ll also post about it on social media using #100DaysOfChinese. Wish me luck :D

Here’s some of the resources that I am using to learn.

• Duolingo - nagging for greater good
• Chinese Skill - similar to Duo Lingo but specifically geared toward helping you pass HSK exams.
• Du Chinese - practice reading Chinese in a very organic way, the best way that I have found to solidify the things that I have learned. Also has a great spaced repetition system.
• Toneboard - amazing iOS Keyboard made by my friend Kevin that makes you add the tone before showing you the character. Pinyin on hard mode, but so worth it! There is also a Chrome Extension that you can use on your computer.
• Chillchat podcast - this is such a great way to have developmentally appropriate immersion for listening practice of real conversations. The hosts do a great job, its bite sized and fun to listen to.
• Pleco - Chinese English Dictionary for iOS/Android, but also has a ton of add-ons that make it a really nice platform for studying, reading, writing, SRS flash cards, and more. I only wish there was a web version!
• [Stroke Order]（https://www.strokeorder.com/） -
• Tips from Isaak’s Journey
• Anki - expert mode spaced repetition app.

Day 1

Kicked off the first day by finishing a Duolingo lesson around identifying tableware which also included some new new animals like 鸟 - I love how this character kind of looks like a bird.

Then I switched over to the Chinese Skill App and learned about purpose. As in, going somewhere for a specific purpose. I really love watching Kyle give the video lessons, he makes things so approachable, gives me hope.

Day 2

I did an hour while on a flight back to SF from Indianapolis. I started with Duolingo by knocking out another lesson about identifying tableware. Learning all the necessary things like 叉， 刀， 盘， and of course 筷子

My favorite phrase that I learned today was 我们想和德国啤酒 because it reminded me of my friend CJ.

Then I did another lesson in Chinese Skill app around purpose, I also did some general vocab flash cards here, and it didn’t go super well. I try to make things as hard as possible for myself by only counting something as correct If I remember the meaning along with the tone. The tone always seems to get me. Its a huge pain in the ass to learn this way, but I do find that when I finally do learn a character, I actually learn it.

I finished by doing a reading from the Du Chinese app. It was actually kind of deep. The story was called 我可以买你的一天吗 (Can I buy a day from you?) about a kid who tries to buy a work day back from his dad so they can spend more time together. I really love this app because you are not “primed” for learning specific characters in the way you are when you are in a topical lesson in Duo Lingo or Chinese Skill. I always feel like I am making huge progress when I am able to read stories in the Du Chinese app. I read this story out loud to Aosheng when I came home too.

United had this TV show about Celebrities opening a Chinese restaurant as a part of their in-flight entertainment so I took the opportunity to do a bit of immersion. I understood like 10% of what was going on, but Chinese reality shows use a healthy dose of special effects and animations to help get the point across.

Day 3

Did Duolingo on my new Framework 16 laptop that Aosheng bought me for my birthday. I did the personalized training, typing on the Ubuntu pinyin keyboard takes some getting used to. Made me wish that ToneBoard had a Desktop App for GNU/Linux.

Almost done with Section 2 Unit 25, next up will be discussing sports.

Words I had some trouble with:

蔬菜 - shu1 cai4 - vegetable
万 vs. 玩 - wan4 (Ten thousand) vs. wan4 (Play) - I mixed up the
character
一包 vs. 一袋 - yi1 bao1 (one pack?) vs. yi1 dai4 (one bag) - It's still
not 100% clear to me which one to use when.

I read a lesson from Du Chinese called “I’m So Happy” 我太高兴了， about a girl who is writing a letter to her parents about how happy she is that they are coming to visit. This was a pretty tough one, a bunch of new words that I did not know and it took me a while to slog through it.

Day 4

Kevin reminded me that there is a version of ToneBoard that works on desktop because he also shipped a ToneBoard Chrome Extension a few years ago. This is awesome, and I used it to do more lessons during my studies today.

I think its kind of silly that Duolingo does not allow you to type in English when translating from Chinese to English and instead forces you to use the English word bank, this feels like a missed opportunity because Word Banks feel like a huge crutch most of the time.

The best part of Du Chinese is that it allows you to make flash cards for spaced repetition later, I wish Duolingo also offered this ability. I may also consider bringing back Flashy, but this is only something I would do in the future because I tend to get carried away and instead of focusing on whatever project I have going on (like learning Chinese) ill go build a bunch of tooling to make that “easier” instead of doing the thing itself.

My favorite phrase of the day was, I want a bowl of Beef Noodles, because its late in the day and I am hungry.

我要一碗牛肉面

I finished the lesson on identifying tableware, that I have been putzing through for weeks. I’m glad to see that this initiative is working!

Day 5

Started Section 2, Unit 26 in Duolingo, Discussing Sports.

再见马匹

There were many new and difficult words in this lessons, I slogged through it a bit. I was also wishing that there was an equivalent of Pleco for web. I wish there was some way to add specific characters to spaced repetition flash cards. In my fantasy world Du Chinese flash cards mixed with Pleco’s lookup would be ideal.

Day 6 - 天六

二〇二四年六月二十七号

I’m gonna start writing the date here just to practice.

Finished Section 2, Unit 26 Discussing Sports in Duolingo. I decided to just power through this entire section, it took be a little bit over an hour but I’m excited to move on to other things next.

Next up I am going to start a lesson about asking someone out, I am also going to try to spend more time each day at least doing one lesson in Du Chinese, maybe I’ll start there instead of getting sucked into the Duolingo rabbit hole.

Day 7 - 天七

二〇二四年六月二十八号

I finally learned 走吧 (let’s go) which is one of the first phrases I recognized Aosheng’s parents saying all the time to him. :D

I started Chinese Skill Unit 26 - Making Travel Plans

我想去南充旅行

I also hit up Du Chinese and did a reading called “This is My Mom” where a girlie sees her mom at the entrance of a movie theatre. 我想我的妈妈

Day 8 - 天八

二〇二四年六月二十九号

Did a bunch of Duolingo lessons while riding the 14R all the way to Exelsior. It was bumpy and annoying, but interesting to learn how to ask people out to places.

Day 9 - 天九

二〇二四年六月三十号

My brain feels like it’s at capacity, its taking me like 4x as long to get through some of these lessons. I think I may be trying to stuff too much in there, perhaps its a good time to go back and do some more review?

I installed the Google Translate extension, not sure why I did not do this sooner. This allows you to highlight text and go to the translation. It also has a feature that I just learned about that allows you to save phrases and even export them to Google Sheets. I wonder if this is the way that I can start to build in the custom flash cards that I have been dreaming about.

The extension is especially handy in some Duolingo lesson types because sometimes they give you the correct characters but not information about the tone (even if you have tones turned on) which makes it very hard to learn what the actual correct thing is.

I moved on to Chinese Skill lesson on travel plans. I learned how to say 巴黎（paris)! So when I write my annual letter in Chinese I’ll be able to say 今年我去巴黎出差

Day 10 - 天十

二零二四年七月一号

I mostly just did a review in Chinese Skill of a lot of previous materials. Since it still feels like my brain cannot take in any new information. But I can’t have too many days like this one because at that rate I’ll never pass HSK1 :(

Day 11 - 天十一

二〇二四年七月二号

Listened to two episodes of Chill Chat and did some more review on DuoLingo. This podcast is a really great supplement for listening immersion with realistic conversations that don’t sound like sad robot. The only issue is that a lot of the content is a bit too advanced for me, but I am working on fixing that!

Day 12 - 天十二

二〇二四年七月三号

今天晚上我吃了韩国的豆腐汤

I finished Duolingo section 2, Unit 26, on asking someone out. Next up will be describing health issues!

Day 13 - 天十三

二〇二四年七月四号

今天是美国的生日，生日快乐美国！

Started section 2, Unit 27 in Duoling, describing health issues.

Day 14 - 第一天十四

二〇二四年七月五号

丈夫told me that I was doing 天十三 incorrectly, google translate works just fine, but this turns out not to be proper grammar. The correct form is to prefix with 第一, I am going to keep the mistakes around to remember growth.

Spent today going over more health issues in Duolingo. Aosheng is sick so I got a real world chance to practice a bit.

Day 15 第一天十五

二〇二四年七月六号

Mostly did more Duolingo studying health issues. It was late ate night and I fell asleep in the middle of a lesson.

Day 16 第一天十六

二〇二四年七月七号

Duolingo decided to get rid of the writing practice section without any notice. It’s so annoying, it seems they keep doing weird things like this that makes me want to stop using it.

Did a couple of lessons in Chinese Skill instead and am planning to spend more time working in here instead of focusing on Duolingo.

Day 17 第一天十七

二〇二四年七月八号

Listened to this great YouTube lesson via Chinese Skill over lunch. I had not seen these before and its a great way to get some immersion in instead of mindlessly watching something else.

I did one Duolingo lesson, and finished the Chinese Skill section on providing directions. I feel like I am reaching the point where I need to spent a lot more time reviewing and a lot less time absorbing. Definitely feels like my brain is reaching a limit.

Started researching what the actual list of characters for HSK 1 is, there are now 500 because the test has been “upgraded”, oh joy!

Day 18 第十八天

二〇二四年七月九号

It turns out I was doing “Day X” incorrectly the second time too. Day one is like 第一天 but day two is not 第一二天 it should just be 第二天. Google translate accepts everything so its a good reminder to be careful.

Found that there were some characters missing from the Pleco deck for HSK 1, they had 497 when there should be 500. Made [a post in the forums] (https://www.plecoforums.com/threads/premade-hsk-3-0-level-1-card-missing-a-few-characters.7538/) and shared my spreadsheet where I did some investigation.

One of the missing characters is 干 which is a homograph. gan1 (first tone) means dry, while gan4 (fourth tone) means do. It turns out there are a ton of these in Chinese, but the good news is that this is the only one in the initial test, so I’ll worry about all the others later.

I used the Pleco SRS flash cards for the first time, its really nice, and I love all the different options for learning in each direction.

Day 19 第十九天

二〇二四年七月十号

Finished the Duolingo section on health issues and did a lot more review.

Day 20 第二十天

二〇二四年七月十一号

Mostly did review, Duolingo and some flash cards. I really like the idea of Pleco flashcards, but I wish there was a way to keep it simpler for a specific level. For example if I am studying some basic HSK1 words, I don’t need to know every single possible definition for a given character. It creates more confusion than anything else.

Day 21 第二十一天

二〇二四年七月十三号

Finished the lesson in Duolingo about chatting over dinner and did some review on Chinese Skill using their training videos while riding Peleton. Also did the video lesson on Chinese Skill about inviting someone out. It’s interesting how Chinese Skill and Duolingo have a very similar topic order.

Day 22 第二十二天

二〇二四年七月十三号

Started Duolingo lesson about shopping for clothes while riding the bus out to the Mission.

Day 23 第二十三天

二〇二四年七月十四号

Finished Duolingo section on shopping for clothes. Also did Pleco SRS, got 84% correct out of 104 cards, feeling very inspired about actually being able to pass HSK 1.0 :D

Day 24 第二十四天

二〇二四年七月十五号

Reviewed 100 words and phrases via Chineseskill Video, felt really nice that I knew like 80% of them!

Day 25 第二十五天

二〇二四年七月十六号

Aosheng told me that sometimes you can just write the date like this instead to save time. 2024年7月16号，he also said that normally you would write the day as 日 and you would use 号 only when you are speaking.

Day 26 第二十六天

2024年7月17日

Did a lesson in Duolingo about body parts and did more SRS flash cards in Pelco. 1/4th of the way done! I feel an urge to make sure I have all 500 characters memorized for HSK1 before trying to learn any more advanced things.

Day 27 第二十七天

2024年7月18日

One more lesson in Duolingo and flash card review in Pleco.

Day 28 第二十八天

2024年7月19号

Health issues lessons in Duolingo, flash cards in Pleco. Watched a bit more of the video lessons from Chinese Skill.

Day 29 第二十九天

2024年7月20号

Finished health issues lessons, flash cards in Pleco.

Day 30 第三十天

2024年7月21号

Duolingo lessons on how to discuss travel issues.

Day 31 第三十一天

2024年7月22号

An hour of flash cards and Duolingo on the plane while coming to Ohio, also did a bit of Du Chinese, but it turns out I don’t do so well trying to learn with no sleep. :)

I find the Du Chinese flashcards to be so much better than Pleco, I just wish there was some way to get all the HSK1 characters in there.

Day 32 第三十二天

2024年7月23号

Just flash card reviews.

Day 33 第三十三天

2024年7月24号

Duolingo lessons on travel issues, more flashcards. A bit of a slog.

Day 34 第三十四天

2024年7月25号

First live lesson with Karen from Chillchat podcast, such an amazing perk of supporting their show

Day 35 第三十五天

2024年7月26号

Listened to Chillchat and did some Duolingo on my flight to Madison.

Day 36 第三十六天

2024年7月27号

Duoling and Flash Cards.

Day 37 第三十七天

2024年7月28号

Just Duolingo today.

Day 38 第三十八天

2024年7月29号

More Duolingo, need to start focusing a lot more on HSK1. Its becoming harder to squeeze this into every day. Feels like working out my brain. :)

Day 39 第三十九天

2024年7月30号

Flying back to SF so had tons of plane time to study.

Day 40 第四十天

2024年7月31号

Finished Duolingo lessons on communicating travel issues. Listened to the latest episode of Chillchat.

Day 41 第四十一天

2024年8月1号

Started Duolingo lessons on weather.

Day 42 第四十二天

2024年8月2号

Duolingo review.

Day 43 第四十三天

2024年8月3号

More Duolingo.

Day 44 第四十四天

2024年8月4号

Kept doing lessons on Weather, listened to Chillchat.

Day 45 第四十五天

2024年8月5号

Duolingo lessons.

Day 46 第四十六天

2024年8月6号

Duolingo lessons.

Day 47 第四十七天

2024年8月7号

Almost half way, really need to start drilling in the HSK1 Vocab!

Day 48 第四十八天

2024年8月8号

Flew to Ohio, spent a bunch of time on the plane reviewing Duolingo and slogging through the lesson on weather.

Day 49 第四十九天

2024年8月9号

Practiced writing on ReMarkable, working through HSK1 word list, its amazing how I can write a more challenging character like 爱 but struggle to make 八 look like it was not drawn by a 2 year old.

I got through a total of 6 characters, 494 to go!

爱，爱好，八，爸爸，吧，白

Day 50 第五十天

2024年8月10号

Duolingo review and a few flashcards.

Day 51 第五十一天

2024年8月11号

生日快乐 to my twin nephews! 今天早上我看了美国人和法国人打篮球

Practiced more writing, its kind of nice how things fit together, learning a single character allows you to build up to more complex words. I also think this really helps with reading composition because you learn every single stroke.

白天，班， 半， 半年， 半天

Day 52 第五十二天

I got COVID and was wiped out for about a week. Restarting the counter on Day 52 on 8/19/2024

2024年8月19号

Finished unit 33, the lesson on talking about the Weather in Duolingo. Feels like I completely forgot so many things over the last week. :( I am glad I finally finished this lesson though. It feels like its been a huge slog. Next lesson will be how to refer to colors!

Sentence(s) I was proud of spelling correctly:

如果周末下雪我们就在家看电影

If it snows on the weekend, then we watch a movie at home.

你想坐在里面还是外面？

Would you like to sit inside or outside?

如果明天下雨，我们就不出去。

If it rains tomorrow, then we won’t go out.

qq: Can you help me understand 着 as in 外面刮着风

Aosheng had the brilliant idea of transfering the PDF worksheet from strokeorder.com directly to my remarkable to practice. He said when he was a kid he would be writing thousands of these pages. This is such a killer use case for remarkable. :)

Spent a bunch of time practicing writing, made a merged PDF with the first 50 HSK characters. I’ll share them here at some point.

Day 53 第五十三天

2024年8月20号

Started Duolingo lessson about colors, but was a bit overwhelmed because the lesson introduced a bunch of new concepts and grammar where the color was just a small part of it. Feels like I am creeping into the more advanced sections of DL which is good in some ways.

qq: difference between 这些 and 这条

completely confused by: 虽然 sui1ran2 - often

I had to listen to this sentence a dozen times before I got it. Brain feels completely fried :(

虽然那件衬衫好看但是太贵了

便宜- pian2yi5 - cheap

Day 50(2) 第五十天

二〇二四年九月三号

I took another extended break from studying, but rather than starting completely over, I am going to give myself a three day penalty and start today as the half way point. :)

I am excited to start weekly lessons with Karen from Chillchat! We’re working toward passing HSK1, she shared a workbook with me and I spent the day working through that. I did the first lesson and the first workbook lessson. I feel encouraged because browsing through the content I feel confident that I already know most of the stuff in the book.

This is the “old” HSK though, so in reality the combination of the old HSK 1, 2, and 3 becomes the new HSK 1 level.

Day 50(3) 第五十天

2024年9月11号

Groundhog day, at this point I have clearly failed to keep my streak going, but I am doing this for me anyway, so I am going to have a third day 50 and pick up where I left off tomorrow.

Did CH 2 and CH 3 in the HSK1 book and workbook. It was all mostly review, but also a bit of slog. But I need to keep going to break through this little funk.

There is a part of the book that helps you figure out where to put your tongue to pronounce things correctly. I found it incredibly confusing, but plan to go revisit this section in the future or find some other resource to help with this.

Day 51(2) 第五十一天

2024年9月12号

Went through CH 4 and 5 in the HSK1 book.

Day 50(4) 第五十天

2024年9月23号

Lets see how many Day 50s I can have before starting completely from scratch :)

Last friday I had my 3rd lesson with Karen, it went really well and I feel encouraged. We’re going to be moving on to HSK 2 (from the old system) which means we’re about 1/3 of the way to the current HSK1.

Last wednesday was the mid-autumn festival. 中秋节快乐！

Just to make sure I do things to completion I went through CH 6 in the HSK 1 book tonight. It took a bit longer than normal because Karen suggested I actually listen and repeat the audio to get a better sense for the flow of sentences.

Day 50(5) 第五十天 #{day-50-5}

2024年10月4号

I know this is getting ridiculous. :) Spent the last week in San Diego with the team so did not get a chance to study much, but today is my weekly lessson, so no better time to restart Day 50.

Day 50(6) 第五十天 #{day-50-6}

2024年10月10号

Maybe I can make it up to 100 using parens instead?

• Lost my Duolingo streak, which was what prompted this project in the first place, but I don’t feel too bad about it.
• Did an hour with Karen today, making steady progress through the HSK2 book.
• Felt so inspired by Isaak Freeman’s post about learning Chinese in 12 months
• I downloaded his mega anki deck and started studying there too to try to follow in his footsteps. :D

Day 50(7) 第五十天 #{day-50-7}

2024年10月30号

(ok I swear this is the last day 50)

Chinese lesson with Karen, learned 送 and 一下

明天是奥升的生日，我送奥升去中国的机票。

Day 51(2) 第五十一天 #{day-51-2}

2024年10月31号

今天是奥升的生日。生日快乐！

Crammed a bunch of flash cards on a train trip from DC to Philly. Realized I knew every single character of the old HSK 2.0 level 1 set. Feeling motivated! Planning to take my HSK1 test on Nov 16th in Tacoma at the Confucius Institute of the State of Washington at Pacific Lutheran University.

Booked our trip to China for new year, feeling more motivated than ever to learn as much as I can before then.

Day 52(2) 第五十二天 #{day-52-2}

二零二四年十一月一号

Chinese lesson with Karen. Chipping away at my Anki deck that I got from Isaak. https://isaak.net/mandarinmethods/

Day 53(2) 第五十三天 #{day-53-2}

2024年11月2号

An hour of Anki while doing laundry 洗衣服

Day 54 第五十四天 #{day-54}

2024年11月3号

Another hour of Anki, finally starting to figure out how the things works.

Day 55 第五十五天 #{day-55}

2024年11月4号

Continued to power through Anki. Finalized my HSK1 test for Nov 16, 2024.

Day 56 第五十六天 #{day-56}

2024年11月5号

Studied my anki deck for an hour while worrying about the election.

Day 57 第五十七天 #{day-57}

2024年11月6号

An hour lesson with Karen, kept studying even though feeling a bit of existential dread.

Day 58 第五十八天 #{day-58}

2024年11月7号

Lowered my anki dose from 100 to 25; because I think it was just way too aggressive. But I do recommend starting with a high number for the first week or two and then work your day down to a more reasonable spot.

Day 59 第五十九天 #{day-59}

2024年11月8号

Did an hour with Karen, traveled back to SF from NYC and did at least two hours of flash card review in Anki.

Day 60 第六十天 #{day-60}

2024年11月9号

Traveled to Salt Lake City for KubeCon, used my time on the plane to get through some flash cards.

Day 61 第六十一天 #{day-61}

2024年11月10号

Knocked out my anki for the day. This is becoming my primary way of studying for sure, and I really love it. Feeling grateful to Isaak for inspiring me to try it this way.

Day 62 第六十二天 #{day-62}

2024年11月11号

Happy Veterans Day, an hour of Anki.

Day 63 第六十三天 #{day-63}

2024年11月12号

Hour lesson with Karen, few more days before HSK1!

Day 64 第六十四天 #{day-64}

2024年11月13号

An Anki a day keeps the test failure away.

Day 65 第六十五天 #{day-65}

2024年11月14日

Another hour of Anki review.

Day 66 第六十六天 #{day-66}

2024年11月15日

Mega anki review on flight to Seattle for HSK1 test!

Day 67 第六十七天 #{day-67}

2024年11月16日

Took my HSK1 test at the Confucius Institute of the State of Washington in Tacoma. It went really well! The listening portion was a tiny bit tricky, but the reading portion was arguably way too easy because it included pinyin. I won’t get the results for a bit but I feel very confident that I passed.

The hardest part was listening to the instructions before the question because it used a lot of unknown words.

Feeling a huge boost of motivation to keep going.

Day 68 第六十八天 #{day-68}

2024年11月17日

An hour of Anki deck.

Day 69 第六十九天 #{day-69}

2024年11月18日

Keeping up with my Anki deck, almost done with the entire batch of HSK1 cards.

Day 70 第七十天 #{day-70}

2024年11月19日

Feeling silly because I’ve been using 号 to write out my dates but it seems like in written form its a bit more correct to use 日。 One is more formal than the other, seems like when speaking its better to use 号 and when writing its better to use 日。

Day 71 第七十一天 #{day-71}

2024年11月20日

Chinese Lesson finished my homework:

什么对身体好？

跑步对身体好 休息对身体好

什么对身体不好？

喝酒对身体不好 小睡觉对身体不好

什么对学汉语有帮助？

看汉语电视对学汉语有帮助 听汉语音乐对学汉语有帮助

以后

上班以后我喝咖啡 下班以后我学习汉语 回来家以后，我做晚饭

以前

去中国以前，我学习了汉语 三年以前，我不会说汉语 睡觉以前，我看了电视

Day 72 第七十二天 #{day-72}

2024年11月21号