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.

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!