Good News

A lot of updates today.

First, I completed the first audio project session with Chandler a few days ago. I’m in the process of checking my success with the transcript, (Method: (Total correct pinyin and tones)/(Total number of pinyin and tones)) but from my estimates I’ll probably get about 45% correct, which is above my goal of 40%. That said, I still have a lot of work to do.

A few days ago I blogged about the learning tool Mnemosyne that features an intelligent algorithm based on exponential decay of knowledge. Since then, I’ve added about sixty flashcards to the pile. Some of my favorites are 电子人 (cyborg) 眼镜 (eyeglasses) and 应该 (should, ought to). About Mnemosyne I have both positive and negative thoughts. On the positive side, it’s a perfectly good flashcard program, and I wish I had started using something like it sooner. It’s also nice to have it split the flashcards up into different days based on my performance and rating. However, I’m not that impressed with the actual algorithm, or maybe I don’t understand it correctly. Today, when I clicked Level 2 for a card (out of 5 levels) it scheduled the next viewing for seven days from now. That seems a little long for a card that I’ve tenuously memorized, but we’ll see. Also, the flexibility of Mnemosyne isn’t that great. It doesn’t let the user manually choose how long he wants to wait before seeing the card again without deleting and recreating the card. The addition of that feature would increase the usability.

Finally, the Big News. Today I received word from NSEP, and I am happy to say that I have been awarded the scholarship. That means, yup! I’m heading to China There are still some items to take care of, such as the matriculation question and how much I’ll actually receive towards the program, but it’s definitely a momentous step in my life. From here on out, I’ll have to double my efforts to learn as much Chinese as I can in the coming months. That means…a lot of Mnemosyne.

 

First Post

I stayed up late last night chatting with my friend Chandler on MSN. I proposed my idea of recording ourselves reading native texts and then sending them to each other, so we can both develop our listening comprehension skills. I’m pretty excited about the possibilities.

This morning I set my alarm thirty minutes later than usual to compensate for the night before. Springing from my bed at 645, I showered, went to the Russell House for my daily ritual, and then walked over to the library to continue reading the book Encountering the Chinese: A Guide for Americans. Encountering the Chinese is a pretty useful book; like the title says, it delineates some of the major cultural differences between Chinese and Americans, focusing especially on collectivism vs. individualism. The Chinese word for Individualism is Ge4ren2zhu3yi4 个人主义, but besides meaning individualism it also connotes selfishness. The word for Socialism is she4hui4zhu3yi4 社会主义; 社会 means society. Capitalism in Chinese is zi1ben3zhu3yi4 资本主义. Obviously 主义 means -ism. Another word I learned was tong2zhi4 同志 which means comrade. However, I probably won’t use it too much because Chinese frown upon foreigners using it as a form of address.

Lately I’ve been really nervous about my prospects in going to China. Most likely the government will award me with the NSEP, but even if they do, there are still so many things that could go wrong. I technically won’t be a student at whatever college I end up deferring admission to, but the NSEP requires that a student be matriculated in a four year program at a university. No university, no NSEP. Similarly, the CIEE program, from what I understand, requires me to enroll at Nanjing University as some sort of part time student, but most colleges will not let me defer if I’m concurrently enrolled somewhere. Therefore, Duke or Swarthmore or Pitt or wherever I go will not let me enroll, and I wouldn’t receive the NSEP. Jesus what a mess. I really hope it sorts itself out.

On a lighter note, I’m really happy to be finally writing this blog. It will be a nice place in which to dump all of my thoughts, anxieties and Chinese characters.

I am preparing to record my first audio sample for Chandler. More updates to come about how that goes.