Finding inspiration.

Tweet As I prepare to take the Test Of Proficiency, Taiwan's national stadardized test for Chinese language proficiency, I am trying to fit a bit more Chinese studying into my day. At times this can seem like such a daughting task. Work, school, family, and everything else seems to get in the way. However it is important to find time (even if it is a little bit of time every day) to keep up with language study. Sometimes we have rely on those around us for inspiration.

My own recent burst of inspiration has come from Kat over at One Year Chinese. If the blog name doesn't give you enough info, perhaps the About section will:

"Let’s see if I can be fluent in Chinese in a year! Define fluent? Speak with a native Chinese speaker for 10 minutes and convince him I’m a native speaker, too! (Or at least cover that whole 10 minutes without speaking English, without consulting any dictionary, and with no awkward silence lasting for more than 30 seconds!)."


It has been fun to track her progress through her blog and twitterfeed.  After reading about her project I have started to hit the books a bit more as well. While I do get a good dose of Chinese in my film class (中國電影課) and my job with the Chinese Language Tearchers Association (中文教師學會) it still feels good to work on something of my own choosing. My study method of choice has been Anki, a SRS flashcard program. I downloaded the TOP Practice Set with around 8,000 Characters. I have put in 21.25 hours so far . Here are my current results:

A big thanks to Kat and other bloggers who have allowed me to find some inspiration to keep going every day and spend a bit of time hitting the books. I am already seeing improvement. I hope it will get me ready for the TOP on Monday. I also finished using the application Shi Zi: A Primer of Chinese Characters last week but I'm holding off on a review until I can speak to the developer. Look for a proper review within the next few days.