Sounding like a native (or trying anyway)

Tweet Winter break seems to be filled with tons of mini challenges that have been keeping me quite busy. In addition to working on a translation challenge (new post on Friday hopefully), and a news reading challenge (15 articles in the bag so far!), I'm starting a parroting exercise in the hopes of bringing my Chinese pronunciation, speed, and general delivery even closer to a native level.

The idea has actually be festering in my mind every since I saw a video on Youtube talking about 蔣勳's book 《漢字書法之美》. The first viewing blew me away. It wasn't really about the content (although I will be buying his book), but also the way he simply spoke Chinese. His voice, like mine, is deep... and the speed seems perfect for delivering a lecture to eager language learners. After a second and third viewing I decided to figure out a way to work on mimicking him to the best of my ability. He has effectively become my Chinese 發音/口音 muse.

Now, just a month or so later I'm actually on my way. The purpose of this parroting challenge is to see just how close I can come to sounding like this master of Hanzi by the 17th of February, the last day of my winter break. For the sake of making this as public as possible, here is my plan of action.

1. Transcribe the speech
2. Split the speech into manageable language chunks (as they are spoken by him)
3. Benchmark
4. Mimic every line as close as possible (every single day)
5. Memorize 
6. Post results

I worked on step one and two yesterday, and spent around 20 minutes today trying to get a proper benchmark (see my soundcloud upload below). While I'm still way off the mark from the original I was able to get close on speed. Working on the audio file today, made me realize that this is the first time I've actually shared any of my own spoken Chinese on the Internet, or at least since my Chinese was beyond a beginner level, so I'm actually a bit nervous. After giving it a few listens I'm already aware of some tone issues and the crazy pronunciation of the "度" in“適度," but like I said before... it's a benchmark.

I'll be working on cleaning all of those things up over the next few weeks, and I'll probably do a follow-up post before the end.

Well, without future ado, enjoy!

The wait is over... Skritter iOS is here!

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After a year and a half of development, months of beta tests, tweaks and bug fixes, more tweaks and even more bug fixes... the #1 web app for learning to write Chinese has finally made its way to the iTunes App Store! If you haven't had a chance yet (and haven't run off to download Skritter), be sure to check out the awesome video George and Nick put together to get a real feel for what you get out of the Skritter iOS app, and check out the Skritter blog for the full development story.

If you've never used Skritter before, do yourself a favor and go download it now! All new users get a one-week free trial to check things out, and amazing App launch deals after that. With over 150 Chinese textbooks, thousands of user generated lists and integrated ChinesePod support you'll be studying and reviewing from your favorite material in no time. If you've never thought about learning to write Chinese characters before, be sure to check out Skritter's Chinese 101 list and get acquainted with over 200 of the most common (and instantly usable) characters while you learn 75 unique radicals, the basic building blocks of all Chinese characters. 

For those who have used the site before, you'll find the app has just about everything you can do on the site only in a much more stylized way. Things like example sentences, individual list study modes etc. are in the works as we speak, and will be available in future updates. I think you'll notice that the iOS version of Skritter is way quicker than its web counterpart, which makes catching up on reviews easy as pie. However, the largest improvement over the web app is just how smooth the native version runs. Add in the fact that there are two cool and unique themes and you'll probably give up using the website altogether (much like I did in February). 

I could go on and on about this thing, but I really feel like the best way to really appreciate what the app is capable of is to simply try it out yourselves. I'm proud to be part of the team that brought you this app, and I hope you all enjoy it just as much as we have been. Just to give you a taste of how addictive this app is, here is a screen shot of my study results the first month I got my hands on the alpha build...

47 hours in a single month, all while attending graduate classes... yeah the Skritter iOS app is really that addictive!

Requirements: Skritter Chinese requires iOS 5.0 or newer, so that's iPhone 3GS, 4, or 4S, iPod touch 4th generation, or any iPad.

3G or wi-fi only?: Nope. Need to be on 3G or Wi-fi for the download and initial updates, but after that you can just add a bunch of new words while connected to the wireless network and do your reviews on the app. 

Price: After the one-week free trial, it's $9.99 for a one-month subscription, or $39.99, $69.99, or $119.99 for six-, twelve-, or twenty-four-month subscriptions. (These are just cents per hour for the typical Skritter user.) Subscriptions are required to add new words, but you can review forever for free. School and institutional licenses are available.

Any questions or comments? Leave them below... and happy Skrittering!