Brooklyn - Chinese

Starting All Over Again
Spending time in Taiwan rekindled by desire to learn Mandarin.  I went back to my Rosetta Stone and started fresh from the beginning.  This time however I've added a wrinkle that is making the learning both harder but better.  I've added software to my tablet that allows writing Mandarin using Pinyin.  This requires a bit of explanation.  Each Mandarin symbol has a sound that can be expressed using a roman alphabet.  Expressing Mandarin sounds with the roman alphabet is called "pinyin."  So, to create symbols on the screen, you begin to type the pinyin and potential matches are shown on screen.  You then select one of many matches.

In this photo I've typed the pinyin phrase "ni zai" (translates into "you are") which popped up a bunch of two-symbol matches.  The first two are the correct match.  So, as I do the Rosetta Stone lessons, which focus very little on writing, I force myself to write out each word, phrase or sentence I learn.  It slows things down tremendously but it's helped my memorization and recall a lot.  There's also one cool benefit - I can type to Jean in Mandarin in email or instant messaging - as long as the conversation stays within certain tight boundaries.  I'm enjoying it a lot.