Aleksa (翱磊)'s Study Log

I started learning Mandarin in Fall of 2018, and I took 3 years of Mandarin at UCI. I loved my teachers, and I was definitely (somewhat basically) conversationally fluent. I kind of stopped practicing from late 2021 and beyond due to finishing undergrad, doing masters, starting my job, etc.

I’ve been trying so hard to get back into it throughout this year. I was using iTalki for a lot of last year and some of this year. This year I watched 甄嬛传 this year b/c my boyfriend recommended it (SUPER FIRE SHOW BTW!!) and I was happy that I could understand parts of it here and there. It took me YEARS to finish Meteor Garden (2018) on Netflix, but I also finished that earlier this year.

Now, I’m trying to read books. So, I’ve picked up 活着, and I found an audiobook to help me progress through it. My boyfriend’s softly keeping me accountable lolll.

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I’ve also started watching 甄嬛传 recently! It is crazy how much more difficult it is to understand compared to news, podcasts, or more real-life dramas because of how different (and dense!) their classical phrasing is. It’s a pretty entertaining show, though sometimes the dramatic suspense is too much for me to bear, so I find myself skipping ahead sometimes. :laughing:

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