Immersion

I started auditing a course today on Chinese Culture and Contemporary China from Nanjing University. It's rather basic but as I haven't attended a course in anything in a long, long, time, that's probably fine. I went through the first lesson today on li, ren, and tao/dao, or the three main principles of Confucianism. It'll be useful for the MG book my agent wants me to write but also hopefully get me in the right frame of mind for the short story that's due next month for an anthology featuring a Chinese grandmother. So, you know, reasons.

I made it through the first week of lessons (which were very short). Can't take the quizzes for a "grade" unless I upgrade to "officially" take it for a certificate for £21. Am debating it. It's pretty cheap. I don't really need a certificate for any reason, but I wouldn't mind taking the quizzes to make sure I'm getting the concepts. 

And I also feel like I ought to know more about my culture. Or, that half of me, anyway.

Thought I'd post about it here to keep myself honest & track my progress so I don't slack off. I'd previously started a Beginner's Chinese course and...ahem...didn't progress very far. At all. So I officially re-started that too. BUT...after finishing a lesson there, I felt very lost. Not sure if the structure is right for me as it seemed to assume some knowledge? Or maybe I'm tired. So I started Chinese on Duolingo instead and made it through the first chunk of lessons. I think I'll probably give up on the official course and just do that. It's been ages since I used Duolingo and everything is different (there's gems now? And hearts? What's the XP for?). If I actually keep up with it, maybe I'll actually buy the full version. But I think I need to hit at least a month of use first.

So, Day 1: finished Greeting 1 (Level 1/6, Lesson 2/3) and made a start on Numbers (Level 0/6, Lesson 2/5).

I've mentioned this before, but it does kind of mess me up that I know more words in Korean and Japanese than in Chinese. And the little Chinese I learned growing up was Cantonese, which is supremely unhelpful when it comes to learning Mandarin. I'd tried (but not very hard) to learn some before, but maybe if I post here, it'll make me keep up with it. Though I keep thinking Japanese or Korean are probably the languages I would use more based purely on what I watch and where I might travel to next (when we can travel again...). Though we do intend to go back to China someday since we've only done Shanghai.  

Eh, I guess I'll see how I do and try and watch more Chinese dramas. Other than the one I started today (My Little Happiness), there's another one that looks interesting that came out recently: The Romance of Tiger and Rose, which looked rather like a historical drama (which isn't usually my thing) but it's really more of an isekai (or whatever you'd call that in Chinese) where a writer gets pulled into her own creation.

Addendum: er...also signed up for a Magic in the Middle Ages free course too...