Culture & Cuisine
I thought that today, I would do something a little bit different for my Korean update. Since I recently spoke about Korean dining etiquette on the blog, I thought it would be fun to share a little bit about Korean food. And I thought the easiest way to do that would be with Korean snacks (plus I get to eat everything which is a bonus,...
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Travel
Whenever I travel, one of the things that most catches my eyes are the doors and doorways I come across. And in Beijing, China, there were so many beautiful doors and doorways that I found myself with my 照相机 (zhàoxiàngjī) camera constantly at the ready. I noticed that many of these 门 (mén) doors were painted 红色 (hóngsé) red. In China, red is an auspicious...
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Language Resources
Welcome to the sixth official Language Reading Challenge Update and Linkup! As a quick recap, you can check out the previous months’ challenges here: January // Book about the culture of the area you’re studying February // Book in your target language March // Travel book or travelogue related to region that uses the language you’re studying April // Book about the language that you’re learning...
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Language Resources
Happy 4th of July weekend to those of you in the US – I hope you are having a fantastic holiday! I am enjoying the extra time off to get a little extra language study in and some time in the pool. Since it’s once more the beginning of a new month, I’d like to welcome those of you new to #clearthelist and welcome back...
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Culture & Cuisine
Food is seriously one of my favourite things about travel. I love trying out new dishes and snacks whenever I’m abroad (and even when I go on a local adventure near home). While I was in China, there were so many opportunities for me to try out different cuisines, street foods and snacks and I eagerly took every opportunity my stomach allowed (I can only...
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Eurolinguiste
When it comes to studying Chinese, learning characters can easily become one of the more daunting tasks. Especially when you compare it to the writing systems of other languages like Russian or Korean where you only need to learn to read a new alphabet compared to the hundreds or even thousands of characters one must memorize to achieve reading fluency in Chinese. So how can...
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Travel
My first full day in Beijing called for doing something epic, so after debating whether or not we’d visit the Great Wall or the Summer Palace, we decided to opt for the latter. So we made the quick walk from the hotel to the subway station and navigated our way to the 1.1 square mile (2.9 sq km) site, prepared for a day of captivating...
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Language Resources
I often talk about time management and how it’s quite possible to squeeze a bit of daily language study into our already busy daily schedules. And while I’ve suggested methods and resources that you can use to do this, I want to spend a moment to focus on one particular tool that I’ve found incredibly helpful as a busy language learner both when I’m on...
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Culture & Cuisine
When I first put together this recipe, I was craving something grilled, but I wanted to prepare it a bit different than usual. So I thought of Benihana, a teppanyaki-style restaurant we have out where we live. M loves eating out at Benihana, but I’d never thought to make it at home before because it seemed like a lot of work especially because M and...
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Language Resources
Now that my HSK exam is past, I have really been able to focus on learning more conversational words and phrases these past few months, so I thought it would be fun to share the phrase and word sheet I use as a guide to give me an extra boost when speaking Mandarin. These phrases or expressions are those that I’ve found quite useful, especially...
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