Hi, my name is Niel, otherwise known as Confused Laowai. I blog about my exciting, yet often confusing adventure learning Chinese.
2010: A Year in Review
So 2010 is almost over. I’d like to reflect this past year on my Mandarin. I graduated this year with a Mandarin (+ General Linguistics) degree cum laude. But, to me, it speaks more than my actual abilities. I have learned how to score really good marks, but doesn’t really reflect my knowledge of the language. One of the biggest things that helped me this year, was the choice of our teacher to give us [...]
Quick Social Mandarin Update
Social Mandarin has been growing steadily over the past few months. This is one my first big web projects and it is an interesting experiment. First I had opened up the blogging section to people who want to post blogs there, but unfortunately it has not been too quick on the uptake. It also clashed withe main purpose of the site, for people to share resources and links. This has led to a bit of [...]
Cui Jian’s Greenhouse Girl (花房姑娘)
Last year, I took part in the Chinese Bridge competition, which is a Chinese Proficiency competition for foreigners. My Chinese was a bit bad back then, but part of the competition included a “culture” section. You could do anything Chinese really. Sing a song, say a poem, tell a story, do calligraphy or dancing whatever. I decided early on I’d sing a song. I didn’t know any Chinese songs back then, so I Googled quite [...]
Is Chinese a good choice for your first foreign language?
Now that I’ve come to the end of my formal Mandarin studies, I am starting to reflect on Chinese. I am now thinking of starting another foreign language – Spanish is in my sights. Chinese was first! Mandarin is my first foreign language, I speak two other languages, Afrikaans and English, but I grew up with them bilingually. So, Mandarin was my first active effort in acquiring a new language. I have come to learn [...]
Interview with La Loupe
These two laowai, fronted by Maia and Jordan, have quickly risen in my chart of the best tunes I have heard in a while, never mind Chinese tunes. I ordered their CD some time ago and have been listening to it non-stop! Cleverly written acoustic folk vibes… but in Chinese. The lyrics are easy to understand and very relate-able. For instance, in the song Pengyou, they sing 朋友真的不想你走, among many other excellent lines. So, I [...]
Critical Frequency Experiment
I recently found this interesting blog post on Ajatt. A new kind of way of learning languages. It is not the quantity of time spent learning it, but rather the frequency that counts. This has piqued my interest quite a lot. I now officially done with my formal Mandarin studies (waiting for the marks to come out) and looking for ways to continue my Mandarin studies. I have become a lot more confident in my [...]
Flashcards and Second Language Acquisition
A heated debate surged on Randy’s site the past week. I was subsequently banned from the site, because of my strong ideas on flashcards. Randy firmly believed that flashcards are detrimental to language learning. I thought differently. At first my comments were strong, but never personal or attacking. Randy interpreted this an attack. I got frustrated and did post a comment confronting him on his blatant disregard for people’s opinions and his way of handling [...]
Social Mandarin Widget
I have finally tinkered around on Social Mandarin and managed to create a widget that shows the top 8 new links on the site. Ready to serve the best Mandarin resources on the web. Here is how it looks like. Simple, yet effective. If you are on RSS, clickthrough to the site to check it out in action. So, I’m asking you guys a small favour. If you have a blog or Mandarin related site, [...]
L-Lingo Review
So being a niche blogger does have its perks. Like being offered to review premium services free of charge. Not only, do I have an interest in language learning, but I’m very interested in how hypermedia and new media can be used to aid the language learning process. That’s basically what I’m aiming to study next year as well: an MPhil in Hypermedia for Language Learning. L-Lingo is one of those sites that utilize various [...]
The Craziest Chinese Poem I’ve Seen
Since I posted a month ago about the The Weirdest (and most beautiful) Chinese Idiom I’ve seen, I have since stumbled onto another crazy Chinese peculiarity. This time in the form of a poem. Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den This poem is about a man in a stone den who likes to eat lions. Yes it is a bit odd, but that’s not the strange thing. The poem consists entirely out of shi syllables. [...]
