September 29, 2024 • 21 mins
In this episode of the Language Vlog Podcast, we take a look back at the year so far, what we've accomplished and what we'd like to see done in the remainder of this year, particularly continuing with Mandarin Chinese and Russian.
The episode also covers a visit to the CAFE Show 2024 and weekly video updates, including live streams focused on Chinese reading and Russian grammar.
Steven looks at his progress with traditional Chinese characters and Russian language maintenance, as well as the potential to introduce English grammar streams. The episode also highlights short video content, addresses whether China is safe, and includes some of the comments received through the YouTube channel.
We finally discuss the importance of balancing language study methods and the benefits of using a language hours tracker.
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Time stamps:
00:18 Introduction to the Language Vlog Podcast
00:41 Attending the CAFE Show 2024
01:22 Weekly Video Recap
02:47 Live Streams: Learning Chinese and Russian
03:57 Exploring Chinese Reading Levels
05:34 Diving into Russian Grammar
06:47 Future Live Stream Plans
08:02 Short Videos of the Week
13:12 Is China Safe?
17:33 Final Thoughts and Community Engagement
18:49 Farewell and Upcoming Plans
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
00:18 Introduction tothe Language Vlog Podcast
(00:02):
00:41 Attending the CAFE Show 2024
01:22 Weekly Video Recap
02:47 Live Streams: Learning Chinese and Russian (00:06):
undefined
03:57 Exploring Chinese Reading Levels
05:34 Diving into Russian Grammar
06:47 Future Live Stream Plans
08:02 Short Videos of the Week
13:12 Is China Safe?
17:33 Final Thoughtsand Community Engagement
18:49 Farewell and Upcoming Plans
Alright, here we go.
2024 mid year review.
(00:28):
Let's learn some Chinese and Russian live.
What did the Chinese netizens say?
Travel or to class?
And, is China safe?
Peace.
Peace.
Folks, it is Sunday, September 1st, 2024.
My name is Steven, and this hereis the language vlog podcast.
(00:50):
That is an accompaniment to the newsletterand the YouTube channel that I post to
on a regular basis to keep myself honest.
in my own language studies andto hopefully help you in your
own language journey as well.
Sending this out a little bit later asyesterday on Saturday we actually ventured
(01:10):
out to the China International ExhibitionCenter to attend the CAFE show 2024.
We had heard of the exhibition acouple of years ago back in 2022, But
I don't know, something got in the way.
I can't remember what.
And in 2023, when it restarted thetiming just didn't work out very well.
So this year, we finallysaid we're gonna go.
(01:32):
It was free, and it doestake place over three days.
So it went on from the 30th, 31st andends today actually on September 1st.
So it was well worth it.
We'll be posting somevideos about that later on.
This week was a busy week.
We did manage to post let's see, we did acouple of live videos early in the week.
(01:54):
We posted a long form video at thevery beginning of the week, or rather
do you consider Sunday to be thebeginning or the ending of the week?
Anyway, we posted a long form videothere and of course, a couple of
shorts later on in the week as well.
And so what were these videos all about?
Let's take a look.
So first up last Sunday, weposted our 2024 mid year review.
(02:18):
That took a look back at the lasthalf year of language learning,
especially as it pertains to my ownstudying of the Mandarin Chinese
language, brushing up on Korean.
If you'll remember, I did three weeksof Korean prior to my trip there.
And then of course, my continualtreading water with Russian grammar
and also included a bit of alook ahead for some of my plans.
(02:42):
For the rest of the year in whichI outline I'm not going to be
focusing too much on classes.
For the next couple of months, Septemberpossibly October, but at least with
teachers, however, as you'll see withthese live videos, these live streams
that we've done on the the channelover the last week, I'm actually
(03:04):
thinking this might be a good dualpurpose content production method.
For the channel and with that, let's takea look at these two let's learn hour long
live streams that we did this past week.
So the first one, let'slearn some Chinese reading.
I did this last Monday after workand it was about an hour long stream
(03:27):
in which I read through some of thestories that are available on DoChinese.
The DoChinese website, which is anapp that I've talked about quite a bit
on the channel and I use to practicemy Chinese reading and especially my
traditional character reading now.
So what I've done is I've stepped downthe level of Chinese reading that I do
(03:48):
in in simplified characters, I could readat about an HSK5 level pretty decently.
HSK6 gets tough, I find I'mlooking up a lot of words.
HSK4, I'm decently good at as well.
However, with traditional Chinesecharacters, I find that I'm
actually having to step downentirely in my Chinese reading.
(04:09):
That is going from HSK6or HSK5 down to HSK1.
And there I am readingtraditional Chinese.
Only traditional Chinese on DoChinese.
Now I do switch back and forthdepending on what I want to work
on, but my main focus right now isactually to continue learning the
(04:29):
traditional Chinese characters.
As I've noticed that it not justhelps learn more Chinese overall and
the traditional characters, which issomething I want to continue on with my
teacher later on in the year, but alsoit helps maintain, retain, maintain.
and upgrade my vocabulary forMandarin Chinese as a whole.
(04:52):
Actually, in Chinese as a whole,whether it's Cantonese, Taiwanese,
or Mandarin, what have you.
Now, of course, in each of thosedialects, as I mentioned in my mid year
review, they're, they all pronouncethe same word very differently.
Not only that, as I've learned withwhether it's Cantonese, Guandonghua, or
Taiwanese, or even in Mainland, They willactually use different characters to say
(05:17):
different things about the same thing.
So that's a, which may seem completelyobvious, whereas it's like British English
to American English to Canadian English.
They can have three differentwords that all mean the same thing.
Jumper, sweater, pullover.
Those would be the three that come tomind readily in terms of the differences.
Three different words, but theyall refer to the same thing,
(05:40):
which is a a sort of a a thicker.
Jacket type, a thicker sweater to pullover to wear in wintertime, basically.
Continuing on with reading Chinese.
And I think this is a good practice to sitdown after work and just read for an hour.
And if live streaming will do it,then that's something that I certainly
will work into my work schedule.
Next up, reading some Russian grammar.
(06:00):
So this was a bit of aspur of the moment idea.
Following on, actually, with theidea of studying Mandarin Chinese
after work was that I have topractice my Russian grammar.
Not just because we are currently onhiatus with my my teacher, because
Extra, ex my teacher, that is outsideof my own classes with my teacher, I
(06:22):
do need to work on the Russian grammarand pronunciation on my own time.
And this is a language I know ispretty much secondary to my Mandarin
Chinese studies since it is sosimilar to Ukrainian, which I grew
up with, and a language that I stillbelieve is a lot easier than Mandarin
Chinese, primarily because of its.
(06:45):
This is a language that I don't thinkI can let just slide, so it's something
I want to keep on the back burner.
What does back burner mean?
Does that mean saying, yes,I study Russian, or is it
classes every now and then?
Or could it be our long live streamsonce a week or even twice a week?
Possibly.
So this is something that I'mlooking to do and continue to do
(07:08):
over the next couple of weeks.
And then following along with that,I should add at the moment that if
these live streams continue to dowell next week, actually, what I'll
try to do in addition to Chinese,and to Russian, I might actually
do an hour of let's learn English.
This might shock you, but if you were toask me to break down a Chinese or sorry,
(07:29):
break down an English sentence, it wouldactually be difficult for me to do.
Now I have been trained to do this.
This is all part of the Deltamethodology of analyzing, parsing,
deconstructing, and then teachingsentence structure to students.
ESL students, but my knowledgeof this is rather shaky.
Now, I don't have any illusions of doingthe Delta module one again just yet, but
(07:55):
the idea of breaking down some of theEnglish grammar points possibly vocabulary
or other such items in the Englishlanguage might be useful to some people.
And to be honest, would addsome content to the channel.
And help me brush up on my overallability to present the English language
to learners of other languages to the,to English language learners, which is
(08:20):
to basically say, go back to my teachingroutes onto the short videos for the week.
We only did two short videos this week,mainly because of the live streams
that we did earlier on the week.
And I was also busy editing some longform video content for the the channel,
namely the mid year review, but then alsothe next video that should be posted.
(08:44):
By the end of Sunday nightwhich is titled, Is China Safe?
So you can have a look for thaton the channel Sunday evening.
Shorts included.
Chinese netizens say, You swan, he frog.
You pretty, he ugly.
So if you ever thought the Western mediawas a bit harsh, try the Chinese media.
It is horrible sometimes.
(09:05):
Not only do they have some very obscuresounding username handles, I've made a
couple of examples here in the newsletter,X, Y, Z, Pop, Lol, 7, 7, 7, Twinkle,
Fairy, Princess, 6, 8, 6, 8, whichthey are, they do have names like this.
These are two made up names that I Ijust created for the purpose, but they
do have some interesting naming schemes,both on WeChat, Weibo, and other social
(09:28):
media outlets, namely Xiaohongshu, whichis where this post was derived from.
So this post is derived from apicture that a Ukrainian girl posted.
Of her and her boyfriend.
Now, she's very tearful in thispicture and her boyfriend's
very stoic and apparently he'sleaving the country for a while.
We don't really know.
(09:49):
Actually, I Still don't think we know tothis day, and it's about two weeks since
that post was made, the Chinese netizens,which is what they call themselves here
in the mainland, they say that they'renetizens of, so they're citizens of
the Internet, so they're netizens.
That's the idea behind it anyway.
I've never heard it used in a Westerncontext, only in a Chinese context.
They took this to be a rather negativething and encouraged the woman to find
(10:12):
a man who doesn't have to leave her.
They were brutal.
And one of the things they said was,you swan, he frog, you pretty, he ugly.
And this derives from the Chinesesaying, Lai ha ma, xiang che, tian e rou.
So this is lai ha ma is a toad or a frog.
Xiang che is thinking to eat.
(10:34):
RO is goose and roll is meat.
So it directly translates as a toadwanting to eat goose meat, but really
means that when something, when someoneis thinking of doing something, reality
won't allow, it's not gonna happen.
It's just not in thenatural order of things.
If you saw a toad eat a goose.
(10:56):
Would it still be a toad or whatevolutionary changes are happening?
Very good question.
So you can make sureyou pull this one out.
The next time you hear someoneconjuring up some cray cray idea, a
I've put the Chinese charactersopinion and the translation in this
week's newsletter for reference.
(11:16):
Or you can head on over toYouTube to view the YouTube short.
And the final short of theweek, to travel or to class.
I've posted variations of this before.
It's one where I ask the question, is itbetter to travel to learn a language or
to sit in a class and learn a language?
Obviously, this comes down alot to budgetary constraints and
(11:37):
possibly even personal preference.
And more likely the intentionsof your learning of the language.
And by that, is that, do you want totravel with this language or are you
studying it as more of a brain training?
I think is what they use in some apps oris it something you want to attain full
mastery and fluency for some other reason?
(11:58):
If you're heading towards masteryor fluency, certainly you need to
travel, and I would say even live inthe place that speaks the language.
If you're looking to travel, if you'rejust learning to Learn travel language.
That's very different than sitting througha bunch of grammar classes and trying to
write essays in your target language Whichhonestly if you're looking to travel you
probably don't need to learn how to writeessays at all But it's a question that
(12:23):
sort of pops up in my mind sometimes andI do hear other people Suggest that, oh
you should travel to such and such place,they speak it all over the place, which,
you know, it's all great and good to saythat Canada is a bilingual country, but
you literally have to fly over most of thecountry in order to hit a French speaking
city, like pure French speaking city, andthat's mostly in the east mostly starting
(12:48):
in, of course, Louisiana, Toronto, ofcourse, has a sizable French population,
but then Ottawa, then that's in the tipof Ontario the nation's capital, but
then also Montreal, Quebec City, and thenfurther east as well, they also speak
French primarily in some of the cities.
I haven't traveled very much overthere, so I don't really know.
(13:08):
Other than that, west of Toronto,lots of mostly English, I would say.
French and then Indigenouslanguages as well take over.
And then other can you saymicro immigrant populations?
Would you say immigrant populationsthat speak their own language as well.
Overall, a textbook is cheaper thana class, and a class is cheaper
(13:30):
than an irreversible plane ticket.
So take that into considerationwhen you're thinking of
studying your target language.
As I mentioned before, a new long formvideo up or going to be up, published very
shortly on the language vlog this week bythe end of Sunday evening, is China safe?
This is in response to the question Iposted a couple weeks ago about what
(13:51):
people want to learn either about livingin China or as being an expat overall.
I made a bit of a walk and talkvideo discussing about some of
the things that I see as beingsafe and unsafe in the country.
It is by no means comprehensivein its scope, but it does give a
good look at what a walk is like inChina or at least in Beijing, and
(14:15):
which I point out that traffic is abig concern and also people taking
pictures of you is a bit of a concern.
In terms of Other things like drugusage and knifings and violence that
doesn't really happen very much But I'llexplain a little bit more about that
in the long form video Not only that aspeople were also looking to see me do
a little bit more on the channel I dotalk to some locals as you would call
(14:39):
them So I stopped by and actually talkedto a few construction workers who were
breaking down walls or breaking downroads, breaking up roads, digging up
roads on in my neighborhood that day.
So I talked to them a little bitand it's quite a funny conversation.
I think you'll enjoy it whenyou see how that one goes down.
We do have a few other videos inthe works of course, and we will
(15:00):
update you as those get posted.
I do like this idea ofthe live study session.
So it's something that Ithink will continue on.
I have the number 16 inmine and why that number.
is mostly because ofa university semester.
So I was thinking for the next fewmonths, September, October, November,
maybe December, but December getsinto a different type of busy season.
(15:23):
But for the next three months, fourweeks, if I do live streams three
times a week, this is of coursedependent on the internet availability.
Suffice it to say, and sadly to say, whereI live, internet access, restricted and
not always guaranteed that being said it'sguaranteed if I was streaming to Chinese
(15:44):
services but Western or outside of thecountry services Not always guaranteed.
So it can be a little bit testing, trying,troublesome to broadcast live outside
of China from within China as well.
But I'm doing this for a study purpose.
I want to keep my Chinese reading going.
I want to keep my Russiangrammar in treading water shape,
(16:07):
if not improve it, of course.
And then I like the idea ofdoing some English, not classes,
but English lessons for myself.
online at least once a week as well.
If you haven't done so already, pleasehead on over to the buy me a coffee
website as I have a few resources therethat I think are useful for people Who
are studying other languages namelythere is a spreadsheet hours tracker.
(16:29):
And I know some people might findit a little bit, my fond, a little
bit troublesome to be using aspreadsheet X their app of choice,
be it a link do a lingo babble orwhatever, but I found it very useful.
For my own studies, because what itallowed me to do was use any resources
available, but then track them as a whole,dependent on their minutes, dependent
(16:54):
on their timings, rather than thespecifics of what I was actually studying.
For that, the four skills, speaking,reading, writing, listening, and I
also had a special focus sometimes,which was either writing characters.
Or flashcards or even justspeaking with people on the
street or something like that.
And of course I do have a video about thison the the channel as well on the YouTube
(17:17):
channel that you can take a look where Icreate the spreadsheet live on YouTube.
And you can have a look at that.
There's a sample version of it.
If you want to just.
Dabble and see if it's anything worthdownloading or the longer version or I
do have a longer version as well for fivedollars, which I figure, you know, I'll
save you a couple hours creating or evenhalf hour creating the spreadsheet that
(17:39):
it would take you and watching the videoif you don't want to create yourself
and that way five bucks goes to help merun the channel and the the growth of
it, or at least the maintenance of it.
As I seem to buy some.
Video and audio toys from timeto time, from time to time.
And finally, if you haven't done soand if you haven't thought of it if
(18:02):
you could share this podcast and, orthe email as well, as I think this
might be helpful to people either as aninterest entertainment or edutainment.
In their own language journey.
So I think what I like to do withthis both this podcast, of course,
but the newsletter and the YouTubechannel, again, as I mentioned at the
(18:22):
beginning, documenting my own languagejourney, but also showing people
what works and what doesn't work.
So some good ideas and some bad ideasand some ideas you're just like, Steve,
where did you even get that idea from?
Try it out.
It might work for youbetter than it does for me.
And of course, folks, if youhave any suggestions, comments,
(18:43):
criticisms, complaints, oranything, get in touch, please.
Any suggestions for videos, longor short, or any topics that you'd
like to see covered, of course,expat life or life in China.
Food in China, I think is gonnabe an obvious topic that comes up.
Please don't hesitateto get into in touch.
You can email me at Stevens languagechannel@gmail.com or you can hit up the
(19:05):
YouTube channel in the comments section.
I usually respond to justabout all the comments there.
And of course you can also respondto the newsletter email and that
will get back to me as well.
Alright, folks, we'regonna leave it there.
Thank you very much forlistening and tuning in.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for reading the newsletterand thanks for watching the the
YouTube channel as well as a.
I hope you guys are gettingsomething from this and it's useful.
And again, if you have anysuggestions, please let me know.
(19:27):
And it'll help us both.
Not only will it help me understandwhat people want from the channel
and from these different outlets itwould also help, I think in general,
to get it out for other people whoare maybe wondering the same thing.
And I think that's actually morecommon than we suspect sometimes,
like some people have a question.
(19:47):
They might assume that they know theanswer, but when in reality, they're
like, I actually don't know what theanswer is, and I don't really know what
other people think about this topic,whatever that topic might be, especially
as it pertains to learning a languageand living in another country as well.
All right.
Thanks again.
I and the team hope you're doing well.
I'm being productive in theselast couple of days of summer.
(20:07):
Keeping cool.
I know that Chongqing continues tobe very hot, but Canada, I think
you guys are getting very cool.
Beijing has cooled offquite a bit as well.
Is it the Labor Day weekendalready, or is that next week?
Oh my goodness, I don't even know.
Whatever it is, before the colourfulleaves of fall begin to appear,
hope you have some time to relaxand Rejuvenate before the busy
(20:28):
school semester restarts once again.
I can't believe summer is over already.
Thanks again, folks.
We'll do this again.
Have a good one.
Bye bye.
00:18 Introduction tothe Language Vlog Podcast
(00:02):
00:41 Attending the CAFE Show 2024
01:22 Weekly Video Recap
02:47 Live Streams: Learning Chinese and Russian (00:06):
undefined
03:57 Exploring Chinese Reading Levels
05:34 Diving into Russian Grammar
06:47 Future Live Stream Plans
08:02 Short Videos of the Week
13:12 Is China Safe?
17:33 Final Thoughtsand Community Engagement
18:49 Farewell and Upcoming Plans
Alright, here we go.
2024 mid year review.
(00:28):
Let's learn some Chinese and Russian live.
What did the Chinese netizens say?
Travel or to class?
And, is China safe?
Peace.
Peace.
Folks, it is Sunday, September 1st, 2024.
My name is Steven, and this hereis the language vlog podcast.
(00:50):
That is an accompaniment to the newsletterand the YouTube channel that I post to
on a regular basis to keep myself honest.
in my own language studies andto hopefully help you in your
own language journey as well.
Sending this out a little bit later asyesterday on Saturday we actually ventured
(01:10):
out to the China International ExhibitionCenter to attend the CAFE show 2024.
We had heard of the exhibition acouple of years ago back in 2022, But
I don't know, something got in the way.
I can't remember what.
And in 2023, when it restarted thetiming just didn't work out very well.
So this year, we finallysaid we're gonna go.
(01:32):
It was free, and it doestake place over three days.
So it went on from the 30th, 31st andends today actually on September 1st.
So it was well worth it.
We'll be posting somevideos about that later on.
This week was a busy week.
We did manage to post let's see, we did acouple of live videos early in the week.
(01:54):
We posted a long form video at thevery beginning of the week, or rather
do you consider Sunday to be thebeginning or the ending of the week?
Anyway, we posted a long form videothere and of course, a couple of
shorts later on in the week as well.
And so what were these videos all about?
Let's take a look.
So first up last Sunday, weposted our 2024 mid year review.
(02:18):
That took a look back at the lasthalf year of language learning,
especially as it pertains to my ownstudying of the Mandarin Chinese
language, brushing up on Korean.
If you'll remember, I did three weeksof Korean prior to my trip there.
And then of course, my continualtreading water with Russian grammar
and also included a bit of alook ahead for some of my plans.
(02:42):
For the rest of the year in whichI outline I'm not going to be
focusing too much on classes.
For the next couple of months, Septemberpossibly October, but at least with
teachers, however, as you'll see withthese live videos, these live streams
that we've done on the the channelover the last week, I'm actually
(03:04):
thinking this might be a good dualpurpose content production method.
For the channel and with that, let's takea look at these two let's learn hour long
live streams that we did this past week.
So the first one, let'slearn some Chinese reading.
I did this last Monday after workand it was about an hour long stream
(03:27):
in which I read through some of thestories that are available on DoChinese.
The DoChinese website, which is anapp that I've talked about quite a bit
on the channel and I use to practicemy Chinese reading and especially my
traditional character reading now.
So what I've done is I've stepped downthe level of Chinese reading that I do
(03:48):
in in simplified characters, I could readat about an HSK5 level pretty decently.
HSK6 gets tough, I find I'mlooking up a lot of words.
HSK4, I'm decently good at as well.
However, with traditional Chinesecharacters, I find that I'm
actually having to step downentirely in my Chinese reading.
(04:09):
That is going from HSK6or HSK5 down to HSK1.
And there I am readingtraditional Chinese.
Only traditional Chinese on DoChinese.
Now I do switch back and forthdepending on what I want to work
on, but my main focus right now isactually to continue learning the
(04:29):
traditional Chinese characters.
As I've noticed that it not justhelps learn more Chinese overall and
the traditional characters, which issomething I want to continue on with my
teacher later on in the year, but alsoit helps maintain, retain, maintain.
and upgrade my vocabulary forMandarin Chinese as a whole.
(04:52):
Actually, in Chinese as a whole,whether it's Cantonese, Taiwanese,
or Mandarin, what have you.
Now, of course, in each of thosedialects, as I mentioned in my mid year
review, they're, they all pronouncethe same word very differently.
Not only that, as I've learned withwhether it's Cantonese, Guandonghua, or
Taiwanese, or even in Mainland, They willactually use different characters to say
(05:17):
different things about the same thing.
So that's a, which may seem completelyobvious, whereas it's like British English
to American English to Canadian English.
They can have three differentwords that all mean the same thing.
Jumper, sweater, pullover.
Those would be the three that come tomind readily in terms of the differences.
Three different words, but theyall refer to the same thing,
(05:40):
which is a a sort of a a thicker.
Jacket type, a thicker sweater to pullover to wear in wintertime, basically.
Continuing on with reading Chinese.
And I think this is a good practice to sitdown after work and just read for an hour.
And if live streaming will do it,then that's something that I certainly
will work into my work schedule.
Next up, reading some Russian grammar.
(06:00):
So this was a bit of aspur of the moment idea.
Following on, actually, with theidea of studying Mandarin Chinese
after work was that I have topractice my Russian grammar.
Not just because we are currently onhiatus with my my teacher, because
Extra, ex my teacher, that is outsideof my own classes with my teacher, I
(06:22):
do need to work on the Russian grammarand pronunciation on my own time.
And this is a language I know ispretty much secondary to my Mandarin
Chinese studies since it is sosimilar to Ukrainian, which I grew
up with, and a language that I stillbelieve is a lot easier than Mandarin
Chinese, primarily because of its.
(06:45):
This is a language that I don't thinkI can let just slide, so it's something
I want to keep on the back burner.
What does back burner mean?
Does that mean saying, yes,I study Russian, or is it
classes every now and then?
Or could it be our long live streamsonce a week or even twice a week?
Possibly.
So this is something that I'mlooking to do and continue to do
(07:08):
over the next couple of weeks.
And then following along with that,I should add at the moment that if
these live streams continue to dowell next week, actually, what I'll
try to do in addition to Chinese,and to Russian, I might actually
do an hour of let's learn English.
This might shock you, but if you were toask me to break down a Chinese or sorry,
(07:29):
break down an English sentence, it wouldactually be difficult for me to do.
Now I have been trained to do this.
This is all part of the Deltamethodology of analyzing, parsing,
deconstructing, and then teachingsentence structure to students.
ESL students, but my knowledgeof this is rather shaky.
Now, I don't have any illusions of doingthe Delta module one again just yet, but
(07:55):
the idea of breaking down some of theEnglish grammar points possibly vocabulary
or other such items in the Englishlanguage might be useful to some people.
And to be honest, would addsome content to the channel.
And help me brush up on my overallability to present the English language
to learners of other languages to the,to English language learners, which is
(08:20):
to basically say, go back to my teachingroutes onto the short videos for the week.
We only did two short videos this week,mainly because of the live streams
that we did earlier on the week.
And I was also busy editing some longform video content for the the channel,
namely the mid year review, but then alsothe next video that should be posted.
(08:44):
By the end of Sunday nightwhich is titled, Is China Safe?
So you can have a look for thaton the channel Sunday evening.
Shorts included.
Chinese netizens say, You swan, he frog.
You pretty, he ugly.
So if you ever thought the Western mediawas a bit harsh, try the Chinese media.
It is horrible sometimes.
(09:05):
Not only do they have some very obscuresounding username handles, I've made a
couple of examples here in the newsletter,X, Y, Z, Pop, Lol, 7, 7, 7, Twinkle,
Fairy, Princess, 6, 8, 6, 8, whichthey are, they do have names like this.
These are two made up names that I Ijust created for the purpose, but they
do have some interesting naming schemes,both on WeChat, Weibo, and other social
(09:28):
media outlets, namely Xiaohongshu, whichis where this post was derived from.
So this post is derived from apicture that a Ukrainian girl posted.
Of her and her boyfriend.
Now, she's very tearful in thispicture and her boyfriend's
very stoic and apparently he'sleaving the country for a while.
We don't really know.
(09:49):
Actually, I Still don't think we know tothis day, and it's about two weeks since
that post was made, the Chinese netizens,which is what they call themselves here
in the mainland, they say that they'renetizens of, so they're citizens of
the Internet, so they're netizens.
That's the idea behind it anyway.
I've never heard it used in a Westerncontext, only in a Chinese context.
They took this to be a rather negativething and encouraged the woman to find
(10:12):
a man who doesn't have to leave her.
They were brutal.
And one of the things they said was,you swan, he frog, you pretty, he ugly.
And this derives from the Chinesesaying, Lai ha ma, xiang che, tian e rou.
So this is lai ha ma is a toad or a frog.
Xiang che is thinking to eat.
(10:34):
RO is goose and roll is meat.
So it directly translates as a toadwanting to eat goose meat, but really
means that when something, when someoneis thinking of doing something, reality
won't allow, it's not gonna happen.
It's just not in thenatural order of things.
If you saw a toad eat a goose.
(10:56):
Would it still be a toad or whatevolutionary changes are happening?
Very good question.
So you can make sureyou pull this one out.
The next time you hear someoneconjuring up some cray cray idea, a
I've put the Chinese charactersopinion and the translation in this
week's newsletter for reference.
(11:16):
Or you can head on over toYouTube to view the YouTube short.
And the final short of theweek, to travel or to class.
I've posted variations of this before.
It's one where I ask the question, is itbetter to travel to learn a language or
to sit in a class and learn a language?
Obviously, this comes down alot to budgetary constraints and
(11:37):
possibly even personal preference.
And more likely the intentionsof your learning of the language.
And by that, is that, do you want totravel with this language or are you
studying it as more of a brain training?
I think is what they use in some apps oris it something you want to attain full
mastery and fluency for some other reason?
(11:58):
If you're heading towards masteryor fluency, certainly you need to
travel, and I would say even live inthe place that speaks the language.
If you're looking to travel, if you'rejust learning to Learn travel language.
That's very different than sitting througha bunch of grammar classes and trying to
write essays in your target language Whichhonestly if you're looking to travel you
probably don't need to learn how to writeessays at all But it's a question that
(12:23):
sort of pops up in my mind sometimes andI do hear other people Suggest that, oh
you should travel to such and such place,they speak it all over the place, which,
you know, it's all great and good to saythat Canada is a bilingual country, but
you literally have to fly over most of thecountry in order to hit a French speaking
city, like pure French speaking city, andthat's mostly in the east mostly starting
(12:48):
in, of course, Louisiana, Toronto, ofcourse, has a sizable French population,
but then Ottawa, then that's in the tipof Ontario the nation's capital, but
then also Montreal, Quebec City, and thenfurther east as well, they also speak
French primarily in some of the cities.
I haven't traveled very much overthere, so I don't really know.
(13:08):
Other than that, west of Toronto,lots of mostly English, I would say.
French and then Indigenouslanguages as well take over.
And then other can you saymicro immigrant populations?
Would you say immigrant populationsthat speak their own language as well.
Overall, a textbook is cheaper thana class, and a class is cheaper
(13:30):
than an irreversible plane ticket.
So take that into considerationwhen you're thinking of
studying your target language.
As I mentioned before, a new long formvideo up or going to be up, published very
shortly on the language vlog this week bythe end of Sunday evening, is China safe?
This is in response to the question Iposted a couple weeks ago about what
(13:51):
people want to learn either about livingin China or as being an expat overall.
I made a bit of a walk and talkvideo discussing about some of
the things that I see as beingsafe and unsafe in the country.
It is by no means comprehensivein its scope, but it does give a
good look at what a walk is like inChina or at least in Beijing, and
(14:15):
which I point out that traffic is abig concern and also people taking
pictures of you is a bit of a concern.
In terms of Other things like drugusage and knifings and violence that
doesn't really happen very much But I'llexplain a little bit more about that
in the long form video Not only that aspeople were also looking to see me do
a little bit more on the channel I dotalk to some locals as you would call
(14:39):
them So I stopped by and actually talkedto a few construction workers who were
breaking down walls or breaking downroads, breaking up roads, digging up
roads on in my neighborhood that day.
So I talked to them a little bitand it's quite a funny conversation.
I think you'll enjoy it whenyou see how that one goes down.
We do have a few other videos inthe works of course, and we will
(15:00):
update you as those get posted.
I do like this idea ofthe live study session.
So it's something that Ithink will continue on.
I have the number 16 inmine and why that number.
is mostly because ofa university semester.
So I was thinking for the next fewmonths, September, October, November,
maybe December, but December getsinto a different type of busy season.
(15:23):
But for the next three months, fourweeks, if I do live streams three
times a week, this is of coursedependent on the internet availability.
Suffice it to say, and sadly to say, whereI live, internet access, restricted and
not always guaranteed that being said it'sguaranteed if I was streaming to Chinese
(15:44):
services but Western or outside of thecountry services Not always guaranteed.
So it can be a little bit testing, trying,troublesome to broadcast live outside
of China from within China as well.
But I'm doing this for a study purpose.
I want to keep my Chinese reading going.
I want to keep my Russiangrammar in treading water shape,
(16:07):
if not improve it, of course.
And then I like the idea ofdoing some English, not classes,
but English lessons for myself.
online at least once a week as well.
If you haven't done so already, pleasehead on over to the buy me a coffee
website as I have a few resources therethat I think are useful for people Who
are studying other languages namelythere is a spreadsheet hours tracker.
(16:29):
And I know some people might findit a little bit, my fond, a little
bit troublesome to be using aspreadsheet X their app of choice,
be it a link do a lingo babble orwhatever, but I found it very useful.
For my own studies, because what itallowed me to do was use any resources
available, but then track them as a whole,dependent on their minutes, dependent
(16:54):
on their timings, rather than thespecifics of what I was actually studying.
For that, the four skills, speaking,reading, writing, listening, and I
also had a special focus sometimes,which was either writing characters.
Or flashcards or even justspeaking with people on the
street or something like that.
And of course I do have a video about thison the the channel as well on the YouTube
(17:17):
channel that you can take a look where Icreate the spreadsheet live on YouTube.
And you can have a look at that.
There's a sample version of it.
If you want to just.
Dabble and see if it's anything worthdownloading or the longer version or I
do have a longer version as well for fivedollars, which I figure, you know, I'll
save you a couple hours creating or evenhalf hour creating the spreadsheet that
(17:39):
it would take you and watching the videoif you don't want to create yourself
and that way five bucks goes to help merun the channel and the the growth of
it, or at least the maintenance of it.
As I seem to buy some.
Video and audio toys from timeto time, from time to time.
And finally, if you haven't done soand if you haven't thought of it if
(18:02):
you could share this podcast and, orthe email as well, as I think this
might be helpful to people either as aninterest entertainment or edutainment.
In their own language journey.
So I think what I like to do withthis both this podcast, of course,
but the newsletter and the YouTubechannel, again, as I mentioned at the
(18:22):
beginning, documenting my own languagejourney, but also showing people
what works and what doesn't work.
So some good ideas and some bad ideasand some ideas you're just like, Steve,
where did you even get that idea from?
Try it out.
It might work for youbetter than it does for me.
And of course, folks, if youhave any suggestions, comments,
(18:43):
criticisms, complaints, oranything, get in touch, please.
Any suggestions for videos, longor short, or any topics that you'd
like to see covered, of course,expat life or life in China.
Food in China, I think is gonnabe an obvious topic that comes up.
Please don't hesitateto get into in touch.
You can email me at Stevens languagechannel@gmail.com or you can hit up the
(19:05):
YouTube channel in the comments section.
I usually respond to justabout all the comments there.
And of course you can also respondto the newsletter email and that
will get back to me as well.
Alright, folks, we'regonna leave it there.
Thank you very much forlistening and tuning in.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for reading the newsletterand thanks for watching the the
YouTube channel as well as a.
I hope you guys are gettingsomething from this and it's useful.
And again, if you have anysuggestions, please let me know.
(19:27):
And it'll help us both.
Not only will it help me understandwhat people want from the channel
and from these different outlets itwould also help, I think in general,
to get it out for other people whoare maybe wondering the same thing.
And I think that's actually morecommon than we suspect sometimes,
like some people have a question.
(19:47):
They might assume that they know theanswer, but when in reality, they're
like, I actually don't know what theanswer is, and I don't really know what
other people think about this topic,whatever that topic might be, especially
as it pertains to learning a languageand living in another country as well.
All right.
Thanks again.
I and the team hope you're doing well.
I'm being productive in theselast couple of days of summer.
(20:07):
Keeping cool.
I know that Chongqing continues tobe very hot, but Canada, I think
you guys are getting very cool.
Beijing has cooled offquite a bit as well.
Is it the Labor Day weekendalready, or is that next week?
Oh my goodness, I don't even know.
Whatever it is, before the colourfulleaves of fall begin to appear,
hope you have some time to relaxand Rejuvenate before the busy
(20:28):
school semester restarts once again.
I can't believe summer is over already.
Thanks again, folks.
We'll do this again.
Have a good one.
Bye bye.
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