Abby &Brittany is a conjoined twin, and right now they have a reality show on TLC. So far they showed their graduation, they went on a road trip, and they went to London and Italy, from their show, we can see how Abby&Brittany's life, their friends and their family. Most importantly, we can see their personalities and know them better.
I am not a really Glee fan, just be honest with you. At least I am not really crazy for collecting every character's hats, posters, buying their album and their T-shirt stuff like that Or follow them everywhere. But, I did watched a few of their show and their Glee 3D Concert Movie in the paste, I enjoyed it. I like a couple of their songs, and honestly, sometimes I feel some of their songs in Glee are better than the original performers.
Do you know what is Gangnam style? Do u feel this video is interesting, well this "silly horse dancing" song is from a Korean rapper PSY. It's an interantional hit right now, his video right now has 152 million clicks worldwide, and he is on American TV, on the news, EVERYWHERE.
and Even celebrities love his style, "British pop singer Robbie Williams, rapper T-Pain and singer Josh Groban have all tweeted about their love of PSY’s video. Then, superstar Britney Spears got a lesson on how to do PSY’s signature “Gangnam Style” dance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Tuesday." source from celebuzz.com.
Rihanna is a very popular and well known international singer. Being famous in such a young age brings her paparazzi everywhere. I love her songs, and I think she has such a unique voice that nobody has the same voice like hers, but not until I watched Oprah Next Chapter that Oprah interviewed Rihanna and made me get to know Rihanna a little bit closer.
My family member joined the membership and they have credit they didn't use it, so I went over Massage Envy and I did their 1 hour Facial programme, and the service was excellent, and after the treatment, my face feels so so so good. I recommend everyone to join or at least to try their first trial session, they have affordable price and excellent services. I definitely will do my Facial once a month.
I always like to eat at PEI WEI, it's an Asian cuisine restaurant, providing not just only Chinese food, but a little bit Thai, a little bit Malaysian, a liitle bit American flavor all mix together and become American Asian Diner.
So PEI WEI is not your typical Chinese food restaurant in any China Town. Here is the overview from PEI WEI's Home Page :
It's beautiful, isn't it? Galveston Island Historic Pleasure is one of the MUST VISIT Places in TX. They have nice beach, nice restaurants around, a them park kids would go crazy for it. GIHP features features family-oriented attractions including rides, midway games, a wide selection of food venues and retail shops. A great place to spend the whole day here.
Great Wolf Lodge is a water park resort that has several branches across the USA. We stayed there for 4 days, it's a great memory and kids love it, so if you are thinking bringing your kids somewhere for vacation, Great Wolf Lodge is a great choice.
The one we going is in Grapevine, TX. Overall, they provide a very good service, Kids will love to visit there and the whole family will have fun. In this article, I will start with some pictures in the room and introduce the facilities in the hotel.
Hotel Amenities
General
24-hour front desk
Air-conditioned public areas
Airport transportation (surcharge)
Arcade/game room
ATM/banking
Multiple small meeting rooms (never see that, but plenty of public space, like sofa and chairs)
Multilingual staff (meet no staff speaking in other languages)
Free parking (I don't think it's free)
Valet parking
Free self-parking? (Not sure)
Gym Center
Internet Free wifi in the room and public places
Parking
It says free in the Expedia site, but as far as I know it's not free, we pay for the parking fee+tips each time if we go out. So make sure check if the parking is free or not if you decide to book a room.
Room Amenities
Premium television channel(s) Basic channels only, Premium needs to pay extra
Video-game console
Complimentary newspaper
Air conditioning
Phone
Voice mail
Refrigerator (In some room, they have a full size of refrigerator, but some are just half size)
Coffee/tea maker
Pay movies
Daily housekeeping
Private bathroom
Hair dryer
Shower/tub combination
Flat-panel television
Iron/ironing board
Dining
Camp Critter Bar n Grill - This restaurant serves lunch and dinner. Guests can enjoy drinks at the bar. A children's menu is available. (Food is good here, good price)
Loose Moose Cottage - This buffet restaurant serves breakfast and dinner. (Buffet is $20 for adult, $10 for a kids; It's a bit expensive, we didn't go there)
Starbucks - This coffee shop serves breakfast only.
Pizza Hut Express - This restaurant serves lunch and dinner. (cheap price, a pizza can feed the whole family, not a bad choices)
I have lived in the USA for the fourth year, the first two years I was living in Florida, and latter I moved to Houston and stay here untill now.
However, USA is not the first foreign country that I have ever lived with. I lived in the UK for two years for my study, I did a master degree in bussiness over there, I will say British culture and American culture, they are completely different, I personally more preferred British culture I feel more like me. So when I first came here, I need lots of time to adapt the culture. Here are what I found some of interesting culture difference:
Drinking Tea plays an very important part of Chinese eating habits. We normally drink a hot tea after eating all the meal for helping digest or just have a hot cup of tea in the afternoon tea time.
Tea is better than Coffee in some research, it shows that it can prevent cancer and anti-aging. So it is a very good stuff and I encourage all the American or the whole world can drink more tea. Tea is cheapter too. in Starbucks, an iced coffee is like $3 or $4, but a big cup of tea of $0.99 and it is healthier.
I like Kung Fu Panda this series, right now it has already panda 2 comes out. In every Panda movie contains rich chinese cultures inside, and uses an interesting element which is Chinese kong fu to let American or the whole world know about Chinese culture.
Start from the Panda 2, I watched this movie twice. I like it. This movie talks about " inner peace" this time. " Inner peace" is a very chinese philosophy stuff, which is hard to understand. Even me sometimes dont know how to reach "inner peace" or how to get" inner peace". From this movie, we can see how Po gets inner peace in this story.
Well untill now I don't feel a lot of people interested in learning chinese. So I will bring up more interesting stuff in terms of culture background or just write something is totally different. Write more my personal life so you will know chinese culture better.
Anyway, today I am going to introduce a new website, Learn Chinese with free lessons from BBC , well BBC learning series is all good quality, and I think that's the best learning a second language programme. They have 10 short videos intorduced to learn a little bit vocabulary, grammar. They also have stuff for kids to learn, stuff for culture background, stuff for writing and etc. So I am trying to do is to give you variety of websites for you to choose and see what others explain and teach you. It gives more tools to try which one suits you best.
I will say learning chinese series is now stop. My next article I will try to write something more different and more interesting.
Today, I would like to introduce two interesting podcast related to Taiwanese culture. I would like to give u a little bit cultural background for the people living in Taiwan now.
The first Podcast is called "What's up in Taiwan", and it's produced by Kuang-Chong Yu. Right now he is living Taiwan. He is actually a very famous music producer in Taiwan. He came up with this idea is back to 2007, he said that " One day I watched a foreigner being interveiwed by a television news reporter while exiting customs in CKS Airport; she said she couldn’t find any tourism information about
Taiwan in all of the traveling agencies in her country. That’s when I came up
with the idea of doing this podcast, I like to introduce this interesting
island, especially from a foreigner's perspective".
So there are totally 21 Episodes, and in each episodes, they interview travellers in Taiwan from different backgrounds, might be a students who wants to learn how to speak in Chinese, or a business man has business in Taiwan, they all share their lifes and struggles in that episodes. Even though they already stop interviewing new people, it's great tool for you to get to know an insight view of Taiwan. All episode you can find on itune or from their website.
The second Podcast is hosted by a linguistic student in Taiwan, He is doing his Phd study right now. In his profile picture, he looks like an American to me or from Australia, anyway, he is not Asian that's for sure. I believe his mother language is in English, just happen to him that he is really interested in learning a new language. He is mainly in Chinese Mandarin.
His podcast called " Forever a student" (I guess he has been a student for a long long time) and right now he is in Taiwan and he has this blog " Forever a student". Even though in his podcast, he only has 8 episodes, and mainly is introducing learning a simple language or a difficult language, (Well, in his opinion, he thinks Mandarin is a difficult language but you can of course listen to his explanation).
In his blog, there are more stuff you can see, he shares his learning journey of learning in Mandarin, and it's fab to see this from a linguistic student website, I think that will really helps you guys learning in Mandarin.
Today I want to introduce a podcase is for people who want to have businesses in China. It's called AisaBizBlog from Rich Kuslan, you can download in itune or you can visit his website. In his blog, he talks discusses " vital business, legal and cultural issues that affect your business in Asia, with a speical focus in China". There are 41 episodes disscuessed that pretty much can give you "some idea" about having business over there.
Rich Kuslan is an American, he is a white guy from New York and he is a laywer, I think he has an office somewhere in NY. According to his blog, he seems have lots of experiences in China and Taiwan. He also speaks in Japanese too. I guess he is quite familiar with Asian country. Unforunately, his blog has not been updated for quite a while, and I also joined his tweeter but he seems not using it for a long time. However, I think his podcast is still worth to listen and so does his blog. Please do visit and use is podcast as a source if you are interested in China.
Today I am gonna introducing one podcast is about his experiences of living in China. This podcast called, old world/new world couple, life in Shanghai China. I don't know what is the host name, I guess I will call him Mr. old world, you can download his podcast on itune. Unfortunately, he has no website available so I cant give you his link.
This guy moved from Buenos Aires to Shanghai China in 2009, in his podcast he gives detailed life of living in Shanghai from picking up in airport, health issue, destination, culture, food, impression and etc. Anthing you can think. He total has 135 episodes recorded so far.
In this lesson, I would like to give you guys more vocabulary this time, the vedio I am using is from World Learner Chinese, they have 4 podcast in itune and 3 vedio on youtube now but most of the learning materials are quite old like about 3 years ago. I like thier sites especially about the forum but their last post is 3 years ago so that means basically no body is using that site anymore.
First Vedio : It's a little bit long, but most of the time spend on explaining the vocabulary.
Second Vedio: how you said that what is your name in Chinese?
Question:
1. How to say Good Morning in Chinese?
2. How to say Good afternoon in Chinese?
3. How to say Good night in Chinese?
4. How to say " what's your name in Chinese" and how to answer it?
5. How to say " Nice to meet you in Chinese"
6. Is there another way to say Good Morning in chinese?
Anwers all these 6 questions in the comment I can offer you 15 min free skype Chinese lesson. I can check your pronunce and practice the conversation or basically you can ask any questions related to learning Chinese, please take chances and hurry up answer all the questions.
Just let you know that there are some websites that I won't introduce to you.
1. The wesbite I PERSONALLY won't use to learn in Chinese if I were a self learner.
2. There are tons of chinese learning websites, I ONLY introude you the sites that are accurate, clear and full of learning materials. I dont like waste of everybody's time.
3. I only introudce you Free sites. If it's not free, I probablly won't include in my learning material. My theory is that there are plenty of good and free learning material online, why not use it first and wait untill YOU are 100% sure, you love Chinese this language, then invest yourself for improving this language. Part of the reason I say that is because that's the way I learn a language. I always join a free course or use a free material if I can, then untill I learn a period of time, I 100% sure I like that language then I go purchase more materials.
4. THEY MUST BE INTERESTING. I THINK THAT'S THE KEY.
Here I want to introduce 3 apps from Emory College of learning in Chinese. All 3 apps are from iTune U. I want everybody to do some revisions from those 3 apps.
2. Emory College Language Center Mandarin Chinese-Numbers. Emory college is very fouced on Chinese characters learning. They don't teach separately, pinyin and chinese characters. So in this learning numbers app, you can see what the chinese characters are. It's short, and I just want you to have a sense of chinese characters. For example, how to write one in chinese character.
3. Emory College Lanuguage Center-Mandarin Chinese-Radicals. There are total 41 episodes. It's very short, and this app is OPTIONAL, it's for those who are interested in learning writing chinese characters. For example, if you want to learn how to write "woman" in chinese character. Or you want to learn " rain" in chinese character. I mean you will be amazed how different compared to characters in English. However, I dont want you to be overwhelmed. Just take easy, step by step. Actually, it's very beautiful. I love our chinese characters.
I assume that everyone can tell what learning strategies that I am using is that in each lesson I will bring a different tool from different sites or companies or materials for you guys. I will find all those currently produce learning chinese language companies, and you guys decide which one is best for you. So far I havent got any money from any websites that I introduced. I dont know in the future I will want to earn money from this blog I am wrting or not, but so far is not.
Today, I want to introudce a website that I found it from iTune U. If you have ipad or iphone, please download their course, its free. Its called Beginners' Chinese-Audio from The Open University. In each audio, it's not long, between 1min-3min. In each lesson, they all have transcript. I think that is really important for a self chinese learner. I am also welcome EVERYONE asking me questions regarding any of the webites that I already introduced, you have questions when you read their transcript or you dont understand how their explaination, please don't be hesitate to ask me.
The Open University has lots of free courses, its worth to have a look, and in their language courses, there are other languages to learn instead of just chinese learning. The Open University is from UK, and its mainly for distance learning and adult education. Please do use this free resource online.
Unforunately, they don't put their audio on thier website so I can't show you the sample of learning Numbers in Chinese, so I will use youtube instead, Leaning Numbers from one to ten.
1. I want each of you to memorize it and speak very fluently (means talking in a fast speed without making any mistakes).
2. I also want you guys to memorize the pinyin from one to ten.
So far I still open the first 5 people for a free skype chinese lesson, each lesson for 15 min, if you are a self learner and want to find a native Chinese speaker to correct your pronounciation. So please take the chance.
In today's lesson, I want to teach everyone how to introduce themselves, please listen to this MP3 below:
(This Podcast is from Chineselearnonline Lesson 2 Greetings, please open their page for more learning material and also you can download their free podcast from iphone, it's free)
Every lesson, they have Vocabulary, Complete, Notes, Hints and Tips for you to learn.
Vocabulary :
i.e. nǐ hǎo hǎo nǐ hǎo ma? wǒ hěn hǎo nǐ wǒ tā tā hǎo ma? tā hěn hǎo
Complete :
This is a very good material for you guys to learn. Every lesson they have 3 kinds of transcript, 1 pinyin transcript, 2 simplified Chinese transcript, 3 Traditional transcript.
I want everybody to listen to this Podcast without transcript, and then the second time listen to this Podcast with the pinyin transcript, if you want to challenge yourself you can choose either traditional chinese or simplified chinese to read while listening.This is a very good practice and I want everybody do that for homework.
Notes :
"Greetings:
Nǐ hǎo
The literal translation is "you good". Many adjectives in Chinese also function as verbs. So here, "good" also functions as "to be good".
Hǎo
Nǐ hǎo ma?
This is asked more seriously than in English, where we casually ask "how are you?" It is usually asked of people you haven’t seen for a long time.
Note: while the pronunciation of tā for he and she is the same, when written there are separate characters for he (他) and she(她). Tāhǎ ma?
Tāhě hǎ
Xièxie
Xièxie nǐ
Note: When the same character is repeated as in the above example, the second one frequently adopts a neutral tone
Zàijiàn
The literal meaning is "again meet" or see you again (later)
Culture Note: When greeting someone in China, it is common to bow your head. For formal occasions, they will also shake hands as in the West. When businessmen meet it is obligatory to exchange business cards. "
( I copy and paste for this section from their learning material, it's free to download it for everyone, so please do so cus that help a lot for your learning)
Hints and Tips
"Make a list of all the reasons you have for wanting to learn Chinese. Perhaps you could
structure this list into what good things will happen to you if you were able to speak
Chinese. Imagine yourself in that situation - having reached your goals. What would it
feel like? Now make a list of what would happen if you didn’t reach those goals. What
would it be like to be in the same situation but not knowing how to speak Chinese? From
time to time when you get frustrated in your learning attempts (a point we all get to at
some stage), come back to this list for motivation." from Chineselearnonline
If you have visited this website before, then you would know that I am really interested in "online tutoring business". I am a chinese online tutor and I am also looking for good companies have the same interests like me. eTeacher Online Language Academey is one of them who has online tutoring services. They are an international company, "a Swiss private investment firm that believes in creating value through long-term, socially responsible global investments in various fields, including education."
In eTeacherChinese, their teacher is all from Beijin China. They all speak both fluently Chinese and English, this is all thier faculty profile, for those who are interested in can go to their page. I don't know why their teachers are all female, they put all their teacher's profile, teaching experiences, education and etc. You can choose the one you like and learn from her or if you don't have particual preference, simply just call and schedule lessons. They have excellent customer services in USA&Canada and Worldwide.
In their course, they have BeginnerA & B, Intermediate C&D, Advanced E; Business Chinese A&B; Reading and Writing A&B. In every course programme, they provide detailed information, syllabus and contact information. I feel they provide good programme and right now they have $300 cupon in thier website, please go check if you are interested in learning Chinese. Press here for Courses information.
Finally, if you are interested in thier affiliate programme, you can join for free, but I need to mention it, I havent join any of their affiliate programme, so you click any of the link from my website, I won't get any commissions.
From last three lessons, We focus on our pronuciation, let's do some revision first.
Question No. 1 what is pinyin?
Question No. 2 Can you all pronunce all the alphabet correctly?
Question No. 3 Do you know how many tones that Chinese language has?
You can find all the answers from the previous three lessons, I open the oportunities for everyone, the first 5 people leave the message and answer those three questions correctly, I will offer them 15 min free lesson online one by one. So hurry up find your answers in previous lessons and get free lesson from me.
Let's watch this video first
This video is easy, it covers a little bit tone from previous lessons, and there are som vocabulary and some sentences for you to learn. what are the new vocabulary for this video?
Let's watch what other video show you how to say hello in Chinese
This video is a little bit long but be patience, so right now you know how to say hello in Chinese now?
How is everyone learning so far? Do you memorize all the pinyin already? Today I want to introduce a really good website, called Mandarin Chinese Lessons with Serge Melnyk. In his wesbite, you can find all the chinese learning material you want, from begginer to advanced. Moreover, every lesson with audio file that you can download free from iphone and ipad. Just go itune pocast and type in Mandarin chinese lessons with serge Melnyk, their pocast is free to download, and so far thier pocast review is 5 stars. You can also choose to join for the membership, they have different kinds of offer in their membership.
Serge Melnyk studied Mandarin for almost 25 years and spent the last 17 years living in China. Currently, He spends his time between Vancouver, Canada and Shanghai, China. He has a Master’s degree in Asian Studies and Chinese linguistics from a prestigious university and He used to work for many years as educational director in the international school in Shanghai.
What I also found really good about this website is that thier transcript provided with both traditionally Mandarin and Simplified Mandarin. Most of the website only showed simplified Mandarin but actually if you go to Taiwan and Hongkong, people over there are speaking Mandarin and with written in traditional Mandarin, China is with simplified Mandarin. They both sounds the same the only different is the written work.
In his website, even join membership is not free, but if you really want to learn a language well, good investment is needed, but before you pay, you can listen to their free poscast or in his website, they have 30 free chinese lessons to download, and in every lesson, he all put the questions that students ask him and his answers, you are also welcome to ask him questions, they will reply you within 24 hours. Besides lessons, they also offer online chinese tutoring, $500 for 10 hours lessons, 1 hour a week. So if you are interested, you can schedule for the lessons.
Right now they already have over 200 audio lessons and PDF transcript, you can learn in your own pace, whenever you have 15-20 min a week. You can start from zero and just follow thier lessons step by step, you can download their audio file from ipad, iphone, listen to the file on the car or at home. Just make sure each lesson is interconnected and every lesson has new vocabulary to learn and reviewed.
Okay, finally, once again, I get no commission for introducing this website, I just simply feel this is a good website for any chinese learners. I am also very welcome people asking any questions related to chinese learning, and I am also an online tutor too, email me for the lessons (kai0224liu@gmail.com), $20 for one hour. Thank you so much.
We spend a lot of time to focus on pronunciation, in today's lesson we are going to learn Chinese Tone. But before we start, I would like to disscuss some of the questions that a lot of people ask me when learning in Mandarin.
Question No.1 : Learning Chinese is hard to learn?
If you think it is difficult, then it is difficult. Well, every language has its own difficult part to learn. Some languages have very complicated grammar or pronunciation, like German. Generally speaking, when learning speaking in Mandarin, pinyin and grammar is easy for everyone, and for writing in Chinese characters, that might need longer time for it. However, that won't be nessaray to stop you for learning in Mandarin. pinyin and grammar is the main part of learning, learn how to speak is the main part, and dont forget language is all about talking.
So Let's continue today's lesson focuing on Tone.
Check this vedio as well, then you will be more understand of Tone.
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Note: when you practicing, please record yourself to make sure you pronunce correctly. If you have questions, please don't be hesitate to ask for questions.
If you are interested in online chinese tutor learning schedule lesson, pleas email to kai0224liu@gmail.com
Make sure you understand the first three lessons that I provide here, cus next part we are going to learn some vocabulary and grammar.
Okay...Has anybody done their homework ? Do you remember the 29 alphabet? Can you pronunce right? Before you jump into this session, you need to remember those alphabet. CUS THAT'S THE FUNDATION OF SPEAKING in MANDARIN. Learning a new language, needs time and patience. MEMORY, MEMORY. MEMORY. REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW.
I remembered one of the scientific study shows that on average, people who wants to memorize a new vocabulary needs to look at that word for AT LEAST SIX TIMES. So just use your own spare time to study in Chinese everyday, such as while going to the bathroom, taking on a bus, or drviving. I want the people who visit this website, commit themselves to actually invest time learning in Chinese. I update this blog everyday. If you encounter questions for my material, you are welcome to leave a message.
So today's Goal is just only ONE, and it is a VERY IMPORTANT ONE, THAT IS PINYIN !!! Remeber yesterday what I said about pinyin, the definition about pinyin is "Chinese Phonetic System for pronuncing Chinese Character". Pinyin is not English, we just use this system to help you know how to pronunce Chinese Characters. Yesterday, we covered a little bit about today's lesson. we will organised those chinese alphabet for you today.
Okay..There are so many chinese learning websites, and contain so many information, how do you choose a right website wont confused you and can keep you motivated? My blog is for the self learner who really interested in learning Chinese. Learning Chinese on your own I think that's possible, but you need to find the right way. I feel the most important thing is your PRONUNCIATION.
Pronunciation is key for learning any language. You need to be able to communicate with others when you learn a new language. When you learn in speaking Chinese, you need to be able to SOUNDS like talking in Chinese. For my students, the first and the very important thing is to correct the pronunciation. So the goal of this lesson:
1. general background of pinyin and tone,
2. pronunce chinese Alphabet.
1. General Background of Pinyin and Tone : the definition of pinyin is Chinese Phonetic System for pronuncing Chinese Character. Remember! Chinese Character has ONE syllable. Tone; There are 4 types of tone, Different tone with the same syllable, has different meaning. WATCH THIS VEDIO BELOW AND FOCUS ON PRONUNCIATION. NOTE: This person is not me, I am just using this video to demonstrate.
2. The second vedio is for your alphabet pronunciation. Chinese has 29 alphabet, you need to memorize all these 29 alphabet how to pronunce when you see them. then next step you will know how to use Chinese Pinyin.
Assignment: you can do your own alphabet cards, totally has 29 cards, always bring it with you and revise and you canalso record how you sound when you repeat after those vedio. That will always help your pronunciation.
If you need online tutoring for your Chinese, I am in buddyschool teaching now, username is kai0224liu
