Just a week ago, I started a new challenge for myself called “The Language Challenge” to begin pursuing a personal interest of learning new languages. I have been interested for the longest time to pick up Chinese, but had not actively pursued it since I left it behind years ago without much progress.

To motivate myself and to add some gaming element to my interest, I decided to challenge myself to pick up a new language and be at least at the upper-intermediate conversational level within 90 days. This means, I should be able to learn enough vocabulary words, phrases, and be able to carry a normal conversation about general topics at a daily conversational level with a fluent and/or native speaker at a normal pace.

I’ve even gone ahead to setup a YouTube channel and a blog called “The Language Challenge” to share my progress with learning Chinese and hopefully other new languages in the near future.

Now that I’m one week into studying Chinese intensively with the goal of speaking at a conversational level within 90 days, I can say that it has been an exciting adventure to finally pursue something which I have been holding off for way too long! Although, I’m not learning Chinese from zero this time, my current knowledge of Chinese is at a basic elementary that is barely enough to get around the city and place simple orders/requests at restaurants or get a taxi driver to a specific location.

With my study efforts during the last 7 days, I’ve used a mixture of study materials to memorize vocabulary, phrases/sentences, as well as improve my listening comprehension and speech.

Below is my video of my first week studying Chinese, with plenty of mistakes and improvements to be made.

Before are the following study materials I used this time round:
1. Assimil Chinese with Ease, which is a useful audio language learning book that covers dialogue to help build up vocabulary and improve listening comprehension of commonly used phrases. I’ve studied about 39 lessons this week. Some of the earlier lessons served as a “refresher course” for me to get back on track. Beijing Chinese appears to be used in this book.

2. ChinesePod is a online language learning podcast channel based in Shanghai which is quite interesting with weekly updates with interesting dialogue available in a series of levels such as Newbie, Elementary, Intermediate, and upwards. As long as you build up within a certain level, it doesn’t matter which order you study for the lessons. Just choose the topics that interest you and learn relevant vocabulary words, phrases, and improve your listening comprehension.

3. [Music Video] Wang Leehom – Yi Ran Ai Ni (王力宏 – 依然愛你). I decided to use a Chinese pop music video and memorize vocabulary words and phrases from the lyrics for a change. Although, it is highly unlikely I will speak poetically on the street with a bunch of romantic words, i’m pretty sure the vocabulary words in the songs will come in handy to use in normal conversations. Check out the music video below:

Lyrics to the song in 中文 (Chinese), Romanized Hanyu pinyin and English translations: here

Below is my current progress as of Day 8:
Vocabulary words: 214
Phrases/Sentences: 138
Total time studied to date: 17 hours

Please feel free to follow updates on my “The Language Challenge” blog and its Facebook page for more updates on my progress

Below is the Introductory video for “The Language Challenge” to kickstart my intensive studying of Chinese:

Happy News Years 2013 from Los Angeles!!

Every year, I enjoy taking the liberty to review my New Years Resolution from the previous year and see how much I have achieved as well as to see how much I’ve changed as a person, whether it be for the better or… for the worse?

This year was a year with lots of challenges and its fair share of ups and downs. I do what I can to live life optimistically and without any regrets, so as much as I leave myself with no regrets, it has been a tough ride. On the other hand, I met many wonderful people and have developed as a person. Towards the latter part of 2012, I saw new light with new business partners, new business contracts, new friends, and hobbies that I had put to the side since I took the entrepreneurial path in 2009 have re-emerged, those being, cooking, photography, and language learning, among many.

Thus, I plan to make significant changes during 2013, probably as significant as when I decided to leave my full-time job in late 2008 to begin my journey as an full-time entrepreneur.

So, here they go.. (by category):

1) CAREER: 

(Company A: Digital Marketing Agency): Seek growth and partnerships to cover clients not only in Japan and SE Asia, but also China. Successfully launch my food tech service (online menu management service for SE Asia) which is presently in service, but in the pre-launch phase. Successfully launch a new online retail business currently under development.

(Company B: Building Materials Trading): Build supplier/buyer network throughout the construction industry.

2) NON-PROFIT: Establish this network for a particular “target group” which has historically been fragmented, and attempt to link them up globally, linking cultural and language barriers.

3) HOBBIES: Reactivate my hobbies of Photography and Diving, and pursue a new hobby of short-film production.

4) DINING: Learn how to cook a new dish at least once per week. Also, to learn how to cook a new dish of each country I visit for leisure.

5) LANGUAGE: Learn and achieve conversational proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Thai, and Cantonese. There is another language I’ll be studying this year, but that will be revealed later.

6) MUSIC: Pick up the saxophone to be able to play my favorite bossa nova and jazz songs. I learned the flute during junior high school and as both the flute and the saxophone are woodwind instruments, the keys are fairly similar.

7) NEW PLACES TO TRAVEL: 

(Purely Personal): Koh Samui, Eastern Europe, UK, Greece, Netherlands, France, Italy, Various regions in China

(Strictly Business): Mongolia, Kazakhstan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Brazil

(Daily living): Live life in 3 different countries for at least 2 months per country

8) RELATIONSHIP: If in a relationship, to make it a meaningful one where both of us will be happy and adding meaning to each others life. In the meantime, while I still have freedom, to enjoy the abundance of “me” time and make the most out of it.

9) FITNESS: Jog at least 2x per week. Run my first marathon. Swim during the summer.

10) SOCIAL: Make an effort to meet people from various walks of life to achieve my overall 2013 plan. But most importantly, treasuring the important friends and loved ones who are already making a difference in my life.
Time to make it all happen!

On November 8th, I was given the opportunity to be a guest speaker for the Introduction to Business module at Lakeland College Japan, covering Entrepreneurship and the Online Business Climate in Asia. It was a wonderful experience and the students were engaged with interesting questions. Many thanks to Kotykhov sensei for the invitation.

Below is the presentation used for the lecture:

Learning a new language opens new doors, not only geographically but also interpersonally. I have decided to pursue a new challenge to become conversationally fluent in 4 languages. Those languages are Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Portuguese, and Thai. Although I’m not a linguist nor good at picking up new languages for that matter, I want to be able to have the opportunity to communicate and tear down barriers when interacting with people, whether it be for business or pure socializing. My goal is to be able to socially converse in these 4 languages within the next six months from today onwards.

I will highlight this journey in many ways, from various locations. Today I’m in Japan, but tomorrow I may be somewhere else. I’ll present my journey in the form of this blog entry, YouTube videos, and more. Stay tuned, as I share more about my journey ahead.

I have had the opportunity to tie up business agendas in 3 Asian cities. Being based in Tokyo, I was to organize a flight itinerary that would first bring me to Shanghai, followed by Singapore, then finally Bangkok.

I was comparing airfare prices with full service carriers on Star Alliance, which would have me flying ANA, Singapore Airlines, and possibly Thai Airways. The airfare came out to approximately US$1,500. Then a random idea came up to see if I can pull off the same itinerary using exclusively low cost budget carriers for under half the cost of full service carriers.

So that’s what I decided to try.
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