Matt Jones Tech
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  • I Spent 6 Months Learning Chinese. Here’s What Happened.

    Interested in learning Chinese? Curious what it’s like? A few months ago I decided to start learning Chinese. No practical reason other than just genuine curiosity and to see if I could do it.

    How Did I Arrive At This Decision?

    I’ve always wanted to learn a second language and I’ve always felt slightly inferior to bilingual peoples. I don’t know why. It just always seemed a very cool and useful skill to have. After all, Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world. More people speak Chinese than English. So if I’m going to play with learning a new language, why not shoot for the most useful?

    It Begins.

    I started by running a search for “learn mandarin” in the Google Play store. Several apps showed up, but I landed on one called HelloChinese. Overall, I’ve had a great experience with the app. It has a very user-friendly interface and I immediately felt right at home with it.

    Lesson 1

    I went in knowing that Chinese is a symbol-based language (there is no alphabet), but it didn’t fully realize what that felt like until I actually dove into my first lesson. There is no alphabet. My first lesson was an English explanation of what Pinyin is.

    Pinyin actually answered one of my biggest questions about the language. If there are over 8,000 Chinese characters in the language, how on earth do you type? The thought of a single keyboard with 8,492 buttons on it seemed ridiculous.

    This may be an oversimplification, but Pinyin is essentially the Romanized pronunciation of Chinese so you can type the character you want. On a desktop or laptop computer, you’d simply run a small program in the background that tries to auto-fill your Pinyin with the proper Chinese character.

    For example, “Hello” is pronounced nĭ hăo. And when you type nĭ hăo, there’s a program that runs in the background that matches the Chinese character to the Latin letters you typed. Confused yet? Don’t worry, me too. Chinese is almost two languages rolled into one.

    Here I’m using an input method called Fcitx available for Linux OS
    On Android, you get Pinyin built into your keyboard after adding Chinese as a language option!

    Why Only 6 Months?

    In addition to other life events taking priority over a purely fun experiment, I simply don’t have any close contacts with whom I can practice speaking. Was it a total loss? Absolutely not. In fact, my interest in the language has grown even more! And at the very least, I can definitely tell the difference between Chinese characters and Japanese characters. Previously, I kinda had an idea, but would still run the risk of guessing or assuming incorrectly. Now I just need some Chinese speaking friends to stay sharp!

    matt

    January 8, 2019
    Lifestyle
    chinese, culture, language, learning, mandarin, Pinyin
  • The Benefits of Lifelong Learning

    There are lots of you out there who are lifelong learners like myself, and you guys don\’t require any convincing because knowledge has always felt like the worthwhile reward for taking the time to learn something new. For those of us who frequently find that you don’t have the time to sit down and learn something new, let me take a few seconds to explain how taking the time to learn something new has ended up saving me a small fortune in parts and service.

    When I turned 21, my parents got me a brand new mid-2009 MacBook Pro. I absolutely loved that thing. Everything I use in my job today, I learned on that MacBook. I used it to learn video editing, motion graphics, photo editing, and even 3D. Eventually, I wanted to upgrade my specs (my biggest 3D render job took me nearly a week (168 hours) to complete!) so naturally, I went to the best tech support I had available to me to upgrade from a spinning drive to a SSD: Geek Squad. About 2 weeks and $180 later, I swore I would learn everything I could about computers to prevent myself from being taken.

    The learning begins.

    It begins

    In my line of work (video production and animation) I work a lot with computers. As can be expected, computers will eventually get old, have problems, slow down, and otherwise stop working. In today’s technology-driven world, with new computer models being release every few months, salespeople are always trained to push the “You should just get a new computer” approach. Great for their business; not great for my wallet. So instead of buying a brand new computer every 3-5 years, why not learn how to build my own computer? That way, when parts get old, everything starts running slow, I can just slowly upgrade it over the years instead of buying a brand new machine every few years. Sounds great, right?

    I’m not saying this plan was easy. It took me several months to research how to assemble a computer and several months to learn which parts did which job, and how they all work together. And once I knew all the parts required to build a computer, I now had way more decisions to make. Instead of “Which computer do I buy?” Now I was thinking, “Which motherboard should I buy? Is this motherboard compatible with my CPU choice?” A few more months of research later, eventually I had to make a choice. So I ordered my parts one by one.

    I love it when a plan comes together

    One by one they arrived, and I used several online guides to help me assemble my first computer. It ran Ubuntu Linux (I couldn’t afford a copy of Windows), and it was my first ever computer build. Overall, it took about a year to learn everything I could about each of the parts and save up enough money to buy all the parts.

    Today, that same computer has payed for itself over and over again because I took the time to learn about all of the components and I’ve used it to complete several video and animation jobs for clients. This is no “and he lived happily ever after” story, either. The custom build hasn’t been without its problems. However, learning the basics and even more valuable, learning how to learn, has helped me repair my computer, and keep it running smoothly for several years. Now when I encounter my next problem, I’ll never have to rely on a tech service ever again.

    matt

    October 7, 2018
    Lifestyle
    build, custom, DIY, education, goals, learning, lifestyle, new years, new years resolution, resolution

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 1 Thess 5:21