Last week an interview with me was posted on LearnMandarinNow. I wanted to write about it earlier but it didn’t fit into my blogging schedule (yes, I actually have one). LearnMandarinNow is a website giving you all kind of tips on how to learn Mandarin. There are many other interviews with people learning Mandarin and I must say that there are some tips which are also useful to me such as listening to vloggers (after learning Mandarin now for 5 years!). I might be not the perfect person to be interviewed regarding learning Mandarin because I am far from perfect but I do hang in there and study every single day for the past years.
Here a little snippet of the interview:
If slow progress sometimes frustrates me, how can I improve my Chinese quickly?
The best way is of course to be in China and to be confident enough to just start talking. The next best thing is to sit down every single day, go through the study books, learn the vocabulary/ characters and try to just watch Chinese TV shows. Sure, it is much work but when you study every day you will quickly see results. Very good can be also tandem language learning however I never tried this one out.
Check out the rest of the interview here. Be sure also to read through some of the other interviews and materials if you are interested in learning Mandarin because there might be few things you haven’t tried yet.
Just few weeks ago I wrote about the Medieval Market/ Renaissance Fair here at my hometown. I also mentioned that we would be going to a much bigger Market this months and today was the day for the journey. The whole event is called “MitterlalterlicherPhantasie Spectaculum” and is the biggest traveling cultural festival in the world. Nearly every weekend during the warmer months it is in another city with over 2500 people and over 1000 tents to bring the Medieval World back to our time. The closest location of this traveling market is in another city roughly 45 min by car away from us. Last time I had been there was 10 years ago!
Blacksmith with family and apprentice
First of all it seems that the whole town needs to participate somehow as there are just so many visitors coming. As most towns here are in the middle of farm land they just rent some fields and use them as parking lots. Through this all visitors can find some parking space BUT it results in a long journey to the festival grounds at the park in the middle of the town. Last time I was there the ticket price was around 10-15 Euros or so and it got a rather huge increase as it is now 30 Euros per person, eeeek nearly 100 Euros for us! But we both think it was worth it as it was a really special day.
So whats the difference to the free entrance market in my hometown last month? For starters it is so much bigger with multiple actors and bands performing the entire day. Then there are so many workshops you can participate such as pottery, blacksmithing and there are real knight battles (with jousting etc) on the field next to the park, many gleemen, random activities happening and tons of stuff to buy. The place was just full with people and many dressed up accordingly. When my wife saw how others were in chainmail or in beautiful dresses she decided for us that we will do the same for the Market in October.
Nathan being shy posing with the Knights
Though I said last time that we will try to find something nice for Nathan we failed to get him any clothes as he is just too small right now so he had to settle for a mini wooden sword. As he is a fast learner he mastered the skill of one-handed sword fighting within a couple of hours and attacked (unsuccessfully) a dark knight. After that he decided that sword fighting is not his strong point and abandoned the sword for the rest of the day. All in all I can say that this was a really great day even though my current health situation was making everything a bit harder to get around.
#Nathancuty running away from two knight
Too late, gotcha!
Friendly drunken Templar Knight
Elves and Orcs side by side
Prisoner
Even Goblins are roaming this forest
Furry Fighter
MIL was too quick 😦
Medieval Dances to be learned
Playground for the children
Someone got up again
Some band
Noble People eating
Delicous Pig
Small part of the park
Baby eating
MIL stealing other peoples food
More music
Self Made Mail Armour
Took him only 5 years!
Cute owl
Nathan showing off his sword
Sword practice with other kids
Losing the battle against the Dark Knight
Would you like to visit such renaissance fair?
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It’s been now 15 months since Nathan is with us. 15 months might sound long but they passed by very quick. 15 months of happiness, worry, hard work and more joy. Especially in the beginning it was always so hard to figure out what to do when he got sick or cried for a long time but in the end we always managed. He has grown so much by now that it is hard to recognize him from his early pictures “Wow, he really looked liked Churchill!”
By now he is running non-stop around the apartment, opens every drawer, steals everything he can reach and proclaims loudly in his mumbling way that he is here and be better taken care of. He doesn’t say any real words yet but what do you expect when being around four languages every single day. He will take his time and until then we will be happy with his mumbling some random sounds and tries to copy few words which so far never really worked out.
I can dance
Me like bubble baths
This thing is my hat
Hide and Seek
Is this for me?
What is your happiness in life?
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Crazy Chinese Family 