我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

[Batman]

This week I returned to Memrise, and I was doing also a lot of unstructured activity (watching YouTube, trying to read simple sentences, trying to repeat some sentences from TV shows in Chinese and so on). Not a bad week. Not good, but much better than previous 2-3 weeks.

I have some dark thoughts: the reason it is not a bad week is because I don't have any job now. I am freelancer, so it's more like I don't have any projects now. But I have no money to pay the rent (I need to pay in 20 days). That just makes me angry and sad that I am in this rat race. I think I can find the project and earn something, but then I will not have time to do other stuff, - that stuff, that I value a lot, like learning the language (however ineffectively), learning programming (or more like planning to learn), reading books... and a lot of other stuff. Dark.

Freelancing was a big step ahead, and I glad that I did it ( it's like month 13 right now ) and I can say that I am much more happy than before, but... Anyway, I need to get out of this vicious circle.

And I should stop being lazy with Chinese. I should become much more obsessed. I like how I stopped paying attention to people in metro or on the street and just repeat words aloud after Memrise and Michel Thomas course. And I should start running again - it kills dark thoughts.

[Batman]

This week is not good, not bad. Memrise, Hello Chinese, couple times trying to watch random Chinese videos on YouTube.
Everything is very chaotic. I did better in some other fields of studying, not language related (that thanks to Batur).

It's kinda sad to realize that it is July already.

[Batur]

Batman, I haven't logined this site for long time. After 3 weeks' trip, finally I am back to normal life. It's like a relax out of normal life, now I feel more motivated than the time before trip. So I guess, when we don't feel well, Maybe we could travel far away, and have a good rest. It will help us motivation.

I will continue to write language log.

[Batman]

I will continue to write language log.

Hope you will! =)
I decided to update early this week. Very busy week. I am doing two projects simultaneously. That gives me a chance to pay the rent this month but takes away all time. I do almost nothing else except work. I do Memrise in the morning, but that's it. No other Chinese.

I am tired of this vicious circle ("time but no money", "no time but ability to pay some bills", again "time but no money", following "no time but ability to pay some bills" and so on...). I am working on solving it. I improved situation a lot already (let's give myself some credit, right ), but it is still very dangerous situation.

In the middle on the next week I will see if I am done with super necessary work, and can move on to just work and studying.

Venceremos.

[Batman]

Was in supermarket today and again saw some Chinese couple there. I didn't talk to them, but I understood what they were talking about! There were considering buying 面包 (miànbāo, bread). It was such a joy to understand it!

I was too tired to try and talk to them, but all way home I was thinking what I could say and what I could ask, and what is possible to say to not sound weird... =)

I finished some of my work and, I hope, will have more time for studying now.

[Batur]

but I understood what they were talking about! There were considering buying 面包 (miànbāo, bread). It was such a joy to understand it!

Batman, it's cool that you could understand them. That's a big improvement! Keep up the good work!
I hope next time you could have the courage to talk with them.
ask them like, 你觉得乌克兰的面包怎么样? (what do you think of bread in Ukraine?)

[Batman]

Just wrote a post, but it disappeared=( Was writing it for too long time, and it asked me to login. Anyway, it was little post, but still sad and annoying.Too tired to begin again.

[Batman]

Ok, so what I was writing yesterday, is that I was trying to use Chinese on ATM. It was fun, but I made some mistakes. I thought that I didn't have enough money on my card, but actually it was saying me that there is a limit of 8000 格里夫纳 (interesting that I really don't know how to write about this stuff even in English, I wanted to say that "банкомат писав, що я можу зняти лише 8000 гривень за один раз").

And I am trying to build memory palace. I don't believe that they work. I mean, I believe with my mind, but I don't believe with my heart, if you understand what I mean
But theoretically, now it can work, because I know a lot of radicals already.

[Batman]

ask them like, 你觉得乌克兰的面包怎么样? (what do you think of bread in Ukraine?)

Thank you for this one! I gonna need more phrases like that, I will write you a list soon, hope you can help.
UPD: and they clearly didn't like the bread, they were talking about not tasty Ukrainian bread is At least I could understand that much.

[Batur]

Thank you for this one! I gonna need more phrases like that, I will write you a list soon, hope you can help.

Great! I'd like to help, give me the list
Batman, maybe you could try to eat rice.