My Chinese journey

I started studying Chinese about a year ago, but it was nothing serious: 1 hr/week with a tutor. After my tutor left to spend time with her aging mother, I kept studying on my own until I found a family friend who was tutoring me 2–3 hrs/week.

I really enjoyed it, but for some reason I just didn't like the format. It felt like I was following someone else's idea of what progress looks like. She was a wonderful tutor and friend, I just felt I was wasting our time and decided to move on.

I still wanted to keep studying, so I started to build a space using HTML/CSS/JS and Flask with a SQLite database. I first made a simple flashcard system, and with time I kept improving it. Today I added a reading section that I had branched to work on separately and test. Now that it's all together, my next idea is to somehow connect the reading to the flashcard drill practice.

One of the biggest improvements was finding a YouTuber who speaks Chinese and provides subtitles in traditional characters along with pinyin. Now the majority of my study time is just following her the best I can at her natural rhythm. At first it felt like I was just mumbling, after about 2 months I can keep up with her 80–90% of the time. I still have very little idea what she is saying, but I can understand the sounds and hear the differences, so I think if I keep working daily and spend enough time, I will get there.