We’ll see how long this lasts, but I came across two apps this past weekend.
The new app was Duolingo, via a recommendation on the Hello Internet Podcast. Its a fun gamify way to learn a language, and so far its been interesting to test myself against the system for Chinese. Over the past few years I’ve spent a bit of effort doing flashcards on Pleco, the excellent Chinese dictionary, but I keep running out of steam because individual words is but just a part of the language.
It seems that I am just advanced enough that I won’t get a ton out of Duolingo, but plowing through their available lessons for those quick breaks over the next couple weeks till I finish them all up will certainly be more productive than Facebook. Hopefully this will kickstart me back into some sort of regular chinese practice.
When I went on a walking kick a few years ago, I settled on using the Pacer app, until life got in the way and I became sedentary again. I re-downloaded and it seems that the developers have not done anything to ruin it and added a nice 7 minute workout routine, aping the official Johnson and Johnson 7 minute workout app. We’ll see where this goes, between jump roping, calisthenics, martial arts, and just plain walking around I need to get moving again. At least this is a good tracking tool to start.
In the end I’ve always wanted to be able to read the mother tongue and I know I need to exercise. It may well be another phase that quickly peters out, but hopefully it will be different this time, a little bit at a time.