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Sprouting
- Duolingoâs out. Hello Chinese is in. Duolingo is fine. But after trying out the free version of Hello Chinese for a bit, itâs very clearly a superior product. They have actual audio (and video) of native speakers as opposed to the standard robot Duolingo voices. They support Traditional Hanzi, Duolingo doesnât. They have a lot more explanations (e.g., Chinese speakers donât actually say äœ ć„œć (NÇ hÇo ma / roughly âhow are you?â), which is a phrase Duolingo generically teaches). And Hello Chinese quickly gets you reading stories / testing your comprehension, which has been cool. Iâm reading like preschool-level âPeter likes coffee. Susan doesnât like coffee. Peter doesnât like bread. Susan likes fruit juice.â stories, but at least itâs something!
- The veggie seeds have sprouted! Well, most of âem. The bell peppers are pretty stubborn. Everything else is off to the races.
- Cooked up this eggplant parm recipe for Valentines Day din din. The salt / dehydration step along with deep frying made it 7/10 on the pain-in-hindquarters scale, but Iâd be lying if I said those âplants didnât come out real tasty. Made tiramisu for dessert. Cynthiaâs an honorary Italianâthose are her fav foods. Which, for what itâs worth, âItalianâ is one of the approximately 14 Mandarin words I can speak with any confidence. ć„čæŻçŸ©ć€§ć©äșș!
- Week of crappy weather⊠I guess it got to me. Slow week. Not much else to report.