Duolingo’s out. Hello Chinese is in. Duolingo is fine. But after trying out
the free version of Hello Chinese for a bit, it’s 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
doesn’t. They have a lot more explanations (e.g., Chinese speakers don’t
actually say 你好嗎 (Nǐ hǎo ma / roughly “how are you?”), which is a phrase
Duolingo generically teaches). And Hello Chinese quickly gets you reading
stories / testing your comprehension, which has been cool. I’m reading like
preschool-level “Peter likes coffee. Susan doesn’t like coffee. Peter doesn’t
like bread. Susan likes fruit juice.” stories, but at least it’s something!
The veggie seeds have sprouted! Well, most of ‘em. 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 I’d be lying if I said
those ‘plants didn’t come out real tasty. Made tiramisu for dessert.
Cynthia’s an honorary Italian—those are her fav foods. Which, for what it’s
worth, ‘Italian’ is one of the approximately 14 Mandarin words I can speak
with any confidence. 她是義大利人!
Week of crappy weather… I guess it got to me. Slow week. Not much else to report.