Studying Chinese the digital way

On Twitter I mention every now and then that I am studying Chinese during lunch time or late at night. Because of that I sometimes get mails from people asking me advice on how to best study Chinese. I am no expert in that field, but maybe it helps some readers when I explain how I do it myself. My approach is quite digital, there are a lot of tools out there nowadays that make studying a lot more easy.

Over the past years I had a lot of tutors and even spent a semester at Beijing Foreign Studies University. Right now I spend most time studying on my own at home, but I also have a private teacher about once a week. At the moment I mainly focus on reading and on listening comprehension. A lot of that you can do without a private teacher, especially with digital tools. Because of memorizing new words and characters, I spend more time on reading than on listening.

For reading I use a book with short texts and a list of new or difficult words after each text. These books are easy to find in a Chinese language book store, just make sure the level is right for you (better too low than too high). If I read with a tutor we normally discuss all the new words first; she especially gives me examples of other words in which these characters appear, so that I can remember them more easily. Then we read the text, which goes relatively quickly because she can help me if I don’t immediately recognize a character or if I don’t know the meaning of it.

When I study on my own I used to make heavy use of a dictionary, but a few weeks ago I started using the Pleco iPhone app. This new free app is fantastic, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and study Chinese you should give it a try. I can very quickly look up characters that I don’t know, and when I go through a list of new words I can use the pinyin to quickly find other uses of a certain character. Too bad that Pleco does not have flashcards built in yet, but I understand that feature will come soon.

Another iPhone app that I use heavily for studying is the ChinesePod app. The app itself is free, but it’s only useful if you are a paid member of Chinespod.com. Of course I am, because I use Chinesepod a lot for listening comprehension. The ChinesePod app also contains a dictionary, but is not as comprehensive as the Pleco one. What I like about the ChinesePod app, is that you get several sample sentences where the character or word is used. By reading these I normally learn some other new words as well, and you get a good grasp of how the character is being used. I normally use the Pleco and ChinesePod apps at the same time, on an iPhone and on an iPod Touch because Apple still does not let you run 2 apps at the same time, and that works great for me.

For my listening comprehension I listen to about one ChinesePod lesson per week. These lessons are about 15 minutes with a 2-3 minute dialogue in it. You can listen to them without the need for a tutor, because difficult words are explained in the lesson and you can also read the dialogue online at ChinesePod.com. For me it’s the most convenient way to do listening comprehension, because you can always play the dialogue wherever you are. I often listen while running or while driving back home from work, either online on my laptop or after downloading it on my iPhone (through iTunes or with a one-click download on the site). The ChinesePod app makes the site even more useful, because all new words that you select automatically end up in your set of flashcards on your iPhone. So when I have to wait somewhere for a few minutes I can spend those minutes in a useful way by reviewing some characters.

I don’t do much writing, I used to be able to write about 1000 characters when I studied Chinese, but over the years I forgot how to write many of them. I try to focus on recognizing characters, which takes only 1/3 of the time of both reading and writing them. I have a Wacom tablet that I sometimes use with the ChinesePod Skritter application to write some characters, but only for characters that I otherwise would keep forgetting.

If you want to focus more on speaking I would advise you to give italki.com a try (full disclosure: I am a small angel investor in this company). It’s a great free site full of resources for learning Chinese, and actually also for many other languages. You can find a large number of language partners and professional teachers, who can teach you the language online (normally through Skype). If it’s difficult to find a Chinese teacher, for example because you don’t live in China, this is an easy and affordable way to find one and start regular lessons.

I hope this helps some of my readers. Chinese is not an easy language to learn, but with the right tools it will be an easier and more fun experience.

Flu

2010 did not start very well for me: I have been in bed since New Year’s Day with the flu. On New Year’s Eve we had a nice dinner at Noble Seafood but I felt pretty tired already. I thought it was because of a combination of too much work and not enough sleep, so I did not pay too much attention to it. The next day my whole body was aching and I just wanted to lie down, but because my parents were visiting and would leave the next day, I decided not to give in and spend time with them. But after a late lunch at a Japanese sushi bar I felt so miserable that I took a hot bath and spent the rest of the day on the couch.

Saturday I mainly spent on the couch covered with blankets or in bed with a hot water bottle. I did not feel like eating but still managed to eat some soup and light food. I was shivering despite putting the central heating as high as possible. Sunday was not much different, except that I felt even worse than Saturday. I went to bed at 8 PM but was in a half-awake-half-asleep state for most of the night, having strange dreams and just feeling very uncomfortable. I had planned not to take any medicine, but at 4 AM I took an Advil so I could finally sleep for a few hours.

I still had planned to go to work today, but it was physically impossible. After a hot shower I felt too dizzy to walk straight, so I had a small breakfast and put myself on the couch with my laptop. Hopefully taking an extra day of rest will help me to feel better again. I hate to be sick and normally go to work even when I am not feeling well, but sometimes your body just does not allow you to do that. Anyway, I can’t change it and luckily there is phone and email to keep up with what’s happening in the office. The only good thing is that I lost all the extra pounds of Christmas and New Year already, my weight dropped 3 kilos since New Year!

New blog design live!

If you read this on my blog at www.marc.cn you will see that the design has changed completely, something that was long overdue. When I first started blogging in September 2004 I was on a Radio Userland platform, but I changed to Blogger and to my own domain in August 2005. Since then I did not make any big changes to the design.

I am now using WordPress, which has the big advantage that I can write blog posts and approve comments without using a VPN in China. One of the other advantages of WordPress is that you can easily add plugins/widgets to your blog, so far only a few have been installed but I may add more later. If you have any suggestions for the design or plugins or if you find any bugs, please let me know.

I would like to thank Joop Dorresteijin (Twitter:@joop) for his help with the new WordPress design and getting all my posts, pictures and comments into the new blog design. Great job, Joop!

Looking back at 2009

The year 2009 comes to an end, so it’s time for my annual post looking back at the past 12 months. 2009 was once again a roller coaster, with ups and downs and moments of sadness but also of joy. A lot of those moments were captured in one of the 168 blog posts that I wrote here this year.


The highlight of this year was the birth of our daughter Elaine on May 21. After the birth of Scott on December 27, 2007 we knew what to expect and we were not as nervous a before (at least I wasn’t), but giving birth is still a major experience. Having two kids is really nice and I enjoy every day with them. Elaine is now 7 months old and although she has grown a lot over these months she is still a little baby. But she already started talking a bit (baba was her first word!) and she also learned how to scream loudly to get attention. Because of Elaine we now have 2 nannies at home, one each for our kids, so luckily we have a big enough house.

The lowlights were that my two grandmothers both passed away this year, so I attended two funerals in Holland. Also the father of a good friend of mine passed away after trying to fight cancer, a very sad thing, especially for the family that he left behind. The older I get the more I see people around me getting sick and even dying. I am still young but it shows me that it’s important to enjoy life as much as you can, while you can. I still try to live my life as much as possible to my motto that “you should live every day as if it were your last”. Of course that is not always possible, but at least I try not to postpone things too much and I try to enjoy everything I do, both in private and business life. Next to that I realize how important it is to live a healthy life, with lots of sports and not too much stress (not always easy).


We just had a few short holidays this year, because with small kids it’s difficult to travel. Likely 2010 will see even less holidays, but being at home with the kids is also very enjoyable. During the Chinese New Year holiday we spent a few days in Beijing and right after that flew to a resort in Malaysia for a few days of rest & relaxation. The other trip we made was to Holland, where we spent almost 2 weeks in late August / early September. I took a few weekend trip however, among others to Phuket (for Marcel Ekkel’s wedding) and to Hong Kong (a weekend with my wife without the kids). I had planned to go a week to San Francisco during summer, but because of work issues I had to cancel it at the last moment. Similarly for a trip to New Zealand that I had planned to take next week, I decided to cancel that as well because of business.

That brings me to work, because work wise 2009 was certainly not an easy year. First of all the online casual game market changed a lot over the past year, from single player casual games a lot of people switched to play social games (games where you play online with your real friends in a social setting). Not only in China actually, because worldwide a lot more people are probably playing games now than a year ago (look at Farmville, which now has over 72 million active users on Facebook). But in China things seem to go more quickly, and as a company we had to adapt very quickly to the changing market circumstances. Not always easy, but I learned a lot!

Next to that some key people left Spil Games Asia, among others the manager of our game studio and our COO. That caused me literally a big headache, especially the past half year was not easy. Without having replacements available right away I was completely overloaded with work issues and it was difficult not to lose track of all the details. But the fact that key people left turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It forced me to hire some good new people, and they are doing a much better job than their predecessors. Looking back I am actually quite happy that these people left (especially after finding some skeletons in the closet after their departure): even though it gave me a difficult time I managed to keep the company together and we have a much stronger management team now. I think 2010 will be a much better year for us than 2009, and I am looking forward to it. Looking at our plans for the coming months it promises to be a very interesting year.

But 2009 was more than only about work of course. I started to read a lot more during the past year, I probably read about 50 books, and also started to put some book reviews on my blog. I did a lot of sports, but due to several injuries I only ran about 570 km this year (thanks to DailyMile.com that records all my runs). Normally I try to do one big sports event every year, but this year the only thing that came close was the Shanghai Half Marathon in November. Gary and I had planned to climb Mt. Fuji in November, but that turned out to be an extremely dangerous time to climb so we postponed the trip to next year.

Some other memorable events this year included a business trip to San Francisco in March for GDC’09. The vibe that I felt in Silicon Valley was just amazing, and don’t be surprised if one day I would set up a business there. A great place to work and a great place to live. Furthermore the fact that I was asked to give the keynote speech at the opening of the Academic Year at my alma mater Maastricht University was something I won’t easily forget. I really enjoyed doing it, and I am very honored that I was asked for this. Of course the fact that Spil Games became the world’s largest casual game portal network in March was also am important milestone. Spil Games kept on growing since then and the gap with the competition has only widened.

Other enjoyable moments were the day that Scott first went to school, it’s kind of strange that he suddenly is not home all the time anymore. The solar eclipse in July was also a remarkable event, even though I had seen one before in Stuttgart several years before. And of course it was great to see that Tudou kept on doing well this year. Both in terms of traffic and revenue the company is doing very well, and it was therefore again included in the Silicon Alley Insider top 60 most valuable start-ups.

2009 is now almost over and 2010 just a couple of hours away. I look forward to the new year and to the opportunities it will give. I wish all my readers a happy last day of 2009 and a successful and healthy 2010!

Dan Harris: Chinese Business Law trends for 2010

Today Dan Harris of the China Law Blog wrote an interesting guest post for Shanghaiist in which he describes the top 5 trends he sees in China business law for next year. The trends he focuses on are ones that mainly involve foreigners or foreign businesses. A short version of his top 5:

1. Visa rules will be further tightened

2. Continued trend to shut down illegal and unregistered foreign businesses

3. Tax collection efforts will increase, with more focus on transfer pricing

4. Increased monitoring of M&A transactions

5. Employee law suits will increase and more will be resolved in the employees favor

It’s increasingly more difficult for foreign companies to set up a business in China. Not only because the number of regulations keeps going up, but more important because the existing rules are enforced more strictly. In his post Dan Harris describes why he thinks the government is making it more difficult for foreigners to become active here:

The Chinese government wants to satisfy its own citizens so as to maintain its own legitimacy and one of the best ways to do that is to show a desire to protect the citizenry against foreigners. China’s current economic strength is leading many in its government to believe China has little to no need for foreign investment and so I see law enforcement against foreigners continuing to increase.

I think China realizes that its role in the world’s political arena has changed. More and more China can set the rules, instead of the US. Look at what happened in Copenhagen two weeks ago for example. I read lots of comments online of people blaming China for the failure of the Copenhagen summit, and criticizing the country for not being green enough. But then look at the news from last weekend: China announced a law that forces its energy companies to buy up all green electricity in China. Totally unexpected China shows it is interested in the environment, but that it wants to improve the situation on its own.

I am sure there will be more protectionist measures next year to help China’s domestic industries. But that doesn’t mean foreign companies can’t do business here, they just have to make sure that they know which rules to play by (and follow these rules!). In my experience it’s important to have a good legal counsel and focus more on government relations, especially if you want to be active in a sector like games and game development. In that way you can anticipate changes and make sure you don’t miss any announcements.

For existing companies in China it may be even beneficial, because the (real or perceived) barrier of entry is higher for new foreign entrants, meaning less future foreign competition. China is still a country full of business opportunities, but it’s certainly not easy to run a business here. You need a commitment in both time and money, but if you persist I think most companies will eventually reap the benefits. China is not a place for short-term profits, but it’s a country where a long term investment can pay off big time. And that’s a trend that won’t change in 2010!

Krispy Kreme in Shanghai!

A couple of days ago Krispy Kreme opened its first restaurant in Shanghai on Wujiang Lu, opposite Marks & Spencers. It took them almost 1.5 years to open the first store, giving Dunkin’ Donuts the opportunity to beat them in entering the Shanghai market first.

Being a big donut fan (or doughnut as it’s spelled in at Krispy Kreme’s), I needed to try out their products of course. So today at lunch time I drove over to their store to try their donuts. And… they were great!

Like in other Krispy Kreme stores you can see the donuts coming off a belt and the staff can serve them warm for you if you like. The original glazed donut is my favorite, when it’s still warm it literally melts in your mouth. Prices are decent, from RMB 7 for a original glazed donut to RMB 9 for the most expensive ones, such as the cookie crunch cheese cake donut or the powdered raspberry filled. You get a discount if you buy 6 or 12 donuts. Of course you need to drink coffee with your donuts, a medium sized cup is RMB 12 and a large one RMB 15.

Is Krispy Kreme better than Dunkin’ Donuts? I like both chains, but the warm glazed donut can’t be beaten by Dunkin’. Some of Dunkin’ Donuts varieties are not available at Krispy Kreme, so I will likely keep being a customer at both stores in the future.

Krispy Kreme, 169 Wujiang Lu, close to Taixing Lu, ???169?? ????, Metro Nanjing Xi Lu

Spil Games first iPhone Game: Beauty Resort 2

So far Spil Games has mainly been active with casual online gaming portals, but last week our first iPhone game was launched in the App Store. The game is Beauty Resort 2, a spa-themed time management game that can also be played on our online portals (here for example) and that was very successful with a total of 25 million game plays for Beauty Resort 1 + 2 so far.

In Beauty Resort 2 you are the manager of a spa that you need to build out into a beauty empire. You start off with a spa on Easter island with 8 different levels, after that there are 4 other worlds that you need to manage (New Zealand, Japan, Nepal and Iceland), also each with 8 levels for a total of 40 levels. Your tasks are to keep your customers happy, to upgrade your resort with items and make sure you keep it clean, all by using the drag-and-drop functionality on the iPod Touch/iPhone’s touch screen.

There is both a FREE lite version of the game and a paid full version. The lite version has only the Easter Island world with 4 different levels, the full one has all 5 worlds and 40 levels and is priced at just EUR 0.79 / USD 0.99. Click on the links to download the version you would like to try. Spil plans to launch some more iPhone titles soon, I’ll announce them here on my blog once the games are available in the App Store. Enjoy the game!

Shanghai Christmas Market at Wending Lu

When I ordered lunch from Sherpa’s last week I received an invitation for the Christmas market at Wending Lu. The invitation looked promising, so tonight we decided to check it out with Scott. However, it turned out to be a big disappointment.

First of all there were hardly any people when we were there around 6:30 PM. There were a couple of Christmas houses at the entrance and inside the furniture mall, but there were no customers at all and they were too far spread out. The only people we saw were at the (very) small ice skating at the side of the market. Even though it was too small to really skate around and the music was not particularly Christmas like (dance/house music…) , I still wanted to give skating a try for a few minutes to show it to Scott. But I could only rent skates for RMB 150 for two hours, which was both a bit too long and too expensive for this small area.

But Scott did not care, because he found some snow next to the ice skating place and he loved playing in it. He was laughing loudly when he could throw snow at me and my dad. We also found a Santa Claus walking around, but when I wanted to take a picture of him he wanted me to pay him! I could not believe it, a Santa at a Christmas market who wants to be paid if people take a picture of him? China is really getting too commercial. Or maybe the Santa Claus wanted to keep the money himself (he wanted only RMB 5)?

If you plan to visit the market (which will remain open until Thursday), I would not really advise you to go. It’s rather boring and it lacks a Christmas atmosphere. The idea is great, but as often in China the implementation failed. No Christmas music, the Christmas houses too far spread out, too commercial and not enough marketing so hardly anybody showed up. A missed opportunity.