For my first interview, I wanted to introduce the legendary Jim Rogers and ask him his thoughts on learning Mandarin Chinese and what it was like to relocate his family all the way from New York to Singapore. He was very generous to give a few minutes out of his busy schedule to answer some of my questions. Jim Rogers is an American investor and financial commentator now based in Singapore. He wa...

As much as you might enjoy reviewing your SRS flashcards, watching foreign movies, reading your foreign language books, or whatever you do to learn Chinese and/or Japanese (or any language for that matter), you can’t learn it all on your own. You need some friends to help you. In theory you could learn everything on your own, I think, but you’re just making life harder for yourself that way. R...

Everyone learning Japanese and Chinese should watch more cartoons and TV dramas! Normally I would never suggest that to anybody, since the first thing that comes to mind are pea-brain couch potatoes watching soaps, but we’re trying to learn some difficult languages here! Also, I’m talking about some quality programs. Some good Chinese & Japanese anime, movies, and dramas. You can ...

If you’re trying to learn Chinese then I can’t stress enough how you should be using ChinesePod. Whenever someone first asks me how to learn Chinese I tell them to start there. I started learning Chinese with their podcast lessons in June of 2006 and I still use them on a daily basis. In my opinion, it’s the BEST resource you will find for learning Chinese. ChinesePod is part o...

I’m glad you’ve decided to follow my advice and start using a spaced repetition system (SRS). Remember that this is a very simple concept that everyone can be successful with. Just put in the small amount of time to set up your SRS and dedicate some time to using it every day. If you still haven’t read Part 1, then please do that before continuing. First thing you need to do is download some...

It’s simple. The best tool to quickly and efficiently learn a language is to use an SRS system, or “spaced repetition system”. You might be thinking something like “why didn’t my middle school French teacher ever talk about SRS back then?” It’s not a traditional method for language learning. That’s why you never heard about it back then. An SRS is so simple though that you’ll pro...

I came across this really interesting video today about language in Chinese rap music. It shows how different rappers around China are using Mandarin (the common language), Cantonese, and other local dialects in their songs to appeal to different audiences. The differences between two Chinese dialects can be like the difference between English and German. This is making rappers choose whether they...

If you’re serious about learning to speak your new language then get ready to throw out all your old English music and replace it with that of your language of study. All free, all the time! Who would have thought it would be so easy? You don’t even have to spend a penny! I’ve never spent my money on iTunes or other similar services for music, and I honestly don’t feel bad ...

These days, Asia is like the ant and the United States and Europe are like the grasshopper. If you don’t save for a rainy day, you’ll be sorry. I know China has a savings rate of about 35% compared to America’s…maybe 2%. Anyway, here’s a video interview of Jim Rogers from a Dutch TV station about Asia and it’s bright future. I always listen to Jim Rogers for my ...

Whether you’re already learning Chinese (Mandarin) or you’ve just recently decided to take the plunge, let me offer 25 good reasons why you should learn Chinese. I hope this will help motivate you to start learning or to continue learning. Sometimes we can forget why we even started learning such a difficult language in the first place, and so maybe this list will remind you and gi...