Monthly Archives: July 2012

How to Learn Chinese Fast

You want to learn Chinese fast. How about learning mandarin Chinese in just 3 months? Here’s how I did it. Note I use Chinese to mean Mandarin Chinese not Cantonese here, since it is the official language of China and will be the only one to survive the transition in Hong Kong by 2050.

Learning Chinese – The Plan

We will learn Chinese in the following order. Each previous step must be mastered to at least intermediate level before continuing to the next.

  • Chinese Alphabet, Pinyin and Tones.
  • Mandarin Vocabulary Lists.
  • Repeating Audio sentences and phrases, Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, Podcasts.
  • Reading Chinese.
  • Mandarin Grammar.

Reading Chinese is actually the part I found easiest. Grammar is the most difficult and is what takes a lifetime to learn, together with advance Chinese vocabulary.

Basics of Learning Chinese 1 – Preparation

The first thing to do is get your work materials. You want to gather materials in your target language (Chinese in this case) predominantly from the Internet. Materials like:

  • Chinese Vocabulary lists.
  • Chinese comprehensive dictionaries.
  • Example phrases of all kinds in Chinese and with English translation.
  • Audio and video Chinese learning materials, for example Chinese Youtube podcasts or tutorials from YouTube.
  • Download the free Chinese learning flash card software Anki from Sourceforge and add the Chinese word-lists.
  • Use websites like Memrise and Quizlet for Chinese flash cards.
  • Apps to learn Chinese, if you have an Android of iPhone/iPad device

Now, print out the written materials, including the vocabulary lists. and make Bookmarks in your Internet browser to everything else. Buy a single bright marker pen in your favorite color. You will use this to mark the Chinese phrases and words you have completed.

Prepare yourself mentally for learning Chinese. It is not an easy task and Chinese is considered one of, if not the, most difficult common language in the world today. This will not be easy. You will need to be committed to the cause.

Answer for yourself why you want to learn Chinese quickly. For me, I have business in China and travel frequently to view the plants. For you it might be the ladies, learning Chinese for travel, pleasure or learning Mandarin for business. Whatever your reason for learning Chinese, it’s a good idea to write it down to remind yourself when times get tough. And they will.

Many native, fluent, Chinese speakers will try to scare you away from learning Mandarin. They will tell you Chinese takes a lifetime to learn and English just one year. Don’t believe them. Chinese can be picked up quickly, but you will be battling through some incredible brain traps. Be prepared. Work hard. Know that each day is a new challenge and if you take a step each day you can reach the moon. (In total distance travelled, not actually reach the moon by walking, because it’s in space and that would be physically impossible).

Starting to learn Chinese – Strategy and Pinyin

Have a plan for learning Mandarin. First, you need to learn the alphabet, then the tones.

To learn the Chinese alphabet, you will need audio. Find a good YouTube tutorial that covers Chinese alphabet and tones. You will need to understand the use of the four tones as in Mandarin they are different words completely, unlike English where tones are used for inflexion and emphasis and are the equivalent of ALL CAPS and bold. Before moving on, make sure you completely understand and are able to pronounce the four Chinese tones using the phrase “ma” and have repeated the Mandarin Chinese alphabet with the speaker a few times to iron out your tongue. Print out the Chinese alphabet chart for later reference.

That’s it, you’re done with the very basics. Now on to what will take the bulk of your time, Chinese vocabulary.

Chinese vocabulary and phrases

Get Chinese vocabulary lists. As many as possible. Learn at least 20 words a day. No less is allowed. Test yourself regularly. Use flash cards to help learn the Chinese words.

As your Chinese vocabulary expands, begin picking up phrases and grouped words. You will start to flow into basic sentences naturally.

You will be a beginner Chinese user when you can modify sentences to suit your needs. For example, change “open the door” to “open the window”. These small changes will begin to help your understanding of Chinese grammar and sentence structure, which is useful for the next part.

Chinese Grammar

You’re on your own for this one. Practice Practice Practice! Learn and devour as much material as you can. Chinese polygots (those who can speak more than 2 languages fluently) repeat Chinese sentences and phrases from books with English translations. This works for them, effectively teaching them Chinese and Mandarin without any effort. But it takes time and hard work and you need the vocabulary backing to progress. But that’s not for you…and that’s why you’re here…

So really, seriously, why do you want to learn Chinese? Do you have the motivation to make it to the basic conversaional level or are you going for full Mandarin fluency?

Be honest with yourself. In the time it took you to read this you could have done some more vocabulry…but you didn’t. So what’s up?

WordPress Google Analytics

Problems adding Google Analytics to wordpress blog. You might be missing as many as 95% of your visits and pageviews! Here is how to add Google Analytics to a wordpress installation correctly without using a plugin.

Add Google Analytics to WordPress blog

A full guide on how to add Analytics to WordPress then is:

  • Login to your Google Analytics service and get the tracking code.
  • Login to your WordPress admin panel at whateveryourblogdomainis.com/wp-admin.
  • Go to the Appearance menu option and select Wdigets.
  • Drag across a Text widget into the primary widget area.
  • Open the text area by tapping the arrow beside it and paste your Google analytics code in there.
  • Your Google Analytics code will now function correctly!

You can also add the Google Analytics code directly into your WordPress theme footer. I do not recommend this because if you must remember your changes and repeat them if you want to change WordPress themes.

Another way is to use a Google Analytics plugin. I do not recommend this because it means tracking and checking updates to the plugin. The method I have outlined above is what I personally use (you can check the source on this site to see for yourself). The method above is also what I recommend to all my clients and it loads as part of the WordPress menu system.

Installing Google Analytics on WordPress blog

At first, I had copied the Google Analytics code exactly as given from another random website. This did not work in WordPress because wordpress did not recognise the end of the first line, which is Googles comment, as an end comment. This is the exclamation mark, followed by two dashes and a greater than symbol. Because of this comment extending, WordPress viewed the entire Google Analytics code I pasted in as part of an extended comment and did not process it as script.

To quickly fix my tracking code on wordpress, I removed that first line that says Google Analytics inside two triangle signs. It was just a comment anyway and didn’t affect tracking itself.

I didn’t know that my google analytics code was not working on my WordPress blog until I added another analytics mechanism. Then after fixing the Google analytics code my visitors jumped by 1000’s! Which just shows how bad the commenting out was affecting things.

Anyway, check your Google analytics code and make sure it’s working!

Early signs of alzheimer’s disease

Quick signs of Alzheimer’s disease, from an article in the UK Telegraph online magazine. In case I forget:

1: The earliest detectable change is a drop in spinal fluid level of the key ingredient of Alzheimer’s brain plaques. This can be detected up to 25 years before the age of onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

2: The Alzheimer’s plaques in the brain can be seen on a modern brain scan 15 years before memory issues become apparent.

3: Increases in levels of Tau protein in the spinal fluid at 15 years prior to onset of Alzheimer’s.

4: Shrinkage in parts of the brain becomes apparent 15 years prior to Alzheimer’s.

5: The patients brains use of glucose is reduced (which could be linked to the size reduction) and memory issues surface. These can be detected up to 10 years before full onset.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9391769/Five-signs-that-predict-Alzheimers-disease-25-years-before-memory-fails-study.html

Knowing the early warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease is great and all, but how do we stop it?! or even just slow it down. Also, what causes it? These are the questions i’d like an answer to.

Perfect Escape 3 Walkthrough

Perfect escape 3 walkthrough.

Today I downloaded Perfect Escape 3 by Flyhill games from the App store, so here’s the walkthrough for everyone like last time. Perfect escape 3 is an escape the room style game, with realistic 3D modelled graphics.

Previous episodes in the series:
Perfect Escape 1 walkthrough
Perfect Escape 2 walkthrough
Perfect Escape 3 walkthrough

You start perfect escape 3 with a set of tools in the psych room, and that’s where we’ll start this guide.

Get the musical note from the table.

A bottle of Gucci perfume near the left books on the bookshelf.

Use tools on locked door and solve the spot the difference minigame to unlock it. Left house, right red house, bottom flower, right cloud, top left sparkle part.

In wood room with big window and clock tower, on screen with shelves and wine bottles, on the left there is a wooden circle like in perfect escape 2. Check it to get orange juice. On this same screen is a hammer in the second drawer from the left at the bottom.

From TV room, unlock perfect escape 3 bath room.

Go back and unlock the door leading to the bedroom using the tools as before.

Enter bedroom. Under bedside drawer, there is a golden key. Also take TV remote control from on top of the bedside drawer.

In bedroom on left side there is a fake wall. Use hammer on it to see hidden cheerleader behind bars! Ethan is crazy. She asks for a drink.

Give her orange juice. Her name is Sara and she is still thirsty.

Go to bathroom. Use gucci spray bottle on mirror screen to unlock code in roman numerals. V is a 5 and add 1 for each I.enter the code in the television to u lock the cabinet drawer. Pick up the revolver.

In Television room, on the screen with the 1,2,3 Images. Under the left cushion, on the small lamp side. Touch there to zoom in and get the small silver key.

Use silver key when zoomed in to the wood circle to get coffee.

Return to bedroom and give coffee to Sara. Now she’s hungry! So let’s get her something to eat…

Place hammer on wooden circle in television room to get the delicious Raspberry cake. Give the raspberry cake to Sara. She mentions a secret passage which you’ll see hidden in white on the map screen. She won’t tell you how to get it until you feed her more. Ungrateful!

Place the musical notes on the wooden circle to get the coffee jam cake. Give it to Sara for the metal ring-pull in return.

Place yellow key on wooden teleport circle. It vanishes.

Use ring-pull on left hand side of cabinet under mirror in bathroom to hear an unlocking sound in the other room. You must place yellow key on wooden circle thing before you can attach the ring-pull. No idea why…

Go back to the television room to see your new door. Unlock using the tools and complete mildly unusual find the difference game. Theres no penalty, so just keep tapping if you get stuck.

Once unlocked, enter the door to reappear in the level from Perfect Escape 2!

Use tools to unlock door beside cake counter top.

On your middle of the top shelf on the bookcase, in the cafe room, you will zoom in on the basket to get a bullet.

Now go to the door with the eyehole. Tap on the eyehole to look through…tap again for dialog. No spoiler here. Now the door should open.

Use revolver to handle the situation. Instant stand up and time to get outta here! Grab the hacksaw in the cupboard on the lower right, under the smashed glass cupboard.

Use hacksaw on Sara to free her.

Leave using the white door in the starting room.

Perfect escape 3 walkthrough and guide completed! I can’t be the only one looking forward to part 4!

Perfect escape 3 review

Perfect escape 3 is an awesome game. Play it for the loose, curve ball story. The Detailed 3D model graphics make perfect escape 3 a very nice looking game. The game is translated from Mandarin Chinese, hence the English is way off base, but this adds to the weird roller-coaster storyline.

The puzzles in Perfect Escape 3 are perfectly balanced. Not too easy and not too difficult, unlike the cake puzzle of perfect escape 2 which was practically impossible to complete without trying every combination of items!

Each game of perfect escape so far has built upon the puzzles in previous games. So in 3 we see the coffee shop from 2. We also help the character in perfect escape 2 escape in 3, partially solving the mystery of the wooden circle in the kitchen.

In conclusion, I would recommend Perfect Escape 3 with 5/5 stars if you love using your imagination and weird story-lines. 3/5 if you don’t. The graphics give perfect escape 3 that extra edge in recommendation, keeping it above other simple escape the room style games.

Nap During All Nighter

Trying to pull an all nighter? Need to take a powernap? Here’s how I take a nap without falling asleep.

Before we start, set a quick alarm to alert you that your time is up. Loud alarm or quiet alarm, the choice is yours. All set? Good, let us move on to the napping.

Lie down on your back at your favorite napping location. Even your bed is suitable for this technique because it’s practically impossible to fall asleep while napping with this nap trick.

Now place your hand over your face. Lift your hand up a few inches. You want enough distance so it hurts when it falls, but not too much so it misses your napping face. About 4 inches should be more than enough.

Now close your eyes and enjoy your nap. If you do fall asleep while napping your hand will land on your face and wake you up. If you stay conscious it won’t. nature will handle the rest.

And that kids is what I learned at college – how to nap without falling asleep.

If you want to expand on this further, have a glass of cold water before napping. The cold will stop your metabolism from shutting down and keep you from sleeping even more.

After your nap, you can get back to your all nighter refreshed and ready to own it.

How long should a nap take? 20 minutes is recommended but I would argue 15 minutes is the sweet spot for the perfect napping experience.