NEWS | InstantMandarin reborn 浴火重生
Two weeks after InstantMandarin.com was shuttered, the former manager and teachers of this estimable school have resumed teaching Mandarin Chinese online. tigerba.com explains how you can get in on the action.
tigerba.com
tigerba.com
REVIEW | We’ve spent $15,877.99 and 4+ years taking LingoBus online Mandarin Chinese lessons. Here’s what we’ve learned.
LingoBus is an online school that can help make your child conversationally fluent in Mandarin Chinese and a fluid reader of Chinese Hanzi characters in just a few years. Our family’s extensive experience with LingoBus proves that. This article is an organized walkthrough of all of the courses and learning resources that are offered by LingoBus, including four little-known classes: a Picture Book course, a Public Speaking course, a Novel Reading course, and a brand new conversation class called FluentFlow.
REVIEW | vFlat, an app that turns your phone into a book scanner
vFlat is an app for Android and Apple iOS devices that turns your phone or tablet into an awesome document scanner for books, paper, and flat art. You simply take pictures of each page of the book, and vFlat will magically transform your physical book into a single paginated PDF, or a sequence of JPG images.
MILESTONES | Speaking + dancing at the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China
Last Saturday the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China invited my son Sam方平山 and a few other winners of the November 2024 China Bridge competition to a celebration. Sam was asked to make a five minute speech about his experiences “growing up” in China through frequent visits, his friendship with China, and his lifelong love of the classic Chinese folk tale _Ma Liang and the Magic Brush._ He also danced the famous SIchuan Bian Lian "Face-Changing" dance.
REVIEW | Glimpsing the future of AI-driven language learning with Langotalk
Langotalk is a glimpse of the future of language learning, a future where learners will have unlimited opportunities for practice and review with AI-driven language teachers who are willing to work for free. How close does Langotalk get us to that future?
TACTICS | How to automagically export historical class data from InstantMandarin, LingoBus, and other language learning websites into spreadsheets
You can "automagically" turn your language learner’s class histories listed on webpages into structured tabular data of the sort you see in spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets and Apple Numbers. This class history data is useful, and will become more useful as your learner grows in ability. You should export these class histories from places like InstantMandarin.com and LingoBus.com before these sites shut down or hide this valuable data from view. You don’t have to be a geek or a gearhead to accomplish this. Here’s how.
RESOURCES | The best bargains for Black Friday and Singles Day: Chinese lessons and language learning apps
Many online education and app companies dedicated to language learning offer their best discounts around this time of year, coinciding with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and China's "Singles Day" (11/11). If you need language learning lessons or language learning apps, this time of year is often the best time to buy. Here's a list of 2024's best language learning bargains.
NEWS | Farewell, InstantMandarin
InstantMandarin.com, the small, scrappy language learning school based in Chengdu, China, announced that they will cease operations at the end of 2024. Customers with lesson balances are advised to use up their remaining lessons by the end of 2024.