started learning mandarin from a course by a swedish guy on Udemy (you can get your money back if you cancel before 30 days and courses were on "sale" for 1,600 yen each so i thought i'd try it). i've been thinking of learning a bit of chinese for a long time because i for some reason end up making friends with chinese (cantonese usually) speakers a LOT, and also knowing chinese would really help out my japanese (due to weird stuff going on in kanji that i have no clue about). plus i figure, eventually it might be good for jobs or something. the two courses i bought promised to get you to understanding around 75% of all chinese after 20 hours.

well!! i'm only doing the pre-lesson stuff right now and it's already paying off! not only is this guy a really good teacher (even if he wastes time...), but he's making sure to always teach how the stuff is useful. like he taught "king", then he went to burger king and showed the burger king sign. after his like 2-minute tone video i'm already starting to recognize the tones too. apparently he has a website where you can get the same videos for a bit cheaper so i'll just cancel my purchase once i finish watching them all and then go pay at his site instead. it's called "domino chinese" or something.

also continuing to do the TEFL courses but since i've finished the main 120-hour one i can take it easy with the others.