Rolling Forward: The Chinese Pitch

Update and Progress Report

3 days into the 'Learn Chinese 15 Days #Challenge' with edugo.ai, and things are going well! I can honestly say I feel I've made more progress with my #Chinese over the course of these first 3 lessons than I have done in the last year.

I attribute this to 3 things:

1. Fantastic software - The edugo.ai platform is super easy to use, and structures lesson review in such a way that assimilating new language is easy. This combined with the blended learning approach, and the input from a live teacher (thank-you to the wonderful Fannie), makes for an excellent learning experience. I still encounter the occasional bug, but that's to be expected at this stage, and the team is always on hand to fix things.

This kind of honesty actually increases my confidence in the team.

2. #Community - I'm not the only person taking the challenge. Everyone participating has been invited to a WeChat group where we have been encouraged to share our progress, as well as any issues we may encounter (technical or otherwise).

This also helps create a strong sense of accountability, as you feel as though you are part of a #team, and you don't want to let your teammates down.

3. #Growth - As I said before, my Chinese ability stagnated last year. I had lost the motivation to learn, and I had become entirely disenfranchised. The effort:results ratio was skewed in entirely the wrong direction: massive effort:minimal results. That ratio has now been flipped, and through using the app the returns I am seeing for the effort I am putting in almost feels like cheating.

This sense of momentum is adding fuel to the fire.

So much so, in fact, that I'm using this challenge to brush up on my (terrible) reading skills. I've taken it upon myself to learn the hanzi (characters) for my speech as well. The greater the challenge, the bigger the rewards.

Final destination

Considering how much progress I've been able to make in such a short time, I'm excited to see where I'm going to end up at the end of the challenge. To finish, here's a copy of my speech in Chinese for those of you who may be interested. I've got my work cut out for me, and that's absolutely fine.