Author: Michael Hawkes
呆宝静 － It’s OK
One of the things I’ve struggled with in Chinese is finding Chinese songs I find interesting. Most of it is just pop music. It’s OK (no pun intended), but it’s usually not very interesting. There are a lot of ballads (boring), but some dance songs which are at least more energetic. What I’ve been trying…
Read MoreAmerican girl speaking Chinese
The other day I looked on YouTube for a video of Mark Zuckerberg speaking Chinese, since I wanted to find out if he spoke better Chinese than I do (he does). In the related videos section, I saw the video embedded above. The video is quite humbling because she speaks Chinese very well compared to…
Read MoreGetting ready
Next week I start my fourth semester of Chinese classes. One thing I’ve learned from past experience is that it’s very easy to forget it, if you don’t keep studying, at least a little bit. To keep 中文 mostly fresh in my mind, I decided to deleted all my flashcards in Anki and started over.…
Read More＃我是查理
我是查理 (wǒ shì Chálǐ) means Je suis Charlie or I am Charlie. While I never heard of Charlie Hebdo before yesterday, I believe freedom of the press is a requirement for a vibrant democracy. My thoughts and condolences got out to the family and friends of those killed in Paris yesterday.
Read MoreBlogging in Chinese
Last spring I took the HSK 1 and passed. The HSK (汉语水平考试 Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì) is a test of Chinese language proficiency. Level 1 is pretty basic. There are 150 vocabulary terms to know, and some listening and reading sections with multiple choice questions. As far as proficiency goes, HSK 1 is the most basic.…
Read More你好
你好。我叫迈克，姓鹰。我英文姓是“Hawkes”，哪意思“鹰”。我喜欢这个汉字“鹰”，可是它一点儿难写。 我住在美国，印第安纳，印第安纳波利斯。那个也一点儿难写，所以我喜欢写“美国，印州，印城”。 现在我四十六岁，可是二零一五一月九号是我的生日。我觉得2015要一个好年。上个春天我考了HSK1，和十二月九号我考了HSK2。下个春天我要考试HSK3。 我学习中文在印第安纳大学与普渡大学印第安纳波利斯联合分校（a/k/a IUPUI）。去年（2013年）秋天学期我修了第一次中文课。上个秋天学期我修了我的第三次中文课。一月我要修第四次中文课。 我工作在IUPUI在印第安纳大学医学系。我是电脑技师在专家系。 我想看电影，可是我不看电视。不过我看Netflix和YouTube。有的时候我看中文电影，可是我看英文字幕。 有的时候我听中文音乐。我懂得一些生词。我想听温岚，蔡依林，百安，王力宏，吴建豪，和 Lollipop F。
Read MoreBack again
After several months of inactivity, I’ve finally got the blog back up and running, and have done some reorganization. The site has been moved to a new webhost, which has a lot of tools to make it easier to run the site. The main change to this site is that the Review Haiku will be…
Read More