中文
This is a long story, so I will keep it short. I started learning Mandarin in 2009 as an undergraduate student and it completely opened up my world. I studied abroad three times across East Asia and really saw myself developing a career and life in China. Unfortunately, after graduating, I experienced a series of misfortunate events that made me lose the desire to continue learning. Now that I live in a place where Mandarin is the official language, I’ve taken it upon myself to finally reach fluency. In many ways it feels harder to learn from the immense gap of initial introduction to today. However, I do what I can to have high levels of input (i.e. music, podcasts, TV) and am slowly becoming more comfortable speaking with others. Currently I have a one-hour tutoring session once a week and self-study three times a week. In many ways this has become my albatross, but through persistence I hope that one day I’ll finally reach a level of speaking and comprehension I can be proud of.
