I have spent my day's off (Sunday & Monday) practicing Chinese and mostly on the writing part and reading. I want to conquer that first. Although I still don't think I'm as good as I should be (As I'm studying for long periods), I'm making progress rather than not.

Yesterday, I spent the entire day learning how to write certain characters, which is what I've been doing most of today as well.

But the problem is, I'm not improving my speaking skills. Although I'll know more characters, to be able to talk, you need to use the actual language with your speech. I guess this is the same with most languages.

But the problem with Chinese is that the characters are insanely hard to remember. It is like I have to spend a few hours just on 20 characters to remember them fluently. – Even though I'll probably still forget a few of them. I guess remembering is a huge trait you require if you want to learn Chinese. Otherwise, if you are like me and have a not-so-good memory, you need to keep writing those characters until they are embedded in your head and in your hand! It's funny since I have a friend who seems to be able to write the characters a few times and she can remember it whenever she needs to use it. (My god would that make things easier!)  :d

Learning to speak

I downloaded a piece of software and a few GB's of mp3's which I'll use to help my speech and understanding of the structures that Chinese has; something I desperately need to work on. It is all good knowing how to read and write, but if you don't understand how to put sentences together when speaking, then you don't really know the language that well.

I'm getting there slowly.

But the one thing that has faced the ax as a consequence to studying hard is my exercise regime which I had before.  I used to go to the gym nearly everyday, but now I am spending that time just studying. The exercise I feel can wait, plus I'm in good shape anyway's and probably above average in terms of fitness. (I can run 10km in 55 minutes; albeit in an air-conditioned gym)