Tag Archives for learning
Handwriting has never been a strength of Zac’s. He’s a lefty, and started writing aged three. Then, because current British thinking is that young children should be left to “experiment with mark-making” by themselves – which is ideal if children are “mark-making”, rather less so if they’re actually writing – he wasn’t taught how to [...]
We Find a Chinese School
A bit of English language Googling around bilingual schools in Harbin finds a site for teachers of English as a foreign language, and a job advertised at a bilingual school. I Google around the school’s name in English, plough through a lot of investment sites, and eventually dig up the Chinese language site for the [...]
Finding Home in Harbin?
It’s all too predictable that, after a 5000k trip that’s taken us south from Beijing, around -10°C (14°F), to Hong Kong and Shenzhen, in the balmy 20s (70s), then back north to -30° (-22°) Harbin, just a stone’s throw on the global scale from Siberia, I come down with a cold. Now, I’m sure there [...]
Welcome to China
Despite the wonderful view of the Himalayas unfurling below us, I am not particularly optimistic about the next stages of our journey. I hate flying at the best of times, and today, so far, has not been the best of days. My spawn, mystifyingly, is genuinely looking forward to sleeping at Kunming Airport. So much [...]
100 Lessons From 1000 Days of Travel
Today marks our thousandth day of longterm travel. So here are 100 lessons I’ve learnt from those — almost entirely wonderful – 1000 days. 1. Most People Are Kind. Yes, really. Whether it’s scooping up a lost child and delivering him home, driving out of their way to show you the route or stopping by [...]
It’s All About The Cross-Hatching
“Bwahahaha,” I say. “Did you know the Chinese for ‘writer’ is, literally, ‘sit-at-home’?” “No,” says Zac. “NOOB! The ‘zuo’ in ‘zuo-jia’ is a different kind of ‘zuo’ from the ‘zuo’ that means sit.” “Oh,” I say, racking my brains to find out how many Chinese characters for ‘zuo’ I actually know. “Is it the ‘zuo’ [...]
After almost two years on the road, I have to say that if I’d known how much children learn from travel, I’d have started travelling sooner. Here’s nine key lessons travel teaches children. 1. To Keep an Open Mind Spending time in different cultures teaches you how very much is relative. From the small things [...]
Learning Mandarin: Week 4
“If you finish this book,” Sophie reiterates, “You’ll be able to get all around China with no problems.” I wouldn’t have thought it possible when we started learning Chinese. But, weirdly, I think she’s right. A month ago we couldn’t tell where one sound ended and the next one began. A Chinese sentence was a [...]
Learning Mandarin: Week 3
A week to go before we head out of Kunming into the great wide open, over 30 hours of language lessons in, and we are, both of us, beginning to wonder whether the blood and sweat we’ve invested in learning Chinese is going to work. To understand and be understood in Chinese, I’m finding, you [...]
Learning Mandarin: Week 2
So the boy and I have completed our second week learning Mandarin in China. We’ve only got a week’s more learning before we’re out on our own exploring — although I think we’ll carry on via Skype. If you’re a language geek, or planning to study Chinese, you might want to read about our first [...]
