I know in my previous post I promised this would be about how to stay motivated in your learning, but thinking on it again, I figured that would be a “You can do it!” kind of post, which is lame… So instead of torturing all you nice people with that I thought I would talk a little bit about an easy thing you can do to up your practice time.

I’m pretty sure I personally, spend more than a quarter of my life on some type of electronic, be it a Phone, laptop, or my really awesome desktop computer I just built (I know, I’m nerdgasming too), so it just makes sense for me to do something super simple that can convert some of that time spent into learning time, yay! So obviously, switching your phone or computer into Chinese won’t instantly make you better, I’m not even saying its going to  improve your language skills over night, but what it can do is–

1. Get you to learn those rarely used words like “标签页” which means browser tab, and stuff like that, that you wouldn’t normally use in everyday situations. If they aren’t used that often, why would I want to learn them you ask? Well, you might come upon a day where you need to use words like this, and lacking that, being forced to learn new words is always a good thing, if you want to be able to find out how to open “Paint” you’ll have to figure out what the program is called in Chinese.
2. It can also just be another part of your attempts at outside of China “immersion”. Of course, you can’t become fully immersed  whilst not in China, but every little bit can help. If your phone is in Chinese, you are more likely to proc Chinese ads to pop up in websites, your apps will be in Chinese (for the most part), and you will have to learn all that “Angry Birds” and Facebook vocab.

Finding some Chinese browsers like the QQ browser or the like can also help make your electronics more “Chinese”. I like to use QQ browser because you can connect your WeChat/微信 as well as it having some other cool features such as a homepage that you can literally find any type of reading/listening/watching/gaming material a growing Chinese student could hope for. If you are already a pro or have some Chinese friends you probably already have all of your favorite Chinese website for reading books, the news, or watching TV, but for those newbies out there this can be a good starting place to find material that fits your learning style and interests.

On a side note a phone in Chinese also makes for a pretty good “lock” against nosy friends and parents that want to mess with your phone, unless all your friends and family speak Chinese (which would be cool, but if that’s so you should already know Chinese…).

Once again, the only real way to immerse yourself in Chinese is to go to China, however, if that’s not an option right now it can be the little things that can add up improve your overall Chinese level through smart studying, language practice, Chinese friends (or just friends that speak Chinese), and taking help anywhere you can get it. 努力学习 my friends!