Dave In China http://daveinchina.com Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:12:33 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 My Awesome Guitar Skills http://daveinchina.com/my-awesome-guitar-skills http://daveinchina.com/my-awesome-guitar-skills#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:24:55 +0000 dave http://daveinchina.com/?p=16 I have my guitar here in Beijing and I love to play it for my friends here around the city. It’s a great hobby to relax and have some fun with. Before I came here, I taught myself how to play using a software course called Learn and Master Guitar. It’s basically a really comprehensive DVD course that taught me all the basics. Too bad I didn’t bring my DVDs with me as I have several friends that want to play as well. Anyone got some good online guitar courses to recommend?

]]> http://daveinchina.com/my-awesome-guitar-skills/feed 0 Private Flights in China http://daveinchina.com/private-flights-in-china http://daveinchina.com/private-flights-in-china#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:18:57 +0000 dave http://daveinchina.com/?p=13 One great thing about being rich and living in China is that you can afford to take private flights to travel around the country. It’s so much more comfortable than flying around on one of the domestic airlines here. You don’t have to deal with the crowds of people and its great to be able to stretch your legs. Stratos Jet Charters is my private jet charter of choice over here. Check them out if you can afford their prices.

]]> http://daveinchina.com/private-flights-in-china/feed 0 Popup Chinese – The Best Way to Learn Chinese Online http://daveinchina.com/popup-chinese-the-best-way-to-learn-chinese-online http://daveinchina.com/popup-chinese-the-best-way-to-learn-chinese-online#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:00:41 +0000 dave http://daveinchina.com/?p=10 I have been in China for a couple of years now and of course one of the biggest challenges has been trying to improving my Mandarin skills. As you can imagine, learning Chinese is definitely a big commitment, and not very easy for someone as old as I am. Luckily, there are several great sites and software that making learning Mandarin a little bit easier.

One of the sites I am using currently is called Popup Chinese. They offer free daily chinese learning podcasts that I can load up on my iPod. These chinese lessons cover a wide variety of topics and they have podcasts for learners of every level. Best of all, these podcasts are absolutely free! Of course, if you pay for a subscription (which I have), you can get access to a ton of other extra materials like transcripts, exercises, tests and more. Plus, I can export vocab directly into a software program like ZDT (Zhongwen Development Tool) to take advantage of its better chinese flashcard capabilities.

Popup Chinese is great, and I really hope you check it out. I’ve seen a noticeble improvement in my listening comprehension and my chinese speaking after a month of using it.

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