italki Team Language Challenge Week 1 Update

italki Team Language Challenge Week 1 Update The italki team is taking  the 2015 New Years Language Challenge How much Chinese can they learn in 20 hours? 3 members of the team at italki are taking the language challenge to improve their skill in Mandarin. Each of them will have 20 hours of lessons between January and February. Can you do better than them?  Check out their original Public Video Pledges that they made at the beginning of the Challenge here. Aimé, Intern Week 1 In this first week I’ve managed to complete 3 hours of lessons with my teacher Lea. I’m still feeling pretty confident about the challenge and the goals that I set out for myself, although it is a lot harder than I anticipated. I’m having the most trouble with my pronunciation but my teacher assures me that with lots of practice outside our lessons I will start to see improvements. Before we started the challenge I had a talk with my teacher about my Language challenge goals and she believes its doable if I commit myself and trust myself for the next six weeks and she assured me she will do everything possible to help me achieve my goals. My goal for the first week was to memorize about 4-5 sentences but unfortunately I came a little short, as I’ve been able to only memorize 3. Going into the second week I am a lot more determined to practicing by myself and working on my pronunciation. My goal this week is to learn 5 new sentences and to start using them around the office. Josie, Services Week 1 After the first of the language challenge I unfortunately have not been able to take any lessons yet. I’m feeling a little nervous as my schedule has all of a sudden gotten fuller, so taking lessons after work isn’t as easy I thought it would. Also my Internet connection has been bad lately so that doesn’t help much. Fortunately I have my teacher on WeChat now so it’s a lot easier for us to communicate. We have not talked much about the challenge yet but she is aware that I am taking the challenge and would like to use have as my teacher. I told her what my goals were for this language challenge and she was able to send me an online book to help me get started, which I have found to be very helpful. I also asked her to give me some homework because otherwise I won’t work as hard. My goals for this next week is to get at least 2 lessons and sit down and study for at least 3 hours. I want to be able to put my notes on flashcards to help with my vocabulary but I haven’t been able to find them anywhere. I’m really hoping my second week of the challenge goes better than my first week but I’m still very confident I am going to kick Kartick and Aimé’s butts in this challenge. Karthik, Data Scientist Week 1 After the first week of the challenge I have been able to get 1 hour of lessons under my belt. I’m starting to feel a little anxious, 20 hours is a lot! I thought taking 1 lesson every other day would be easy but in the evenings after work, its usually hard for me to focus on much. My teacher and I have discussed my goals for this language challenge and she assured me she would make lessons geared towards a more conversational focus that are appropriate for my level, context, and needs. My goals for this upcoming week are to be able to introduce myself, memorize 20 words of fruits and vegetables and have a 30 seconds conversation. I think I will be able to meet my learning goals for week 2 but I’m afraid I might now meet my session goals once again. italki Team Language Challenge Week 1 Update The italki team is taking  the 2015 New Years Language Challenge How much Chinese can they learn in 20 hours? 3 members of the team at italki are taking the language challenge to improve their skill in Mandarin. Each of them will have 20 hours of lessons between January and February. Can you do better than them?  Check out their original Public Video Pledges that they made at the beginning of the Challenge here. Aimé, Intern Week 1 In this first week I’ve managed to complete 3 hours of lessons with my teacher Lea. I’m still feeling pretty confident about the challenge and the goals that I set out for myself, although it is a lot harder than I anticipated. I’m having the most trouble with my pronunciation but my teacher assures me that with lots of practice outside our lessons I will start to see improvements. Before we started the challenge I had a talk with my teacher about my Language challenge goals and she believes its doable if I commit myself and trust myself for the next six weeks and she assured me she will do everything possible to help me achieve my goals. My goal for the first week was to memorize about 4-5 sentences but unfortunately I came a little short, as I’ve been able to only memorize 3. Going into the second week I am a lot more determined to practicing by myself and working on my pronunciation. My goal this week is to learn 5 new sentences and to start using them around the office. Josie, Services Week 1 After the first of the language challenge I unfortunately have not been able to take any lessons yet. I’m feeling a little nervous as my schedule has all of a sudden gotten fuller, so taking lessons after work isn’t as easy I thought it would. Also my Internet connection has been bad lately so that doesn’t help much. Fortunately I have my teacher on WeChat now so it’s a lot easier for us to communicate. We have not talked much about the challenge yet but she is aware that I am taking the challenge and would like to use have as my teacher. I told her what my goals were for this language challenge and she was able to send me an online book to help me get started, which I have found to be very helpful. I also asked her to give me some homework because otherwise I won’t work as hard. My goals for this next week is to get at least 2 lessons and sit down and study for at least 3 hours. I want to be able to put my notes on flashcards to help with my vocabulary but I haven’t been able to find them anywhere. I’m really hoping my second week of the challenge goes better than my first week but I’m still very confident I am going to kick Kartick and Aimé’s butts in this challenge. Karthik, Data Scientist Week 1 After the first week of the challenge I have been able to get 1 hour of lessons under my belt. I’m starting to feel a little anxious, 20 hours is a lot! I thought taking 1 lesson every other day would be easy but in the evenings after work, its usually hard for me to focus on much. My teacher and I have discussed my goals for this language challenge and she assured me she would make lessons geared towards a more conversational focus that are appropriate for my level, context, and needs. My goals for this upcoming week are to be able to introduce myself, memorize 20 words of fruits and vegetables and have a 30 seconds conversation. I think I will be able to meet my learning goals for week 2 but I’m afraid I might now meet my session goals once again.