Day 33, Nanjing to Shanghai

Today was our last morning in Nanjing; bittersweet moment. I think most of us were already settling in and getting familiar with the Nanjing life. We knew where to go get our "jianbing" in the morning; we were meeting new people whether it was during our internship or just around the school. However, we are all excited to see what Shanghai has in-stored for us.

We took the high speed train and arrived at Shanghai around 4:00 pm.  The high speed train goes as fast as 250 kilometers per hour. When we got out of the subway station a lot of us were surprise of what we were seeing outside. Most of us were thinking that we would be seeing skyscraper all around, but that wasn't the case.

After we settle down and had some time to rest, we went to dinner at Zilanmen Restaurant and had a wonderful conversation with John Pasden.  He is a Chinese linguist, founder of Sinosplice, the first blog dedicated to Chinese learning, founder of All Set Learning, a Shanghai learning consultancy and also works with Chinese Pod. John Pasden has been living in China for a long time now and has been able to master the Chinese language. For most people learning Chinese might seem impossible thing to do. However, John Pasden gave of us helpful tips on how to personalize your Chinese education which make learning Chinese more entertaining which at the end motivates us more. You can use the Pleco app, read the short messages on Weibo, Chinese Pod, Chinese Grammar Wiki and the Anki website to mix up your language learning experience.

John Pasden also talked about the difference between foreign and second language. Before I didn't know the difference between learning a second language and learning a foreign language; for me they were both the same. Actually when you learn a second language you are surrounded by the language; you get to use it after class and on a daily basis. On the other hand, learning a foreign language you just go to class and don't really get to use what you learn after class.

I think that this talk with John Pasden was really beneficial for all of us. He mentioned several sites and apps that would help us improve and personalize our language learning. If you live a busy life there is no excuse to say that you don't have time to practice Chinese. There are so many ways to practice Chinese. You can use your cell phone apps on your way to work to listen to a podcast or instead or reading twitter message use Chinese twitter site "Weibo".

-- Kiara P.