Continuing the 'back to China' theme, I came across a great site for things Chinese. Unlike many, this is well designed and has good quality content on a range of topics - from literature and dictionaries, through to galleries, city profiles... you name it. I found a number of resources I'd been looking for, as possible future LibriVox projects.

mychinastart.com

Enjoy!

Alright folks (well, Scott in his various incarnations), here's an update. Just to prove the world is still turning.

Progress on Japanese ground to a halt at Easter, and was falteringly resuscitated yesterday so I could take the first pat of the end-of-year exam. That went just about OK, though the brain has largely turned to mulch. One of the topics I talked about in the speaking section was 'My future plans for studying Japanese'. Difficult to put a positive spin on that. Basically, once I finish this year, Goldsmiths will have no more to offer (unless I retake the year, which perhaps would be a good idea); work and distance will probably weigh against going anywhere else for classes. So I may fall back on myself. Hmm.

Other things? Via an audiobook of Bashou, I discovered LibriVox and began to volunteer. (What a great project that is, very worthwhile and totally addictive!). English to start with, then moving towards Chinese, with:-

China and the Chinese, by Herbert Allen Giles
and
Three Hundred Tang Poems, Volume 1 (in Chinese) - a collaborative project, with currently three of us contributing readings.

I think it's fair to say that I would not have rediscovered the interest in Chinese if I hadn't taken on Japanese. The joy of actually being able to communicate in Chinese, sound authoritative, read classical poetry in the original...

So, in an odd way, there is progress after all.