italki Team Language Challenge Week 2 Update

italki Team Language Challenge Week 2 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. Week 2 Updates Week 2 of the #italki #2015 New Years #LanguageChallenge and our 3 office challengers #learningchinese are very competitive. Who do you think will improve the most? Check our blog for the most recent updates! #competition #stayawayfrommynotes A photo posted by Italki (@italki) on Jan 28, 2015 at 1:04am PST Aimé, Intern Week 2 This week I was able to complete 4 hours of class sessions with my teacher Lea. In those lessons I have been able to learn a few more sentences and my pronunciation even got a little better. I can confidently say that week 2 was a whole lot better than week 1. Although I reached my class session goals I once again failed to get much study time on my own, which is hurting my chances of coming out on top of this language challenge. I’m really enjoying having lessons with my teacher Lea, she is really patient with me and is very encouraging. Instead of getting upset with me when I make mistakes, we often have a good laugh and get back to work which makes class a lot of fun. This upcoming week my goals are to have an hour of lessons five days a week and an hour of practice on my own after each of my classes. I am still not confident enough to speak Chinese in public but as this challenge progresses my confidence is definitely growing. Josie, Services Week 2 This week I was finally able to get 3 hours of lessons and 3 hours of studying completed with my teacher Elena, so I’m very pleased with myself. I’m still bit scared about my goals as Chinese is very hard and I feel like I don’t have much time to study as I work full time. It’s hard to find motivation to study when you get home late from work and you’re feeling tired. When it comes to my lessons however, I’m working with Elena who is a great teacher. She explains things well and we tend to go at a quick pace, which I like because it challenges me. She is also working with Karthik so I might have to tell her to sabotage his studying so I can come up on top. This upcoming week I’m taking a lot of classes, my goals are to complete those classes and clean up my notes in order to help me study better. All said and done this challenge is turning out to be harder than I thought but I still feel like I will come out on top of this challenge… Aimé and Karthik wont know what hit them! Karthik, Data Scientist Week 2 This week I was a good challenge week for me. I was able to get 3 hours of lessons down and I feel like I’m making a lot of progress. I can finally introduce myself, say where I’m from, where I’m living, where I work and what I do. I was very proud of myself when I was able to have a 30 second conversation with my teacher without any problems. With that being said, my pronunciation is still awful and my grammar is horrible. I know around 40-50 words, but I have trouble stringing together cohesive, comprehensive sentences. This upcoming week, my goal is to have 3 hours worth of sessions with a 50% focus on pronunciation. I also want to have another 30-60 second conversation, which I can record and compare to the previous week to see if my pronunciation is indeed improving. I’ve been very pleased with my teacher Elena, she is very patient, flexible, and fun. Last lesson, because I like math, Elena humored me by allowing me to quiz her in simple arithmetic in mandarin. This was a great exercise for me because it engaged a different part of my brain and kept me interested. italki Team Language Challenge Week 2 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. Week 2 Updates Week 2 of the #italki #2015 New Years #LanguageChallenge and our 3 office challengers #learningchinese are very competitive. Who do you think will improve the most? Check our blog for the most recent updates! #competition #stayawayfrommynotes A photo posted by Italki (@italki) on Jan 28, 2015 at 1:04am PST Aimé, Intern Week 2 This week I was able to complete 4 hours of class sessions with my teacher Lea. In those lessons I have been able to learn a few more sentences and my pronunciation even got a little better. I can confidently say that week 2 was a whole lot better than week 1. Although I reached my class session goals I once again failed to get much study time on my own, which is hurting my chances of coming out on top of this language challenge. I’m really enjoying having lessons with my teacher Lea, she is really patient with me and is very encouraging. Instead of getting upset with me when I make mistakes, we often have a good laugh and get back to work which makes class a lot of fun. This upcoming week my goals are to have an hour of lessons five days a week and an hour of practice on my own after each of my classes. I am still not confident enough to speak Chinese in public but as this challenge progresses my confidence is definitely growing. Josie, Services Week 2 This week I was finally able to get 3 hours of lessons and 3 hours of studying completed with my teacher Elena, so I’m very pleased with myself. I’m still bit scared about my goals as Chinese is very hard and I feel like I don’t have much time to study as I work full time. It’s hard to find motivation to study when you get home late from work and you’re feeling tired. When it comes to my lessons however, I’m working with Elena who is a great teacher. She explains things well and we tend to go at a quick pace, which I like because it challenges me. She is also working with Karthik so I might have to tell her to sabotage his studying so I can come up on top. This upcoming week I’m taking a lot of classes, my goals are to complete those classes and clean up my notes in order to help me study better. All said and done this challenge is turning out to be harder than I thought but I still feel like I will come out on top of this challenge… Aimé and Karthik wont know what hit them! Karthik, Data Scientist Week 2 This week I was a good challenge week for me. I was able to get 3 hours of lessons down and I feel like I’m making a lot of progress. I can finally introduce myself, say where I’m from, where I’m living, where I work and what I do. I was very proud of myself when I was able to have a 30 second conversation with my teacher without any problems. With that being said, my pronunciation is still awful and my grammar is horrible. I know around 40-50 words, but I have trouble stringing together cohesive, comprehensive sentences. This upcoming week, my goal is to have 3 hours worth of sessions with a 50% focus on pronunciation. I also want to have another 30-60 second conversation, which I can record and compare to the previous week to see if my pronunciation is indeed improving. I’ve been very pleased with my teacher Elena, she is very patient, flexible, and fun. Last lesson, because I like math, Elena humored me by allowing me to quiz her in simple arithmetic in mandarin. This was a great exercise for me because it engaged a different part of my brain and kept me interested.