At the beginning of the year, I had a good thing going with my Mandarin immersion. That faded away during June and July, but started to pick back up during August.
Time Spent
As always, I don’t track every minute that I spend immersing. I would estimate that between 10 and 20% of my immersion is casual and untracked.
Total Time
In August, I tracked 32 hours and 34 minutes of immersion time. I listened for 15.5 hours, and read for 13 hours. Overall, I wish the numbers were higher. But, given my lack of activity during June and July, I’m happy that I was able to at least get back to doing an hour a day!
Listening
The podcast I listened to the most was 观篮高手 (6.5 hours), which has been a consistent favorite of mine. It’s a basketball podcast, and has more or less replaced any English-language NBA content for me, which makes it one of my biggest immersion success stories!
My second-most listened podcast was 打个电话给你 (3 hours), which I like because it’s very comprehensible and entertaining.
Most of my listening is in the form of podcasts, but I did make my first foray into the world of audiodramas, listening to 他们都说我遇到了未知生物 (2 hours) based on a recommendation of Moon from Heavenly Path. More on that below!
Reading
In August, I achieved another milestone in my Chinese learning journey by finishing my third native Chinese book: 活着 by 余华. Even though I technically finished it a couple of days into September, I’m still including it here because the bulk of the reading was done in August (10.5 hours out of 14 total hours for the book).
I also started reading 全职高手 (2 hours), which is a web novel about gaming and e-sports that has been adapted to many different formats with great success.
Reflections
A big theme in August was learning more about different genres and formats in the modern Chinese literature world. However, my biggest achievement of the month was finishing my 3rd Chinese book.
《活着》and Finishing My 3rd Chinese Book
Throughout my Chinese-learning journey, I’ve been listening-heavy. Because of this, I’ve only read 2 full Chinese books to completion prior to this: 夜不语诡秘档案101 – 碟仙 and 撒哈拉的故事.
In August, I decided to read a famous Chinese novel that is often recommended in Chinese-learning communities as a good but readable book for those looking to break into reading in Chinese: 活着 by 余华.
It lived up to the hype: it deserves both its general acclaim and its reputation within the Chinese-learning community. It’s an excellent book that I would recommend to anybody. Overall, I rate it equally with 三毛’s 撒哈拉的故事, which I also quite enjoyed.
Be forewarned, however, that it is not a happy book. I had to put it down and take a break several times during the book.
Finishing a book in Chinese always feels like a big accomplishment. The more I read, the easier it gets, which motivates me to read even more. I hope the momentum I’ve built in August continues!
《全职高手》and Chinese Webnovels
In August, I learned that the webnovel is a popular publishing format with serious authors publishing and monetizing original works on various large online platforms. Previously, whenever I heard people talking about webnovels, I assumed that they were similar to fan-fiction, and tended to be casual and derivative of other works.
I’ve started reading 全职高手, which is a hugely popular webnovel (over 6 million recommendations on 起点!) that has been adapted into successful TV shows (both live action and animated) and an audiodrama. It’s a massive work (over 5 million characters long) about a video games and the world of professional e-sports.
耽美, Audiodramas, and 《他们都说我遇到了未知生物》
耽美 is category of media with stories centering on two male characters. Its fan-base consists primarily of women, and as far as I can tell it’s seen a massive explosion in popularity over the last several years. The stories can span across genres, and the relationship between the male leads can be anywhere from romantic to very close platonic friends. See this article for a better explanation of this trend.
On a recommendation from Moon from Heavenly Path, I’ve just started listening to a 耽美 audiodrama (他们都说我遇到了未知生物). Not only has this been my introduction to 耽美, but it’s also been my introduction to audiodramas. Audiodramas differ from audiobooks in that there is little to no narration, just dialogue, and the experience is highly immersive as a result of audio effects and voice acting. I think it’s a really cool format, and I hope it comes to the English language world soon!
That’s all for my August update! It’s almost the end of September now, so hopefully my September update will follow closely on the heels of this post. Thanks for reading!