Step 3 – doing almost nothing

Step 3 was not the best one I could imagine. I intended to work hard at home. I wrote down all the words I knew or should know. Then I wrote sentences in Polish and decided to translate them into Chinese. With that task completed I wanted to meet a Chinese teacher to check my work.

Well. So first I got sick, then very busy, then sick again, and busy and so it was March.

In the meantime I bought myself a small Kindle. I like amazon for the free Kindle editions of old books. I found China and the Chinese by Herbert Giles. I will write more about it soon. It is a great book.

The small book includes 6 lectures. The first one is all about the language. The book was published in 1902 and the transcription differs from the pinyin that we use today. Yet on a small number of pages Mr. Giles provides a very short, simple and crucial introduction to the rules of Chinese. He opened my eyes. I got new energy to learn, and, most of all, I now knew the method.

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