David on Formosa

ChinesePod has just published an intermediate lesson about Taipei. 

The conversation talks about Taipei 101, the National Palace Museum and night markets. John and Jenny then discuss some key points of the conversation and also point out some differences in usage between Taiwan and China.
I don’t subscribe to ChinesePod but occasionally listen to their upper [...]

I had my last class of the semester at Shi-Da yesterday. The time seems to have passed so quickly. While I did learn some new things during the semester, I don't feel that I achieved my goals. 
I think part of the problem was that the curriculum and teaching style didn't really match my goals [...]

On a hot sunny Taipei morning our class from Shi-Da met at Taipei Station. From there we caught the train to Yingge (鶯歌). We joined a number of other classes so there were about forty students and five teachers. 
It was a great chance to meet some other students at Shi-Da. Most of the students [...]

I've already been studying at Shi-Da for a week now. My class has had a few students come and go. There are now five students: two Koreans, one Japanese, one Czech and an Australian.
During the first few days of class I thought about changing to a different level. However, I came to the conclusion [...]

I had my first class at Shi-Da (NTNU; 國立台灣師範大學) today. There are two Koreans, a Vietnamese and a Taiwanese American in my class. The class I am studying in is Newspaper Readings II (新聞選讀第二本). I have studied this book before in my one-on-one class and written about it on my blog. 
I found the pace [...]

Recently in my Chinese classes I have been using Newspaper Readings I & II (新聞選讀) as a textbook. These books are published by the Mandarin Training Center at Shi-Da (NTNU; 國立台灣師範大學). 
I had previously been reading articles from the Guoyu Ribao (國語日報) which are mostly about education, so I have become very familiar with [...]

The Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary has been a constant companion on my Chinese language learning journey. The first copy I had of this dictionary was a cloth bound edition that I inherited from my sister (who studied Chinese in high school). It had a price of 8 RMB written inside it. I bought a newer [...]

The sign in the picture above says 豬事如意 (zhūshì rúyì). This sounds the same as the common New Year's saying 諸事如意 (zhūshì rúyì) which means something like "May you get everything you wish for." Except the first character on the sign has substituted 諸 (zhū), which means all or every, with the character for pig [...]