#literally awesome is my word for everything good in the human english dictionary because i literally don’t have the vocabulary to express

[hyunteru]

happy new years everyone !! you’re all awesome and ily all so much <3333

[graffitibible]

Do you have any advice for writing or creating regularly? That’s hard for me and I’d like to get better at it.

it boils down to what works best for you personally tbh. i’ve got a system to write semi-regularly (or i did......restricted movement hours have kinda forced me to restructure that lol) and it works for me but that’s just how my brainyot works. i’m a routine-based creature so working writing into my routine was how i got myself to write semi-regularly. 

ive also had significant Brain Junk for most of my life and was gradually able to navigate how best to create in spite of that but im also like, medicated for it and the like so self-care was a factor. i couldnt create shit while i was too busy lying in a pool of my own filth having fits of paranoia about the nature of reality so i was hardly about to make myself try and create stuff when that wasnt even on my radar. 

i can share some of the things i do to keep myself writing though! like again this isn’t something that’s for sure gonna work for everybody cause everybodys wired differently but i hope some of it helps!

1. daily wordcount - i’ve mentioned this before but i have a daily wordcount that i do for my original fiction. i don’t apply the same standard to fic-writing because that risks making it an arbitrary barrier that puts too many numbers on my internal list. that being said, it’s very small. i make myself do 200 words per day. if that gets me going and writing more than that, awesome. if not, i still got a little bit done. 200 words is small, and it’s not overwhelming to catch up on if i miss a day. no matter how shitty im feeling i try to get in 200 words.

2. routine - since i’m a routine-based person by nature i basically found ways to finagle creative processes into all that. it’s not hard and fast because that kind of rigid structure makes me balk and i’m not that disciplined lol, but it’s usually something like “i have an hour-long lunch break at work and literally nothing else to do during it so i’ll write in that time period” or “i have thirty minutes of sitting by the stove making dinner so i’ll write until it’s ready”

3. momentum - or what my housemate fondly calls “The Juice.” if i have The Juice of inspiration i keep that going for as long as i can. if something’s not working for me i don’t scrap it or toss it right away. if i’m having trouble with a scene i make a note to myself and move on to a different one. example of this from my latest wip, which is part iv of mayhem

i hadnt worked out what was gonna go there and nothing was coming to me easy in the moment so i stuck the note there and kept going. my works are full of this shit. if i can’t think of a name or if there’s a statistic or a character i haven’t worked out yet i don’t wanna break my focus and momentum so i slap a note in the first draft and keep going. at a first draft stage the important thing is getting the words Out so it doesnt matter if theyre perfect. ill go back and fix them later, revise all i need to. first drafts dont need to be good, they just need to be there so i can spruce them up later.

on the flip side do not be like me and commit to this momentum so bad that you forget that you are a human being who needs to eat and consume liquids. i do that sometimes because of who i am as a person and it is a serious flaw of mine, do not be like this. sometimes getting some food in you is what you need to get The Juice flowing again and that sounds kinda gross and i am sorry

4. planning and hangups - this ones dependent on how you create. i forget where this analogy came from, but i’ve heard it said that some writers are architects who need a blueprint of where they’re going before they end up there and some writers are gardeners, who don’t need a set plan so much as they need to keep going. i’m definitely an architect - a lot of my works start out as bulletpoints of what scenes i wanna cover, what topics i wanna explore, etc. - though i have on occasion simply Written without any set destination, usually to force myself out of a creative slump. me being a big planner used to be one of the biggest barriers for me creatively because i’d spend hours agonizing over minute universe details and never start the dang story. this still happens from time to time. like heres what my organizational folder looks like wrt “pray for disaster”

that is not even all the files in there. why do i have two dictionaries. jesus. like i make these giant ass fuckin....tomes of stuff i like to keep track of, which i like to call “bibles” lol. except i could tell that getting too organized was gonna be an uphill battle with very little payoff so by the end i just made a “MISCELLANEOUS BULLSHIT” doc and for now i throw everything in there if it doesn’t fit into something like a dictionary or timeline

shit like this is why i like to just sit down and write without a clear destination in mind if i’m having writer’s block. that’s one of those things that goes hand in hand with the way i take advantage of my own momentum - if i reach a certain point where i’m just picking at details and not doing any writing i just go “ok motherfucker sit down and write shit. we will work out the details later.”

5. motivation - the ways i tend to motivate myself are weird so idk how true this is for anybody else but i’ve been writing for a pretty large part of my life. i went to college for english/creative writing and got a whole dang degree cause i still wanna make this my vocation somehow. one thing i cannot ever turn off is the writer part of my brain that’s going “oooh huh that’s not how i would’ve written that” in literally every piece of art i consume - tv, movies, books, songs, etc. sometimes that’s enough to inspire me into doing something on my own time. most of the time though if i’m feeling stumped i tend to crack open some of my personal favorite works, like books or fics that have really resonated with me, to fall in love with the art all over again. seeing the way different authors and artists do their craft helps me get in the zone of wanting to write more cause i get this nice feeling of “damn, these people really did those things with those words.....that’s fuckin amazing.....i wanna do that.” 

you do risk falling into the trap of “ugh i can’t write like them though” but that’s the beauty of writing. nobody can write the way anybody else does. ofc i can’t write like terry pratchett, only terry pratchett can write like terry pratchett, and if i compare myself to terry pratchett i’m only gonna get sad and mopey. but i can write in a way thats totally unique to me so i should not try to write like terry pratchett because that’s just impeding my own creative energy in the interest of trying to cookie-cut myself into someone else’s zone. only terry pratchett can write like terry pratchett but only i can write like zero graffitibible.

i hope that was helpful? like this is all stuff that works for me so no guarantee it’ll work for everyone else.

oh right and idk how many of yall are minors because let it be known that i do not condone underage drinking; i am an adult who occasionally will get crunk because i like to write drunk and edit sober. if you too are an adult who can legally consume alcohol feel free to write while buzzed because that is a nice way to write with zero fuckin inhibitions. i dont get blackout drunk or nothing just a little buzzed and sometimes what i write makes no sense but i am at times at my most productive at 2am while mildly buzzed. its a thing.

like again i’m not really an authority on this by any means - this is just what works for me. but if it works for you too, great!! find your zone and all that

[thespacebetweenworlds]

idk if you’ll care about this but your thing about the whole “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction doesn’t affect reality” argument is actually not true at all because let’s just say for example: having lgbt, poc, disability rep in books or media isn’t all that important because it doesn’t affect reality.... when it does? it makes a HUGE impact on people. but yes I see where you’re coming from and as a person who hates incest with a passion, I don’t think u guys deserve these threats AT ALL.

Thank you for not thinking I should die a violent death. And thank you for this ask! I love being asked things. And to respond to your point, that fiction does affect reality, with the example of how representation is pretty awesome: that’s a freaking good point you have there, that I agree with - partially.

This Essay is titled: Fiction and Reality and How the everloving Fuck do they interact and what by nathan wesninski’s underpants does that have to do with fandom discourse?

So, beyond the read more you’ll have a compilation of my thoughts on it (that didn’t take several hours to write and edit). I’ll talk about:

1. Definition Of Fiction, Definition Of Reality

2. (How) Does Fiction Affect Reality?

3. Representation In Fiction

4. Who Judges Fanfic?

5. ���this content is problematic,” says you. ”please don’t mention power dynamics,” replies I

6. Censorship

7. A Brief History Of Why Fanfic Is Awesome

8. Links to stuff that might interest you

I’m just gonna. Quickly do that part in radioactive with the deep breath.

To start this, I want to clarify that in the response I made to transneiljosten’s post, I never explicitly said “fiction doesn’t affect reality” or “fiction is just fiction.”

What I did say is this: “Incest in fiction is just that: incest in fiction. It’s. not. real.” And: “I believe everyone should be allowed to write/create what they want - as long as it doesn’t hurt people in real life.”

But yes, the phrases “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction is not reality” have been used often when discussing freedom to write fanfic and when defending content another might call immoral. Not many people have elaborated beyond that, and to be fair - it’s a super big fucking field of study with so many subjective ways to look at it that it’s difficult to put into words.

But I’m gonna go and explain what people mean with those two phrases anyway.

Disclaimer: Remember how I called this a super big fucking field of study? I am no linguist and I have not studied literature. All my knowledge comes from years in fandom and internet research of the topics I personally found interesting. I may be wrong about things I say here, and I am always learning, so feel free to message me. I try my best to discuss controversial topics thoughtfully, respectfully, considerately and carefully, but I am only human and do not know everything. You are welcome to join the discussion.

1. Definition Of Fiction, Definition Of Reality

Going to https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ to properly look this up:

Reality: The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

Fiction: Literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.

So I say I don’t study literature (I really don’t) but just a few weeks ago I was in a lecture on the absolute basics of literature science, where I learned this dope sentence:

Die Wirklichkeit in der Kunst ist nur eine auf die außerkünstlerische Wirklichkeit verweisende Wirklichkeit.

Which is German, yes I know. Basically we have the starting point that literature is art, so it’s: "the reality in art is only a reality that refers to the reality outside of art" or, in other words, fiction is only ever fiction and not reality, no matter how close they may seem to be.

In summary, what we can say for sure: Fiction does not equal Reality. They are not the same. Fiction exists because Reality exists.

2. (How) Does Fiction Affect Reality?

Reality affects fiction. But does Fiction affect Reality?

Allow me to quote tumblr user shinelikethunder, who put it very nicely:

“Fiction affects people. And people affect reality.”

Tumblr user muchymozzarella made an important addition (and the blog is really pretty) so to read the post, klick on this link: https://muchymozzarella.tumblr.com/post/167137950299/fiction-is-not-responsible-for-reality

If you read the above post, further reading that might interest you are texts by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer on Free Will. But that wouldn’t be fandom anymore, so like, find philosophy books in your local library and talk to you friends about it.

3. Representation In Fiction

But let’s come back to your question, dear anon: “... the whole “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction doesn’t affect reality” argument is actually not true at all because let’s just say for example: having lgbt, poc, disability rep in books or media isn’t all that important because it doesn’t affect reality.... when it does? it makes a HUGE impact on people.”

You have a great point. Representation in books matters. (If you rec me some nice wlw books I’ll love you forever, there are not enough.)

I am, however, gonna quote my friend of mine, who says it better than I ever could:

“There is a difference between media affecting behaviour and representation in media. Like, violent video games don't actually make you violent. Watching gay cinema isn't going to turn you to the lgbt side unless there was already a disposition there.

People read and write immorality constantly, and even when it's shone in a good light it's usually expected that we as human beings know right from wrong, know fiction from reality. Humanity has explored the happy shiny purity of the universe and the horrific grittiness since... Well probably forever, for a variety of reasons. And in recent years the way we consume media has intensified drastically. Our consumption is interactive, our interaction is globally influenced and sometimes that is good, but we've also given ourselves the right to witch-hunt without a lot of information, or because things don't go as you planned. Real people are always more important than fictional people.

Stand up for representation. Stand up for good representation. But if you're smart enough to understand morality in reality, that isn't going to suddenly go away if you read some incest fics... And hey if you do suddenly want to kiss your brother, that's something for you to deal with and it isn't fan fiction's fault.”

Representation in books matters. Why does it matter? Because the real world is so much more diverse than popular media might make you think. Fight against the patriarchy, not against random people on the internet.

4. Who Judges Fanfic?

Fanfic is written by fans. It’s also written for fans, but more than that, it’s written by fans. I’m not gonna say only teenage girls write fanfiction, because that’s not true. Fans write fanfiction. And everyone can be a fan.

Ozhawkauthor said:

“You are not paying for fanworks content, and you have no rights to it other than to choose to consume it, or not consume it. If you do choose to consume it, do not then attack the creator if it wasn’t to your taste. That’s the height of bad manners.

Be courteous in fandom. It makes the whole experience better for all of us.”

So why are “antis” suddenly here, declaring this ship and those characters off limits and to be hated on?

Specifically, what the fuck are fans that attack or judge other fans on?

To quote shinelikethunder (again): “Fiction needn’t be educational and fiction doesn’t always have clear-cut endorsements of who’s in the right. But the discussion that happens around fiction can include both.”

But to answer the question above: Who Judges Fanfic? Not. You.

5. ”this content is problematic,” says you. ”please don’t mention power dynamics,” replies I

Hypothetical situation:

I write a fanfic. My protagonist is Riko Moriyama, who is, in canon, a sadistic asshole that is so morally black that his own brother, Ichirou, who is also morally black, kills him in the end. It doesn’t matter what I write, or who I ship him with, in this hypothetical situation.

You appear, you read the fic or you don’t read the fic. You say: “This content is problematic.”

I quiver. I know you don’t like Riko Moriyama. I know you don’t approve of my shipping choice. “Please don’t mention power dynamics,” I reply.

“This relationship is toxic,” you say. “There are unhealthy power dynamics at play.”

And like, fuck, I know? I wrote it.

Obviously. Obviously I could reply with that ancient, age old phrase “Don’t Like Don’t Read.”

But I already made a similar post about that.

6. Censorship

I’m writing this post to fight against censorship in fandom. (The day I am typing this up on was the day I went to a demonstration against articles 11 and 17, earlier 13, in the copyright reform in the EU, and to protest for a free internet.)

Censorship.

What does that even mean? The Oxford English Dictionary says:

Censorship: The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.

Here’s the wikipedia article.

In my opinion, every person, regardless of whether or not they call themselves “anti” who tells someone else that their fanfic is disgusting and wrong and should be deleted, based on subjective ideas of moral, is trying to enforce censorship. So don’t. Don’t do that.

“But,” you might say. “Riko is not a good person.”

And you know what? You’re absolutely right. He’s not. Neither is any of the Foxes.

And this is why none of the antis make sense. In one post, they condemn Roland - a perfectly normal minor character, and in the next post they call Andrew Minyard their soft angel child. Y’all. Not to hate on Andrew Minyard, but he literally drugged Neil? Even though he’s so big on consent, he drugged Neil?

So by saying this and that are problematic and should not be written and the people who do write it should be blocked, you’re kinda hypocritical. Because the All For The Game trilogy is one fucked up piece of media by itself.

And have you ever read a book?

Most books have characters that aren’t completely morally white or morally black, events that aren’t always sunshine, butterflies and rainbows.

And you know what else? That’s a good thing. Because the world isn’t like that either. And more often than not literature addresses topics critically.

Remember The Hunger Games? Exactly.

7. A Brief History Of Why Fanfic Is Awesome

In the beginnings of fanfic and fandom as we know it, slash was illegal in the USA. Fanfiction.net was made in like 1998, and during the first few years when fanfic got more attention with the rise of the internet, restrictions were made.

Much like tumblr in december 2018, except worse, fanfiction.net purged explicit content. Livejournal, the journaling platform where lots of fandom stuff happened before tumblr, is known for strikethrough, a big, unannounced deletion of fannish content. Because of those purges and restrictions, ao3 was originally made. I’m not trying to paint ao3 as the heroes that saved fandom, well I kinda am, and they are doing great things so that fanfiction can exist and remain accessible.

I think fiction is not just fiction. But fiction is just fiction in the sense that it doesn’t have any direct influence on the real world. We are all allowed to write whatever we want.

Disclaimer: We are all allowed to write whatever we want, except when we call for violence towards others in real life. Further disclaimer: Calling for violence towards others is illegal. Hate speech is illegal. Violent threats are illegal. Promotion of self-harm is illegal. Death threats are illegal.

To come back to fandom: Shipping or not shipping something has nothing to do with morals. Hating on people who ship “unhealthy power dynamics/problematic ships” does not give you the moral high ground. It makes you an asshole. For the love of Riko’s stinky socks, use the blocking feature.

My friend iknowwhoyouaredamianos said: “Hating people irl, lashing out against them, that's the real cruelty. That's so much worse than writing about something fictional.”

If you hate on real people, there is no trigger warning. You can’t don’t-like-don’t-read hate. It will affect that person’s life negatively, whether you intend to do so or not. Don’t be assholes, dears.

Thank you to my friend, and to iknowwhoyouaredamianos for letting me quote you and joining the discussion; and to foxsoulcourt for so many reasons.

Who knew that writing over 2000 words on fandom would be fun?

Dear anon, I hope I answered your question.

I’m gonna conclude this post with the Three Laws of Fandom:

I. Don’t Like; Don’t Read.

II. Your Kink Is Not My Kink.

III. Ship And Let Ship.

8. Links To Stuff That Might Be Of Interest

If you read all of the above and still feel like you don’t understand, have this awesome post by destinationtoast: How to not like fictional things (and not be a dick about it)

Podcasts on fandom culture by fansplaining:

Episode 84: Purity Culture

Episode 85: Age and Fandom

Episode 86: The Money Question

Episode 87: What we discourse about when we discourse about the discourse

Fandom positivity posts I reblogged (because y’all need it):

short post on staying positive in fandom

when discourse gets too stressful

important advice especially for those of you younger than 15 (but also older)

Tumblr user freedom-of-fanfic is writing lots of essays on lots of fandom things, here are some those more or less directly relate to this:

On criticising: Free to write whatever, free to criticise whatever?

A post on Fiction & Reality that answers a question very similar to the one I answered,

and Why fanworks are such a convenient social scrapegoat (kinda a socioeconomical discussion of USA-centric fandom)

There is also a very extensive FAQ by freedom-of-fanfic, with lots of very important writings on fandom culture on tumblr.

Unrelated, but if you’re interested in more of fandom, fanfic, and statistics of both:

http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/stats

Interesting stuff on Fanlore: Purity Culture in Fandom, AO3 & Censorship, The Advantages of Fan Fiction as an Art Form.

An article on the free speech debate in fandom

Dreamwidth’s Diversity Statement, and Ao3’s Diversity Statement

A cool (and unrelated) thing: Femslash can save the world if we let it

Happy reading, and I hope you learned something.

[studyvari]

Masterpost how to start learning Chinese

Hi!

Since i'm just starting to learn Chinese, and I'm looking for ways of how to actually start and generate some material, like vocab lists, grammar rules and stuff hat's gonna be useful for progress, I just thought that I'd share whatever i'll find. So here's my TOP 10 sites, apps and ways of learning Mandarin by yourself. Mostly, this is just to motivate myself, but i hope, some of you guys can add their own things to this list and also find interesting stuff on the sites mentioned! 

As for the system on how to actually start learning the language, I decided to go with the very basics first. So, for the vocabulary part, I decided that i'd learn the first 200 so called 'radicals', which actually are essential to find any Chinese word in the dictionary. Also, I am going to learn the basic conversations, meaning how to say your name, how are you and to say good bye and stuff like that. With GrammarWiki, I'll be catching up on grammar rules that convent with the A1 level. Since I'm only just starting, this is the one that i'm going for first. I'm going to get you an update about my improvements quite regularly, hopefully.

Chinese Social Web

WeChat (basically like chinese facebook, also used to talk to strangers, update your bank account, order food, taxis, or literally anything)

Weibo

Youku (chinese youtube)

QQ (Chinese instant messaging program)

Taobao (chinese ebay/site for online shopping)

Sina (Chinese yahoo)

chinese culture

I decided to watch docus and read websites about chinese culture in order to understand Chinese people, their way of thinking and the culture in general. Since I found myself to be pretty interested in this kind of stuff (which is weird, because i've never really been interested in China before I got to know some Chinese people), I think it's going to help me stay motivated to keep learning the language.

apps to learn the basics of mandarin

I'm pretty sure there's a lot more, and if you have any recommendation, please feel free to add it to the list – these are just a few that I found whilst scrolling through the app store when I first decided to learn Chinese!

memrise

sadly, it is only a very few words available on the free version, however I guess that the method they use is pretty good to memorise the words and characters

pleco (dictionnaire mandarin – english)

yi er san

Essentials

I really like this one because it has flashcards and learning sets, such as the weather, numbers, months and weekdays, colours, food, …

nemo

this app also only has the very basics to start a conversation in Chinese, but also contains listening and recording options, which is, as already mentioned, really important to get into chinese.

songs/playlists on Spotify

I absolutely love the fact that you can actually learn Chinese on Spotify thanks to some awesome playlists with basic grammar and vocabulary lessons. Maybe it's not the best way for the writing system, but it sure makes you talk and listen to the language, which is an important part of being able to understand and read Mandarin. I'm finding it easier to learn languages when listenening a lot to it, that's why I also want to learn Chinese by listening to songs and these themed spotify playlists mentioned above. Also, it's great when being on the bus, this way I can use the time and listen to some Chinese. Also, listening the words first makes it easier for me to remember the specific character later because I have an idea of what the character sounds like and what it means. So yep, guess you could say I was pretty excited when I found the free spotify playlists.

BBC Languages – mandarin mini guide

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/mini_guides/characters/characters_meaning.shtml

FluentU:

http://www.fluentu.com/blog/chinese/2014/12/22/how-to-study-mandarin-chinese/

the site is just linking you towards different systems on how to study chinese, specific vocabulary sets and basically tells you systems on how to get fluent in Mandarin, which can be pretty helpful. I hope it will be useless for my journey!

ArchChinese

This site has pretty much everything that you need to practice Chinese. It includes a list containing all of the 214 Chinese radicals – both in pinyin and English, which is pretty much perfect. Also, it has worksheets, vocabulary lists, a tool to create your own flashcards, tools to practice your handwriting, and contains listening examples. All for free! Yey!

http://www.archchinese.com/arch_chinese_radicals.html

ChineseGrammarWiki

This one is probably going to save my life. It literally has everything in it, basically, you could just learn from the Wikipedia site and you're all good. It has grammar rules for the different levels, links you to forums, has vocabulary lists, keywords, printables, etc. etc. etc. It's basically just heaven for generating your study material!

Use quizlet!

Honestly, just do it! It is just so easy to either way create your own set of flashcards or just look for one that suits your needs, then start learning! This way, I realise that i'm having the most fun whilst actually learning something because of endless repetition. It doesn't even feel like learning when i'm on quizlet. Also, flashcards are in general a very good method to memorise the characters and the pinyin. A friend of mine who lived in Peking for 4 years and learned Chinese during that time told me that you basically have to memorise the characters with flashcards to pinyin and then to your mother tongue. Which would be german for me, but I guess it also works with English since Chinese is closer and i'm fluent in both languages.

General tips:

learn vocabulary. Honestly Vocabulary is pretty much the most important thing if you wanna be fluent in a language, especially when this language is Chinese. I always loved languages but I am so bad at remembering vocabulary, that's why I almost forgot everything I learn in school for French (and I'd say in Luxembourg, we learn lots of French because you need it everyday.), I only just remember the basic conversations, which is quite sad. I don't want to make that mistake again whilst learning Chinese. So one of my main goals is to just remember loads and loads of characters and words, so that I'll be good in speaking Chinese with my friends one day.

Have a reason to start learning the language. For me, that was meeting people who are Chinese and spending a lot of time with these guys (Since I helped at a festival, where Chinese school orchestras and choirs came to Vienna, most of the organisation team was Chinese, I was surrounded by the language every day, and it confused me a lot at the beginning, but it made me understand that actually, Chinese is a pretty important language, because basically there are so many Chinese people who can't speak English – and if you can speak Chinese and English, you can literally speak to most people on this planet. Isn't that fascinating? Also, I kind of want to meet the people I've worked with in Vienna again, maybe even work there later on, which is why I decided to learn Chinese. Plus, it's just additional soft skills for my VC – languages are never a bad thing to know.

Watch youtube videos, listen to Chinese music and Podcasts, get into the Culture. This is probably the most important thing to fully understand the language and the people – and also to just have fun studying the language. Whilst listening to songs and translating the lyrics, you're learning new vocabulary, new sentences, ways of how Chinese think, etc.

buy textbooks. I haven't bought a proper textbook yet because i'm in Berlin right now which means I don't wanna take it home with me, when I can also just start with material that I find online, however I'm pretty much either way gonna buy Chinese books in the library or at first just rent it from the University library.

Look up for courses/tandem partners. If you're a student, check your university's courses. Most of the time, they do offer additional lessons where you can just learn something, without paying as much as people from the outside, sometimes even for free. If you wanna learn the language, just try to get in touch with it as much as you can. Courses with actual teacher can help you improve your pronunciation which I guess is pretty hard in Chinese. I will be struggling with that a lot, but I can always send text messages to my friends on WeChat and ask them if it's correct. However, courses are also good to get more material, maybe get a system into your whole learning thing.

Organise yourself. I find it pretty much overwhelming right now to get thrown into this new language. I'm looking for material all over the internet and I'm finding so many different sites. Find one that suits you, then just stick to the system. As I said before, I'm going to start with learning the radicals, basic A1 vocabulary and Grammar by themed learning sets. It's the easiest way to learn I guess.

Also, it is important to accept that learning Chinese is a very hard process and is probably gonna take a lot of nerves. I'm actually kind of debating with myself wether i'm gonna stick to learning Chinese or not, whether it's gonna be useful or not – but right now, I'm still content in what I'm doing, because I have this goal. I know that Chinese is hard and that I'll forget words a lot of times before I actually am gonna be able to chat with someone in Chinese, but I wanna impress some people – and this keeps me going.

Last but not least: Have fun! Learning a new language is an amazing process, it changes your ways of thinking, it changes your perception on human nature, on culture, you get to have other insides on people's history, which is all just really interesting. Learning is a fun process, learning makes you happy, makes you great, learning makes you you! So please, just enjoy yourself with the language – it really is a game, you know! Failure is human, failure is part of it, but if you still have fun learning new things, then you're good! Keep it up!