wow i am now attempting to edit the crosswords i wrote a week and a half ago and tested last week and they are. bad. i've already completely refilled one of them, refilled about half of another, and at the top of a third i had just written "too hard + boring" so will likely need to refill much of that one too. and when i'm done refilling i will still have to write new clues...i was not on my game in late february apparently! at least the rewriting process has been going okay. i'm so much more efficient at this than i used to be, which means i can be a lot pickier about quality now. so that's a good feeling, though obviously i would prefer to just...do better from the outset lol.

Hey!!! Sorry to disturb you, you probably have answered this a lot! But coukd you give me some.tips on how you study mandarin? I'm trying it, but it's so hard! I see no progress and it's frustrating me cause it's been more that a year since i began studying! Thanks a lot🌻😊

Hey, thanks for the question. To be honest, I only got to the level I'm at in the time frame I did because I spent so much time taking intensive classes/working/living in Taiwan and China from the beginning. I think it's perfectly normal to feel like you're not making much progress on your own (if that's how you're currently learning). I've had wildly different experiences with each language I've learned (or failed to learn), so my conclusion is that for me it's less about my personal study habits (right now for Mandarin I just read for fun and go through HSK/TOCFL wordlists on Memrise to learn new characters) and more about a) my personal motivation and b) whether it "just clicks" or not. I was passionate enough about Mandarin to just pack up all my stuff and move to Taipei without a backwards glance after 20 hours of night class. (Which is obviously not for everyone. I was also not in a great place in life back then so it was not a hard decision to leave.)

So from my side, I'd say if you really want to see results, apply for a scholarship/job/working holiday in Taiwan or China and spend some time there (when borders reopen of course). On the other hand, if anyone who's satisfied with what they've achieved solely through self study wants to share their experience, please do, I really admire people who can make that work.