Distractions

I have never understood the fascination with video games. They just haven't really interested me.... until now. My daughter got a nintendo DS this week with her Christmas money and now, we are fighting over time on HER DS. It is simply embarrassing that I am so hooked on this.

On of my intentions this year is to re-learn my Chinese characters. When we went back to China last summer my oral language came right back just about 100%, but not my reading of Chinese characters. It was frustrating not to be able to read street signs in characters or Billboard. Menus I was still fine at reading, but I had forgotten so many of the characters I had learned.

Knowing the Allison was going to get a DS most likely. Just before Christmas, I found a game called "Your Chinese Coach" for about $15 at Target on clearance. I thought this might be good and I had just purchased some character work books that I have been using to brush up on my Chinese. Well the game that I play is all character recognition and I am up to lesson 53 in 3 days- I tested into lesson 11. My word recognition is now over 500 and it is fun and great review for me. There are 1000 lessons in all for over about 10,000 words.

I wanted to re-learn the top 1000 this year for recognition of the top 91% of characters found in common use and work up to 3000 by 2013 to get me to 98-99%. With this program, at the rate I am going it could happen in 6-12 months assuming Allison shares her toy. I have been distracted by the game and not very focused on a few other things the past couple of days, but I feel that it is OK because it is educational and I am working on my language skill. The lesson for me is to enjoy the distraction but keep aware of what my priorities are and not to lose focus. Good thing for all of us that we limit screen time to 2 hours per day.