Fair! I think it sounds reasonable!

I’d like to try something cheaper than KolabNow but still good, and at the same time combine my both email providers. So I’d like to have the ones with my custom domain on it be my front-facing public e-mail, and the others be for random sites and stuff.

Hmm ok. The “issue” is that I want my general @mailbox.org addresses to be pseudo-anonymous. I don’t really have an issue with Mailbox.org knowing my first or last name, as they’ll have my credit card information, anyway, but I’d like to avoid any external ways of being able to connect my custom domain email with the mailbox.org email addresses. Maybe my worries are irrelevant?

They had DMCA requests for 800+ titles so it’s functionally crippled at the moment and it seems like they’re pivoting to becoming a self-published webtoon platform instead. Check here: https://mangadex.org/compliance/copyright-faq

Life’s just a game

Great site! Thanks

Check out Comick or Weeb Central!

At least there’s Nyaa, and alternative sites to Mangadex for ongoing releases.

Completely machine translated subtitles often lack quality and nuance to their translations. I’d rather have a human getting paid to do proper subtitling instead. But yes, if the option is having zero subtitles instead, then sure. That’s not the case with Netflix etc though, they can definitely afford proper subtitling.

Translation is an art as much as it is a science.

🙏 Absolutely

Yeah HelloChinese I’ve heard is great though I haven’t used it. I’d recommend you to try Pleco’s graded readers which you can buy in their store. DuChinese is another great option for graded readers (paid subscription) which has helped me a lot.

A more unorthodox suggestion is John DeFrancis’ “Chinese Reader”-series from the 60s and 70s starting with “Beginning Chinese Reader”. Those books, written in traditional Mandarin (but with simplified versions in the appendix) will start you from zero and teach you the most common 1200 characters and 8000+ words. He uses a spaced repetition scheme so every character is repeated in a calculated manner, like 10 times the first lesson it’s introduced, 5 times the next etc… They’re really amazing and available on the web if you search for it, or you can also buy them as they’ve been reprinted. I’ve been going through it steadily and even though I knew a lot of the characters already when I started reading, it has increased my reading speed and comprehension of what I’m reading drastically. It’s just so packed with good reading material, even though it’s a bit dated. It’s really hard to find that much graded reading material that progressively increases your skills.

For listening, I’d recommend podcasts like MaomiChinese, Talk Taiwanese Mandarin, TeaTime Chinese and Chinese Podcast with Shenglan. Hope this helps!

Absolutely, I try to avoid having any “zero-day”. There are days where I study a lot less, but it’s never zero. At least I’ll do my Anki cards. 加油 to you too!

Yeah definitely fair enough, I get you. I don’t really care about stressing or putting in the hours for a boss or someone else’s sake, but when it comes to my own personal interests and what I’m doing for myself, I think I tend to pressure myself a bit more.

I’ve already studied Chinese full-time in a Chinese environment actually, and I’m preparing to do so soon again (which is one of the reasons why I’m extra locked in atm, just so I’m fully prepared). But yeah I try to mix it up with language exchanges and so forth where I am atm anyway :)

Haha my “guilt” isn’t that overwhelming but it’s in the back of mind. It doesn’t really affect my studying or my day-to-day. I still enjoy the studying. But in terms of language acquisition, I do get rewarded by getting better at a language in a shorter amount of time. Which would be awesome. Even though I realize it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

My job doesn’t require my full focus. As said, I have a lot of downtime on my job too.

Work full-time. But I do have a lot of downtime at work.

Hmm I don’t see it as a chore or something I detest tbh. I just try to be disciplined and want to make somewhat fair progress in a good amount of time.

It’s better to pay for a VPN provider that is verified to work in China. And no, they won’t kidnap you for using a VPN as some people write here. It’s a non-issue just to bypass the GFW. The issue is when you write to a Chinese audience things that the CCP do not like.

Learning a new language, and with it, a new way to see the world, is a true life hack.