China Learning: Study Tools

I bought an iPhone. Actually, I traded a phone a friend of mine got for me (because I helped him find a job) for the iPhone. Yes…I’m a little embarrassed by this. I feel a little “floofy“. And normally, I would never be seen with such an over-priced status symbol. I would prefer to be seen with an over-priced, yet manly, computation enhanced extension of my cerebral cortex. This being said, the iPhone’s capacitive-technology touch-screen is the best touch screen on the market. I need this feature so that I can draw Chinese characters onto the phone’s dictionary. I use a iPhone dictionary to translate characters which I don’t know…that’s how I study Chinese reading.

I need to read things that will keep me interested and make me want to study. So I’m reading two Japanese “Manga” comics (which were translated into Chinese). One comic is called “Full Metal Alchemist”. Its about a boy in an alternative world wherein Alchemy is a real science. In the first chapter, the boy – who is (so far) the best alchemist/wizard around, defeats evil government bureaucrats and religious tyrants. Another book I’m reading is called something I don’t know how to translate. Its about a group of people who are inhabited by the souls of famous “Three Kingdoms” era (200AD) warriors. The inhabited people just so happen to be mostly Japanese school girls with unrealistically healthy anatomical features, but clothes which tend to get ripped up when these possessed warriors fight. From these two books, I learn very important vocabulary which I use on a day-to-day basis.

FYI, of course my iPhone is jail broken. Apple really does suck… I just can’t believe they have the chutzpa to lock down and cripple their phones in order to promote their sales of music and cheap applications. All iPhone’s in China are jail broken of course – they are not locked to a carrier because Apple and China Mobile cannot agree on revenue sharing terms (idiots). Luckily, there is “91助手”. I free application that basically has the same functionality as iTunes software and it is made for Jail broken iPhones. For anyone interested in this software, you can get it here.