Chinese
My high school had almost a dozen students from China and Taiwan, a significant number for a school that had just over 100 students in total. At the same time I discovered that I had an interest in Linguistics. In the confluence of these two interests I resolved to learn Chinese.
I started taking Chinese classes as soon as I started college. When I had finished out all the Chinese classes that Iowa State University had to offer, I participated in a student exchange between ISU and Lanzhou Jiaotong University. I lived in Lanzhou for a year, where I had the opportunity to travel throughout the country. I also had the opportunity to visit Taiwan and Hong Kong before I returned.
I passed the HSK 5 in June 2018. One day I would also like to study more Sinitic languages. During a two-week visit to Hong Kong, I also had the opportunity to pick up some Cantonese, though I’m not even close to conversational.
This page documents my interest in the Sinitic languages.