1,000 Characters in 100 Days

During orientation, an experienced ESL teacher told us that we were likely to have more free time in China than we've ever had before. We'll teach about 18 hours a week. Even when you include lesson prep time, that will hardly add up to a normal 40-hour work week. So that leaves a lot of time for travel, self-improvement, etc. With that in mind, I've come up with the following equation:

Lots of free time + About to specialize in international business in my MBA program = good idea to try to learn Chinese

My goal is to be able to hold a simple conversation by the time I leave. My loose definition of "simple" is the ability to carry on small talk with the friendly lady who runs the shop next to the hotel. In terms of written Chinese, here's my rather lofty goal: 1,000 characters in 100 days. That doesn't necessarily mean knowing how to write full sentences myself. I'm more interested in understanding written Chinese.

I came across this on a website dedicated to teaching the Chinese language:

"Knowing just 1,000 Chinese characters will enable you to understand approximately 90% of written communication. With 2,500 you'll understand around 98% of written Chinese, and knowing all the 4000 we have listed on these page will enable you to understand virtually 100%. With that, even a native Chinese would be considered literate."

Hence my goal of 1,000 characters - just 10 per day. Of course, it's one thing to know that this character - 日- means "sun". It's quite another to know that 度日 - same character combined with just one more - means "to scratch out a difficult existence". Sure. I will try my best! I'm already starting to recognize some of the more common characters when I see them, though I don't know what they mean in the sentence.

And with that, it's time for my 10 characters for tonight....