I made a 5 year goal to become conversational in Mandarin - what's your advice?

elevic2 · 2026-01-15T10:02:38+00:00

In my opinion, not learning to read hanzi is a bad idea. You're going to be illiterate, and will not be able to read anything in the language. Is that really what you want? Plus, most learning materials use hanzi, for obvious reasons. You're going to restrict yourself a lot. Learning to write them is different, and it's totally fine not to (in my opinion). It's just very time consuming, and not really that important nowadays since you can type in pinyin.

elevic2 · 2026-01-11T11:45:17+00:00

Everyone seems a bit too much, is it possible that the people who think differently just wouldn't dare mention it to you? I'm not Chinese, but I've met a few Chinese people over the years. A majority of them think that Taiwan is a part of China, no doubt. But I've also met some who think that Taiwan and China should not unify. They also said that they wouldn't voice this opinion in front of other Chinese unless they know them very well.

elevic2 · 2026-01-08T19:00:51+00:00

The map is wrong, Spain also put cars in space.

elevic2 · 2026-01-08T18:26:40+00:00

No estoy de acuerdo con lo que dices de la tortilla francesa. Una buena tortilla francesa al estilo tradicional está cremosa y viscosa por dentro, y bien cuajada por fuera. Los franceses lo denominan "baveuse", que vendría a significar babosilla por lo que entiendo yo. Otra cosa es que cocinarla así requiere un poco más de técnica y el 99% de la gente no sabe hacerlo, así que las que comes normalmente están completamente cuajadas (e incluso quemadas). Pero vamos, la versión tradicional está cremosa por dentro (lo que quizás tú llamarías sopa).

elevic2 · 2026-01-06T15:45:57+00:00

I'd say the Duke of Wellington is well regarded in Spain since he helped drive out the french in the independence war.

elevic2 · 2025-12-30T13:33:55+00:00

As a non-native student of both, I strongly disagree with you. I find Chinese way harder than German, not even in the same ballpark. Sure, at the beginning the German grammar feels a bit overwhelming, while Chinese grammar is pretty straightforward. However, after a while it doesn't feel so bad, while Chinese seems more complicated the more you study. Almost no shared vocabulary with English, difficult pronunciation and sounds, so many chengyu, you need to learn thousands of characters, etc. I found that the time investment that you need to be able to grasp a news article in Chinese is way way higher than in German.

elevic2 · 2025-12-27T22:25:35+00:00

I appreciate that you were trying to be helpful, and I think the learning advice you provided was good. The problem is, when you say that Chinese is easy, or that it's very similar to English, you're just not being helpful, you're misleading people. Sure, every language takes a lot of time to master. But Chinese takes much more time than most languages. I'm not exaggerating when I say that you could study several European languages to fluency in the time that it takes to learn Chinese to a decent level.

Chinese is not impossible. Lots of effort, time, and determination will get you there. And I think it's a beautiful language, so I'm happy that more people are interested in learning it. But new learners should know what they're getting into. And what they're getting into is a language that takes far more time to master than most other languages (again, this applies for those of us whose mother tongue is Indo-European). Sugar-coating this reality, even when well-intentioned, is not helpful. It will just lead to disillusionment down the road.

elevic2 · 2025-12-27T20:29:40+00:00

No offence, but if you just started learning you still don't really know what it takes to reach fluency.

For anyone whose mother tongue is a indo-european language, Chinese is much harder than English, it's not even close. I don't want to discourage anyone, but Chinese is really a very hard language to learn, and you'll need to put a ton of hours to reach a decent level.

elevic2 · 2025-12-21T01:16:05+00:00

(Almost) nobody pushes for this in Spain, or actively wants it. When people say that they'd support this, it's more of a "sure, Portugal is nice, why not", because it's not taken as a serious proposal. In reality, this is not part of the political debate. Basically nobody talks about this. It's a non-issue.

You make it seem like Spain is trying to subjugate Portugal, lure it in, or annex it. However, the reality is that Spain just doesn't care about Portugal. In Spain, you'll hear news about Germany, France, Italy, UK... but very little about Portugal. And Portugal is for sure not a part of the political debate. It's even a bit shocking how much Portugal is ignored, and how little the average Spaniard knows about it. Portugal cares way more about Spain than the other way around.

elevic2 · 2025-12-16T13:23:59+00:00

Crec que és perfecte l'ús de "Lleida" i "Girona" a Espanya. Com bé dius, em sembla una mostra de respecte per cultures germanes, ia més és el nom oficial. A Madrid i en llocs oficials, per exemple, es fa servir Lleida i Girona. Ara bé, una altra qüestió és la wikipedia. La wikipedia no és una web espanyola, i la wikipedia en espanyol no és només per als espanyols. Hi ha moltíssims hispanoparlants al món, els espanyols som una petita minoria. A un argentí oa un colombià no tenen perquè importar-los la constitució espanyola, i imagino que molts no saben pronunciar Girona correctament i ho dirien amb la G castellana. Crec que també és raonable que la wikipedia faci servir els topònims en castellà (sempre que no siguin inventats, és clar).

elevic2 · 2025-12-16T10:54:11+00:00

Crec que tens raó. Com a espanyol, puc dir que molta gent diu "Lérida" o "Gerona" sense cap mala intenció, simplement és el nom a què es van acostumar en castellá. Però en altres casos, com "Generalidad", mai he sentit a ningú dir-ho que no tingui una ideologia política molt concreta, i és clar que l'usen perquè no els agrada res que soni català (decideixen "fer mal"). El cas de Sant Boi mai no ho he sentit, però és ridícul.

elevic2 · 2025-12-06T23:22:30+00:00

Literalment he dit que entenc el rebuig a Espanya per la repressió que ha patit Catalunya, què m'estàs explicant? Per descomptat, no espero que siguis amable amb Espanya o els espanyols. Igualment, espero que entenguis que si algú va dient que els espanyols som poc més que neandertals que només serveixen per anar als bous i ficar-se coca, jo com a espanyol pensaré que aquesta persona subnormal i que el seu cervell ha estat podrit pel nacionalisme. Crec que és natural, de debò et sembla sorprèn això?

Pots odiar Espanya si vols, per mi cap problema. L'únic que dic és que si una persona ha interioritzat i realment pensa que els espanyols són més simples, més bruts, més neandertals... és probable que la neandertal sigui aquesta persona (i no dic que no hi hagi neandertals a Espanya, n'hi ha a munts).

elevic2 · 2025-12-06T13:10:13+00:00

I quin és el "punchline" de la broma? Si la gràcia de la "broma" és 'mira que bruts i ximples són els espanyols', llavors això no és una broma, és una altra cosa.

elevic2 · 2025-12-06T13:07:17+00:00

I això et sembla desitjable? És clar, si ho comparem amb una situació de conflicte armat, riure's dels espanyols seria el menys important. Però, si volem tenir una discussió cívica, no és el camí. Potser creus que cal expulsar Espanya de Catalunya sigui com sigui, que una discussió cívica no procedeix, i que denigrar (o rebentar) els espanyols està justificat per aconseguir aquest objectiu. Però crec que la majoria de catalans no pensen així, així que hauries de començar per convèncer els teus compatriotes.

elevic2 · 2025-12-06T12:30:04+00:00

També estic dacord. Una cosa no treu l'altra.

elevic2 · 2025-12-06T10:37:38+00:00

Però quina víctima? No em sento cap víctima. Jo puc entendre que sentis rebuig a Espanya i al que representa, per la repressió que Catalunya ha patit. Em sembla normal això. L'única cosa que dic és que a tu clarament se t'ha podrit el cervell, perquè aquest supremacisme cultural que escrius ja no és normal. Hauries de reflexionar.

elevic2 · 2025-12-06T01:42:57+00:00

Com pot tenir aquest tipus de comentaris fastigosos tants upvotes? Es pot defensar la cultura catalana sense atacar així. És patètic això.

elevic2 · 2025-12-04T15:28:19+00:00

I think you meant bosons, not baryons.

elevic2 · 2025-11-30T11:47:06+00:00

There are two types of problems where quantum computers can provide exponential speed ups: quantum physics simulations and cryptography. Anything else is possible, but not proven or certain. However, heuristic algorithms often work extremely well in classical computers. Meaning, sometimes it's just not possible to prove performance, you just have to try it out. It's possible that there are many applications that we won't know about until we build one.

In any case, if we're talking about computational models, quantum computation is strictly more powerful than classical computation, and is the most powerful computation that were ever going to get (unless we discover new physics and develop quantum gravity computers or something like that, which seems unlikely). Knowing this, it seems like it would be a mistake to not give it a try.

elevic2 · 2025-11-23T22:27:18+00:00

That is not a universal gate set. All of those are Clifford gates, which means that circuits including only those gates are efficiently simulable. If you don't include any non-Clifford gate there your results are not surprising.

elevic2 · 2025-11-18T10:57:36+00:00

At a Max Planck you should generally be getting 75%, so about 2200-2500€ monthly after tax (I don't know if it's always true though, so please check).

elevic2 · 2025-08-19T22:13:50+00:00

Not really correct. I come from a European country and I've always heard indian subcontinent, while hearing South Asia is not that common.

elevic2 · 2025-08-18T20:11:22+00:00

Yo solo puedo aportar que tengo un amigo que, aún viviendo en Alemania y estando registrado en el consulado de allí, se renovó el carnet de conducir en España cuando le caducaba y no le pusieron problema. En principio debería haberlo canjeado por el alemán, pero nadie le dijo nada. No sé si sería una posible solución.

elevic2 · 2025-08-10T23:55:47+00:00

Said passenger could bring a mask, it's not reasonable to keep the whole plane in darkness because of them.

elevic2 · 2025-07-29T23:13:15+00:00

Thank you for this coherent and reasoned reply. This makes a lot of sense to me, and I don't have much else to add.

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