Very fun blog to read, especially since I've been through a somewhat related though far less rigorous experience; a China major, spent 2 years in Taiwan while undergrad, then 2 years grad school, 7 years total studying modern Mandarin, classical Chinese, and some dialects (mostly Taiwanese i.e. Minnan dialect, and some Cantonese).
The key, in my experience, is having a young brain. Chinese is different from a Western phonetic language and I believe the characters are stored in a different part of the brain than are, for example, English words. Perhaps in an image processing center. Others smarter than I could probably correct & expand on this.
When I was 20, I could learn dozens or hundreds of characters a week. Decades later, that ability has faded. I've never had a very good memory, though, so maybe others are still able to absorb and retain the characters (and character combinations) at an older age.
Isaak seems exceptionally bright, to judge by his "About" page which is kind of amazing. But possibly his best tactic has been to immerse himself maximally, force himself to watch Chinese-dubbed anime, get his teacher to teach in Mandarin, and go to the country itself and spend all day speaking to people which in the long run is the way to really get the spoken language down, complementing all those characters you're stuffing into your head.
The key, in my experience, is having a young brain. Chinese is different from a Western phonetic language and I believe the characters are stored in a different part of the brain than are, for example, English words. Perhaps in an image processing center. Others smarter than I could probably correct & expand on this.
When I was 20, I could learn dozens or hundreds of characters a week. Decades later, that ability has faded. I've never had a very good memory, though, so maybe others are still able to absorb and retain the characters (and character combinations) at an older age.
Isaak seems exceptionally bright, to judge by his "About" page which is kind of amazing. But possibly his best tactic has been to immerse himself maximally, force himself to watch Chinese-dubbed anime, get his teacher to teach in Mandarin, and go to the country itself and spend all day speaking to people which in the long run is the way to really get the spoken language down, complementing all those characters you're stuffing into your head.