Yea, you have to see your budget too. Chinese and Japanese are popular enough, so i think there should be similar free readers. Link below is LUTE, not sure of chinese, jap support. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eqCQnZQCfow

I’m not sure what’s best for Mandarin or Japanese specifically, but if you can read and want something that reduces friction, have you looked into LingQ? I am using it for reading, listening a lot in French. It also supports importing YouTube content.

I think at your level you should focus on native content… a lot of native content. Anything that helps you with consuming a huge amount of content is great. Use the language by consuming.

most apps like duolingo, bussuu, babbel usually teach you in a rigid path on topics you might not even have an interest in. For example if you are not interested in cooking, sports, the chapter on cooking,sports will be very boring.

Only apps I would recommend are those that teach in a high frequency way. ie teaches high-frequency words, sentences, grammar points and etc. I ditched apps as soon as I could read a book.

I feel apps like to keep you in a learner mode that is how they make money, I feel as soon as you can consume content in that language, you are a user of the language, so consume content instead. make mistakes, learn from them and keep consuming.

I like LingQ because I can import everything i want to consume in 1 place, from books, podcast, YT series, music and etc.

ROFL… you must be the guy who writes his speech.

lol Who did they put in charge of the cuts… Dogey Felon Musk?

Lol… even without mentioning him one can tell it is him saying all that.
I heard Trump say “The russian scientist went wild on the samples.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4WgOPT9TUA

Yea the 5 ingredient stuff is weird, what if I make a 5 fruits salad. To me the number of unnatural processing steps (processes that don’t occur regularly in nature) makes more sense.

Yes, curry is processed food. It goes through the unnatural process of high heat cooking. I’m not sure about healthy-ness, I think a lot also depends on dosage. I don’t see processing as always being bad.

To me, Dosage makes the poison.

Drinking 4 gallons of curry in 1 sitting is probably bad, same as drinking 4 gallons of unprocessed water in one sitting.

Is UPF food with ultra high fibre bad? Is UPF with ultra high vitamin A bad?

breaking bread/donuts is good, sharing is caring.

Yes, also the glycemic index and nutrient availability changes, so it is processed from wheat seed.

When we eat raw wheat seed, we can’t absorb any of the nutrients. Artificial grinding into powder and applying artificial heat and adding water break/weaken the cell walls, making the sugars and nutrients more available, it also raising glycemic index. So there is difference between how much the body can absorb from the unprocessed seed and processed version.

I’m not sure about milk, but high temp heating is not something that occurs naturally. I am pretty sure heating kills both good and bad stuff so it chemically alters milks, even if minimally. If it is altered chemically or it’s nutrient profile changes or it goes through a process that doesn’t occur regularly, naturally in nature, I consider it processed.

Some form of processing is necessary to prevent disease, i am not against processed stuff to prevent disease.

Eating raw wheat seed, our body can’t absorb anything, eating powered wheat we still can’t absorb much nutrient. The moment we add water and heat and make bread, we break the cell walls, and now we can absorb most of the nutrients. It also raising the glycemic index of wheat.

I don’t consider fermented (decomposition) stuff like yogurt as processed since it can occur naturally, I just see it as a different food, like a seed is a food that can naturally become a plant that is also a food.

Do Trump Maga voice.

Been busy with work so just more reading/listening on LingQ and listening while working. With all the reading, I started to notice certain grammar structures repeatedly give me problems, so I might go back to brushing up some grammar, find gap in knowledge.

No progress on speaking and writing, hardly have time for Anki due to work.

when price of other tariffed products, equipment, staff salary goes up. It means your expenses are more even if your business is not affected by tariffs. ie prices will go up even for non-tariffs items.

Imagine if trump only tariffed imported chicken, but my business is selling pen and pencils which are not tariffed, I would still have to raise prices of pen and pencil because the price of my food just went up, I would need to make more money to eat chicken meat and have the same purchasing power . No one is going to reduce their income/profit/salary/purchasing power in fact people will take advantage and increase.

Most importantly stock up on toilet papers to resell for massive filthy profits, take advantage of filthy buts!! With that money you can send your children through college and save lives and end world hunger! even fund research to cure cancer!!.

But those people doing that are pro russian, just like putin’s nazi Wagner group.

His logic is that russia is so dumb that they jumped into an obvious “trap” set by US “proxy” so that KGB putin can help US destroy russia through Ukraine. he made it sound like putin is a fool and was tricked into invading to weaken russia.

If putin was not interested in war and expanding territories, they would not have blocked Ukraine from joining Europes’s NATO so that the border can be peaceful, just like the other russia borders with NATO.

It is clear that russia wanted ports in crimea and Ukraine territories, which is why russia started blocking Ukraine from joining NATO. In the beginning, russia was ok with Ukraine joining NATO. Russia wanted war in Ukraine for some reason and have been planning it for a very long time, with their puppets, funding coups, terrorist and operatives in donbas region. https://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21598

Yea US should stop bombing and expanding into Greenland! I have condemned US many times. I won’t trust words from CIA you are naive to trust words from CIA and FSB and ex KGBs like putin. If you hate US expansionism into Texas then you should hate russia modern day expansion into other countries, if not you are a hypocrite.

russia (and israel) is the only major country in modern time that is still invading/colonizing to expand its territories. Expanding its empire, russia is adding those new lands it conquered into its constitution.

FSB has been planning the conflict in Ukriane for a very very long time, notice all the failed russia coup attempts inside Ukraine. Sending terrorist, agent and operative into the Donbass region to destabilize the region.

That is also probably why they refuse to let Ukraine join NATO, If Ukraine was in NATO there would be peace in this region like the other NATO countries bordering russia. Russia don’t seem to want peace even after trump made a peace deal. The real war in Ukraine has yet to start, russia is not done with its imperial expansionism and colonialism.

All the bombing and funding extremist and coups are stuff that both russia (with their FSB, Nazi wagner group and other nazi groups) and US does but US has yet to expand its territories in modern times.

(hint: its not the US empire pushing for that expansion.)

Expansion (invasion to increase territories)? I think it is pretty clear that it is putin that is pushing for the expansion of russia empire, empire building into new territories.

The puzzling thing is why is Putin pushing/forcing more countries to sign up as NATO member instead of joining his own CSTO. Why is putin increasing its border with NATO and going closer to NATO, while spreading propaganda about NATO “expansion” when everyone clearly know that NATO is a voluntary membership system anyone can apply to join even russia.

NATO does not expand (invade to grab land), it is based on voluntary membership application (although it is not truly volunteer since they are being forced, antagonized to join due to russia expansionism). New members are only accepted through vote. “NATO expansion” is well known as putin/FSB propaganda meant for a certain naive audience.

NATO borders with russia are the most peaceful with the low number of russian troops. Internally, Russia is not concerned about NATO, a defense alliance since Russia has the highest number of nukes.

In the media, they will use NATO expansion propaganda because there are naive clowns and useful idiots who will believe in NATO expansion propaganda. Do remember russia was fine with Ukriane joining NATO, they saw they can use it as propaganda to justify russia expansionism. http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21598.

Ukraine public support for joining NATO was in the minority before the war, and only after invasion it became majority. Even after Ukraine said they won’t apply to NATO, russia didn’t not stop its expansion because russia expansion has nothing to do with NATO.

In fact due to russia aggressive expansion even more countries applied to join NATO. Putin knew that russia expansion will encourage more to submit application to join NATO. Putin was warned to stop russia expansion as that just cause more to apply for NATO membership, it is open to anyone. Furthermore note that expanding russia territories just bring russia closer to NATO, increasing russia border with NATO. Clearly it is not about NATO.

Even, without using NATO, putin will come up with a new reason like nazis, terrorists or LGBTQ or WMDs or security issues ( a country with the most nukes in the world has a security issue? only naive clowns will believe that) or restoring empire/imperialism (which he admitted in interview with carlson) or all of the above each for a different audience. Whatever it takes to get crimea and its warm water ports, and later Donbas for a land bridge and to secure Crimea water supply. Eventually going all the way to Transnistria.

You think things are so simple as poor top nuclear powered russia who is scared of evil tiny Ukraine, for suggesting sending in membership application form to NATO. You are being naive at best. War does not work like a superhero movie.

NATO was created to protect small countries from russia expansionism and stop russia from antagonizing its neighbours.

Russia was even member of G8 until russia antagonized G8 members by invasion of Crimea. The only way a massive nuclear powered russia sees NATO as a “threat” is that NATO prevents russia from expansionism… from expanding russia territories.

He unilaterally tariffed the rest of world and allies without any meeting with allies, tariffed first before talking.

But for Putin, he is talk first before sanction, not even sanctions just a warning…