First YouTube Video Uploaded
Pumpkin soup, spice and eating nice
Success. The first video has been uploaded to YouTube. This video followed my wife cooking a normal meal, and it was a great learning experience for me. While the final product may have looked like early YouTube (think 2000s), the process sharpened my editing skills enormously.
In the video we followed along as chicken breast, pumpkin soup, and salad were prepared.
I packed a lot of vocabulary words into the video. This allowed me to learn some personally valuable words, particularly the spices added to the marinade…
…and it introduced some useful words to anyone learning Chinese.
- 水 Shuǐ – Water
- 黄瓜 Huángguā – Cucumber
- 生菜 Shēngcài – Lettuce
- 番茄 Fānqié – Tomato
But as I edited, I started to ask myself if I was providing meaningful content for most viewers. As an American living in China and married to a Chinese wife, what valuable experiences can I really offer viewers? I can walk around, show pictures, and recite vocabulary, but that feels more like a classroom than a channel. And while I have spent a good portion of my adult life in classrooms teaching English, which may be part of the reason this was my default mode for the first video, I don’t want to build a YouTube channel just to replicate school.
For that reason, I’m shifting focus. I want to document my life as a language learner living in a foreign country and married to a local. I’ll share useful phrases, blunders, meaningful moments, and practical tricks I’ve picked up over the ten years I’ve been in China. Perhaps sharing observations from my daily life will resonate with a broader audience than simply watching me study flashcards.
But until the next video, I can’t resist sneaking in some more vocabulary. Because no matter how much AI and technology invade our lives, sitting down and learning words is still essential if you want to enjoy daily life (or travel) in any country with a different language.
Be sure to check out the video:
And PLEASE subscribe to the YouTube community, leave a comment, and tell me the funniest time you mistook a word when listening to a local.