【CASE STUDY】Kika Learns About Her Chinese Grandfather by Using Mandarin Blueprint

Below is the transcript from Phil & Kika’s conversation. To see more feedback from people like Kika, visit our testimonials page.

Phil Crimmins:

All right. Welcome back to the Mandarin Blueprint Podcast. I’m here with Kika Bisogno, is that correct? Bisogno?

Kika Bisogno:

Yes. That’s-

Phil Crimmins:

Awesome.

Kika Bisogno:

… perfect

Phil Crimmins:

You’ve been on the course and what level are you on the course now in the Mandarin Blueprint Method?

Kika Bisogno:

Oh, I’m on Level 13.

Phil Crimmins:

Perfect. And so I first of all just want to thank you because I think for … is it every single character, you’ve left a comment with your individual movie scene, a mnemonic device for the character. Am I correct in that? Because it feels like … and I look at the comments coming in, I’m like, “Wow, another one from Kika.”

Kika Bisogno:

Well, I usually do. Last week I didn’t really have the chance to do it because I had a lot of work, but by the way, I do my Anki cards every day. Even if I don’t have time to do new characters because of work. But I do. Yeah, I do. I’m having a lot of fun doing that.

Phil Crimmins:

That’s the key. That’s the key.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah, that is the key.

Phil Crimmins:

Well, thank you very much for that. And so for anybody else who’s on the course and you’re in Levels 1 through 12 pretty much every character has a comment from Kika explaining her particular scene, which is always useful. Everybody has a slightly different way of approaching it. That it’s always good to have somebody else’s perspective, obviously Luke and I give our perspectives, but we’re just two people so it’s always worth looking at those comments.

Phil Crimmins:

I’ve noticed other people doing that recently too and it’s just fantastic. So before we get too far into this, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Kika Bisogno:

Well, as I mentioned before to you, I’m Venezuelan. I’m living in Columbia and I’m a freelance graphic designer. I work from home. So it’s good because I do have a little bit of slots open during the day that allowed me to do my Chinese and other things that I like to do on my own. That’s what it is.

Phil Crimmins:

So what got you into wanting to learn Chinese in the first place? Like, what made you say, “Okay, I want to learn Chinese now.”

Kika Bisogno:

Well, basically I think I had like two motivators. Basically the fact that my grandfather was Chinese, he was from Guangdong, he went to Venezuela in the early 1930s or something like that. But for some reason, neither my mother nor my uncles learned the language. We have a lot of the culture, the food basically. Food-wise, we’re very, very Chinese, but I never learned.

Kika Bisogno:

So the language was lost in that first generation back in Venezuela. That’s one thing that I always thought about, “You know, I should be learning a little bit more about where my family comes from.” And the other motivator was business. As a graphic designer, I was lucky enough to get a job with a lady based in Hong Kong. She’s a publisher. So I worked for her for many, many years doing her … she had a fashion magazine, fashion, not your regular newsstand magazine, but a fashion-oriented magazine, for the fashion industry.

Kika Bisogno:

And her clients were mostly in Asia. So the magazine was done in English and it was done in Chinese. So by learning a little bit, she gave me the Chinese part as well as the English. I used to do just the English. I would lay out the magazine, then package all the files, send the files to her and somebody else would do the Chinese. But eventually, I don’t know whether the guy quit or she fired him or something. She was left with nobody to do the Chinese part. So she offered that to me.

Kika Bisogno:

So in the beginning, it was sort of like, “But you have the reference in English. So you sort of get the little bits and pieces and put them where they belong.” But eventually, you become used to seeing certain characters and sort of realizing, “Okay, this is talking about colors.” Because you have the English, so you know and-

Phil Crimmins:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Kika Bisogno:

You know what I mean? It’s like, “Okay, these are colors, these are fabrics, these are trends, these are garments.” And you get used to seeing certain things and they start meaning something to you.

Phil Crimmins:

Especially because you’re looking-

Kika Bisogno:

But-

Phil Crimmins:

… closely at it. So you’re looking at it from a design perspective, so your take, paying closer attention to details than you might be otherwise. So that’s interesting.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah, absolutely. But then after many years, I realized that I was doing that in autopilot. Just recognizing squiggly little things like you recognize maybe a stop sign.

Phil Crimmins:

Oh right, yeah.

Kika Bisogno:

What I mean is like it’s like a circle. It’s red. It has a line that crosses diagonally, so it means stop. But why is it red? Why is it not blue? All those things that underlined the character itself, it wasn’t there for me. So I decided, you know, “Now that I’m into it, maybe I should like really dig down and start learning the language properly. Not just recognizing certain words or certain characters.”

Kika Bisogno:

But it is that I was in that in traditional Chinese. [crosstalk 00:06:07], so you know, I had to do the crossover to simplify it because there were certain characters that it’s not the same. It’s not traditional and simplified it completely different. But there are many characters that are. So that’s when I really started thinking and actually with intention, wanting to learn. And I, that’s when I started really looking for resources and how do I learn?

Kika Bisogno:

Because remember by then I’m just looking at characters and recognizing them, not knowing how to pronounce it. So I learned a little bit about [foreign language 00:06:54] and that’s just basically how I got into it. But until now, I’ll be very, very honest with you. I’ve tried many systems. I’ve tried many repetition software. All of them. All of them. I have downloaded all of them to my iPad and iPhone and all that.

Kika Bisogno:

But then it’s like you get stuck because when you learn without any context at all, it stays in your brain just for a little while. After a while, you forget. Because it doesn’t really mean anything to you. So, you know, for all these years I’ve been searching, never stopping, looking for something that really helped me get some structure into my learning.

Kika Bisogno:

Because it’s not lack of discipline that I’ve been on and off. I’m very disciplined with whatever I … basically everything I know, I have learned on my own. So it’s not that I get bored and I don’t want to do it anymore. It’s just that I start a system and then I find, “Okay, I feel like I’m not moving forward.” So I have been looking and looking and looking.

Kika Bisogno:

Now, I made the effort this afternoon to try to remember how I found you guys. I don’t remember. I don’t know how I ended up on your website. I think it was somebody on Twitter maybe that goes to the link or something. But I ended up on your website and I saw the introductory video and I said, “Oops, I think I’m going to like this.”

Phil Crimmins:

You know we’ve been trying to solve that same problem. It was funny, as you were explaining that to me, I thought this a few years ago. I thought, “Oh, you know, even if you were disciplined …” Because if I felt like discipline people could learn Chinese with the current materials that are out there, I probably would never have worked with Luke to make Mandarin Blueprint.

Phil Crimmins:

But we looked at it and we said even disciplined people are going to struggle with materials because they’re not connected enough. And so everything you’re learning, it’s like we try to make it like you start with a dot, a single piece of knowledge and then you just grow around that dot. But with Chinese, it’s like you learn this, then you learn that and then you learn this and then you … it just goes all over the place and then you try to have to connect those things and it’s really stressful on the mind, especially if you have other things going on. You’re like, “Forget this,” you know?

Kika Bisogno:

It’s frustrating because you’re putting the effort, you’re putting the time, you’re buying resources, I watch movies and I listen to podcasts trying to get my ear into the sounds and all that. But if you don’t have structure, you get lost. It’s too much to learn because you have to learn the character, you have to know the meaning of a character. Then you have to know how to pronounce it, how to pronounce the next two and other characters. It’s too much to do on your own.

Kika Bisogno:

Very, very … I mean, I do know many more characters that I have studied with you now, but they’re not connected. And what I need is to have that connection. So that my mind doesn’t have to stop and think, “What’s that mean?” So when I found your website, I did the free trial thingy and I told myself, even though I have some knowledge like I know characters and I know what they mean, I’m going to start from scratch. I don’t mind. [crosstalk 00:11:07]-

Phil Crimmins:

That’s actually a good feeling, right?

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah. It’s like I’m going to make believe that I never learned anything before, so I’m just going to start like from zero. And it’s been really interesting. Very, very interesting because I find that I’m putting the effort where it has to go. And things, they stick to my mind, and that’s one of the problems I had before is I will look at a character, just tell myself, “I have seen this before, I have seen this before.”

Kika Bisogno:

But from my trying as hard as I could, I just couldn’t remember what it meant. Not even in the context of whatever came before, or whatever came after. Now I need to think, “Okay, that’s a crutch. This is the sound. Okay. I know what it means.” It’s that connection that it’s so important that it was missing in my studies.

Phil Crimmins:

Oh, that’s so great to hear. Because that’s exactly the type of thing that we want to get across for people because one of the things that is so true about Chinese is that it absolutely will reward you if you build up enough of the knowledge. So it’s like compared to other languages, you have to spend a lot more time in the early foundational stages. And so you’re not necessarily using it day to day during that time.

Phil Crimmins:

And so it can feel like a really long time of not actually using it yet and just building up knowledge about it. But then it’s like this sort of tipping point where you build up enough knowledge and suddenly you progress really fast. And so that’s really cool to see because that to me tells me for sure you’re going to be successful because not only are you building it up the right way for now, but you’re getting all these moments of like enlightenment and regarding the things you previously knew. So you knew some things before, but they were disconnected a little bit and now it’s like all connecting in place.

Phil Crimmins:

So that compared to maybe how a beginner would feel about the course. So a beginner could also find success, but you’ll be having more moments of like, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that before,” but now it makes more sense. So, that’s great.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah, it makes more sense. It’s very satisfying. Regarding my time and the time that I can spend on this. Some days I have plenty of hours, so I just sit down and do the whole bunch of characters. But yes, the Anki cards, I turn my computer on and that’s the first thing I see. That’s the first … my big mug of coffee. And I sit down and I do it because the repetition is important. And when I say that I tried repetition software before and it didn’t work for me, it didn’t work because it was not in the context of a structure that you’re following.

Kika Bisogno:

Just learning to say a whole bunch of or learning characters … You know how this software has like little sequences like, “Let’s learn everything about the kitchen.” And you know learn how to say, “Fork and a knife and a spoon and this and that.” Aha, okay, so there’s nothing in there. But the repetition software it is important. I mean, just doing the whole process of doing the creating new movies and it’s fun and you learn. But if you don’t remember what your props are, then you can’t remember what the character is. Because if you don’t know why that prop is in there and then it doesn’t bring your movie connection in your mind. So you don’t remember when the characters, so the Anki cards are very important and I love the sentences.

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah, so you’ve already started those sentences, how does that feel so far?

Kika Bisogno:

It feels great because it’s like, “Okay, look at all the things that I can say with five characters in different positions really.” Or maybe changing one character and the whole meaning of a sentence changes. It’s a lot of fun. I like that. Plus I like the pronunciation bit because my experience all these past years has been writing and reading, but no pronunciation whatsoever. Apart from listening to movies and getting your ear sort of acquainted with the intonation of the sentences. But not really pronunciation, which is something that I’m lacking completely.

Phil Crimmins:

Right. Yeah.

Kika Bisogno:

[crosstalk 00:16:05], yeah.

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah, the pronunciations that’s something that was the first thing that we did because we realized, “Okay, this is the thing that everybody has to get down, to begin with,” and it’s been received very well. So I’m glad to hear that for sure. And so something I’m always curious about with people who’ve taken the course is what do you … so when it comes to learning a new character. So new characters come up, you’re seeing it for the first time, or maybe you’ve known it before because you have prior experience. But when it comes from the moment you see the character to the point where you’ve made your movie scene and you’re ready to move on, about how long does that take for you now that you’ve gotten used to the method?

Kika Bisogno:

It depends. Because it depends on the props and I try to think of something that means something to me. You know, some of the stories I see, I have read some of the stories from other users and they’re like so far out and like, “Oh, I never imagined that.” But at the end of the day, the story or your movie scene has to mean something to you.

Phil Crimmins:

Of course, yeah.

Kika Bisogno:

There’s no point in doing something completely over the top if you’ll forget it. It has to be the people you know, or the sets of the people you know, the props that may not mean anything to somebody else but mean something to you. It’s like you know that character, that man, the standing one?

Phil Crimmins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kika Bisogno:

I think you call it Chuck Norris or something.

Phil Crimmins:

Oh, right, yeah. In the U.S., and in England, there were lots of memes that were about Chuck Norris and how he’s like the most accomplished martial arts ever, and nobody can defeat him and all that. And so we were just like, “Oh, okay, that’s funny. That makes us laugh. We’ll go with Chuck Norris.” But obviously, that was something we experienced in our childhood. So, you know, not have that connection. So, yeah.

Kika Bisogno:

But for me, I see a crutch.

Phil Crimmins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative) yeah, sure [crosstalk 00:18:21] it looks like a little crutch in there, perfect.

Kika Bisogno:

It does. So you know, I try to use this like Chuck Norris, I don’t know. I mean I know who he is, but I haven’t seen his … well, he doesn’t mean anything to me. So you know, it depends, it doesn’t take more than 15 minutes I would say because I like to think, “Okay, I have this,” I like to put them in the order I’m supposed to ride them. Maybe I’m too picky, you know? [crosstalk 00:18:54]-

Phil Crimmins:

But I get why you’re doing it though. It’s not the worst thing because you’ve got many more characters to go, right? So you could probably … you know, as you’re moving forward and you’ve really got it down, you’ll get faster at everything. So it’s like, I’m sure that you could go, you know, if you decided, “All right, now I’m going to go for …” because at the moment you’ve been doing it more meticulously than maybe anybody I’ve seen so far in terms of every single one of them, you’re writing them down, you’re getting into it.

Phil Crimmins:

And that’s actually great for you because it means that when you see new characters, you’ll be really quick because you’ll … there’s not going to be any question as to how to do the method. The method is totally … you’ve got it. And so now you can more quickly put things together. And so yeah, I totally … but you’re very meticulous, so that makes sense.

Kika Bisogno:

But another thing I’ll say is that I mean if you see some of your marketing material with say, “Learn how to speak in six months,” I’m not in a hurry. So that aspect is also there. It’s not as if I have time that I have to get all those. When I sit down … sometimes I’m really tired after working all day. So, you know, I just sit down and I look, and I sort of like daydream. Okay, “So this is [Siomar 00:20:16], she’s in my brother’s house” then, you know, I try to imagine. Then okay, there’s a window for me, which is where you see the sun and so I try to put a … then I’ll write it down. So I don’t mind. I’m sure I could … I mean if I had a timeline or a schedule where I have to get four or five characters in an hour, I’m sure I could do it a lot faster.

Phil Crimmins:

Right, yeah. No, you’re right.

Kika Bisogno:

I’m enjoying the process and I’m not in a hurry, so-

Phil Crimmins:

Oh, I love it-

Kika Bisogno:

[crosstalk 00:20:52] I just want to get it done.

Phil Crimmins:

That’s such great advice. It’s such great advice for anybody on the courses and this is a piece of advice that I give myself all the time in many different aspects of my life. Is that like sometimes if you put … it’s kind of like sometimes if you put pressure on yourself but you’re in the right mood, the pressure helps and it’s like a good pressure that gets you [crosstalk 00:21:14]. But so many times you can just go, “How about I just daydream for a little bit?” That’s easy. That’s no problem. Anybody could go daydream for a little bit and just maybe structure your daydreams slightly. You know, it’s like give it a little bit of structure.

Kika Bisogno:

Right, [crosstalk 00:21:29].

Phil Crimmins:

That is such great advice because you actually do need, when you’re learning a character, getting slightly technical, your brain waves when you sleep are called Theta waves and then they become alpha waves when you’re maybe just waking up or in kind of a more daydream like state and then they’re beta waves when you’re more focused in whatever. And actually, beta waves aren’t necessarily the best for doing the kinds of movie method because it’s a little bit too … you’re going to question yourself too much.

Phil Crimmins:

Whereas if you just kind of daydream and let things come into your mind as they would naturally, it’s more of a discovery process than it is a making it happen process. And so that can be a … that’s actually a great perspective on that and of course, yeah, as much of a goal of like, “I must get it done by March or something.”

Kika Bisogno:

June, yeah, I know. I’m not in a hurry, I don’t have pressure except the pressure to learn, which is my own pressure, but I’ll do it on my own terms and I much rather do one character and get my story really there that it means something to me and the props and you know, the set and the people involved. And just do one because I’m too tired because I had to work 16 hours in the morning rather, I just do one rather than cramming a whole bunch of things because then it becomes like that repetition software, just on and on and it’s not sticking.

Kika Bisogno:

I need to do it in a way that I feel like it’s there. I just need to get that little thingy that brings it up [crosstalk 00:23:14] you’re a person or whatever, you know?

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah, yeah. I love it.

Kika Bisogno:

But everybody has their own method. I guess I’m using your method with my own method.

Phil Crimmins:

Well, that’s what everybody should be doing. Like that’s one of the things that one of the things that people say a lot and I totally get it and it’s not like … I sort of agree with them, but sometimes people will say if they aren’t having as much success early on with their method is they’ll say, “Well, everybody learns differently.”

Phil Crimmins:

And I think like, yes, that’s true, but of course, everybody learns differently. But what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to create a method where you can apply how you learn to the method. You know, it’s just sort of like giving … because we want to have as much flexibility within the method as possible so that your unique personality can fit into this structure. It’s a structure you can literally daydream through. So if you can have that type of attitude towards it, then we’re just giving you some paths to walk down and you can walk them … you can skip along them, you can run along them, you can meander through them, whatever.

Kika Bisogno:

Right.

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah, that’s pretty cool. That’s awesome. Just out of curiosity, when you first got into the method, were you skeptical about it? Because it is kind of weird where like, “Hey, imagine all these weird things in your mind.”

Kika Bisogno:

Well, it took me a little while to figure out what I had to do like you know when you [crosstalk 00:24:47], you’re going to need 55 characters, I was like, “Oh my god, 55 characters and protagonist of your scenes,” and the sets and all that. But it took me maybe five characters to get the hang of it. You know what I mean? It’s like at the beginning, because you’re not used to it.

Kika Bisogno:

But once you understand what it is that you were supposed to do then it flows. It really does. You have props and you have a character, then you have a set. I try to use my sets because they’re supposed to be used, right? And the rooms and all that. So I try to think about what’s going on and what could happen and who says what and why and all those things. But I think it took me maybe five or six characters to feel comfortable with.

Phil Crimmins:

Wow.

Kika Bisogno:

But I was not skeptical, I wasn’t skeptical at all.

Phil Crimmins:

Cool.

Kika Bisogno:

I didn’t think, “I don’t think this is going to work.” I know for some reason I felt it would work and it has so far.

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah, well that’s awesome. I’m thrilled to hear that, thrilled to hear that. And so you’ve been through phases one and two and now you’re in phase three of the course. You’ve seen some sentences and do you have any recommendations for areas where we could improve the course to kind of make it a bit … if there was anything, any criticisms you have of the course or any things that you think we could improve? Is there anything that comes to mind?

Kika Bisogno:

Well, actually no, I can’t think of anything. It’s good that you take us by the hand up to level 12 really, and then you sort of like, “Okay, now you can walk on your own. I’m here to help you. You know, I’ll be your crutch.”

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah, exactly, Chuck Norris.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah, okay, Chuck Norris for you. No, I don’t think … I mean you have the questions, you have everything. I can’t think of anything that I would change really.

Phil Crimmins:

Well, anytime you think of something, feel free to email us. The only reason the course has been able to be how it is now is that we never are willing to accept that it’s perfect. You know, ’cause it’s always … there’s always room for improvement. So if you ever think of anything, email us-

Kika Bisogno:

Oh definitely, but on my side, I’m not sure there is anything that I have felt so far that’s lacking or that it’s there and it’s not necessary. I like the sentences. I don’t know if I read or maybe I heard on one of your podcasts that people might not like the sentences. I like them. I love them.

Phil Crimmins:

Oh yeah. Well, I mean sometimes people when they’re first starting them, like every phase of the course when you start a new … I mean it’s like everything that you’re going to learn when you first start it, it’s difficult. The most difficult part is the beginning, right? So, you start doing sentences for the first time and your brain has to sort of reorienting itself to this new thing you’re doing, which you’ll probably feel again in phase four and again, phase five a little bit when we add some new material.

Phil Crimmins:

But it’s kind of like, I was just talking about this with my friend who’s here in Chiang Mai who is also … I don’t know if you would call us athletes, but we like to exercise and we were talking about how every time we go running or cycle, the first 5, 10 minutes is the hardest part while you’re transitioning into it. And you’re like, “Oh my gosh, am I really going to be able to run for an hour?” And then 10 minutes in, you’re like, “Oh yeah, no problem, yeah, it’s easy,” just because you get into the flow of it. And so I’m glad to see that you already like the sentences. That’s a good omen because it means that you’ll just have fun with it the whole time pretty much. So, that’s fantastic.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah. Well, let me tell you something really quickly.

Phil Crimmins:

Sure.

Kika Bisogno:

After I got into the learning Chinese phase, long face, I finally realize why my grandfather spoke the way he spoke.

Phil Crimmins:

Oh yeah?

Kika Bisogno:

Because he would, like in India, like no tenses, [crosstalk 00:29:14]. And it was always weird for us growing up. I was like, “Why does he speak like that?”

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah.

Kika Bisogno:

But it’s fun because you know, these questions were not questions in the Spanish or English sense. It was like a sentence and then like hmm? Sort like wow, that sort of thing. And that’s why, okay, going back to the sentences, I like the fact that you have a completely different meaning just by changing one character. Because grammatically speaking Chinese is so much simpler than Spanish with so many regular verbs and you know, feminine and masculines and singulars and plurals, it’s complicated. And this is really much, much simpler. Once you get the hang of it, it’s just a lot of scene sentences and then you realize hmm, this is how you build it. You know, it’s little blocks like Legos. You get one after the other-

Phil Crimmins:

The hard part of Chinese is the characters, the hard part and so it’s like that … once you get them down, it’s really just like a little game. It’s a little game of putting-

Kika Bisogno:

It’s like a little game, gather the pieces together. So, it’s great, so far I only have praises for you guys.

Phil Crimmins:

Oh, that’s very nice of you to say. So I guess the final thing I’ll ask then is just that if you were talking to somebody who is considering whether or not they want to get involved in the Mandarin Blueprint method, would you recommend it and you know why or why not?

Kika Bisogno:

Absolutely. I already did. I already did. Look, I have cousins who regret not having learned the language and all that and who have realized that if they only knew a little bit of Chinese, the business or the work opportunities would be better [crosstalk 00:31:28]-

Phil Crimmins:

Their familial heritage.

Kika Bisogno:

China is a great power, a world power. China is all over Latin America. I mean in Venezuela, they’re in Columbia, they’re all over the place. In Latin America especially, it’s a very strong presence of Chinese companies. And I know for a fact many people said if I only knew Chinese, I’d get a better salary or a better position in a company.

Phil Crimmins:

Very true.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah. So, the other day, a couple of weeks ago, a cousin of mine … oh okay, for New Year, Chinese New Year’s, we have a family chat and I put happy New Year in Chinese. She knew quite a lot. And she put something else and she said, “No, that’s not happy New Year, this is happy New Year.” I said, “No, that says this is …” what is it? A rabbit’s year?

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah, [crosstalk 00:32:39] of the Rabbit maybe.

Kika Bisogno:

The Year of the Rabbit or something like that. I said, “No, see? You should be studying Chinese.” And she said, “Maybe I should, yeah.” And I told her that I was doing this course with you, with you guys and I gave her the link.

Phil Crimmins:

Oh, excellent.

Kika Bisogno:

So hopefully she will get enthusiastic enough to join.

Phil Crimmins:

Well, if she’s anything like you, I’m sure she will be, so.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah, I hope she does. I hope she does because it’s important. I mean, knowing even a little bit of Chinese, it’s a good step for a better professional life.

Phil Crimmins:

No, doubt about it.

Kika Bisogno:

We have to be fluent. If you can read and write a little bit, it’s much appreciated.

Phil Crimmins:

100% yeah. Chinese people do really, they do really appreciate it. If you make an effort and you know, they don’t think that you should, or even some people think you can’t learn their language, so when you do, they’re impressed. So it’s not like they’re arrogant about it or something and they’re like, “What? You don’t know [crosstalk 00:33:48]?”

Kika Bisogno:

No, no.

Phil Crimmins:

No, they’re very nice about it. They’re always like, “Wow, you’re trying to learn Chinese, this is great.” So you get a lot of rewards from Chinese people just by learning Chinese, so, yeah.

Kika Bisogno:

They do appreciate it. Personally, they do appreciate it, but even in business, if you go into say Huawei, which is in Venezuela, I know people who work there, great engineers, but they have no knowledge of the language and they didn’t even have the interest which I thought was so stupid really. Not even trying to learn, not even trying to say [foreign language 00:34:23], you know what I mean? Like the typical fake hello, not even that. And that was such a missed opportunity for these guys because I know for a fact that if you do know even a little bit of Chinese, even if they see that you are trying to learn, you have a better chance to move up the ladder.

Phil Crimmins:

Yeah, 100% yeah.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah, you do.

Phil Crimmins:

Well Kika, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me about Mandarin Blueprint and your experiences and you’re an excellent person to have in the course. We really appreciate you. You have comments that come in all the time and anybody who’s on the course, look at the comments section below the video, so I bet you’ll get some help from Kika. Just again, thanks so much and we wish you the best to move forward and let’s check-in again with you when you’re a bit further in the course and see how you’re doing.

Kika Bisogno:

Yeah, absolutely, anytime you want. I really, really congratulate you guys for having this idea. I’m really enjoying it, truly.

Phil Crimmins:

Fantastic. Well, we appreciate that. And to anybody who’s interested, you can check out mandarinblueprint.com. So, thanks so much Kika, and we’ll speak again soon. Bye, bye.

Kika Bisogno:

Okay, bye from Colombia.

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The post 【CASE STUDY】Kika Learns About Her Chinese Grandfather by Using Mandarin Blueprint appeared first on Mandarin Blueprint.