Tech, Design & Development
.NET (print periodical and web magazine) http://www.netmagazine.com/ .NET I’ve been reading since before I could even make a website. It’s like a comfort blanket of all things web design and development.
Smashing Magazine (online magazine and books) http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ Similar to .NET except that Smashing Magazine is solely an online periodical. They also sell various books on various design and development topics.
Twitter (Most of the stuff I consume that isn’t on this list comes from Twitter)
CSS-Tricks.com (blog) http://css-tricks.com/ Front-end tips and tricks as well as links to hot things in the industry curated and authored by Chris Coyier. He taught me how to build websites.
**Shop Talk Show **(podcast) http://shoptalkshow.com/ Recent industry news as well as an interview with known people in the web and app development industry also by Chris Coyier. Kept me company during my university years making websites.
**Zeldman.com **(blog) http://www.zeldman.com/ the Godfather of web standard’s blog.
The Big Web Show (podcast) http://5by5.tv/bigwebshow Podcast about things happening in the industry by the Godfather of web standards himself.
Offscreen (print periodical) http://www.offscreenmag.com/ A print magazine about the lives of those that make websites and apps
8faces (print periodical) http://8faces.com/ Print magazine about typography with interviews of 8 designers/typographers. Often featuring web designers.
**The Manual **(print periodical) http://shop.alwaysreadthemanual.com/ A tri-yearly journal featuring short stories or lessons from those in the web industry. I like this periodical, it’s interesting.
Learning languages
Fluent in 3 months (blog - all languages) http://www.fluentin3months.com/ Benny Lewis blogs about his experience of learning languages within 3 months. Inspirational and worth a read, especially if you haven’t taken that first step into learning another language.
Fluentu Blog (blog - Mandarin/Chinese culture) http://chinese.fluentu.com/blog/ Fluentu blog run by Christina Lu from Fluentu. She interviews various Mandarin learners (including myself) as well as sharing her own experiences and news of China and Chinese.
Skritter Blog (blog - Mandarin/Japanese) http://blog.skritter.com/ The Skritter blog has both Chinese and Japanese posts on it, but most posts are done by Jacob Gill who runs another blog called iLearn Mandarin. They are pretty in depth and are well researched. Not a surprised as Jacob is a Mandarin teacher in Taiwan, but a foreigner! (a distinctly advantageous trait over native Chinese speakers as they haven’t been through the process.
Hacking Chinese (blog - Mandarin) http://www.hackingchinese.com/ Hacking Chinese is run by Olle Linge and is well known in the Mandarin learning community. He leans heavily on how to learn the language and his posts are interesting, well researched and inspiring. He is currently studying a Masters in teaching Mandarin as a foreign language so he knows his sh*t.
Confused Laowai (blog - Mandarin) http://confusedlaowai.com/ Run by Niel from South Africa. He’s been learning Mandarin in university and has now moved to Taiwan to further his studies as well as teach English. He blogs about his experiences of learning Mandarin, his techniques. Niel is still learning (like myself!) unlike some of the blogs above where they are learning to teach and their level is already very advanced so I found myself connecting with Niel’s posts, his struggles and his successes.
Sapore di Cina (blog - Mandarin/China) http://www.saporedicina.com/english/ Sapore di Cina is a blog run by ‘Furio’. His posts, and his monthly posts on his Chinese progress in particular, inspired me to write my own blog.
All Japanese all the time (blog - Mandarin/Cantonese/Japanese) http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/ This blog is run by Khatzumoto, a well known language learner and was started as a blog to share his methods of learning Japanese. His posts although focused on Japanese are highly highly relevant to learning Chinese and also other languages.