Open BBC News 中文 (the simplified-character edition) and pick one story whose headline you can half read. Read the headline and the first paragraph twice, look up no more than three words, then write two sentences in Mandarin in your notebook: what happened, and what is happening now. Use the Pinyin keyboard built into your computer or phone (Windows, macOS, iOS and Android all ship one), or write in pinyin.

Headlines are written to be quick, and the same few hundred words come round every day. Skip what you do not know and hold on to what you do.