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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 113 of 740 22 March 2009 at 2:32am | IP Logged |
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I've started reading through my 2nd year college text which is in romanization, no characters. I have some concerns that by breaking apart the reading, I may end up never learning to read. It doesn't help my frame of mind that the current reading lesson seems to be full of characters with numerous strokes like
體, simp 体, ti3 = body; form; style; system 戲, simp 戏, xi4 =trick; drama; play; show 處, simp 处, chu3 = place, locale; department (there's another definition with a different tone) Think working through the supplemental review book, "Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio", is definitely in order. Edited by Snowflake on 22 March 2009 at 4:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 114 of 740 22 March 2009 at 10:28pm | IP Logged |
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The Mandarin language trailer for the upcoming "Monsters vs Aliens" animated movie uses 怪獸 (simp 怪兽, guai4 shou4, rare animal; mythical animal) which makes sense since the other words for monster seem to have negative connotations.
Some words I learned today while talking to someone after church service ...掃墓, simp 扫墓, sao3 mu4 = (literally) to sweep the grave; tomb (i.e. to pay respects to a dead person at their tomb). The Nciku site says, tend a grave. This came up as we were talking about the local tradition to visit grave sites as part of ancestor worship. ...陌生人, mo4 sheng1 ren2 = a stranger Still marching forward, though somewhat irractically. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 115 of 740 26 March 2009 at 2:26am | IP Logged |
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The job is pretty intense which is pushing out character work. I'm still listening though even doing less of that. Yesterday a book arrived in the mail. It's a publication from about 2001 of short traditional stories using simplified characters and Pinyin. A complete English translation follows after the characters and Pinyin. The Pinyin sometimes has typos like ge instead of gei. I read part of one story for enjoyment, depending heavily on the Pinyin and a dictionary to look up the simplified characters (have been studying traditional characters).
Downloaded the traditional Chinese version of OpenOffice. I got tired of MS Excel crashing since it didn't like all the Chinese characters in my spreadsheets. I used Lotus Symphony for a while which was better, though thought it was time to try something in Chinese. Edited by Snowflake on 04 April 2009 at 5:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 116 of 740 02 April 2009 at 11:51pm | IP Logged |
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Got a cold last weekend and have been babying my energy levels. Most of my energy this week was diverted to the job. I’ve been doing the usual listening (though less) some FSI and also reading aloud my college text book ... not doing much with characters due to time. Have had moments where I come across interesting material in simplified so I think about picking up simplified characters again.
In the past weeks, I’ve had some brief conversations where I flipped back and forth between Mandarin and Toishanese. Basically it’s an exchange that is started in one or the other and I unintentionally flip for one sentence or phrase. These conversations have been at stores while I’m buying something. When this happens, there’s a very subtle change in how the storekeeper/clerk interacts with me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 117 of 740 03 April 2009 at 8:26pm | IP Logged |
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It's looking like I will be visiting overseas this fall with my mother and uncle. Both of them speak Toishanese. I'm unsure what this means in terms of using Mandarin to talk with my cousin. Recently I was talking to my mother, using Mandarin. She stopped me as she truly did not understand what I was saying. I don't know whether this was a reflection on her Mandarin listening comprehension skills, my Mandarin speaking skills or maybe a combination of both. Right now my Mandarin has a heavy American accent. I imagine my Toishanese does too.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 118 of 740 07 April 2009 at 5:33am | IP Logged |
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I tried shadowing some FSI material, minus the walking. It’s definitely harder than it appears.
I'm doing some thinking in images again. That's something I did when younger. It went on for a number of years after leaving school and then stopped. Anyhow, thinking in images affects my English and my ability to verbalize thoughts (which is not necessarily good for my job). These days I'm purposely creating images to memorize vocabulary as that helps to bypass translating in English. You would think that thinking in images would help with memorizing characters, but that doesn't for me. Edited by Snowflake on 07 April 2009 at 5:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 119 of 740 12 April 2009 at 3:12am | IP Logged |
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After breaking apart the reading, from the conversation skills, I'm been rather demotivated... unsure why.
In trying to push the conversational skills, I bought the audios for my 2nd year college text...aural repetition in context is a huge help in memorizing vocabulary for me. The material arrived with another copy of the book. My original text is getting pretty tattered so another is welcome. After finding that another vendor picked up distribution of that series, I started calling the material golden oldies. Anyhow, I'm really happy that the audio has NO pauses. There's barely any English! Yay! I also suspect that they sped it up to match "native speed" as opposed to the slower pace often used for language learning material. Edited by Snowflake on 15 April 2009 at 4:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 120 of 740 17 April 2009 at 8:11pm | IP Logged |
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My demotivation may be related to "spring popping in" (allergies). Not getting a lot done this month due to the job and periods of feeling unwell. Still listening and am very glad to have gotten the audios for my text. In case anyone is interested it's 5 hours of audio (1 voice) for about $100 (with shipping) from Audio Forum. It's called "Chinese Dialogues" and is under the Chinese listening comprehension link on the site.
Had my introduction to Japanese anime. I got “The Piano Forest” which has neither English audio nor subtitles. It's Japanese anime marketed in Taiwan; the Japanese were in Taiwan for about 50 years. Am not particularly keen on the animation and I'm not keen on the voices used either. As I begin to understand some of the finer points, the story is becoming more interesting. Edited by Snowflake on 21 April 2009 at 4:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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