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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log

  Tags: Mandarin
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5952 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 425 of 740
18 July 2011 at 3:23am | IP Logged 
Ramblings; My overseas Taiwanese chat partner did not know what 白话 is, thought it was a dialect. Thinking about transcripting the first Lord of the Rings movie for a change. In the movie, 魔戒 (mo2jie4) refers to the ring itself. It's also interesting after hearing the Elvish tongue in the original movie, to hear Chinese speakers talk in Elvish. Anyhow, it's been a while since I've dealt with mainland materials for any sustained length of time. Also had my first experience, here, with a mainlander seemingly cool at hearing 早安 for good morning. The Beijing woman at work responded with 你好.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5952 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 426 of 740
20 July 2011 at 5:36pm | IP Logged 
The initial part of the opening monologue in "The Fellowship of the Rings". This is from the subtitles which thankfully matches what is actually said. That seems typical for mainland produced materials. Per the Malaysian fellow, generally this language is more appropriate for story telling or a speech though not common every day conversation.
世界发生了变化; Shi4jie4 fa1sheng1le bian4hua4
我在水中能感觉到; Wo3 zai shui3zhong3 neng2 gan3jue2 dao4
我在地上能看到; Wo3 zai4 di4shang4 neng2 kan4dao4
我在空中能嗅到; Wo3 zai4 kong1zhong1 neng2 xiu4dao4
原有的一切; Yuan2you3 de yi2qie4
所剩无几; Suo3sheng4wu2ji3
过去的记忆荡无存; Guo4qu4 de ji4yi4 dang4 wu2 cun2
这个故事从打造19枚魔开始; Zhe4ge gu4shi cong2 da3zao4 19 mei2 mo2 kai1shi3
3枚送给了精灵王; 3 mei2 song4gei3le jing1ling2 wang2
他们是世界上最明聪善和长寿的一族; Ta1men shi4 shi4jie4 shang4 zui4 cong1ming2 shan4 he2 chang2shou4 de yi1 zu2
7枚送给了矮人贵族; 7 mei2 song4gei3le ai3 ren2 gui4zu2
他们是最伟大的山洞开掘者和工匠; ta1men shi4 zui4 wei3da4 de shan1dong4 kai1jue2 zhe3 he2 gong1jiang4
另外9枚; Ling4wai4 9 mei2
那9枚送给了人类; Na4 9 mei2 song3gei3le ren2lei4
他们是最最渴望力量的生命; ta1men shi4 zui4zui4 ke3wang4 li4liang4 de sheng1ming4
这9枚魔戒只有一定权限从而使各方彼此制约; Zhe4 9 mei2 mo2jie4 zhi3you3 yi2ding4 quan2xian4 cong2er2 shi3 ge4fang1 bi3ci3 zhi4yue1


Edited by Snowflake on 02 August 2011 at 4:09am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5952 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 427 of 740
22 July 2011 at 6:18pm | IP Logged 
I asked for opinions on the dialog for “The Fellowship of the Rings”. The Malaysian fellow said that it’s like watching Shaolin Kungfu movies in English… “Do you want to fight?” as the guy adopts a sparring stance. The Malaysian fellow and Taiwanese woman were laughing.   They said no one talks that way anymore, too formal… like saying “How do you do Mr Smith? Have you had a pleasant day?”   And given that this is a fantasy, I guess it’s rather corny.   The Malaysian fellow suggested getting a mainland produced, serious, love story set in modern times. He said for that type of movie to work, the language has to be normal. In any case, I will still work with “The Lord of the Rings” for the fun of it. This is where native speakers have been surprised with how I study. My husband told me to not mention, to native speakers, that this sort of thing composes a good portion of my studies. I think the only native speaker who understood was my Mandarin instructor at the local Chinese school. She was initially surprised though saw how far it got me. Anyhow these days, I'll mention CLO when talking about study materials.

Update; Thought of a few other native speakers (from the mainland and Taiwan) who understand what I am doing with the movies. They all were fustrated with having spend years and years learning English to find that what was taught bore little semblance to what is actually spoken. It took 2 years of living here before they could sort of understand what people were saying.

Update2; The woman from Beijing listened to the same clip that the Taiwanese woman and the Malaysian fellow also listened to. The woman from Beijing thought the language was pretty normal. Basically if I talked like that (minus the made up words) it would not be odd. Given that her opinion differed, she suggested having the 3 of them listen to the same clip together at the same time.   She thought that would be fun.

Edited by Snowflake on 22 July 2011 at 8:14pm

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5952 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 428 of 740
27 July 2011 at 7:44pm | IP Logged 
Was checking on the information for the conference after Christmas; It's in the same location as last year. I should strive to get through as much of CLO as possible before then...trying to get back into the habit of echoing that material. Have not done anything with SAFMEDs. Spending a good amount of time transcribing bits of "The Fellowship of the Rings" and am noticing
...accent differences (I've predominantly used Taiwanese materials)
...slightly different sentence construction (maybe a different style?)
...what seems to be a tendency for briefer sentences
...slightly different cadence for certain words
In a short while this will probably all seem normal due to habituation. I am trying to memorize sentences from the movie. It's sort of a substitute for islands since am currently at a loss as to what to write. If the sentence construction is hokey or corny (see prior post) things will sort themselves out given the number of native speakers that I encounter who are from different places.

Update; I started "seriously" studying Mandarin in Sept 2008, so am about to hit the 3 year mark. However there was a 4-5 month "semi-break" due to an out-of-town project that was quite consuming. Somehow that all makes me feel better about where I am.

Edited by Snowflake on 28 July 2011 at 3:49am

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Ar4chN1d
Triglot
Newbie
Malaysia
Joined 4865 days ago

3 posts - 4 votes
Speaks: EnglishC2, Mandarin*, Cantonese
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 429 of 740
28 July 2011 at 6:16pm | IP Logged 
please excuse the intrusion, just thought you might like some information about Malaysian
Mandarin. Malaysian Mandarin is quite different from Chinese or Taiwanese Mandarin. There
is a lot of slang that does not exist in either language (most likely influenced by the
multitude of other dialects and languages used in the country)
most commonly known is probably the use of 啦, 咯, 咧. Which when directly translated,
forms what is known as "Singlish"
other examples include "biao1 jiang4 lie1". Its original form would be "不要这样咧", which
may be formed by chinese words, is almost unused or even illegible to Mandarin speakers
in China or Taiwan.
Being a Malaysian Chinese myself, I noticed having to change my word usage quite a bit to
make myself understood. The difference is kind of like American and British English,
except worse.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5952 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 430 of 740
30 July 2011 at 3:18am | IP Logged 
Thanks for the comments. My friend has likened Malaysian Mandarin to Jamaican English. Like most native speakers that I’ve met here, he adjusts for who he speaks to. He feels that he can pass for a mainlander when with a mainland crowd, or Taiwanese when with a Taiwanese bunch. One of the things about practicing Mandarin here, which I like, is the exposure to different accents. People are also generally conscious about standard language and pronunciation.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5952 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 431 of 740
30 July 2011 at 3:42am | IP Logged 
The Malaysian fellow and the woman from Beijing listened to the same dialog clip from "The Fellowship of the Ring". It turns out the Malaysian fellow thinks the way the sentences are voiced is not typical of regular speech. The vocal range is too wide though the sentence themselves are fine. The Taiwanese woman separately said the same thing.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5952 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 432 of 740
02 August 2011 at 4:05am | IP Logged 
I'm trying to alternate between echoing CLO and then transcription work the next day. There is so much new vocabulary in "The Fellowship of the Rings" that I'm wondering whether this is going to end up as a lesson in fustration.

There were several episodes last week where I asked a native speaker how their week was going or what they planned to do for the weekend....got replies that totally went over my head. So yesterday I made a point of visiting one of my Mandarin speaking groups for the listening practice. It was one of those days where I probably understood one word in say five. Did get this word when talking to someone about where they live, how they got there, etc.
高速公路 gāosùgōnglù; expressway (or as they would say in California, freeway)

A friend suggested that since I can't keep up a Mandarin conversation well enough to really get to know people, revert to English as needed instead of not saying very much.

Saw the word "fantabulous" on a billboard today. I wonder how English learners deal with words like these. I also wonder how many new commonly used Mandarin words are created say every ten years.

Edited by Snowflake on 02 August 2011 at 4:26am



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