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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 577 of 740 02 June 2012 at 10:33pm | IP Logged |
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Still feeling blah about studying....to try and shake this off, I've started transcribing Jumanji. Given the child actors, the dialog is relatively straight forward. Thankfully the subtitles match the dialog. I'm still having language exchange sessions. I have not gotten back to doing self-talk yet. Am at level 6 in Mind Snacks.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 578 of 740 05 June 2012 at 10:04pm | IP Logged |
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Transcribing tends to be very time consuming and is hard on my back. Here's one section. The spoken dialog has 儿s but the character does not actually appear in the subtitles. I've tried to add 儿s where they're used. This section was passed by my overseas Taiwanese chat partner. His comment was that this is very conversational.
Alan : 她以前就住在这儿; ta1 yi3qian2 jiu4 zhu4 zai4 zher4 Peter : 看到这个房子就觉得害怕; kan3d ao4 zhe4 ge fang2zi jiu4 jue2de hai2pa4 Alan : 她肯定已经不在这儿住了; ta1 ken3diang4 yijing1 bu2 zhu4 zai4 zher4 zhu4 le Alan : 这么多年了; zhe4me duo1 nian2 le Alan : 也许她嫁给了比利; ye3xu3 ta1 jia4 gei3 le Bi3li4 Alan : 我们还走吧; wo3men hai2 zou3 ba1 Judy : 至少问一下; zhi4sha o3 wen4 yi2xia4 Judy : 也许他知道莎拉在哪儿; ye3xu3 ta1 zhi1dao4 Sha1la1 zai4 nar3 Peter : 他是算命的; ta1 shi4 suan4ming4 de Peter : 肯定知道她在哪儿;ken3ding4 zhi1dao4 ta1 zai4 nar3 Alan : 说得对; shuo1 de dui4 Alan : 我记得以前这的门廊比较大; wo3 ji4de yi3qian2 zhe4de men2lang2 bi3jiao4 da4 Sarah : 谁啊; shei2 a Judy : 帮个忙好吗; bang1ge 4mang2 hao3 ma Sarah : 你们有没有预约; n i3men you3 mei2you3 yu4yue1 Judy : 没有; mei2you3 Judy : 我们在找一个人; w o3men zai4 jiao3 yi2ge ren2 Sarah : 丝灵娜夫人现在不会客; Si1ling2 na4 fu1ren2 xian4zai4 bu2hui4 ke4 Alan : 或许你能帮我们; huo4xu3 ni3 neng2 bang1 wo3men Sarah : 什么事; shen2me shi4 Alan : 我想找一个以前住在这的人; wo3 xiang3 zhao3 yi2ge4 yi3qian2 zhu4 zai4 zher4 de ren2 Sarah : 我从小到大都住在这儿; wo3 cong2xiao3 dao4 da4dou1 zhu4zai4 zher4 Judy : 你一定认识莎拉.惠特尔; ni3 yi2ding4 ren4shi4 Sha1la1 Hui4te4er3 Sarah : 你们找她干嘛; ni3m en zhao3 ta1 gan1ma2? Alan : 莎拉; Sha1la1 Sarah : 不我已经改名字了; wo3 yi3jing1 gai3 ming2zi le Alan : 莎拉.惠特尔; Sha1la 1 Hui4te4er3 Sarah : 你要干什么; ni3 yao4 gan shen2me Alan : 26年前; er4shi2 lui4 nian2 qian2 Alan : 你和邻居一个男孩子玩一个游 ; ni3 he2 lin2ju1 yi2ge4 nan2hai2zi wan2 yi2ge4 you2xi4 Alan : 发出鼓声的游戏; fa1chu1 gu3sheng1 de you2xi4 Sarah : 你怎么知道; ni3 zen3me zhi1dao4? Alan : 我就是那个男孩儿; wo3 jui3shi4 na4ge nan2hai2 Sarah : 艾伦; Ai4lun2 Peter : 你把她吓死了; ni3 ba3 ta1 xia4 si3le Being blah, I have been irregular in attending small group meetings. This last Sat, someone enthusiastically suggested that I talk during the group meetings. He meant in front of the entire group as opposed to private side conversations. The idea terrifies me. This group generally has 30+ people attending. 0 to 4 people are from Taiwan with the rest from the mainland. My husband seconds the idea that I should start talking there. Edited by Snowflake on 05 June 2012 at 10:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 579 of 740 18 June 2012 at 9:57pm | IP Logged |
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I'm still blah about studying. One of my native speaker friends is now trying to teach me to appropriately bow. I understood far less at the group meetings this past weekend. Some of that was due to discussions being at an abstract level. And some was due to talking about things like the silk road.
I've had to make a habit of eating little to no western food at gatherings. I cannot mention my fondness of say tiramisu when that is there. If I were to then people assume that I do not like Chinese food. I'm still conflicted about visiting the mainland. My former tutor mentioned that most of the conversations that I'd have, while visiting, would be relatively superficial. My husband feels since the relationships here are already established, practicing here would be more worth while. Even my former instructor was trying to steer me away from visiting overseas for practice/immersion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 580 of 740 22 June 2012 at 2:07am | IP Logged |
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I was hunting around for Mandarin speaking conferences and found several. Given the nature of them though, I would be unable to melt into the crowd (number of attendees). Then found several websites which I really would like to be able to read which naturally was a reminder to work characters. My irratic transcribing of "Jumanji" is helping. Last weekend, despite not recognizing a good number of characters, I was more comfortable reading the material at group meetings. Today I finally got around to subscribing to Lenaia....will have to see how that goes.
Several friends agreed that my tones are much better these days. My overseas Taiwanese chat partner will be leaving for Australia any day now. He expects to be there for two years. This basically means that probably 80-95% of my Mandarin interactions now will be with mainlanders. Edited by Snowflake on 22 June 2012 at 2:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 581 of 740 24 June 2012 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
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Dragon Boat Festival time....picked up some 粽子 (zòngzi) from my mother. I might join some friends for the local dragon boat race.
Slowly going through the radicals on the Lenaia site. They teach radicals by number of strokes. Started making my own radical list since I've learned some of them slightly different. For instance, Lenaia teaches 厂 as a stone-overhang. I'm used to 厂 as cliff or factory. The MandarinPoster pdf of the simplified radicals is nice but again some are labeled differently than what I've learned. Also that pdf does not list them by number of strokes. Downloaded an Anki deck of radicals from the MandarinPoster site and am trying to decide whether that may be helpful to me. I've contacted a long ago acquaintance about possibly visiting her in Taiwan. Am more familiar with this person than the mainlander who said I could stay with her family in Shanghai and Beijing. My motivation is still pretty low though with contacting this person in Taiwan, who like me is American born, my spirits have picked up a little. Update; Am at level 9 in MindSnacks. The order in which the material is taught is not by say most commonly used 300 characters, then next 400 characters, etc. So I've started focusing on the game to match the audio prompt to a photo. The characters are shown with the audio prompt, though given how my mind works, I'm focusing more on finding the associated photo than checking the characters. Update 2; My back is acting up so I have to constantly move around. That means less time on the laptop and more with the iPod. I'm on level 13 in MindSnacks now. The photo matching game is pushing me to avoid translating back and forth between English and Mandarin....yay! Not bad for a $5-6 game. Edited by Snowflake on 25 June 2012 at 6:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 582 of 740 06 July 2012 at 4:43am | IP Logged |
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I originally started using Lenaia for their approach to radical and characters though have drifted to using their video clips. Those definitely fall under the category of comprehensible input. By having the audio words associated with visual images, I don't need to mentally translate back and forth between English and Mandarin...hooray! A personal annoyance is that the sentences are said reaaally slow. Another annoyance is that videos cannot be downloaded so I'm tied to the computer.
On level 26 in MindSnacks. For the super challenge, listened/watched at least 22 movies...I tend to be casual about counting movies when listening to the audio without the images. To my surprise, my overseas Taiwanese chat partner wishes to continue our talks even though he is now in Australia. We’ve been chatting for almost 2 1/2 years now. Talked with him today about something I came across, that Taiwanese don’t understand the double le construction. That comment doesn’t seem to apply to him. In general my studies are moseying along. I'm still having some difficulty going full speed on characters. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 583 of 740 07 July 2012 at 10:18am | IP Logged |
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Found a plus in the very slowly spoken sentences in the Lenaia videos, I can chorus along.
Just got to level 29 in MindSnacks. The words and expressions taught are not necessarily ones I already know or use. So far it's been a gentle stepped approach. As a example, I never bothered before to learn the vocabulary for submarine (潜水艇 qiánshuǐtǐng), analyst (分析师 fēnxīshī), Hanukkah (光明节 guāngmíngjié) and give CPR (做心肺复苏 zuò xīnfèi fùsū). And some of the words are slightly different than what I already knew such as 调羹 (tiáogēng) for spoon. Hopefully things will stick reasonably well. Edited by Snowflake on 07 July 2012 at 4:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 584 of 740 11 July 2012 at 5:01am | IP Logged |
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MindSnacks level 29 is going to take a while as there are many new words, all adjectives. In general I'm still having problems concentrating on anything which resembles studying. Sigh.
I am learning phrases specific to volleyball. One of my small groups is having weekly volleyball games into Sept. The rules state that each team must have at least two women. I haven't played in over 30 years. Well my entire body is complaining today. Also discovered that I'm now too weak to serve the ball. The rules were different from what I remember which was rather confusing. I talked to several people about that, including one of my adult daughters who has played in the past few years. They all remember the same rules as me. So today I checked those on the internet....seems there are two slightly different sets of rules which can be used. Have no idea whether my serve can be improved enough, so am wondering to quit for the sake of the team as there is a mini tournament at the end. In terms of my Mandarin though, this is probably a really good opportunity. If I continue, will post some of those phrases. Mulling over whether to buy "Crazy Stone" (疯狂的石头, fēngkúang de shítou). This movie was recommended a long time ago by a mainlander for the different accents. Edited by Snowflake on 11 July 2012 at 5:15am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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