lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 265 of 408 04 March 2014 at 9:54am | IP Logged |
= About listening: What should I do now? =
After reading Olle Linge's article about " Improving listening speed", I have concluded that I should really concentrate my listening activities on stuff that is at or below my level, i.e. where I'm sure I should have no problems other than listening speed, i.e. where I'm fairly certain I know most of the vocab. That means that I should avoid the TV or radio for the time being and, for instance:
- swallow my pride and do some L/R with readers, e.g. those ChineseBreeze readers I read 4 or 5 years ago.
- use more SlowChinese, ChinesePod intermediate level, and the like.
- if I feel like watching TV, do more 图图, 一样样 etc., where I stand a chance to understand something.
To reinforce my phonological awareness:
- pinyin dictations seem useful. I'd already said that I would do it, and I haven't.
= Log for the past 2 days =
I worked on a short 1'30'' extract of 锵锵三人行 , reading the transcript, looping through the fast and furious dialogue until I could make head or tail of 3-second bits at a time.
I worked on a ChinesePod lesson about 余额宝 , which seems to be a specifically Chinese type of deposit account that somewhat resembles Paypal.
I read 2 pages more of Chinese history book, about 大禹 the flood tamer and the beginning of the 夏, 商 and 周 dynasties.
BTW. I've read 202 pages in February. Not bad.
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Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 266 of 408 04 March 2014 at 7:57pm | IP Logged |
I think "余额宝" is part of 支付宝/Alipay, which is basically the Chinese PayPal, what people use to buy things off 淘宝.
202 pages! Not bad at all!
There were also quite a few interesting posts on Olle's site, like one about translation (which is something i've found useful in Catalan and Spanish where i have a pretty broad base already and tend to stick to it instead of trying to expand it). Thanks for sharing it!
(Also, if you don't mind, since February is over: "I read 202 pages in February.")
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lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 267 of 408 05 March 2014 at 9:05am | IP Logged |
Thanks for the information, Crush.
Crush wrote:
(Also, if you don't mind, since February is over: "I read 202 pages in February.") |
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Of course I don't mind, basic mistakes keep cropping up, thanks for helping to weed them out. In fact, when I saw your comment, it struck me how perfect tenses in English correspond to the notoriously complicated 了 particle. In French, we tend yo use perfect tenses as past tenses (e.g. our present perfect is in fact a preterite, etc.), so we have a hard time mastering perfect aspects, such as 了 or "I've read/I read".
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Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 4009 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin
| Message 268 of 408 05 March 2014 at 9:31am | IP Logged |
Thank you for mentioning Hacking Chinese! I've been reading the articles about getting into Wuxia for learners, because that is definitely something i'll be reading next year.
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lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4267 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 269 of 408 05 March 2014 at 11:49am | IP Logged |
I've been working on a Slow Chinese podcast about 三毛. Her 《撒哈拉的故事》 has been on my ever growing to-read list for quite some time. I should follow Crush's example!
Slow Chinese
ninibo wrote:
Thank you for mentioning Hacking Chinese! I've been reading the articles about getting into Wuxia for learners, because that is definitely something i'll be reading next year. |
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Hacking Chinese is one of the most useful and insightful resource I know for learners. I'd like to try Gu Long's 《流星‧蝴蝶‧劍》, as it's supposed to be one of the easiest wuxia novel. Maybe next year too...
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Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 270 of 408 05 March 2014 at 6:45pm | IP Logged |
I love watching Wuxia series, though i assumed that the novels would be incredibly hard due to the older vocabulary and all the stuff about sects and just general more formal voacbulary. Is that not the case?
I've also been enjoying reading the articles over at Hacking Chinese, though they tend to be rather long and i just skim through finding bits that i think are interesting.
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Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 4009 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin
| Message 271 of 408 05 March 2014 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
@Crush
The vocabulary is very different and some stories use chengyu extensively, which is why i especially loved this article on which Wuxia novels might be a good introduction to the genre. I'll try some of those next year, when my Chinese will hopefully good enough to read those without having to look up every second word. There is also a more general overview about what Wuxia is and why learners might benefit from reading it.
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Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 272 of 408 06 March 2014 at 3:02am | IP Logged |
I just read both of those articles (well, the interesting parts :P), thanks! I'd really like to read some wuxia novels, but i think it'll still be a while before i can really jump in. Eventually i'd like to join some of the translation/subtitling teams that subtitle all these series.
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