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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 81 of 740 07 January 2009 at 11:54pm | IP Logged |
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Finished the preface of "The Lady in the Painting" and am reading the story itself. Have been mentally banging my head for starting listening work relatively late. Also have been thinking a little about fluency...generally see it as over learning so that when under stress and memory traces are dissapearing, there are still enough memory traces left to draw upon.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 82 of 740 09 January 2009 at 11:44pm | IP Logged |
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I'm doing my periodic bang head, woe is me routine. Thought reading this book would be a review, but it really isn't. To make things a little more reinforcing, the audio from one of my earlier purchased movies was loaded into the iPod. This time around, I should understand a lot more of that dialog.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 83 of 740 12 January 2009 at 3:01pm | IP Logged |
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I'm about 75% through "The Lady in the Painting". Looking at the reading series, I have an alternative for the second volume. There’s the regular volume 2 and the alternative "Read About China" by Pao-chen Lee. Seems the latter was bought used, along with some other books. I’m wondering whether it’s feasible to go through both of the second reading volumes together or whether that would dilute my efforts at this stage.
Think I'll probably start some limited speaking when my friend returns from visiting Taiwan, in about a month. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 84 of 740 14 January 2009 at 10:21pm | IP Logged |
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Finished "The Lady in the Painting; My head is currently spinning. There were 50 some new characters, plus whatever number of new vocabulary and phrases. So my SAFMEDS numbers are a bit depressing at the moment. Despite those numbers I give a thumbs up to continuing reading as it helps my listening comprehension (vocabulary, grammar and sentence patterns). A side comment about the book, while it is officially in traditional characters, simplified forms do show up....wouldn't have known except that I have to check my Pinyin from time to time.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 85 of 740 17 January 2009 at 2:04pm | IP Logged |
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Was despairing about how much more I have on learning characters and then started rewatching an online Taiwanese TV series, for relaxation. I was contemplating getting the DVDs for that series as
1....it’s hard to read the Chinese subtitles since the characters, with more strokes, are blurry, but 2....it is easier to navigate the audio on the internet. Though is my character knowledge at the point that having the Chinese subtitles, right now, would matter? Probably not. BTW, the Korean and Taiwanese TV series seem to have subtitles that almost exactly match the dialog....I've seen this with traditional Chinese, not simplified. Anyhow I ended up watching the one with the English subtitles. Then I mentally struggled about whether having English subtitles on, at all, is a good idea. But sometimes I found myself mentally simultaneously processing both the English subtitle and Mandarin audio. I don't know if this is normal at this stage or whether it may be a throw back to growing up with Toishanese (and being used to simultaneously processing English and Chinese) or perhaps having taken Mandarin back in school. Anyhow, roughly monitoring my listening and assuming a minimum of 40 weekly hours (I try for more) and given that listening work was started Labor Day weekend (early Sept) then attaining 700-800 hours would be this month or very early Feb. Or the other way to look at it is whether I understand at least 60%. Well today I understood at least 60% of “Finding Nemo”. Based on the numbers I should start doing some talking, but will wait a little. Some Mandarin phrases do automatically pop into my head. At the moment there is no native speaker who I regularly see, who can be counted on to correct me (they're being polite). So I'm going to think through different options. Edited by Snowflake on 17 January 2009 at 2:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 86 of 740 19 January 2009 at 9:37am | IP Logged |
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Have started the second reader and had to break out the accompanying speaking text. There was a term showing up that was confusing... 三十里路 (number followed by li3 lu4). I didn’t find it in the corresponding spoken text though think that’s how distances are referred to, in general. The 路 was throwing me. The explanation is probably in the first speaking text book, which we haven't found among our things.
The woman at work, who is from Hong Kong and also speaks Mandarin, invited me to the Chinese New Year party for her churchs' Mandarin speaking group. Of course my antennae went up. I was wondering whether it would be a concern that I don't speak Mandarin (yet). She said no, as long as I didn't mind everything being conducted in Mandarin. So now I'm looking forward to getting more information on that gathering. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 87 of 740 21 January 2009 at 10:08pm | IP Logged |
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Got confirmation about 二十五里路 (number followed by li3 lu4)...it is a general way to refer to distance. The use of 路 is optional.
I'm looking for ways to celebrate milestones while staying in my "immersion environment". The only thing I could think of is going out to a local Mandarin restaurant. That though would basically be a non-Mandarin experience as my family and friends function in English. Anyone have other ideas? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 88 of 740 24 January 2009 at 11:44pm | IP Logged |
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Finished lesson 4 in my reader today. There are 15 lessons in this book. My SAFMEDS though are suffering....not my favorite thing to do.
Attended the Mandarin Chinese New Years program at the Chinese church this evening. I totally did not understand when a woman asked to hang up my coat on the rack in the next room. I sort of understood the drift of the first part of the program....sort of because my friend, who invited me, was trying to translate for me and I would have to stop her. She did get the idea and stopped. For the main speaker, I understood phrases and words but not the drift. My friend thought his Mandarin was hard to understand as he is from Hunan province (she's from Hong Kong). I thought his Mandarin was in line with my audio material. The overhead projections were sometimes in traditional Chinese, sometimes in simplified. There was more simplified than traditional. Overall am content with my listening comprehension as I am still early in my studies. I hardly spoke in Mandarin (that's a longer story). I was invited back, to work on my Chinese and may go when my Mandarin is better. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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