Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 129 of 740 13 May 2009 at 1:33am | IP Logged |
Words that came up today because the fellow, from Jiangsu, asked a work related question. He wanted me to respond in Mandarin. Since I was missing a ton of vocabulary, most of what I said was in English. After our conversation, I looked up terms and talked with him about which were appropriate for what we were discussing.
數據庫/数据库 = shu4ju4 ku4/database
資料庫/资料库 = zi1liao4 ku4/database (he said these 2 terms were interchangable)
案卷/案卷 = an4juan4/ records; files; archives (was looking for file)
製版法/制版法 = zhi4ban3fa3/ process
隊/队 = dui4 /squadron; team; group
組別/组别 = zu3bie2/ team, group
組/组= zu3 /group (This is the term he seemed to prefer for "team". This term is for a group which is smaller than a class. A class is typically 40. He acknowledged this is also a measure word)
I still need to memorize the terms and incorporate them into my active vocabulary.
I also looked up "procedure" but haven't had a chance to ask which of those terms would be appropriate.
Update; of course now that I've posted this, found some more terms for database...sigh.
Edited by Snowflake on 13 May 2009 at 1:43am
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 130 of 740 21 May 2009 at 5:27am | IP Logged |
I’ve been thinking about having a friend listen to one of the dialogs from my text book. This would be to find out how dated my text is. The thing is I am unsure how much value that answer would have. I have found that unless native Chinese speakers regularly visit overseas (say every year or every other year) and/or make the effort to keep up, that their Chinese language skills sort of live in a time bubble. So for a decent number of the native speakers that I encounter here, my college text pretty much reflects their conversational Mandarin.
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 131 of 740 28 May 2009 at 4:36am | IP Logged |
I may be finished with my text book by the end of the month, am pretty close. Still feeling less than spectacular healthwise and so am downright grumpy. Instead of hitting the FSI material next, am wondering whether it would be more fun to translate the parts of my movies that I don’t fully understand. Or maybe I could try doing both.
A native speaker friend is having a gathering, a ways out, and invited me. She did warn that I may be the only “English speaker” there. It gives me another interim target to aim for.
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 132 of 740 01 June 2009 at 5:46am | IP Logged |
Last day of the month with two more chapters to go. Am buried in work and still feeling unwell. The listening comprehension is coming along. Found a sale and ordered more materials, all with audio, for a pittance. These materials have publication dates in the late 1990's to within the past 5 years. The materials all have a particular emphasis such as understanding the news.
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 133 of 740 07 June 2009 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
Due to the intensity of the job, very little was done this week. I got in some listening, but far less than usual. Did come to the realization that I have to go through the FSI material despite finding it annoying. That came after a conversation, at a local shop. I grandly botched my sentences though the shop keeper was able to figure out what I intended to say. One of the problems was that I used a word, which is basically pronounced the same in Toishanese but with a different tone. I used the Toishanese tone. I go to this shop fairly regularly. The woman (I think she and her husband are the owners) seems to use a bit more Mandarin with me each time.
Edited by Snowflake on 13 June 2009 at 7:12am
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keith1569 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5647 days ago 61 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Sign Language, Spanish
| Message 134 of 740 11 June 2009 at 8:33pm | IP Logged |
enjoying your log..Where in US do you live?
Keith
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 135 of 740 13 June 2009 at 7:18am | IP Logged |
Well thank you! It's always nice to hear that ones' self is interesting. I'm in the Chicago area which has scatterings of native Mandarin speakers though the area.
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 136 of 740 13 June 2009 at 7:42am | IP Logged |
Still not getting much studying in which is getting really frustrating. Maybe this weekend I’ll finish the text book (on chapter 23 of 24). The material, that I recently bought, arrived. The books on listening to the news are in simplified characters with the new vocabulary also in Pinyin. I thought this was 2nd year material and was not expecting everything to be in characters. Will have to check out the tapes...yes, cassettes. Given the increased job intensity and feeling unwell, I have to put together a different routine that will work better.
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