Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6088 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 9 of 84 04 January 2014 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
I'm finally back after suffering about 9 days without a proper Internet connection -- other the one I have on my tiny mobile phone. That was a test in patience.
Hi Silbermond!
新年快乐!我读得不好!
I can't read very well. I can only read the dialogs that I'm learning from Assimil. Anything else and I have to resort to Google.
I'm still trying to review. I've covered about 30 lessons. The sentences are getting longer, but I've decided not to reduce the number of lessons for each week. I'm sticking with three/week. Each lesson gives me about 5-10 new words.
Maybe if I hustle I can learn HSK 2 vocabulary by March (300 words). The level of vocabulary from Assimil (book 1) and the HSK2 wordlist don't seem to differ too much.
Does anyone else use the HSK tests as benchmarks? While I'm on the subject, does anyone know why the word "watermelon" 西瓜 is one of the vocabulary words for HSK2? HSK2 is the absolute basic level. These are supposed to be all the words that you absolutely can't do without. I think the Hanban should scratch "watermelon" from the HSK2 list and add something yummier that you would order in a restaurant, like curry and chicken. :p
Edited by Sunja on 04 January 2014 at 8:53pm
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yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4635 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin
| Message 10 of 84 04 January 2014 at 11:11pm | IP Logged |
When I started studying rather seriously I got the HSK3 deck on Anki (600words if I
remember well) and it helped me getting a proper basic vocabulary. If you want it, I'm
not sure it is still online, but I could send it to you.
as for 西瓜, I remember thinking the same ^^ I wonder how it got integrated in that
level..
Anyway, good luck for this year ! 加油~
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6088 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 11 of 84 05 January 2014 at 1:26pm | IP Logged |
Hi yuhakko!
yuhakko wrote:
If you want it, I'm
not sure it is still online, but I could send it to you. |
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Thank you for offering but I think I'd better stick to what I have going. I'm barely keeping up as it is and can't squeeze in one more thing -- not even an Anki deck! Anki looks really good for when I can read websites. I really like reading in our other members' logs how you can just copy words right into anki -- cool! But right now I'm content to use my "Tuttle" (paper) chinese flashcards 1-349. They fit nicely on my keychain :)
I've decided to learn the 300 from HSK2 by March 15! That's my new benchmark! If can finish Assmil book one, more the better, but I was looking ahead at lesson 40 and one of the words is 研究工作 (research work)??? yikes. I was hoping to stay with just the basics for the first six months, but maybe it's just an anomalie and the rest of the lesson is not so advanced.
Edited by Sunja on 05 January 2014 at 1:28pm
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6088 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 12 of 84 09 January 2014 at 12:12pm | IP Logged |
I've had a very busy morning. I'm a little bit behind this week because of appointments and work. The New Year has started busy! I usually work on 3 lessons a week but I've only begun Lesson 33 since yesterday and it's a big one!
我听说你学中文。
是。上个月就开始了。
怎么样?难不难?
说话还可以,写字比较难。
对。汉字是不容易写。
要花很多时间
说好吗?
我有录音机。很方便。
你学广东话吗?
不。我学北京话
广东话和北京话的写法人一样吗?
一样。大家都用汉字。
写一样,可是说就不一样了。
现在大家都懂北京话。
这样很方便。
Then there's a bunch of exercises after the lesson. I'll work on this after lunch up to 4:30, then I have to go to work. I've already been out shadowing today but I'll probably try to go out again.
I'm trying to wean myself off of coffee (for health reasons) and I got a nice package of china sencha in the mail today. I can't wait to try it out. I nice cup of tea and lesson 33 sounds pretty good right now.
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6088 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 13 of 84 15 January 2014 at 2:25pm | IP Logged |
I've started learning the first hundred of the HSK2 vocabulary. Here they are:
爱,八,吧,爸爸,白,百,帮助,报纸,杯 子,北京,本,比,别,不客气, 菜, 茶,长, 唱歌,吃,出,出租车,穿,船, 次,从,错,打电话,打篮球,大,大家,但 是,到,得, 的, 等,弟弟,第一,点,电脑,电视,电影,东 西,东,都,读,对,对不起,多,多少,儿 子,房管,房间,非常, 飞机, 分钟,服务员,高,高兴,告诉,哥哥 ,个,给,公共汽车,公斤,公司,工作,狗 , 贵,过,还,孩子,汉语,好,好吃,号,喝 , 和,黑,很,红,后面,欢迎,会,回答,回 , 火车站,机场,几,家,件,叫,教师,姐姐 ,介绍,今天,进,近,觉得,咖啡,开,开 始,看,看见,考试,可能,可以,课,快, 块,快乐, 来,老师,了,累,冷,离,里,两,零,路 ,旅游
it's a little more than 100, but I wanted to end with a hard one. There's about 1/3 of these that I haven't had in assimil yet and I'm on lesson 35 -- 15 lessons to go!
I left out numbers and I also left out 鸡蛋。 I have to give this character it it's own space since it's a rather complicated little thing to learn/write for such a simple word!
I'm trying to make a deck in anki but it's talking me too long to type in the pinyin with all the accents, and I'm driving myself crazy toggling between CH and DE (I use a German keyboard) and then putting in the numbers for each tone. I scrapped the idea after about six cards.
what am I thinking? There's a HSK 2 deck already made for anki *duh*
yep. found it in about 10 seconds. HSK2 German/Mandarin. I'm gonna go check it out.
Edit: so even though I said I couldn't squeeze in another thing, I've got an Anki deck. I'm not sure if I'll ever get through it, but I think it will prove useful for when I'm on the road. I'll call it my "waiting-in-line-deck"!
Edited by Sunja on 16 January 2014 at 10:59am
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6088 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 14 of 84 15 January 2014 at 2:45pm | IP Logged |
Just a quick note why I like Assimil.
xiàn zài and zhèng zài
They put these words in the same lesson so I can learn to differentiate between them right away (instead of getting confused later on). They sound really alike to my ears. I'm just going to have to memorize this:
[马先生在家里写信。]
老马,你现在做什么?
我正在写新。
There's another one there too. xiān sheng. The word is completely different, but again, confusing for beginners like me.
edit: I have to watch putting in spaces with the spacebar or using tabs. The spaces fill up with garbage. Knock on wood, I haven't had the problem with overwritten characters so far. I know it's been plaguing some of my other teammates.
Edited by Sunja on 16 January 2014 at 10:55am
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shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French
| Message 15 of 84 15 January 2014 at 7:58pm | IP Logged |
The dictionary I'm using is MDBG English to Chinese started in the
Netherlands. You can switch between Traditional & Simplified characters. Personally I'm used to looking up words
& phrases in English. The past year I learned to be proficient using Pinyin. You enter your Pinyin without the
intonation markings and a list of matching characters would come up. The only thing to remember is the letter "u"
is inputted as "v" as in 綠 lǜ for green when you see 2 dots over the letter "u" instead of 路 lù without the 2 dots.
The same with the character: 女 nǚ for female instead of using "nu" for Pinyin input, you'd
use "nv".
I pick up a my vocabulary by watching drama series online Tudou quite
frequently and what whatever movies or TV dramas available. In the beginning you may not feel to comfortable
watching entire TV shows. I don't have a problem learning French or another European language by reading
subtitles because I can sound the words & phrases phonetically but for Chinese it is better to start with movies
with English subtitles or even with both English & Chinese. While knowing the context of the sentences, you train
your ear to hear the sounds of the language.
The other day I contacted an employer for a job interview. The job description involves translating online content
from Chinese to English. The conversation started the usual way: "Can I speak to so and so" followed by a reply
"Do you speak Chinese? ... 你好" and the rest of the conversation continued in Chinese. Except in this part of the
world like Singapore you can fill in an English word if you are not sure of the Chinese equivalent without sounding
ignorant such as using "job interview" instead of "面试". Otherwise you need to sound confident and think carefully
before answering a question so that you wouldn't stutter. A 5-minute conversation can determine whether you'll
be called for an interview.
Although you're not using words & phrases straight out of a phrase book, you tend to hear similar set of Q & A (in
any language) starting with introducing yourself and asking to speak to the person in charge. Next you'd ask if the
other party received your application, resume / CV followed by setting up a date for a meeting. The person in HR
would tell you they are going to look over your qualifications and get back to you in a few days. And always end
the conversation with a courteous: 谢谢 or 谢谢你. In this part of the world you usually address people by first
names as posted in a job ad. In China, people you don't know get addressed as Mr., Mrs. & Miss. It wouldn't be
wrong to ask the the person on the phone: "你贵姓?" or to sound more courteous: "请不介意我问你" (hope you don't
mind me asking) before saying: "你贵姓?" to know the person's surname name. And then followed by: "你是
whatever 先生/女士".
Edited by shk00design on 16 January 2014 at 1:29am
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Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6088 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin
| Message 16 of 84 16 January 2014 at 10:36am | IP Logged |
Hello! Are you looking for work in China? Judging from your post it looks like you're in the middle of applying. You must have a lot of experience -- you describe the job process so well!
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