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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5498 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 209 of 740 03 February 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Sorry - I've been away from the internet and have only just now seen your reply to me!
I'm not ethnic East Asian, but I'm biracial with my mother being from Taiwan and so I look vaguely Asiatic. I only started learning Chinese a couple years ago but because almost all of my teachers and my mother's relatives are from Taiwan, so my accent is still slightly more Taiwanese (although I can write only simplified characters). There are some differences in vocabulary usage as well, such as su4jiao1 for mainland su4liao4 (plastic). Usually this isn't a problem but I'm thinking that I might want to pick up some of the mainland mannerisms so that I won't stick out so much when I study in Beijing, which I'm hoping to do next summer. In addition, most American textbooks reflect Beijing standards as well, so I also stick out a little in language classes in the US! So, learning the mainland mindset/accent isn't strictly necessary for me, but maybe a nice touch. I'm still a little confused about 的话, which I have never heard used before in that way. Thank you for telling us about it! When you say AP, do you mean like high school Advanced Placement or something else? Do most of your classmates have East Asian heritage, maybe even speak Mandarin at home? Edited by annette on 03 February 2010 at 6:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5498 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 210 of 740 03 February 2010 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Never mind! I FINALLY get the 的话 thing. For some bizarre reason, I was chunking your
phrase as [出外海的话船] 就不怕风浪 with that first part as one big noun + modifier, instead of 出外海的话, 船就不怕风浪 which is probably more accurate. Oops! Wow, I think I need to get some sleep! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 211 of 740 05 February 2010 at 2:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The highschool Advanced Placement (AP) class mentioned is one that I observed. That day, their substitute teacher was my regular Chinese class instructor. I'm way too old to be a student in an AP class... am starting to think about being an empty nester. Anyhow to your question, yes all the students in that AP class are from Mandarin speaking families. This Chinese school is oriented toward families where the parents are native Mandarin speakers. The first day of school, in Sept, you pretty much had to be able to read Chinese to FIND your classroom location on the map. Recently they emailed out a survey, written all in Chinese except for the return snail mail address.
On 的话, here's another example. 要是没精神的话他会失望的 yàoshi méi jīngshén dehuà tā huì shīwàng de This sentence and the prior one are from the Ponyo movie. Regarding my own class, it's quite small. It's the adult class for learning Chinese as a foreign language. There's only four of us. The definition of adult is 12 years and older. There is a brother and sister, 14 and 12 years old. Their father speaks Mandarin but the mother doesn't. The other person is a Caucasian man who was working on learning Chinese on his own. So my class is really a mixed bag. Good luck on prep'ing for studying in Beijing! Edited by Snowflake on 27 February 2010 at 10:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5498 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 212 of 740 05 February 2010 at 2:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Your second example makes more sense to me (my problem w/understanding, not yours or
the example's, haha). I'm used to hearing 要是...的话... and I guess I hadn't really thought about 的话 as a pattern on its own! What you said about the AP course being mostly heritage speakers makes sense. I was surprised at first when you said AP, because my experience with the AP test is that the test itself is not hard and most of the students I know who took it are not good enough at Chinese to discuss current events in Mandarin. But if there are lots of students from Mandarin speaking families in that class, then I'm sure the level of proficiency must be higher! Do you think there is a difference in the way they teach in the AP class (mostly heritage speakers) than from your Chinese-as-foreign-language class? And thank you. We'll see... I hope I can go though! I wanted to go this year, but I didn't apply in time. Oops. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 213 of 740 05 February 2010 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Oh definitely. For practical purposes, my current class has no heritage speakers. There's a write-up on the web, from a professor at a university on the west coast, which talks about the different categories/characteristics of students that show up in Chinese classes. He mentions that the categories are different enough that there has to be multiple types of classes to accomodate them. My experience in school, back before Mandarin became somewhat fashionable, pretty much agrees with what he says. Edited by Snowflake on 06 February 2010 at 7:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 214 of 740 05 February 2010 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Talked to my overseas cousin, last night....feel like I accidentally have gotten into the fast lane. On the up-side, one of my friends here (a native speaker from Taiwan) would like me to call her more often.
Edited by Snowflake on 05 February 2010 at 6:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 215 of 740 08 February 2010 at 12:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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电子邮件也发不通。
diànziyóujiàn ye3 fā bùtōng The email didn't go through. 电子邮件被退回来了 diànziyóujiàn bei4 tui4 hui2lai2 le The emails bounced and were returned. The sentences on emails were worked after calling my cousin (yes, emails to her are bouncing). The sentences were verified/worked with a friend from Beijing, so yes the Mandarin is correct. 快迟到了啦 kuai4 chídào le la We'll be late/We're almost late. This is from the Ponyo movie. Talked with my instructor on this as it did not make sense....the hiccup was that I was looking at 快 as fast with 迟 as slow/late/delayed. 没门儿 méiménr; an expression... basically, IMPOSSIBLE! NO WAY! My friend, from Taiwan, said 没门 is considered rude and often is not used there. Lately most of my new Anki entries are from transcribing movies or from conversations. I'm liking this approach at the moment. The words and characters from the movies are showing up in conversations, hymns, etc. Have also backed up a little in the FSI material and am working the directions module. Update; Corrected/changed some things after Pyx posted...(Thanks Pyx) Update 2; going through Anki and realized there was an incorrect character and tone for tong....should be 不通 bùtōng, be obstructed; be blocked up; be impassable Edited by Snowflake on 09 February 2010 at 6:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5727 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 216 of 740 08 February 2010 at 3:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
电子邮件也发不同。 If you get a good input system (are you using windows, linux or os x?) it should sort that out by itself in most cases :)
The 倍 ought to be a 被, indicating that the sentence is passive.
I'm not totally sure on this, but wouldn't 快 just be a pointer to the future, i.e. "We'll be late!"? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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