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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 321 of 740 31 December 2010 at 1:43am | IP Logged |
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Back from the conference and the SRS entries have really piled up. I'm still mulling over things. Several comments...
When I went to pick up my registration, they couldn't find my information. So they had me come back when there was less activity and showed me all the envelopes so I could look for my name. Since there were a lot of envelopes with English names, it didn't dawn on me to look for my Chinese name.....it was under my Chinese name. Like many married American women, I go by my husbands' last name. So when registering, it seemed nonsensical to give my Chinese name using the regular Chinese custom which is... maiden name, given name So if I'm Mary Smith, with a maiden name of Jones, I would have put down my English name as Mary Smith and my Chinese name as Jones Mary. I ended up using a Taiwanese convention in giving my Chinese name... husbands' surname, maiden name, given name So the Taiwanese version would be Smith Jones Mary. And to be consistent I used traditional characters. Well people then thought that I was from Taiwan. After seeing what the married Taiwanese women had on their name tags, next time I may just use the regular Chinese convention. Edited by Snowflake on 05 January 2011 at 5:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 322 of 740 01 January 2011 at 1:48am | IP Logged |
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Other comments prompted by the conference;
1...can I somehow increase the amount of input, specifically listening to live speech from different people? I haven't the faintest idea of how to logistically do this. It's not like my schedule can accommodate visiting a different small group every night, to say nothing of the energy that would require. It would also push out SRS work though in the context that probably would be OK. Maybe baby steps are in order like can I find more conferences that are mostly in Mandarin? 2...Listen to lectures on subjects I'm interested in, regardless of how much I initially understand. The same terms will be used over and over again which will stick out. I can look those terms up using pinyin. Recordings will work for this. 3...Generally people were surprized at how far I've gotten with self study. My roommate was surprized when I asked her to verify characters for a sentence she said. Basically she was surprized I could "write" characters, though maybe it was about writing characters on a computer. Anyhow, definitely a pick-me-up since some days it feels like things are barely moving. 4...I'm still having problems with thinking in English and therefore defaulting to speaking using English. One person, very kindly told me to not to worry if my Mandarin is correct, just talk. If I make a mistake then someone will correct me so I'll know next time. My brain feels sort of like mush. Edited by Snowflake on 05 January 2011 at 5:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 323 of 740 05 January 2011 at 2:37am | IP Logged |
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My work project has a 20 minute walk to and from the train station as part of the daily commute. So I've started thinking/talking to myself in Mandarin...I'm now going up the stairs. Turn right. Go through the glass doors, etc. It's forcing me to find out how to say certain words, like revolving door. Hopefully with time my sentences will become more interesting. And hopefully thinking in Mandarin will become more natural. Edited by Snowflake on 05 January 2011 at 5:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 324 of 740 07 January 2011 at 3:10am | IP Logged |
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Under thinking/talking to myself in Mandarin... was trying to figure out how to say I was climbing up/down the stairs on the train. Well I was unsure whether 楼梯/樓梯 (lou2ti1) was the right term for stairs in that context and asked the Malaysian fellow at work. He didn't know. It seems that trains in Malaysia don't have stairs. While talking, he mentioned 马路/馬路 (ma3lu4) which really threw me. That's used in Malaysia for road. He naturally asked what word I used, 路 (lu4). And in case anyone is interested, a Taiwanese chat partner said that the stairs on the train and bus are usually called 阶梯/階梯 (jie1ti1). Edited by Snowflake on 08 January 2011 at 7:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 325 of 740 08 January 2011 at 7:11pm | IP Logged |
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The thinking/talking to myself in Mandarin is going much better than my objective of consistently doing echoing. With thinking/talking, I end up having to ask native speakers a lot of questions on how to say XYZ. Since I walk the same route to and from the train station, these are things that I pretty much say daily. As the days pass, these are slowly built upon. There is some echoing involved to make sure I'm correctly saying these things. One of today's XYZ expressions that I had to ask about was
面的人群朝我走过来/對面的人群朝我走過來 dui4mian4 de ren2qun2 chao2 wo3 zou3 guo4lai2 which is for the crowd walking toward me when I cross a street after the light changes. Need to go take a nap....didn't get enough sleep the last few days and there's another potluck at tonights' Mandarin small group meeting. Someone is moving back to the mainland so this is a farewell event. Edited by Snowflake on 08 January 2011 at 7:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 326 of 740 09 January 2011 at 11:37pm | IP Logged |
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Someone at church today was talking to me in Chinese, not Mandarin. At the time I wasn't sure what type of Chinese she was speaking. And I didn't know why I understood her....it was clear as a bell. So I wasn't sure what to reply in, Mandarin? I finally responded in English. Now about 6 hours later, it dawned on me that she was speaking Toishanese. DUH. It's funny how the mind works.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 327 of 740 15 January 2011 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
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I've been working through correctly and somewhat smoothly saying
旋转门 xuan2zhuan3men2, revolving door 选择 xuan3ze2, to choose, choice think I sort of have these down now. The Mandarin accent of the Malaysian fellow at work seems pretty standard except for sh sounding closer to s. I asked him my latest question which is how to say that the warning bell for the approaching train is going off. He immediately thought of 钟响 (zhong1 xiang3) though felt there must be a more modern way to say it. After checking Nciku and YellowBridge, I came up with 2 sentences which he basically gave thumbs down on. So tomorrow I will be asking one of my chat partners. We had also talked about a huge hallway in one of the buildings here. He was taught British English and felt the word corridor was more appropriate. To me it is an older, very large open hallway with lots of architectural detail (some would say sculpted). I consider a corridor to be spatially much more confined. So we talked about (definitions from YellowBridge)... 走廊 zǒuláng corridor; aisle; hallway; colonnade; passageway; piazza; veranda 楼道 lóudào corridor; passageway (in storied building) 过道 guòdào passageway; corridor 甬道 yǒngdào corridor Anyhow, he'd use zou3lang2. He felt lou2dao4 is a more formal term and also would be used to describe a fancy corridor in a multi-storied building like at the presidental White House. Guo4dao4 is a casual term. He was unfamiliar with yong3dao4. Generally feeling blah... it's probably cabin fever. Edited by Snowflake on 16 January 2011 at 2:24am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5951 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 328 of 740 16 January 2011 at 3:48pm | IP Logged |
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Rather different than what I expected....
站台有广播因为火车快到了 zhan4tai2 you3 guang3bo1 yin1wei huo3che1 kuai4 dao4 le The warning bell for the approaching train is going off. Update 在尾牙,你们通常吃什么? zai4 wie3ya2 ni3men tong1chang2 chi1 shen3me? 平常 ping2chang2 cannot be use here since the year-end dinner is not a common (frequent) occurence. Edited by Snowflake on 16 January 2011 at 4:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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