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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 145 of 740 12 July 2009 at 12:17am | IP Logged |
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Another less than spectacular week for Mandarin, the job crowded out just about everything. Even this weekend I'm keeping an eye on job related items. I have to think in English for my job and find it extemely difficult to jump back and forth from studying Mandarin to handling work items. I continue to listen to Mandarin as much as possible and my comprehension seems better in that I understand more and more of my movie/TV sound tracks. I say "seem" because this week a bunch of us hit a local Mandarin restuarant for lunch and the two women behind the counter tried to talk to me. The first woman deliberately spoke slower, but I really couldn't make out what she was asking. Then the other asked the standard "ni3 shi4 nar3de ren2?" Sigh
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 146 of 740 13 July 2009 at 5:06am | IP Logged |
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Two terms for bicycle;
自行车/自行車, zi4 xing2 che1 (mainland term) 脚踏车/腳踏車, jiao3 ta4 che1 (used in Taiwan) Met someone today, from Taiwan, who suggested I learn simplified instead of traditional characters. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 147 of 740 18 July 2009 at 7:25am | IP Logged |
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Again this week has been hectic work-wise. Didn't get any character work in, nor do I expect to be able to this weekend. Sort of hitting myself over the head as this weekend I'm supposed to have qing1 cong1 xiao3 cai4 (think it's 青葱小菜/青蔥小菜) at a friends' party... was warned I may be the only English speaker. I also hoped to cram on simplified characters before starting Chinese school in about a month.
Had to ask the word for "take out" at a local Mandarin restuarant, 带走/帶走 dai4 zou3. Edited by Snowflake on 18 July 2009 at 7:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 148 of 740 01 August 2009 at 2:49am | IP Logged |
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Still buried in work. Realized that what my Beijing born and raised friend warned me about, is happening. She said that produced programs (radio, TV programs, etc) are MUCH easier to understand than real people. I ran smack into that at the qing1 cong1 xiao3 cai4 when I was asked the elementary ni3 zhu4 zai4 na3li? Instead of zhu4, I heard zhong4.
I've registered for a class at Chinese school to which the friend, who hosted the qing1 cong1 xiao3 cai4, basically scratched her head given that I am soooooo busy. Do I have time. No, but I need the exposure. What if I fall behind? I need the exposure. What if I end up getting really fustrated? I still need the exposure. Sigh....Maybe latent learning will kick in. Edited by Snowflake on 15 August 2009 at 1:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5541 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 149 of 740 01 August 2009 at 3:05am | IP Logged |
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I'm really interested in this idea about produced programs being easier to understand
than other people. I actually have the opposite problem, leaving aside the issue of strong accents - I find that a lot of programs use more classical grammar and harder vocabulary! But then again, this might just be because I generally don't watch a lot of TV or movies. What Chinese media have you seen recently? Any good films? Good luck with your Chinese and with your class! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5994 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 150 of 740 02 August 2009 at 9:33am | IP Logged |
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To me, real people are a gamble. Sometimes you run into someone with very standard Mandarin that I can understand just fine, other times you run into someone speaking "funny Mandarin" with a very strong dialect flavor of whom I can understand even one sentence. TV and movies seem to be more consistent.
Real people are always preferred in any case, right? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bouda Senior Member United States Joined 5541 days ago 194 posts - 197 votes Speaks: English* | Message 151 of 740 02 August 2009 at 1:14pm | IP Logged |
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That makes sense. I also sometimes have a hard time with accents, but due probably to
my location, most of the immigrants I've met are Taiwanese, and I generally have a much easier time with Taiwanese accents than, say, accents from the far north. I think the thing about TV for me (I haven't watched many movies lately, hence my request for any good recommendations) is that if you watch the news or if you watch certain dramas set in the ancient days, you frequently come across much harder vocabulary and idioms or even in some cases harder, more classical sentence structure due to the content of the broadcast. The cute, soapy shows are much easier to understand but even they sometimes have slang that you can usually guess from context but can't always look up in the dictionary for verification purposes. An example, although I don't think this is a common word, but it's the only one I can think of right now: xiao3 hong2 mao4 In the dictionary you'd find: little + red + hat You might also find this in the dictionary: Little Red Riding Hood The way I've heard it used as slang: flat-chested girl (it's a dirty pun based on the story that you can imagine for yourself because I don't know if I'm "allowed" to post it) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 152 of 740 02 August 2009 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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I'm been listening to the audio from "The Prince of Tennis" and animated movies like "The Piano Forest" or "Horton Hears a Who". When the setting is ancient times, the language is often altered for the period so lately I've been avoiding those. Anyhow real people, even with standard accents, can mumble or swallow their words. Or they might race through a phrase, clipping the ends of words. The people in movies, dramas and radio have been trained to speak clearly...even when yelling or going a million miles a minute.
Yes, I prefer real people. The thing is these days it's easier to listen to audios, no time...sigh. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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