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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log

  Tags: Mandarin
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 345 of 740
22 January 2011 at 5:18pm | IP Logged 
lanni wrote:

* 因为在修路, 所以有一点塞车。I personally prefer 堵车.

* 你的身体觉得冷,你会使用暖气。(Sounds wordy, too many redundant characters, and the   logic is not very clear, but generally this sentence is OK.)
觉得冷,就用暖气。(manly way of speaking,crisp, concise, clear logic. very colloquial.)
如果觉得冷,就用暖气。(mild,polite,still colloquial)
你觉得冷,就用暖气。(concise, focus more on the benefit of the person 你,considerate tone.)
觉得冷时,会用暖气。(shows an objective tone, like introducing living conditions)
觉得冷,可以用暖气。(means there is the option of using heater if someone feels cold)

* 现在你上年纪了, 身体比较不适应/现在你上年纪了, 身体比较不适应
Nowadays, the adv.比较 is abused in Chinese. I heard this comment from a teacher of Chinese language and literature. I agree. Is it trendy? I wouldn't follow.
现在你上年纪了,身体不太适应。
现在你上年纪了,身体不容易适应。
你现在上年纪了,所以身体不太适应。
你现在上年纪了,所以身体不容易适应。
(You can add 因为 at the beginning, it depends on which part you stress.)

* 没办法, 分2天做。(It is very concise and I don't know the context, so I have two ways of understanding.)
   1. 没办法,所以分两天做/干(完)的。Since conditions did not permit, we/I/he/she/they had to spend two days doing it.
   2. 如果没办法,就分两天做/干。If conditions do not permit, it is OK to spend two days doing it.

* 我有一个问题是关於`需求`这个。 (It is English way of speaking Chinese. Not very natural, but OK. If you punctuate it into two parts, it might sound better and be comfortable speaking)
      我有个问题,是关 于“ 需求 ”这 个


Most of these sentences were put together in response to me struggling with how to say something in Mandarin.   This particular chat partner is from Taiwan and works in a technical field at a pretty high level.   So it's not surprizing that these sentences may seem somewhat unnatural to other native speakers.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 346 of 740
23 January 2011 at 2:33am | IP Logged 
Lanni, thank you for your responses. There was a lot of time put into those. I'm probably like most language learners in that right now I'm mostly focused on being understood and just being able to communicate. You and Smallwhite are basically pushing my mindset past that, which is a good thing.

Edited by Snowflake on 23 January 2011 at 2:33am

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lanni
Senior Member
China
Joined 6207 days ago

102 posts - 156 votes 
Speaks: Mandarin*
Studies: English

 
 Message 347 of 740
23 January 2011 at 3:08am | IP Logged 
Snowflake wrote:
Lanni, thank you for your responses. There was a lot of time put into those. I'm probably like most language learners in that right now I'm mostly focused on being understood and just being able to communicate. You and Smallwhite are basically pushing my mindset past that, which is a good thing.


You are right in a sense. Attitude decides everything.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 348 of 740
25 January 2011 at 4:22am | IP Logged 
OK, got the iPod Touch and downloaded both the Intensive Chinese and AnkiMobile apps. According to the documentation, the iTunes method of copying a deck to the iPod currently does not support non-English characters so I have to go the AnkiOnline route. I played around with the different links in AnkiOnline and haven't found anything for upload or downloads. For now, I'm using using Intensive Chinese during the commute.

Update; found the instructions in the videos.

Edited by Snowflake on 25 January 2011 at 4:33am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 349 of 740
25 January 2011 at 5:28pm | IP Logged 
Extremely annoyed... The Touch is not intuitive for someone who has been using Windows all along. Navigation on the Apple website to find the Touch documentation had me going in circles. There was no doc on Intensive Chinese and now that app won’t load... this is my 2nd day of using it. I will probably try to delete Intensive Chinese and reinstall it. My SRS deck is still not loaded on the Touch.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 350 of 740
27 January 2011 at 4:53am | IP Logged 
Got my SRS deck loaded onto the iPod. I'm used to being able to edit my cards, as needed, while reviewing them so it's a little weird not to be able to. Deleting Intensive Chinese and then reloading it worked.

The Malaysian fellow, at work, is visiting home for the Chinese New Year. I asked if he would mind picking out a Mandarin movie, that is popular there, and bringing it back for me. He felt that Malaysian Mandarin movies have too much slang to be helpful for a language learner. That led into how expressions are different from place to place. He specifically mentioned “that's great” and mentioned 很好 (hen3 hao3) or 非常好 (fei1chang1 hao3) as the expression used in the mainland, tai4 bang4le in Taiwan (don't have the characters handy) and 不错 (bu2cuo4) in Malaysia. He mentioned an additional expression for Taiwan but I didn't catch it. Anyhow because of the Malaysian slang, he's considering buying a mainland DVD there for me.

Update; I need to figure out how to squeeze back in working the CLO material.

Edited by Snowflake on 27 January 2011 at 5:10am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 351 of 740
31 January 2011 at 12:53am | IP Logged 
I was talking to someone from the mainland today and mentioned 轻微 soap.   I use Taiwanese tones for that word, qing1wei2.   Qing1wei1 is how mainlanders would say it. I was unsure whether 轻微 was the right word in the context and revisited it. She told me that I was correct... thought she would have corrected my tones.

At lunch, I sat at the end of a table surrounded by Taiwanese. At one point they were talking about a kid who lives in the local Chinatown and speaks very good Mandarin. One of the women asked whether the kid speaks 普通话 (pu3tong1hua4) or 国语(guo2yu3). The answer was that the kid definitely speaks 国语. I was struck by this since usually language learners say that 普通话 and 国语 are the same, only that one term is used in the mainland and the other in Taiwan.

Update; Now that I think of it, the distinction between 普通话 and 国语 may be a reflection of the age of these people. They're all older.

Edited by Snowflake on 31 January 2011 at 11:42pm

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 352 of 740
05 February 2011 at 2:44am | IP Logged 
A term I've been struggling with for a while...
Rush hour; My overseas Taiwanese chat partner gave me several terms. Then I found some very different terms in Nciku. So I asked an older Taiwanese person, who is here. He thought since my focus was traffic conditions, that it would be better to say 塞车/塞車 (sai1che1, traffic jam). I have been getting the impression that many native speakers tend to favor concrete terms and descriptions. Anyhow, then I asked my former instructor (from Dalian). She affirmed this one 交通尖峰时间 (jiao1tong1 jian1feng1 shi2jian1).

I'm caught up with my SRS entries....will have to see how long this lasts.



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