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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 49 of 740 02 November 2008 at 6:22pm | IP Logged |
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Probably should have posted these links to various radio stations. I used these to listen to talk radio in Taipei and a Singaporean Mandarin station. After that novelty wore off, I've been listening to Beijing radio (http://listen.bjradio.com.cn/) Anyhow, those other links are;
http://radiostationworld.com/default.asp http://www.radiotower.com/ Edited by Snowflake on 03 November 2008 at 7:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 50 of 740 03 November 2008 at 7:39pm | IP Logged |
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AJATT basically says that learners need written confirmation, or failing that get confirmation from a native speaker as to whether we are correctly understanding sentences from audio material. It turns out that my concern about the translation for “happiness is just a tear drop away” is a perfect example. The term is actually 幸福快乐 (xing4 fu2 kuai4 le4). I had the wrong tone and character for le. 乐 (le4) means cheerful/happy/laugh. Plus the online dictionary that I generally use defines 快 as being fast/quick/swift, without additional definitions. There are more definitions, one of which is happy. So 幸福快乐 (xing4 fu2 kuai4 le4) means happiness in general.
On an up note, I showed my sentence notebook (Pinyin and characters) to the woman from Beijing. She's been out of the office for a while. She made some corrections and mentioned that I'm progressing. That was nice to hear as there are days this seems to be moving at a snails' pace, if at all. Edited by Snowflake on 01 February 2009 at 7:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 51 of 740 05 November 2008 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
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This is a less than productive week due to the job.... even the listening comprehension is really suffering. Getting a few things done - explanation of the difference between 大家 (da4 jia1) and mei3 yi1 ge ren2 (每一个人)......Pretty much interchangable unless there's a reason to emphasize individuals.
On an interesting note, my husband is going to start learning Mandarin. He acknowledged he would but didn't do anything about it. One of his friends got around to asking when he was going to actually learn the language. The friend is Taiwan born/raised and helps with explanations from time to time. My husband is not keen on the description of FSI and isn't interested in learning to read/write. Someone loaned me some of the Pimsleur material so we'll see how he likes that. Edited by Snowflake on 08 November 2008 at 9:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 52 of 740 09 November 2008 at 6:15pm | IP Logged |
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Not getting a lot done. This weekend after doing some job related work, I started feeling ill and am still pretty out of it. The next two days at work will be intense. Then there are several days off to attend a convention for a club that I'm a member of. Hopefully I'll get some Chinese in during those days.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 53 of 740 18 November 2008 at 7:36pm | IP Logged |
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A bit bummed, didn't get much Chinese done while I was away....sigh.
The expression 拜托 (bai4 tuo1) keeps coming up in my movies. In addition to a regular definition of "please", two of the online dictionaries says it's slang with one saying it is Taiwan slang. It is used in the movies along the lines of "give me a break" or a dry "great!" Because of the reference to Taiwan slang I was wondering whether the idiomatic use is regional. Soooo off to talk to the woman from Beijing. Basically the slang is used in the mainland, though more so in Taiwan. Then we ended up talking about satirical expressions. The drift was that I need to be careful using dry expressions in Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 54 of 740 20 November 2008 at 7:55pm | IP Logged |
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Talked to the person from Jiangsu province about 拜托 (bai4 tuo1). He agreed the slang form is used in the mainland. The rest of the conversation was about its’ regular definition. Basically he uses 拜托 in more formal situations, with people he is less familiar with. He would not use 拜托 while talking with his own family members. I’m going to pay more attention to its' use in the movies. Probably should also talk to the woman from Taiwan, who also knows Taiwanese, about the expression.
A pleasant surprize, one of my local TV stations has a time slot for Mandarin programming. My husband pointed it out since I've pretty much stopped watching TV because of the Mandarin immersion. Right now it has on some sort of hospital soap opera with traditional Chinese subtitles, and occasional Korean subtitles (at least I think it's Korean). The lip movements don't match the Mandarin. Edited by Snowflake on 20 November 2008 at 8:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 55 of 740 22 November 2008 at 2:33pm | IP Logged |
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I'm banging my head, thinking of switching to learning traditional characters. From the beginning I thought it would be easier to go from specific to general (ala learning theory) but chose to learn simplified characters first due to the general intimidation factor. The amount of traditional Chinese that I have been encountering has been consistently high. This is coming up again because of the Mandarin TV programming. The spoken accent is very close to the Beijing accent, minus the R's. That also applies to the news, including the people interviewed. The subtitles seem to be very close or exactly match the dialog. I suspect that if I leverage the programming, it will be easier to get reading/writing work in more regularly. I imagine someone is thinking that I'm approaching this in a very inefficient manner. For my "hobbies", long term that has worked to my advantage. Hmmm, just remembered that I have a good amount of traditional Chinese material...college reading texts plus kids books. Sigh
Update...read on another forum that the non-intuitive simplified and traditional Chinese characters amount to 500. Given the thousands that I need to know, that's not a really large dent. Edited by Snowflake on 22 November 2008 at 11:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 56 of 740 26 November 2008 at 1:32pm | IP Logged |
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After what was basically a 3 week break, I picked up my character flash cards again and was pleasantly surprized to find that my over all retention had improved. Gotta love those ABA methods (SAFMEDS in this case). Anyhow to get a feel for traditonal vs simplified characters, I was converting using replace all in MS Word for "The Little Prince"....not perfect, but again that was to get a feel. The idea of reading both simplified and traditional characters is less intimidating now. At the moment, I'm thinking about getting "Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary" by Harbaugh. I already have Heisig's simplified Chinese book. I'm still sitting on the fence as whether to
1.....continue with the simplified characters, paying much more attention to the traditional forms, or else 2.....outright work traditional characters, paying attention to the simplified forms. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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