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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 713 of 740 02 July 2014 at 12:53am | IP Logged |
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Shk00design....thanks for the comments, especially about not mentioning recently visiting across the straits.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 714 of 740 10 July 2014 at 3:48am | IP Logged |
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Packing, stressing out about using my Mandarin in Taiwan, and hoping I can deal with strong Taiwanese accents when face to face with people. We will be renting a flat which really brings down the costs, and also changes the logistics that we'll be dealing with. A lot of my friends, both Taiwanese and mainlanders, are sorting of cheering me on about this trip.
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| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4388 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 715 of 740 10 July 2014 at 5:41am | IP Logged |
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I was in Taiwan in '89 for a summer exchange program. At the time my mother insisted that I packed
some laundry detergent in white powder. I thought that the powder looked too much like narcotics but left it in my luggage anyway. The other thing I brought along was a mosquito repellent spray in the carry-on. The airport custom officer asked me if it was 蚊水. I said 對 and she let me through. Nowadays you have to be careful not to carry certain spray cans since bottle water is banned from most flights. Our study group stayed at a number of student centers (青年中心) throughout the island. One time we met another group of natives taking their summer holidays in a small town south of Taipei. 1 of them asked me if I am a 華生. I wasn't sure what the term means and he explained to the others: 他爸爸媽媽在 美國. I guess this is their term for an American-born Chinese. Now people tend to use the English acronym ABC. In any given situation you can introduce yourself by saying 我是 ABC and explain to people your Mandarin is not fluent they tend to be very forgiving. In most places including department stores and restaurants you can get by in Mandarin. Once I went into a barber shop for a haircut at a side street. The attendant started the conversation in Taiwanese (Minnan dialect). I looked puzzled and she switched to Mandarin for the rest of the conversation. Once I needed to go to a bank to change my money to the NT. I didn't know how to say bank. I walked by a bookstore to look up a dictionary. And after finding the phonetics "yin-hang" I was able to ask for the nearest bank. Another time I wanted to go to the Sogo department store. My roommate at the time couldn't tell me the Chinese version of the name. I asked several people and not a single one knew where "Sogo" is. And then I came across a man and told him that Sogo is a 日本百貨公司 ( Japanese store). He understood that I wanted to go to 宋光百貨 (Songguang Baihuo) and pointed me to the right direction. To navigate around Taipei, it is best to have a list of places you want to go beforehand and look up the Chinese version of the names so you can ask the locals for directions easily. If you want to go to the Grand Hotel, you'd ask for 圓山飯店. This hotel at the north end of Taipei at the city boundary on 中山北路 is a building that looks like a Confucian temple. Everybody wants to take a photo in front of it. The last day in Taiwan I came across a young man just arrived at the student center I was staying and we exchanged greetings: 我從新加坡來的... 我從加拿大來的. Singapore is a city-state that recognizes both English & Mandarin as official languages. If I had told him "I am from Canada" he would switch to using English easily. A few years ago I travelled from Hong Kong to Shanghai. The custom officer asked: 你的中文名字 (my Chinese name)? I wasn't carrying a passport from a Chinese-speaking country so why did she ask that odd question? The name in all my travel documents are in English without any Chinese characters. I told her my Chinese given name (as most people here would have it as a middle name) and she waved me through. The other thing the custom officer asked before the boarding area: 你没有带手机 (portable devices including laptop/notebook computers & cell phones)? These are supposed to go through the X- ray machine. 我沒有 and he waved me through. Edited by shk00design on 10 July 2014 at 6:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cae99v Newbie United States cushel.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4282 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* | Message 716 of 740 16 July 2014 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
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Are you still doing ajatt silverspoon/neutrino? If so how's that going? Edited by cae99v on 16 July 2014 at 5:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 717 of 740 18 July 2014 at 3:45am | IP Logged |
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Yes, still using Neutrino and happy with it. Cannot post much, am in Taiwan.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 718 of 740 17 August 2014 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
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Pretty much recovered from jet lag.... met my language exchange partner while in Taiwan. Bought an English expression book there. The 10 hr long CD (mp3) unfortunately has only English without the Chinese equivalent. Between the length and the fact that most of my native speaker friends are from the mainland (don't really read traditional characters) I'm thinking of self recording and asking friends to validate my clips. I also got the name of a new Chinese book dealing with the difficulties of English grammar in doing translation.
I did not talk about having been in the mainland, while in Taiwan, though my friend that I was visiting mentioned it. The reaction was a few moments of silence before the group recovered and went on with the conversation. Been bypassing a Neutrino atom to buy a calculus book...I don't use calculus in my regular life and have been looking for a math workbook which is representative of what I regularly do use, though probably should have spent more time looking for that while in Taiwan. Being overseas reminded me to make a much larger effort to have more varied audio, so have been flipping around in YouTube. Lo and behold, Neutrino was modified so I'm forced to do more of what it calls "random linkage" which accomplishes that more effectively than trying to do it on my own. Made it today to one of my Mandarin speaking groups. We took turns reading aloud in simplified characters. I wasn't prepared for that, been hitting traditional characters for the past 2 months. I also haven't read aloud by myself in front of native speakers for quite a while as my other group stopped doing that in favor of group readings. Cae99v, was there a particular question about Neutrino that you have? Assumes I can answer it. Edited by Snowflake on 17 August 2014 at 11:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cae99v Newbie United States cushel.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4282 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* | Message 719 of 740 18 August 2014 at 12:41am | IP Logged |
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Are there any new techniques that he's created since silverspoon?
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 720 of 740 19 August 2014 at 5:52am | IP Logged |
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I'm unsure what is meant. If you are interested in techniques in general, since Khatz is pretty big on streamlining things for the immersion environment, eg tons of variety and easier/faster ways to achieve that, then the answer is yes. I tend to use less of those for reasons such as downloading lots of additional software tends to quirk up my PC. It's sort of like asking how many of us who are studying Mandarin have devices that can use Pleco and have purchased the full Pleco suite... from what I've read I suspect very few. If you are asking about language techniques such as creating/using MCDs, not that I've run across lately. If you are asking how different technique-wise Neutrino is from SinoSpoon, ABA-wise it's day and night.
BTW, about your http://cushel.wordpress.com/ post about deleting FaceBook... there was a phase where Khatz had me often liking Mandarin things/people in FB. I hated it. After A LOT of frustration I deleted the atom (possible at that time). He put the atom back and mentioned that I should work through those as there really was value. After a while, I stumbled upon some Mandarin hobbies group that I actually liked. I frequent those groups less these days but now FB gives me a steady stream of Chinese things like news which I like and find valuable. So I suggest getting back on FB for your TL. Edited by Snowflake on 19 August 2014 at 5:59am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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