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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 721 of 740 28 August 2014 at 5:06am | IP Logged |
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395 days of Neutrino left or 13 months... Purposely maximizing my time in the program. Doing a decent
amount of reflection on Chinese culture. Picking pieces from the phrase book to work on (self record). My son, who traveled with me to Taiwan, started studying Mandarin. We'll see how that works out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 722 of 740 07 September 2014 at 7:06pm | IP Logged |
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Nuo4hao3; Shanghainese 你好....Yesterday a Shanghainese friend taught me that so I started saying it to the other Shanghainese there. They were delighted. One of them said she'd teach me other phrases.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 723 of 740 16 September 2014 at 4:50am | IP Logged |
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Khatz has been adding more levels (benchmarks?) to Neutrino. It doesn’t change where I am percentage-wise through the program, nor the end goal (target points), just the label that my percentage complete is at. A week or so ago I was a Daoist Butterfly, then a Main Sequence Star. This morning I was an Ascending Master and it seems that I just crossed over into Wormhole. Am having difficulties thinking of myself as any of those labels. It’s encouraging that at one of my small groups, the people have been beaming lately saying that my Mandarin gets a little better every day. This is the group where I have to read aloud. These days I rarely have scripted interactions, it’s all ad-hoc so am always struggling to find the right words. My speech is still pretty simplistic, maybe along the lines of "family" Mandarin. As usual am trying to get tons more input, ordered more movies and just received a book order. I'm still generally not too keen on Taiwanese nor mainland TV fictional programs and movies. Am flipping around reading books lately, from kids stuff to flitting with 墓碑 by 楊繼繩/杨继绳. Just got 2 different kids versions of 聊齋誌異/聊斋志异 which should be really different.
I've started working on some islands in preparation for going overseas next year. Haven't done any recording yet for the expression book. Edited by Snowflake on 16 September 2014 at 5:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 724 of 740 23 September 2014 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
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Trying to figure out who to ask to help me with the islands. Consistent 說法 is a bit of a concern. Most of my native speaker friends are from the mainland though my style leans toward Taiwanese Mandarin. And I think this will be too burdensome to have only one person help with proofing.
Back to being a Main Sequence Star in Neutrino...77.6% the way through. Edited by Snowflake on 23 September 2014 at 3:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 725 of 740 27 October 2014 at 6:51pm | IP Logged |
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Watched a recent mainland drama, 恋恋不忘, which qualifies as a soap opera. It stars
Jerry Yan whose voice evidently was dubbed. Now am watching 杉杉来了 which so far is a romantic comedy with some soap opera-ish episodes. I'm watching these dramas on-line. Been reading a comic book, and the first two Harry Potter books of which one in simplified and the other in traditional characters. I've also done some reading along in the Harry Potter books to some radio recordings which were downloaded a while back. Recently got some more dubbed mainland movies which I've started viewing. Am still chatting with my overseas language exchange partner 1-2x weekly, and still attending the local Mandarin speaking small groups. Since the seating at my office was rearranged, I'm chatting more often with a friend there who is from Beijing. Am 79.8% through Neutrino. Things seem to be slowly coming together in my head. Finished drafting my first island and have been hesitating about asking friends to proof it. I generally dislike talking about myself, especially the things that native speakers tend to be quite interested in. I also have given up the preference for Taiwanese Mandarin since the majority of native speakers whom I know locally are from the mainland. Another thing is that given the size of China, and the Chinese diaspora, my accent and a recognizable regional usage is even less of a concern now. I didn't post much about my trip to Taiwan...it was not an immersion since my son also went and he only speaks English. The culture generally was very familiar and it felt almost like going home. Other than my language exchange partner, the friends I visited and the new friends that I met were surprised at my comprehension level and ability to get around. They seemed especially surprised that I learned through self- study. It turns out that my friend, who was born and grew up here, hired a live-in person there to help her with learning the language (her husband is originally from Taiwan). Anyhow, a snippet or two.... I flew into Taipei and took the high speed rail south. The ride to the train station involved a bit of a conversation with the cabby since there are 2 stations with the same name, one for the high speed rail and the other being the regular train. Also I didn't know the term for high speed rail, 高鐵/高铁 gāotiě. When buying the train ticket, I used the wrong tones for the destination station plus had no idea what the ticket agent said when she asked about a reserved vs unreserved seat. She automatically switched to English. People in Taiwan, including strangers, generally were willing to correct my Mandarin in a friendly manner. I appreciate better Khatz’s idea that the immersion environment will carry me through. Beyond the idea of being engulfed 24x7 in the language and culture, the variability encountered when living in a TL environment is far greater than what can be simulated at home. Edited by Snowflake on 28 October 2014 at 9:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 726 of 740 12 November 2014 at 4:59am | IP Logged |
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Reading the internet book that the 杉杉来了 series is based on....since it's online,
I'm reading alternate chapters in simplified and traditional characters using Tongwen software. My Beijingnese work friend is recommending various mainland dramas and loaning me DVDs. The dialog in these is incredibly fast, tons of 兒話, lots of unfamiliar vocabulary, 成語, as well as very different usage. We had a conversation about my accent which my son has complained about ....he has a good ear and can hear an American accent. Like most of my native speaker friends, this friend is unconcerned about my accent. My native speaker friends tend to be concerned about comprehension, natural sounding usage, correct tones, and good reading skills. Most native speakers, when I initially meet them, are surprized to learn that I'm American born. They hear an accent that they don't associate with wherever they're from, not an American accent. I'm running into problems using freebie language learning dictionaries with a decent amount of the terms in the mainland dramas. I also need to start paying more attention to 成語. This might be a natural point to start using more mono-dicts and native sources for 成語. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 727 of 740 20 November 2014 at 2:47am | IP Logged |
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杉杉来了 TV series (chick flick) and the associated internet book... have to look up a good number of words and phrases. Am running into double entendres and sexual innuendo that am not necessarily catching... didn't realize this was going on until I put a paragraph, from the book, into an online dictionary. Before that I was catching some double meanings. Asking my native speaker friends about phrases which I cannot figure out has been interesting since sometimes it turns out I would be embarrassed to say those things. Unsure sometimes if I should be pursuing these... are these really things that I want to know? Or are these things that I culturally should know? My husband thinks that I should culturally know these.
I'm starting to see Tongwen mistakes when it translates simplified into traditional characters. Edited by Snowflake on 20 November 2014 at 4:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 728 of 740 30 November 2014 at 8:43pm | IP Logged |
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Reading a different internet book and watched 租个女友回家过年. It's always been hard to find a TV series that is interesting enough. 租个女友回家过年 is not a favorite but the dialog is interesting enough in parts. These days I'm finding that my vocabulary is mostly being built through watching TV series and movies. Another TV series that I started but need to go back to is 心术 which was suggested by my Beijingnese friend at work.
Bought an iPad mini and am thrilled that they improved the Chinese finger stroke IME to recognize both simplified and traditional characters. My 4-5 yo iPod Touch only recognizes finger strokes for traditional characters (language is set to Chinese with traditional characters) though it has separate Pinyin key pads for traditional and simplified. My local native speaker friends who regularly write emails in Chinese, generally have Apple computers and iPads. Anyhow, when writing something in Chinese, I'll use my Apple devices....am also finding that my stroke order has improved, yay! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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