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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log

  Tags: Mandarin
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
740 messages over 93 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 66 ... 92 93 Next >>
Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 521 of 740
11 December 2011 at 9:41pm | IP Logged 
I've been updating memorization pieces and passed one to my overseas Taiwanese chat partner for comments. The original was sent as well since he felt the flow was disjointed. The result was that he suggested finding different material for memorization work.

I cannot get the audio to play in my copied flash cards, on the new laptop.

Bang head here => X
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 522 of 740
15 December 2011 at 3:56am | IP Logged 
Continuing to work on updating the memorization passages for the "1st year" book... I gave my tutor the complete set of those a while back. She thought the passages were fine. Between that and my overseas Taiwanese chat partners' opposite comment, my husband quipped that 50% of Chinese like the material. Anyhow, I asked my tutor to record the adaptations.   But it will be a while before that audio will be available as there are 16 pages to convert to characters, plus updating the material. That doesn't include the 2nd year material. I'm finding it to be a good exercise for revisiting grammar structures and getting back into character work. The thing about characters is when I stop working those, then most of what was learned falls out of my head. At this point though the restarting and stopping can't really be helped.

I do not feel ready for the conference at the end of the month, sigh.

Edited by Snowflake on 15 December 2011 at 3:56am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 523 of 740
20 December 2011 at 5:14am | IP Logged 
Feel that I have a million things running through my head. And whenever trying to cohesively explain my
thoughts, I get a headache.... unsure what that means at the moment. I've been doing a lot of mental
wailing about whether I'll ever learn this language well enough.

My tutor was a bit suprized at the speed of some of the intermediate PopUp Chinese dialogs (super
fast)....explained that when I ask my friends to slow down, they'll often just switch to English. I saw
something about slowing down spoken speech as being culturally seen as condescending. I asked one of
my friends and she didn't think that was the case.

Edited by Snowflake on 20 December 2011 at 6:10am

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jasoninchina
Senior Member
China
Joined 5175 days ago

221 posts - 306 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Italian

 
 Message 524 of 740
20 December 2011 at 7:40am | IP Logged 
I ask people to speak more slowly all the time. They rarely do. Usually, they just speak louder. I've never heard of it being condescending though, although I could see how that might be the case. Most people who are not teachers don't understand the concept of speaking on a learners' level.
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smallwhite
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5252 days ago

537 posts - 1045 votes 
Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin, French, Spanish

 
 Message 525 of 740
20 December 2011 at 6:53pm | IP Logged 
I noticed that when a Chinese tries to speak more slowly, he goes:
nnnnaaaayyyy hhhhoooouuuu mmmmaaaa
evenly stretching out every consonant and vowel, while Westerners go:
Hello...... the..... weather.... is..... wonderful........ isn't........ it?
saying each word just as lightning fast, and just leave more pause between each word.
Which doesn't help AT ALL!!! LOL
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 526 of 740
21 December 2011 at 4:36am | IP Logged 
LOL

I am having the hardest time focusing this week. Part of it is what's happening at work. And the last few days I started thinking about Cantonese. That started as a idea from AJATT....take a break from your L2 in a L3. Working in a L3 is supposed to help you realize how much L2 you actually know. But with my luck, I'll get Mandarin and Cantonese confused.
1 person has voted this message useful



Ari
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 6526 days ago

2314 posts - 5695 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese
Studies: Czech, Latin, German

 
 Message 527 of 740
21 December 2011 at 7:19am | IP Logged 
I actually found that studying Cantonese deepened my understanding of Mandarin. Not only are there many loan words that have come into Mandarin via Cantonese (you know all those translitterations that make you go "That doesn't sound anything alike!"? They totally work in Cantonese), but since Cantonese is more conservative, you get a better understanding of where Mandarin comes from.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5903 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 528 of 740
23 December 2011 at 4:30am | IP Logged 
Phrase from a PopUp Chinese lesson;
过了这村儿没这店儿 - guo4le zhe4 cunr1 mei2you3 zhe4 dianr4,
which is literally after this village there isn't this shop. The meaning basically is this is your last chance. Curious me wondered if this phrase is used in Taiwan. So I asked my overseas chat partner there. He said that he's heard it in TV programs but that they usually don't use it in spoken language. He gave these phrases instead.
1. 错过这次机会, 就没有下次 - cuo4guo4 zhe4ci4 ji1hui4, jiu4 mei2you3 xia4ci4
2. 机会只有一次, 错过就没有 - ji1hui4 zhi3you3 yi2ci4, cuo4guo4 jiu4 mei2you3
3. 机会只有一次, 要好好把握 - ji1hui4 zhi3you3 yi2ci4, yao4 hao3hao3 ba3wo4

I'm still having a lot of concentration issues.

Started listening to a basic PopUp Cantonese lesson...need to try an elementary one.

Edited by Snowflake on 23 December 2011 at 6:01am



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