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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 529 of 740 24 December 2011 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I finally got the audio flashcards working on the new PC....working through that was really fustrating. Lately I've been so tired and fustrated that the thought of giving up kept running through my head. Getting the sound to work takes one load off my mind. Now I can start thinking about the conference next week. Of course there's really no time to do catch up or to prepare. It also looks questionable that I'll make it to a Mandarin speaking group tonight due to preparations for tomorrow, Christmas day.
Realized that my numbers have been the strongest when working CLO lessons. I also believe my grammar is stronger when doing a good amount of translating English phrases into Chinese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 530 of 740 25 December 2011 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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This morning I used the phrase, gei3 wo3 mai3de, with my overseas Taiwanese chat partner in referring to my daughter picking something up at the store for me. He thought 我的女儿帮我买 or 替我买 would work better. This led to a discussion of where did the phrase come from....a PopUp Chinese lesson where gei3 wo3 kan bao1, gei3 wo3 zuo4 fan4 were also mentioned. Should note that I may have missed some nuances in the lesson. Then he asked about where did the 过了这村儿没这店儿/过了这村没这店 phrase which I had asked him about come from. He said 过了这村儿没这店儿/过了这村没这店 is an ancient phrase. I've run into this before where someone said a phrase/word is ancient and instead use XYZ. This has happened both with a mainlander saying that about a phrase/word that a Taiwanese person gave me and a Taiwanese person saying that about a phrase/word that a mainlander gave. Ah the joys of dealing with regional variation. Edited by Snowflake on 25 December 2011 at 4:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Everplayer Diglot Groupie China Joined 5042 days ago 69 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: Japanese, German | Message 531 of 740 25 December 2011 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can't help but want to comment on the remarks of your Taiwanese chat partner again. Well this time I try not to be so paranoid. :)
First about 给我买，帮我买，and 替我买。Here 给 acts as the preposition "for", usually in the sense of doing a favor. 给我买 is "to buy for me". The same thing happens in 给我看包(to look after the bag for me) and 给我做饭(to cook meal for me). Now, 帮我买 is "to help me buy" and 替我买 is "to act in place of me to buy" as 帮 and 替 have to be interpreted literally. In the situation where your daughter makes the purchase, the two alternatives would be understood in the same way as the first one, provided that the listener assumes the omnipresent virtue of filial piety. Nonetheless, in more general situations, say your colleague bought something for you, then the two suggested by your chat partner won't mean what you intended. Without any further elaborations these two usually imply that YOU are still the one who pays the bill. An "ancient phrase" doesn't mean it is obsolete. Many commonly used idioms in Chinese are dated back thousands years. Well, 过了这村儿没这店儿 is not an idiom but a colloquial proverb. Its literal meaning indicates an ancient time when villages were very sparse so that a waiter of an inn would try to persuade a traveler to stay by saying that "if you miss this inn and travel beyond our village, you will not find (such) a place to stay". Of course, it is nowadays used by all people. Many peddlers or ones who "sell off their last stock or would jump off the building" use this saying VERY often in order to keep their customers, though if you appear very foreign you may not hear it much because the seller will doubt the effectiveness of such colloquial saying on foreigners in the first place. :) Taiwan is probably still doing very well in educating people to use idioms in written Chinese. But when it comes to 俗语(this one)，谚语(adage)，and 歇后语(two-part proverb)，I guess mainlanders are wielding them with more liveliness. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5166 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 532 of 740 26 December 2011 at 11:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I have to agree that a rejection of the idioms, proverbs and adages etc would be very
bad. They make the language much more lively. Without them, your Mandarin would remain unsophisticated at best (to put it nicely). I actually think the biggest barrier to learning Mandarin is cultural knowledge and undertanding (not the writing system). Take a look at a proverb like ”猪八戒照镜子，里外不是人“. You wouldn't know what this proverbs means if you didn't know who 猪八戒 (西游记/Journey to the West) was. Or "三个臭皮匠，胜过一个诸葛亮". Again, who's Zhuge Liang and what's his significance? Or how about a simple idiom like "人山人海“. Does it really mean man mountain, man sea? These are common expressions in Mandarin. But you might not understand them without the right cultural context. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 533 of 740 30 December 2011 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Disjointed mumblings, have a headache....just back from the conference. Realized that when I trip up in Mandarin, native speakers meeting me for the first time assume that my 1st language is some other type of Chinese. That may be due to my age. Talked to someone in one of my small groups, who it turns out, teaches Mandarin for his "9-5 job". He suggested a drill to help with my grammar, corrected my accent and said I could ask him questions. After talking about what I'm doing in my studies, he affirmed that I'd "make it". Putting together a little timeline ...eg collective communities started in 1958, officially disbanded in 1982, years of the Great Leap Forward, years of the Cultural Revolution, when the one child policy started, etc. Turns out that I know at least 3 Shanghainese speakers. Some of them said I have to learn Shanghainese after Mandarin.
Everplayer and Strikingstar, thanks for your comments! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6575 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 534 of 740 30 December 2011 at 6:57am | IP Logged | ||
Oh, man, I'm jealous! Shanghainese is so cool! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 535 of 740 01 January 2012 at 5:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Still tired and having focus issues.... should just admit that when it comes to Mandarin, I have the attention span of a gnat. On the upside, I've come a decent distance for having such a short attention span. Today I couldn't get myself to do something "serious" so out came the movies.
Something for perspective, that occurred to me later... one of the movies I watched today had been loaned to my Mandarin instructor (back when taking class at the local Chinese school). Her sons had downloaded the English version from the internet but the dialog was too fast for her to follow. She was so taken with the story line via the images that she wanted to watch the Chinese version so as to truly know what was going on. The movie is "Up" which is animated. The dialog is not especially fast for a native English speaker. Note: will have to think about the Cantonese and Shanghainese later. Interestingly enough, I already have the Pimsleur Cantonese course. I've also started mulling over the comments about adages, proverbs, etc. Edited by Snowflake on 01 January 2012 at 5:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5952 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 536 of 740 05 January 2012 at 5:19am | IP Logged | ||
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Hmmm, Benny the Irish Polyglot is in Taipei to learn Mandarin. Which reminds me that I need to make a decision, probably soon, about whether to go overseas this year.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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