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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 697 of 740 02 March 2014 at 3:25am | IP Logged |
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Trying to read through the recent criticisms of Gary Locke who is the out going American ambassador to China (http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2014/02-27/5892576.shtml) and a news article about the railway station stabbings in Kunming Yunnan (http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2014/03-02/5899049.shtml). I use Tong Wen Tang to convert the simplified characters into traditional. I told my husband about the Gary Locke racial slurs and he basically shrugged his shoulders as the attitude is not uncommon. Also trying to decipher the scrawled handwriting in a get well card from my Sat Mandarin speaking small group. The only characters I've been able to make out so far are for the greeting and my name....may try to retrace in a finger stroke IME to see what characters are displayed.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 698 of 740 05 March 2014 at 5:01am | IP Logged |
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After reading the Son of Sobek (索貝克之子), thought I'd go to another Rick Riordan work and started on The Red Pyramid (紅色金字塔) which is the first book in the Kane Chronicles. Having some difficulties getting into the book which is typical for me so I'm trying a different one though for a younger audience (7-8 yo). Prior to the Son of Sobek I was maybe 1/4 to 1/3 through Aliens On Vacation (外星人來度假). Unfortunately that book was accidentally left at someones' house... probably won't get it back for a while.
Since I'm homebound, am basically going through my entire collection of movies... noticed that my listening comprehension is better! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 699 of 740 09 March 2014 at 8:05pm | IP Logged |
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The kids book that I'm currently reading turns out to be written by a mainlander, and is part of a very popular series there. Am finding this book to be more difficult than the material written or translated by Taiwanese. I'm unsure if this reflects the differences between mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin or whether this particular book may be a fluke since it cost about half as much as the other books in the same series. It's also the first book in the series.
Here are my current Neutrino program stats...... Stats@Recently In the past week... You've shown up 7 day(s)... You've earned 16,303 XP through personal awesomeness You've lost 0 XP due to absence (rot) Over the past month... You've shown up 30 day(s)... You've earned 65,514 XP due to your awesomeness You've lost 0 XP due to absence (rot) Long-Term Showupiness You've shown up a total of: 436 / 995 days You've earned: 299 Silver Stars = # of days shown up and completed (hit or exceeded 100% XP) Your median single-day score is: 2,077 XP Your mean single-day score is: 2,248 XP Your personal best single-day score is: 9,125 XP (achieved on 2013-06-07) Stats@All-Time Level: 21=Dry Butterfly | You're only -48,199 XP away from levelling up! | Hitcount: 13,800 | Kindacount: 861 | Skipcount: 1,477 | Phase: 5 [Rot: -4,427] XP: 1,198,676 / 1,900,000 【★★★★★★★★★★★★★63.1% 】 When the Chinese version of Neutrino first came out, I found it rather quirky and went back to using SilverSpoon.... my silver star numbers reflect that. I restarted Neutrino about 3 months later when SilverSpoon was being phased out. Doing more shadowing/chorusing type work again since my listening comprehension is better and I can follow the audio more easily. The characters are still slowly creeping along. Edited by Snowflake on 10 March 2014 at 3:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 700 of 740 22 March 2014 at 10:50pm | IP Logged |
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Follow up to the book that I'm currently reading which am finding a bit difficult.... The book series is 查理九世 which is for 7-8 yo. It seems this is a matter of mainland compared to Taiwanese Mandarin. I sent a passage to my overseas Taiwanese chat partner for his comments. He agreed that the piece was odd. He said it read like "Google translate", that the word order was sometimes wrong and the vocabulary strange (untypical). He felt that reading the book would not help me. Since this series is supposed to be very popular in the mainland, it sort of nagged me. Being tired (still healing from a medical procedure) I was thinking of switching the book out though at some point I'd have to come back to it so the passage was sent to a mainlander friend. Her response was "I read what you sent to me, and except the traditional characters, there is no other difference from our writings in terms of wording or grammar. But Apparently it is not a very easy piece to read..." Now I'm planning to buy a few more books from the series to sprinkle in with my other reading material. Edited by Snowflake on 22 March 2014 at 11:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 701 of 740 25 March 2014 at 4:31am | IP Logged |
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To my frustration, I've misplaced the 查理九世 book. Like 外星人來度假, I was far enough along that it's really annoying to have to start another book. Since 查理九世 repetitively used many characters over and over again (ones which I have difficulties remembering) another order was placed for several more from the series. The other annoyance is that if I was working with simplified characters then books 1-21 could be ordered from mainland Amazon for about 2/3 the cost of the order that was just placed.
I really need to place my DVD order this week. A now older YouTube news clip about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujnR4tS0gX4 A news program where the 1st 20 minutes is about MH370 www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKZdR7yNjIQ Edited by Snowflake on 25 March 2014 at 5:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 702 of 740 05 April 2014 at 11:43pm | IP Logged |
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Placed the DVD order and will probably have them in hand in early May depending on my friends' travel arrangements. Trying to book plane tickets to visit Taiwan this summer. I'll be traveling with my grown up son who only speaks English so this will not be an immersion.... will probably get to navigate Taiwan's high speed rail system using Mandarin. I may have the opportunity to meet my Taiwanese chat partner. We've been doing language exchanges now for over 4 years.
Am 66.5% through Neutrino and thinking about my current level compared to the program goals. My husband thinks I should focus on my personal goals and pay little attention to the program goals. For example, writing Chinese is a nice to have whereas being able to comfortably use some specialized vocabulary will be important to me. A Taiwanese band, 飛兒樂團, which in English is called F.I.R. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-2ednIJsa8&list=PLEmGDcbB6fK---UVRC XjPAztmibt-t9yd Edited by Snowflake on 05 April 2014 at 11:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 703 of 740 16 April 2014 at 3:43am | IP Logged |
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May be old news, but I just discovered that Disney has two completely different dubs of Frozen for the mainland and Taiwanese markets. Pop version of the Let It Go song using mainland Mandarin at www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHvjwVX_FUM.
That version repeatedly uses a phrase that Taiwanese seem to find abrupt. The Taiwanese version is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1IkarTcRx0 Both YouTube URLs have their respective lyrics in characters. The hanyu pinyin lyrics for both versions is at http://cfensi.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/have-you-heard-the-ch inese-versions-of-let-it-go-from-disneys-frozen/ Edited by Snowflake on 16 April 2014 at 5:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5903 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 704 of 740 22 April 2014 at 2:44am | IP Logged |
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Things to do;
...increase the amount of shadowing/chorusing work to help activate my speech. ...since I'll be visiting Taiwan this summer (ticket already booked) go back to working the FSI material, especially the transportation module. Probably should also check what other transportation related lessons I may have from PopUp Chinese, Learn Chinese Online, and any other podcasts. I will fly into 台北市 and use the high speed rail to get to 高雄市 by myself. My son will fly separately into 高雄市. ...should probably try to find an online 高雄市 radio talk show to listen to. The friend carrying back my mainland Amazon purchased DVDs arrived here on Sat so probably will have the movies in hand pretty soon. I emailed Khatz expressing concerns about the level that Neutrino listed me at. Not suprizingly my biggest difficulty has been characters. Maybe a year ago I hit a wall and was at the wall probably 6+ months...have been slowing creeping away at a snails pace. Anyhow Khatz' response seems to have been to lower me maybe 2 levels.... that should work. Edited by Snowflake on 22 April 2014 at 2:47am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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