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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 121 of 740 23 April 2009 at 4:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Still not feeling the best. Still listening to my new audio. After noting the short English snippets (announcing a lesson or turn to page so-and-so) have decided that the speech is naturally at normal speed, as opposed to being sped up to be at "normal native speed".
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 122 of 740 26 April 2009 at 3:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Half way through my romanization only text book....that does not mean I necessarily remember all the vocabulary. That's a large part of why I got the audio. Also thinking of ways to ratchet up the intensity after "finishing" the book.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 123 of 740 30 April 2009 at 1:36am | IP Logged | ||
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Since the job is not going to slow down (if anything get more intense) and my unwellness is probably going to extend, I have to acknowledge that working characters for now is by the wayside. Trying to be upbeat, maybe when starting again I can primarily use the Heisig book....the thing about depending on it before was the characters have to be covered in the same sequence used in the book. Also, hopefully at that time I will be fully conversant so associating characters with actual words will be a no-brainer.
Still working through the romanized text book and associated audio. Assuming things continue as they have been this past month, I should be finished with it around Memorial Day (last full weekend in May). That's also a good target given that my (job) project responsibilities shift gears in June. Anyhow I am continueing to listen to other materials as well. My iPod will probably give up the ghost pretty soon; lately it's been extemely temperamental. Visited another church this past Sunday. All the written material was in simplified characters. The other churches all use traditional characters. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 124 of 740 03 May 2009 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Am on lesson 16, of 24, in my romanization only text. After finishing that, I will try to tackle FSI. I say try because the amount of English, and pauses for saying the answer, in that series is annoying. Plus since the FSI speakers are slower than the native speakers I listen to (real life, recorded material and radio) I speed up that material. That then ties me to the computer which is a pain in the neck. I do not put vocabulary on flashcards as that forces me to think in English. So I have no way of counting the number of words I “know”. Am also making a deliberate effort to depend on the pronunication in the audios, rather than on the romanization. That helps to lessen my American accent. Of course there are pronunication differences depending on the audio. My audio materials range from the heavy Beijing accent (complete with slang) to a pronounced Taiwanese accent. Am also not making much of an effort to speak as I feel it's more important to first increase my vocabulary. It's really a variation of what someone, at one of the churches mentioned. The woman I was talking to was from Hunan. Her daughters were born and raised here and didn't speak Mandarin. They listened to it everyday though. One of her daughters decided that she would learn to speak. So after a concentrated period of listening, the daughter one day started speaking...another one of those input centric approaches.
My work project sort of swapped out one native Mandarin speaker for another. I haven't had any time to really talk to anyone at work regarding Mandarin, questions or otherwise, as we're way too busy. Edited by Snowflake on 03 May 2009 at 11:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6048 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 125 of 740 04 May 2009 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||
You're right about FSI's audio, it is slower than normal native. I have just started to realize this, as my listening ability has much improved by listening to mandarin radio. However, I do think at least it isn't dumbed down, slowed down, overpronounced classroom speech, like NPCR and Pimsleur have. Of course, this is necessary in my opinion to get a good accent, at first. I come from more of an output centric approach, and I always to try to talk as soon as possible, usually talking more than I can hear, so perhaps this colors my opinion. What I like about FSI is the focus they put on speaking and listening. It really gets you to talk a lot right from the beginning; and personally speaking, this program plus conversation is what got me talking. Later on, at modules 7, 8, the series really picks up in difficulty and material, including tons of sentences for input and context. What I do now is simply ignore the tapes all together by ripping the sentences' audio, importing into ANKI and making flashcards of all the reference sentences for input/output (production). Then I put all the other example sentences in there for input. All the sentences/words I put into ANKI from FSI I type in Hanzi. Of course, I browse through the booklet's explainations as well. Anyway, just my 2 对了，你看得懂汉字吗？我想，这样是一个很 好练习我们的中文的办法。你看？ Edited by irrationale on 04 May 2009 at 10:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 126 of 740 07 May 2009 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I’m probably more conscious, than others, about first understanding what is said and then working on speaking. There are several things which factor into this.
(1) My Toishanese listening comprehension is better than my speaking skills so it seems natural to put the emphasis on listening comprehension. (2) I have a vivid recollection calling my cousin, overseas, to verify that a package got there. This was a while back. I asked a Beijing born and raised friend for help in drafting what to say. Well, my cousin completely understood my Mandarin. The problem was that I could not understand her answer.
My vocabulary outstrips my knowledge of 汉字 which puts a damper on things. I'm also not keen on spending time stripping/segmenting audios to load into a SRS. My Windows Vista machine is slower than I'd like, which was one of the factors that moved me toward using paper flashcards. I may change my mind later. Edited by Snowflake on 11 May 2009 at 12:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 127 of 740 08 May 2009 at 8:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Looking for the material to use next after finishing my text book... really have a bit of a mental block on using FSI. Read something about the “Assimil Chinese With Ease” audios using all Chinese so that was interesting along with the idea of shadowing. Of course that material, in theory, covers the same ground as what I’m currently working on. Also found something pricey, labeled as advanced, that has audios. It’s three volumes of which the second is a translation of “Through the Looking Glass”. Altogether the three volumes total a bit over 1000 pages including annotations. The romanization used is neither Pinyin or Yale. The books may be older than my college texts; I'm not sure. Alibris lists the work as published in 1969. The authors' works basically span from before the revolution to his death in 1982. Anyhow, what is it about older material that appeals to me?! So far, using my older text has been fine. Sometimes there will be an older word that has a modified form showing up in movies/TV series. Gu4 (僱/雇, hire) is in the dialog on hiring a cook. One of my movies uses gu4yong4 (僱/用/雇用) for hire. The one "extremely" dated item I’ve run into is a word for match, as in lighting a match...yang2huo3 (don’t have the character handy for yang2). Yang2huo3 doesn't appear in the dictionaries. A current term for match is huo3chai2 (火柴). The other dated items in my text have to do with the setting such as traveling by boat to China, sending correspondence by air mail or telegraph, vinyl records, phonographs, etc. In my mind, the vocabulary for these are relevant for fluency.
Update; found a sample of the romanization used in the three volumes mentioned, and a blurb from the first volume....nearly knocked me over. Wade-Giles would have been workable. This one uses different letter combinations for the various tones. Based on the sample, I have to agree that this is advanced material. I can't imagine using the audios by themselves. Hmmm, guess there is tying myself to the characters (mentally unprepared for that). The publisher still offers the material. The 1969 date is the first time this stuff was published. Edited by Snowflake on 11 May 2009 at 12:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 128 of 740 11 May 2009 at 12:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm on lesson 20 of 24 and am continuing to look at different materials. Solidifying my use of this material will take a while; after all, how many of us can actively and correctly use the material we've just covered?! Despite the mental block about FSI, my general thought is still to have a go at it and also work on speaking. The working on speaking is a change for me.
An interesting note, random Mandarin phrases are popping into my head when going to sleep at night. Edited by Snowflake on 11 May 2009 at 12:45am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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