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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 740 15 August 2008 at 6:51pm | IP Logged |
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That side of the family is in the mainland and Hong Kong.
Toishanese is closer to Cantonese, though different enough that communication between my mother and Cantonese speakers is sometimes difficult. I've watched conversations here, in the US, between my mother and Cantonese speakers where my mother would have to say that she didn't understand what was being said. Overseas the relatives, who are not first cousins, would sometimes guess what my mother was saying. In one conversation I stated in English what my mother was saying and then they understood. I've had some lengthy conversations with friends who grew up in Hong Kong, immigrated to the US as an adult and yearly visit Hong Kong for extended periods. They sometimes have difficulties communicating with Hong Kong Cantonese speakers. So in my mind, regardless of whether it is Cantonese or Mandarin, there's going to be some communication hiccups to work through. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 10 of 740 17 August 2008 at 12:29pm | IP Logged |
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After watching “Hero”, with Jet Li, I’m having fun telling family members, “ba2 jian4!” (draw your sword)! I started again watching the Chinese version of "The Forbidden Kingdom", which is a loaner from the coworker from Beijing. Will have to ask the coworkers, from China, what wording they use instead of “ni2 shi zai4 nei2ge da4xue2 nian4de shu1?” (What college/university are you studying at?) The person from Beijing uses xue2 instead of nian4 shu1. She considers nian4 shu1 to be an older term, though thought it was still used in the south. She does not use da4xue2 for college/university. I will have to be sure to ask the same question of the person from Jiangsu as his answer may be different.
My Pinyin is starting to get a little better as I write expressions from the movies, or phrases from conversations in my FSI audios, to ask questions about. Now back to doing drills. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 11 of 740 20 August 2008 at 11:30pm | IP Logged |
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Drilling, drilling...saying single sentences to the person from Beijing and getting a response (not enough vocabulary to have a good conversation yet). Got an answer about the nian4 shu1 question. I'm also checking out music and more movies. I found children's songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb. Am also thinking about getting an all region DVD player since our current player is getting old. I found "Monsters, Inc." in Mandarin. Too bad I can't find "Over the Hedge". One of my concerns is since "Monsters, Inc." is a Hong Kong DVD whether the accent will be strongly Cantonese.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 12 of 740 23 August 2008 at 1:42pm | IP Logged |
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Started the next unit today. One of the things I like about this material is there are different native speakers. This unit has a different male speaker than in the last one. LOL, though now I need to differentiate how this man says write (xie3) compared to learn (xue2). In one sentence I thought he was using the same pronunciation and tone for both words, so I figured out what was being said from context. Checking the text, I saw that the pronunciation of those two words are different, as are the tones. Then I consulted my Yale Romanization material for clarification. In the previous unit the male speaker would, from time to time, differently emphasize the tones on gong1zuo4 whereas the female speaker was consistent. These variations, in learning materials, might be annoying for some people but I relish them as this is how Mandarin is spoken in real life.
Still looking for audio material to listen to when I'm not drilling (ala AJATT). Not being a huge music listener, I'm thinking of getting stories. Too bad I can't find Harry Potter read in Mandarin. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 740 24 August 2008 at 3:33pm | IP Logged |
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In my search for listening material, stumbled across http://www.mandarinradio.com which also is accessible via iTunes. Phew, this makes things easier.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 740 24 August 2008 at 4:18pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the link, Snowflake. As for Harry Potter in Mandarin I'm pretty sure I have seen a link to it somewhere on the forum, but I can't find it right now.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 740 24 August 2008 at 4:36pm | IP Logged |
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Jeff, if you can read Chinese then this may be helpful;
http://www.travlang.com/radio/online-radio-chinese.html That particular page is in English. When I tried the links for the mainland China radio stations, those sites came up in Chinese. Thanks for the heads up on Harry Potter. I'll keep looking. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 16 of 740 26 August 2008 at 10:17pm | IP Logged |
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It's shaping up to be another long work week so will have to see how much time can be spend drilling and only listening to/watching Mandarin material. I've started turning on the iPod and listening to Chinese music at work. I have very little Chinese music to begin with. The firewall also prevents listening to internet radio there. The music is adding vocabulary though I don't know the tones to necessarily use those words.....generally, for me, drilling cements tones.
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