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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log

  Tags: Mandarin
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Magdalene
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5034 days ago

119 posts - 220 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Mandarin, German, Modern Hebrew, French

 
 Message 433 of 740
02 August 2011 at 12:02pm | IP Logged 
Just dropping in to say how much I enjoy reading your log. Your short posts are always
interesting; I like reading your musings and checking out the various vocab words you
insert in your posts. I admire your progress and stick-to-itiveness, and I hope to reach
your level in Mandarin someday soon. 加油吧!
1 person has voted this message useful



Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 434 of 740
03 August 2011 at 4:03am | IP Logged 
Magdalene, thank you very much for your kind and generous words!
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 435 of 740
04 August 2011 at 7:36pm | IP Logged 
Contacted someone, from an ad, for Mandarin tutoring. I’m basically looking for someone to chat with during the week. Most of us would just find another language exchange partner. But between working and the 12 hour time difference, finding someone overseas to chat on my weeknights is rather difficult. So then the next thing is to find someone here. Most of the people I've found here, who are interested in a language exchange, ask for 2 hours at a time or to talk quite late at night. That is not feasible for me. My friends are quite busy so talking with them is irratic. Chatting at work is also irregular depending on how things are going. Paying someone is a way to make sure that person is available on my schedule.   Thankfully the fee this person is asking is quite low. I’ve thought of finding someone from one of my small groups though paying would alter the relationship.   The difficulty with chatting, as most forum goers know, is that finding things to talk about past the get to know each other phase can be difficult unless there are a number of things in common. The alternative might be to use the sessions to work islands.   The difficulty with islands has been that I generally don’t like talking about myself (still). Maybe another idea would be to practice dialogs from memory. Am I being foolish by not reaching out more to my friends?

Update; I'm going to go forward with this tutor and see how it goes. The dynamics are totally different when talking face to face.

Edited by Snowflake on 05 August 2011 at 3:48am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 436 of 740
08 August 2011 at 9:29pm | IP Logged 
Slowly creeping along, feeling blah. I'm continuing to do SRS reviews and transcribe "The Fellowship of The Rings" using the subtitles. Echoing is what has really fallen by the wayside at the moment. Some of my attitude may be due to seasonal allergies as generally this is the worse time of the year for me. I'm encountering a decent number of 成语s in the movie.... doing relatively straight forward transcription as that's pretty much mindless. Eg. no memorization, no echoing. There is some listening comprehension involved but I'm not making a big effort.

A few 成语s from the movie;
千秋万代/千秋萬代 qiānqiūwàndài; throughout the ages, generation after generation
一如既往 yīrújìwǎng; just like always, just as in the past, as before, as always
措手不及 cuòshǒubùjí; to be caught off one's guard, to be caught unawares

My husband suggests that I need a break.

Edited by Snowflake on 09 August 2011 at 3:22am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 437 of 740
22 August 2011 at 12:13am | IP Logged 
After a solid start transcribing "The Fellowship of the Rings" and also listening/watching another movie dubbed for the mainland, there was a noticeable comprehension jump when going back to movies dubbed for the Taiwanese market. I don't know if that is co-incidence though having a jump, after working with mainland materials for a while, has happened before.

Mid-week I met face to face with a tutor to chat. This person was born in Xi'an and grew up in Beijing. She may have what mainlanders consider to be an ideal accent. Talking with her made me realize that I should probably be spending the majority of my "study time" conversing with native speakers. Between commitments and my relative shyness about speaking, the probability of being able to do that is relatively low. My speaking shyness is probably 500x better but there are still vestiages. This weekend, I did try to pack in the activities...Fri night, Sat afternoon, Sat night and Sun morning.

Edited by Snowflake on 22 August 2011 at 12:13am

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smallwhite
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5306 days ago

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

 
 Message 438 of 740
22 August 2011 at 4:04am | IP Logged 
Snowflake wrote:
措手不及 cuòshǒubùjí; to be caught off one's guard, to be caught unawares


殺個措手不及 = to catch off guard and cause chaos (notice the active voice)
被殺個措手不及 = to be caught off guard and then be in chaos
措手不及 = chaotic and can't handle quick enough because things came as a surprise. I think it's an adjective.

措手不及 is more the RESULT of being caught off guard.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 439 of 740
26 August 2011 at 3:27am | IP Logged 
Thanks Smallwhite!

For context, 措手不及 is used in the scene where Gandalf has just arrived at Bilbos' house. From the subtitles, here's what Bilbo says (any mistakes are mine);
以为你上礼拜就到; yi3wei2 ni3 shang4 li3bai4 jiu4 dao4
你一向我素来去无踪; ni3 yi2xiang4 wo3 su4lai2 qu4 wu2 zong1
所以我有点措手不及了; suo3yi3 wo3 you3dian3 cuo4shou3bu4ji2 le
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smallwhite
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5306 days ago

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

 
 Message 440 of 740
26 August 2011 at 12:22pm | IP Logged 
>你一向我素来去无踪

I'd expect that line to be
你 一向 知 我 素来 来去无踪
but I'm not a native, so :\

This "来去无踪" thingy has 2 versions: "来去无踪" and "来无影(shadow)、去无踪". It's possible but rare to use just "去无踪", and it doesn't fit the context because G is 来ing and not 去ing.


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