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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log

  Tags: Mandarin
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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LaughingChimp
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 4697 days ago

346 posts - 594 votes 
Speaks: Czech*

 
 Message 601 of 740
13 September 2012 at 9:47pm | IP Logged 
leonidus wrote:
LaughingChimp wrote:

It's important to start listening as soon as possible ESPECIALLY in a tone language like Mandarin.


Wait a minute, where did I say you don't need to listen? You have to listen till your ears get red, that's not even debatable, but NOT the native level materials if you're a rookie. There are audio courses of every kind imaginable that feature slow, clear and distinct pronunciation and drills. That was my point.


I'm sorry that I misunderstood you then, I don't listen to learning materials, except dictionary entries when I need to. Audio courses are almost always spoken in a weird way. The point of listening is getting used to the language spoken by native speakers at a natural pace and with all phonological processes taking place, so native materials are an obvious choice. Listening to unnaturally spoken language is not much easier, you're just learning to recognize different sounds. You can save time by learning normal pronunciation right away.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 602 of 740
14 September 2012 at 1:54am | IP Logged 
Look up DLI (Defense Language Institute).   A number of forum members consider DLI to be the pinnacle of language schools. DLI believes in listening to native speaker materials from day 1. That said, learning Mandarin for many people is a marathon so keeping motivation up so as to be able to continue moving forward is extremely important. If listening to native speaker material is too demotivating, then by all means stop until you're ready.   The learning approach, to be successful, has to be moulded to the particular person where needed. In my case listening to movies, fun movies that I really like, often was the only thing that got me through blah periods where I couldn't focus at all on studying.

Some sites;
http://www.nexttv.com.tw/ (news out of Taiwan, also has links to cooking shows, variety shows, etc)
http://listen.rbc.cn/ (assorted radio stations out of Beijing)
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/chinese/top/index.html (recorded news out of Japan)

There's a talk show that I like, though it's a woman's show.....it probably could be considered a girly girl version of the Oprah show. Do a search on "女人我最大" in google or youtube. They have their own website though that bookmark is on my other machine. It's a show out of Taiwan which is extremely popular there. If you can get past what it is, the usage is 日常对话 (rìcháng duìhuà, every day spoken language) and the vocabulary is usually extremely useful. I say "usually" since it's sometimes described as a make-up show. There's a good amount of repetition which is helpful to us language learners. The behavior of the women hosts, there are 7 or so, is very emotional to use the phrase of a Taiwanese friend. Per this friend, Taiwanese are very emotional compared to mainlanders.

BTW, the mentioned Taiwanese news site also uses 日常对话.

Update; Changed/expanded description of "女人我最大".

Edited by Snowflake on 14 September 2012 at 8:30pm

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leonidus
Triglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 6324 days ago

113 posts - 123 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English, French
Studies: German, Mandarin

 
 Message 603 of 740
16 September 2012 at 3:50pm | IP Logged 
Ok, listening to native materials from day 1 makes sense if these materials are in slower speed and have limited and gradually expanding vocabulary. After all, there is a deep meaning in the Chinese proverb 欲速不达 which can be loosely translated as «don't try to run before you learn to walk».

Thanx for show suggestion, looks like fun stuff, I clicked the first show in youtube and they were discussing breasts sizes :)
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 604 of 740
18 September 2012 at 2:14am | IP Logged 
Uh, let's agree to disagree.

On the show, that's um interesting. I think that beats the episode where they discussed exercise and the camera zoomed in on someone's rear while fingers were poking at it.

Edited by Snowflake on 18 September 2012 at 2:18am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 605 of 740
18 September 2012 at 2:20am | IP Logged 
It's a bit early, but ...Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
I already purchased some 白莲容的 mooncakes.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 606 of 740
22 September 2012 at 7:54pm | IP Logged 
This is probably not going to make sense to a lot of people. I've already mentioned this in one of my circles which value ABA techniques and they understood. I'm on day 34 of SinoSpoon and am realizing that Khatzumoto truly understands shaping and managing the environment. Given the tiny steps he's using, which is central to shaping, it's probably going to be a while before I can understand the full picture of his approach and be able to verbalize it. The other thing is that my work project is keeping me quite busy...eg don't have the time to really think things through. Given what I have spent in the past to learn to use ABA techniques, aside from monies spent on materials to learn Mandarin, the cost of SinoSpoon is well worth it. I mentioned this to my daughter...we were wondering if the university that Khatz attended have some professors who are big on learning theory.

Discovered that I like Chinese commercials. This one has a serious tone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksdBSVAM6g





Edited by Snowflake on 22 September 2012 at 7:55pm

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 607 of 740
29 September 2012 at 10:21am | IP Logged 
Going into day 41 of SinoSpoon... as each day passes, characters are less and less intimidating. Khatzumoto's approach would probably seem nonsensical for a lot of people, but ABA often seems that way to people who don't understand the techniques. I initially started characters early, earlier than the schedule which Khatz put together. That was to offset my work schedule which often gets in the way. But as usual I was stressing so Khatz had me stop. Now that we've officially started character work, I am surprized that my attitude is this good. The other thing is that I often am imprecise in executing Khatz' instructions. Suspect that if I were more exact, things would be even better. But the nature of my execution is due to running around because of my job commitments. It's probably good for me that he is changing the SilverSpoon approach to what's being called Neutrino. In the past, the only information I could find about ABA for language learning was Precision Teaching. And that was centered around teaching school age children language skills.

Another Taiwanese commercial...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u5lYj4xVGA

Update; spelling corrections

Edited by Snowflake on 30 September 2012 at 5:21am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5957 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 608 of 740
09 October 2012 at 4:01am | IP Logged 
Have not gotten much speaking practice in the past 1-2 months due to my job. That includes being hardly able to attend my small group meetings. My speaking is extremely rusty. Did make it this last Sat to my small group volleyball tournament. After 2 meets, our team is in first place. There were a good number of players, from my group, whom I did not recognize. It turns out there are some new members who are quite serious about the game. One was on the Chinese national team. Another example of how serious volleyball is to this group, since our teams need to have at least 2 women players, one of those trained for several months with a friend who was a former pro player. Anyhow, I spend a lot of time cheering in Mandarin and hearing phrases like "jie1de na4me hao3". They were so excited that the evening meeting included a potluck. Champagne was mentioned in the email announcement though I thought they were kidding. They were serious. People brought various types of beer, wine and there were two bottles of champagne.

My job is starting to take larger chunks of time, not good for my Mandarin.

Khatzumoto includes motivational sayings as part of the daily emails. Here's one of those which is very ABA, "There is no such thing as "hard": there are just things that need smaller pieces than you're currently using."

On day 50 of SinoSpoon. Our latest buying spree (back at day 45) is ordering from Amazon in the mainland. Still trying to decide what to buy since I already have more than half of the movies which were suggested. Have to say it's very exciting to order from a site that is 99.99% in Chinese....an extremely reinforcing activity, especially given how much characters have intimidated me. It opens the realm of possibilities in a very concrete way.

Something I ran across which may bother American sensibilities...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvfR0PVNsvM

I was given this word by my former Mandarin instructor (mainlander). It also is used in the dubbed American movie "Get Smart".
碳水化合物 tànshuǐhuàhéwù carbohydrate
I used it when talking with my overseas Taiwanese chat partner. He said that 碳水化合物 is a technical term which some people will not know. He suggested (and I'm doing this from memory and so may be off)...
醣类食物 tánglèishíwù

Edited by Snowflake on 09 October 2012 at 4:09am



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