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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 665 of 740 26 May 2013 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Got me thinking since my mom admonished us as kids not to do the leg shaking behavior... I tend to think of that as something young people do, someone who is antsy and doesn't hide it. When someone does that at work, say in a meeting, that's what others tend to mention afterward. I asked a mainlander about the chin propping behavior. She said that older people think it's impolite whereas younger people don't. That sort of fits in with the idea of Taiwan tending to be a bit more traditional. Edited by Snowflake on 27 May 2013 at 4:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 666 of 740 26 May 2013 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It feels like I hardly have time due to my schedule. I'm barely touching SRS reviews though am doing a good amount of reading/skimming. That also means new characters are not regularly added though I wonder how much that matters right now given the reading/skimming. I'm back to regularly attending one of my Mandarin speaking groups and am running into more behavioral items, though with my mind feeling "full" cannot seem to verbalize everything. Edited by Snowflake on 26 May 2013 at 11:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 667 of 740 12 June 2013 at 5:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well my project ended and now I'm able to get a good amount of SRS reviews in. I'm enjoying reading unfamiliar middle to latter elementary school age childrens books. I don’t feel a need to necessarily read books originally written in Chinese since recommendations from a native speaker, who doesn't know English, included novels originally written in English and Japanese. Anyhow, am about 10-15 pages away from finishing 巧克力冒險工廠 (Charlie and The Chocolate Factory). Also finally placed another Hong Kong order and should be getting 墓碑--中國六十年代大饑荒紀實 which will be my first book on a serious subject that was originally written in Chinese.
About 30% through the Neutrino program... close to 2100 characters. Went to my Sat evening Mandarin speaking group. There were about 30 adults, all from the mainland. Due to my less than stellar Mandarin skills, it's difficult to enter into meaningful conversations. Then I remembered the comment about FSI graduates dreading gatherings like these which made me feel much better. I've been thinking about cultural items due to a number of circumstances. One was a nudge face into puddle type experience that pushes people away from learning languages. I was helping out at a function and had to introduce myself to others. Well I always give my English name (I only respond to my Chinese name when it's said in Toishanese). The reaction to my English name is generally silence or a question such as ni3 shi4 shen2me ren2? This time it was silence. So I mention being born in the US and that my parents are from Guangdong. This particular person started talking about how she had thought that all American born Chinese were... and I heard the word 爛. So it was my turn for frozen silence. My overseas Taiwanese chat partner asked numerous detailed questions about shaking hands when meeting someone for the first time. It turns out there is a video clip of Bill Gates meeting the president of South Korea for the first time. After shaking hands, Bill Gates then puts his hands into his pockets. It was widely televised on South Korean TV and included a blurb explaining this as being casual American behavior. This clip with that editorial additionally made the rounds in a number of SE Asian countries. In other words, this was broadcasted thru many different countries as being typical American behavior. I was taken aback. Edited by Snowflake on 12 June 2013 at 5:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 668 of 740 16 June 2013 at 5:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm about half way through 第十四道門 (Coraline), and just finished reading 巧克力冒險工廠 (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). I'm been trying to read unfamiliar books which lends itself more to reading from front to back instead of skipping around. If these were books written for adults then I would be skipping around due to the difficulty. On that note, I'm trying 小王子 again.
For the purposes of the super challenge in which I am enrolled for 50 movies/50 books, I completed the 50 movies a long time ago and didn't keep track after that. Bookwise now I've completed 1..Journey to the West (graphic novel) which counts as 1/5 of a book 2..巧克力冒險工廠 (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), 250-260 pages Still having some motivation issues and am also not in the best of moods...since I like to read, these unfamiliar books pretty much keep me moving forward. My overseas Taiwanese chat partner was talking about 撒嬌. Both YellowBridge and MDBG mentions to act like a spoiled child / to throw a tantrum / to act coquettishly. He meant the word in a different sense, basically to have an ulterior motive and butter someone up. That does show up in a mono-dict. Edited by Snowflake on 16 June 2013 at 5:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 669 of 740 21 June 2013 at 5:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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Email from the Hong Kong book store....1/2 of the books I ordered are unavailable. So then placed an order on the Taiwanese book store site. That website for some reason did not charge shipping fees, despite going through the screens multiple times.... now to see if they email me about that. This was all very annoying though the upside was the amount of time spent dealing with Chinese web pages and emails.
Switched the OS language on my personal laptop to traditional Chinese several weeks ago. Neutrino asked me to do that earlier but I didn't feel ready. 醫療保險, 健康保險 - Health insurance.... My Taiwanese chat partner thinks the first term is preferable over the second. Edited by Snowflake on 21 June 2013 at 6:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 670 of 740 26 June 2013 at 2:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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Running into peoples' idea of what is a southerner....湯圓/汤圆 is typically eaten around the time of spring festival. 湯圓 are little sweet glutinous rice flour balls served in soup. At my Sat group, the balls have been about ¾ inch diameter, usually stuffed with black sesame, in plain water. There's a picture with an open rice flour ball, stuffed with black sesame, at
ch3rri-blossoms.blogspot.com/2011/10/sesame-tang-yuan-sesame -dumplings.html By contrast, my husband and I grew up with unstuffed balls in a sweet soup stock (his and my parents are Toishanese). Anyhow at my Sat group, it’s generally a pretty big deal when ever 湯圓 is available. They typically serve out 3 little balls. Going back for seconds and maybe thirds is fine but taking a larger quantity at one time is not the custom for this group. (My husband and I grew up on having a soup bowl full of the little flour balls). Anyhow about 2 months ago at the group, someone’s visiting mother made some 湯圓. And as is typical, a good number of people were hovering around, eagerly waiting. I asked someone, from Shanghai, about 湯圓 typically being eaten around the time of Spring Festival. The answer was yes that it’s true but we southerners love it so much that it’s also made at other times. My gut reaction was confusion so I mentioned Guangdong as being the south (reflects my upbringing though when I think about it I know that's inaccurate). She said that Cantonese have a tendency to think that they are the only southerners. When I told my husband about this, his gut reaction was the same as mine and he was surprised that Shanghainese would view themselves as southerners. Then at another group meeting I met a newcomer who is from Guangxi which is on the southern border of China next to Guangdong. She inferred that she and I are southerners, but not the others. She sort of hung around with me, giving the impression that she is less comfortable with "non-southerners". She asked if I eat noodles....native speakers when initially meeting me tend to ask what sort of food I eat at home (Chinese or western food). I told her that we eat noodles, though typically eat rice. Then she said that southerners eat rice (as their staple) whereas others eat noodles. The last time I ran into this issue of who is a southerner was with my Chinese school instructor. She pretty much considers anyone who is not from a northeast province to be a southerner. I should probably find a place that sells spiced tripe to buy for the next group pot luck...wonder if the local H-Mart carries that. I'm also thinking of trying to make 湯圓 with black sesame seed stuffing. My order from the Taiwanese book store arrived yesterday. They did send an email asking for the shipping fees so I send the amount in Taiwanese dollars with the associated notes in Chinese. This order was all childrens books and includes a 3 volume version of Journey to the West. Many of the books have Bopomofo alongside the characters. Khatz wants us to learn Bopomofo but I am resisting...am perfectly content looking up words in Pleco using my finger to write the characters, or else use my Wacom pen and tablet on a site like Nicku or YellowBridge. Edited by Snowflake on 26 June 2013 at 4:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 671 of 740 02 July 2013 at 3:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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It was a good weekend. The friend bringing my DVDs from the mainland is back though needs to fully unpack. So I should have the movies in hand by this coming weekend. I also reflected about my progress.
...Regularly ordering from Chinese websites and handling the associated Chinese emails. ...Reading/skimming Chinese books. I miss things due to unknown characters, vocabulary and construction though understand enough of the story to enjoy it. It's also slowly building my vocabulary. ...Sat night at my small group meeting, I made a point in Mandarin during a break-out group (5 of us). When the larger group was reassembled (less than 30 native speakers) and the break-out group spokesperson omitted the point, someone else hastened to repeat it. The group leader re-said that point as part of his closing comments. ...Sun at the other group, something else happened which was less notable than on Sat though enough to make me feel good about my progress. So even though I fumble a lot, have to use dictionaries, and it's still rather ugly I'm making decent progress. Half super challenge books completed; 1..西遊記 (graphic novel) which counts as 1/5 of a book 2..巧克力冒險工廠 (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), 250-260 pages 3..第十四道門 (Coraline), about 180 pages I've been shuffling through books. For some reason it takes a bit to get started on one. So at the moment The Little Prince is out as is Tales of Beedle The Bard. I'm currently trying Aliens On Vacation though after 8 or so pages am thinking of looking at another Roald Dahl book. An expression from one of my books, 他一定不會說話算話. My overseas chat partner felt an easier way to say it is 他一定在說謊. Edited by Snowflake on 02 July 2013 at 4:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5957 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 672 of 740 08 July 2013 at 5:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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Information dump.....currently reading chapter 10 of 飛天巨桃歷險記 (James and the Giant Peach). Got an atta-girl from Khatz on my progress (we give periodic updates). The atta-girl made me feel better....every bit of encouragement helps! Domestically ordered another book. Made it this weekend again to both Mandarin speaking groups. Don't have the movie DVDs in hand due to the usual ups-and-downs of life...my friend put the DVDs aside in a safe place and now can't remember where that is. They were so embarrassed that the husband volunteered to rebuy all the movies for me since they're going back to the mainland this week.
I made black sesame filled 湯圓 for my 4th of July family gathering....count it as a success since my mother thought I purchased the 湯圓. Now I'm looking at trying a much easier variation which was discussed with a friend from Shanghai. I'm mentioning this since food is culturally very important to Chinese. China also has experienced starvation in modern memory. If you can make a Chinese dish that native speakers like, it will go a long way in building bridges. Edited by Snowflake on 08 July 2013 at 5:03am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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