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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log

  Tags: Mandarin
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740 messages over 93 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 27 ... 92 93 Next >>
annette
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5507 days ago

164 posts - 192 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 209 of 740
03 February 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged 
Sorry - I've been away from the internet and have only just now seen your reply to me!
I'm not ethnic East Asian, but I'm biracial with my mother being from Taiwan and so I
look vaguely Asiatic. I only started learning Chinese a couple years ago but because
almost all of my teachers and my mother's relatives are from Taiwan, so my accent is
still slightly more Taiwanese (although I can write only simplified characters). There
are some differences in vocabulary usage as well, such as su4jiao1 for mainland
su4liao4 (plastic). Usually this isn't a problem but I'm thinking that I might want to
pick up some of the mainland mannerisms so that I won't stick out so much when I study
in Beijing, which I'm hoping to do next summer. In addition, most American textbooks
reflect Beijing standards as well, so I also stick out a little in language classes in
the US!

So, learning the mainland mindset/accent isn't strictly necessary for me, but maybe a
nice touch.

I'm still a little confused about 的话, which I have never heard used before in that
way. Thank you for telling us about it!

When you say AP, do you mean like high school Advanced Placement or something else? Do
most of your classmates have East Asian heritage, maybe even speak Mandarin at home?


Edited by annette on 03 February 2010 at 6:01am

1 person has voted this message useful



annette
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5507 days ago

164 posts - 192 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 210 of 740
03 February 2010 at 6:06am | IP Logged 
Never mind! I FINALLY get the 的话 thing. For some bizarre reason, I was chunking your
phrase as

[出外海的话船] 就不怕风浪

with that first part as one big noun + modifier, instead of

出外海的话, 船就不怕风浪

which is probably more accurate. Oops! Wow, I think I need to get some sleep!
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5960 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 211 of 740
05 February 2010 at 2:27am | IP Logged 
The highschool Advanced Placement (AP) class mentioned is one that I observed.   That day, their substitute teacher was my regular Chinese class instructor. I'm way too old to be a student in an AP class... am starting to think about being an empty nester. Anyhow to your question, yes all the students in that AP class are from Mandarin speaking families. This Chinese school is oriented toward families where the parents are native Mandarin speakers. The first day of school, in Sept, you pretty much had to be able to read Chinese to FIND your classroom location on the map. Recently they emailed out a survey, written all in Chinese except for the return snail mail address.   

On 的话, here's another example.
要是没精神的话他会失望的
yàoshi méi jīngshén dehuà tā huì shīwàng de
This sentence and the prior one are from the Ponyo movie.

Regarding my own class, it's quite small. It's the adult class for learning Chinese as a foreign language. There's only four of us. The definition of adult is 12 years and older. There is a brother and sister, 14 and 12 years old. Their father speaks Mandarin but the mother doesn't. The other person is a Caucasian man who was working on learning Chinese on his own. So my class is really a mixed bag.

Good luck on prep'ing for studying in Beijing!

Edited by Snowflake on 27 February 2010 at 10:54pm

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annette
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5507 days ago

164 posts - 192 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 212 of 740
05 February 2010 at 2:45am | IP Logged 
Your second example makes more sense to me (my problem w/understanding, not yours or
the example's, haha). I'm used to hearing 要是...的话... and I guess I hadn't really
thought about 的话 as a pattern on its own!

What you said about the AP course being mostly heritage speakers makes sense. I was
surprised at first when you said AP, because my experience with the AP test is that the
test itself is not hard and most of the students I know who took it are not good enough
at Chinese to discuss current events in Mandarin. But if there are lots of students
from Mandarin speaking families in that class, then I'm sure the level of proficiency
must be higher! Do you think there is a difference in the way they teach in the AP
class (mostly heritage speakers) than from your Chinese-as-foreign-language class?

And thank you. We'll see... I hope I can go though! I wanted to go this year, but I
didn't apply in time. Oops.
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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5960 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 213 of 740
05 February 2010 at 5:43pm | IP Logged 
annette wrote:
Do you think there is a difference in the way they teach in the AP
class (mostly heritage speakers) than from your Chinese-as-foreign-language class?


Oh definitely. For practical purposes, my current class has no heritage speakers. There's a write-up on the web, from a professor at a university on the west coast, which talks about the different categories/characteristics of students that show up in Chinese classes. He mentions that the categories are different enough that there has to be multiple types of classes to accomodate them. My experience in school, back before Mandarin became somewhat fashionable, pretty much agrees with what he says.

Edited by Snowflake on 06 February 2010 at 7:53am

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5960 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 214 of 740
05 February 2010 at 5:49pm | IP Logged 
Talked to my overseas cousin, last night....feel like I accidentally have gotten into the fast lane. On the up-side, one of my friends here (a native speaker from Taiwan) would like me to call her more often.



Edited by Snowflake on 05 February 2010 at 6:54pm

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Snowflake
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5960 days ago

1032 posts - 1233 votes 
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 215 of 740
08 February 2010 at 12:07am | IP Logged 
电子邮件也发不通。
diànziyóujiàn ye3 fā bùtōng   
The email didn't go through.

电子邮件被退回来了
diànziyóujiàn bei4 tui4 hui2lai2 le
The emails bounced and were returned.     
The sentences on emails were worked after calling my cousin (yes, emails to her are bouncing). The sentences were verified/worked with a friend from Beijing, so yes the Mandarin is correct.

快迟到了啦     
kuai4 chídào le la
We'll be late/We're almost late.
This is from the Ponyo movie. Talked with my instructor on this as it did not make sense....the hiccup was that I was looking at 快 as fast with 迟 as slow/late/delayed.

没门儿 méiménr; an expression... basically, IMPOSSIBLE! NO WAY!
My friend, from Taiwan, said 没门 is considered rude and often is not used there.

Lately most of my new Anki entries are from transcribing movies or from conversations. I'm liking this approach at the moment. The words and characters from the movies are showing up in conversations, hymns, etc. Have also backed up a little in the FSI material and am working the directions module.

Update; Corrected/changed some things after Pyx posted...(Thanks Pyx)

Update 2; going through Anki and realized there was an incorrect character and tone for tong....should be 不通 bùtōng, be obstructed; be blocked up; be impassable

Edited by Snowflake on 09 February 2010 at 6:22am

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Pyx
Diglot
Senior Member
China
Joined 5736 days ago

670 posts - 892 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 216 of 740
08 February 2010 at 3:20am | IP Logged 
Snowflake wrote:
diànziyóujiàn ye3 fā bu2tong4
The email didn't go through.
I'm too lazy right now to find the associated characters in my notes.

电子邮件也发不同。 If you get a good input system (are you using windows, linux or os x?) it should sort that out by itself in most cases :)

Snowflake wrote:
电子邮件倍退回来了
diànziyóujiàn bei4 tui4 hui2lai2 le
The emails bounced and were returned.     
The sentences on emails were worked after calling my cousin (yes, emails to her are bouncing). The sentences were verified/worked with a friend from Beijing, so yes the Mandarin is correct... though I found the characters for bei4 and tui4 on my own.

The 倍 ought to be a 被, indicating that the sentence is passive.



Snowflake wrote:
快迟到了啦     
kuai4 chídào le la
(We're) almost late.
This is from the Ponyo movie. Talked with my instructor on this as it did not make sense....the hiccup was that I was looking at 快 as fast with 迟 as slow/late/delayed.

I'm not totally sure on this, but wouldn't 快 just be a pointer to the future, i.e. "We'll be late!"?


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