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Midlife Mom’s Mandarin Log: TAC Team 唐 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5116 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 105 of 149 18 May 2011 at 1:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Ha, Jimbo--I like the karaoke idea and so does my musical daughter. Will do it.
Aero--I did my first pass through unit 23 today. You'd better keep up. There are some difficult constructions, like: "next year, I would like to visit the very famous chinese collection of the Palace Museum." Even in English it's a tongue-twister, and much more so in Mandarin. I got a 97 on my Chinese final exam and an "A" in the class. Hooray! I've been relaxing and slacking off with just Pimsleur and SRS, but my mind is working, working on Chinese. I'm imagining the things I can say on our trip, like the very useful phrase, "yi dianr xiao yisi," meaning, "a small token." You say it when giving someone a small gift for helping you, something I anticipate doing a lot because we will need a lot of help, I'm sure. I'm also reviewing all my super practical sentences in my SRS program, like, "Is there a bathroom nearby?" and "I'm lost and don't know how to get back to my hotel." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6543 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 107 of 149 18 May 2011 at 2:44am | IP Logged | ||
Holy Smokes - you're almost there! Keep up the good work :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5116 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 108 of 149 18 May 2011 at 3:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the responses--so heartening! Yes, Leosmith, I am close to the finish line with Pimsleur and that
motivates me to keep going. Paranday: interesting question. I do intend to keep learning Mandarin; I've signed up for the next class (which may or may not run depending on enrollment), and I've offered to help out with our visiting professor from China next year. I love the language and enjoy learning about Chinese culture. I'm even working on a novel set in China. But I do worry, for several reasons. One, I have a history of flitting from enthusiasm to enthusiasm. Two, I already feel some wanderlust toward French and Spanish, which would be soooo easy by comparison with Chinese. And three, I don't see many opportunities to use Mandarin in my future. I live in a small town with few Asians and my husband is not much of a traveller. So when I'm feeling down, I think, nah, I'll never learn this language all the way to fluency; why bother anyway? But when I'm feeling good, I think, wow, I've learned so much already, and between my daughter, my writing, and my university work, I'll have a surprising number of opportunities to use Chinese . . . possibly including some unknown and very exciting ones in the future. If these logs stay up for years to come, I guess I'll know the answer by checking back in, say, 2015. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6372 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 109 of 149 18 May 2011 at 5:07am | IP Logged | ||
I have this feeling every day. Sigh. Karaoke is really fun. I'm pretty passive about it though so I haven't learned that much from it. But it definitely helps re-enforce characters. My son now is singing whole songs so maybe you daughter will get more out of it than you do. If you need any DVD suggestions, let me know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6287 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 110 of 149 18 May 2011 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
I had similar feelings a few years ago and wound up signing up for some French classes. Some thoughts that jumped to mind from this experience were: 1. WOW. French is EASY, this is almost like English. What was my problem in high school? 2. Hey! What is the deal with all of these silent letters. This is a real pain. This is almost as bad as English. 3. What IS the deal with these verb conjugations. It is easier to learn a Chinese character and the tone of a word than it is to learn all of the different ways to conjugate a verb. I think there are a few other threads on this forum discussing the virtues of one Romance language over another. I've been trying to teach myself Italian for a while. I'm still working on my French. I'm trying NOT to start studying Spanish until my Italian and French are much better. .... and I've just moved quite close to the Portuguese part of town. Oh, and I've found some on-line Gaelic classes. Wanderlust is a problem for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tomsawyer Senior Member Aruba Joined 5280 days ago 103 posts - 141 votes Speaks: English* Studies: GermanB1, French, Russian | Message 111 of 149 25 May 2011 at 8:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Just wanted to say thanks for an enjoyable language log, which I try to read when it
slips into my inbox. To get to the tail end of Pimsleur Mandarin is something you should be extremely proud of. I hope you decide to continue with Mandarin and enjoy the fruits of your toil for the rest of your days. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5116 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 112 of 149 25 May 2011 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finished Pimsleur 28 today!
Also found a great iPad app that reads the entire bible aloud to you, verse by verse, with the simplified characters and English translation (if you want that) highlighted as you go along. It's an awesome learning tool; I've been reading/listening to a chapter of the book of Mark each day. $8.99, but well worth it. Jimbo--what's happening with Cantonese? Are you jumping ship on Asian languages now that you're in the Western Hemisphere? I have always liked Portuguese, ever since a romantic trip there in my 20s . . . Tomsawyer, thanks for reading and good luck with your own studies. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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