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Mainly Mandarin-(yet another Chinese log) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6235 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 49 of 74 01 February 2012 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had somewhat of a reality check the other day.
A friend from Germany and I had a five minute conversation completely in German. It was pretty easy and the conversation flowed freely. The funny thing, however, is I have never really studied any German. Through the numerous cognates with English and my rudimentary knowledge of German syntax, I could pretty much figure out what to say and understand what was being said. Then it struck me... After two plus months of studying Mandarin, my speech and comprehension is nowhere near this level. My conversations in Mandarin consist of mostly two syllable, forced discombobulations and my listening skills are not much better. What have I gotten myself into?! Why on earth didn’t I chose to study German, or Dutch or Norwegian or anything remotely close to my native English?! I am reading here on my package of berries: rinser avant de utiliser. It is pretty obvious what this means, even without any knowledge of French. In Chinese, it would be something like : 冲洗前使用 (Chōngxǐ qián shǐyòng.). Totally impenetrable! [although I could probably figure out qián (before) and yong (use)] Added to this frustration is the fact that I am just not finding enough time in my day to devote to studying Mandarin. If I am lucky, I get 15 Pimsleur minutes in the car to and from work and maybe another 20 minutes at night after I tuck my kids in bed. It’s just not the amount of time I was hoping for. In addition, the wonderfully simple shell surrounding Chinese is beginning to fade revealing the true, complex beast of Mandarin that lies beneath the exterior. For example, the word shi in Mandarin Chinese can have 29 different meanings depending on its tone and context?! There are thousands of other words with multiple homophones like this as well. I have a new found respect for heavily inflected languages such as Hungarian and Russian. While learning all of the different inflections and case endings is a pain, the advantage is that one can pretty much put the words of a sentence in any order and the meaning will not change. Not so with Chinese. Changing the order of the words can completely change the meaning of the sentence. The specific order of the words is key. Then there is the little marker “le”了 . At first I thought this was just a past tense marker. Nope, sometimes it indicates the present, sometimes the future. Sometimes the past is indicated with the construction shi … de . Chinese was starting to drive me hopelessly mad. About this time I read some posts on the excellent blog http://www.hackingchinese.com/. One in particular reminded me that learning Chinese is not a race, but rather an ultra-marathon. There is no prize for rushing through a complex language such as Chinese as rapidly as possible. I remembered to slow down. If I only have 20 minutes a day to devote to Chinese, I need to make the most of it. If I forget all the words I learned the day before, I just need to sit down and learn them again! Not a race. No prizes. Enjoy the journey. Be satisfied learning a tiny bit every day. By simply slowing down, I began to feel much less overwhelmed. Along those lines, I think I have finally found a study plan that I can stick to which also adheres to my time constraints. I am about midway through the second level of Pimsleur Mandarin. Pimsleur works great with my commute and helps a great deal with pronunciation and tone recognition. I also started using Assimil’s Chinese with ease. This is perfect. 105 lessons divided into manageable chunks. 1 lesson per day taking around 20-30 minutes. By the end of the course, I should have a comfortable command of around 1500 words and characters. Definitely a solid start with Chinese should I choose to continue the pursuit. Now, off to watch a Chinese cartoon about the Chinese Zodiac! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5268 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 50 of 74 01 February 2012 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Time limitations that come with family/work commitments are the biggest single issue in adult second language learning, in my opinion. Oh how I wish that I had a solid three months to devote the majority of my day to perfecting my Portuguese. I think that these limitations that we have make our accomplishments that much more worthy.
Barry Farber's book- "How To Learn Any Language", he has a chapter called "Hidden Moments" in which he explains how to take advantage of the hidden moments we have in our day.
He goes on to more fully illuminate this concept. Farber was old school, but his methods can easily be adapted to the digital age. I have audio and pdf on my phone and, believe me- we do a lot of waiting around here in paradise, island time. Sometimes, the "hidden moments" are all I have in which to study. Taking advantage of them has really helped me a lot. Keep up the good work, @liddytime. I enjoy your well written log. Edited by iguanamon on 01 February 2012 at 11:32pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6588 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 51 of 74 02 February 2012 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||
Okay, first off: you have to get used to different tone = different word. You can't think of it as "the word 'shi' + tone". The tone is an integral part of the word, just like the vowel is. So saying that it can mean different things depending on tone is like saying the word "t*n" in English can have lots of different meanings depending on vowel: tan, ton, tin, teen, etc. Second, character != word. In fact there are few words in Chinese pronounced as "shi" (in any tone). A lot of the characters are bound morphemes, not words. The character 狮 means "lion" and is pronounced "shi1", but it's not a word. The Chinese word for lion is 狮子, "shi1zi". Similarly 矢 means "to lose", but it's not a word, either. You have to put it together with other characters to form words like 失踪 (to disappear) or 失败 (to be defeated). So what you're saying, transposed to English, is like this: English is really hard! There are like dozens of words pronounced t*n, depending on which vowel is inserted. Words like "tonsil", "tantalize", "tuna", "tinker". How can I ever tell them apart? The prevalence of homophones in Mandarin is greatly exaggerated by people who misunderstand the writing system. There's a famous poem only written with "shi" sounds, but that's not written in Mandarin, but Literary Sintic. And that's a completely different language. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6385 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 52 of 74 02 February 2012 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Very nice (and funny!), Ari. Have an upvote. Edited by newyorkeric on 02 February 2012 at 10:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6235 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 53 of 74 02 February 2012 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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@iguanamon: Thanks! What a great Farber quote. I think that does pretty much sum it up. A lot of our day gets "spilled" when it could be put to good use!
Your comment is true Ari. Although for learners that are trying to get their heads around the sounds for the first time, it is pretty complicated!
I came across this video on You Tube that was pretty funny. It was 3 Chinese guys and one Canadian trying to make it though a Mandarin tongue twister that went something like 40 is 14 is 14 is 40 (sishi shi shi si shi shi si shi sishi) I'll try to find it, it was hilarious. The Canadian guy was probably the best out of all of them!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| strikingstar Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5179 days ago 292 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 54 of 74 03 February 2012 at 2:55am | IP Logged | ||
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It usually goes something along the lines of 4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40, 44
is 44, 4 4s is not 14, 4 10s is not 44. There are other variations. However, that's kid's stuff compared to this. 石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。 氏时时适市视狮。 十时，适十狮适市。 是时，适施氏适市。 氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。 氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。 石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。 石室拭，氏始试食是十狮。 食时，始识是十狮，实十石狮尸。 试释是事。 Edited by strikingstar on 03 February 2012 at 2:59am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6235 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 55 of 74 03 February 2012 at 6:42am | IP Logged | ||
Whoa....that IS brutal!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6588 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 56 of 74 03 February 2012 at 10:33am | IP Logged | ||
I agree. Fortunately it's not Mandarin! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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