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Lorinth’s log - 劳伦的博客 | ||
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| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 169 of 408 24 October 2013 at 9:16am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday, for the sake of variety (impatience might play a role, too), I started work on an upper intermediate Chinesepod lesson. The speed of the speech was not terribly difficult, I'd say about the same as in intermediate level lessons. The main difference for me was that, in intermediate level lessons, there are few new words, sometimes so few that I can guess their meaning with relative ease because the context is totally transparent. Therefore intermediate level lessons are lexically easy and I can use them solely for the purpose of improving my listening comprehension - which is the main reason why I started using Chinesepod podcasts in the first place. Frequently, I don't have to listen to the bilingual podcast itself, I work with Chinese-only audio files. On the other hand, upper intermediate lessons - at least the one I tried yesterday - do contain new words and expressions that I wouldn't be able to "recognize" through repeated listening (as often happens with words I don't understand when they are spoken though I've studied them before "on paper" ) and, sometimes, whose meaning I wouldn't be able to guess, as the context is much less transparent. Therefore, I wouldn't be able to benefit from the audio files without actively studying the vocab. BTW, as I've said before, I'm always amazed at the quality of those Chinesepod podcasts: the voice actors are really good and the dialogues are as entertaining as a good radio series; the writers often manage to create an interesting micro-plot with a dozen sentences. Kudos! I'm in chapter 10/27 of 老舍's猫城记 , i.e. e-page 90/397. I'm reading this book with Moon+ Reader, and excellent reader for Android I discovered thanks to one of emk's post (Emk, if you happen to read this: thanks!). I use the reader in conjunction with the Goldendict dictionary. Finding Chinese dictionaries using the Stardict format (used by Goldendict) was surprisingly difficult but now I'm set: I've three active dictionaries for each word I look up: ZH-ZH, ZH-FR and ZH-EN. Interesting words are added to my Pleco lists and interesting sentences (often those containing new interesting words) are highlighted for later review or exportation, or copied into a Pleco card. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 170 of 408 25 October 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged |
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Today, I've been busy welcoming my fourth child to the world: 欢迎佳恩，你太可爱了！ (In fact, even today, there were idle moments during which I managed to clear my Pleco vocab queues and to read the introduction and chap. 1 of a very interesting online introduction to classical Chinese located: here. After all, that kind of text was the reason why I started to study Chinese in the first place, even before I had heard the names of 莫言,余华 or 高行健). Edited by lorinth on 25 October 2013 at 10:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 171 of 408 31 October 2013 at 12:27pm | IP Logged |
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I've worked a bit on ChinesePod intermediate level podcasts about some people who 在商场迷路了 while looking for a 泰国餐厅, and about a poor worker trying to 做一个问卷调查 with reluctant passers-by. As I've been busy going back and forth to and from the hospital (NB: driving time is good for podcasts), looking after the kids and the newborn, I've had zero time to sit in front of a computer for one week, so my Skritter backlog is huge (331 items). Yet, I've found the time to review my Pleco and Anki queues almost every day on the go, so my SRS queues are empty. I went on reading 猫城记. I'm now starting chapter 11. According to Moon+ reader's stats, I've read about 27% of the book. Some narrative/action passages are easier, some are much more difficult - often those where the author reflects on the organisation or the culture of the feline Martian society. This night, I read a passage twice (about bargaining and pillaging 迷叶) and toyed with the idea of translating it, to make sure I really get it, but will I ever have the time to do such things again? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 172 of 408 01 November 2013 at 7:07pm | IP Logged |
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Purged my Skritter vocabulary queue. Read a bit more of 猫城记。But not much. Worked a bit more (i.e. reviewed the vocabulary) on the ChinesePod lesson about shady business practices. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 173 of 408 03 November 2013 at 8:18pm | IP Logged |
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With sentences highlighted while reading 猫城记, I tried a retranslation exercise, as suggested by Iversen, i. e.: - I copied a Chinese sentence by hand, making sure I understood every detail and I knew the pronunciation of every character - I wrote a very literal translation - I hid the Chinese sentence and tried to reproduce it based on my translation. Compared with many other languages, this exercise in Chinese involves the additional difficulty of remembering how to write the characters. But it was fun in an absorbing way. I started a new Chinesepod lesson about custom furniture. Apart from the usual vocabulary chores with Pleco and Anki (no Skritter), I had some time left to study more vocab from the upper intermediate chinesepod lesson on funny business practices AND to clear my SRS queues in Latin and Finnish - not that I could add many words recently, but still. I have read a few paragraphs of 猫城记. Progress has been awfully slow recently. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 174 of 408 05 November 2013 at 4:34pm | IP Logged |
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Today I could read quite a bit more of 猫城记. I'm now in chapter 14 (37 % read). Chapter 13 was particularly interesting, with a dialogue between the traveller from earth and a young Martian about the problems of the Martian youth. Although this book is supposed to be a reflexion on China in the 1920s, I couldn't help but think about Europe in the 2010s. Apart from that, I was able to keep up with the usual vocab drills and I listened a bit more of my current Chinesepod podcast about 家具。 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 175 of 408 07 November 2013 at 5:45pm | IP Logged |
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On NDTV, I watched a short report about a 3D wall painting in New York. The report on NDTV. I used Audacity to cut a few sentences out of it and add them to my Anki audio deck. Usual vocab drills with Pleco (vocab collected while reading), Anki (audio sentences) and Skritter (characters). I've now read 43% of 猫城记. LA In Oerberg's Roma Aeterna, I restarted reading chap. XLV , about Tarquinius Superbus, ex T. Livii Ab Urbe Condita, libro I-49 "nonnullis mutatis et omissis". 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4272 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 176 of 408 09 November 2013 at 3:00am | IP Logged |
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Watched the first scenes of 洗, an excellent, moving Chinese movie I've already watched twice. Unfortunately, even with the transcript, it's hard for me to follow the dialogues. On NDTV, I watched a short report about the activist 陈光诚. Again, I cut out a number of sentences from the report and added them to my Anki audio deck. This deck has this simple structure: - front: audio - back: field 1: transcript in 汉字 field 2: translation of certain words if needed NDTV's report All vocabulary drills were performed as usual with Anki, Pleco and Skritter. I've now read 48.9% of 猫城记. I could as well have tried to reach the 50% milestone, but there are times when my brain seems to shut down and refuses to absorb more, as if, at some point, it needed time for digestion. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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