Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 137 of 740 13 June 2009 at 9:47pm | IP Logged |
Working thru some of the menu items from a local Mandarin restuarant that also sells take home cold/frozen items. While this sort of thing may be unimportant to some, in Chinese society (including business) food and food related gatherings are very important. This shop sells 手工冰凍水餃/ 手工冰冻水饺 (shou3 gong1 bing1 dong4 shui3 jiao3/ hand made frozen dumplings). Among other things I've been buying their frozen 韭菜豬肉餃子/韭菜猪肉饺子 (jiu3 cai4 zhu1 rou4 jiao3 zi5/ pork dumplings with garlic chives). One of these days I may try their 冰凍機器水餃/冰冻机器水饺 (bing1 dong4 ji1 qi4 shui3 jiao3, machine made frozen dumplings).
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 138 of 740 24 June 2009 at 5:51am | IP Logged |
Well, there was another nail in the coffin regarding visiting overseas this year. Have been so busy with the job that I haven't had time to really think through that news. On the upside, I'm starting to feel physically better.
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 139 of 740 28 June 2009 at 8:36pm | IP Logged |
I had gradually dropped most Mandarin related activity in the last 4-8 weeks due to the job and feeling unwell. Today I again attended a local Mandarin speaking church...talk about losing ground, sigh. A friend at work, who is a member of this church, had encouraged me to again visit after hearing about my not going overseas this year. She mentioned that I just missed their Mandarin speaking retreat. I suspect that would have been an 80-90% immersion experience. This also is the Mandarin congregation which predominantly uses simplified characters. There are other local Mandarin congregations which still haven't had their retreat, though not being a member I would feel funny attending. Now to formulate regaining ground...may change the approach again.
Edited by Snowflake on 02 July 2009 at 3:30am
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irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6052 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese
| Message 140 of 740 29 June 2009 at 8:07am | IP Logged |
Are you going through a program now or some type of ruitine? Be sure not to fall out for too long...makes it way harder to jump back in.
Hope your health gets better. Health problems is definitely a justified study killer (ok, and a body killer too. that's whats important!).
加油!
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 141 of 740 30 June 2009 at 6:48am | IP Logged |
Am unsure what is meant here by program. I periodically think about taking class at a local Chinese school (weekend classes run by native Mandarin speakers to teach their kids the language and Chinese culture). This school teaches simplified characters. They also have classes for adults. I hesitate due to mental images of demotivating instruction, plus my job has been known to regularly intrude on Saturdays during certain periods. The upside is that this school is extremely large so I probably would be plugging into a large network of native speakers. Or is the reference to a program for my health?
I’m considering starting characters from scratch again, this time using Heisig. For some reason his stories stick better in my memory. Anyhow, part of the reasoning is that I supposedly know a decent amount of vocabulary so the characters do have a context. It also helps that the University of Hawaii Press is having a July 40% off sale. I already have the simplified character book, but not the one for traditional.
Edited by Snowflake on 30 June 2009 at 6:50am
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irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6052 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese
| Message 142 of 740 30 June 2009 at 10:37am | IP Logged |
I just meant; are you on a ruitine of some sort of daily study session (involving textbooks, SRS, whatever)? I saw you were using a textbook series before, right? If so, what is your ruitine right now? You are mainly working on speaking and listening, correct?
Yeah, Seattle has some of these Mandarin schools too. It seems that most big cities and the west coast have them. It gives me an idea to look back into those...
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 143 of 740 02 July 2009 at 3:30am | IP Logged |
My routine has basically collapsed in the past month and a half. Yes, I dropped characters and went to concentrating on speaking and listening when my health started acting up. Your comment about Chinese school is making me consider attending class there to push me. If I do that, I'd start back on learning characters and hopefully have a decent number under my belt before class starts. I have started back on finishing the last lesson and half in my romanization only text.
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Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin
| Message 144 of 740 04 July 2009 at 1:58am | IP Logged |
I've taken the plunge and signed up for the adult class at the local Chinese school. It's pretty large, 800+ students with 40-50 teachers. On their website, I counted 24 instructors teaching Chinese. I know about this place from a co-worker, the fellow from Jiangsu. Quite a while ago, he suggested the adult class there. It felt a little odd putting my Chinese name, in traditional characters, into the registration form since they teach simplified. I've started Heisig again, from the beginning. I also finally finished the 23rd lesson, out of 24, in my romanization only text.
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