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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 193 of 740 18 December 2009 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
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My work project winded down this week...am really tired. I’ve started shadowing using the second text book. The vocabulary, from that book, has not been sticking so hopefully shadowing will help. Plus I hope shadowing will get me over my shyness in speaking.
Have run into something that makes me think that the Mandarin audio, for the Studium Biblicum version of the Bible, may have been recorded with speakers from Guangdong. Update; was looking at the title on the movie, "Up". I purchased the Taiwan edition which is called 天外奇迹 (tiān wài qíjì). On the vendor website, the Hong Kong edition is 冲天救兵(chōngtiān jiùbīng). Now am wondering whether the same Mandarin translation/script was used for the two editions. Edited by Snowflake on 19 December 2009 at 7:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 194 of 740 21 December 2009 at 8:50pm | IP Logged |
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I loaned “Up” to my instructor. She recently saw it in English but didn’t understand a lot of the movie due to the native speed speech. Given that she’s been in the US for about 17 years and is some sort of statistician (highly educated) her inability to fully understand English native speed speech in a kids’ movie is a motivator for me to continue transcribing my animated movies.
My ability to circumlocute in Mandarin is really lacking right now. Words I won't be using anytime soon, that show up often enough in movies and TV dramas; 殿下, diànxià, your highness 陛下, bìxià, Your Majesty; His or Her Majesty Edited by Snowflake on 22 December 2009 at 4:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 195 of 740 26 December 2009 at 7:55pm | IP Logged |
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Looks like I will be attending 2 1/2 – 3 days of a local conference that is mostly in Mandarin. It starts this weekend. I'll be going with some members of the small group that I regularly attend. Going through the conference website is interesting. Most of the characters are simplified with the schedule (大会节目表, dàhuì jiémù biǎo) and registration form (报名表, bào míng biǎo) using traditional. There is an English version of the registration form....I'm debating filling out the character version to get future communications in Chinese. Today I'm going to try to cram. I listened to site snippets from prior conferences and found that the recent movie transcribing seemed to pull my comprehension up a bit. Edited by Snowflake on 26 December 2009 at 9:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 196 of 740 31 December 2009 at 5:27am | IP Logged |
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Totally wiped, physically and mentally....I attended 3 days of the conference starting early, ending late plus 2 half days (51 hours in 5 days). Mandarin was used 99% of the time. There were about 3000 native speakers. After this, I really don't care what type of accent I end up with as long as it's not horrid and people can understand me. Edited by Snowflake on 31 December 2009 at 5:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 197 of 740 11 January 2010 at 7:41pm | IP Logged |
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he1 xi1bei3 feng1 (喝西北风)... drink the northwest wind, (slang) to have nothing
Next week we’re going to observe the AP class then have our own session afterward. My instructor was asked to temporarily substitute for the AP instructor which is in the same time slot as our class. Evidentally there are few instructors, in school, that can teach the AP class due to insufficient English skills. Per my instructor, last year pretty much all the AP students passed the test. She said those students are pretty fluent. They also all come from Chinese speaking families. Now I’m very curious about the AP material. Given my commitments and how my mind works (probably age), am finding that I cannot "equally" memorize both vocabulary and characters at the same time. Vocabulary is winning out at the expense of characters. Since vocabulary feeds into listening comprehension, that's the way it has to be unless I change to the AJATT approach which I do think about. There's something about looking at characters, usually during a hymn at church, hearing how the characters are pronounced and realizing what those words mean. Edited by Snowflake on 18 January 2010 at 12:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 198 of 740 13 January 2010 at 8:41pm | IP Logged |
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Starting this week, am home for probably the rest of the month as there is so much vacation that I have to take. Visiting my cousin in China right now just is not an option....soooo trying to really hit the Mandarin. I've been rather down about how much I still cannot understand. Well today I was listening to "Finding Nemo" and discovered that I understand probably 85% of it. Hooray for some things! I've also had to change the material that I'm transcribing. Since there are sections in the movies that I don't fully understand, I have to write the pinyin, look up words and piece things together. The movies I originally chose have a slight Taiwanese accent so getting it right was getting too fustrating. So I've switched to my Japanese anime movies, right now it's "Ponyo on The Cliff by The Sea". The accent is quite straight forward (think it is northeastern) and the subtitles generally match the dialog. This movie also has much less dialog so it should go faster. The only thing is that the subtitles use traditional characters as my copy is a Taiwan edition. Guess it is a good thing that when originally working with characters, I concentrated on 繁体字 (fántǐzì).
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 199 of 740 18 January 2010 at 12:15am | IP Logged |
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Miscellaneous thoughts in no particular order...
1.....When saying; yao4shi wo3 deng3dao4 ting1 de dong3 de shi2hou, jiu4shi shen2me dou1 ting1bu dong3 (要是我等到听得懂的时候,就是甚么都听不懂) the 等到 needs to be emphasized. Also the statement is too abstract for some people. I have to work on expanding that blurb. 2.....My Toishanese still is creeping into my Mandarin. This irratically affects the tones and pronunciation of specific words. Usually I catch it. If not then Mandarin speakers will correct me. So I am trying to avoid any audio that may have a Guangdong accent. That's a bit difficult as there's some material I really like which falls into that category. This is also interesting in that I do not really know Toishanese all that well. 3.....I have difficulty understanding a Hubei accent. What seems odd is that I consider the accent nondescript (doesn't make sense right now). 4.....I was talking with someone, from Shenyang in Liaoning province, who was studying for the GRE. Her study notes had the vocabulary words in all caps. She basically said she has great difficulties reading all caps. Guess it's like non-native Mandarin speakers trying to read "cursive" characters. 5.....There are now 3 people, in the small group that I usually attend, who said they will help me learn Mandarin. They are from Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan. The latter two have asked for help with their English. For all three, my Mandarin is better than their English. 6.....working through the use of 的话, dehua4. It is showing up in the Ponyo movie. I don't recall encountering it before. Edited by Snowflake on 19 January 2010 at 5:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 200 of 740 19 January 2010 at 5:42am | IP Logged |
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For fun, I've been taking the test at the Chinesepod site. The test periodically changes. There's something quirky about it though. I've taken it 3 times within the past week. Initially it said I was a high level beginner, then a low intermediate. Today it says I'm high intermediate. I cannot have not improved that quickly in one week.
I'm half-way thru the Ponyo movie and have added about 135 new entries to my SRS from the transcriptions. I'm really enjoying this approach at the moment. It would be nice to be able to transcribe some of my mainland DVDs but they start skipping when paused a lot. Thinking about checking out other classes at the Chinese school for more immersion like opportunities. Right now I'm wondering about the 太极 (Tai4 Ji2) class. Edited by Snowflake on 19 January 2010 at 5:47am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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