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Snowflake’s Mandarin Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| miltontong Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 6394 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: French | Message 217 of 740 08 February 2010 at 3:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Snowflake,
A lot of these Mandarin words and expressions that you talk about in your log are also in Taishanese. A few tips, - a lot of words that begin with a "d" sound in Mandarin/Cantonese have no consonant initial in Taishanese. - a lot of words that being with a "t" sound in Mandarin/Cantonese begin with an "h" sound in Taishanese. - a lot of words that have the third tone in Mandarin have the first (flat) tone in Taishanese - 快迟到了啦 kuai4 chídào le la "快" in this case is basically the same as "就來" (diu loi) in Taishanese. A lot of Mandarin expressions have Cantonese/Taishanese equivalents. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes  Studies: Mandarin | Message 218 of 740 08 February 2010 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I use a Wacom tablet with character recognition software, to force myself to write the characters. Lately though, I've been wondering whether to just to use the Windows IME.
Thanks
Have to laugh about this one... the "almost" is in the translation to be more literal as that's how my instructor translated 快. After posting, realized I should change it or at least add "/we'll be late." which is better English. Edited by Snowflake on 08 February 2010 at 4:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 219 of 740 08 February 2010 at 4:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I purposely separate Mandarin from my Toishanese otherwise they get jumbled together when I speak. My Toishanese is quite poor. It's so bad that even now my Mandarin is generally better than my Toishanese. Mandarin is also becoming my default Chinese language so that when talking with my mother on the phone, I have to make a conscious effort to not speak in Mandarin. That's not a concern when talking with her face to face. The mind is a funny thing. Mine generally has to single thread when initially learning something new. Once I'm comfortable enough with whatever it is that I'm learning, then multi-threading is fine. Thanks for the tips though. Assuming I'm not too old when my Mandarin gets to a comfortable level, I would like to learn Cantonese. Edited by Snowflake on 08 February 2010 at 10:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 220 of 740 09 February 2010 at 6:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Setting a personal target to be conversant by the end of spring/beginning of summer. Will have to see how achievable it is. An intense work project would likely throw that target out the door.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 221 of 740 09 February 2010 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, the pace has rachetted up. Talked to my overseas cousin again last night. Made mistakes though she still understood me. Probably have to call again for a follow up though this time the email didn't bounce. Have a phone call this week with a friend here who is from Shanghai. I'm working on lining up phone calls with friends to practice speaking and am looking at those who need help with their English from time to time (they're more patient). Right now I'm unsure how many times a week to shoot for given my schedule. The job is asking about availability for international projects and languages. Said that I know some Mandarin, but at this point do not want to say anything beyond that. Being ethnic Chinese, many native speakers expect me to have extremely good language skills. I'm posting so frequently mainly because all this is making me a bit nervous.
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| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 222 of 740 13 February 2010 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Chinese New Years Eve....feeling the tug of the two different Mandarin speaking small groups that I attend as both groups have meetings tonight. Also doing a bang head here. Been thinking, why did I set an artificial deadline? When I was actively training (dogs, rats, hermit crabs and chickens using ABA methods) artificial deadlines generally caused more problems than they were worth. I've also been assigned to a relatively short, but intense project at work. So am thinking through the logistics of putting steam on becoming conversant while working on this project. As it was, I was already mulling through juggling FSI, transcribing, conversing and story telling. The story telling, which was mentioned in a different post, is what is done in Toastmasters. Basically prepare a speech which happens to be a story, give the speech and get feedback. That should help engrain the vocabulary which I don't necessarily think of during actual conversation.
Update; Still unintentionally in the fast lane. The last email sent to my overseas cousin finally made it. Her response email is in traditional characters. I had written to her in simplified. My character knowledge is pretty weak so I heavily depend on online dictionaries. Edited by Snowflake on 13 February 2010 at 10:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 223 of 740 18 February 2010 at 6:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The new project is in full swing and already taking a good amount of time. Now it seems that I'm constantly trying to catch up in my SRS reviews.
After a lot of hesitancy, I tried a language exchange site and talked with someone in the mainland using Skype. Through that, I have a sense of how poor my spoken Mandarin really is. It seems that my friends here are used to bad accents and the unintentional use of English grammar. While they correct the grammar mistakes, it's hard for me, while talking to count how many of A and of B so as to actually see the pattern. Using one of the language exchange site features made plain some specific poor grammar habits. I am formulating a plan of attack for these things. Edited by Snowflake on 18 February 2010 at 6:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 224 of 740 21 February 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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There seems to be a decent number of Skype users looking for a significant other. So my profile was updated, on the language exchange site, to mention that I am married. This was in addition to originally mentioning that I am older. I'm beginning to wonder how many people read the profiles. The other thing is after making some corrections on English exercises, which non-Mandarin speakers submitted on that site, I'm getting requests from other individuals asking me to correct their English exercises. Anyhow, I can definitely see how chatting on Skype with the online dictionary available and the ability to write notes without people getting impatient is a huge help. I already have several friends here that fit that bill...adding a few more is extremely helpful.
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