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Muddling through in TAC ’10 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6281 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 25 of 95 26 January 2010 at 10:36pm | IP Logged |
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How'bout "A dictionary of MaQiao"? That's going to be my first book in non-simplified Modern Chinese, and it's a really popular modern Chinese novel, despite the name. Also, entries are typically quite short, and you can easily acquire an English version for side-by-side reading.
If you're looking for something easier, go for a book that has been translated to Chinese, preferably one that you've read before in English. For example The Little Prince (really easy) or Harry Potter (not as easy) - for those you could also get Chinese audiobooks. I am using the audiobook versions of these as a way to review chapters that I've read before, and also to improve my listening comprehension. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5317 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 26 of 95 27 January 2010 at 12:37am | IP Logged |
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I actually don't know anything about that first book you mentioned (A Dictionary of
MaQiao) or its author, so maybe I will do exactly that! I want to at least find a sample online so that I can see what the writing is like. ;) Thanks for the suggestion! Looking at my shelves, I'm surprised to find that I actually own a couple Chinese translations, for example what appears to be Borges' Ficciones rendered in Mandarin. So go figure. Comparing these translations to their English counterparts might be an interesting exercise too... ETA: Here is the Dangdang page for 马桥词典 for anyone who is as curious as I am. There are some reviews at the bottom of the page. http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=8841662 Edited by annette on 27 January 2010 at 6:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5317 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 27 of 95 27 January 2010 at 1:19am | IP Logged |
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Okay. I've decided to continue looking for excerpts from 马桥词典 on the internet, and
if by some miracle I see it around for a decent price, I'll happily buy it up. In the meantime, however, I will start with Ba Jin's Jia. A couple reasons: 1. I have been meaning to read this book ever since I first learned of it. 2. Ba Jin was the first Chinese author I ever read in the original (a short essay), so the idea of reading one of his novels appeals to me on a sentimental level too. 3. In the past I have only read minor works by Ba Jin, namely a lot of short stories and a novella. Based on those impressions, I was not very excited about Ba Jin. But I don't think it would be fair of me to write him off without at least tasting his masterpiece first. 4. Most importantly, I have a copy in my hands at this very moment!! :) I will not be using an English translation because I don't have one. I suppose that if I get too confused, I can always borrow a copy from the library. http://product.dangdang.com/product.aspx?product_id=20513789 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5317 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 28 of 95 03 February 2010 at 12:39am | IP Logged |
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A new reason why I should post regularly: it took me far too long to find this darn
thread!!! This week has been stressful to say the least. I did not get much language study done at all. But I did manage to locate a copy of Maqiao Cidian... ;) As a bonus, here are some relatively inoffensive words for 'breasts' that I've heard recently, mostly from Taiwanese people: xiong1bu4 胸部, hai3 mi1 mi1, nai3 nai, bo1ba4 (that's where 'boba naicha' comes from!). Not sure how common that last is nowadays, but I did hear it... Xiong1bu4 is by far the most formal. Useful words, I know, but this is the kind of thing my brain remembers instead of things like 'to delegate' or 'activist.' 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5317 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 29 of 95 04 February 2010 at 10:58pm | IP Logged |
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As mentioned in previous posts, another language I am currently studying is Modern
Standard Arabic. (Don't worry, this will probably be my only post about Arabic study as I like to keep my logs ORGANIZED!) Today, I decided to spend some time catching up on Arabic, as I haven't really spent enough time on the stuff for quite a while. I quickly found myself stuck at an unknown word. No problem! That's what the dictionary is for! I grabbed my Hans Wehr (fourth printing, kids) and started looking up the darn word. 30 minutes later, I ended up throwing my dictionary against the wall in frustration and nearly ripped the cover off (sorry, not very patient). For your amusement and edification, here are some of my failed attempts to look up the word ترامت, with varying degrees of desperation/impossibility: - present tense 3rd fem sing or 2nd masc sing, with root as ر م ت and form فاعل - past tense 1st sing/2nd sing/3rd fem sing, with root as ر م م and form تفاعل - "", with root as ر أ م and form تفاعل (!!) - "", with root as ر إ م and form تفاعل - "", with root as ر م م and form تفاعل - "", with root as ر ا م and form تفعل - "", with root as ر و م and form تفعل - "", with root as ر أ م and form تفعل et cetera. We can deduce from all this that 1) I obviously don't know الفعل الاجوف rules very well, among other things, and that 2) I seriously need to learn inner peace. By the way, the damn thing ended up being الفعل النا قس: - past tense blah blah, with root ر م ي and form تفاعل On the bright side, thanks to the HUGE UGLY TEAR along the inner spine of my Hans Wehr, leaving the poor cover flapping free, I now feel justified in purchasing a new dictionary... perhaps a paperback Hans Wehr this time, something flexible and hardy and, dare I say it, more recent than the old fourth printing... Edited by annette on 05 February 2010 at 9:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5317 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 30 of 95 05 February 2010 at 5:01am | IP Logged |
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. Edited by annette on 06 February 2010 at 11:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| annette Senior Member United States Joined 5317 days ago 164 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English* | Message 31 of 95 14 February 2010 at 12:42am | IP Logged |
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Hey, sorry for the lack of updates, life has been really chaotic for me right (as those
of you who saw my deleted post know) and I haven't had much time to work on Chinese. By way of apology, have a blurry cell-phone picture of the Chinese learning section at my college bookstore... 
The two shelves that have been partially cropped out of the picture are also for Chinese learning but mostly house dictionaries and Chinese language books as opposed to learner texts. ETA: I also seem to have become something of an amateur Atamagaii spotter. Ironically, I've only exchanged one PM with the man and have read only a fraction of his posts (given that so many were deleted by moderators and that I came to HTLAL so late in the game). Last time I caught sight of him, the account was taken down after about a week, so we'll see how fast administrator reacts this time around... I actually really enjoy Atamagaii's wit, not to mention his thoughts on L-R, and I would be delighted if he could stay with us for good. But that's probably not going to happen. Edited by annette on 14 February 2010 at 2:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6281 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 32 of 95 14 February 2010 at 10:37am | IP Logged |
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Wow, that entire section is about learning Chinese?? Maybe I should visit...
I live not too far from Berlin's largest bookstore, which has a lot of shelves on language-learning. However, Chinese only makes up a few rows of it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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