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Lorinth’s log - 劳伦的博客 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4062 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 193 of 408 05 December 2013 at 9:43am | IP Logged |
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I've listened (repeatedly) to, and read the transcript of, a short Slow Chinese podcast about the word 给力. I've read a bit more of 《蓝莲花》, one of the most interesting 《丁丁历险记》, not least because it is a well-informed story that happens in China in the 1930s. I've (again) watched 《三峡好人》, a haunting, slightly surrealistic, movie about two persons looking for their lost partner in a town that is being demolished and submerged during the building of the three gorges dam. A very good film, but most of the language was opaque to me. If it were not for the subtitles, I wouldn't have understood much. Granted, certain characters do not seem to speak textbook 普通话. But still. I've (again) started L/Ring 余华's 《活着》. I'm not convinced that such a method can help me in any way. My first impression is that, although I've read the book (in Chinese) before, I don't understand much of the audio and, even if it is not terribly fast, I often don't have the time to decode the characters at the pace to which they are read. But I want to try anyway, because I'm curious. And I'd love to be proven wrong. As far as my vocab drills are concerned, I've had no problem studying my Pleco lists and I've started climbing the hill of my Skritter queue, but I'm behind on my Anki audio deck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4062 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 194 of 408 09 December 2013 at 9:25am | IP Logged |
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As I had to drive a bit this weekend, I had the opportunity to work on a new, quite difficult, Chinesepod upper intermediate podcast about 香灰水、放血 and other interesting 土办法. I also worked on a (quite easy) SlowChinese podcast about 微博的力量. And I started yet another one (more difficult) about the word 土豪. The day before, I had also worked on an (easy) slow Chinese podcast about 马可•波罗. I have fond memories of reading his "Description of the world", 20 years ago. Probably that was one of the books which contributed eventually to my decision to start learning Chinese. On 南都网 I read an article about a couple travelling the world using bitcoins only: "美国新婚夫妇全靠比特币漫游世界101天". Link I continued listening/reading 余华's 《活着》 and reading some pages of《蓝莲花》, and also the first few pages of 莫言's《红高粱家族》just for the heck of it. No Skrittering this weekend (as usual), and no Anki (argh), but I faithfully studied my Pleco lists. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4062 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 195 of 408 10 December 2013 at 9:32am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday, I watched 白蛇传说: fantasy, humour, kung fu, romance, impossible love, special effects galore - and above all, fantastically good-looking she-demons, what else could you hope for? 白蛇传说 I read an article about Swedes using less and less cash and more and more credit cards. That trend has interesting effects for certain professions, for instance street sellers and thieves: "一名犯罪嫌疑人闯入斯德哥尔摩一家银行， � �图实施抢劫，最后发现这是一家没有现金的 �� �行，只得空手而逃。" Article Apart from that, I also read/listened a bit more of 活着 and I played catch-up with my Skritter character backlog. [Edit] The fact that the HTLAL site does not manage Chinese characters correctly has an interestig side effect: I've just created a new form of Cloze list learning. Read my log and guess which Chinese characters have been replaced with black boxes! :-) Edited by lorinth on 10 December 2013 at 9:35am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4062 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 196 of 408 11 December 2013 at 9:13am | IP Logged |
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Not much yesterday. I listened to a Slow Chinese podcast about 福倒. Finally, I know why they hang these 福 signs upside down. Late at night, I watched episode 4 of 魔幻手机. Now that the plot is becoming thicker, the fact that I don't understand much of the dialogues is becoming more annoying. I didn't have time to read anything. Usual vocab drills with Skritter (characters), Pleco (words) and Anki (audio sentences). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4062 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 197 of 408 13 December 2013 at 8:31am | IP Logged |
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Once more, I'm looking for a Chinese novel that is: good, relatively easy to read for a learner forever stuck at a more or less intermediate level such as yours truly, and not too long because of my sluggish pace. Any idea? Recently, I've read the first few pages of Mo Yan's 《红高粱家族》. I've read the book in French before, so I know what to expect, and I know that I liked it, but the vocab is a tiny bit too advanced for my laziness. Or I might try 《师傅越来越幽默》, because it's a collection of shorter texts... Anyway, first, I should finish listening/re-reading Yu Hua's 《活着》. I revised a ChinesePod lesson about a shady 老板 and a nosy 会计, i.e. I copied the sentences by hand, translated and retranslated them and added those words I didn't know well yet to today's Pleco list. I worked on three SlowChinese podcasts: about 春运 (easy), about 老百姓的百家姓 (easy) and 筷子 (longer and not so easy). I read some more of 蓝莲花. Daily vocab drills with Pleco (words), Skritter (characters) and, sometimes, Anki (audio sentences). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4062 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 198 of 408 17 December 2013 at 11:46am | IP Logged |
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Nothing conclusive these last few days. Apart from the usual vocab drills with Pleco and Skritter, I read some articles about Ukraine and about tens of thousand of people recruited by a Dutch company to go and live (forever) on Mars. I've started work on yet another Slow Chinese podcast, this time about the 四大名著. I've read (in translation, of course) one of them in full (水浒传) and half of another one (西游记). The third one sits on my shelf (三国演义) but I've never started reading it because, somehow, it seems wrong to spend long stretches of time to read that in French while I'm struggling to find time to learn Mandarin. Ah, and I've also read (and liked) the French version of 金瓶梅, often named the "fifth" 大名著. I've read a few pages of Mo Yan's 《师傅越来越幽默》 and then a few pages of 天下霸唱's 《鬼吹灯》. Which one, if any, am I going to read in full? I don't know yet. Info (in EN) about 《鬼吹灯》. I took stock of my Chinese-related activities in 2014 in "Chinese forums". 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4062 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 199 of 408 18 December 2013 at 9:20am | IP Logged |
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I've read the first two chapters of 《鬼吹灯》 and up to now the story is surprisingly entertaining and well-written. The first chapter firmly belongs to the long and proud tradition of Chinese ghost stories, of which I've read quite a lot in translation before (e.g. a French version of Pu Songling's tales). The second chapter takes a more picaresque turn, with the hero befriending an opium addict rat that's also a thief. I can't wait to read the 3rd chapter. I've been working on a Chinesepod podcast about a QQ account 被盗了. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4062 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 200 of 408 19 December 2013 at 12:21pm | IP Logged |
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An interesting article about the author of 《鬼吹灯》 and the world of Chinese online fiction: Link I found the link on the EN Wikipedia page about the book, where I also learned that "the [printed version of the] book had to be rewritten to remove references to the supernatural before it could be released". I'm puzzled. What on earth could be the reason? As far as I'm aware, Chinese literature has always been full of ghost stories. The bookshelves of Beijing display Harry Potter prominently. So what could be the explanation? I checked chapter 1 with the preview function of Amazon and, yes, the ghost story disappears (quite fittingly?) in the printed version. As chapter 3 uses even more supernatural forces, I wonder what's left on the paper version? Wikipedia Edited by lorinth on 19 December 2013 at 12:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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