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Towards Mandarin fluency - Team 鹊 TAC’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5655 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 41 of 69 25 February 2014 at 7:13pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the link, Ninibo. When i finish 撒哈拉的故事 i'll probably try reading one of those books.
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| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 3806 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 42 of 69 25 February 2014 at 9:33pm | IP Logged |
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Awesome! You know, 撒哈拉的故事 has been on my to be read list since the beginning,but somehow i keep postponing it. I definitely want to get to it after i finish this series. I read some of Sanmao's short stories and really liked them. I especially find reading her perspective on different countries and customs interesting, because her point of view is different from mine. How are you liking it so far? I know you wrote you already got through some chapters.
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5655 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 43 of 69 26 February 2014 at 1:09am | IP Logged |
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It's interesting, though there are definitely some things that are hard to swallow, like the way she talks about one of her friends' daughters getting married off at the ripe old age of 10 and writes it off as a "风俗". The writing is pretty simple and overall i'd say i'm enjoying it, though it does have it's ups and down as a lot of times it feels like you're just reading her diary. On the whole i'm enjoying it and i'll probably come back to read more of her stuff later, if that says anything. Anyway, i've only read a third of the stories so far (there are 12 altogether) so there's still quite a long ways to go.
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| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 3806 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 44 of 69 26 February 2014 at 8:48am | IP Logged |
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Yeah, i heard a lot of people saying that sometimes she's too naive and accepts everything, but i think part of it also might be the time this was written. I guess getting married at ten years old really was a social custom sometimes.. I'll see, i hope i like it as much as her personal essays, i usually can take some degree of naivety and accidental racism until i have to close the book.
Btw, there's a 锵锵三人行 episode about a book written about Sanmao from one of her friends called 我留有三毛生前最后一封信, it can be found on youtube Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The whole video with transcript can be found here. Sometimes i can't get the video to load, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 3806 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 45 of 69 28 February 2014 at 8:53pm | IP Logged |
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I just finished the first book in the 第十二夜 series by 璇儿. Having read the fourth first meant that there were one or two twists that i already saw coming, because i already knew which of the characters were still alive in volume four. It also centers around the same protagonists, the policeman Cheng Qisi and his partner Zhong Chenxuan, a psychologist. They meet in this one and i can see the differences in their relationship compared to the fourth volume.
Still, it was a fast and really enjoyable read. I think it was a little harder to follow than the fourth, because there were a lot more named characters and different interwoven plots. But it definitely kept my interest and there were certain scenes where i had to keep reading, even though i already reached my daily page count. I also think that the murder plot in every book centers around a certain theme, in the fourth it was flowers and in the first it is Art/ Beauty. I'm curious if the second volume follows the same pattern. The second volume is called 第十二夜-万灵节之死. With this i have reached 1254 pages. Since tomorrow is already March, here's how my plans for February turned out: -Translate three songs ---> I did, i'll post the third translation tomorrow. -read at least 835 pages (thats's the monthly amount needed to reach 10000 pages by december, i'm already a bit behind though) ---> I read 802 pages this month, which is slightly less than i wanted, but there's still enough time to reach my goal by the end of the year. -do the challenge for the chinese team ---> Yep. -go through ten news articles ---> Yep. -watch ten hours of chinese TV ---> Forgot to count... I don't think i reached that goal, though, i had a lot of exams this month. I'll do better next month. Now i have to think about what goals i want to set for March and what i want to do for the March challenge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 3806 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 46 of 69 28 February 2014 at 8:56pm | IP Logged |
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I just finished the first book in the 第十二夜 series by 璇儿. Having read the fourth first meant that there were one or two twists that i already saw coming, because i already knew which of the characters were still alive in volume four. It also centers around the same protagonists, the policeman Cheng Qisi and his partner Zhong Chenxuan, a psychologist. They meet in this one and i can see the differences in their relationship compared to the fourth volume.
Still, it was a fast and really enjoyable read. I think it was a little harder to follow than the fourth, because there were a lot more named characters and different interwoven plots. But it definitely kept my interest and there were certain scenes where i had to keep reading, even though i already reached my daily page count. I also think that the murder plot in every book centers around a certain theme, in the fourth it was flowers and in the first it is Art/ Beauty. I'm curious if the second volume follows the same pattern. The second volume is called 第十二夜-万灵节之死. With this i have reached 1254 pages. Since tomorrow is already March, here's how my plans for February turned out: -Translate three songs ---> I did, i'll post the third translation tomorrow. -read at least 835 pages (thats's the monthly amount needed to reach 10000 pages by december, i'm already a bit behind though) ---> I read 802 pages this month, which is slightly less than i wanted, but there's still enough time to reach my goal by the end of the year. -do the challenge for the chinese team ---> Yep. -go through ten news articles ---> Yep. -watch ten hours of chinese TV ---> Forgot to count... I don't think i reached that goal, though, i had a lot of exams this month. I'll do better next month. Now i have to think about what goals i want to set for March and what i want to do for the March challenge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 3806 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 47 of 69 03 March 2014 at 8:45pm | IP Logged |
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I'm almost through with 第十二夜-万灵节之死. The first chapter was really confusing, because it starts out as a ghost story narrated by an unknown first person narrator. That said, in the first chapter our favorite policeman Cheng Qisi shows up and we learn that he's on an extended vacation after the events of the previous book. He meets a writer of ghost stories named Yi Xue in a cafe and it turns out she's the narrator of the aforementioned ghost story. They chat and after some time and another ghost-ish story she invites Qisi to accompany her to a reunion with people she did an internship at a water power plant with. They meet at that power plant, which is pretty remote and hard to access. Then the first person dies.
I was right about every murder case having some sort of theme or pattern, in this book the murders have something to do with the victims' uni majors. Again, it's an enjoyable and fast read and so far, i have really no idea who the murderer is and what the ghost stories have to do with it. I also noticed, that the only recurring characters seem to be Cheng Qisi and Zhong Chenxuan (so far, he is only mentioned in this), anyone else seems to be introduced for one book and then forgotten. When they are female, the either turn out to be the culprit, a helper or the victim. Most of them are very, very pretty. Like, really pretty. We'll see, i'm not finished yet, maybe some of the policepeople turn up later. For the March challenge i decided to learn 100 chengyu, because about three a day seems pretty okay. I'm mostly aiming for passive understanding here, save a few very common ones. No other goals yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ninibo Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 3806 days ago 88 posts - 116 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 48 of 69 05 March 2014 at 8:58am | IP Logged |
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I finished 第十二夜-万灵节之死 yesterday evening. Now i can definitely say that each volume so far can also be read out of order or on its own, because even if you don't know what happened before the book gives you enough to work it out and the cases in the books don't really have anything to do with each other except the one in the first book).
So this book had a strong suggested supernatural element to it, we are supposed to believe that this might be the work of a ghost. It also has the highest body count and highest amount of red herrings so far. On the one hand i wasn't really surprised by who turned out to be the culprit, but i still think there are glaring plot holes. The reason for the murders was disappointing, because it had nothing to do with what had happened, there were no hints leading up to this, it felt like someone suddenly pulling a rabbit out of their hat... Anyway, it was a fun read and i liked the ghost story element, even though they were a lot of questions left unanswered. And there were lots and lots of lucky coincidences, convoluted schemes and people being idiots. Anyway, the third book is called 第十二夜-天方夜谭 and this time Zhong Chenxuan hopefully makes an appearance and some leftover questions from book one get resolved. I'll keep you posted. I'm now at 1429 pages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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