Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Thu Jun 29, 2017 12:39 am

I am unsettled lately which probably is due to leaving for Taiwan very soon.

An exchange with one of my Taiwanese chat partners;
Me; 终于看完这视频。她的唱歌的声音非常好听!
Me; 可以说好听极了吗?
Him; 可以~不過是大陸的用法
Him: 比較普遍的用法是她的歌聲很美,或是歌聲非常好聽

好听极了is mainland usage, really?!

My tones used to be pretty decent but that has seriously deteriorated with slacking off chorusing/shadowing Glossika so am trying to push myself to work the material. I’m not trying to progress as much as review, so am using the shuffle function to choose files to work. Given the time off, I am starting a different progress bar to track repetitions.

Started to have more chats with the fellow (R) in Shenzhen… the conversations became less jolting once we started talking about raising our children. He was surprised that I can understand very fast speech barring lots of unknown vocabulary. R teaches English to children and honed in on my less than wonderful foundation which reflects my eclectic approach. He equates me to being a heritage learner from a Mandarin speaking family and is trying to convince me to study from the ground up using what seems to be a variation of how Mandarin is taught in the mainland to children. As a reminder, my family is Toishanese and doesn’t speak Mandarin at all. R seems to be trying hard to find mainland children’s material that will be palatable to me. He also not surprisingly draws a definite distinction between mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin. But something that continues to overshadow our chats are the cultural differences between the mainland and the west. It is extremely easy to have misunderstandings, much more so than with Taiwanese. This may be aggravated by me being ethnic Chinese. Anyhow, R plans to send books on learning characters with a point reading pen.

I was talking to an overseas born and educated person who is older than me. She speaks Cantonese and Toishanese though I don’t remember which is native for her. She has pretty much the same Mandarin goals and has been working at it as long or longer than me. She of course has the advantage of already knowing characters. She lamented the difficulties and expressed her frustration, for instance making tone mistakes. Native Mandarin speakers understand her but it’s still exasperating. I recently have been mulling about my goals so this conversation provides food for thought. Most of us language learners would like to speak like a native but I’m thinking that seems personally unrealistic.

: 1414 / 90000 Chorusing Using Glossika – Goal is 90,000 Repetitions (start June 2017)
: 76479 / 90000 Chorusing Using Glossika – Goal was 90,000 Repetitions (April 2016 to early 2017)
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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sat Aug 05, 2017 5:58 pm

Back from Taiwan and recovering from jet lag …. My less than wonderful Mandarin level is apparently sufficient for now so I should just keep moving forward and not bang my head so much. While there I had conversations with expatriate friends about their Mandarin and how to improve mine, interestingly studying grammar was discouraged or that aspect of my questions ignored. They seem to charge ahead and avoid using problematic grammar structures. This seems to be a practical solution in that they need to be able to function and continue with their lives.

I signed up for an AP class after mulling over things and rereading John Pasden articles on how he learned Mandarin. There are 3 local Chinese schools offering these classes; thankfully the costs are substantially less than a university course. The one I enrolled in lists the name as “Chinese AP and Adult Chinese” so hopefully there will be other adult students.

Am going to continue writing stories and getting those corrected/enhanced by an iTalki instructor, getting those recorded (probably by a mainlander) so the material can be chorused/shadowed.

I currently don't have a working MP3 player for various reasons, one being that my Windows 10 laptop doesn't recognize my iPhone and iPad. The upshot is that for now I can't chorus anything during my work commute.
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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:43 am

I was just chatting with my language exchange partner in Taiwan. Usually when I'm there we spend some time visiting but this time that wasn't possible. My back pack went missing at the high speed rail station the last day so we talked about that. I went to the information desk but had no luck recovering the bag. My chat partner pointed out that the information officer didn't pick up that I am not Taiwanese. That's a good thing!
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby tarvos » Sun Aug 06, 2017 12:38 pm

Thing is, I avoid most complicated Mandarin grammar structures too, but I usually get there in the end anyway. Tones is a matter of practice - six months in China has honed them quite a bit, but I still screw up here and there.

And yeah, there are plenty of things Taiwanese people don't say that the mainlanders do.
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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sun Aug 27, 2017 10:01 pm

Tarvos, thanks for the comment.
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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sun Aug 27, 2017 10:02 pm

Attended the first AP class.... an adult beginner signed up which presents a teaching conundrum for the instructor (class title is “Chinese AP and Adult Chinese”). Also the enrollment is extremely small so the instructor is concerned that the class may be cancelled. If that happens then my plan is to sign up for an AP class at another Chinese school. The one I have in mind hasn’t started classes yet.

In talking with the instructor at one point I was going to say the word for level most used by Taiwanese (程度) but switched at the last moment to what mainlanders usually say (水平) which resulted in using the wrong tones. Next time I’ll just go with the Taiwanese usage. The Mandarin speaking community here is a mix so doing that shouldn't be a huge problem.

I’m having some health issues lately which are affecting reestablishing a routine, have started chorusing Glossika again.

A song that caught my eye...

我不是機器人

作詞:徐世珍、吳輝福
作曲:王大文
編曲:王大文、蘇通達

終於踏上了回家的路
已經累得搞不清楚是幾點
老闆是種冷血的生物
我的努力他永遠也看不見

女友搬走了她的衣服
已經好幾天連電話都沒接
房間安靜得像個墳墓
付出的一切全都被她浪費

沒人說聲謝謝 理直氣壯的樣子
我不是 任你遙控的機器人
沒人說對不起 利用完畢就消失
我不是 不會傷心的機器人

我只盼望能一覺醒來
我的腦袋就不會再暈眩
甚至會有一個人來愛
不要把我留在世界的邊緣

沒人說聲謝謝 理直氣壯的樣子
我不是 任你遙控的機器人
沒人說對不起 利用完畢就消失
我不是 不會傷心的機器人

流血流汗流淚 誰問過我的意思
我不是 可以關掉的機器人
我也想要幸福 這樣難道很奢侈
是不是 我甚至不如機器人

是我沒有爭取 還是我不夠堅定
是不是 我甚至不如機器人
看看鏡中的我 蒼白到我不認識
就像是 沒有靈魂的機器人

現在改變自己 能不能重新做人


: 104 / 104 : 104 / 104 : 71 / 104 Glossika Fluency 123
: 5 / 104 Glossika Daily Life
: 1864 / 90000 Chorusing Using Glossika – Goal is 90,000 Repetitions (start June 2017)
: 76479 / 90000 Chorusing Using Glossika – Goal was 90,000 Repetitions (April 2016 to early 2017)
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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sat Sep 16, 2017 8:08 pm

Odds and ends…

We’re looking at moving. A lament is that the Mandarin speaking community where we move will be much smaller than the one here. The area that we’re leaning towards is close enough to here that I could occasionally visit my current Mandarin speaking groups.

The 深圳 language exchange partner sent a package which has floored me. There’s multiple books and a point reading pen.

I just purchased the Pleco version of the Hanyu Da Cidian (汉语大词典/漢語大詞典) and feel it was money well spent. I was showing it to a Shanghainese couple. The wife mentioned that a lot of native speakers can’t really use the 汉语大词典 as it’s too hard for them.

Am very happy with my AP Chinese class…. We have to prepare a 4-minute talk for each class and are not allowed to use notes when speaking. The instructor asks a good amount of questions that we have to answer ad hoc. Her corrections are gentle and pointed.

My overseas Taiwanese chat partner got a job with a Japanese company. The interview was mostly in English with some Japanese, no Chinese at all. This job requires moving to SE Asia and his work there will be conducted in English. I’ve been chatting with him since early 2010 and so have a good grasp of how he’s been approaching learning English as well his level. This and the AP class seems to be pointing me in the same direction, tackling subjects in Mandarin that I’ve been avoiding. Part of what I need to work out is how to gently do this to avoid mentally tuning out. That wouldn’t be an issue for most language learners. Anyhow, the AP instructor points out that subject matter knowledge in Mandarin needs to be broad though not necessarily deep for the test. And while I won’t be taking the AP test, the advice helps make things more palatable.

Was reading a novel and came across 在家从父,出嫁从夫,夫死从子. I ended up asking 2 different people what it meant. My overseas Taiwanese chat partner (in his 30’s) was clueless and thought it probably was a very old saying. Someone at work, a Taiwanese person who is in his early 50’s, maybe late 40’s, was able to explain it… when in the family then obey father, when married out of the family then obey husband, when husband is deceased then obey the son. What I found interesting is not the patrilineal expectation but that my overseas chat partner was unfamiliar with the phrase.
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:45 pm

I'm thinking this probably falls under regional differences....was talking to a native Mandarin speaker from the Philippines about a talk on 秦始皇帝陵 that I’m preparing for class. Interestingly she did not recognize Qín Shǐ Huángdì’s name. Then she talked about some Taiwanese say wang2 for huang2 which I disagreed with. She felt 皇 and 王 were the same and interchangeable. Someone from Macao and a mainland speaker explained the differences to her.

My AP Chinese class had a test where kids can win a trip to the mainland to attend some sort of camp there. Some examples of what the multiple choice questions touched on;
• The year the first bullet train in the mainland offered service
• The start and ending cities that bullet train served
• A Mao Zedong slogan/adage
• The year the British sailed into Shanghai and took control of the city
• The year the Opium War started
• The ethnic group that the qipao came from.
• The number of ethnic groups in the mainland.
• A senior military leader in the KMT
• Qing dynasty emperor Kang Xi's influence on Taiwan
• Taiwan being an island that grows lots of fruit
The exam question booklet had simplified characters along with pinyin. Everyone in my class, including the instructor felt the exam was very difficult. While I did not intend to take that test, it gave a sense of what some mainlanders would like 华裔 to be familiar with. That and the study material gives me a feel for how much I need to expand my vocabulary.

Unsure what happened but I was banned from the mylanguageexchange site after changing my profile to take out a blurb about contacting me later due to being overseas.

It appears that my Shenzhen chat partner has realized that Americans do not necessarily take well to what seems to be the typical mainland Chinese assertiveness. He’s been much more laid back recently.

I plan to attend the local Mandarin speaking conference this year which is held between Christmas and New Year’s day. In the past there has been anywhere from 400-1200 attendees. Generally, my listening comprehension at this conference is pretty poor due to vocabulary, including specialized vocabulary, though this years’ keynote speaker is someone whom I really like. He speaks in English so there will be Mandarin interpretation.

I asked friends to clarify a few phrases from a novel. My overseas Taiwanese chat partner said that the book uses some 文言文 (Classical Chinese) which took me aback. After that I used the 汉语大词典 more and then ran into a different issue....sometimes the 汉语大词典 can give a slant to the story which may not have been the authors intention. Practically it comes down to when to use a modern reading of the text vs relying more on the 汉语大词典.

Saying 800BC... 西元前八百年 and 西元前八零零年 would both work. These were given to me by a Taiwanese.
My mainlander friends are saying 公元前800年 so I'm trying to find out if this is a mainland/Taiwanese usage difference.
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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sun Oct 22, 2017 5:06 pm

I’m continuing to read the previously mentioned novel that uses some 文言文. Besides the usual trying to understand what various words mean, am running into allusions which have me doing a number of Google searches. At this point it seems expedient to do further research when a phrase seems even a little off.

Things are off kilter due to a death in the family…. will probably feel blah for a while. I have to respond to a decent number of handwritten Chinese notes, will probably become very familiar with the limits of Pleco’s OCR function. I’ve had to hand write some notes and used simplified though traditional characters would have been preferred. Have also missed some classes where I was supposed to talk about the 4 great inventions and traditional Chinese food. While I feel a little wistful missing class, having to use Chinese in real life is quite different. The expressions of support from my friends pretty consistently have used 节哀 and 节哀顺变. Pleco mentions that 节哀 is literary. Am at the point that I pretty much ignore whether a dictionary says something is literary, old, etc given what I'm seeing in actual usage.

I am not doing much in the way of language exchanges due to my personal circumstances.

800BC... 公元前800年 and 西元前800年 are both used in Taiwan but 西元前 is more commonly heard.
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sun Oct 29, 2017 5:38 am

Still out of kilter which also means that I'm somewhat grumpy.

In class we were talking about the Chinese Zodiac. Someone told the story of the animals going to the palace hall with the rat riding on top of the cow said that after they arrived, the rat 跳下来. I was told by my iTalki instructor, when preparing some islands to use in visiting Taiwan next year, that in this sort of context 去 should be used since I was not present. If I was there then 来 or 去 would be ok. So I asked about this in class.  They said either would work with the difference being whether the rat jumped and landed closer to the cow (跳下来) or jumped further (跳下去). There was no distinction about being present or not. I also asked my overseas Taiwanese chat partner. He agreed with my instructor.  So this may be a mainland/Taiwanese usage difference.  

I keep losing my list of mainland/Taiwanese usage differences, have had probably 5 different lists due to having to restart them.

My listening comprehension today for the short to medium length audio clips was pretty consistent at 70%. Once we got to long pieces the percentage drastically dropped. The students who grew up in Mandarin speaking families generally hit 90-100%

Update; should probably mention that the class instructor believes that the mentioned kids can easily pass HSK 4.
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