Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Thu Jan 28, 2016 2:34 am

Personal laptop is on the fritz, puts a crimp into things.

More phrases from that book....I passed several sentences by my Taiwanese chat partner that were giving me trouble. The first sentence below is one that I had cadence concerns with. My Taiwanese chat partner said it’s a commonly spoken phrase and then gave me the two others.
風大到 連走路都很難
壓力大到 連睡覺都很難
雨大到 連騎機車都很難
There should be a slight phase between 到 and 連.

This is one is so short that I keep messing it up
今天气温降了很多
He said this sentence is commonly used and praised its shortness.

Purchased 2 more phrase books, “全世界都在用的英語旅遊會話8000” and “我的第一本英文萬用會話10000”.

If you're into dramas with historical settings, check this one out
www.youtube.com/watch?v=X337arDKgJg&lis ... vkDiJUYwpz
In English it's "Nirvana in Fire". The drama is based on the book 琅琊榜. Both the drama and the book are highly rated. I'm aware of 2 online fan attempts to translate the book into English but those are only at chapter 6 or so. This will give a flavor for it...
https://time4drama.wordpress.com/c-dram ... %E6%A6%9C/
The book is not a romance though I understand the drama stuck one in.
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snowflake
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sat Feb 13, 2016 4:00 am

Things are going on which are putting a crimp in "studying". I didn't get any recordings done for the output challenge in the past week or so and expect the pace will get even slower.

I’ve starting listening again to the Studium Biblicum version of the Bible which is a Catholic translation.

“全世界都在用的英語旅遊會話8000” has been replaced with a new edition called "環遊世界必備英語會話". Hopefully the audio CD for the new edition has both Mandarin and English like the older one reportedly has. I had to write emails back and forth about the books using traditional characters (Taiwanese book seller). The phraseology used by the book seller is not 日常对话 which makes it a bit more difficult for me and of course the lunar New Year holiday slows down things.

Still haven't gotten around to placing a order with mainland Amazon even though I've been talking about doing that since Thanksgiving (late Nov).

春节快乐
新年快樂
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Fri Feb 19, 2016 10:19 pm

Am recovering from a medical procedure so in addition to being antsy, I’m homebound for a while. In my current state of mind I’ve been mulling about finding an iTalki tutor to practice conversation or an instructor to fill in gaps. And then I look at my usual schedule. Between my Mandarin speaking groups and my overseas language exchange partner, I verbally interact with native speakers Sun, Wed, Fri and Sat. Recording for the output challenge has usually consisted of practicing/drilling phrases or doing drills from a textbook, and that doesn’t leave any extra time. I suspect some people would abandon doing the output challenge recordings in favor of actual conversations though since I can get native speakers to correct my recordings, and making the recordings sort of functions as a drill, the recordings are more important for me.

Started back doing recordings for the output challenge… am trying to have some fun and am singing along with various songs such as the pop version of “Let It Go”.

Got my books. "環遊世界必備英語會話" does come with MP3 audio in both English and Mandarin. The Mandarin voice is female. There is 23 ½ hours of audio so I’m pretty happy. If anyone is interested, search on the book title at http://www.kingstone.com.tw/Default.asp. The website is in traditional Chinese. If there is an English viewing option then I’ve missed that. Anyhow there are 10-15 preview pages available from the book. Between the sentence constructions and needing to be able to read traditional characters, this is not a book for people just starting Mandarin. I’ve started flipping through the book trying to decide where to start chorusing and/or shadowing.
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Mon Mar 14, 2016 10:14 pm

I’m too tired to do much of anything for the time being.... was nicely given the riot act by the doctors’ office that I'm not allowing my body to heal. I’ve been doing some reading and listening but really do not have any sort of attention span. Other than Skype language exchanges, my Mandarin activity lately is passive. I've been watching some dubbed Korean dramas such as “Lie To Me”, “Coffee Prince”, and “My Lovely Sam-Soon”. I've also been doing some translation into English of a book that my language exchange partner said is 很文学. In English, he used the word poetic to describe the books' 说法.

When talking to my chat partner recently was trying to remember a phrase that I had been repeating for a month (Jan) as part of the output challenge. So about a month after stopping doing the recordings I could not remember phrases. What does that say about my ability to remember things?! I’ve known that I need continual repetition over an extended period of time to be able recall things. The repetition includes hearing and speaking. Something else is that I should do is repetitions while vigorously walking ala Alexander Arguelles shadowing approach. Today I encountered this article which lends credence to that idea http://news.yahoo.com/kids-who-exercise ... 02376.html.

My plane tickets to visit Taiwan this year have been purchased. I’ll be again joining a group of US friends so this will not be an immersion trip.
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Mon Apr 04, 2016 9:40 pm

My usual Taiwanese language exchange partner (S) interviewed with an American company via Skype. S thought the interview went poorly. So when the American manager, who is geographically in the US, said that a face-to-face follow up interview would be arranged in about 2 weeks and included a good amount of detail regarding that, S thought he was being polite. It evidently is common in Taiwan to talk about arranging a follow up interview for the sake being polite but not actually doing that. Given the details the American manager gave about the follow up, if it was an interview here in the US there would be egg on the company’s face if that follow up was not arranged … talk about cultural differences.

S and I also talked a little about a TV mainland produced drama on YouTube called 钱多多炼爱记 which I started watching. It is really odd so I ended up doing a Google search and found that it’s a satire. I mentioned this to S in English. For the word satire, he came up with 讽刺 which to me is irony or ironic, and a bit different than satire. I was talking to someone about this and he thought that I’d have to know Chinese literary tradition to understand what Chinese mean by 讽刺. Something else mentioned was that as part of post-modernism, the definitions of ironic, irony, and satire are changing in the west.

The above 2 items and my problems remembering vocabulary, grammar, etc. prompted me to look for an additional language exchange partner. I had my first chat with her late last week, a Taiwanese student. I was originally trying to avoid students as being old enough to be their mother makes for difficulties finding common topics of interest. What helped was that her major is very closely related to what I studied in school and that I’ve been to Taiwan several times. I’m unsure how this will work out long term but am hopeful. To help with vocabulary repetition I’m looking at putting together a topic list to repeatedly cycle through.

Sort of a lecture here…..For people who are frustrated with the difficulties in finding language exchange partners, I have been talking with S since the beginning of 2010. Keep trying and chalk up things that don’t work out so well as lessons in trying to connect with people, cultural differences, and individual preferences. Something else to consider is that Taiwan is culturally closer to the west than mainland China. IOW, it may be easier to talk long term with a Taiwanese speaker. Pretty much anyone who studies Mandarin, in the end, has to be able to deal with both mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin.
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Thu Apr 07, 2016 9:46 pm

I purchased the Glossika Fluency 123 modules, mainland version. Basically after listening to an online sample clip, I felt it would work nicely as comprehensible input and for drilling. Recording phrases from “美國家庭萬用親子英文” is good though working through cadence and making a “good recording” made it feel like I plunged into the deep end of the pool and was spending too much time treading water. I’ll get back to that phrase book later. The Glossika 说法 is slightly different than what I’m used to as well as some of the vocabulary choices. That’s a good thing. Glossika’s use of classifiers looks extremely good; They are not using 个 when another classifier can be used. It may seem small but now-a-days I hip hip hooray about these sort of things. Their intense study approach includes dictation which I did like scriptorium though using pinyin since my ability to hand write characters is next to non-existent. However I found myself visualizing the pinyin while speaking which was not the case when working Chinese phrase books, so dictation is out. After thinking that routine was pretty much settled, realized that for people like me who have problems remembering that instead the recommendation is to work the GSR files. There are 104 GSR files per level which are labeled as day 1, day 2, etc. So now I need to work through what that routine will be like. I hope to make it through a lot of the program before going overseas this summer.

Given one of the cities I will visit in Taiwan this summer, there are some sections in "環遊世界必備英語會話" that should be worked.

Yesterday due to having a headache, I recorded myself singing as part of trying to “have fun” instead of drilling.
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sat Apr 09, 2016 8:04 pm

Mulling about whether I really want to accelerate the pace to get through the Glossika material so that I'm say half way through before my overseas trip this summer. Basically time is an important factor in memory retention so is it really wise to push and work multiple files daily? Am looking through the phrases in "環遊世界必備英語會話" and not finding quite what I was hoping for. Basically due to a number of factors, I have to navigate the Taiwan bus system.

In case anyone studying Taiwanese is interested; http://www.bible.is/NANTTV/Mark/1/D
It's a Taiwanese Bible with audio, which I came across.
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Tue Apr 26, 2016 4:57 pm

I’ve started back to working in the office. With my body still healing, there are a lot of things that aren’t getting done.

Was having some motivation issues which was probably due to swimming in certain aspects of Chinese culture which I am less than fond of that are portrayed in novels and recently came up in news items.... Getting back to attending both my Mandarin speaking groups really helped with the motivation.

I’m dusting off a blurb that was put together for last years’ trip to Taiwan but in the end used English to tell the story. The Mandarin translation was originally done by a friend from Shanghai who majored in Chinese. The story was then reworked by my regular Taiwanese chat partner. Before I was going to present it in Mandarin (in Taiwan) several people looked at the text and had an immediate rather cold reaction to the 说法, “Who translated this?” So with what happened I’ve asked a couple, in Taiwan, to rework it for this trip. In the meanwhile, I’ve started working again with the original mainland 说法 which thankfully I also have audio for. Part of me wants to moan about why this is so complicated but then the cross strait relationship is quite strained right now.

Lately I’ve been watching/listening to short news clips from www.facebook.com/chinatimes.com.tw/
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Sun May 01, 2016 10:46 pm

My introduction to Chinese humor, which I don’t really get..... Last weekend when I made it to my Sun Mandarin speaking group, J who is from Hong Kong was walking by the group I was in and started razzing me about not being there for a while. J was also speaks Mandarin. My reply mentioned having a medical procedure. J did not understand as I made a mistake and said 受了手术 instead of 接受了手术. The native Mandarin speakers understood me and explained it to J. Then J responded; I heard her say mei2si4. I usually don’t talk with J in Mandarin and am unfamiliar with her accent. I thought she said 没死 and used an incorrect tone. I responded with 我还活着. The native Mandarin speakers all burst out laughing. A native speaker explained to me that J asked 你没事吧? They all understood that I thought J said 你没死吧? I later told my language exchange partner and he burst out laughing. He too understood that I thought J said 没死. Evidently this is extremely funny. Today at the group meeting they talked about another play on words. The person speaking, laughed while looking at me, bringing up 我还活着. Once more they all had a very hearty laugh.
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Re: Snowflake's Mandarin Log - Continued

Postby snowflake » Tue May 17, 2016 5:32 pm

Ramblings as I think through various things...

I’ve been looking at some usage in the mainland Mandarin version Glossika which got me thinking about 打电话给我 vs 给我电话打电. I generally equate the former with Taiwanese Mandarin though have sometimes seen it in novels written by mainland authors. My habit is to say 给我电话 which results in being corrected when talking with Taiwanese. Saying 打电话给我 to my mainlander friends generally results in a silent pause as they’re probably trying to decide whether to correct me.

The above plus drilling numbers brought to mind something that happened last year in Taiwan when paying at a 自助餐. I heard the shop owner say 一百一 so I gave her 101. She shook her head. Looking at the cash register I saw 110. Afterward I asked a Taiwanese friend who explained that they say 一百一 due to reading the numbers that appear on the cash register. Once back in the US, I was talking to a Shanghainese friend and mentioned the incident. He was a little taken aback and said that in the mainland 一百十 is used for 110, 101 is 一百零一. He told me to go ahead and ask someone else what 一百一 is (that group is all mainlanders). So I asked a person who walked by. Her reaction was a slightly weird expression and that 一百零一 is 101. When I mentioned the cash register incident at my other Mandarin speaking group, someone there said that 110 is 一百一十. The person who said that is from Macau. He functions at C1/C2 in Mandarin and often does translation between Mandarin, Cantonese and English for group meetings. Thinking about this now, I wonder if he says 一百一十 for clarity. That group has people from various places in SE Asia.

Given my horrid memory I am doing a lot of thinking about the particulars of maintaining/reviewing material. When using Anki it felt like that all I ever did was SRS reviews. And while looking around, I read that as we grow older, repetitive memory weakens and associative memory becomes stronger, sigh.

I’m at day 40ish of using Glossika GSR audio and sometimes recording myself working the material. I sort of see Glossika GSR as Pimsleur on a ton of steroids. The pattern drilling is helpful. Before purchasing Glossika, I looked again at using FSI but was annoyed for instance hearing an English explanation of 走. Unfortunately in all this, doing recordings for the Output Challenge is suffering.

I purchased two more phrase books. The Mandarin voice in both is female. I’m also wondering if it’s the same Mandarin speaker. I was going to buy these in Taiwan as it would be less expensive but every time I’ve visited there wasn’t enough time to mosey through bookstores, let alone whether the store carries the books and has them in stock. If anyone is interested, some preview pages and the table of contents can been see at http://www.kingstone.com.tw/. I’m currently listening to the first one listed below to decide how to use it. It seems to have some pattern drilling which is personally always helpful. In case anyone is wondering, I found some posts by OneEye that mentioned these two books and the earlier edition of 環遊世界必備英語會話. Evidently OneEye used these 3 books which is why I felt it safe to buy "sight unseen". Be aware that these recordings tend to pronounce 和 as han4.
連老外都再用的英語............approx. 3 ½ hours English and Mandarin audio
史上最強英語會話8,000.....16 hours English and Mandarin audio
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