Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby outcast » Tue May 02, 2017 3:09 pm

我不太了解手机里面的中文软件。刚刚给朋友发过短信去,正在打字想用“精壮”这一词但却怎么打也打不好。原来这个词在软件的词典里没有。那个单词多半很少用的吧, 但是仍然觉得好词典也应当包括这样的词语,要不然一到高级程度就没有用场了。还有,在打拼音要选择想用的汉字时, 软件给我挑出的第一二字偶尔忒失当的。比如想打“普天之下”手机打的倒是“莆田之下”。再比如,想写“我”的时候,不知什么缘故软件第一字让我选是“握”。当然,因为我平时打短信打得迅速,不小心就选“握”打错了。和这个情况一样的还有几件。由于我最近学习工作都很繁忙,所以一直没有功夫多研究电脑技术的消息和趋向, 从而很多新开展APP、产品、软件乃至网站都不熟悉。其实我认为科技发展得太快,常人哪儿能了解得过来吗?

昨天是周一,整整休息了两天的汽车技工应该上班。我打算去取我那辆常出毛病的车, 但是到了技工那儿一看,没有人来上班,没办法把车开走。那辆车时间越过我越厌恶,觉得保养得费时费钱。 然而我不明白的是技工怎么没来上班,周末之后肯定必须工作。我给他好几次打了电话,没人接。今天我才接了技工打来的电话,可以去取车。 本来昨天他去了医院看病,等了很久时间才被医生检查。那我快要搭家人的车去那边。真希望今后这个东西能不出现新别的问题了。我手头很紧,因为必须保持工作学习的平衡。如果工作太多的话,就不可以详细地学习语言,明年去外国的时候水平不会大到打算的程度,相反,工作太少的话就无法留学。光阴似箭,不觉五月都到了,虽然现在明年还看起来是很远的时间,今天就需要开始节约省钱,还得研究上明年留学的安排以及可能的旅游的机会。我第一个目标是掌握我学的外语,多理解外国局势,但旅行却也是很好的方法加深你的知识和应验。古人说“行千里路胜读万卷书”,如今多亏现代交通工具实现这句话比以前容易多多了。我们应当趁机多外出看看。
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby outcast » Wed May 10, 2017 12:35 pm

HSK6那个考试又无情又残忍。前两天我自己安排了一次模拟考试环境的活动。这次活动不像在中国一年前做的。 那次我们是用被非国家汉办准备的模拟试卷的,周日我是使用孔子学院送给我的一本真考的书本,被汉办编辑起来的前几年新汉语考试水平的卷子。据说真考卷的内容比模拟试卷的更加难。 我第一次做模拟HSK6考试都十四月以前,候得了50分,成绩算是还可以。第二次得了57分。当时我根据那样的过程预想一年以后毫无疑问要轻易地考上那个考试。 即使真考难些,我还会及格得轻松。但真情并非如此,HSK6可真刻薄寡恩的。

我以为阅读那个部分由于现在的词汇量和阅读能力比一年高多了就会没有大问题的。我这个狡猾的家伙儿,即便部分比我想象的难,也想出巧妙的策略逃避困难。不过考的时间一开始,信心一下子消失了。我瞧了瞧考题,越看越糊涂。最让我惊诧的是阅读第三部,因为那个和模拟考试相比,难度太不一样了。在模拟试卷中这部分的道题都是例句子的一段叫考试者跳出一个选择,可是在现实试卷中居然未必如此, 很多选择题本身是文章的局子,在这种情况下好不容易把准确的答案摆在好空白,因为在文章里根本没有句子的语境能帮助你猜出什么空白最适当来。还有,有时候文章的内容非常复杂。HSK6不仅在考一个人的中文能力,包括语法、词汇、听力、阅读、口语、写作, 还在考你是否通晓很中国文化,譬如历史、地理、风俗、艺术、文学等方面的知识,总而言之,在这场考试你在证明你是不是成为一名中国通!你不理解于中国文化有关的那些方面的话,便无法搞懂许多文章的内容含义,从而不能选择准确的答案。最后时间不够,但是这个可是普天之下的问题,什么考试者都抱怨考的时间太短了,牢骚须读的东西太长了。结果我受了很大的挫折,得了34分......

然而成绩可能没有我想象的那么糟糕的。一来老师说那试卷内容特难,告诉我连她和很多中国人是不一定能准确地答案那道题。二来我近来多注意过听力和写作,略微有点儿忽略过阅读。考试的时候忽然发现读得没有以前那么顺利,这个问题肯定是我最近缺乏实践引起的。所以我现在每天在牺牲业余时间(不多!)多练习阅读理解以及阅读速度,而且这次失败真给了我新精神用功学习,为的是客服困难。我很爱一个挑战,战胜原来看起来不能超越的东西。这个考试我一定要及格,而且成绩会很精彩得!时间过得忒快,考试的时候是12月份,看起来我有时间但是我得工作,也得学习德语和法语。还有,到了9月份为了多赚钱能实现出国的打算,我就要工作全职。那时候我怕学习时间会很有限的,所以那一段时间之前必须学会大部分的东西了,然后就做复习的活动。

通过这个考试会是我人生最辉煌的素养之一。还差得很远,但我却继续往前行走,这是条要走一辈子的路:掌握中文,领悟中国的精华了!
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby Snow » Wed May 10, 2017 12:54 pm

加油!
할 수 있어요!
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby outcast » Wed May 10, 2017 12:55 pm

I know I have done a miserable job at translating the posts thus far, but I am so full with a quasi-full time job (30-35 hour), plus 3 languages in full-study mode to C1 level, plus my writing every other day in a foreign language project, plus other things... often the choice is to translate or write something new. Of course I choose the latter every time. But I do need to re-read my older stuff, because in every post I try using new words and structures so reviewing them is necessary to reinforce. I also can read older material and perhaps catch mistakes I didn't realize before. So at some point I will translate some of them... I hope.
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby BalancingAct » Wed May 10, 2017 2:39 pm

“刻薄寡恩” 不能这么用的。是形容人的,有时也可用来形容宠物(如果你把它当作有感情的动物)。
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby outcast » Tue May 16, 2017 2:04 pm

最近我正在考虑改一下我这里的语言资料。其实,更正确的是说我前几个星期在再三斟酌这个事情。 由于德语和法语学习得挺像样儿的,所以进展颇快。另外,现在几乎所有我在语言聚会碰到的德国人与法国人滔滔不绝地夸奖我的水平。我真是不太喜欢这样的表扬,觉得人家这样说未免太夸张了。

然而我自己现在也不得不承认我德语与法语的口语水平比别的外国人听起来高些, 而且近来用这两门语言比从前用得感觉更自在,自信也增加了。照说我宁可低估自己的能力,可是倘若我水平真是高了的话,也不想让别的语言学生得到一个错误的印象,不希望使他人觉得我在评价自己的语言程度时描述得忒误导,弄得居然把谦虚的态度变成一种奇异的骄傲。实际上,偶尔在中国有过人令我感到这样,因为中国文化就是喜爱人采取谦虚的态度。不过对我这个西方人来说有的时候这钟行为太不符场合,不但让我认为不谦虚,反而觉得比较虚伪呀!例如朋友们邀请我吃饭时果然都会点各种各样的佳肴,但他们却还要不断地向我表示道歉,解释美食太简朴不够丰盛!当时我理解这只是中国人的习惯罢了,而且态度总很和蔼没有摆架子的感觉,但同时也断定跟欧美人在一起的时候,那样行为的效果恐怕跟中国人希望的会相反哈哈哈!这就是文化区别。

我话说得离题了。话又说回来,我应该把资料更新更新。尽管我心里不太愿意采取这项步骤,可是我大脑跟我讲现在更新的时刻终有到了。那么我勉强决定改,在我资料把德法双语摆在“High Basic"的水平。也许这样做居然有以外的效果,使我更用功地继续进行提高水平的学习日程,因为现在一定必须证明我资料说的是准确的!不瞒你们说,水平低估太多这现象恐怕还有借口的作用。如果我口语表现得差的话,就可以在"Basic Fluency"那个水平跑去隐藏起来。我不能那么胆小鬼啊!所以下定决心了升格我德语和法语语言级。那汉语呢?我还是认为水平不够高,目前不能把中文升格。主要的原因是我口语表现还有点儿不稳定,时好时坏,并且最近能用中文聊天的机会不多,所以我暂时便不改。让我感到希望的是我去中国之前有了三个中国朋友,一直以为回来之后会和他们抽时间谈谈话。可是第一个朋友搬了一次家新家离我这儿太远,第二个朋友说她因有重要项目而特别忙碌,不能跟我聊天儿。至于第三个朋友,我们便是疏远了。嗐,还有什么办法?得重新认识新的华裔和华侨,这个打算在这座城市说起来容易做起来难!
Last edited by outcast on Wed May 17, 2017 12:12 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby outcast » Tue May 16, 2017 2:20 pm

Anyways, what I said in the Chinese post today is that I have decided to upgrade my French and German level to a "High Basic" fluency. Main reason is because I feel more comfortable using those two languages again, I still make mistakes, but I can express myself rather spontaneously and about a wide range of topics, so this fits my personal description of having "virtual fluency" without really having reached advanced fluency yet. Also, I don't want to fool other language students by underestimating my level so much where it has the perverse effect of coming off as arrogant instead of being humble. I have had occasionally that feeling when someone says their language level is very subpar, but could speak far better than me and for all intents and purposes had the same range as a native speaker even if it was with an accent and occasional mistakes. I don't want to come across as that type of polyglot.

The other reason is that I felt I was starting to become a coward, and hiding under "Basic Fluency" to excuse any flaws or bad performances in those languages. People were just praising my level too much, and I myself was now noticing that my spoken level was clearly better than the great majority of foreign speakers of these languages who claimed to speak it. So the praise from native speakers and my own observations lead me to change the profile. It may also have the unexpected side effect of really pumping up my efforts even more, since I now claim High Basic fluency and don't want of course to be seen as a sham. So I will work harder to make sure I am at the top of my game.

My heart was telling me not to change, but my brain was screaming that the time had come. So yeah. What about Chinese? I still don't feel comfortable upgrading Chinese for the main reason that I feel my oral performances are still too uneven, I would like to observe a bit more consistency from one session to the next before I do anything. Also, I have not had many opportunities to speak recently, so given that fact I am reluctant to say my oral level has improved just based on my heavy reading, listening, and writing of late (specially since I am not in China at this time), Mandarin remains unchanged. But maybe later on I will if I feel my meetings with my tutor are going particularly well. I am confident the upgrade will happen sooner rather than later :)
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby outcast » Sun May 21, 2017 2:36 am

I have skirted the waters of traditional characters again. I just go to the yahoo Taiwan page and pick some article and try to go through it. Interesting that at this point, I am relying on the sentence context to pick out the characters I can't recognize by figuring out the word that should go there based on the context. Other times I just remember the traditional character from having studied it in my very early days of Mandarin study all the way back in 2013 and 2014 (which seems like last month).

I think I am going to go through all the radicals in the traditional style, and also the strokes. I have gone over this kind of material before, but admittedly not very consistently. I reckon that really getting the radicals finally right might be best done via traditional characters since the simplified versions have some quirks which obscure some of the logic in the system for the sake of easier literacy, so the traditional ones will be more logical to the original function.

That and I may go to Taiwan next year at some point so I want to be just as fully literate there is I am now in the mainland. As an added bonus getting familiar once again with the trad-chacs will help a little with Sino-Korean vocabulary.
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby outcast » Wed May 24, 2017 6:03 pm

夏天又来了。我家乡的夏日既闷热又漫长,天气从五月中旬起直到十一月下旬一点变化也没有。反过来说这儿的冬天挺漂亮的,白天暖和夜里凉爽,并且湿度舒服极了。冬日时通常有冷锋面过去,它们带来的凉风受大家的青睐。所以人们常说这里的冬天是真正的夏天。冬天天气好极了。夏天天气可好,又热又润,而且几乎每天下午有雷暴雨,过得不太舒服。除此之外因为天气不变而非常没意思,天气犹如一成不变,除非飓风来袭的时候,那时看天气的确能变得个很有刺激的爱好。我家乡现在发展得特别快,最近很多外地人来这儿学习、工作,其中大部分是从没有飓风危险的区域到的。

在我看来,没有经历过飓风的人有两种。第一种人一搬到这里就盼望他经历飓风的第一次。这种人的性格在安静的时间很容易觉得无聊,所以喜欢寻求刺激,他常在找有危险的情况。倘若飓风来的话,他八成会把摄像机、照相机或者智能手机去外面充当天气记者,在微信、WhatsApp、Twitter等交流软件发表报告。如果他喜欢游泳的话,便会携带冲浪板到海滨去,违犯规则进入白雪大海与风浪搏斗。而第二种人则和第一个完全相反,他在这儿一定居便马上担心起来,也会向人家问无数和飓风有关的问题。飓风季节到了,他一听,紧张得慌。飓风警报发布的时候,他有机会的话,就趁机赶快窜到一所离飓风警报区很远的城市,这样便可以完全避免过飓风的经验。问题是这种人在匆忙离开的时候常常把房子能抵御飓风的准备忘掉......

一般说来,每逢夏天底虽然飓风警报是个比较频繁的事情,但是大多不发生什么灾难。问题是假若飓风的凤眼经过你住的地方,刺激性的程度就会太大了。周围凤眼的风暴极为强烈,而且天气很危险。飓风过去之后恐怕你亲友们抑或你自己连一栋能住的房子也没有了,不过处于这种不幸的境地是罕见的例外。电断了几天甚至几个星期是飓风来袭之后最可能的风险。只有你陷入这样的窘境, 亲身体验到在热带地区没有电的生活之后,才会恍然大悟,所谓的“在地球的天堂”居然转化为充满阳光的地狱。

没有电第一个问题就是你家里原那台原本顶有用的冰箱变得个又占地方又闻起来很臭的东西,完全失去了什么作用。没有冰箱就没有冰水能缓解你在夏天的太阳冒烟的嘴巴。没有冰箱,里面的奶、酸奶、奶酪和黄油,所有品种的肉食以及什么种类的鱼、海鲜统统在三十度以上的气温中很迅速地会坏了,过几个钟头臭得够呛,一切原来可吃的食品就腐烂了。吃食怀了就得立刻扔掉,要不然不仅臭味会很厉害,腐败的食物也要吸引各种各样的蠹虫,它们会危及家庭和他人的健康。

没有电第二个问题是空调也没有了。你们想象一下在热带地区的夏天温度,尤其八月的暑天的情况。那时候白天最高温度三十四左右,热得要命。不过更糟糕的却是空气湿度高极了。之所以在热带地区人们都感觉非常闷热,就是因为在湿度很高的环境身体出的汗不能发挥它的作用,因而汗在皮肤上蒸发不了,无法保持稳定的体温。在这种情况下人们干什么活都太吃力的,过了一段时间就疲惫了甚至感觉特别疲倦,况且夜里没有空调或电扇很不舒服难以入睡,所以第二天你会感觉更加倦怠。

回到没有电力的世界的第三个问题是无法冲冲!不能用厕所怎么办呢?现在你家附近没有茅坑可以去,这种设备在发达国家早已成为了历史中个过时的东西。但是在没有电的世界,你顿时想要这种设备。你运气好的话,当地的当局会给社区提供"Porta Potty", 以便暂时缓和环境卫生的问题。可是过了几天,那么多人使用几个移动厕所会让你很讨厌进去用。

因为电力线缆到处被风或树截断,很多必须电能正常运行的机器停止服务。其中最重要的当数取款机和加油机。显然有个很简单的方法避免这两个问题:飓风到之前务必去一趟银行取出一笔现金,然后再去加油站加满汽车,有汽油容器的话,把它们也加满了,千万不要忘了不仅必须汽油,柴油、煤油、天然气你可能还需要,为了做饭、操作引擎等等。如果风暴后没有钱又没有油,你会立刻遭遇无数的困难。当然,足够满足家人的需要的淡水储备比什么都重要!假如淡水匮乏的话,人们不能喝足够的水量,身体因为没有办法补分泌的液体而会严重脱水。脱水危害全身体的功能,甚至会诱发无数跟脱水有关的疾病。

。。。但是大体上我家乡的夏日特别没有意思!每新天跟前一天一模一样。第一天上午晒太阳,中午到了的时候外面炎热,接着黑云积累起来,随后打雷了开始下一场很大的雨。下午五点钟左右雨停了,不过空气非常湿润。傍晚的时候太阳又从黑云中间出来,但是马上日落到了,天上夕阳和彩霞形成一幅五颜六色的大画儿,特别秀丽。晚上青蛙们和蟋蟀们一起唱歌,温度暖空气润。

第二天的天气如何呢?如果你们再从“。。。”开始读一遍的话,就会知道了!
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Re: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Chinese Galaxy

Postby outcast » Fri Jun 02, 2017 2:44 am

My personal situation (job, family, friends, etc) is fine, and my health *I think* is fine, but I have had a rough(ish) week in language study.

I say rough"ish" because I have done work, actually not bad at all on that front. And I put "I think" in asterisks in regards of my health because I don't have any obvious sign of being sick or anything being wrong. I just could not concentrate much at all when studying this week, my mind wandered much quicker than normal away from the study tasks, I was not as persistent in listening to audio on the job. I also have not written much of anything here in the last few days, my reading has been a bit more effortful, and my Chinese oral output today was not quite that good in my opinion; silly mistakes abounded. When trying to speak German of French I could not come up with some simple words at times, like I had a memory retrieval issue. I have felt the need to sleep more hours, yet for a couple of days during the week I got a headache that did not go away until 48 hours later I decided to take some pain reliever.

Am I just mentally burned out?

Well, last couple of days have been a bit better but still not to normal form. This down phases needs to be done and gone quickly because I have much to do in the next few weeks.
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