Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

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evilado
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby evilado » Fri Feb 05, 2016 10:58 pm

Mandarin
Continued with my Memrise and Duolingo, added some slow chinese reading and listening. The big takeaway this week was, I've decided to focus on traditional characters for my textbook study, and any extensive reading will be simplified. They're mostly the same, but I've always been pretty ashamed that I don't recognize some of the more common characters on Taiwanese shows, like 對對對!什麽時候?

I finished the first volume of Great Expectations and started the second. The first volume is pretty boring overall, lots of setup for 吴小毛(Pip) before he goes off to the big city.
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby evilado » Thu Feb 11, 2016 10:16 pm

Mandarin
I've settled on Practical Audio-Visual Chinesefor my textbook. I've found videos of exercises posted to youtube, a memrise course that I've already mostly finished(mostly just to see which characters are different). I've also been making progress on the 700-character Simplified to Traditional memrise course that should help me out tremendously with the most common changes.

Still not in love with Great Expectations, though I suppose the original was more compelling than the oversimplified plot I'm reading. It's odd that they took out so much and still nothing much happens.

星期一晚上:農曆新年。我和我的老婆邀請一些朋友跟我們一起吃中菜。 我不知道很多關於中國新年的傳統,可是我們都很喜歡吃中菜。我們都祝服務員“新年快樂”,他很好笑了。
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evilado
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby evilado » Fri Feb 19, 2016 3:41 pm

Mandarin

Practical Audio-Visual Chinese is a nice textbook, I should be finished with the first volume by the end of next week, but am wavering on where to pick up with the series since I might have to actually buy it instead of using a library copy.

I didn't read much great expectations this week, most of my reading was in Spanish or English, but I'm considering reactivating my lingq account to add some more advanced texts to the mix. I've tried LWT in the past, but I tend to do a lot of reading on my phone and the lingq app is pretty convenient.

Started a nice course of 50 Chengyu, I don't encounter these that often in grades readers, but it's nice prep work for the future.

我们明天下午在我的家有一个派对。不是一个喝酒跳舞的派对。它是一个做饭的派对。因为我们是主持人, 我决定做寿司。我害怕孩子不喜欢寿司,但是我的老婆想要她的朋友很好吃。
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby Expugnator » Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:07 pm

How is this course called? I'm wondering if I should work actively on some chengyus.
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby evilado » Fri Feb 19, 2016 8:32 pm

It's the memrise course Advanced: 50 common chengyu.

It's based on Routledge's 500 common Chinese Idioms Since the book loosely organizes the chengyu by frequency, it's the top 50 most common. As a side note, the kindle preview shows almost all of the chengyu if you want to do your our searching and study.

I'm an SRS guy, and I struggle with the endless grind of new characters, so studying chengyu is relatively fun and different. It's also a little touch that makes you sound smarter than you are and has impressed my tutors before.
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby evilado » Fri Feb 26, 2016 1:13 pm

Español

Este sábado, tengo la oportunidad de enseñar inglés como lengua extranjera a niños de 5 a 11 años de edad. La comunidad hispanohablante de mi ciudad es bastante pequeña, así que las escuelas no tienen los recursos suficientes para preparar los estudiantes que tienen un nivel muy básico de inglés. Hay una hora de ESL cada día, pero todos los otros clases son en inglés, y creo que es casi imposible aprender mucho de la ciencia cuando no entienden inglés. Tengo nervios porque no soy un profesor de nada, y también creo que seré yo que tendré que hablar con los padres sobre cosas importantes de la escuela.
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby evilado » Fri Mar 04, 2016 7:22 pm

Mandarin

I finished Volume 2 of Great Expectations, overall a pretty good graded reader as far as vocabulary and writing style are concerned, but it just is not an interesting story at this level. I've read other Dickens and liked it, but the compression of the timeline in this telling just makes everyone unlikable, 吴小毛(Pip) is obsessed with a girl who only starts to lighten up on the last page, his fun times in Shanghai last a couple sentences, and his 姐夫 is the only sort-of likable character despite being a doormat of a human being. I look forward to more Level-2 readers from this series, and possibly more advanced levels in the future.

I will be starting The Third Eye, a 750-word level Chinese Breeze title next. I now have a couple months before the super challenge starts, and I'm still leaning towards a half challenge, just because I'm a long way away from being able to read something like Harry Potter, and I can't imagine reading 5000 pages of graded readers.

我们新的猫咪
两年以前我和我老婆收养了一只猫。我们非常非常爱他,他是一只白色的暹罗猫(Siamese)。我们决定收养别的猫因为他应该有一只朋友。一般,猫不太友好,他们不喜欢变化。所以第一天我们不让他们一起玩儿。第二天他们吵架一点儿,所以多半留在别的房间。很麻烦!但是现在的时候,他们一起玩儿,以期看鸟,一起睡觉。太可爱!
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby Anya » Fri Mar 04, 2016 9:04 pm

Buena suerte por la enseñanza!
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby evilado » Tue Mar 08, 2016 11:20 pm

Muchas gracias Anya, fue muy genial!

Hace 2 años, yo enseñé con la misma organización, pero no fue muy agradable. Los estudiantes eran mayores, 15 o 16 años, y tuvieron niveles muy básicos. Y mis lecciones ocurrieron durante el día escolar, así algunos estudiantes solo asistieron para evitar clases normales. La situación era muy parecido a mis clases de francés hace 10 años : casi todos tuvieron miedo de estar en las extremidades de los estudiantes. Los peores evitaban tentativas para no equivocarse, los mejores evitaban contestando para no ser la mascota del profe.

Estas vez, solo tengo 2 estudiantes, el uno tiene 11 años, el otro 14 años, y ambos tienen niveles avanzados de hablar. Ellos tienen algunas dificultades en escribir y leer, pero lo mas importante es su entusiasmo por aprendizaje. Me gustó mucho la experiencia de enseñarles y creo que ellos saldrán adelante con mi ayudo o no, así que la presión sobre mis habilidades profesionales no son tan extremas!
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Re: Evilado's Textbook TAC 2016(Zh, Es)

Postby zhuzilu » Mon May 02, 2016 8:02 pm

evilado wrote:Spanish
Una semana divertida de estudios españoles. Leí los dos capítulos de Como agua para chocolate del club de lectura, y para no leerlo demasiado rápido, empecé a leer Cien años de soledad. Lo leí en ingles hace 5 años y me gustó, pero ya no me acuerdo de mucho. Intentaba leer este libro hace un año, pero después de unas paginas de tantas plantas, animales, y otras palabras desconocidas, lo dejé. Ahora no solo conozco más, pero tengo una edición ebook donde se puede buscar rápidamente. La mayoría de las palabras son de la naturaleza, la alquimia o química, o de artilugios antiguos que no se usan con frecuencia en el siglo 21, y puedo seguir leyendo sin este sentimiento vago que tenía antes que no entendía todo.

Además, vi tres pelis con mi esposa.
Carnacho : Una película de suspense de Argentina. No nos gustó tanto, pero es un buen ejemplo del suspense moderno, un género que no me gustó tan como los clásicos.
Un novio para mi esposa : Comedia argentina, nos gustó mucho. Graciosa sin zarandajas, personajes interesantes y creíbles, muy recomendable.
La primera noche de mi vida : Comedia española. Demasiadas personajes y historias por una peli de 84 minutos, pero tiene y escenas divertidas.

Qué pena me da escribir, tengo que hacerlo más. Y estoy pensando que sería mejor estudiar Gramática de uso del Español con mis compañeros de La Manada, en lugar de El Cronómetro.


Your Spanish is impressive! :) Escribes incluso mejor que un nativo ;)

Mandarin
Like Spanish, not a very serious week of studies, but I've been working through my HSK4 memrise course and am always adding more words to my Duolingo course when as I encounter them. Vocab is always an issue, so it's always nice to encounter sentences with context. I've got 11 units left in Duolingo, and shouldn't have a problem finishing the course by the end of the month like I planned. Overall it's not the best tool out there, but I do feel motivated to do it every day and I'm close to finishing. I'm now gonna write a bit in mandarin about my favorite resource this week, the Chinese Breeze 500 word level graded reader & CDSecrets of a computer company, corrections welcome. I hope to read a couple more at the 750 word level before I move into more advanced reading, but it's really encouraging to use graded readers even if the prose is really redundant and simple.

电脑公司的秘密关于一个男人,叫放心, 和 他的女朋友,叫新月。 他们在他们自己的公司做软件。他们的软件非常好,非常有名,可是竟然有的问题。买电脑的人比以前更多,但是买软件的人比以前少。 为什么? 当然在中国有的盗版软件。警察还不找到做盗版的人。放心新月可以侦探一下。

Dani, I agree, the more the merrier. We need as much help as we can get.



Also, it's really interesting reading about your Chinese journey, I'll definitely take a look on your log!

Good luck with your challenges :)
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