我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

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Batur
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batur » Mon May 22, 2017 8:09 am

Batman wrote:OK, so that was pretty rough week too, and I was basically just keeping my Memrise practice.
I was busy, I was worried, but in the end of the week (two last days) it became better. I was even doing my favorite activity - searching for a words, etymologies... I love just posting some word on Google Images search, it is very helpful; or to search in Google Books. I am not sure how useful it is, but it is very interesting.
I met two pretty Chinese people in supermarket and tried to talk with them. My first talk in Chinese with Chinese! It was embarrassing, but nice. I barely managed to say 对不起, 你是中国人吗?and 我会说一点中文。Their Chinese was so better than mine, almost intimidatingly better. There's clearly a problem, - it was hard and slow for me to say 我会说一点中文。 That surprised me, I say this phrase much easily to myself.
And I couldn't even ask them who they are and what they're doing in 基輔 :oops:

I asked how to say 我决定不吃面包 ( or 我戒了面包 ) in the Wechat group. And 间歇性节食! Knowing this, I am able to find videos like that one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMPqcCiQZss Also made a poster for myself with 不要提建议! (That's my problem: I am always telling people what to do and I don't like that about myself. Especially, considering that I don't myself practice what I preach.)
Also just now asked how to say 我决定间接性禁食,一天吃饭, 一天禁食。Batur is a great help.

And yes, I need to say that - no Glossika this week :oops: I will really-really try to do it this week. Честное слово!


I think Tom said "我戒了面包", it's kinda joking. It would be a little weird to hear this. Though you said you are addictive to bread, normally cigarette, drug and things like that would make people addictive.

I am not sure what to write in the language log. The vocabulary, sentence I learned, they are very trivial, and don't know how to write it down. I will be updating it later too. I guess I will find a good way logging my language experience here.
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Batur
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batur » Sat May 27, 2017 5:45 am

Sergy, 你好

你这几天忙不忙?可以尝试用中文简单的谈谈你每天的生活吗?
再过几天就是端午节了,但是我可能不能回家和家里人团聚。
请记得继续学习中文,继续跑步。

Batur
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Batman
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batman » Sun May 28, 2017 11:28 pm

I wish you luck with Mandarin! I want to get around to it some day. Just wanted to mention that on Viki (a site for watching TV shows), on some shows there is a thing called "Learn Mode" where it's basically Chinese subtitles above the English that you can click on to get an explanation for the word. It might be useful for you!


Hi, Sol! Thank you very much! =)
I was trying to use Viki couple times, but didn't know that there exists such mode. I will definitely try it.

What are the main resources you're using? When I looked into Mandarin I couldn't find any good ones online :( Or maybe I'm just spoiled from all the awesome resources Korean has :D


Oh, I think there are a lot of great resources! A huge amount of educational channels on YouTube, for example. There is http://www.hackingchinese.com/ , there is https://ninchanese.com/ and many others. But I use mostly Memrise so far, with a very slow progress so far. But I have a lot of other materials that I am not using, for example Glossika. I just can't commit enough time.

Also, there are great courses on Coursera and Edx, for example https://www.coursera.org/learn/learn-chinese and https://www.edx.org/course/basic-mandar ... x-mx101x-0
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Batman
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batman » Sun May 28, 2017 11:58 pm

你这几天忙不忙?可以尝试用中文简单的谈谈你每天的生活吗?


你好, Batur!
It makes me sad, but I can't really talk about my daily life in Chinese. I think I can, actually, but completing two-three sentences will require a lot of time. Still, I should do that. But I am in such a period now, when I need to work and earn some money. That makes me somewhat angry with myself, because I think I can change that situation, I just don't have the strength to do that.

I can make excuses about not having time, but it doesn't work for me, because I know that I found time to watch couple hours of videos from "The Office" TV show (US version), god knows how much time to read some "interesting", "relaxing" stuff on the Internet...
And I think I am improving, but it just takes so much time.

The plan for next week is to work 2 hours every day on Chinese (not including Memrise). So, I will write on Monday-Tuesday if this plan works.
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Batman
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batman » Mon May 29, 2017 9:33 pm

I didn't work for two hours today. But I had time, I just spent it in a bad way. Even now I have work to do, but decided to prioritize Chinese (not necessary smart thing to do).

So, I was going to supermarket (Auchan) today, and when in trolley or walking, I was listening to Michel Thomas course. It's Chinese Foundation, CD5. 21:22-21:39 (so 17 min) on the way there, and I forgot to make screenshots on the way back. I was repeating Chinese, and it is not very comfortable thing to do when there's a lot of people in trolley or at the bus stop. But I managed.

It was "where" 哪儿 (strange that I can't type it, it's not among available variants for "nar", so I just googled and copied it). Also 远,住,有,黁朋友,女朋友,厕所, and some sentences that I will repeat tomorrow.
Also did some Memrise (HelloChinese and MandarinChinese2), and I need to write down somewhere words that I learned there.

I think I wasn't working even for an hour on Chinese today.
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Batur
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batur » Tue May 30, 2017 8:49 am

Batman wrote:...
It was "where" 哪儿 (strange that I can't type it, it's not among available variants for "nar", so I just googled and copied it). Also 远,住,有,黁朋友,女朋友,厕所, ...


黁 is totally new character for me, and I don't think most of Chinese know this word. I look it up, it's pronounced "nun", so I guess you want to type just 男, “nan" for "boy friend".

哪儿 is "na er", for instance: ”你想去哪儿?"
it's "儿化音" in the northern China, it's popular now, but sometimes we south people may just say "你想去哪里?" they're the same.

some words for you:
现在
下载
电影
相声
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Batman
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batman » Sun Jun 04, 2017 9:53 pm

哪儿 is "na er", for instance: ”你想去哪儿?"

Yes, thank you, Batur, I found an article about that on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua
I think I heard this from all Chinese people I was meeting here, in Ukraine. Very distinct sounds.

黁 is totally new character for me, and I don't think most of Chinese know this word. I look it up, it's pronounced "nun", so I guess you want to type just 男, “nan" for "boy friend".

Yes, indeed you're right, 谢谢!

This week was very rough, no schedule at all, my 2 hours ped day plan failed, but I managed to do something. Was doing more HelloChinese stuff, - they have very useful sentences there. Also did some Memrise. But still I didn't have any structured studying. Little more than two hours of Michel Thomas course. And this way I will maybe learn Chinese in 10 years, when I need it in less than one (I want at least B1). And I am sure it's possible. I clearly feel that it's all just depends on time I commit.

Made a deal with my sister for next week - I should study Chinese and Java, 2 hours each, 5 days per week (she's working on German and Java, 1 hour each). Let's see how it will go.

I change my phone language to Chinese and that's a constant pain, but I think useful pain. It helps, but it takes some time drawing in Pleco something like 转发 :lol:
Tried to speak with some Chinese guys in the shop, but they were not very friendly (not unfriendly too, just indifferent, answered me only in Russian), so I said 不好意思 and left them alone. Still was fun =)

Tried to watch Chinese videos (like that one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOByFx8Y0ss - I am on keto now myself), but maybe I should stop doing that, and better spend that time on fundamentals.
------
Was thinking about why Glossika goes so hard. And I think it's because I am trying writing. I love listening and repeating, but I don't have any love left for writing characters - because it's so slow, it takes so much time! I am thinking about dropping writing at all (that was actually plan when I started, to do anything, but writing).
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batman » Mon Jun 12, 2017 1:18 am

This week was the worse week so far, and I actually have more time now! I just finished big project at work, and I'm just trying to procrastinate with everything, Chinese included. I don't know if it shows, but it is very embarrassing to write these reports about basically my failures to do what I was planning to do. But I think it helps too, it's better to clearly see the problem instead of imagining stuff about myself.

My deal with sister failed on a second day, sadly. We started fighting on the phone and I didn't call her since and she didn't call me back too. Yep, didn't work, and, actually, I don't know why I expected something different. In a way that's my fault, because I was trying to push her to do stuff, when I should've pushing myself to do stuff.

So, I did only 3 hours of studying Chinese.
I also subscribed to a lot of YouTube channels in Chinese.

I'll try to update with more info on Monday or Tuesday.
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batman » Sun Jun 18, 2017 10:36 pm

I didn't update "on Monday or Tuesday", sorry.
This week was also lame - I didn't do any Memrise, no Glossika at all. I was listening to Michel Thomas course though.
Usually, when I was trying to learn some Chinese, I, instead of doing something according to the plan, did something very unstructured, like watching some video in Chinese and trying to understand something (I am not at the level when it's useful); or trying to watch Edx course about Java in Chinese (it's also not very useful activity); or googling some random phrases or sentences that I found accidentally somewhere on the Internet.

All that makes me sad, and I am not sure how to proceed, what to do next. How to change this situation. I like Chinese, I have time, it's just like I am tired all of the time and can't do anything relatively hard. Anyway, all that is really annoying.
And now it's too late. Almost 2 am. Why I am not in bed still? What is off?
I don't know. Going to sleep now, hope next time I'll write something more ... let's say, less empty. And this hope is weak.
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Batur
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Re: 我是蝙蝠侠 (and learning Mandarin)

Postby Batur » Fri Jun 23, 2017 4:54 pm

I haven't written here for really a long time. I am thinking of doing it again.
:-)
Batman, Keep on learning!
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