我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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Querneus
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我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Querneus » Fri Dec 07, 2018 4:28 pm

A group for students of Chinese, broadly defined: Mandarin, Cantonese, Taiwanese Min Nan, Hakka, Shanghainese... Posts about Classical Chinese (文言文) can go either here or in the study group for classical languages. I started this thread after noticing reineke started this other one for Japanese.

Please do not make posts saying you're joining the group, or that you're already a member of the East Asian Study Group.

On the other hand, things you're welcome to do (non-exhaustive list):
- Tell stories
- Link to or review learning resources
- Mention new interesting things you've learned
- Ask questions about Chinese
- Share your joys and sorrows learning Chinese

Mandarin resource thread (in the Language Programs and Resources subforum):
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 19&t=2940/
Last edited by Querneus on Fri Dec 07, 2018 4:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Querneus » Fri Dec 07, 2018 4:34 pm

Yesterday I had an interesting discussion with a native speaker about the syntax of 容易 rong2yi4, 好 hao3 and 難 nan2 when followed by a verb. What I remember taking away from the discussion:

- Although 容易 rong2yi4 can perfectly take a verb after (monosyllabic or not), the long-form disyllabic 困難 kun4nan2 cannot. If you want to say "difficult to look for", *困難找 *kun4nan2 zhao3 is not valid, it has to be 難找 nan2 zhao3 instead. An example with a disyllabic verb would be 難找到 nan2 zhao3dao4 'difficult to (successfully) find'.
- In idiomatic expressions, 難 nan2 and 好 hao3 are antonym morphemes: 好吃 hao3chi1 'delicious', 難吃 nan2chi1 'bad-tasting'.
- The idiomatic expressions have those idiomatic meanings strongly attached to them. 難吃 nan2chi1 does not ambiguously mean 'bad-tasting' and 'difficult to eat', it basically just means 'bad-tasting'. To express "difficult to eat", 容易 rong2yi4 may be negated (不容易吃 bu4 rong2yi4 chi1, or 不易吃 bu2 yi4 chi1 using the short-form), or quite simply a different construction can be used (吃[某物]很難 chi1 [mou3wu4] hen3 nan2, lit. "eating [sth] is difficult").
- Using 難尋 nan2xun2 to express "difficult to find" is basically only acceptable in written language. In spoken language, "nan2xun2" would be more readily understood as 南巡 nan2xun2 'to go to the South', an expression heard in dramas when an Emperor goes to the southern parts of the realm with his court.



I also learned that in Cantonese you can say 發夢 faat3-mung6 ("send a dream") for 'to have a dream' (Mandarin only has 做夢 zuo4-meng4, "do a dream"). "To daydream" can have a different order than in Mandarin too: 發白日夢 faat3 baak6yat6mung6, where Mandarin only has 白日做夢 bai2ri4 zuo4-meng4.
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby smallwhite » Sun Dec 09, 2018 2:55 pm

> I also learned that in Cantonese you can say 發夢 faat3-mung6 ("send a dream") for 'to have a dream'

“發” means “send” in Mandarin but what about in Cantonese?
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Querneus » Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:55 pm

smallwhite wrote:> I also learned that in Cantonese you can say 發夢 faat3-mung6 ("send a dream") for 'to have a dream'

“發” means “send” in Mandarin but what about in Cantonese?

Hmm... So you're saying the meaning is not quite "to send" here? Right, it's probably "get [a bad experienced feeling]", as in 發癲 faat3 din1 'to get/go crazy', 發燒 faat3 siu1 'to get a fever', 發吽豆 faat3 ngau6dau6 'to get lost in thought'. Although I'm still a bit confused, because the likes of 發狂 fa1kuang2, 發燒 fa1shao1, and 發呆 fa1dai1 also exist in Mandarin.

I originally thought it could be "send" because it could be one of those meanings that mostly appear just in compounds or expressions. I'm aware Cantonese likes to use 寄 gei3 more to express "to send".
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Sizen » Sun Dec 09, 2018 9:22 pm

I can't speak for Cantonese, but my understanding through Japanese and Mandarin of 發/发/発 is that while its meanings do vary, with many revolving around the idea of "emitting" or "sending" (發光, 發炮, 發射, 發聲, 發信), another way of looking at it in English terms is the idea of "bringing something into existence" or "provoking a certain state or condition". In fact, under the character entry for 発〔發〕in 大辞泉 (daijisen, a Japanese monolingual dictionary), one of the definitions is "始める。起こる。起こす。" or "To start. To occur. To cause."

In Japanese there is also 発狂 (發狂), which I would interpret as "madness manifesting itself", 発想 (發想) which would be "for a thought to appear (in mind)", 発作 (發作) meaning "for an effect to come to be" and 発熱 (發熱), "for a fever to break out" (though this last one is more likely "to emit heat" along the lines of 発射/發射, in reality"). There's sort of this idea of there originally being nothing and now something has appeared or been caused, at least in my mind.

I don't know if a native Cantonese speaker would think of it in these terms, but perhaps 發夢 is more along these lines of "a dream manifesting itself" which would result in the act of "seeing" a dream?

Anyway, sorry for bringing Japanese into the Chinese group, but I figured I could bend the rules a bit when it comes to Chinese characters.
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Querneus » Wed Dec 12, 2018 6:23 am

Sizen wrote:Anyway, sorry for bringing Japanese into the Chinese group, but I figured I could bend the rules a bit when it comes to Chinese characters.

I found your discussion interesting nevertheless. Mandarin and Cantonese also use 發生 fa1sheng1 (M) faat3sang1 (C) for "to happen". I suppose the meaning of 發 faat3 in 發夢 faat3-mung6 'to dream' kind of dances in between these meanings. "Emit/experience a dream"...

---

Today I was studying Mandarin for a bit when I came across the verbal phrase 离开家 li2kai1 jia1 'to move out, leave your parents' house', and was surprised by it. Because of the way Mandarin grammar works, it's rare to see a verbal phrase like this, consisting of a two-syllable verb like 离开 li2kai1 followed by a lone one-syllable noun like 家 jia1. (These things tend to be interpreted as verb-noun compound nouns, not as verbal phrases, e.g. 聯合國 lian2he2guo2 'the United Nations', literally "to.unite-country".)

It's definitely not a typo: plenty of examples of 离开家 li2kai1 jia1 can be found on the LINE dictionary and elsewhere. I would've expected 離開家庭 li2kai1 jia1ting2, or 出家 chu1-jia1 / 離家 li2-jia1 / 遺家 yi2-jia1, but apparently this is one of the exceptions to the grammar pattern. (Okay, 出家 chu1-jia1 apparently does exist, but with the more specific meaning 'to leave your home to become a Buddhist monk or nun'.)
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby rdearman » Wed Dec 19, 2018 11:51 pm

Don't know if anyone has used this resource MandarinCorner.org. But they have audio with transcripts and a lot of videos.

http://www.mandarincorner.org/listen-to ... ranscript/
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby David1917 » Thu Dec 27, 2018 4:59 pm

In my quest for an HSK cert in 2019 I will preview and work through scores of resources, so I will gladly offer some reviews here. If anyone has requests on specific courses, I might already have them and can do those sooner rather than later.
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby David1917 » Fri Dec 28, 2018 4:48 pm

Langenscheidts Praktisches Lehrbuch Chinesisch
1995 Edition - Dr. Ning-ning Loh-John

I've picked up a couple Langenscheidt books to add to my regular English studies, as they are noted for their thoroughness and depth of study. For example the Hungarian book is a fantastic option where the English offerings are sorely lacking. The Chinese book is certainly an exception in this regard as the 12 lessons do not go very far at all, and pinyin is used excessively throughout. While I think interlinear pinyin is a good tool for the beginner, it can become frustrating if the book is used as a cross-reference or supplement when you already know most of the words and just want to get some extra practice reading and hearing different contexts/dialogues. The drills even in Lesson 12 are conducted in pinyin as well, which is a huge detriment even to the beginning learner, especially since they are all recorded in the accompanying audio. The audio is quite good in that it is clearly enunciated, but the pace is painfully slow - like 5 second pauses between sentences. There is thankfully minimal German on the recording, at least not interrupting the Chinese, but each track begins with a German "Lesson x, 1A, Text" or something like that. They also recorded the German expository remarks, e.g. "Teacher Wang wants to take her brother on a tour of the forbidden city," which may be useful for using the audio independently from the book for review.

All in all, if you have already completed 1-2 introductory courses in Chinese, this one adds very little. If your native language is German or you are very strong in German and want to use it for laddering, then this might be a good first book in Chinese.
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby rdearman » Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:06 am

David1917 wrote:In my quest for an HSK cert in 2019 I will preview and work through scores of resources, so I will gladly offer some reviews here. If anyone has requests on specific courses, I might already have them and can do those sooner rather than later.

How about these?

http://www.hwjyw.com/textbooks/downloads/zhongwen/
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