我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Jul 07, 2019 10:51 pm

Axon wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote:Thank you for this. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is on MyList with Netflix, and I Am not Madame Bovary was already on order. I know nothing about either, but I remember the former for having a run in the USA and I liked the latter just from the intriguing title. And I like the Two Guns or Two Dreamy Faces advice. :)


Wow, I'm pretty shocked that someone else has heard of I Am Not Madame Bovary. Excellent choice. However, I just went and watched the trailer again, and I'd forgotten that most of the main characters have heavy Jiangxi accents, like to the point where they'd probably have occasional trouble speaking with folks from the other side of China. I'd recommend starting with something more standard. If you do go ahead and study from it, it'll be a big challenge, but on the other hand you'll come away from it with a great tolerance for nonstandard speech, which is of course the norm across the entire Chinese-speaking world.

Thanks for the tip about the accents. The film won't work for the subs2str method because there are no Mandarin subs. Since I'm a newby, no way I could tell how accurate or how helpful they are.
But I did stumble on this, which sans Anki seems to fit the bill for the method emk and rdearman espouse . Not had the time to go through the whole thing though, so we'll see.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Axon
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Axon » Mon Jul 08, 2019 2:44 am

You've just gotta know where to look.

宋朝有个女子叫潘金莲
In the Song Dynasty, there lived a woman named Pan Jinlian
长得颇有几分姿色
who possessed an alluring beauty.
潘金莲的丈夫叫武大
Pan Jinlian's husband was named Wu Da.
武大有个弟弟叫武松
Wu Da had a younger brother called Wu Song
...
我跟你讲
Listen!
你这个案子
According to legal procedure,
从法律程序上
your case is already out of our hands!
我们已经管不了了
Understand?


The first excerpt matches pretty well with the English subs on OpenSubtitles. The second, thanks to the distance between English and Mandarin, expresses the same ideas but the lines don't match up well at all. More like "Your case, following legal procedure, we can't deal with it now."
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Querneus
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Querneus » Sun Oct 06, 2019 8:55 pm

A fun thing about combinations of three third tones in the same word group:

小老虎
xiǎo lǎohǔ 'a small tiger'
sample recording: https://forvo.com/search/%E5%B0%8F%E8%80%81%E8%99%8E/

演讲稿
yǎnjiǎnggǎo 'a speech draft'
sample recording: https://forvo.com/search/%E6%BC%94%E8%AE%B2%E7%A8%BF

The first one sounds like "xiǎo láohǔ" (3-2-3) because xiǎo is a separate word (a simple common short adjective), while the second one sounds like "yánjiánggǎo" (2-2-3) because it's a "full noun + abbreviated noun" compound (演讲 yǎnjiǎng 'speech' + (草)稿 (cǎo)gǎo 'draft').

See this article for a very brief discussion of this phenomenon.
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alexkelbo
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby alexkelbo » Fri Nov 01, 2019 9:50 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:Can anyone suggest a movie in Mandarin with both Mandarin subtitles and English (or French or Spanish) subtitles? Any genre, any period, animated or not animated. I want to give emk's subs2str method a try.

If you dig through this site: https://www.viki.com/explore?country=mainland-china, you can find some shows that have "learning mode" available, which means English and Chinese subtitles simultaneously. Most of the shows have at least English and some other language subtitle.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Nov 02, 2019 9:06 pm

alexraasch wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote:Can anyone suggest a movie in Mandarin with both Mandarin subtitles and English (or French or Spanish) subtitles? Any genre, any period, animated or not animated. I want to give emk's subs2str method a try.

If you dig through this site: https://www.viki.com/explore?country=mainland-china, you can find some shows that have "learning mode" available, which means English and Chinese subtitles simultaneously. Most of the shows have at least English and some other language subtitle.

Many thanks!
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Gordafarin2
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Gordafarin2 » Tue Nov 05, 2019 10:51 am

ChineseForums has a massive list of ready-made Subs2SRS decks. It's a mixture of simplified and traditional, and some have pinyin and some not, but even just choosing a few of them, it's a huge learning resource.

I'm very much a beginner, so I'm mostly reviewing sentences like "谢谢你" and "你说什么" over and over again :lol: but it's been fun to dig through the cards and find "real" sentences I can understand even with a very limited vocabulary. "你怎么知道我爱吃西瓜的?" - seems like a Duolingo sentence, but it was a real line in a movie!
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Persian... 10 novels: 4 / 10

Mandarin...
4000 words: 4000 / 4000 / 2000 characters: 1640 / 2000

she/her

Sayonaroo
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Sayonaroo » Tue Nov 05, 2019 9:29 pm

Gordafarin2 wrote:ChineseForums has a massive list of ready-made Subs2SRS decks. It's a mixture of simplified and traditional, and some have pinyin and some not, but even just choosing a few of them, it's a huge learning resource.

I'm very much a beginner, so I'm mostly reviewing sentences like "谢谢你" and "你说什么" over and over again :lol: but it's been fun to dig through the cards and find "real" sentences I can understand even with a very limited vocabulary. "你怎么知道我爱吃西瓜的?" - seems like a Duolingo sentence, but it was a real line in a movie!


I find that subs2srs decks are even more useful nowadays due to all the plugins. I get to see useful cards first by having anki sort the new cards in the optimal order.

pinyin on top of hanzi https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/417709332
wordquery https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguag ... n_in_anki/
Chinese Companion - frequency sort, HSK suspend, heisig support, and more https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/2129668097
morphman https://massimmersionapproach.com/table ... /morphman/

search cards based on length (anki 2.0 only) https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/3713245840
automatically show answer after x seconds (anki 2.0 only) https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/648362761
What I did recently was take the cards marked as "fresh" by morphman and move them into their own deck then sorted them using chinese companion. I have my cards set up so {{audio}} replays 20 something times by pasting it a lot in the template which find to be very helpful and I rarely have to press r. I mark cards as I see new cards to further curate a deck with cards I want to review

also this plugin seems pretty cool.
https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/882364911

Lastly, I recently found an anime dubbed in mandarin with matching SOFTSUBS. (traditional characters so maybe it's taiwanese?)
Just search 莎拉公主 on the shooter-cn site for the subs. The English title is little princess Sara. The Japanese subs are also up on kitsunekko

Eps are on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... C%E4%B8%BB
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Querneus
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Querneus » Tue Nov 12, 2019 5:34 am

Sayonaroo wrote:Lastly, I recently found an anime dubbed in mandarin with matching SOFTSUBS. (traditional characters so maybe it's taiwanese?) Just search 莎拉公主 on the shooter-cn site for the subs. The English title is little princess Sara. The Japanese subs are also up on kitsunekko

Eps are on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... C%E4%B8%BB

I tried watching a couple episodes, but it seems most or all have problems with the audio... They start out fine but either the video gets faster or the audio lags back.
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Sayonaroo
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Sayonaroo » Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:30 am

Ser wrote:
Sayonaroo wrote:Lastly, I recently found an anime dubbed in mandarin with matching SOFTSUBS. (traditional characters so maybe it's taiwanese?) Just search 莎拉公主 on the shooter-cn site for the subs. The English title is little princess Sara. The Japanese subs are also up on kitsunekko

Eps are on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... C%E4%B8%BB

I tried watching a couple episodes, but it seems most or all have problems with the audio... They start out fine but either the video gets faster or the audio lags back.


I recommend searching on https://www.bilibili.com . I didn't notice the problem with the sync since I only listen to it in mandarin ( I watch it in Japanese). The timing of the chinese subs match the audio from youtube well. I did notice that a couple episodes (around ep 19-22) are titled incorrectly but you can easily figure out which ep is which using the episode titles

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encycl ... 44&page=25

The 25 minute vids with no subs on the screen match the timing of the subs on shooter-cn
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Querneus
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Re: 我們學漢語 / 我们学汉语 (Chinese Study Group)

Postby Querneus » Tue Mar 24, 2020 10:17 pm

Last year I made this post listing some tone correspondences between Mandarin and Cantonese. I have a bit more experience with Cantonese now, and now I'd like to post a more elaborate version of that.

So, first, the useful tone correspondences between Mandarin and Cantonese, when a Cantonese syllable ends in a vowel, -m, -n or -ng. Judging very informally from my experience learning pronunciations, I estimate they're reliable perhaps 93%-95% of the time (alternatively read: the correspondence doesn't work for about 1 in 14 syllables or perhaps 1 in 20 syllables).

Mandarin 1st tone ~ Cantonese 1st tone
Mandarin 2nd tone ~ Cantonese 4th tone
Mandarin 3rd tone ~ Cantonese 2nd or 5th tone
Mandarin 4th tone ~ Cantonese 3rd or 6th tone

Examples:

Mandarin 1st tone ~ Cantonese 1st tone
開心 kai1xin1 ~ hoi1sam1 'happy'
分鐘 fen1zhong1 ~ fan1jung1 'minute'

Mandarin 2nd tone ~ Cantonese 4th tone
成為 cheng2wei2 ~ sing4wai4 'to become'
人員 ren2yuan2 ~ yan4yun4 'staff, staff member'

Mandarin 3rd tone ~ Cantonese 2nd or 5th tone
跑錶 pao3biao3 ~ paau2biu2 'stopwatch'
永遠 yong3yuan3 ~ wing5yun5 'forever'
可以 ke3yi3 ~ ho2yi5 'can, be allowed to'
軟體 ruan3ti3 ~ yun5tai2 'software'

Mandarin 4th tone ~ Cantonese 3rd or 6th tone
世界 shi4jie4 ~ sai3gaai3 'world'
互動 hu4dong4 ~ wu6dung6 'interaction'
教授 jiao4shou4 ~ gaau3sau6 'professor'
大眾 da4zhong4 ~ daai6jung3 'the masses'


However, if the Cantonese syllable ends in -p, -t or -k, then the Mandarin tone is a lot more unpredictable. A very large proportion (I very informally estimate 55%-65% from experience) has a 4th tone in Mandarin, and when that's not the case they tend to have 2nd tone (I very informally estimate 25%-30%). Instances of corresponding Mandarin 1st tone and 3rd tone are a lot less common, but do happen, including a few common morphemes (切 qie1 ~ chit3, used in 一切 yi4qie1 ~ yat1chit3 'everything; all Xs'). There are ultimately no highly reliable correspondences between Mandarin and Cantonese for -p/-t/-k syllables.

Example syllable morphemes with all possible combinations of correspondence:

出 chu1 ~ cheut1, 貼 tie1 ~ tip3, 夕 xi1 ~ jik6
得 de2 ~ dak1, 察 cha2 ~ chaat3, 獨 du2 ~ duk6
北 bei3 ~ bak1, 百 bai3 ~ baak3, 蜀 shu3 ~ suk6
必 bi4 ~ bit1, 各 ge4 ~ gok3, 辣 la4 ~ laat6


Also, an aside note on that old post:

In that same post from a year ago, I also mentioned 於 (simplified character: 于) as an exception of the tone correspondences for words ending in a vowel or -m/n/ng:
Ser wrote:There are some exceptions such as 於 (simplified 于) which is yu2 in Mandarin and yu1 in Cantonese, but these are thankfully few!

However, since then, I've learned the reason why this exception exists: the two characters used to represent two entirely separate words as recently as the Yuan Dynasty (Mongol conquest 1234, proclaimed 1271, fallen 1368 after Emperor's flight). It was some time after that they began being considered the same word because of their similar sound and and very similar meanings, and it seems Mandarin and Cantonese ended up with non-corresponding tones due to this.

In the Qieyun, published in 601 AD, 於 appears listed with a pronunciation that would've been similar to [ʔiɔ], and 于 with [ɦio], both with the medieval level tone (平聲). According to Edwin Pulleyblank in his Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar, the Zhongyuan Yinyun (a dictionary of Old Mandarin pronunciations made by 1324 under Mongol rule) lists them as [ʔy] but still bearing different tones, with 於 being in a different tone register (light level tone, 陰平聲, "light" like typical voiceless-initial syllables with e.g. [ʔ] in Qieyun) than the reading of 于 (dark level tone, 陽平聲, "dark" like typical voiced-initial syllables with e.g. [ɦ] in Qieyun). Their expected descendants by regular changes should in fact still be different: 於 = Mandarin yu1 and Cantonese yu1, and 于 = Mandarin yu2 and Cantonese yu4.

However, the problem is that besides having very similar pronunciations, 于 had been an obsolete word for a long time. From the very shapes of the characters (the "phonetic series"), we know that around 1000 BC 於 sounded something like [ʔa] and 于 like [ɢʷa] later [ɦʷa] (Zhengzhang Shangfang's reconstructions). The early pre-classical Chinese around and a little after this time distinguished 於 'be at [a place]; in, at, on' and 于 'go to [a place]; to(ward), into', but within classical times 於 took over the uses of 于, relegating 于 to a life as an uncommon character of not much use aside from very old texts.

Interestingly, when both started being used with the same pronunciation, it appears that Mandarin and Cantonese kept the opposite choices. Mandarin retains the reading of 于 (yu2), but Cantonese seems to retain that of 於 (yu1)! Then when the Traditional Chinese standard was established in late Qing, 于 was deemed a mere character variant of 於 under a lack of awareness of the old distinction. Later on the People's Republic of China specified 于 as the Simplified form of Traditional 於... 於 and 于 are now widely considered the same "word", but they still weren't as recently as ~800 years ago.
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