Hi guys! I'm planning to take up Mandarin or Cantonese studies in college. Are there any good schools in 台灣 ,China, US? Are there any scholarships available for Filipinos to study in Taiwan(specifically), or US, New Zealand?

BTW, what do you call the course for Mandarin studies /Cantonese studies?

Pls. reply and thanks in advance. :)

Hi--first two members (besides me). I was so sure no one would want to join this group that I didn't check back soon enough. Sorry for the delay.

This group is my third or fourth attempt to find cpoddies in the SF Bay Area who want to form a conversation practice group--either meeting in some cheap cafe, meeting for yum cha (also calld dian xin or dim sum, or going out for food adventures (which sounds sort of expensive). We could meet once a week (or something) with or without a graduate student or someone (probably paid???) to correct our mistakes.

Does this interest either of you? Do you know of anyone else (cpoddie or not) in our region who might be interested in doing something like this? For this to work, we need many more people so that we have at least a few people at each meeting--no matter how hard it's raining.

What do you think?

Sandra

Hugh Laurie who plays House speaks a little bit of Mandarin in this episode (Season 2 Episode 18).

I couldn't find a clip of just that bit so here is the whole second half of episode, the scene is at about 14 mins in.

It's subtitled as 恭喜你快当祖母了, which translates to 'Congralutions, you're soon to be a grandmother'.

I'm currently trying to understand the mandarin voice commands on my tomtom satnav and I found a program that breaks it down into individual audio files.

Here is a zip file of the audio files in ogg format.

# '2ndLeft.ogg' => 'Take the second left' - 第二个路口请左转
# '2ndRight.ogg' => 'Take the second right' - 第二个路口请右转
# '3rdLeft.ogg' => 'Take the third left' - 第三个路口请左转
# '3rdRight.ogg' => 'Take the third right' - 第三个路口请右转
# '50.ogg' => '50' - 五十
# '80.ogg' => '80' - 八十
# '100.ogg' => '100' - 一百
# '200.ogg' => '200' - 二百
# '300.ogg' => '300' - 三百
# '400.ogg' => '400' - 四百
# '500.ogg' => '500' - 五百
# '600.ogg' => '600' - 六百
# '700.ogg' => '700' - 七百
# '800.ogg' => '800' - 八百
# 'AhExit.ogg' => 'Exit ahead' - 前方有出口
# 'AhExitLeft.ogg' => 'ahead, Exit left' - 请走前方左车出口驶出
# 'AhExitRight.ogg' => 'ahead, Exit right' - 请走前方右左车出口驶出
# 'AhFerry.ogg' => 'Ferry ahead' - 请在前方传连渡
# 'AhKeepLeft.ogg' => 'Ahead, keep left' - 前方请靠左侧行驶
# 'AhKeepRight.ogg' => 'Ahead, keep right' - 前方请靠右侧行驶
# 'AhLeftTurn.ogg' => 'Left turn ahead' - 上后请准备左转
# 'AhRightTurn.ogg' => 'Right turn ahead' - 上后请准备右转
# 'AhUTurn.ogg' => 'U-turn ahead' - 前方到路可以掉头
# 'Arrive.ogg' => 'You have reached your destination' - 前方已到达目的地
# 'BearLeft.ogg' => 'Bear left' - 请上左行驶
# 'BearRight.ogg' => 'Bear right' - 请上右行驶
# 'Charge.ogg' => 'Congestion charge' - 前方有受费站
# 'Depart.ogg' => 'Depart' - 出发
# 'KeepLeft.ogg' => 'Keep left' - 请靠左行驶
# 'KeepRight.ogg' => 'Keep right' - 请靠右行驶
# 'LnLeft.ogg' => 'Stay in the left lane' - 请保车在左侧车到行驶
# 'LnRight.ogg' => 'Stay in the right lane' - 请保车在右侧车到行驶
# 'Meters.ogg' => 'Metres' (after) - 米后
# 'MwEnter.ogg' => 'Take the motorway' - 请上高速公路
# 'MwExit.ogg' => 'Leave the motorway' - 请从前方路口驶路
# 'MwExitLeft.ogg' => 'Leave motorway at exit on left' - 请从前方路口左撤驶路
# 'MwExitRight.ogg' => 'Leave motorway at exit on right' - 请从前方路口右撤驶路
# 'RbBack.ogg' => 'Go around the roundabout' - 请沿环岛绕行
# 'RbCross.ogg' => 'Cross the roundabout' - 请沿环岛
# 'RbExit1.ogg' => 'First exit' - 在第一个出口驶去环岛
# 'RbExit2.ogg' => 'Second exit' - 在第二个出口驶去环岛
# 'RbExit3.ogg' => 'Third exit' - 在第三个出口驶去环岛
# 'RbExit4.ogg' => 'Fourth exit' - 在第四个出口驶去环岛
# 'RbExit5.ogg' => 'Fifth exit' - 在第五个出口驶去环岛
# 'RbExit6.ogg' => 'Sixth exit' - 在第六个出口驶去环岛
# 'RbLeft.ogg' => 'Go left on the roundabout' - 请游环岛口左行驶
# 'RbRight.ogg' => 'Go right on the roundabout' - 请游环岛口右行驶
# 'RoadEnd.ogg' => 'At the end of the road' - 在前方道路的终点
# 'SharpLeft.ogg' => 'Sharp left' - 请上左后方转弯
# 'SharpRight.ogg' => 'Sharp right' - 请上右后方转弯
# 'Straight.ogg' => 'Go straight on' - 请直行
# 'TakeFerry.ogg' => 'Take the ferry' - 清乘轮渡
# 'Then.ogg' => 'Then' - 然后
# 'TryUTurn.ogg' => 'Turn around when possible' - 请在适当的路转掉头
# 'TurnLeft.ogg' => 'Turn left' - 请左转
# 'TurnRight.ogg' => 'Turn Right' - 请右转
# 'UTurn.ogg' => 'Make a U-turn' - 请掉头
# 'Yards.ogg' => 'Yards' (after) - 码后

What do you recommend for a person living in the United States and learning Chinese for personal growth and does not expect to ever travel to China or do business with any Chinese companies. Most or all of the conversation would be for pleasure with Chinese Americans or other Chinese language students. Reading would be the local Chinese papers or restaurant menus and any opportunity to speak the language would probably be in Chinese restaurants or in the Chinese markets, culture centers or  China town. I took one semester of Mandarin Chinese and the instructor seemed adamant that we learn both simplified and traditional and at the time didn't seem so overwhelming in a classroom setting. However the class was cancelled after  the one semester and learning both styles on my own has become rather tedious. I am just wondering if I should buckle down and keep learning to read and write both or if it would be a better use of my time and energy to concentrate on one or the other, and if so which would be smartest given my current interest in learning. I noticed that the lessons give .pdf in both simplified and traditional so it is apparent that even after more than 50 years of simplified coming to be that traditional stills seems to have some place in Chinese language. Does anyone have any practical experience as if both are important or should one study just one or the other. And if I were to ever have an opportunity to visit some part of China would I be kicking my self for not studying both or find that I wasted my time studying both? What about school children in China, do they still learn both or is it just simplified? Are there other regions that do not recognize simplified besides Taiwan? 

I am looking for Chinese movies suitable for family viewing. My 7 year old son and I are a newbies trying to learn Chinese on our own, and are wondering if anyone knows of any good family Chinese movies we could watch. We have found a few and it really helps us by hearing the language from native speakers and would like to watch more, especially if they also have Mandarin sub-titles. The problem is I have found very few movies available in the USA, and even fewer that are family friendly. Maybe I am looking in the wrong places, but I am thinking if I had some movie titles names that could help narrow my search.

We have watched Crouching Tiger - Hidden Dragon, Postmen of the Mountains, Road Home. We like adventure, history, documentaries, kids, comedy, basically anything without a lot of gore, violence, or adult content. Anybody have any suggestions?

I have Farewell My Cocubine, Hero, Zhou Yus Train, House of Flying daggers, Raise the Red Lantern but those we really can't watch together, so I would be very appreciated if anybody can recommend anything else. I heard the "Up the Yangtze" is going to be released to DVD in the USA in November so we hope to see that. 

Appreciate any help or ideas

I try to watch Chinese films regularly to learn more about the culture and expose myself to the language as it is spoken with different accents.  As my ability to recongise the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese has improved, I've noticed that in some movies, they tend to mix the language together.

For example, last night I watched a film called 东邪西毒 where all the actors spoke Cantonese.  However, for a significant part of the film, one of the female actors spoke in Mandarin. She had a full-scale conversation with others, they spoke in Cantonese, she replied in Mandarin. She asked questions in Mandarin, they replied in Cantonese.

I've also seen a few other films where I've noticed this happen as well.  In some, they moved been Shanghaiese and Mandarin.  Is there any particular reason why they make films in this way, or does it come down to the actors ability to speak a particular language?

Which leads me to ask another question - I recently attended Chinese New Year celebrations with a friend.  The anchorman for the show spoke in Cantonese and Mandarin. My Chinese friend said that his Mandarin was terrible as he wasn't pronouncing the tones correctly.  I assumed that a Cantonese speaker would be able to speak Mandarin quite fluently since Mandarin has only four tones whereas Cantonese has double that.  Is this not the case?

I've been on the hunt this morning for people who are learning Chinese and blogging about their experiences. Good blogs seem to be hard to come by so I'm giving you a chance to shout about yours here.

If you are learning Chinese (any level) and blogging about the experience then I'd love to hear from you. You can always send me a message if you don't want to promote your blog here.

Many thanks.

Glad i was able to Join this group.

Chinese idioms are My Favorite aspect

of learning Mandarin.

anyone know where i can find morer audio lessons of idioms let me know.

xie xie ni

This dictionary has 32 languages, including Mandarin and Cantonese.

http://www.elovivo.com/

I just found it so haven't used it much, but I see a lot of people requesting Cantonese resources and thought I would share!

Does anyone outthere (who is not fluent in Mandarin) occaisional dream in a mixture of Mandarin and English?