Introduce Yourselves!
johnb
December 04, 2007, 02:44 AM posted in General DiscussionOur group is growing larger, and yet none of us has properly introduced ourselves! Let's rectify that. :)
My name is John Biesnecker, and I work at Praxis Language. I'm the Product Manager for 88Groups, and I also run this group, Character Insanity. I've lived in China for a little more than four years, and though my Chinese is getting pretty decent I still have a pretty long way to go.
I've just started a Chinese blog (http://blog.sina.com.cn/endlessmovement), and I write sometimes about 88Groups on the Praxis Language Blog. On my off time I like to read, walk around the city, and generally relax.
I'm originally from Orlando, Florida.
Now it's your turn :)
bill
December 05, 2007, 03:11 AM你好，大家！ 我叫 Bill Yeager. (wo3jiao4 ...). I started the "Learning Chinese in the USA group. 我已经认识JohnB (wo3yi3jing1ren2shi ...). Most of my professional life of some 43 years was involved in computer science research. Twenty years at Stanford University. I also worked 10 years at Sun Microsystems. That drove me into retirement or semi-retirement. You can "google" William Yeager if that interests you. One might guess that 我常常打网球 （wo3chang2chang2da3wang3qiu2). One of my hobbies for 20 years or so.
I do like John's "character insanity," and I will soon produce a different point-of-view in my group. It's more "character sanity" and anti-grammar. Ends up Chinese was like most languages grammar-less until fairly recently. Language always precedes grammar, and there are those who claim that the best literature in all languages was written before the grammarians entered the scene.
It's very interesting to look at the Chinese character from this perspective, and we will do so using our own intuition as well as those of Western poets (mostly from the 1930's) that embraced 汉字 because of its "direct experience of things as they exist" nature.
I'll refer to a book that is a gift from a very close friend of mine who is Chinese. She knows of my love of both poetry and 汉字, and the day she was trying on her wedding dress happened by City Lights Bookstore in North Beach in San Francisco and stumbled upon this wonderful 礼物 (li3wu4).
Should be fun. Hope some of you chime in (-:
再见,
Bill
obitoddkenobi
December 05, 2007, 03:29 AM大家好，I'm Todd, I live in Castro Valley (San Francisco Bay area), California, US. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. I'm a special ed. teacher. I studied Chinese in Michigan in the 70s, and as a "hobby" since. Went to China in '76 and '84 for about a month at a time each time。。。 走马看花. I know a lot has changed, but I haven't been back. Some day I will return. I just recently found ChinesePod and have really enjoyed it...wished it would have been in existence way back when. You are so lucky Alex, how did you find ChinesePod so fast as to be there since lesson one?
alexcunn
December 07, 2007, 11:33 PMTodd, ChinesePod is great and I am there from the first lesson. But do not be mislead by this! My knowledge in Chinese is very basic. The real story is the following: my mother language is Spanish (我是阿根廷人), and I have moved to Brazil about ten years ago so I also speak also Portuguese (or better Portunhol, a mixture of both). Around 2003 I got the idea of learning Chinese, and found no books in Spanish or Portuguese for this purpose. My first lesson book was in French (really complicated!) so I went to the Internet to look for help. The first killing aplication I found was the Pleco English / Chinese Dictionary for the Palm, and later I met ChinesePod. Its great for input, but I need to practice speaking.
alexcunn
December 04, 2007, 11:45 PMHi John B and you all in "Character Insanity". My name is Alex Cunningham, from Itapetininga, near São Paulo, Brazil. I have been in China 8 times, my first in 1998. As a consultant in the Pine Chemicals business I have been all around from Hainan to Liaoning, and as Robert sais, I fell in love with the country since my first time there. Chinese people are great (almost as here in Brazil!) and of course the language is amazing, and those characters are a mixture of mathematical enigmas and pieces of art to me. I have been hearing ChinesePod since lesson one.
ktrinh87
September 16, 2008, 08:37 AMHi John and all. My name is Kate and I'm currently an intern of Praxis' and a study abroad student at East China Normal University. This is my first trip to China and my second semester of studying Chinese. I'm really excited about learning Chinese and I'm hoping that this group will help me expand my limited vocabulary.
Much thanks,
Kate
joannah
September 16, 2008, 12:26 PM大家好！自我介绍。我叫ｊｏａｎｎａ。我是澳大利亚人。我在大学里学汉语． Hello everybody. Let me introduce myself. My name is Joanna. I'm Australian. I study chinese at university.
i have a lot of trouble writing in chinese characters but i have to learn a lot for my course so i think this group will be very useful.
haikeyi
November 25, 2008, 07:18 PM
Wo mei you mingzi. Wo wang le. Wo jiao {Feichanghao, Haikeyi}. Wo mei you fangzi. Wo diu le. Wo zhu zai gongyuan dajiudian pangbian. Xia yu. Xia xue ma? Wo mei you pengyou yinwei wo mei you qian. Wo {zhi, zui, geng, hen} xihuan {huai, pang, chou, ben, zisi} nvhaizi. Wo bu shi Zhongguoren. Wo bu hui shuo Zhongwen. Wo shi weiguoren. Wo laizi Weiguo. Wo shuo Weiguowen. Wo bu {keyi, neng, hui} shuo huanghua. Wo shi er shi ba sui. Ni xiangxin wo ma? Ni xiangxin ni ziji de yanjing ma...
There is no systematic way to learn hanzi: you must learn one character at a time, all 2000+ of them :/
我努力去理解别人
wo nuli qu lijie bieren
I try to understand others
可是谁来理解我
keshi shui lai lijie wo
but who understands me?
我愿意去包容别人
wo yuanyi qu baorong bieren
I want to tolerate others
可谁来包容我
ke shui lai baorong wo
but who tolerates me?
PS
I cannot control the font on this editor?
RJ
November 25, 2008, 08:18 PMcharacter insanity - how appropriate, but unfortunately the moderator abandoned this group a year ago (several days after starting it).
anyway, thanks for the eye chart Joe.
hangzhouman
December 09, 2007, 02:10 PMI am interested in learning characters and basic literacy (as i am in basic conversational skills). I have been fascinated since my first trip in 2003, and after a couple trips, have moved to hangzhou and work for a chinese company. I have begun a systematic study of characters - using some good books i have a plan to learn them in a sequence that is part logical and part frequency based. I am working toward literacy so i will be more interested in lessons that a) are focused on often used characters -- say the top 3000, plus b) vocabulary that is germain to my interests (and to some degree everyday life) -- the internet, computers, web based services, and technology. These latter topics are not well covered in formal books and some areas like SMS make it very important if you live here.
I don't have the time at the moment to start my own group, so I am hoping to find that the characater oriented study here and elsewhere can help me with my goals. I am compiling lists of what i call "pictonyms" -- charcters that look "alike" to me (as a westerner) to help me avoid confusion. and of "homonynms" (the three "zou" freaked me out when i learned that make /work, to do, and sit were all different). Two other lists -- words that are almost interchangable, and words that always go together / very common phrases, would also be ways of helpping my brain create connecetions between characters and understanding.
I have been with Chinesepod since about the beginning, but have done lots of pimsleur (and had most of it transcribed) and many lessons and tutors. 2 years in i am now getting some traction being in china, but the language is large and the tones and sounds are of course very different and require daily practice. but if i can just read the signs as I walk down the street -- many of them -- it will be a big step up. I am now able to recognize some / many characters in the signs, a noticable difference, but not enough usualy to get the meaning without my dictionary (a Palm with Plecodict so i can try to draw the ones i don't know and get a definition).
Thanks for your contributions. I will try to contribute if i can.
RJ
December 04, 2007, 04:36 PMHey John, my name is Robert Berki. I am an engineer working in the lighting field. We have plants in SH and do a lot of sourcing in China. I have been to China 9 times including HK, Shenzhen, SH, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Suzhou. Every trip involves SH and I fell in love with China the first trip in 2004. I have been studying Chinese on my own ever since and 3 months ago found ChinesePod. I wish I had found it sooner. Hope to return to China soon. Love everything about it. I Am fascinated by the history, culture, landscape, people, and of course the language.