Using Obscure Words

matt_c

August 26, 2009, 03:48 AM posted in General Discussion

A recent discussion in a lesson, despite its completely straying from the topic at hand, actually highlighted a phenomenon that occurs often in the early stages of language learning for many language learners: using obscure and/or complicated words.

bababardwan says
3 days ago

miantiao,

谢谢你的说明。我还忖度为什么“上西天”有那个意思。。“死了”。中国人觉得天在西方？

xiaophil

August 26, 2009, 04:03 AM

One of my friends was teaching class when a Chinese student asked, "Ms., can I please go defecate?" I know this is a bit crude (and I am a bit sorry for that), but still, it is a perfect example of exactly what is being talked about here (and a bit funny as far as I'm concerned).

bababardwan

August 26, 2009, 11:21 AM

changye,

Actually you are right as far as I know.I have not seen example sentences on mdbg and it's a very good point that I think I should utilise.I must admit after finding a word in mdbg it can be a bit of a guess how to use it/whether it's appropriate and I think I definitely should look for example sentences.I must familiarise myself with nciku.Thanks,that's actually been extremely helpful I think. :)

bababardwan

August 26, 2009, 04:15 AM

xiaophil,

Still,she's in less of a position to decline his very unambiguous request than if he'd more circumspectly asked to be excused. :) Is there also a cultural difference at play there,rather than a language difference? But it's a good point that I get,hehe.

changye

August 26, 2009, 04:16 AM

Hi matt

Many thanks for your consideration. We should have done this earlier, sorry!

changye

August 26, 2009, 04:20 AM

Hi bababardwan

I have very good Chinese/Japanese (and J/C) dictionaries. They show a lot of grammatical, cultural and historic tips, including distinction between a written and colloquial word, suggestions about synonyms and important grammatical structures. These dictionaries were edited in collaboration with a famous Chinese publisher which is well known for 《现代汉语词典》 that shows a sort of the standard vocaburary of modern Mandarin.

I believe the latest editions are better than mine (published in 1992). There are several good Chinese dictionaries available in Japan. Honestly, I know almost nothing about how good Chinese dictionaries are in other countries. Of course, I also often use online dictionaries, as well as google, especially when I look up a new word. I need both paper and online dictionaries. Paper dictionaries can't catch up with the times.

matt_c

August 26, 2009, 05:21 AM

Its cool guys, it was actually quite interesting. What I'll do is delete the comments from the post but link to this post from the lesson.

This way we can maintain the new method yet save all your comments. :D

orangina

August 26, 2009, 05:50 AM

Changye, I have never seen an English/Chinese (or C/E) dictionary that good. And I check whenever I go to a bookstore. Not that that means they don't exist. My dictionary has often received the wall treatment for not telling me if a word is only used in written Chinese. Seems like such a simple thing to include. I have a feeling there is much more cross scholarship between China and Japan than China and England. (I have also not run across a dictionary that uses American English. Only a problem when I can't figure out which English word to look up!)

changye

August 26, 2009, 06:59 AM

Hi orangina

I have never seen an English/Chinese (or C/E) dictionary that good.

I suspect so now. As you said, Japan has traditionally produced a lot of scholars who have profound knowledge about classical Chinese literatures, and this probably made editing Chinese dictionaries relatively easy. Actually, the largest Chinese dictionary (to be exact, Chinese/Japanese dictionary) in the world was edited and published by Japanese. Please just take a look at "history" in the Wikipedia article below. It's very impressing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_Kan-Wa_jiten

Additionally, Japanese scholars and publishers have been very keen to make language dictionaries targeted for students and learners, partly thanks to so-called "university entrance war" in Japan, which has consequently evolved this kind of dictionaries drastically, especially English and Chinese ones, in the past few decades. Ironically, Japanese people are known for not being good at foreign languages despite a lot of good dictionaries sold in Japan, hehe.

xiaophil

August 26, 2009, 07:36 AM

Changye and Origina

I had an Oxford Chinese/English dictionary. I thought it was pretty 'horse horse tiger tiger'. Although I completely agree with what you guys said, I think there is another factor. People in English speaking countries don't have the need to learn other languages like other countries do, so the material is just simply more limited no matter what the language. I really admire you, changye, for being able to thrive here without ever resorting to your native tongue.

zhenlijiang

August 26, 2009, 08:16 AM

Ah I hardly know where to begin. OK, with the dictionaries then.

First, a 'disclaimer': I am a huge fan of paper dictionaries. That said, the dictionary I use most frequently--and I use it very very frequently--is my electronic one containing one J-C, two C-Js (between which I jump back and forth trying to pin down one expression I want) and a few 'extra' not-as-commendable dictionaries like "new business terminology", "IT terminology" etc (= bound to be outdated v. soon).

I looked up "wonder" on both MDBG and nciku, my preferred English-Chinese dictionary. So I can see now how Bababardwan came to choose 忖度. But compare the search results--don't you think nciku does this more intuitively (go to Examples for their long list of English example sentences rendered in Chinese), in this case at least?
This is just me personally, I've looked at MDBG when I first heard about it here and for some reason didn't like it enough to ever use it, even though everything is nice and large and easy to see. nciku on the other hand I go to all the time esp when I'm "composing" one of my dog-breakfast Chinese posts. I do have paper English-Chinese dictionaries, but both (Langenscheidt and Concise Oxford) are too concise, too pocket though I did use them more as a beginner. As for Chinese-English, I have the large ABC edited by John DeFrancis one, but that has virtually no examples (=not useful)!

I never really gave thought to this until Changye mentioned it; I think we Japanese learners take for granted what our dictionaries so helpfully provide: markings, color codes, something indicating the frequency of any character or word that is an entry is only one of such features. We often see the star system. Entries with three stars we know are most high frequency. In fact I have heard a scholar--who has himself been on the compiling team of several Japanese dictionaries of Chinese--say, you know you're doing well even if you study only those terms with three, two and then one star (for starters anyway), as those are the most important.
The point is, in fact you should study those first. I also agree with Changye that our exam-oriented approach has made our publishers as competitive as they are and our dictionaries so GS (good service)--Xiaophil, I have to say I don't agree that we generally have less material in English because the need for English speakers to learn foreign languages is less acute or urgent.
Yet, or rather precisely because of, the Japanese approach (thinking in terms of efficient exam prepping) we're terrible at foreign languages, sad but true.

And whether in a class or working with a tutor, teachers in my experience always tell you if any word is 'for writing' and 'not oral'. That's essential in learning Chinese, we're taught that early on. Not to have that information would be like studying French nouns without their genders.
But so are we seeing that this is a major problem area with English dictionaries of Chinese in general?
That's kind of a serious problem IMO.

bababardwan

August 26, 2009, 04:05 AM

Hey Matt,

Thanks for moving that mate.I'm sure you realise I was not trying to be drivelly or stray,it just went that way.Sorry about that.I'll have to learn to flick the switch to a new separate thread earlier next time.I think there's one more comment from changye there that needs to be transferred here,then maybe you should delete it all from that thread.I don't think I can do it properly from this end.

bababardwan

August 26, 2009, 08:57 AM

I must say,while my usual dictionary is mdbg [I just prefer the layout..find it visually clearer,and I like the scissors tool of breaking down characters] I have on occasion gone to nciku when I just couldn't find a word in mdbg at all like today I couldn't find carotenaemia in mdbg but nciku was up to the task on this one.So I have kind of come to the conclusion that nciku is more comprehensive ,but generally for me mdbg is fine and I like the hsk ratings also.It would be great for it to go beyond hsk ratings and have a more precise frequency of usage rating and an oral/written indication.Also,there are probably many features of these dictionaries that I have just not gotten around to exploring at this stage.

sebire

August 26, 2009, 09:30 AM

What on earth are those star things on nciku, I've never worked them out. Everything seems to be 2.5 stars. I unfortunately find nciku ridiculously slow, so I use it at times, but recently have been going to dict.cn.

I quite like my Oxford English-Chinese mini-dictionary.

bababardwan

August 26, 2009, 09:48 AM

sebire,

I've not really had a good look at nciku before ,but I just had a look and if they're the stars I think others are referring to ..if you mouse over them then it says it is referring to the HSK number.So once again I'd say mdbg has it better than nciku on this front because the hsk numbers are just easier to see in mdbg than these faint yellow stars in nciku and trying to work out how many are coloured in.

zhenlijiang

August 26, 2009, 09:55 AM

Changye, I don't know that it's a good grammar book that Bababardwan or other learners in a similar place need most at this point. Of course I always recommend that learners get into a small group class or find a good tutor--unlike you I'm not confident enough to try to learn a language without at least one good teacher holding my hand. But I understand that this is not realistic for many people.

The grammar I have learned (and like I've said before, for the first six months we didn't even really do grammar, we were busy learning how to make sounds and say our own names) has been through using readers that show us constructions and usage, and being required to write our own sentences as homework--no strictly-grammar books to date, and I've been studying now nearly three years.

You point out that Japanese dictionaries are also good for learning about grammar. My other (very good actually) grammar source has been the NHK (Japanese public broadcaster) radio Mandarin courses that come with texts every month. These courses are solid and engaging, very well designed and lessons well written. And it's good to make the time M-F, 15 min each lesson to listen, if you do nothing else. Each half-year course would have about 100 points to cover (if I remember correctly the first two weeks or so is mainly pinyin and pronunciation). I've listened to those for about two years and have begun to tire of the repetition esp at the beginning, but they always have something for the intermediate learner as well. The difference with CPod lessons is that the dialogues are mostly much more textbook-y of course, but they do cover grammar well, and take the absolute beginner in manageable steps through to what I think is high elementary level in that half-year.
I wish that all learners had that great a source, wherever in the world they're studying.

But grammar books--I think that's more for more advanced (otaku?) learners. English grammar we first did I think in middle school (? my memory isn't too hot), ages anyway, after we were already fluent and using it to communicate. We weren't learning grammar in order to become fluent in English; we were learning the terminology and learning how to deconstruct sentences (make diagrams) and talk about them. Many grammar books I see in Japan, from the titles I just know I don't want to be near them "Common Errors by Japanese Students of Mandarin and Why They're Common" and such (the author just wants to show slower students up!).

What I do think is helpful instead is to read a lot of young children's literature--that's just right for our level. Try to get an illustrated Chinese dictionary for young children and use it. I know not everyone loves children's books like I do, but I'm assuming Baba for one wouldn't mind that too much ...

And writing now--that's another thing altogether. Which I will get to.

Tal

August 26, 2009, 10:25 AM

I really like the Tuttle Concise English-Chinese Dictionary, it really stops the papers blowing around on my desk, (the fans are always on in Guangdong in the summer.) Seriously though it has lots of example sentences. Sometimes I'll just pick it up and browse, and it's surprising how just doing that, you'll pick up lots of little things you didn't know, and you can't really browse any 'electronic' dictionary in the same way.

I'm sure if baba chose to study grammar from a book it couldn't do his writing ability any harm, (there has to be a certain amount of fairly mundane 'looking at language' mate if you want to really improve your skill), but I do agree with zhen that reading (just going over and through sweet and well-written sentences again and again) can teach you a lot. (And you can do this with a good dictionary.)

xiaophil

August 26, 2009, 10:51 AM

Tal

I think you would sound more like your true self if you used slightly obscure words while speaking Chinese. (That's a complement by the way.)

changye

August 26, 2009, 11:13 AM

I think nick is much better than MDBG as the latter shows no exmaple sentences (am I right?). I dare say that MDBG is just "useless" for elementary and intermediate learners.

Hi tal

"Tuttle" seems to be good. It shows only important words and phrases, and examples and supplemental explanations shown in it is very useful. Probably you can use it for a long time.

changye

August 26, 2009, 11:18 AM

Hi zhenlijiang

for the first six months we didn't even really do grammar, we were busy learning how to make sounds and say our own names

This must be the most ideal way to start learning Chinese, although it could become rather boring. I really admire both the teacher and her (?) students for their patience. I mean it.

zhenlijiang

August 26, 2009, 08:48 AM

duh--nciku does use the star system. That's probably why I like them.