User Comments - kanjihanzi

kanjihanzi

Posted on: Terrorized at the Airport

January 15, 2009 at 7:10 PM

Is this correct?

到处都是恐怖分子! – Terrorists everywhere!

It's such an interesting combination of Hanzi in kǒngbù fènzǐ that I thought it worthy of a tiny little essay :-) But isn't the 子 ending a bit strange? I would have guessed that 人 would be the first choice when talking about a person?

Posted on: Stop in the Name of the 法 (fǎ)

January 13, 2009 at 10:04 PM

>> What's the best program for typing in Chinese characters?

Google has made a really great one, much better than the default Windows IME

http://tools.google.com/pinyin/

I just don't know why all is in Chinese, but simply press the blue button to download

Posted on: Stop in the Name of the 法 (fǎ)

January 12, 2009 at 10:02 PM

And thanks to Jenny for being here!

>>> Calligraphy is 书法/shu1 fa3.

I got a set of nice brushes and practice paper from Beijing this weekend. Great! I have tried Shodo (as it's called in Japanese) on and off for many years, but it's just too damned difficult!

The brushes were really better that those I had, but I think it was the practice paper, neatly squared (and 'diagonalized'???), that made a difference: Now I at least could write stuff that I didn't threw away at once. When not having to think so much of the spacing I could concentrate on the brush strokes. Progress.

Posted on: Stop in the Name of the 法 (fǎ)

January 12, 2009 at 9:56 PM

Thanks a lot, pearltowerpete for providing timely transcripts. And to jackfrombelgium for the long list of words. Great help.

All I had to was to copy/paste the words in Wenlin and then copy to Anki (SRS) to get a new set of useful vocabulary to practice. Easy as pie.

How many people around here use an SRS (Spaced Repetition Software) to practice Hanzi, words and sentences? I really could not live without Anki, but I got p-d-off after Xmas when I had 700 items to review!!! Now it's on 800+ so I had to start a new deck to be able to add stuff I learn here. (I am a slow student since I insist on writing almost everything I practice.)

Posted on: Seeing Somebody to the Door

January 8, 2009 at 6:57 PM

Why am I always so late here? :-)

This is great stuff. Break it down into small pieces and examine those. Excellent!

This was also SPEEDY. When I first listened I almost thought I've landed in Japan. I could not make sense of anything said. After getting to around 5 min. it ALL made sense. Pretty impressive. On your behalf.

Then I have to admit - slightly embaressed - that Jenny's voice is - ahem... - addictive. Very nice to listen to.

Then we have my favorite area: pronunciation. Is it la? Or is it le? Obviously there is no consensun here, but how much depends on the fact that you are Shanghai based? How much differs in language between Shanghai and Beijing? Will I be able to use my presumably Beijing based pronunciation in Shanghai with EASE? Hong Kong "Mandarin"? No problemo? At all? Or where?

Posted on: The Powerless Phones

January 3, 2009 at 4:48 AM

>>>please tell me

Use an unformatting text editor as a step to this place: copy and paste, cut and paste here. (I do this all the times to avoid getting the links from nciku.com into my word docs.) Unfortunately I forgot to do it the other way around above :-(

Posted on: The Powerless Phones

January 2, 2009 at 1:45 PM

>>>It's not blissfully ignorant.

It was not meant "ignorant" in any negative sense as in "unaware of", "dumb", and so on! It was meant as something as "happily free from having to bother with". etc. Compared with Japanese romaji and kana pinyin is a less than perfect suystem, from my point of view as being born with a European tongue and ear.

When uttering Japanese syllabels I don't have to read them in any different way from what I would read most European languages, in particular those free from diftongs. The correlation between spelling, sound/pronunciation is much, much less clean in pinyin with the rich use of 1) diftongs and 2) really subtle consonant cousins in Mandarin.

I have spent endless hours listening and imitating just to get the difference between ci and zi clear. Same with vowels like "O" - as in "yòng" here - where the sound glides from a very open and round "O" to a much more back-in-the-mouth version, all depending on the Chinese speaker. But this is the only area where Mandarin is more difficult than Japanese.

Posted on: The Powerless Phones

January 2, 2009 at 11:17 AM

Sh*t! Sorry for all this MS Word code. It was not there when I wrote the post and I missed the deadline for editing. I'm not even sure what I pasted from Word, but I guess it was Elementary .... :-)

Posted on: The Powerless Phones

January 2, 2009 at 10:39 AM

Howdie changye,

I hoped you would reply :-) Thanks!

>>> Both (a) and (b) are wrong

Yes, I know. But this was actually pasted from nciku :-) I learn it the way you suggest. But there are other example sentences with tone 3 upon tone 3.

>>> Ordinary Chinese people usually don't know so-called "tone rules".

They are also blissfully ignorant re: pinyin, aren't they in general?

>>>

我打死你。
wo3 da3 si3 ni3.
wo2 da2 si ni3.

This is rather interesting. I can't say that I am finished with learning tones - far from it - but from what I *have* managed to grasp this far I wouldn't have guessed getting a toneless syllable there.

I have a collector's item, I guess, locked up in my ever-sleeping teenage son's room: "Elementary Chinese Readers" from 北京语言学院. Apart from being a - ahem.... - sligthly outdated cultural reference book (created in late 70's or early 80's) it's still an excellent learning source and a HUGE black box with 16 tapes and 4 books for your viewing pleasure :-)

The material on pronunciation and tones is beyond comprehensive, and that is praise here. It's actually so much that it's a month worth of repetition and drills if you have the time and patience. These books are the pre-pre-version of the now popular New Practical Readers (or whatever) from Beijing Language University (or whatever). It will be very interesting to see how much I will recognize from grand-daddy. I happen to know that Ali, a foreign student (from undisclosed Arab country) in the 80's is still around in the recent edition. (Peeking at the preview at Amazon.com).

Now that I have the best possible reference source available: a Japanese person living in China I might as well post an equally OFF-topic question here. Life isn't fair!!! My wife and daughter have received a FREE ride to Beijing on Sunday, while I have to be satisfied with merely getting *this* far to China!! :-((( My revenge is a SHOPPING LIST!!!

1) What is penji (ペン字) called in China, if having a special name at all?

Your profile doesn't tell where in China you live so I am not sure of you have information re: Beijing. Somebody else around here?

2) I want to have a bunch of Chinese fountain pens specifically made to create "Chinese penji". We weren't lucky today:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0300057717/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

Learn to Write Chinese Characters (Yale Language Series)

... which is actually the best "penji book" I have been able to find by searching from Europe. (I have a handful of books with Kanji penji.) If we had been lucky we could have seen some samples of gorgeous Chinese writing as well as the recommended fountain pen there. We weren't. And the author, based in Beijing where he runs one of the largest PR firms in China, declined to reply to email. He's a student of Cecilia Lindqvist who was a student of the legendary Bernhard Karlgren. Ancestry!

Look at this re Lindkvist's latest book about Qin: http://www.silkqin.com/11misc/lindquist.htm

Did I drool when looking at the section where she showed Really Good Chinese Writing Material??? It's the most beautiful book I own!!! Hopefully it will be translated soon.

Well: Where in Beijing should I send my shopping agents for 1) fountain pens 2) tons a Chinese "model books" featuring a wide variety of different types of pen and brush work/styles and 3) some high quality brushes and similar traditional writing. Hopefully in the same shop since they are there for a mere 3 nights and constantly whine about "we have so little time!!"!!! Sucks, doesn't it??

That's enough as a morning excercise

Take care!

Posted on: The Powerless Phones

January 1, 2009 at 11:52 PM

This is TOTALLY unrelated** but thought I could have a small pronunciation corner here:

耳朵有点背
ěrduŏ yŏu diǎn bèi

Are the four tones 3 here pronounced pronunced a) 2+2+2+3 or are they sort bundled into two words like in b) érduǒ yóudiǎn. From the book, so to say, I have learned that a) should be the way to treat it, but I am honestly not sure that it's always pronunced that way Out There.

** maybe not totally unrelated: 耳朵有点背 (bad hearing) is what you will get if you use your cell phone TOO much :-)