User Comments - lustchina
lustchina
Posted on: The Second Tone
January 29, 2008 at 7:40 PMI need to ask a simple question which is at a Newbie level? What is your preferred way of entering characters. Typing them in Word and then transfering them where you want them? What Google Pinyin about? Do you find it useful?
Posted on: The Second Tone
January 29, 2008 at 9:38 AMJenny, I am BIG into mnemonics at the moment for learning all aspects of a character, including the tone. The book I am learning from is quite creative in this regard and is indeed a book as much about mnemonics as it is about characters. It encourages creative storying to personalize the character's meaning but provides a framework for the recurring feature of a character e.g. its tone so you don't have to start from scratch each time. The tones of the character are represented in the story by different, eh, characters The first tone is a giant cause it is a nice "tall" tone The second tone is a fairy cause it rises up in a "peter pan" sort of way. The third is a teddy, cause the placement of its ears on its head, in a Mickey Mouse way, you can trace a V shape, just like the third tone. The fourth is a dwarf cause it goes low. For example hao3 the story is of a painting in an art gallery of a woman holding a child and an onlooker says "woman and child, good" In the foreground the teddy(3rd tone) bear is playing with a "house" of cards. The "house" part gives a hint at the pronounciation. The book's name is Learning Chinese Characters. Matthews is the author. You can view the book on Amazon with the "Search Inside" feature.
Posted on: The Second Tone
January 29, 2008 at 9:19 AMClay, This seems like a good approach. A theme that seems to running through my chinese learning at the moment - the elimination of pinyin. Or at least to see pinyin as a crutch to get the point of character recognition (as well as being able to write it with correct stroke order), correct pronounciation including the all-important tone. Then you got to learn the characters that this character likes to hang out with to make meaningful words and try to figure out why would this character in combination with that other character create such a word and sometimes that logic is tenuous. Then you gotta bring that character out in your own speech in a relevant context but wait you're not living in China so that's nearly impossible. Anyway mustn't grumble - I will include your suggestion as part of my rote learning.
Posted on: 一边...一边 ... (yībiān...yībiān...)
January 29, 2008 at 9:12 AMThanks Connie and Clay. You both are great yi bian multi-taskers! BTW how do say "multi-tasker" in Chinese?
Posted on: 一边...一边 ... (yībiān...yībiān...)
January 29, 2008 at 1:49 AMHi Clayroup, When is Connie going to write some of the stuff from the show here. Is she not comfortable writing down what you guys were saying cause you flouted the norm in using it? It would be worthwhile nonetheless methinks.
Posted on: The Second Tone
January 29, 2008 at 1:39 AMThe good banter in this lesson illustrates the point well. I guess the transtions from other tones to the second tone are important skills to learn too. There is some exaggeration here to make a point and indeed it is the best way to introduce each of the tones. Some examples of the second tone in context of other tones would be helpful to illustrate how "toned down" the second tone becomes when a native speakers is going at a fair clip. Should it be discernible to the newbie ear? Native speakers can sometimes seem like Michael Flatley doing 35 taps per second! How long does it take to become Lord of the Tones?!
Posted on: Scams and Bus Culture
January 28, 2008 at 4:04 PMHi Rash, I thought your story was going to have a seedy ending revealing how you got your alias "Rash":-) Good story. Following on from my story above after feeling I had a near escape from the person trying to bring me along to a tea ceremony and the various girls who came up to me smiling and having God knows whatever ulterior motive - I was approached the same evening in the book store as I searched for kids books by a teacher telling me that this was indeed the best way to learn chinese. Suspecting her bona fides I gave her short shrift only to realise later that she had been genuine. I felt like such a jerk.
Posted on: Scams and Bus Culture
January 28, 2008 at 1:05 AMRiding the bus in CHina is pretty cool, you get the overcrowding on the inside while the driver has to contend with the overcrowding of traffic and poor driving on the outside. The subway runs too smoothly and it seems such waste that train tracks are dedicated to trains!
Posted on: Scams and Bus Culture
January 28, 2008 at 12:07 AMI was offered to be brought for a tea ceremony but being suspicious I suggested going to Starbucks instead - but she didn't like me that much! But when I went to Starbucks on my own :-( I was shocked - they were western prices!
Posted on: The Second Tone
January 29, 2008 at 8:17 PMFaizan, you were asking about how I go about "complete sentence creation" I don't really have a strategy as of yet, just stuff I pick up from the lessons but grammar is more about method and not about remembering abstract characters. I, like so many others, am eagerly awaiting the CPod grammar guide! The downside of using mnemonics, at least the critics would say, "that's a lot of overhead, I have to remember an elaborate story in order to remember a character and I have to keep all these stories straight" Mnemonics should act as an aid to remembering the character and should fall away as the character is learned so you don't need to clutter your memory with stories.