User Comments - xiaohahaha
xiaohahaha
Posted on: Resisting Relocation
June 25, 2007 at 11:06 AMand to get the tones right, environment is everything. There was a law professor in one of my classes. When he spoke, he made sure that he would have what he thought the right tones, even to the point of moving his head in a tonal fashion. My teacher said she could never understand him, furthermore it was impossible to correct him because fundamently he used his version of the tones, based on learning pinyin as opposed to bopomofo. If a person is concscious of the tones while speaking, chances are good that he doesn't have the proper version of tones and learned them outside of the environment.
Posted on: Resisting Relocation
June 25, 2007 at 3:36 AMSome chinese people really don't want anybody to speak chinese to them unless they can get the tones right. Another chinese lady I know told me about an english lady telling her 'wo e le' i'm hungry. she said that didn't sound like anything she knew! since it was only 3 words, every word needed to have the correct tone, otherwise chinese can't tell what she is saying. She told me that she tried to discourage that lady from speaking chinese! Tones are everything! Chinese don't have a clue to what's being said if the tones aren't right!
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 24, 2007 at 11:56 PMsomebody was hesitant to speak to a foreigner in their language, I do this almost daily, but I've learned how to do this correctly!! most of the time I do this to women, but I first wait to see if they give me a smile. If they do, I first ask if they speak an Asian language if they look Asian. I know a few words in most Asian languages, so I proceed to say a few words, then immediately ask them if they can also speak Chinese. For me this is a fail safe way of doing it. It always leads to a very friendly conversation. However if they don't first smile, I found in many cases they want you to think they are American born and aren't interested in furthering the conversation. This also works well with Spanish looking people, The absolutely most important thing is they must give you a smile first!!! Otherwise you are at your own risk!!!!
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 24, 2007 at 11:31 PMlast year in the US, there were 200 schools in the northeastern part of the country that were teaching mandarin to the kids just starting out in school. It was compulsory. They were saying the following year there was supposed to be 2000 schools doing this. Periodically this becomes a news item here. The thinking ofcourse is that by the time these kids finish school they should be well prepared to take advantage of the new reality. They did point out that there will be a serious shortage of Chinese teachers in this country soon. Many people I work with also heard these news articles, and have said that they think I'm doing the right thing by learning chinese. Ofcourse these same people acknowledge that for them it's an impossible task!!
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 23, 2007 at 3:30 AMGreat lesson today!! Also nice to see some Japanese characters as well. My Japanese teacher told me, the more chinese characters Japanese use to express themselves, the more educated they are!! Too bad chinese doesn't provide this means to evaluate a person's writing at a glance. It would help me decide if something is worth reading or not!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 22, 2007 at 3:28 AMHi Auntie! I found that on the Campus of ChinesePod, they do have anger management classes! They told me the sandpaper guy should report to Building 37 the 20th floor, Monday morning at 10:00 am sharp. On staff they do have a couple of chinese chicks, well they used to be chinese chicks some time ago. Actually they are mean looking mamas!! They told me that it's extremely important not just for anger management, but his desire to use sandpaper for purposes other than what sandpaper was designed for!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 22, 2007 at 12:12 AMmoreover, I never heard of hanzi until I came here! I don't think they use it in Taiwan. I never thought of it, but maybe we used zhong wen zi, or just plain zi. I don't know what the rush is to learn something even though it may be terrible chinese!! I can see it all the time how hard it is for people to correct themselves, once they learned something wrong. How many people here actually spent time in a chinese class and learned the basics professionally. i don't feel comfortable learning something from somebody that hasn't at least had professional training at some point!!!!
Posted on: Global Warming
June 21, 2007 at 11:43 PMLantian According to your math, I shouldn't read any posts in chinese today. It would be 100% bad chinese for me!!! I haven't read any known good chinese today. Moreover, I haven't spoken a single word of Chinese today either!!1
Posted on: Global Warming
June 21, 2007 at 3:57 AMLantian Based on the amount of time I actually have, I don't even have time to read anything that may be suspect. I'm in no hurry to write. As I'm really in no hurry to speak! For one thing I won't ever be able to speak until I'm in the proper environment. I also will never be able to speak until I can understand what I hear e.g. on the radio. Reading & listening is where I'm putting 100% of my effort. I'll worry about speaking and writing after that!! I can guarantee that when I can understand what I hear, and be able to understand what I read, I will be able to speak!! (but the tones I won't really get till I'm in the environment) I already know that I can speak every word that I read. So writing will be automatic, no special effort required.
Posted on: Studying Japanese
June 26, 2007 at 10:33 AMyou may never see your dog again! Isn't dog a delicasy in china?