好久不见。 我现在看一个冰球比赛。温哥华现在不好。今天我很累。所以我打算十点半睡觉。明天我和我的女朋友一起去"Canucks place lighting event".
这个星期很忙。有很多冰球比塞。 这个星期五，我的父母来这里。我很高兴。
... my journey through life immersed in language and culture ...
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The Heisig Method
I've been following Greg's progress over at Mandarin Segments for a few months now, and he's always talking about his progress learning Chinese characters. One approach he's taken is following the Heisig method.
If you're not familiar with the Heisig method, it's pretty simple. You learn to associate a story with each character, by breaking it up into smaller pieces (radicals / primitives). Recalling the stories is supposedly a lot easier for the brain, so it makes memorizing the thousands of necessary characters a piece of cake.
Well, I've heard similar suggestions from other people in the past and had already been doing it a bit with some characters. For example, the word for "cry" is:
哭 (kū)
If you look closely - it appears to be two eyes, with a nose and mouth, and in the upper right is a tear coming out of the eye. Once you have this sort of visualization, you never have a problem recalling it.
A few weeks ago, Greg pointed out a link to download the first few pages of book 1 of Heisig's simplified Character reference. You can get it here. A few days ago I downloaded it and have already gone through about 40 characters. I think I can finish the PDF before the end of the month, by which time I'll have an extra 100 characters memorized. Then, I'll need the book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0824833236?ie=UTF8&tag=mandasegme-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0824833236
I'll update my progress with simplified characters on a regular basis.
If you're not familiar with the Heisig method, it's pretty simple. You learn to associate a story with each character, by breaking it up into smaller pieces (radicals / primitives). Recalling the stories is supposedly a lot easier for the brain, so it makes memorizing the thousands of necessary characters a piece of cake.
Well, I've heard similar suggestions from other people in the past and had already been doing it a bit with some characters. For example, the word for "cry" is:
哭 (kū)
If you look closely - it appears to be two eyes, with a nose and mouth, and in the upper right is a tear coming out of the eye. Once you have this sort of visualization, you never have a problem recalling it.
A few weeks ago, Greg pointed out a link to download the first few pages of book 1 of Heisig's simplified Character reference. You can get it here. A few days ago I downloaded it and have already gone through about 40 characters. I think I can finish the PDF before the end of the month, by which time I'll have an extra 100 characters memorized. Then, I'll need the book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0824833236?ie=UTF8&tag=mandasegme-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0824833236
I'll update my progress with simplified characters on a regular basis.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
唐人街
今天，我和我的女朋友一起去唐人街。我住在那里的旁边。在那里有很多商店。
这个地方有中文课.
The class is at the Chinese Cultural center. Sounds interesting - a lot better value than the UBC class I took. I wonder what kind of instruction they have? I can't fully read the sign for the cultural center either. I know the first & last two characters. The 3rd looks like "wen4" 文, so I guess that's 文化 (culture). Pretty straight forward. The second character is .. ?
This is a bad picture of a really cool book store - similar to SUP in Aberdeen center (a popular Chinese book store). Lots of stuff was 90% off. I'll probably go back and pick up some new reading material.
There is also a movie store across the street, which I had no idea existed. They were speaking Cantonese there, but had a large selection of movies (most have Mandarin & Cantonese tracks). There was some TV show selection too, but it's difficult to choose what to buy.
Also found a Panda movie that I'll be going back to pick up pretty soon.
这个地方有中文课.
The class is at the Chinese Cultural center. Sounds interesting - a lot better value than the UBC class I took. I wonder what kind of instruction they have? I can't fully read the sign for the cultural center either. I know the first & last two characters. The 3rd looks like "wen4" 文, so I guess that's 文化 (culture). Pretty straight forward. The second character is .. ?
This is a bad picture of a really cool book store - similar to SUP in Aberdeen center (a popular Chinese book store). Lots of stuff was 90% off. I'll probably go back and pick up some new reading material.
There is also a movie store across the street, which I had no idea existed. They were speaking Cantonese there, but had a large selection of movies (most have Mandarin & Cantonese tracks). There was some TV show selection too, but it's difficult to choose what to buy.
Also found a Panda movie that I'll be going back to pick up pretty soon.
Mulan
Last night I watched the popular Disney movie "Mulan" on tudou.com (花木兰第一部). They have the Mandarin version in three parts, which I couldn't really find anywhere else.
I understood most of the plot, but I think that was probably due to the simple nature of the film. A lot of the dialog was confusing and there were many words I didn't know. This is common when I'm watching Chinese films - each time I seem to understand a little bit more. I found the subtitles distracting in this version - for one, they were traditional Chinese, and I've only been learning simplified. Secondly, they didn't really match the dialog from what I could tell. A subtitle would show up an disappear earlier than the character spoke it. I don't know what the reason for this was, but after half way I tried to block the subtitles out so I could focus on the dialog.
Anyway, I found this movie entertaining, and I think I'll need to watch it a few more times to try and pick up on some more things. I often wonder for movies which have both English & Mandarin tracks - would it be beneficial to watch the English version first (to understand the plot) and then follow up watching the Mandarin one?
I'm still not sure. My gut feeling is that this might help in movies which were originally in English, but are translated to Mandarin, but not as much the other way around.
I think Mulan II is also available on tudou.com, so it's getting added to my "to watch" list.
I understood most of the plot, but I think that was probably due to the simple nature of the film. A lot of the dialog was confusing and there were many words I didn't know. This is common when I'm watching Chinese films - each time I seem to understand a little bit more. I found the subtitles distracting in this version - for one, they were traditional Chinese, and I've only been learning simplified. Secondly, they didn't really match the dialog from what I could tell. A subtitle would show up an disappear earlier than the character spoke it. I don't know what the reason for this was, but after half way I tried to block the subtitles out so I could focus on the dialog.
Anyway, I found this movie entertaining, and I think I'll need to watch it a few more times to try and pick up on some more things. I often wonder for movies which have both English & Mandarin tracks - would it be beneficial to watch the English version first (to understand the plot) and then follow up watching the Mandarin one?
I'm still not sure. My gut feeling is that this might help in movies which were originally in English, but are translated to Mandarin, but not as much the other way around.
I think Mulan II is also available on tudou.com, so it's getting added to my "to watch" list.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Plateauing
Plateauing is a topic that language learners seem to discuss regularly. When you first start learning a new language, you can see progress on a daily basis. It appears like you're doubling your knowledge each day. The more you know, the harder it is to see these performance improvements. Your daily input may be the same, but relative to the earlier stages it feels less noticeable.
This is one thing I struggle with on a week-to-week basis. Trying to stay motivated when the results aren't as obvious as they were at first. I find that the "plateau" feeling happens the most when I'm studying the least. When I get back at it, I'll notice "hey, I really did learn a lot" - but it's the constant back and forth between the two emotions that slows my progress.
So, what can I do to avoid this motivation suck? Find more interesting things to watch, read and listen to. Spend more time with the language, and most importantly have fun with it. When it feels like work, there's a compelling urge to slack off. Gotta keep it fun!
晚安！
This is one thing I struggle with on a week-to-week basis. Trying to stay motivated when the results aren't as obvious as they were at first. I find that the "plateau" feeling happens the most when I'm studying the least. When I get back at it, I'll notice "hey, I really did learn a lot" - but it's the constant back and forth between the two emotions that slows my progress.
So, what can I do to avoid this motivation suck? Find more interesting things to watch, read and listen to. Spend more time with the language, and most importantly have fun with it. When it feels like work, there's a compelling urge to slack off. Gotta keep it fun!
晚安！
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
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