This Semester's Discussion Group

Hello all,

I am sorry to say that I will not be hosting the discussion group this semester. My work load is very heavy and my priorities dictate that, as always, class comes first. However, as for practicing outside of class, there are still options. First are the Blue Wall tutoring sessions. Stephanie Tan has organized several fluent speakers who will be at the Blue Wall at a variety of different times every week. For more information, contact her or any 中文老师。Also I beleive that the language partner system might still be in place.

Lastly, I would like to keep this blog up and running. I think we can all agree that Ge Daozhen has done amazing things with this resource! So I think this should remain as a useful resource for anyone studying or just interested in Chinese.

I think that's all for now. Thanks to everyone who helped make the group possible last semester and I hope to see you guys around campus this semester!

Bri

How to Write in Pinyin 24/7

Here is a pinyin font for your computer...

Pinyin Input

Enjoy!

When is the Discussion Group Meeting This Semester?

Talk amongst yourselves... :-)

Kangxi Radical 94, 犬 (犭)

犬 quǎn means dog and depicts a person with something on his shoulder.

















The Standing Version of this radical looks like this, 犭, and really is a standing dog (minus the tail)...

Spongebob Procrastinates in Chinese

For your viewing pleasure...

Want to see the same episode in English? Click here.

For beginners, it's hard to watch Spongebob in Chinese without picking up certain basic vocabulary like pencil, pants, etc. :-)

Inauguration Vocabulary and Another Cool Phrase

Happy Inauguration Eve! 我非常兴奋阿！ If you are as excited about the inauguration as I am then you will probably need some additional Chinese vocabulary for talking to your friends about the ceremony and about our new president.
President -
总统 (zǒng tǒng)
...so American President is, of course, 美国总统.
Vice-President -
副总统(fù zǒng tǒng)
Inauguration (Ceremony) -
就职典礼 (jiùzhídiǎnlǐ)


Barack Obama -
巴拉克·奥巴马 (bālākè·àobāmǎ)
奥 means profound.
巴 (which appears twice in his name) means hope.
Biden - 拜登'(bài dēng)
First Lady - 第一夫人(dìyī fūrén)
Michelle Obama - 米歇尔·奥巴马 (Mǐxiē ěr·àobāmǎ)
White House - 白宫(Báigōng)
Bush Jr. - 小布什(xiǎobùshí)
Suitcases/Luggage - 行李(xíngli) :-P

And for something almost entirely unrelated, here is the cool phrase of the day...

你想左了。 You're not thinking about it the right way/You've got the wrong idea.

Toilet Themed Restaurant

Someone posted about this...ummm...disturbing? restaurant on a Chinesepod group.

Cool Phrase of the Day

见机行事 - Play it by ear

In this case, think of 机 as meaning system. To play it by ear is to see what the system or pattern is and then proceed(行事). I think this sums up how I am going about learning Chinese. :-)

Is it my imagination or does 机 show up everywhere? 飞机， 手机，， 危机， 等等

A Photo/Video Exploration of 烦(煩)

So, I forgot to actually show each component for 煩 separately in the video to explain the whole thing but the point was to make a video reminder of the two components that make up this character, 火 and 页 (fire and page). It's a pretty simple character but I had to start somewhere, right? This is my first time using Windows Movie Maker so please...be kind. :-P

Postscript: My windows language translator thingy aka "Chinese (simplified) Microsoft pinyin IME" will only give me the traditional form of 煩 and not 烦 (I've copied this simplified version in from Nciku). Not sure the reason for this as I'm pretty sure most characters in its database are simplified as they are supposed to be.

Hmph.

A Challenge (一点儿很酷得课文！）

What does this text from an ancient Chinese scroll say?

迪士尼 (Disney)

Check out this fun page on Youtube by WeiFangX in China who has posted a number of videoclips from Disney movies in Chinese, some Cantonese some Mandarin...but probably most or all of them have subtitles. She has such a cute background image on her page.

Here is one of my favorites, from Mulan 2 (which I've never seen before)...
花木兰２ - Lesson Number One (Mandarin Chinese)

Insanity in Mandarin?

Video Notes from Nciku

Nciku, my favorite Chinese dictionary, is adding video animations to their definitions. For some words, you can already click on the video link and see a demonstration of the meaning of that word. They seem to be particularly targeting their new video definitions at explaining the difference between two or more words that might otherwise seem similar if not the same. I've also found some other Chinese software and such online but won't post just anything I come across, just the best...or the good stuff anyway. :-)

Dialects, Music, and Memory

Rhythmic Mandarin isn't a free resource but I thought it was certainly an amusing one. There are several demo audio samples available to listen to. I noticed a number of differences between the words common in Mandarin used in the Hong Kong vs. what I am used to from mainland Nanjing, Beijing, and Shanghai. I think they have a good idea however using music to help them to learn the language and aid the memory. It was fun to listen to anyway.

More Good Stuff!

Seems that Chinesepod.com has got competition...or at least they will. PopUpChinese.com has taken much of the same format as Chinesepod but adds the functionality of being able to choose between reading simplified and traditional characters apparently. I don't use Chinesepod for reading or otherwise practicing characters anyway so this certainly doesn't matter to me. Anyway, I've completely switched over to simplified characters so life is good.

Also, check out these memory games for Integrated Chinese and Other Word Lists at Yellowbridge.com.

It's getting hard to keep up with all the new tools online for practicing Chinese but I'm not complaining! :-)

Best software to date for learning to write characters?

Check out Skritter.com. The program is still in beta testing but that's not a bad thing since it means that it's free to use for now. Made for learning to write characters, it is your personal online tutor for stroke order, character memorization, and learning tones too. It claims to keep track of how you are doing...how well you remember each character and it quizzes you based on both your previous progress and based on the statistics of how easily students generally remember certain characters. I am so excited about all the new software and other learning tools available for learning Chinese nowadays!

For Kids

Walker and Ping Ping
Kai-Lan
Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat



Mandarin Advantage - Learn the word for red.

Cool Tools for Learning Chinese

From ChineseExpat.com:

Chinese Pera-kun

Have you ever wished you could hover your mouse over a character or group of characters and see it’s pinyin and meaning instantly?

Well, a plugin for Firefox, Chinese Pera-kun, can help you do this. It’s not perfect but it comes close.

To get Chinese Pera-kun, just go to its plugin page, download then install it, and drag its icon onto your navigation bar through View -> Toolbars -> Customize.

Also, check out Remembering Simplified Hanzi which is also mentioned on the same Chineseexpat.com page.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I feel awful about missing so many meetings. I kept thinking that I would be able to find the time and in the end just had far too much to do at work and home...the end of the semester + holidays is such a busy time! Anyway, I had really been feeling Chinese Class withdrawal symptoms until yesterday when we had our final and I got to see my favorite professor and TA again (and classmates). I need to practice reading and writing Chinese at a faster pace so I don't take say almost 2 1/4 hrs to do a 2 hr test. If I had not felt so rushed, it would have been an easy test. :-)

So, I really logged on to the group today to let everyone know about this cool flashcard system that I use to practice characters.

Mnemosyne is a flashcard program where you can import cards on any subject and it will quiz you based on how well you rated your knowledge of each bit of information (in this case, each character or word). After you download the program itself, you can import flashcards for any of Integrated Chinese (or all of level one anyway) as well as a lot of other Chinese vocabulary sets, including the HSK exam vocabularies.

Also, this site has flashcards in several forms, including Mnemosyne and PDF (for printing on business cards or other paper) and other types of files too.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
Wo xiwang xiage xueqi neng jian nimen!
Wow, I hope I got that word order right...

Soap Operas/Dramas

Before Crouching Tiger, there was this HK soap-opera starring Chow Yun-Fat. In Cantonese of course, but with subtitles.

And here is another very well-done drama in Mandarin, The Dance of Passion (cheesy name, good show).