Help me learn Mandarin Chinese

Yeah its not a pivotal thing in the show but it lends a great flavour to it. And Joss Whedon's stuff is great, so.

They have a course in Chinese in our ELEMENTARY school. I mean ffs I had a hard time learning french. Granted, it's for the gifted kids.

http://carlgene.com/blog/2011/07/110-diseases-disabilities-and-disorders-in-english-and-chinese/

thank you forvo.com for allowing me to enjoy dyao's username:
http://www.forvo.com/word/%E6%88%91%E7%88%B1%E4%BD%A0/#zh
(things everyone who actually posts on this thread already knew)

Adam's link reminds me that I recently spent some time googling the Chinese for smallpox on account of the image linked and partially explained herein:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1678

now feeling creepy for accidentally using dayo's old username and calling Schlafsack his real name when neither of you know who I am, sorry both

forvo is pretty handy though in my experience of learning languages which are not Chinese

the school I went to now makes the kids learn Mandarin, was kind of envious when I read this in the alumni newsletter, but also felt a frisson of shame and panic that I would not have been smart enough to learn something so radically different as Chinese, and now other kids are

(but the thought of doing a tonal language in school with all the mean kids listening is pretty horrifying to those of us who can't even sing or manage a convincing French accent)

and calling Schlafsack his real name when neither of you know who I am, sorry both

it's cool (i am he)

imo Chinese is on the whole more useful than (a) languages like French and German as the native speakers can usually speak English anyway and (b) crap like Latin that my school stopped teaching the year before I started. LATIN.

usually frequently

Why do all the rooms have to end in 室 OR 房 OR 厅? Jesus.

庐墓[廬-] lúmù* 〈trad.〉 v.o. ①mourn for one's deceased parent by dwelling in a hut by the grave

O___O

宠擅专房[寵-專-] chǒngshànzhuānfáng f.e. be unusually favored by a husband (said of a concubine)
蹿房越脊[躥---] cuānfángyuèjǐ f.e. operate as a second-story thief
房中术[--術] fángzhōngshù n. the art of lovemaking
跳房子 tiào fángzi v.o./n. hopscotch
圆房[圓-] ¹yuánfáng v.o. solemnize/consummate a marriage (of a son with a girl raised in his family)
毡房[氈-] zhānfáng p.w. yurt; ger M: zuò
子房 zǐfáng n. 〈bio.〉 ovary

蹿房越脊[躥---] cuānfángyuèjǐ f.e. operate as a second-story thief

this is just

冰室 ³bīngshì n. ice-cream parlor M:¹jiān
病室 ¹bìngshì n. ward (of a hospital); sick room M:¹jiān

蚕室[蠶-] ²cánshì n. ①silkworm nursery ②〈trad.〉 prison where the punishment of castration was inflicted
热入血室[熱---] rèrùxuèshì f.e. 〈Ch. med.〉 invasion of the blood chamber by heat
浊气盈室[濁氣--] zhuóqìyíngshì f.e. Foul smell fills the room.

love it

I don't think those are that weird

nah it's mostly just languages randomly having words which are expressed in a more roundabout fashion elsewhere? I mean:

Tailgating (1) manoeuvering one's vehicle unreasonably close to the one in front of oneself; (2) attending, or organizing, an informal feast outside the site of a sporting or cultural event.

ok strikeout "randomly" there

Year 1 complete. They reckon I got a load of HDs and now I am officially owed a certificate. Highly useful if ever I want to book a holiday or talk about students.

what kind of certificate? is it an hsk-focused type of deal or a university thing?

http://rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=C1064

The course is definitely geared in the direction of 新HSK – the Cert I content bears a conspicuous resemblance to the 新HSK 1 & 2 word lists. RMIT is Melbourne's only HSK testing centre (last I checked) and the same teaching staff run both, so the correlation is deliberate.

Bloke at the gym had 'upright' tattooed on his arm, upside down.

I'm teaching myself at the moment. Got a little BBC Active guide for Chrimbo. It's bloody tough, but so far I can say 'hello', 'how are you?, 'i'm well, thanks', 'i'm not so good', 'I am Charlie', 'I am not Kevin', 'Good Evening', 'Good Morning' and a few other phrases. Even though it's Pinyin, it's still really tricky to know exactly how to pronounce words.

Pronunciation is a killer. Even when you get the hang of the tones, the syllables in particular get nasty for a native English speaker (e.g. 'zh', 'sh', 'c'). It's so far from anything with which we're familiar that it takes some time to retrain the mouth, and even then it's probably not right.

Yeah, like never sure how to pronounce "q" or "x" and often words can be spelled completely different and yet sound almost exactly the same to my ears. It's fun though and I'm enjoying it - even if I only learn a tiny bit, I'll be happy :-)

wish chinese characters appeared on this work computer. one thing i think i'm missing out on is the fact the bbc guide is entirely in pinyin with only token chinese characters.

i don't even know why i decided i wanted to learn. i don't have any burning reason other than i think it might be interesting and challenging.

It's brilliant that you're doing it, and the benefits of Chinese in the 21st century can't be understated. Let us know if you want/need help with stuff; there's a fair range of Mandarin proficiency on ilx.

hey thanks AA. I intend to practice a little bit every day - I'm in no rush to learn quickly. Indeed, I don't think with a language like this it's worth rushing, and even though I've been at it about three weeks, I'm happy just going over the first couple of pages in the book and learning them by rote. Because I'm fluent French and not awful at Spanish and German, I figured it would be good to go right out my comfort zone.

xiexie

bu ke qi

and i've already learnt something! i like how "bu ke qi" translates literally as "don't be polite" but means "you're welcome". I'm sure there must be an analogue in some European languages. I can imagine an old Scottish granny saying something like that after you've thanked her for a boiled sweet or something.

There are loads of analogues! We take them for granted because we're used to them, but they're definitely there. I can't think of them right now (11.30 pm here) but I'll crack open the brain's language centre in the morning.

Actually, no, wait, not analogues, just common English phrases that don't make any sense. I shouldn't sleep and post.

I also like how the translation of "I'm doing so-so" in response to "How are you?" is "Mama-Huhu" which means "Horse Horse Tiger Tiger"

(I would add the accents/inflections but I'm still a bit rusty and I'm at work and don't have time to boot up character map)

Recently I read that horse-horse-tiger-tiger is a thing they teach language students, and isn't really used at all by native speakers. So disappointed.

(along with 'how are you?'; 'have you eaten?' seems to be more common)

I use horse horse tiger tiger! 'have you eaten' is the one that I hear less of

but I mean, you only use ma ma hu hu when you really aren't feeling that great

So do they not say "mamahuhu" or is it just the horse-horse tiger-tiger thing (which is a cuet mnemonic all the same)?

And do they say "have you eaten?" as a form of greeting?

Oh, and one of the most annoying things about Chinese is that everything you think you know is always debunked, and then the debunking is debunked.

<3

Yeah, 'have you eaten/chi le ma/吃了吗' is a greeting of some description, at least in some regions.

China's a big country with many dialects. I guess if you compare it witht he many variations of English, no wonder there's some disagreement. I mean, there's no actual consensus to how many characters are in the language, so...

Yeah, and many of the regions have their own local dialects anyway. Mandarin seems to be universally understood, though (based on hearsay; dayo/dylannnnnn plz jump in), and the written form is just about everywhere because the govt forces it.

Bed.

not so much dialects (which would mean variations on putonghua) but completely, mutually unintelligible versions of chinese!

written chinese is pretty much universally understood (if you're literate)

Out-of-work tutor available:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgN1Bk_mzkw&feature=related

http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/

~useful~

skritter for ios is basically incredible

oh yeah? what isi it?

srs-based flashcardy system with full stroke recognition etc

http://www.skritter.com/ios <– video explains everything