Help me learn Mandarin Chinese

100% in the written exam. 100 fucking %. Going to treat myself.

Booyah! Go you! :)

aww thx <3

I'm trying to learn a little bit of Mandarin too, just for fun since I'm going to China for a couple of weeks in September. I'm not going to try to learn the written characters though - it'll just be spoken with a little bit of pinyin to help with memorization. Has anyone tried Chinesepod.com? I'm doing the free trial and so far the lessons seem pretty good.

this blog post saved my life today

http://robrohan.com/2007/02/03/typing-proper-pinyin-on-mac/

Brilliant, just what I need.

o. nate, I've not spent a great deal of time with ChinesePod but it gets a huge rap from loads of learners.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-19/news-corp-share-slump-murdoch/2799888

News Corp total value down 20%/US$9b since all this started. DELICIOUS.

(estimated)

shit, wrong thread

...or is it.

I just LAPSED into Chinese because I couldn't remember the English for something. Didn't realise until after I'd done it. First time ever.

NEXT:

1. learn some other sinitic language, start telling everyone how 吴语 has as many native speakers as german, decry the chinese govt 汉办 confucian institutes' destruction of minority languges and commitment to simplified characters which cut us off from chinese history and the greater sinosphere
2. get really into some weird obscure shit like 1950s land reform-era socialist realism sci-fi or bawdy errenzhuan from some specific neighborhood of a specific city in liaoning
3. carry a copy of 西夏旅馆 or 荒人手记 on the bus, meet literate taiwanese girls
4. smoke a blunt of tuna kush with david der-wei wang

I'm gonna have to start calling you Mal, Adam!

idgi

Mal from Firefly, you kno. They lapse into Chinese swearing and such.

nooo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYTM5H2IDSg

omg that's fantastic, I had no idea

Sir, you must watch all of Firefly forthwith! Its only one season. I can lend you my dvd if you like. Its bloody awesome.

Thx for offer but I can get my hands on it pretty easily. Quite fascinated now, ha.

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.