After reading this I am depressed

After reading this I am depressed --> Record low as students reject HSC languages . Nearly every story or article I read about language learning from an Australian newspaper, tells me that language learning is in decline. This is depressing news indeed for language teachers. The message is that language learning and teaching is not valued. At the same time I keep reading that places Africa, England and America are starting up and actively promoting Chinese language learning in schools. I find it disturbing that Australian schools are so slow to encourage  and promote learning Chinese in schools, colleges and universities. Below is a comment that I think typifies and sums up Australian attitudes to language learning


"Chinese is way too difficult for Australians, our lovable bogan population may breed well but their children struggle at school as it is."

Similar comments to be found in response to  Mandarin in, koala out in bid for Chinese dollar

Three weeks until my final exam

There are approximately three weeks before I will sit my final exam for Chinese.  It has been an very busy time over the past weeks. The pace of how much we have been required to learn seems to have been very fast indeed. Over the past weeks I have been trying to learn lists vocabulary in hanzi and pinyin. The units of study have been very unfamiliar.  The volume of new grammar terms and patterns has increased. I have remained motivated and worked on all this as best as I can, but I feel that I haven’t learned enough. Still I have three weeks to press on and learn as much as I can.

苹果手机

Just found this post today from Dim Sum

The Apple iPhone 4s was announced a couple of weeks ago. iPhones are very popular in China.

The hanzi and words for the iPhone is;

苹果手机 Píng​guǒ​ shǒu​jī


Breaking it down it becomes

苹果 Apple Píng​guǒ

手 Hand shǒu

机 Machine  ​jī

Thinking of a direct translations in this case is how I can remember the word and the hanzi and never forget.  This to me is a ready made mnemonic.

I want to buy an Apple Hand Machine. 我喜欢买一台苹果毛机。

Thanks again to Dim Sum for the original posting.

The Great Firewall of China

Has anyone any experice with The Great Firewall of China?  Apparently my blog Chinese Mandarin Learner is blocked in PRC.



I have just tested my site on the Great Firewall of China website. It says it is ok. However, I have been told that the site is blocked.  Can anyone confirm if it is readable or not in PRC?

I am going to Xi'An next year for a short course of language study. I would if possible like to keep blogging. Is there a way that I can do this? Has anyone any suggestions?

In Sync with feeds and emails

For some reason my formal Mandarin learning at UNE and some of my supplementary resources are somewhat synchronised. I subscribe to some feeds and emails that deliver daily Chinese words and phrases. For the past week or more these words and phrases align with the vocabulary of my texts. I find the feeds and emails help me to pick up a quick phrase or be able to practice a new word.

Here are some links to some of the subscriptions and feeds that I am currently getting;

MDBG Vocabulary Feeds All the HSK levels

About.com Daily Mandarin Lesson

Chinese Word of the Day

Chinese-Course.com has a daily sentence email 

You can subscribe to my blog Chinese Mandarin Learner

 

I also subscribe to other blogs and websites of language learners. While these learners are often at a very different level to mine, they are still very useful. Sometimes it is enough to know that others are on the same learning journey as myself. The other blogs inspire me to learn more.

Small Bites of Chinese

Here is an excellent learning resource called Dear Dim Sum. This blog has small bites of Chinese everyday. The analogy of Dim Sum, the small portions you would have served in a Chinese restaurant, is clever. So everyday you can read and hear a word with an example or two. The Hanzi are well explained too. As well as this there are themes and threads of sets of words. The archives of the blog have; greetings, colour, animals, food, family and many more. The explanations are very good with examples in hanzi, pinyin and English. You can request subjects or topics you whish to learn. This really is a very handy blog to learn from. Have a look at Dear Dim Sum.

Mandarin Tone Change Rules

This is the best explanation of Mandarin Tone Change Rules. I have struggled with this all year and now I finally found a clear and concise summary of tone changes.

On another page on the same site is a clear explanation of Mandarin Tones. It begins

"Tones are probably the biggest difficulty for anyone learning to speak Mandarin. As a learner, you have to go through a long process from total unawareness of tones to eventually mastering them (which will probably take years)."

I am relieved to hear that it takes such a long time to learn the tones as I thought I wasn't mastering this as well as I could. As I am learning Chinese via distance / online education, have no opportunity to speak with native speakers and am often time poor, I feel a bit better about not mastering the tones at this stage of my learning. Much appreciated East Asian Student.

Chinese Picture Dictionary

Here is a great resource for visual learners. A Chinese Picture Dictionary. Lots of categories with the word in English, hanzi, pinyin and an audio to listen to for correct pronunciation. I found it very useful. There are 52 catagories from Airplane to Weather. Fast to load and quick and easy to look up. An excellent multimedia resource for learning Chinese.

The about page has this information

 “The Chinese Picture Dictionary is a multimedia courseware that aims to expand the vocabulary of beginning-level Chinese language students.  The Chinese Picture Dictionary presents several hundred pictures based on familiar settings of daily life. ..Each picture is presented in an individual page, along with buttons students can click to view the depicted vocabulary word written in Chinese script, view the pronunciation spelled out in Pinyin romanization, and  view a sample sentence using the word.  In addition, students can listen to native speakers of the language pronounce the word. 

The Chinese Picture Dictionary originated from the fact that pictures have long been favored by language teachers as a learning tool.  Because of their visual nature, they can say far more than words, and avoid the unnecessary use of translation.  The thematic presentation of 20 pictures together aims to help Chinese language students to streamline their learning and knowledge of new vocabulary in an effective way.”

Tatoeba Project

I found this site by accident. It is an interesting site where the aim is to collect sentences translated into several languages. Tatoeba in Japanese means “for example”. According to the Stats page there are now 94 languages. There are 1097953 sentences in total. English has over 200000 sentences and Chinese Mandarin has 32000. The search engine for the site is excellent. For my learning I am able to search in Chinese and English simultaneously. I can filter, add to favourites, add to lists and find random sentences. There is an excellent forum and discussion in many languages. It is possible to join the site, contribute and stay informed on the translations. The sentences seem to moderated by native speakers so there is validity and authenticity for the project. You can even adopt “orphan” sentences. I found this very useful to supplement my course textbook. So I think the Tatoeba Project is an excellent learning / teaching community.  

Tatoeba Project Example