choudoufu

chew on this

2011-11-07T05:01:00.000-08:00

dancing dead squid and soy sauce. so appetizing!!!

chinglish on broadway

2011-11-03T07:14:00.001-07:00

2011-11-01T18:31:00.000-07:00

i hope li na's influence on women's sports in china is amazing.

2011-10-26T04:47:00.000-07:00

Heard this on Chinese Pod while running the other day. Pao3 de kuai4, pao de kuai.

Nike "Yong Yun Dong"" 用运动

2011-10-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

Catchy "Yong4 Yun4 Dong4" 用运动

2011-10-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

First ~30 words using Heisig. Tested myself and my son using the Anki program later that day with excellent results.

Simplified or Traditional

2011-10-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

汉字 (漢字)

So in the pursuit of learning Chinese, the question that will invariably come up is whether to study Traditional or Simplified Hanzi. We chose Simplified because it is somewhat easier, much of the characters are the same and it is predominantly used on the mainland... and my mother said too. My niece, however, has been studying Traditional in Chinese school for many years now. My sister says they do since most of the Traditional is the same as the Simplified, many of the texts are in Traditional and her teachers are from Taiwan.

We recently purchased this book. We'll see if it helps us.

A word of warning. Depending on which path you choose, Heisig's books are available in Simplified and Traditional. Be careful to order the right one. I have both because of this oversight.

joe and zhou

2011-10-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

In the past decade or so, PY has become increasingly popular among China scholars, not only in English-speaking environments but nearly everywhere that Chinese words have to be transliterated. Words rendered in PY are pronounced more or less the way they appear to be to an English speaker, with a few noteworthy exceptions: qsounds like the ch in cheek; z sounds like the ds in buds (unless followed immediately by an h [i.e. zh] in which case the two letters together sound like the j in jump); xsounds like the sh in sheep; and c sounds like the ts in its (unless followed immediately by an "h," in which case the two letters together sound like the ch in cheap. Thus:qing sounds like "ching;" zu sounds like "dsoo;" zhou sounds like "joe," xing sounds like "shing;" can sounds like "tsawn;" and chu sounds like "chew." found this when I was searching for joe and zhou.

Useful but seems a bit generalized. The zhou as in zhouzi (table) sounds more like "jawh" to me while my mother (native speaker) says it's more of a "ts" sound. Today, I found the word zhoumo (weekend) and it sounded more like "joe" and "joemawh"

10/18 Just noticed table in pinyin is zhuozi not zhouzi. This going to be a long learning process.

words

2011-10-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

words

Pirates of the Caribbean in Mandarin

2011-10-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

We are watching Pirates in Mandarin today. This version is really well done with nice clean audio. Pretty bizarre listening to this in Mandarin. It definitely seems useful as we have seen this movie so many time in English. We pretty much know what they are saying. If I could only find Star Wars.

Kindle Fire

2011-09-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

Hoping that this new Kindle Fire will be my device of choice when travelling to China. Doesn't have much of a hard drive so I will need a few memory sticks.

hanzi of the day

2011-09-28T06:11:00.000-07:00

这 zhè this; these
是 shì is; are; am; yes; to be
什么 shén me what?; who?; something; anything

What is this?

什么时候

When?

Writing and recognition words of the day.

2011-09-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

One of our strategies to learn Chinese is to watch as many Mandarin spoken movies as possible. While we've always enjoyed Chinese movies, we now are watching them with greater purpose. Watched this one today and I highly recommend it.

why abc laowai

2011-09-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

With seven months to go to our trip to China, I want to learn as much Chinese as possible. Having a half Chinese ten year old son made me want to give him as full a Chinese experience as I could. So that lead us in one obvious direction which was to learn Chinese.

As I began doing my research, I discovered a myriad of topics concerning all things Chinese. Stumbling upon all this Internet material caused me to reflect on my own life as an American born Chinese. What I discovered is that as I've gotten older, my need to understand my Chinese(ness) has strongly permeated my everyday life. This can be seen in my professional cooking style, martial arts study, love of the Chinese arts and now studying the language. This is in stark contrast to my childhood where all I wanted to be was all American.
So...this blog will be dedicated to my journey to find my Chinese(ness).

hanzi 1

2011-09-27T19:23:00.000-07:00