Tiger-tiger that text – Learning Chinese
http://www.sinoglot.com –Relatively new blog Sinoglot offers a bit of explanation (and examples) for Chinese New Year/Year of the Tiger text messages.
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Relatively new blog Sinoglot offers a bit of explanation (and examples) for Chinese New Year/Year of the Tiger text messages.
read more »From John at 'Sinosplice': "This post identifies a type of tonal production error which many students of Mandarin Chinese make, not only in the beginner and elementary stages, but often well into the intermediate stage... I’m dubbing the error the “3-2 Tone Swap"."
read more »Even though it was only announced a few days ago, Apple’s iPad already has me thinking about how app developers will use the large, high resolution display to make learning Chinese easier than ever before.
read more »From Tony at 'Still Going Native': 'An economics professor of mine once noted that many people interested in ‘helping the developing world’ study language, when a much more effective strategy would be to learn a hard skill...As for myself, I can rapidly assemble a small cadre of highly credentialed people who can explain what the socio-legal-economic-ethnographic effects (and post-modernist implic
read more »From immigrants in Chinatown to school boards in Ohio, people around the world are changing their tune on what languages should be taught to children. Resoundingly, they’re recommending Mandarin, the language of Mainland China. Here’s why.
read more »How the histories of China's favorite exclamation, zui niu, and American teenagers' most annoying tool of judgmental angst, the word 'sucks', are intimately related. I would have posted this even if I wasn't mentioned.
read more »An interesting take on Chinese pictographic characters in the form of food-related words. Shanghai-based Win has created a number of Chinese characters where some element or stroke of the character has been stylized in the form of the object it represents.
read more »Though it is spoken by more than 70 million people worldwide, and is the third most-used language in Canada after English and French, Cantonese is in trouble here in not only Western Chinatowns but even in the city formerly known as Canton. In Guangzhou, however, Cantonese speakers are beginning to gently push back, hoping to preserve their mother tongue.
read more »So you think Chinese is the most difficult and hard to learn language in the world? Ben Ross thinks your wrong, and in this post explains the various characteristics of Chinese which might actually make it easier to learn than other languages.
read more »A friend of mine just sent me a link to a New York Times article about how Cantonese is slowly dying out in New York’s Chinatown. I couldn’t help but get a little sad reading it. Sure, it’s a ridiculously difficult language to learn (which is why it should be spelled Can’t-onese), but it’s also an amazingly interesting language brimming with character.
read more »More great advice from Matt Schiavenza on getting out of your comfort zone and being able to hit Chinese language "curveballs" all the while extending your fluency in this rather difficult language.
read more »John at Sinosplice shares some great insight into the difficulties of learning a language and the personality-castration it tends to bring with it. "Someone who is always the life of the party may have a really hard time being that guy that’s hard to understand and that doesn’t make much sense.
read more »There's an interesting Newsweek magazine article that criticizes teaching techniques at language schools in China and suggests that one could learn Chinese more effectively by taking courses in one's home country. Chinese-forums users disagree.
read more »If you ask me for a “beizi” and there is a cup 杯子 bēizi and a blanket 被子 bèizi on the table, I won’t know which one to give you. When I’m sick, I ask my friends to bring me soup 汤 tāng, but they always bring me candy 糖 táng instead and then tell me I should eat something healthier.
read more »To be honest, I expected this to be cheesy and terrible. It's actually excellent advice for students of any language; a reminder to embrace and enjoy the language for all its idiosyncracies and beauty.
read more »A great dictionary with a horrible name, and some explanation "n词酷, a zillion word banks (but cool)."
read more »The NYTs Room For Debate blog looks at the evolution of Chinese language, and how it might affect the future course of the written language. An interesting cross-section of experts are tapped for their opinion: Eileen Cheng-yin Chow (professor of Chinese literary studies), Eugene Wang (professor of Asian art), Hsuan Meng (writer, World Journal Weekly) and Norman Matloff (computer scientist).
read more »John Sinosplice starts a mini-series interviewing expat translators (part 1, Brendan O’Kane), their path to achieving good Chinese levels, working as a translator, as well as a myriad of Chinese language/study tools and general tips.
read more »Whether you’re already learning Chinese (Mandarin) or you’ve just recently decided to take the plunge, let me offer 25 good reasons why you should learn Chinese. I hope this will help motivate you to start learning or to continue learning.
read more »By emphasizing the simplified character set favored in the mainland, China is marginalizing its Mandarin-speaking rival Taiwan, who writes and publishes with the traditional character set. It is understandable, therefore, that the Chinese are concerned about the diminishing number of foreigners who are learning to speak Mandarin.
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