As Ant notified me, I had written something QUITE different from "You have taken bad medicine" in that previous blog post (now corrected).
Somehow, what I had written actually roughly translates to
"You angrily made love to chinese cream".
or perhaps...
"You baked red sex".
So my apologies to any chinese readers who were confused by the previous blog post. I will be sure to doublecheck my pinyin doublethrice in the future!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Mo Mandarin
Back on the horse: Finished lesson 39 - finally back to where I stopped back in August, and it is burned in much better this time. After a funny lunch, Uncle Ant accused me of "ni3 chi1 cuo4 yao4 le" - "you have taken bad medicine", a colloquialism that means you've gone soft in the head. (Thanks to Ant for the re-correction - obviously I have been chi'ing cuo yao)
Turns out the Swedes are NOT coming over, which would have threatened to evaporate my desire to know that language, but Annika has re-iterated that even though they're not visiting, she wants to help me with Swedish. So I'm still plodding along there.
All these languages, they're like puppies wanting attention. I focus on Chinese, and suddenly there's a man in an elevator speaking Russian. I focus on Korean, and suddenly I'm arguing about the difference between Chikai and chiisai in Japanese with Ant.
Turns out the Swedes are NOT coming over, which would have threatened to evaporate my desire to know that language, but Annika has re-iterated that even though they're not visiting, she wants to help me with Swedish. So I'm still plodding along there.
All these languages, they're like puppies wanting attention. I focus on Chinese, and suddenly there's a man in an elevator speaking Russian. I focus on Korean, and suddenly I'm arguing about the difference between Chikai and chiisai in Japanese with Ant.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Like riding a bike
I got one lesson of Mandarin off this week... but now my Palmpilot is dying which is my player for the Audiofy bookchips. So I need to somehow get that content onto an iPod (there's a way with a little janky bit of software... but I need to figure it out). But that one lesson was 4 lessons BACK from where I stopped months back, and it was good to review, because I had forgotten quite a lot... But by the end of the lesson I was feeling confident again.
Tonight I had Chinese food delivered, and kicked out a "xiexie", and got a bow with a "bu ke qi", so I felt successful. I'm also realizing that I really need more Hanzi practice, so I'm working through the Integrated Chinese set: This was recommended by ChinesePod actually. And I think one of my 40th birthday presents to myself will be a few months of the Chinesepod Practice Plan - with daily 10 minute calls from Shanghai.
Allright, that's the update. I'm a bit tired, so nothing too clever.
Tonight I had Chinese food delivered, and kicked out a "xiexie", and got a bow with a "bu ke qi", so I felt successful. I'm also realizing that I really need more Hanzi practice, so I'm working through the Integrated Chinese set: This was recommended by ChinesePod actually. And I think one of my 40th birthday presents to myself will be a few months of the Chinesepod Practice Plan - with daily 10 minute calls from Shanghai.
Allright, that's the update. I'm a bit tired, so nothing too clever.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Back to Mandarin
Ok - I'm pausing on the Russian and hitting the Mandarin for a while. And sticking with the Korean, and taking a stronger focus back to the Swedish, since Thanksgiving IS coming and I want to be able to chat up the Swedes.
But as I was walking with Uncle Ant (allright, his name is Rich really) I realized that boy, if I just spent more time on Mandarin, I'd have a willing and geeky language partner right at hand. Rich is ALMOST as much of a language geek as I am, though truth be told, his language love is usually based around practicality: He learned Greek to prepare for a trip. He learned Mandarin because he was managing a project team of Chinese nationals. He learned Spanish because that's what people did in high school.
So, watch for less Russian and more Mandarin in the weeks to come.
Japanese... will hold for a while: I discovered that my Pimsleur Japanese III chip is corrupt and a replacement will take a few weeks....
Later
But as I was walking with Uncle Ant (allright, his name is Rich really) I realized that boy, if I just spent more time on Mandarin, I'd have a willing and geeky language partner right at hand. Rich is ALMOST as much of a language geek as I am, though truth be told, his language love is usually based around practicality: He learned Greek to prepare for a trip. He learned Mandarin because he was managing a project team of Chinese nationals. He learned Spanish because that's what people did in high school.
So, watch for less Russian and more Mandarin in the weeks to come.
Japanese... will hold for a while: I discovered that my Pimsleur Japanese III chip is corrupt and a replacement will take a few weeks....
Later
Monday, October 1, 2007
Oh Pronouns!
I'm just done with Pimsleur Russian 59, which is quite exciting. As I approach the end of level II, I wonder if I should barrel through into Level III, or take a spacer and work on Mandarin for a while...
Two interesting bits today:
In Russian it's considered bad form to use the same personal pronoun twice in a sentence: You'd never say "I'd like to invite you to my house" - 'I' and 'my" are variants of the same pronoun. So you say "I'd like to invite you to one's house". Other variants, "She was staying with one's friend" or "You are driving one's car".
You can mix pronouns no problem: "She was driving my car" is just fine. So it's not entirely inscrutable.
In Korean, the pronoun for "You" is rarely used - it's considered a bit too direct. So to start taking about "you", you say the person's name. But fear not, it's not as though they're saying names all day and night - there's a second rule that works with this: The "Topic Marker" (neun) is said after the name, and it's assumed that all conversation relates to that person until a new market is set.
While this sounds complex, it's pretty easy.
"As for you, Jim, how are you doing?"
"not bad."
"still going to school?"
"yes - and it's a pretty tough semester"
"Think grades will be a little lower?"
"Maybe. As for you, Keith, how is your school going?"
Where it gets complex is if, in the same conversation they would add "me too", which would reset the topic marker, requiring the person to say the name again to ask the next question. So I think that Koreans must be good at letting one side tell the tale, then letting the other go.
The English tendency to agree with a statement and offer a personal perspective to each question must be suppressed, or you need to say that person's name a lot.
That's it for today!
Two interesting bits today:
In Russian it's considered bad form to use the same personal pronoun twice in a sentence: You'd never say "I'd like to invite you to my house" - 'I' and 'my" are variants of the same pronoun. So you say "I'd like to invite you to one's house". Other variants, "She was staying with one's friend" or "You are driving one's car".
You can mix pronouns no problem: "She was driving my car" is just fine. So it's not entirely inscrutable.
In Korean, the pronoun for "You" is rarely used - it's considered a bit too direct. So to start taking about "you", you say the person's name. But fear not, it's not as though they're saying names all day and night - there's a second rule that works with this: The "Topic Marker" (neun) is said after the name, and it's assumed that all conversation relates to that person until a new market is set.
While this sounds complex, it's pretty easy.
"As for you, Jim, how are you doing?"
"not bad."
"still going to school?"
"yes - and it's a pretty tough semester"
"Think grades will be a little lower?"
"Maybe. As for you, Keith, how is your school going?"
Where it gets complex is if, in the same conversation they would add "me too", which would reset the topic marker, requiring the person to say the name again to ask the next question. So I think that Koreans must be good at letting one side tell the tale, then letting the other go.
The English tendency to agree with a statement and offer a personal perspective to each question must be suppressed, or you need to say that person's name a lot.
That's it for today!
Monday, September 24, 2007
Updates
1) To follow up on the "lack of question particles in Russian" being fundamentally different from English, I offer up that so far in Korean, I have not found a negative particle (like "not")... instead in the 2 main verbs "To Be" and "to Have", they have matching negative verbs "To Not Be" and "To Not Have". So if someone asks "do you not-have any money?", you would say "Yes, I not-have.", or "No, I Do-Have". So that's pretty different.
I'm glad that KoreanClass101 is just starting up: I feel good to be "keeping up" on the lessons, and working on my Hangul reading skillz. The glyphs are getting a lot more familiar to me.
2) On the Pimsleur Tip: I am flat out amazed at how well the Russian Lessons are structured. I'm at lesson 53 right now, and I'm positive we're doing constructions that I do not know how to do in Spanish or German after 90 lessons... and Russian is so complex! The dialog from Lesson 53:
"I invited you to my house last night, but you didn't come... why?"
"I couldn't find your address, and it was late, so I went home"
"Really?"
"Yes, and I couldn't find a working telephone, so I couldn't call!"
"I was talking to Marina, and she said you were at a restaurant with her last night."
"Well... Yes. But after that, it was too late to come over."
I can only think that they're trying to prepare you for the sorts of guilt-laden conversations you may have with those stormy Soviets. It's remarkable.
In addition, given that there are around 6 different cases of personal pronouns, when you learn a new thing to say, they do coach you with another phrase that uses the correct pronoun case, so for as much as they try not to weigh you down with "grammar", they are doing a good job of teaching the "rules" of the language.
Yes, this is a very good set of lessons.
3) That's it for now.
I'm glad that KoreanClass101 is just starting up: I feel good to be "keeping up" on the lessons, and working on my Hangul reading skillz. The glyphs are getting a lot more familiar to me.
2) On the Pimsleur Tip: I am flat out amazed at how well the Russian Lessons are structured. I'm at lesson 53 right now, and I'm positive we're doing constructions that I do not know how to do in Spanish or German after 90 lessons... and Russian is so complex! The dialog from Lesson 53:
"I invited you to my house last night, but you didn't come... why?"
"I couldn't find your address, and it was late, so I went home"
"Really?"
"Yes, and I couldn't find a working telephone, so I couldn't call!"
"I was talking to Marina, and she said you were at a restaurant with her last night."
"Well... Yes. But after that, it was too late to come over."
I can only think that they're trying to prepare you for the sorts of guilt-laden conversations you may have with those stormy Soviets. It's remarkable.
In addition, given that there are around 6 different cases of personal pronouns, when you learn a new thing to say, they do coach you with another phrase that uses the correct pronoun case, so for as much as they try not to weigh you down with "grammar", they are doing a good job of teaching the "rules" of the language.
Yes, this is a very good set of lessons.
3) That's it for now.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
A possible source of misunderstanding
In Russian, there are few interrogative constructions - where, who, how, why... sure, the language covers that. But almost all yes/no questions are exactly the same as statements, only with different stress.
вы сиберайетес вместе с нами
(and again, sorry about the phonetic spelling - this is all audio work right now)
Vooy see-ber-aye-e-tye vmye-stee suh na-may.
If spoken in a level, steadily declining tone, it means "You are coming with us."
But if you stress the first word, it means "Are YOU coming with us?
If you stress the second word, it means "Are you coming with us?"
If you stress the last word, it asks "Are you coming with US?"
In all cases, even when asking a question, you never raise your tone at the end, like an English question. The tone always falls at the end.
So you see that the exact same sentence can be one statement and three questions, with no indicator words that it's a question, and no English friendly rising intonation at the end. You can see why perhaps there have been some misunderstandings with the Russian people: How many times do you suppose people may have thought they were demanding something when in fact they were asking a question...?
Очень интересно... Very interesting.
вы сиберайетес вместе с нами
(and again, sorry about the phonetic spelling - this is all audio work right now)
Vooy see-ber-aye-e-tye vmye-stee suh na-may.
If spoken in a level, steadily declining tone, it means "You are coming with us."
But if you stress the first word, it means "Are YOU coming with us?
If you stress the second word, it means "Are you coming with us?"
If you stress the last word, it asks "Are you coming with US?"
In all cases, even when asking a question, you never raise your tone at the end, like an English question. The tone always falls at the end.
So you see that the exact same sentence can be one statement and three questions, with no indicator words that it's a question, and no English friendly rising intonation at the end. You can see why perhaps there have been some misunderstandings with the Russian people: How many times do you suppose people may have thought they were demanding something when in fact they were asking a question...?
Очень интересно... Very interesting.
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