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Post by Wolfgang on Jan 30, 2019 15:49:33 GMT -5
I'm getting into the Hanyu Pinyin system of pronunciation. It makes sense because you're trying to learn how to pronounce Chinese sounds using English equivalents. For example,
X = "sh"
ZH = "j"
Z = "ds"
I'm not into the Chinese vocabulary and rules yet, just learning the Pinyin "tool" that allows me to pronounce shiite.
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Post by Phaedrus on Jan 30, 2019 16:58:05 GMT -5
I'm getting into the Hanyu Pinyin system of pronunciation. It makes sense because you're trying to learn how to pronounce Chinese sounds using English equivalents. For example, X = "sh" ZH = "j" Z = "ds" I'm not into the Chinese vocabulary and rules yet, just learning the Pinyin "tool" that allows me to pronounce shiite. I have issues with the pinyin stuff. When they started with the Z's and X's I was already here in the US so I was a confused as any other with the pronunciation. I am also a reader of the traditional characters and the simplified characters, which should make it easier just confuses me. |
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Post by XAsstCoach on Jan 30, 2019 20:02:24 GMT -5
As you can understand some of it and can speak some everyday common terms to get by, that's fine. I don't think most Chinese are like the French snobs who will criticize you for mispronouncing their precious French. Kidding of course.  Well...actually...the locals always tease me my spoken Chinese is a little 奇怪. LOL! All in good fun, though. |
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Post by XAsstCoach on Jan 30, 2019 20:10:29 GMT -5
I'm getting into the Hanyu Pinyin system of pronunciation. It makes sense because you're trying to learn how to pronounce Chinese sounds using English equivalents. For example, X = "sh" ZH = "j" Z = "ds" I'm not into the Chinese vocabulary and rules yet, just learning the Pinyin "tool" that allows me to pronounce shiite. X is pronounced more like the "CH" in machine. Mainly because there is already a pronounce "sh" in the Chinese language...like 是 (Shì). |
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Post by Wolfgang on Jan 30, 2019 21:22:48 GMT -5
Another layer of difficulty is the incorporation of tones. It's not enough to just SAY the words but you have to say it with the proper tones.
Some of my former coworkers used to complain that whenever Chinese is spoken by an actor in an American film, they have no frikkin' idea what they're saying unless they read the subtitles. This is due to bad pronunciation plus lack of proper tones.
I had a Korean friend who said that he couldn't understand Jin's Korean from the TV show Lost. This is because Daniel Day Kim, who plays Jin, is only Korean by ethnicity but he grew up in America and had to "relearn" Korean for this role. LOL!
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Post by XAsstCoach on Jan 31, 2019 0:30:11 GMT -5
Here is an all time favorite!
施氏食獅史 shī shì shí shī shǐ
石室詩士施氏, shí shì shī shì shī shì,
嗜獅, 誓食十獅. shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
氏時時適市視獅. shì shí shí shì shì shì shī.
十時, 適十獅適市. shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
是時, shì shí,
適施氏適是市. shì shī shì shì shì shì.
氏視是十獅, shì shì shì shí shī,
恃矢勢, shì shǐ shì,
使是十獅逝世. shǐ shì shí shī shì shì.
氏拾是十獅屍, shì shí shì shí shī shī,
適石室. shì shí shì.
石室濕, shí shì shī,
氏使侍拭石室. shì shǐ shì shì shí shì.
石室拭, shí shì shì,
氏始試食十獅屍. shì shǐ shì shí shí shī shī.
食時, 始識十獅屍, shí shí, shǐ shì shì shí shī shī,
實十石獅屍. shí shí shí shī shī.
試釋是事. shì shì shì shì
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Post by c4ndlelight on Jan 31, 2019 1:00:51 GMT -5
The Danish Buffalo buffalo Buffalo...
- Far, får får får?
- Nej, får får ikke får, får får lam.
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Post by mikegarrison on Jan 31, 2019 1:56:53 GMT -5
I don't think most Chinese are like the French snobs who will criticize you for mispronouncing their precious French. Kidding of course. ;) I've been to France several times and never found anyone who was upset if I tried to speak French. I also generally found them to be quite friendly (although I've found that in most places if you seem to want to be friendly, other people will be friendly to you). |
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Post by ironhammer on Jan 31, 2019 5:42:45 GMT -5
I don't think most Chinese are like the French snobs who will criticize you for mispronouncing their precious French. Kidding of course. I've been to France several times and never found anyone who was upset if I tried to speak French. I also generally found them to be quite friendly (although I've found that in most places if you seem to want to be friendly, other people will be friendly to you). Well, you clearly haven't been to Paris. Parisans are notorious for their lack of manners.  Of course, you do realize I said I was kidding in my post? |
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Post by guest2 on Jan 31, 2019 7:12:40 GMT -5
Perhaps enroll in some Chinese language class at Berkeley or a nearby college as a starter. Go for Traditional Chinese, since you have no plans on visiting China at all. Many in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore view Simplified Chinese as an aberration. By the way, found the Rosetta Stone to be useless in trying to learn Chinese. I am always asking about the origin of the character, which the RS does not delve into much. Learning to speak Mandarin is manageable, as with any foreign language, it won't be a cakewalk, but learning the basic grammar and speaking a few common phrases can be handled. Learn the pinyin and it will help you grasp the pronounciation a lot. Learning to write Chinese is a lot harder, because it is not a Latin alphabet of a b or c. The written Chinese language is derived from logograms, with each character denoting a word or phrase, and there are many thousands of these Chinese characters to master if you want to able to write in a fluent manner. And it's not just memorizing these characters, the way you write it must also be correct, with each stroke of each character written in a particular order. So it would be harder than learning Arabic or Greek, which is still based on an alphabet. Mind you, mandarin is the national language of China, but not the native language of many regions of China. The written language is the same all over China, at least for ethnic Chinese (there are ethnic minorities like Tibetans and Uighurs who have their own spoken and written language, but that's another story) but the way it is spoken is far different depending on region. Only the North China Plain provinces and Shanxi and Shaanxi do you have confidence that the majority of the population speaks standard Mandarin as their native tongue. But go to Fujian for example, and you will be confronted with a maddening variety of dialects of Min, including Hokkien, or Minnan, which is also spoken in Taiwan across the Straits. Shanghai has Shanghainese, and in Guangdong and especially Hong Kong, the native dialect is Cantonese, which is mutually non-intelligble with Mandarin. If you speak mandarin to a native Hong Konger, they will treat you in the same way as if you are speaking a foreign language to them. They will understand you, but treat you like a foreigner just the same. On the other hand, if you speak Cantonese with them, they might treat you better. Japanese is even harder, it has been influenced a lot by Chinese vocabulary, but it is very much it's own unique language, in some ways, a language isolate, with unclear relations to other language groups. Because of the Japanese emphasis on politeness based on the Confucian hierarchy, there is a whole set of grammar for saying essentially the same thing, but is spoken differently according to the rank of the person you are speaking to. Written Japanese is even harder, elements of it is copied originally from classical Chinese, but today it is it's own language, with not one, but THREE components to the writing system, Kanji (borrowed Chinese characters), hiragana and katakana. Hiragana arose from the need to describe and name things not covered in Chinese and for grammatical inflections. In contrast, katakana is used often for loan words, to translate an originally foreign term into Japanese. And did I mention Korean? Like Japanese, the original written language, hanga, was derived from classical Chinese, but with growing nationalism in the 19th century, this led to adoption of Hangul, the Korean alphabet. A bit easier to learn than Japanese in my opinion, but then I did minor in Asian Studies in college, so I took lessons in all three language as well as some extra private tutoring over the years to have some grasp of it. And I am still far from fluent. You are underestimating Arabic, at least if you want to learn to speak and read it in a manner somewhat similar to how an actual Arabic speaker would use it. Learning Arabic is essentially learning two languages. You have whatever dialect version you want to speak, then you have the formal which is the written version. You will hear some people compare that to formal and informal versions of other languages but its closer to two separate languages. Things as elementary as the number 2 are different in formal and dialect. Kids in Arabic schools read much later than English speakers for example because they have to learn to read and write in a language thats not the one they grew up speaking, Spanish to Italian is a comparison I hear a lot. Also it is based on an alphabet but the Arabic alphabet is more difficult than the English because the letters appear differently depending on where in the word they are, similar to our cursive, and the vowel sounds are usually not indicated so its more of a memorization task. |
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Post by ironhammer on Jan 31, 2019 8:12:46 GMT -5
Learning to speak Mandarin is manageable, as with any foreign language, it won't be a cakewalk, but learning the basic grammar and speaking a few common phrases can be handled. Learn the pinyin and it will help you grasp the pronounciation a lot. Learning to write Chinese is a lot harder, because it is not a Latin alphabet of a b or c. The written Chinese language is derived from logograms, with each character denoting a word or phrase, and there are many thousands of these Chinese characters to master if you want to able to write in a fluent manner. And it's not just memorizing these characters, the way you write it must also be correct, with each stroke of each character written in a particular order. So it would be harder than learning Arabic or Greek, which is still based on an alphabet. Mind you, mandarin is the national language of China, but not the native language of many regions of China. The written language is the same all over China, at least for ethnic Chinese (there are ethnic minorities like Tibetans and Uighurs who have their own spoken and written language, but that's another story) but the way it is spoken is far different depending on region. Only the North China Plain provinces and Shanxi and Shaanxi do you have confidence that the majority of the population speaks standard Mandarin as their native tongue. But go to Fujian for example, and you will be confronted with a maddening variety of dialects of Min, including Hokkien, or Minnan, which is also spoken in Taiwan across the Straits. Shanghai has Shanghainese, and in Guangdong and especially Hong Kong, the native dialect is Cantonese, which is mutually non-intelligble with Mandarin. If you speak mandarin to a native Hong Konger, they will treat you in the same way as if you are speaking a foreign language to them. They will understand you, but treat you like a foreigner just the same. On the other hand, if you speak Cantonese with them, they might treat you better. Japanese is even harder, it has been influenced a lot by Chinese vocabulary, but it is very much it's own unique language, in some ways, a language isolate, with unclear relations to other language groups. Because of the Japanese emphasis on politeness based on the Confucian hierarchy, there is a whole set of grammar for saying essentially the same thing, but is spoken differently according to the rank of the person you are speaking to. Written Japanese is even harder, elements of it is copied originally from classical Chinese, but today it is it's own language, with not one, but THREE components to the writing system, Kanji (borrowed Chinese characters), hiragana and katakana. Hiragana arose from the need to describe and name things not covered in Chinese and for grammatical inflections. In contrast, katakana is used often for loan words, to translate an originally foreign term into Japanese. And did I mention Korean? Like Japanese, the original written language, hanga, was derived from classical Chinese, but with growing nationalism in the 19th century, this led to adoption of Hangul, the Korean alphabet. A bit easier to learn than Japanese in my opinion, but then I did minor in Asian Studies in college, so I took lessons in all three language as well as some extra private tutoring over the years to have some grasp of it. And I am still far from fluent. You are underestimating Arabic, at least if you want to learn to speak and read it in a manner somewhat similar to how an actual Arabic speaker would use it. Learning Arabic is essentially learning two languages. You have whatever dialect version you want to speak, then you have the formal which is the written version. You will hear some people compare that to formal and informal versions of other languages but its closer to two separate languages. Things as elementary as the number 2 are different in formal and dialect. Kids in Arabic schools read much later than English speakers for example because they have to learn to read and write in a language thats not the one they grew up speaking, Spanish to Italian is a comparison I hear a lot. Also it is based on an alphabet but the Arabic alphabet is more difficult than the English because the letters appear differently depending on where in the word they are, similar to our cursive, and the vowel sounds are usually not indicated so its more of a memorization task. Yes, but nowhere did I say learning Arabic was easy. I just think learning to write Chinese is harder since you have to memorize thousands of characters. I am speaking in relative terms. And since you mentioned reading and writing in almost a foreign language, that was the case with the literate Chinese right up until well into the 20th century. For centuries before that, Chinese has to write in classical Chinese, an ancient written form that diverged from the spoken form countless centuries ago. So for much of dynastic China, the written Chinese was totally different from spoken Chinese. This limited literacy to an elite group, from which court officials were selected to serve the Emperor, "the Mandarins", so-to-speak. It was only in the 20th century when a movement rejected classical Chinese and embrace a written Chinese form closer to the speaking form, making it easier for more Chinese to become literate. |
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Post by guest2 on Jan 31, 2019 8:41:56 GMT -5
You are underestimating Arabic, at least if you want to learn to speak and read it in a manner somewhat similar to how an actual Arabic speaker would use it. Learning Arabic is essentially learning two languages. You have whatever dialect version you want to speak, then you have the formal which is the written version. You will hear some people compare that to formal and informal versions of other languages but its closer to two separate languages. Things as elementary as the number 2 are different in formal and dialect. Kids in Arabic schools read much later than English speakers for example because they have to learn to read and write in a language thats not the one they grew up speaking, Spanish to Italian is a comparison I hear a lot. Also it is based on an alphabet but the Arabic alphabet is more difficult than the English because the letters appear differently depending on where in the word they are, similar to our cursive, and the vowel sounds are usually not indicated so its more of a memorization task. Yes, but nowhere did I say learning Arabic was easy. I just think learning to write Chinese is harder since you have to memorize thousands of characters. I am speaking in relative terms. And since you mentioned reading and writing in almost a foreign language, that was the case with the literate Chinese right up until well into the 20th century. For centuries before that, Chinese has to write in classical Chinese, an ancient written form that diverged from the spoken form countless centuries ago. So for much of dynastic China, the written Chinese was totally different from spoken Chinese. This limited literacy to an elite group, from which was selected court officials for the Emperor, "the Mandarins", so-to-speak. It was only in the 20th century when a movement rejected classical Chinese and embrace a written Chinese form closer to the speaking form, making it easier for more Chinese to become literate. The divergence between spoken and written Chinese you describe in the past is essentially Arabic today. Unfortunately religion dictates a similar reform won't happen. I am not necessarily asserting that Arabic is harder than Chinese, I would need to know more about Chinese than I do, just taking minor issue with where it was grouped, I believe with Greek. Its also somewhat of a physical issue as well since hearing and speaking Asian languages tends to be more difficult for native Westerners than Arabic is, so perhaps Arabic may be more difficult for a native Japanese speaker than Chinese would be, but the opposite is probably true for a native English speaker. Writing I will certainly concede (once you understand the language you are writing anyway, which is a challenge in Arabic because of the division) certainly seems much more difficult in the non-alphabetic languages. |
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Post by Wolfgang on Jan 31, 2019 21:48:25 GMT -5
Could not find cheap blue index cards for the 200+ radicals, so I made my own.
I used plain ol' white index cards (3x5) and cut a diagonal piece off the right corner. Did that for all 200+ cards. Then, I used a blue sharpie to color the top edge so that when placed in a card stack, they would be easily identifiable.
I appear to be putting more time into the management of my Chinese language studies than the content of the Chinese language. LOL!
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Post by vup on Jan 31, 2019 22:43:49 GMT -5
When I was watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, I was inspired to learn Asian languages and culture. I learned some beginning Chinese phrases using an app called FluentU. It was good for pronunciation and vocabulary, but not for writing. I plan on returning to it someday, but it takes much time and discipline. Hoping I can grow in those areas.
I figure if I ever advance in a language other than English, it would be Spanish.
I tend to over-think language, however. When I think about learning a new language, I think about terms like phonemes and morphemes and etymology. Then, I start repeating certain phonemes over and over until they start to lose meaning. I don't know why I would do that to myself. It appears I am more fixated with very tiny units rather than very large units.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jan 31, 2019 23:12:04 GMT -5
So, there are four tones in the Chinese language. And they're baffling. LOL!
When I hear a demonstration, sometimes I hear the tones and other times, I don't. It doesn't help that my book says that often, the tones are very subtle and often ignored depending on the context. D'oh!
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