Merry Christmas in Chinese December 18, 2008
Posted by mandarinchinese in Chinese, Holiday, Lessons, language.Tags: Chinese, Holiday, Merry Christmas
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It’s that time of the year! What time is that? Of course it’s the time to start practicing how to say Merry Christmas in Chinese.
圣诞快乐/shèng dàn kuài lè.
Say it a few time to get it in your head. Someone suggested that if you repeat something 60 times, it will become natural to you. I agree with this statement. but you can just sit down and say something 60 times. I had to be in context and spaced at proper intervals. The context part makes sense, but what those proper intervals are, I’ll leave that to the linguistic statisticians. Just practice and use it as much as you can.
Let’s break that down:
圣诞节/ Shèng dàn jié/ Christmas.
圣 / Shèng / Means “holy” or “sacred” Think “Oh holy night”
诞 / dàn/ Means birth. So 圣诞 means holy birth, talking about Jesus Christ
节/ jié / is “festival” or “holiday”
So 圣诞节 essentially means Christmas Day.
Now here’s a test. If you already know that 新年快乐 xīnnián kuài lè mean Happy New Year, then what do you think 快乐/ kuài lè means? Right, “happy” or “merry.”
Now let’s put it all together and say it in unison:
圣诞快乐/ shèng dàn kuài lè/ Merry Christmas!
Note that there is no 节 in there. Any guesses as to why?
加油， jiā yóu Come on, keep going, don’t quit September 26, 2008
Posted by mandarinchinese in Chinese, language, linguistics, mandarin.add a comment
Finally going back to China for a month in October. It’s been a year of living in the States without a proper environment. 借口, jiè kǒu， an excuse for not advancing in my 中文? Perhaps. But going back will be a great test to see if what I’ve learned thus far will stick. If it does, then I’ll know that learning the right way will take you a lot further than learning the “traditional way.” I certainly don’t remember much Spanish, and I took that for 5 years.
I often read through Chinese-Forums to see what Chinese learners are talking about. I think too much time and energy (and sometimes money, too) is spent on figuring out the 最好的/zuì hǎo de/”best” system, when in reality, all systems work if you stick to them long enough. The problem is that most people don’t have the discipline to stick to anything, save for bad habits. It’s not about which book you use, how many vocabulary words you learn in a day, or the 15 stroke characters that you can write. It’s about taking responsibility for your own learning and creating the opportunities for yourself. Use the tools that are out there and design the perfect environment for you.
Keep going, don’t quit, 加油！
暑假/shǔ jià/Summer Vacation (and NCIKU) June 9, 2008
Posted by mandarinchinese in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
My theory was right. Taking Chinese class at the local community college would keep my mind on Chinese. Now that summer’s practically here and I’m “on break,” I’ve slacked quite a bit on my studying. I still talk to friends regularly in Chinese, but I find myself struggling more to put things together. So the moral of the story is, keep in in you mind and on your heart (kinda like what you learn in Sunday school!).
On another note, I’m a member of the “Chinese-Dictionaries” Google group where there’s lots of techie discussion on XML, API, databases, dictionaries, etc. A current topic string is on integrating handwriting recognition into different programs. Through this, I discovered a new (to me) site: NCIKU (which is apparently looking to change it’s name. The site is “more than a dictionary.” There is a neat little java applet that lets you use your cursor to write characters and then get feedback. Also, apparently you can post your own vocab lists and let the world know your progress on how much you’ve memorized.
If you know of other resources that have helped you, drop a comment. Thanks!
再见！
Girls are always so troublesome/这女孩子怎么一个比一个麻烦呀 January 28, 2008
Posted by mandarinchinese in Chinese, language, mandarin.Tags: Chinese, english, language, mandarin, Zhongwen，中文，英文，外语，普通话，国
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I’ve been watching Flying Foxy of Snow Mountain/雪山飞狐 on TV and like it very much. The hero, 胡飞, doesn’t understand women very much and mutters this line to himself: 这女孩子怎么一个比一个麻烦呀, which essentially is a declarative statement to the effect of “why are girls so bothersome” or “why are girls so much trouble?” or “girls are so much trouble.”
Let’s break it down to understand how this pattern works.
1. Context. The hero is a real man. He knows how to fight, but he doesn’t understand women. So they always give him a big burden. So, he speaks this line. The main elements of the sentence are 女孩子 (girl/girls) 一个比一个 (roughly “one vs. another”) and 麻烦 (troublesome).
这女孩子: If you’ve studied Chinese for a while, you might wonder why this isn’t 这个女孩子, or even just 女孩子. Well, 这女孩子usually refers to all girls, where as 这个女孩子 refers to just one girl. Let’s look at another example:
这杂志(Magazine) 很好. (Time) Magazine is a good magazine. Every issue is pretty good. This entire publication is good.
But if we say 这本杂志很好 We could either be talking about this magazine (this issue) or Time magazine in general.
Why use 这 at all? Why not just say 杂志很好? Well, remember that this statement is a interjection. The 这 here is used to express worry, disgust, unhappiness. Functions like a (hey, well, man!, gee, etc)
So 这女孩子 is leaning towards “girls” in general (the 一个比一个 part makes this 100% clear).
怎么: why, but in a rhetorical way.
一个比一个: one compared to one, one compared to another
麻烦: trouble/troublesome
呀: adds strength to what’s just been said.
And here are some short dialogs to look at how this is used (谢谢在广东的Chris!):
Dialog 1
A:你的女朋友没和你一起吃饭吗？
B：我和她吵架了。
A：别担心，很快就好了。
B；她很小气的，唉，这女孩子怎么一个比一个麻烦啊
Dialog 2
A：Lili 准备好了吗？我们要走了。
B：还没呢，她还在化妆啊。
A：天啊，她化妆可是要两个小时啊。那LUCY好了吗？
B：她也没好呢，她在洗头发啊。
A：我的天啊！！！！！这女孩子怎么一个比一个麻烦啊！！！
