A wealth of English phrases (in Chinese)

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I'm a huge fan of idiomatic phrases, a topic I've covered quite extensively on the Skritter blog last year, I find they are such a rich way to express your ideas, especially in Chinese; a language that has thousands of years of history. And yet, familiarizing yourself with all of these phrases is never easy. Yet, growing up as a native English speaker, there are already hundreds of idiomatic phrases that I do know and understand. Phrases like: "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," or "early bird gets the worm." 

I would love to use these expressions in Chinese, but I'm not a translator. Although I can usually explain my way around these phrase, my lack of confidence has left these linguistic gems out of my speeches and reports... at least until I came across THIS website. The blogger, who goes by the net-handle 阿靖 (ajing), has complied a list of hundreds of English idiomatic phrases complete with their Chinese counterparts; some of them are pretty literal, while others are simply Chinese phrases that hold very a very similar meaning.   

The key, however, is that instead of using Chinese to figure out the English phrase, we can attack the problem the other way around, using our background knowledge of English to learn similar Chinese expressions. Let's take the above expressions as an example:

Don't put all your eggs in one basket- 別把雞蛋擺在同一籃子裡。不要孤注一擲。
Early bird gets the worm- 早起的鳥兒有蟲吃。


Awesome right!


The site is great for intermediate and advanced learners who have a good feel for how these types of phrases can be used in reports or speeches, and I would highly recommend that everyone add it to their Chinese idioms bookmark folder (surely I'm not the only one who has one of these.)

Some other characteristics of 著（着）

Tweet Today our Modern Chinese Grammar and Syntax class started talking about Case Grammar Patters (格語法), but our teacher is fond of going off topic today and decide to further look at three functions of 著 (or 着 for you Mainland students), and I thought I would throw that part of the lecture up on the blog (or at least what I understood of it), since using English to work out what my teacher said in Chinese always seems to help me better understand the material. Anyway, lets take a look at 著!

著
Grammatically, we often think of 著 as a durative, or as representing a continued state... as expressed in the following explanation:

表示動作或狀態的持續

The focus here is on the continued state of an action or condition. However, from what I gathered in my lecture today, that is only one of its several functions. I don't pretent to be an expert on the patter (so take the follow with a grain of salt) but this is what I understand.

著 can be used as a "manner adverb" expression, for example: 他慢慢地吃著 (nibble at food). Here the state of being slow and nibbling is being modified by 著 and thus serving as sort of adverb.

For like a million other examples of this occurring check out the link.

著 can also represent a period of time. Let us take the example 紅著臉, or the English to be red in the face (with a blushing face w/e). Here the added 著 is serving as a time marker to indicate that (當下時間) during this present time, so-and-so has a red face. This is not a continuous state, but only a time marker.

Lets look at another example: 忙著讀書 (to be busy reading). Here again, 著 is being used as representing a current period of time, not indicating a continued stated of being busy.

Finally, 著 on a third level can serve as a focal point marker (in an abstract way). Take the example above again 忙著讀書, the focal point (焦點) is on reading (讀書), and since this example phrase is incomplete, one might imagine that you would use this to describe someone perhaps busily reading before going to take a test... or leaving for the day, or something...

It should be noted that 著 is not simply "-ing" in English... it is a little more complicated than that. Again, going back to the 忙著讀書 sentence, if we just wanted to say that someone is reading, we would just say 在讀書, because we cannot say 忙讀書.

I don't know if this helps anyone better understand 著, but if it does please leave your comments below. I hope that from now on, you have a little better grasp of this characters functionality when you see it in the wild.

Visiting Taiwan's ICLP

Tweet As part of my Teaching Practicum class my classmates and I had an opportunity to check out Taiwan's International Chinese Language Program, better know around these parts simply as ICLP. ICLP is an amazing program (perhaps the only one in the world) that takes language learners from zero to oral competence in one year. Many students of ICLP go on to do graduate work here in Taiwan, or enter the work force, so how do they do it?

ICLP's program certainly isn't a walk in the park. Students have four hours of Chinese class a day, split into three hours of small group classes (with a maximum of 4 students) and one hour of one-on-one lessons. While in the program, students participate in a language contract. If students are found speaking any language other than Chinese during classes or anywhere in the language learning center they will not receive a certificate of completion at the end of the program.

What really blew me away about the program was how well the students spoke Mandarin after just a year or two of study. Their tones, vocabulary, and sentence patterns were equal of someone who might have been studying for years and years in another program. However, I was most impressed with how naturally they were able to respond to our questions in Chinese, that to me, showed a real display of understanding.

After talking to some of the teachings I think that part of the success of this program is the strong emphasis on oral proficiency. From day one students are made brutally aware of their tone issues and pronunciation mistakes. While it may hurt at first, once they overcome that huge hurtle it gives them a great confidence in their language skill, helping to get them to the next level even quicker. Many of the staff strongly believe that many teachers of Mandarin are simply too soft when it comes to fixing these mistakes, and if these few students are any indication that being strict is the right way to fix this issue then I whole-heatedly agree with their approach.

To be honest, the whole experience made me regret my decision to study at Shida back in 2006-07. But I suppose looking forward is really the only way to progress... who knows, maybe I could be one of those teachers someday.

Reflecting on Taiwan's TOCFL Exam

Tweet On Saturday, May 5th 2012, after a grueling week of midterm exams, reports and 15 hours of regular classes, I went in to take Taiwan's TOCFL Exam, formerly known as the TOP. I was registered for the Master Level, also know as the fluency level.

I went into the exam with little hope of passing, but since I have to take (and pass) the exam before I graduate from my Master's program here in Taiwan, I wanted to see what this exam was all about so that I could better prepare myself for next time. I had bought a test booklet to prepare, but the prep booklet doesn't do much good in my opinion, since the material presented always feels about a step or two down from the actual level of material presented on the exam.

The exam is done on the computer, with your results processed instantaneously. Sure enough, after two hours of testing, split into listening and reading, I pressed send only to find those dreaded words "no pass" appear across the screen. However, much to my surprise I was only one point shy of grabbing the master level score, so where did I go wrong?

I would say that my largest problem was that I was simply not prepared for the scope of questions that appeared on the exam. The content was a mixture of news broadcasts, advertisements, business meeting conversations etc., and I simply didn't have enough background to fill in the gaps between the words I didn't know and what they were looking for in the questions provided. I fared a lot better on the reading section of the exam, but the speed at which I read was simply too slow for the allotted time given. With only one minute left in the test I had 10 questions left unanswered, that I hurriedly guess at without even reading the essay provided.

If I only had a little more time, or my reading ability was a little faster, I'm sure I could have made up that last final point and passed the exam, albeit with a poor score. However, instead of getting myself down about the results, I've taken it as a valuable lesson on the areas in which my Chinese needs to improve. Rather than sulk over that one point, I went out for a massive dinner of sushi and devised a plan for how I was going to gain 10 points before I take the exam again in June (just one month away)... and hear it is.

Step 1: Listening.

 My listening comprehension is lacking, there is no other way to put it. Put me on the street with strangers, put me in a classroom with lectures on Chinese syntax, grammar, or the origin of Chinese characters, and I'm perfectly fine. My problem isn't that I don't understand what is being said when I understand the context, my problem lies in my degree of listening comprehension. Quite simply, I need to spend a lot more time listening to things that I simply have know knowledge of. This means spending more time listing to radio broadcasts, news broadcasts, and TV programs that I have absolutely no interest in what-so-ever. So that is exactly what I'll do, I'm not going to like it, and I don't really know if I have the time to really make it happen over the next month, but I've got my radio adjusted to Chinese news, and whenever my TV is on, it is set to the local news... if this doesn't work, I'll adjust again after next month. 

Step 2: Reading:

I've got to read faster, so that is exactly what I'm going to do. Rather than look up words that I don't understand, or focus on blogs and news reports that catch my interest, I'm just going to open the newspaper and read whatever I can. Basically, I just need to make time in my day to read, something that might be easier said that done with 5 classes, 10 hours of teaching, and part-time work every week, but I'll do my best over the next month and see what happens.

Pretty boring post, but this is where I stand, and I'm just going to do what I can to do better next time. Since I don't really have time to "study" Chinese at this point, I'll just do my best over the next month and see what happens. If I don't pass it in June, then I get another year to prepare, and trust me, by that time I'll be ready!

Why Chinese?

Tweet A few weeks ago, Hugh Grigg, over at East Asian Student (a super awesome blog)wrote an article titled "Why I decided to study Chinese." It was great to hear his own personal story,and I thought I would share my own about getting started down the path of studying Chinese.

Flashback to 2006. A friend and I have just dismantled our personal company. After spend four years in the automotive industry building drag cars and doing custom engine fabrication for local and national customers, our business is failing to live up to our expectations. Working 80 hours a week at three jobs is taking a toll its toll on us both, and while learning a great deal in the process, we've both come to realization that building and fixing cars is a lifelong hobby, it isn't our ultimate end goal. We both decide that going back to college is a good idea. After traveling to Indonesia in 2004, I've got a taste for all things new and international, and I'm eager to begin my studies. I end up enrolling in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for the Fall 2006 semester.

Although I didn't know it at the time, my path toward Chinese can be boiled down to one fateful evening at a local diner with close friends. Although we would meet there ever week to catch up while sipping coffee late into the night, this particular evening was different. We were joined by a few other people who happened to be a mix of linguistics majors, with a focus, respectively, on either Chinese or Japanese. Their individual passions for these languages is fierce, and a small debate breaks out about which language is "better" to learn.

Personally I've had a strong passion for studying Japanese since I first read Shogun in high school, and I'd even started to teach myself some Japanese while I was running my company, since a large portion of our business involved importing rare Japanese tuning products to the United States for customers who were willing to to pay, and wait three months for the products to arrive stateside. With that being said, I was certainly intrigued by Chinese, and my friend was making a strong argument about the economic incentive attached to learning the language... in short, China's economy was going to overtake Japan in the next few years (which it did).

Coming home later that evening I was giddy with the idea of studying a foreign language. I had picked up quite a bit of Indonesian during my month of travel, which broke my "I can't learn a language spell," that was cast on me by my high school German teacher. I thought, what the heck, and decided to add a language class to my first semester. At that point I tossed economic incentive out the window and decided to choose Japanese, a language (and culture) I had been interested in learning about for years. However, when I went to pick Japanese 101 from the foreign language enrollment page I was met with a dilemma, Japanese 101 was completely full up.

Having skipped my college orientation (80 hour work weeks keep ya busy), I had no idea that I could've just walked into class the first day and asked one of the teachers to sign a class add sheet. Rather, I chose the next best option-- Chinese. I must have been destined to learn Chinese all along, because when I went to pick Chinese I was delighted to find that there was one seat left in the class, and it was all mine! I figured if I didn't like Chinese I could always switch to Japanese during my second year at school.

A few weeks later I was slacking off at work, reading a New York Times article about learning languages via podcast (a relatively new phenomenon at the time) and they were highlighting Chinese, and one company in particular-- ChinesePod. My full-time job was data entry, giving me the luxury of listening to whatever I wanted while I worked, so I decided to give ChinesePod a shot, and signed up for their 7 day free trial.

That summer before college I poured over the material, mimicking their short dialogues and paying close attention to tones. I had been a musician in high school, playing guitar, trumpet and African hand drums, and perhaps that helped me to feel the difference in tones quicker, cause I started practicing them from day one. That whole summer I worked on the basics of Chinese, learning how to ask simple questions and introduce myself. I didn't fly through the lessons, but I put a lot of effort on the material I was studying, and the things I studied I knew well.

When I arrived to my Chinese class on the first day, I was ready to put what I'd learned to the test. It was my first real world interaction in Chinese. We were going around the room, with students giving their name, year in school and major. When it was my turn to speak I went for broke: "大家好，我叫Jake, 我是一年級的學生, 我的Major是Linguistics." My teacher was impressed and actually praised my "good pronunciation" and tones. I would find out later that both of these things would still need lots of work, but it didn't matter, from that instant I was hooked.

My teacher  gave me something that day I had never received when studying German for four years in high school... praise and encouragement. From that moment onward Chinese classes were the highlight of my week. I worked hard the entire semester, and my efforts were rewarded when I took fourth place among first year college students during our state wide Chinese speech contest.

The rest then, I suppose, is history. I moved to Taiwan during my second year of Chinese study and pushed myself to the limit. One year later I worked at a summer camp teaching Chinese, and then packed my bags to spend half a year in Beijing, figuring I should learn a little something about the mainland as well. During my forth year of Chinese study I picked up a job teacher Chinese to Taiwanese-American kids at a weekend school, and made the decision to become a teacher shortly there after, while attending a four day, all expenses paid, Chinese Teacher's Conference in Beijing.

Now here I am, in Taiwan, earning a Master's degree in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. After five years of studying Chinese I'm really starting get the hang of it, but there is still so much more to learn. As a teacher, however, I learned the most important lesson there is from my first Chinese class in 2006... give your students the praise and encouragement they want and need, and you will create a life long language student. 


Got your own story to tell? Feel free to leave it in the comments below.