posted
This is unrelated to my recent comments about posting here in Chinese.
Some background:
I have an enormously important Chinese exam coming in a few weeks. The last time I took a Chinese class was three years ago, and I need to maximize the power of the part of my brain that handles Chinese, specifically character recognition. To that aim I have been studying character cards, reading (or attempting to read) Chinese newspapers, and now I would like to do something that will help me here.
If nobody objects, I'll continue posting in English, but after trying out a post I am going to retype the entire entry using Chinese in a new paragraph below the post. This will force me to use Chinese in a way I am not completely use to. It will probably also decrease how much actual posting I do here (A bonus to some). At the heart of this request is the desire to take something I already do and get more benefit out of it. Who knows? I may continue re-translating in Chinese for the rest of the time I post here if it's a fruitful enough endeavor.
I also wanted to give the community a heads up so that people know what's going on, as well as finding out if for some reason doing that is tacky or rude in a way I don't realize.
I won't be translating this post into Chinese.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Couldn't you do the translations and then not post them? My background is that I am half Chinese, I took Chinese for a while, I also took Arabic, Russian, German, and a handful of other languages, and I majored in Linguistics, and yet I find it irritating when people post in other languages. I love language like I love pumpkin pie ... not stuffed inside the turkey.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: Couldn't you do the translations and then not post them? My background is that I am half Chinese, I took Chinese for a while, I also took Arabic, Russian, German, and a handful of other languages, and I majored in Linguistics, and yet I find it irritating when people post in other languages. I love language like I love pumpkin pie ... not stuffed inside the turkey.
I could, but then I couldn't look at them again and see if I have made mistakes. I forgot to mention too that I welcome anybody proficient in characters to correct my translations.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I couldn't remotely do it mind you (or help much for that matter), but it would be a fun way for me to pick up some new vocabulary.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Dude, go for it. It's not a big deal. It's not going to put anybody out to look over the Chinese to the next post.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I don't see why it would matter if you translated into Chinese. As long as you give the non-translated version I am happy. When people post without translating, it does annoy me, but giving multiple versions is cool.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
Is it correct to assume the [30 02] (by the way how do you get those symbols anyway?) is roughly equivalent to a period?
Posts: 549 | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
BlackBlade, I'm curious. Are you Chinese, and do you have any background in it outside of the classroom?
Posts: 241 | Registered: Nov 2009
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posted
I'm curious. Are Chinese characters letters, which together create words/thoughts/ideas, or are they words in and of themselves?
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Words, or ideas that can be combined to create new words.
Most of the characters themselves are made up of radicals, character components that can either lend meaning or sound to the character, so that if you know the radicals, you can see at a glance which characters have meanings related to "water", which characters are pronounced "shan", and so on.
At least, that's the theory as I understand it. In practice, nothing is that simple, but that's generally how it works.
Edit: I should point out that my knowledge of Chinese characters comes largely through having studied Japanese, which still uses a few thousand of the Chinese characters. I've never formally studied Chinese itself, though I've looked a bit into the history of the writing system, so if I've made any errors in my brief synopsis, someone who understands the Chinese system better will be along soon to correct me, I'm sure.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I predict Blackblade will seriously cutback on the length and number of his posts for as long as he continues translating.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I predict Blackblade will seriously cutback on the length and number of his posts for as long as he continues translating.
That's certainly a possibility. It might be that way at the start, but I intend to become proficient enough that translating lengthy posts is not a problem.
posted
Well I didn't make a big deal about it but I took my examinations back in late January, and they were hard to say the least. I thought my strong exam was the listening comprehension exam while my weak one was character recognition. Strangely enough, (would irony fit here?) it was reversed, I did respectably on character recognition, while I tanked at listening comprehension. I honestly cannot explain it. In any case I did not score high enough to pass, and continue my candidacy. What little posting I did here really did feel like it woke up parts of my brain that were sleeping. I can take these same exams again in 6 months, I think I am going to revert to posting in Chinese. The hard part for me is wanting to say things as best I can, and not having the Chinese words available. It was taking me a very long time to figure out how to say words I had never translated before. Part of me knows however that that is a necessary step in becoming fluent. Eventually, one day you are suddenly reading and you realize that you just read every word without difficulty, or that while you are speaking a phrase you could not say before suddenly comes to mind.
Thanks for all the help folks, I've still got more eggs in my basket, which leads me to another thread.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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