Extraordinary Tales of The Ordinary Path

大家好！ （Hello Everyone!)           
           I started this blog not entirely sure what topics to write about. However, I keep finding more and more websites, forums and blogs written by Chinese learners out in the world wide blogosphere. Most of the bloggers fall into two categories: Those who recently moved to China, and those who are learning Chinese on their own. All of them chronicle the author's attempts to learn Chinese, or else provide lessons and tips on the language (of varying quality). However, they all ignore the largest group of Mandarin language learners: the regular kind. Classroom learners, in either high school or college, who are taking the old fashioned route. (Flashcards and Integrated Chinese textbooks, all day erreday)

             So this is the real deal, traditional route, plain vanilla classroom experiences blog.  I haven't (yet) set out on a grand adventure to the Middle Kingdom, or made a pact to listen to Chinese podcasts every day. I'm just trying to flesh out the story a little bit, highlighting the very large group of Chinese learners that have yet to make an appearance online. If you're a parent wondering if Chinese school would be right for your child, or you're a student trying to confirm  your experience is typical, or you're a freshman considering what's rumored to be the hardest language to learn: you've come to the right place. Because although I'm writing about the typical learning approach, learning Chinese itself is anything but typical. 

             Check out the Links tab at the top of the page for useful resources. I'll collect the sites I found most helpful when doing homework, studying or trying to get background help.  And the Vocab tab should be fun for anyone trying to expand their Chinese vocabulary without straining themselves too much ;).

              To temporarily wrap this up, I'll say this: Chinese has been frustrating, challenging and exciting. I am overwhelming glad I chose to pursue it, and I encourage others to do the same. By building this blog I hope to dispel some myths about the language and while providing a more accurate picture of what to expect.
Sophie

The Best Online Grammar Resource

大家好!
I've been looking for an online resource for Chinese grammar for a long time, with relatively little success. Most pages are either poorly written or not in depth enough to suit my needs. This afternoon, I stumbled across a link to the Chinese grammar wiki on another website, and I am over the moon.
It's still a work in progress, but I checked out a few articles and they've been fantastic. Clear explanations, structure formulas, and plenty of examples. It's also free, hosted by a Chinese learning company in 上海.
You should ABSOLUTELY check it out. Let me know what you think in the comments!  http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Main_Page

Tips For Learning Characters

大家好！　(hello everyone!)

Characters form the most unique and fascinating aspect of the Chinese language. Unfortunately, they require a great deal of time to memorize. After more vocab quizzes than I can count, here's my input on what methods to use for memorizing characters:

1. Accept the amount of repetition you will have to do. Some kinds of repetition, however, are more helpful than others. Reading a character over and over might help you recognize it, but you probably won't be able to write it yourself without a prompt. Instead, Practice the act of remembering a character without a clue: 
1. make flashcards
2. write the same character ten or twenty times across two lines of notebook paper, then think about something else for a few minutes. After the break, check that you can write it without looking at your notes. If you can, then congrats! If not, rinse and repeat.
2. For the more difficult characters, practice writing them with your finger at random moments through your day. Frequent, short reminders help your brain store the information better than long study marathons. To do this, place small reminders around you:
1. write it on your hand so you see it several times a day (this was how I remembered right and left)
2. tape up pictures of the character where you will often see them (in the fridge, on your bathroom mirror, on the computer monitor. I know it sounds dorky to cover your apartment in Chinese words, but it really works.)
3. Finally, there are some characters that require a bit more than standard repetition. For more complicated words, use these Special tips for tricky characters:
1. understand where the components come from and their individual meanings. （There are several good radical dictionaries online. These list, by stroke order, the most common Chinese radicals and include their meaning.)
2. Research the origin of the character (Although several characters were originally pictographs, this group is by no means the majority. If you can't find an 'original' picture that the character developed from, just draw your own.
3. find similar characters and relate them
1. Ones that use the same components, have similar meanings, or similar sounds.

These study tips are exactly that--tips. I don't have a degree in Foreign language education or neuroscience, so I have no scientific backup for these ideas. But I've found them to be very effective for myself and my friends, so they will probably work for you. Feel free to trim down, improve on or substitute all of the above with your own habits, and remember to share what you come up with!

That's all for now.
Sophie

Expressing Time： Phrases for the Date and Days of The Week

大家好！
This is the second post in a series on expressing time. To go to the first (how to talk about hours of the day), click Here.

The Date:
The general pattern to know: 今天(today) 是 (the number of the month) 月 (number of the day) 号。

What is today's date? 今天是几月几号？

Today is August eleventh. 今天是八月十一号。
Today is August 11th of 2012 今天是 二0 十二 年八月十一号.

Next year: 下年

Last year: 上年 

This year: 今年

The year before last year: 去年

The year after next: 后年 

Here are some example sentences with the English, Chinese, pinyin and literal translation of the Chinese sentence. These literal translations might help you follow a complicated phrase. Keep in mind, however, that most words do not literally translate into English very cleanly, so these interpretations can be very rough.

Next year I will start college.

下年我上大学。

(next year) (I) (start) （college)

Where were you last year?

上年你在哪儿？

(last year) (you) (at) (where?)

My birthday is March 11th: 

我的生日是三月十一号。
(my)(birthday) (is) (third month) (tenth day)

When is your birthday?

你的生日是几月几号？
(your) (birthday) (is) (what month) (what day)

What are you doing this summer?

今年夏天的时候你做什么？
(this year) (summer) (time) (you）（do) (what)?

*note: here, I'm using the ....的时候 construction. For more information about this, go to the previous lesson on time, linked here.

Day of the week:Day of the week:

星期-
This word has a couple translations. First off, it means 'week'. 

Next week: 下个星期 

Last week: 上个星期
Two weeks: 两个星期

However, it can also be used to express the day of the week.

Monday: 星期一

Tuesday: 星期二

Wednesday: 星期三 

Thursday: 星期四

Thursday: 星期五 

Friday: 星期六

Saturday: 星期七

Sunday: 星期日 

Note that we start the week on Monday, making it the first day and Saturday the seventh day. Also remember that Sunday is special; it's usually called 星期 日, ( 日 means sun), or 星期天.
The days of the week are used in sentences exactly as they would be in English:
Today is Monday
今天是 星期一
Wednesday I will go to the library.
星期三 我想去 图书馆

Remember that, like all other Chinese sentences, the time phrase must go first. Thus the phrase "I will go to the library on Thursday" needs to be reordered like the one above：
星期四我想去 图书馆
and you can NEVER say:　 我想去 图书馆星期三

Keep these rules in mind and these sentences will be a breeze! Let me know if I missed anything. What other concepts do you find difficult? Comment below :)
再見！
Sophie Sino 

Expressing Time: Phrases for Hours in the Day

大家好！
I'm starting a series on how to express time and dates. Most of my Chinese textbooks lumped all the time-related concepts together in one chapter, which can get confusing. So I'll break these up a little and explain them in more detail.

Let's start with some handy words to know when expressing the time of day:
Vocab
early morning (like until 10 or 11 AM)              早上                      zǎo shàng
morning (from about 10 to 12)                          上午                      shàng wǔ
noon （from 12:00 to 1:00 PM)                       中午                      zhōng wǔ
afternoon (from 1:00 to 6:00 PM)                     下午                       xià wǔ
evening  (6:00 on)                                             晚上                      wǎn shàng
hour                                                                    点                        diǎn
minute                                                                 分                         fèn
half (as in, half hour)                                            半                        bàn
and quarter (as in, quarter of an hour)                   刻                         kè

Notice the repeat of the word 午. This character can mean noon by itself. The 上 means up, but it can also mean 'before'. 下, then, would mean down and 'after' 早 means early, so 早上 forms 'early morning'.
What about 中？ This character means middle, so 中午 is literally middle of the noon. This also makes sense when you think about the name of China: 中国。 国 (guo) means country or kingdom. So China is, literally, the 'middle kingdom'. So cool!

Anyway, translating time between Chinese and English is fairly straightforward.  There's just one difference: the Chinese always express units of time (and also locations) from largest to smallest. (year, month, day, etc.)  So 'the 7th of may, 2012' would read '2012 may the seventh' in Chinese. Or, “2:30 tomorrow afternoon” would read “tomorrow afternoon 2:30”

The general setup for a phrase expressing time in Chinese would run:
(general time expression)+（hour)+ 点 + (minute) + 分。

The general time expressions are those that say what portion of the day you're talking about- morning, afternoon, etc.   So a few examples of these phrases would run like this:

Four in the afternoon
下午四点

Seven in the morning
早上七点

Six thirty at night
晚上六点半

Ten forty five in the morning
上午十一点三刻

 Twelve in the afternoon
中午十二点

Notice that the corresponding times to 'morning', 'afternoon' etc. are fairly loose; therefore, if you're setting a time at exact noon (12:00) you would need to specify both the general time expression 中午 and the exact hour 十二点.

Use in Sentences: 
Keep in mind that time phrases come before ANY OTHER phrase in the sentence (location, verb, or otherwise). The only words that can go before the time are the subject.
For example:

我晚上八点睡觉。
I will go to bed at eight o'clock tonight.
Here's the sentence broken up by phrase:
   我            晚上八点         睡觉‘
(subject)      (time)         (verb phrase)

There's only one other place to put the time phrase: at the very beginning, even before the subject. Use this if you want to emphasize the time (I'm going to bed at EIGHT tonight, versus tonight I'm going to bed at eight).

Here's how the sentence would read with the emphasis on the time:
晚上八点我睡觉。

Asking what time it is:
现在 几点？ (right now how many hours?) (xiàn zài  jǐ diǎn )
现在是八点半。 （right now it is eight thirty) （xiàn zài shì bā diǎn bàn）

Other Time Words in Chinese: 
There are a few other words that are used in Chinese to talk about time. However, they are used in different situations.

时间 is more of a general term. Rather than being in sentences that talk about an exact time on the clock, 时间（shí jiān） is used to talk about having time, or how long something took to do.

时候 is also more general. This is used to talk about a time when something else was happening. For example:
When I am eating...
我吃饭的时候....
By attaching 时候 to the verb phrase, you can make the verb phrase a time and provide a context. Note that you always need to have a 的 between the verb and the 时. You do not, however, need a word that corresponds to 'while' in English. You can go straight into the second verb:
我吃饭的时候， 他看书 。
while i am eating, he reads a book.
时候 can also be used one other important way: asking people what time something will happen.
For example:
What time do you eat?
你什么时候吃饭？


That's all for now!  Next time, we'll learn days of the week and how to talk about what date it is.
再见！
Sophie Sino