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Random German Vocabulary (51)

die Bierfahne – beer-breath der Kreuzkümmel – cumin das Manko – shortcoming der Pferdefuß – drawback; catch die Zurückweisung – rejection

(etwas) befürworten – to support (something) nachlassen – to decrease; to diminish (sich) schrammen – to scratch (oneself) (vor etwas) strotzen – to be bursting (with something)

anfällig – prone (to) kurzatmig – short of breath überfällig – overdue zwielichtig – dodgy; shady

per Anhalter fahren – to hitchhike (jemanden) wie Luft behandeln – to give (someone) the cold shoulder die Messlatte hoch legen – to set the bar high

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«Loud Murmurs» Podcast Vocabulary

part one of... many. no logical consistency as far as the words go. these words come from their S4 E13 episode on Word of Honor

format: simplified hanzi - pinyin  » english definition // chinese definition

正确 - zhèng què » correct, proper // 符合实际或客观标准的

基础 - jī chǔ  » base, foundation // 事物发展的根基或起点

启发 - qǐ fā » to explain, to enlighten, motivation // 开导，使有所领悟

观念 - guān niàn »  views, notion, general impressions // 思想意识

建立 - jiàn lì » to establish, to found // 创设；成立

命运 - mìng yùn » destiny // 迷信指人一生中注定的吉凶祸福

并且  -  bìng qiě » moreover // 连接动词、动词性短语或分句，表示递进关系

描写  -  miáo xiě » to describe // 用语言、文字把人物、事件或环境等具体形象地表现出来

人士 - rén shì » figure, person // 在社会上有一定影响或地位的人物

执行 - zhí xíng » to carry out, to execute // 实施；实行

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Watching LittleFox’s 西游记 Series and I get to this line:

悟空都偷吃了蟠桃 偷吃的越来越多 | Wukong surreptitiously ate peaches; more and more he ate them.

西游记 was first published during the Ming dynasty.

The Monkey King’s been eating those heavenly peaches for nearly 400 slutty, slutty years.

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Happy Independence Day, Vietnam!

On September 2nd 1945, President Hồ Chí Minh proudly read the Declaration of Independence in Ba Đình Square. This is considered to be the birth moment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Now it’s been 72 years since the day and we as usual have a four-day break. The Independence Day is also regarded as to remember the victory of the August Revolutionary against the first French Colonialisation, 1945.

Fact: President Hồ Chí Minh passed away on September 2nd 1969, 24 years after the declaration. 

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psa for CS majors!!

If youre a computer science student and youre taking (or will be taking) data structures, PLEASE check out this website. Visualgo has some of the best visual demonstrations for basically ALL the important data structures and algorithms you learn in a data structures course. This site saved my ass for my final because I couldnt work with avl trees for shit lol 

please just give it a look i promise you wont be disappointed!

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Hey how to get well versed in programming?I learnt C++ but when it comes to competitive programming I find it hard to solve the problems

hi, thanks for asking! i don’t have a lot of experience with competitive programming, but i think i can point you to the right direction.

you can only get better at programming with practice, but i’m sure we all know that. competitive programming is a great way to practice, but it can be frustrating when you can’t solve an exercise. that’s why i’d start looking into solved examples of competitive programming exercises, where you don’t have the time constraint that most challenge websites do. take your time analyzing and understanding each part of the code.

of course that won’t do you any good if you lack the knowledge to understand it. make sure you become familiar with data structures and algorithms, as some programming courses fail to teach those. i myself am only learning it right now! and a lot of the exercises/challenges demand you to have that knowledge.

here are a few websites that can help you more than i can!

for data structures & algorithms:

How do I start learning or strengthen my knowledge of data structures and algorithms? 

Data Structures and Algorithms by CS Dojo | A playlist on Youtube from CS Dojo briefly talking about some important concepts

Top 10 Algorithms and Data Structures for Competitive Programming

Full Data Structures Course by freeCodeCamp.org 

Advanced Data Structures

for getting started with competitive programming:

Getting started with Competitive Programming

How to begin with Competitive Programming?

How to become a Master in Competitive Programming?

Tips and Tricks for Competitive Programmers 1 & 2

more useful resources for later:

7 Best Coding Challenges Websites

How to approach a coding problem?

Writing code faster during Competitive Programming in C++

Which C++ libraries are useful for Competitive Programming?

Must do Math for Competitive Programming

there are a lot of links i know, it can be quite overwhelming! but they’re there mostly as guidelines for you to choose your own path while learning ds&algorithms/competitive programming. good luck!

and yes most are from geeksforgeeks but i love that website what can i do

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天官赐福 01.09: Vocabulary from the Episode Dialogue

Vocabulary is listed in the same order it appears in the episode.

Note: When a vocabulary word appears in an episode under a secondary definition, I list both the primary definition and the definition used, with an asterisk next to the used definition. Otherwise, I only list the primary definition.

.

贱人 jiànrén: noun (vulgar) - slut, cheap person, bitch 💬 又是那个贱人 It’s that bitch again.

未尝 wèicháng: adv. (literary) - [before a negative, to make a guarded assertion] 💬 未尝不可 It’s not impossible.

拦 lán: verb - bar, obstruct, hold back

不住 bùzhù: adv. constantly, repeatedly 💬 拦你都拦不住 I’m constantly reigning you in.

相交 xīangjiāo: verb - intersect; *make friends with

投缘 tóuyuán: verb - hit it off, find (each other) congenial 💬 与人相交 看到是投缘不投缘 相性如何 (With regard to) making friends with a person, (I) see whether or not we hit it off (going by) what the nature (of the person) is.

便 biàn: noun - urine, excrement; *adv. - in that case, [a more formal version of 就]; conj. - even if

乞丐 qǐgài: noun - beggar

讨厌 tǎo//yàn: verb - loathe, detest

皇帝 huángdì: noun - emperor 💬 我若喜欢你 你便是乞丐我也喜欢 我若讨厌你 你就是皇帝我也讨厌 If I like you, I’ll still like you even if you’re a beggar. If I hate you, I’ll still hate you even if you’re the emperor.

铲除 chǎnchú: verb - root out, eradicate

国师 guóshī: noun - teacher of the state, preceptor 💬 我们为铲除半月国师而来 We have also come to get rid of the Bànyuè kingdom’s preceptor.

胡说 húshuō: verb - speak drivel, spout bullshit; noun - nonsense 💬 胡说 是你们自己非要往下跳的 Bullshit! You jumped of your own volition!

休想 xiūxiǎng: verb - don’t imagine that’s possible

威胁 wēixié: verb - threaten, menace, imperil 💬 你休想再议此[1]威胁我 You can’t possibly be threatening me again.

慌张 huāngzhang: adj. - agitated, flustered; 慌慌张张: idiom - helter-skelter 💬 干什么慌慌张张的 What’s got you in such a tizzy?

风暴 fēngbào: noun - *wind storm, tempest; violent commotion

来袭 láixí: verb - to invade; *(of a storm) to strike

栋梁 dòngliáng: noun - support beam, structural pillar

塌 tā: verb - collapse, fall down, cave in 💬 风暴来袭 这沙下巢穴没有栋梁 很快就要塌了 The storm has struck. (Our) hideaway doesn’t have the structural support (to withstand) this sandstorm. It will collapse any moment.

[1] Although the subtitles said 议此 yìcǐ I think this may have been mistake, and that the line should have been transcribed as 一次 yīcì.

New 天官赐福 vocabulary every Monday!

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questions to torture stuck-up business majors with on a date

• "why can't we just print more money?"

• "inflation? isn't that like, a kink?"

• "why do they call it the FREE market when you have to pay for stuff?"

feel free to add on

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死对头 「死對頭」 si3 dui4 tou arch-enemy, sworn enemy

跟踪 「跟蹤」 gen1 zong1 to follow somebody’s tracks, to shadow, tracking

捉迷藏 「捉迷藏」 zhuo1 mi2 cang2 to play hide-and-seek

卧底 「臥底」 wo4 di3 to hide (as an undercover agent), an insider (in a gang of thieves), a mole

戒 jie4 to give up or stop doing something, to guard against, to exhort, to admonish or warn, ring (for a finger)

（戒掉抽烟的习惯）

验收 「驗收」 yan4 shou1 to check on receipt, to verify and accept (a delivery), an inventory of received goods

淤青 yu1 qing1 bruise, contusion

矫正 「矯正」 jiao3 zheng4 to correct, to rectify (e.g., hearing or vision problems), to cure, rectification, correction, to straighten

边缘 「邊緣」 bian1 yuan2 edge, fringe, verge, periphery

束缚 「束縛」 shu4 fu4 to bind, to tie, to restrict, to commit, fetters

循序渐进 「循序漸進」 xun2 xu4 jian4 jin4 in sequence, step by step, to make steady progress incrementally 

冒昧 mao4 mei4 bold, presumptuous, to take the liberty of

入不敷出 ru4 bu4 fu1 chu1 income does not cover expenditure, unable to make ends meet

亏空 「虧空」 kui1 kong1 in debt, in the red, in deficit 

殆尽 「殆盡」 dai4 jin4 nearly exhausted, practically nothing left

颠覆 「顛覆」 dian1 fu4 to topple (i.e., to knock over), to capsize, to overturn (a regime, by plotting/subversion), to undermine, to subvert

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Tips for practicing reading for Chinese learners; mental blocks and sub-vocalisation

This post is going to be primarily aimed at Chinese learners, because there are some extra difficulties that come not always being able to guess the pronunciation of characters, but would work for any other language, especially Japanese or other non-latinate alphabet languages.  

As you guys know already, I’ve been reading for a very short time in comparison to the length of time I’ve been learning Chinese in total. I know about 2000 characters now, more words, and yet every single time I sit down to read a text in Chinese my first reaction is *blank panic*. 

For about a second, I see a wall of text, impenetrable, that there’s no way I will ever be able to read. It’s forbidding; it’s like a sheer cliff that I’m standing at the bottom of. 

As soon as I can pick out a few words, the text becomes less terror-inducing slightly. Reading Chinese for me after 7 months, to abuse a much-used simile, is a little like walking along a train track in the mist: you can’t see very far ahead, but as you walk through the mist, your surroundings gradually become clear. 

Ultimately, if you recognise a majority of the characters in the text, it’s not your character recognition which you need to improve: it’s your speed, your ability to scan, and your approach to reading the text. So here are a few tips that I find helpful in practicing this, and in overcoming this knee-jerk ahhhh it’s Chinese I can’t read it reaction I still have whenever I see a text. 

1) Practice reading out loud. This forces you to read at a ‘normal’ pace, but also forces you to consider sentence structure, phrasing etc to sound natural. If you do this enough, your ability to scan a few words ahead to check the direction of the sentence will improve. For obvious reasons, this is done best with texts at your level; but I encourage you to read texts that are still difficult - so characters you recognise, but that may take you longer than more common ones. 

2) Stop sub-vocalising when you read in your head. Seriously. Stop it. I do it too, it’s a habit especially when you’re not sure if you know 100% of the characters in a text, but much like sub-vocalising in your native language, it will slow you down and impede your ability to scan the text quickly and fluidly. Try to glance over the sentence without pausing too long on individual words; you can imagine you are drawing a line through the text with your eyes. Try to understand the meaning of the sentence without ‘saying’ it aloud. I recommend practicing this with texts that are easier or below your level to start with, and then working your way up to harder texts. 

3) Read texts that are above your current level without a dictionary. This challenges you to understand the gist of the text without being discomfited when you don’t know a character, and trains your ability to scan and jump over unfamiliar words quickly without it completely halting your reading speed. Don’t use a dictionary; this isn’t about vocabulary. See how quickly you can read the text and understand roughly what’s happening without resorting to key words; then, see if you can go back and find the key words. 

4) Practicing finding individual words or phrases. This is a little like training the ability to skim-read or scan in any language. Set up a text, and try to find a few specific words that you have already chosen for yourself. An easy way to do this is to go to a text in a textbook which has vocabulary at the bottom, and challenge yourself to find those words in as short a time as possible. This will improve your ability to scan a text quickly, to get the gist and meaning without knowing exactly the characters used. 

If I could give one take-away from this, it’s that reading is a skill that has to be trained just like any other. Whilst reading can be a fantastic way to get new vocabulary in context, it shouldn’t just be used as a gold mine for new words or practicing character recognition. You need to spend time reading regularly without worrying about vocabulary to increase your familiarity with reading in another writing system, just like you did in your first language as a child. This is my biggest challenge for HSK in particular, where the amount of text that you have to read in a minute fills me with unholy dread. Whilst the vocabulary is not necessarily any more difficult or unknown than the listening - they often put unknown words that you may not know in both - given the exact same percentage of unknown words, I can complete the 45 minute listening in about 30 minutes, and got 97% the last time I tried. 

I can’t even finish the reading in that time, let alone getting the questions correct. So I’m working a lot on my reading; I know it’s my weakest area. 

What are some ways you can use to practice?

1) Watch Chinese-only media with Chinese subtitles. If you are better at listening, you may be tempted to just ignore the subtitles like I often do: but there will almost certainly be words you are unclear of, where the subtitles will help. I find this an excellent way to train both listening and reading a) because it forces me to read far more quickly than I otherwise would, and b) because it cements the sound-meaning-character connection between words I common hear (in period dramas, say) whose characters I didn’t know. 

2) Read graded readers. Guys, graded readers are your saviours. I have a few levels: I choose the easier ones when I’m trying to practice speed, and work my way up from there. Generally in a reading session I will start with about 15 minutes on a relatively easy text, and once I’m in a better, more relaxed state of mind, I’ll move on to something harder and try and keep the same speed. 

3) Read articles or blog posts (with the help of a screen reader). One thing I often do is look up stupid WikiHow articles - they’re short, usually easy to understand, and have pictures illustrating them. That said, they’re often still 2000+ words long, so if you finish one it very much feels like an achievement. I also like looking up things related to languages/linguistics on Zhihu or Baidu Baike. I don’t always use a screen reader/pinyin extension, but if I’m reading something more difficult it means that I don’t have to take a huge break to draw the character into Pleco and look it up: if I can get the meaning without looking at it, I don’t bother, but if it’s crucial for the sentence I’ll just hover over it briefly, make a mental note of the meaning, and carry on. This isn’t for vocab, so I don’t usually note the word down unless it’s very important. Using a Google Chrome extension like Zhongwen just smooth-lines the process, and removes some of the frustration of getting into the flow and being stumped by a crucial, but unknown word on which the meaning of the whole sentence rests. Technology is great, guys, use it. 

I hope this helps! 

- 梅晨曦

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A1 desk space

Been reading pharmacology a lot these days along with cats 🐱 for company

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🍄 🤍 24 𝓽 𝓱    𝓸 𝓯    𝓞 𝓬 𝓽 𝓸 𝓫 𝓮 𝓻   🧡✨

- i am back after a long break from tumblr!! hi everybody <33

ig.: @fivestarstudy_

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Huangshan, Anhui, China 2019.

©️2019 Steph Sheehy Photography