#i should probably not take one of the hardest languages for native English speakers to learn on top of that huh. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pumpkinpaix · 4 years

Audio

anonymous:

I just discovered your mdzs pronunciation stuff and it's super helpful!!! Especially to an english speaker, it's so helpful to hear everything pronounced slowly! Would you ever consider doing more but on Chinese basics? Like tones, or differences between similar sounds? (But please don't feel obligated! Just a suggestion bc I find your pronunciation super helpful :)

hhhhh the file was too big for tumblr :’) even after I exported it at medium instead of standard quality, so i made a soundcloud after all aha.... it’s downloadable, even!

anyways! chinese school with cyan? :D transcript with helpful links under the cut.

previous chinese pronunciation posts with pinyin if you want to go back review them armed with new knowledge to practice: mdzs names 1, mdzs names 2

rough transcript (brackets indicate things i didn’t say but wanted to add as a note, or laughs lol):

hello everyone! okay, so I’m going to make an attempt to do some basic pinyin, I guess, a basic pinyin post? so the goal is by the end you should be able to hopefully! look at basic pinyin or any pinyin word and get a general sense of how it might sound. this is not comprehensive, and you shouldn’t take it as such, but i hope you might be able to get a good foundation out of it? I don’t know, just for sort of, a basic general overview.

I’ll use some MDZS words or names or whatever to I guess keep it fun as examples? But the rules should be generally applicable across the board. This is geared towards native English speakers because that’s what I am. I am not a linguist, just a layperson, so I’m going to be explaining like a layperson.

So, this is pinyin with cyan! chinese school with cyan. horrible, I thought i escaped this [laugh] oh, all those horrible saturdays. [all sounds will be read with first tone unless otherwise indicated]

okay, so, I’m going to do the basic vowels first. there are five so it’s: a o e i u ü

so I’ll do that a — oh wait, no there’s six, oh gosh! okay. bad start! so there are SIX basic vowels: a o e i u ü

so i’ll do that one more time: a o e i u ü

so there’s actually a seventh vowel sound, but we can get to that in a minute. it’s not included in the orthography.

so ü is usually the hardest for native english speakers since it doesn’t exist in english, but a friend of mine recently explained it really well. so if you say “ee” just like, “ee” like in creek or something like that, then shape your lips as if you’re saying “oo”. so if you speak french or german, it might be easier for you, those are just the two languages I’m familiar with. the ü is the same as the ü in german, like in die Tür, in french it’s just like you know, la lune, mur, etc.

basically say “ee” then move your lips until it looks like you’re saying “oo” — eeeeeüüüü or you can do the opposite, you can say “oo” then move your tongue as if it’s saying “ee” so: ooooüüüüüü. ü. and that’s basically it.

so now i’m going to do the initial consonants. that’s all the vowels. but the initial consonants, the consonants, or the consonant sounds that can start words, there are… well there’s not that many, but I’ll go through them really quick. there is an order, and every consonant is associated, every initial consonant is associated with a natural vowel sound and they come in groups. the order that i learned them in is this:

b p m f • d t n l g k h • j q x • z c s zh ch sh r

[repeated slower]

b(o) p(o) m(o) f(o) • d(e) t(e) n(e) l(e) g(e) k(e) h(e) • j(i) q(i) x(i) • z(i) c(i) s(i) zh(i) ch(i) sh(i) r(i)

I think the official one [the official order, i mean] might have the z c s and the zh ch sh r switched, but it doesn’t really matter they’re both in the same group. so you’ll notice that there are only four naturally associated vowels: o e i and ï [not sure if this is technically the right way to write it, but it’s convenient for illustrative purposes here].

so ï is the one that’s with the z c s, zh ch sh r group. I also think this is a pretty hard vowel to pronounce for english speakers, but i don’t really have a handy way of explaining it. i’ll try though!

so for things like the z c s sounds: say “sss” like you would in english. “ssss” then change your lips to the way you say “ee” and then vocalize without moving your tongue. so you can also produce this sound without changing your lip shape, but doing so will kind of force it, or make it easier to find I think. so ssssssi. sssssi. so that was me doing the whole process with saying ssss and then moving my lips and then vocalizing. but i can also do it with my lips rounded. “si”. that’s me with lips rounded, but having the lips wide like that helps i think

[or you can just vocalize “zzzzz” like in “buzz” or “jazz”. that zzzzzz sound gives you the vowel you want. that probably would’ve been an easier way to explain it haha.]

for the zh ch sh r sounds, to get that, you can say “juh” like how you would say j, a j sound in english, so it’s “juh” but dont’ say the “uh” just stick to the “j”. so that’s the zh sound. “zhii” just like hold it. then ch sh r. I don’t know, I think that’s pretty intuitive once you get those.

in terms of the consonants that i think that are difficult, they are d, j q x and z maybe? so i’ll go over them.

so d taps the palate in english, “duh”, “duh”. the d sound, it taps further back on the little bump [on the roof of your mouth] there, but it taps on the teeth in chinese. I think it’s a non-aspirated t sound? so say “tuh” but then instead of having that breath, just take that out. “de”. it’s a non-aspirated t, it taps in the same spot. so that’s the d, the “de” sound.

j q x, it’s the same sort of things, if you stretch your lips, I think i helps to move it into the right space. so instead of “juh” it’s “ji”. “ji”. “ji ji ji ji”. “qi”, “xi”. the q has the “ch” sound, but instead of sitting so far in the front, it sits a little further back [in the mouth]. instead of “ch” which is the ch, it’s “qi”, which is moving further back. and same with “xi”. instead of “sh” it’s “x”. i don’t know if that helps [laugh]. but instead of “sh” it’s “x”. so “xi”.

again, instead of “ch” it’s “q” and instead of “sh” it’s “x” [laugh]

[I forgot to talk about z oops. it’s basically a combination of d and z in english: “dz”. like the end of “hands”. that “dz” sound.]

okay, so, you can start a word with any of the vowels, any of them can be initials, but some of them will change orthography when they’re at the start of a word. so i think it’s pretty intuitive, but a o e all stay the same. but the “i” sound, the i, turns into a y, the “u”, the u, turns into a w, and the “ü”, the ü turns into yu. so “yu”.

okay, so that’s all the initials! that’s it! that’s not too bad.

okay, so now I’m going to start doing the finals, like the ends of words. you can end any word with any of the vowels, but I’m going to include them anyways because it’s in the table. i just copied this table from wikipedia because it’s i think pretty intuitive and clearly stated. they show both how the sound would be written as a full word and how it would be spelled when it was attached to an initial. so basically what i just talked about regarding changing orthography when you start a word with vowels, things like that.

[link to table in wikipedia]

okay starting with the first row, I’m pretty sure this is ï. the i sound that i said was difficult:

[row 1]

so I’m going to do that again. I’m going to do each one twice and then we’re going to move onto the second row.

[row 1 repeated, each sound twice]

okay, now the second row:

[row 2]

so we’re going to do the same thing again, twice each:

[row 2 repeated, each sound twice]

okay, and the third row:

[row 3]

and again, twice each:

[row 3 repeated, each sound twice]

and then the final row:

[row 4]

and then one more time, twice each:

[row 4 repeated, each sound twice]

okay so that’s it, that’s all the finals I think.

so I think -(i)un/yun is probably one of the harder sounds, the -un with the y at the beginning, the -iun? “yun”, with the umlaut. I don’t really know how to explain how to pronounce that one, but you know it’s the… yun [laugh]

okay so a note on u vs ü. when a word begins with j q x or y, and it’s followed by a u, it’s automatically be pronounced as ü even though it will not be marked. so here are some examples.

names like Ā’Yuàn: yuàn. it’s a ü sound automatically, and it’s not marked in the orthography. or Yú Zǐyuān. yú zǐ yuān. same thing. and then with something like in hánguāng-jūn, jūn, the j the “ji” combined with the -un becomes “jun” like the “yun” sound. or Jīn Zixuān. Xuān. Xuān. it’s the ü sound.

so an example of the same final spellings but with different initials. like the yuàn in ā’yuàn — you can see it automatically changes to an ü pronunciation, but spelled the same way the -uan ending, but you have a different starting consonant that’s not one of the exceptions, so “le” — so in luànzàng gǎng. luàn. it’s “u”. luàn. and then for like yú, yú zǐyuān, yú, instead of the ü, in jīn rúlán, rú, rú, it’s the “u” sound, and they’re marked the same way.

okay! yeah that’s pretty much it. that’s like all the basic sounds in chinese, I’m pretty sure. [laugh] it’s not actually that hard. i mean, it’s obviously hard, but there’s not as many sounds as you expect, or it’s less complex than you might think.

so obviously now we have to deal with tones. i know this is the one that everybody finds really scary, but i actually i know it’s easy for me to say because i’m a native speaker, but i actually think they’re very intuitive and easy to hear, as tones go. it’s gonna be fine. anyways, we’re gonna get through it.

here is how i remember tones: I do it with a cadence. and i literally sometimes have to go through this cadence on words when i’m not sure how to identify what tone they are. this is how i learned it, my grandmother taught me this, you know, i mean, it’s very standard, but:

ā á ǎ à

or hummed it’s: ¯ ´ ˇ `

and then I’ll do it again:

ā á ǎ à

¯ ´ ˇ `

so yeah, i really do sing it sometimes when i’m trying to figure out or remember what tone mark goes on something, I go dūh dúh dǔh dùh [laugh] over and over again until i figure it out.

and yeah, that’s it! they’re pretty intuitive, they follow the path of the tone, or the shape of the tone markers. so you can see the ā is flat, the á goes up, the ǎ goes down and then up, ǎ, and then à, the fourth one, just goes down.

so whenever you’re writing a tone mark on a word, they always go on the last vowel UNLESS there’s an a or e present. those always take precedence. I’ll spell out a couple of examples in the text.

[EXAMPLES: hào not haò and méi not meí, but jiù]

[laugh]

so i will go over, um… okay, i think my dad’s having a meeting downstairs, so maybe you’ll hear him in the background, but okay, the last thing i will go over a couple of sandhi rules, just a few! this isn’t all of them, i think there might be five? but i’m just going to do the three that are most relevant or the most commonly seen I think, or the ones that I think about that will trip you up most likely, i think, when you’re pronouncing things.

so the one that everybody knows, or the one that everybody teaches first, i think is the two third tones in a row will cause the first third tone to turn into a second tone. so for example, in Yílíng Lǎozǔ. “Láozǔ”. the two characters by themselves are lǎo and zǔ, but because they’re right next to each other, it becomes láo, second tone, “láozǔ”. [NOTE: the pinyin will still be spelled as lǎozǔ. you will just automatically read it aloud as láozǔ] so instead of “lǎo zǔ”, it’s “láozǔ”.

and then, the second thing that a third tone does is that a third tone that is followed by anything that is not a third tone drops to a thing that is called a low tone, I know i said there are only four, but this is… here’s an example. [there is also the soft tone, which is kind of the absence of tone, but I’m not going to talk about it here haha] in liǎnfāng-zūn, jin guangyao’s title.

liǎnfāng-zūn, you can kinda hear it doesn’t really rise again at the liǎn, liǎn, liǎn, by itself it goes down up, like a valley, but when it’s followed by the rest of the title, liǎnfāng-zūn, it just kinda sits at the bottom and then jumps back up. liǎnfāng-zūn, liǎnfāng-zūn, it just kind of sits at the bottom as opposed to coming back up, so it’s still. it still follows the same curve, it just doesn’t quite come back up i think

i actually had to look that one up, because I was like. oh is that real? i hadn’t noticed it.

but the third tone on its own is just the third tone, so for example, in xuē yáng’s courtesy name, xuē chéngměi, měi, you can hear it there, it comes back up—oh birds!

so xuē chéngměi, měi. dǔh. [laugh]

[LOL I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE THIRD SANDHI RULE I WAS GONNA TALK ABOUT. you can read about it in the link to sandhi rules i’m going to post at the end of the post.]

so yeah, that’s pretty much it actually! hooray! I’m sure, I mean, chinese is a whole language, so it’s complicated, this won’t really get you to a point where you can read pinyin entirely, but i think those are like the basic rules that i use when i’m reading pinyin, but of course, i’ve been reading pinyin for a really long time, that was the primary way i engaged with chinese text for many many years because i was illiterate! i’m still pretty illiterate, but that’s okay. i’m getting better! but yeah, so like i said, this isn’t comprehensive. if it was horribly confusing, if there was stuff in it that just didn’t make any sense, you can ask me questions! I will try to answer them. my brother’s coming home today, and i’ve been using his desk to record because his room has been empty, so i’ll have to figure out something else. but for now, um, yeah!

okay, bye. :)

/end transcript

okay!! so here are the promised links:

tone sandhi rules

very useful interactive table where you can click on sounds to hear them read aloud! (linked to me by @nerd-bastard thank you so much!)

obviously the wikipedia page is very good, though it’s a little dense

@tonyglowheart sent me a thread of someone reading out mxtx names on twitter here! the reader has a different accent than i do (they say they sound like they’re from the northern mainland. i would guess my accent is probably closer to something near shanghai? since I learned pronunciation from my grandmother, and then of course tempered by my american upbringing)

I would probably recommend going back to the other pronunciation posts I made to see a variation of sounds written out with different tones? i feel like that would be helpful!

anyways WOO thanks for your patience, it’s been a minute. brain’s doing kinda oomf these days, but we’re gonna make it :’) state of the world is. something.

normally i would just link my ko-fi here, but this time, i’m going to say check out my donations tag or do your own research into someplace more in need to put your money instead. :)

#chinese #learning chinese #mdzs #pinyin #chinese pronunciation #cyan chinese school #lmfao #new tag i guess #mine #my voice #i have NO idea how useful this is but at this point #*yeets into the void*#long post #cyan help desk #cyan vs heritage #statistically average

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pippin-kun · 4 years

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Linguistics 3, Final Assignment

· Some languages are harder than others.

· First off, I would like to start with what I learned from reading through this chapter in the book: Language Myths.

Many people say that certain languages are easy or difficult to learn. Linguists, however, don’t like to speak on such a global scale for whether you find a language easy or difficult to learn is very much based on your mother tongue and the language you are trying to learn. Take for instance a Swede, it would be much easier for him/her to learn Norwegian than Polish. Now if we take a Czech, it would be much easier for him/her to learn Polish than Norwegian. Swedish and Norwegian are similar because of the fact that these two languages are so closely related linguistically and also because they have existed in close cultural contact for several centuries. Correspondingly, this Slavic languages Czech and Polish are also close to each other. This means that if you’re English and English is your mother tongue it would be easier to learn Germanic languages like German and Dutch. This is primarily due to the fact that the vocabularies have so many similarities in both form and content in the related languages.

Let us assume that our knowledge of a language consists of three parts:

1. Grammar

2. Vocabulary

3. Rules of usage

Let’s say English is your first language, you would have an English grammar in your head. This grammar would make you sound a lot like other English speakers. You would also have an English vocabulary at your disposal, while we won’t always find the right word we often do. You will also have a number of rules of usage, these rules tell you when to speak up, when to stay quiet, how to address a person, how to ask questions and how to conduct a telephone conversation for instance.

Now arguably, the most difficult thing to learn in any language is vocabulary. Whether one is learning their native language’s vocabulary or a foreign language’s vocabulary. While vocabulary might not instantly come to mind when you think about the hardest thing to learn about a language it is, this is because it is the most time consuming one to learn. We learn the grammar of our native language before we start school, but we work on our vocabulary for as long as we live. So you could say a language with not a lot of words would be very easy to learn however it is not that simple. We need words to express our ideas and emotions. No one learns all the words in a language not even in their native language. Nor can anyone specify how many words there are in a language exactly, for it is very difficult to define whether a word is a word or not.

Now the ‘rules of usage’ refers to number of things such as how and when someone should speak and rules for who gets the floor in various situations. In this case it is probably that increased cultural proximity leads to increasingly similar rules of usage. In the absolute sense, a language without complicated rules of usage will be much easier to learn because you will not need to learn the subtle differences in tone, sentences and conversations to learn the language.

Another big obstacle for a lot of language learners are the writing system and the orthography of a language. Europeans, for instance, have to spend a lot of time learning how to use the Arabic, Chinese or Japanese writing systems. However, these difficulties are not considered here, and the main argument for this is that the writing system and spelling can be considered as external to the language. For it is, in principle, possible to switch from one writing system to another without changing anything in the language structure.

Now if we are looking for the absolute measure of linguistic simplicity, we should find it in the field of grammar. First we can consider the sound systems of languages. It must be the case that the fewer vowels, the fewer consonants and the simpler syllabic structure a language has, the simpler the sound system is. Take Hawaiian for instance, it has 13 distinctive sounds, of which eight are consonants and five are vowels. Since the language also has strict rules about the syllable structure, the total number of possible syllables in the language is only 162. Of all the languages in the world, Hawaiian has one of the simplest sound systems. So we could definitely say that an easy sound system makes a language easy thus it would make sense to place languages along a scale from simple sound systems to difficult. English would then take a place somewhere in the middle, where most languages would also crowd. Meaning that most languages are quite similar in regards to their sound systems, however, there are some examples of considerably simpler or complexer sound systems.

There is also the difference between analytic languages (languages with little or no inflection and derivation) and synthetic languages (languages with a large degree of inflection and derivation). In absolute terms one could say that analytic languages would be easier to learn than synthetic languages, there are two arguments for this claim. Firstly, children always learn a more analytic version of their native language, inflectional and derivational suffixes are learned later on. Secondly, pidgin languages from around the world are usually analytic. By pidgin languages I mean contact languages that arise or develop spontaneously. The world’s most famous pidgin language speaker has to be Tarzan. When he says ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane,’ he uses a simplified version of English. Since Tarzan has been translated and published in several languages, we could travel around the world and get an impression of people’s view of their simplified language.

If we were to look away from this we would stumble upon another problem when we’re trying to find out what makes a language simple or difficult. This would be the fact that languages are never uniformly simple or difficult. Simplicity in one part of the language may be balanced by complexity in another part. In fact, matters are less straightforward than even this suggests, because we cannot in any sensible way say what is simple and what is not. Would a language for instance be simpler when it uses less words to describe something or would a language be simpler if it uses a less complex structure of modification to describe something? We cannot answer these questions with clarity thus we cannot give an overall measurement of simplicity in languages.

Now considering everything that I’ve written above, the myth that some languages are harder than others is not merely a myth. In a very complicated way some languages are harder than others. Furthermore, there is not a single scale for measuring simplicity in languages; there are, at least, a handful of such scales. Summing up: some languages appear to be harder than others, but it is hard to explain exactly how and to what extent.

· What I’ve learned from this and my own thoughts.

Now I know that I’ve written down a lot above and everything that I’ve written down is indeed taken from the book Language Myths. I’ve written everything that I deemed truly important down above in, mostly, my own words. Now while I haven’t done thorough research online I do think that most of the things that we can talk about or say about this topic has been said or talked about in the book. So while I won’t really have anything to add to this topic I have to say something about this topic. Personally, I learned a lot from this. It has truly given me an insight in languages and how we learn and perceive them. I used to always learn languages with ease and thus I thought that language that I found to be difficult or hard were actually hard languages. Now I see that that might just have something to do with the cultural and linguistic differences between that language and my mother tongue. It also explained why I learned English with such ease because it is just so close to my own mother tongue, however, I do feel like my feeling for language had/has something to do with how easy I find languages to be. This is pretty much all I had to add to this ‘research’ of my topic. It was a lot of fun to do and I learned a lot from it.

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vikinglanguage · 5 years

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for the asks: #s 4 6 8 9 10 & 11!

4. How old were you when you first started learning a second language? What language was it?When I was 9, I started mandatory English in school. Even before that I knew a few very basic phrases, and I distinctively remember telling my mum “I love you” when I was like 6, and her saying “I love you too”, which then stuck with me.Even before that, my sister taught me to say “me llamo Amalie” and “¿cómo te llamas?”, when we went to Spain when I was 5 years old, but that was the only Spanish I knew from ages 5 to 15.

6. What’s something you have a hard time expressing in your target language(s)?Oh, like, everything. My primary target language is currently German, but I’m also keeping Spanish in mind here.I think what really frustrates me about language is that I generally just really don’t enjoy small talk. Like, to me a good conversation is about culture, politics, linguistics, literature, things I find interesting. And I just never get to a level where I can talk about those subjects, because I NEED to have a certain base level before I get to that. In order to conjugate verbs and remember to use the right definite article I need to practice it, but I’m just not interested in repeating sentences like “sie sieht den Vogel” or “tenía cinco años”. Unfortunately that is a stage I need to pass before learning more complex vocabulary, because first I have to start utilising the vocabulary that I have already.Yes, I know that as someone learning on my own, I am very much in charge of which order I learn things in, but I think that really, my main problem is that I have yet to find an order that fits my needs.I’m just so god damn annoyed that I can’t seem to figure it out, because clearly I must’ve gotten something right when I was learning English, especially after ages 12-13.

8. Are you a grammar snob in your native language(s)?Somewhat. While I largely think that the grammar rules should be adapted to fit a language as it currently is, there are just some things that annoy me. And I will correct people on those things, if I know that it’s an opening to poke fun around grammar or other language things, or just to exasperate my mum.For an example, in Danish we have the difference between “hans/hendes” and “sin”, which I think is a really good an useful difference, that also plays nicely into the concept of “sig”, and I would prefer to preserve that as part of the Danish language. Likewise, I think it’s a great shame that a word such as “hin” (an old word equivalent to “that” (actually I guess somewhat like “yon” or spanish “aquél”), nowadays we just use “den” for both “this” and “that”)However, I will never correct the grammar of someone who has made it clear that they might struggle with grammar for whatever reason, or really, just anyone whom I don’t know that well and didn’t ask for correction. Unsolicited grammar advice sucks, unless you’re gently bullying your sibling or Austrian flatmate.

9. Language pet peeve?I have so many, most of them related to Danish. A lot of them are just people not being able to, you know, speak.-saying hångklæde instead of håndklæde or promade instead of pomade-using syntes and synes interchangeably (syntes is past tense of synes)-messing up hans/hendes vs sin-people saying et hamster instead of en hamster-people who say that meme is intetkøn, because fuck you its fælleskøn and I do not take constructive criticism.-people who claim that “English is actually one of the hardest languages to learn!”, shut up, you barely have any grammar worth speaking of and your sentence structure is so straightforward it’s almost laughable. Sure, the spelling is awful, but have you seen Danish? Have you HEARD French? If you speak a romance or germanic language I very much doubt that English is hard.-PEOPLE WHO MAKE FUN OF THE ACCENTS OF STRANGERS. SHUT UP. AT LEAST THEY’RE TRYING TO SPEAK YOU’RE LANGUAGE WHICH IS PROBABLY MORE THAN CAN BE SAID ABOUT YOU.-people from the south of Spain. Stop that. There’s an s there. Please say the s. I beg of you. It’s right there. Spanish is supposed to be easy to pronounce. THE S IS RIGHT THERE.-when someone claims I’m not pronouncing a Danish word correctly because I don’t speak what would be the Danish version of RP.-generally people thinking dialects are bad (nb: yes, there’s a lot to unpack with pet peeves and dialects vs. the “correct” version of a language, i know, i know, i know)-people who think I’m being aggressive because I don’t use emoji’s when texting-people claiming that text can’t even come close to conveying emotion and meaning in the same way that speech canI could probably make this ten miles long if I wanted, but I’m gonna have to call it quits here.

10. What’s your opinion on learning dead languages?I think it’s so fucking cool. Hebrew was a dead language until someone thought to revive it. I say it’s time we bring back Punic. Or something. Idk, I think learning dead languages is a really interesting concept, seeing as the insight it gives into long gone cultures and just the concept of speaking a language that NO ONE is a native speaker of? win. Who’s to say you’re wrong? The scholars? Were they alive in 200 AD, I don’t think so.

11. Who is one person (famous or not) that is a language-learning inspiration for you?Both of my parents, as well as my sister. All three speak fluent English and are somewhat conversational in German, and my mother can somewhat get by in Spanish, Italian and French.My Austrian flatmate who of course speaks German (both standard and her own western Austrian dialect WHICH IS VERY DIFFERENT), English, has good French comprehension and is well on the way to learning Danish.I hate to go on and on about MIKA on every single one of my blogs, but MIKA, being fluent in English, French and Italian (arguably Spanish, depending on who you ask), having picked up Italian just like, along the way. I really like the fact that he writes texts not just in English, but in French as well, and, as of more recently, Italian.Following that thread, I appreciate people who write pop in their native tongue. Not everything has to be English, I mean Denmark won Eurovision with Dansevisen because it was A GOOD SONG. Not because anyone knew what the fuck the text was about, but because THE MUSIC was good. Also I cried on the bus the first time I listened to Elsker Dig Mer by Oh Land, because it just hit so much harder than Love You Better. Why didn’t the hard rock barefoot fire Hungarians win ESC 2018? Evades me.

#crushedvelvetshoes #this has been in my drafts for too long so here's the somewhat not finished but mostly finished post #hooray #ask #personal #general

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wordlegacy · 5 years

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11/11/11 TAG

Rules: Answer the 11 questions of the person who tagged you, make up 11 questions, then tag 11 people to answer them.

I was tagged by @fictionshewrote! Thank you so much! I love these kind of things. :) I wrote it in a bit of a rush and it probably shows - sorry. I've been quite busy these past few days and will be for the next week, but I didn't want to keep postponing it.

1. Do you make playlists for your WIP(s)? If so, how do you pick/find your songs?

I remember trying to do it before, but it's not something I usually do. I get too distracted with music playing. May try it again, sometime, though.

2. Are there any potential non-canon ships in your WIP?

Currently, yes. But there's a part of me that wants them to be canon. Right now, they are best buddies and one of them has sort of a crush on the other - and he’s open about it, although jokingly.

3. What’s your dream writing setup (desk, office, etc)?

Hmm. I don't really like desks. Probably a simple but nicely decorated corner of a room, with a comfy bean bag and some pillows and blankets. My corkboard next to it. A comfy blanket on the floor.

4. Are you reading anything right now? If so, what is it and what do you think of it so far?

Yes, Three Mages and a Margarita by Annette Marie. I chose it because I wanted a light-hearted comedy. Something I don’t have to take too seriously. However, I'm only two chapters in, so, it's still very early to make a judgement.

5. What part of writing comes easiest to you? What part is the hardest?

Easiest, I'd say the dialogue. Hardest... Everything else? Haha. Hmm. Outlining, maybe? And the language. I write in English - it’s my second language and I’m fluent in it, but it’s not the same as being a native speaker.

6. What TV show would your OC binge-watch?

Hmm. So, for the main character of my WIP, I’d say... Black Mirror. Yeah, I guess so. Probably with her best friend, which is my other main character.

7. Describe the aesthetic of your WIP in five words.

Oh, God. It depends on how much I want to give away. And, it also should be taken in consideration that I'm on the outlining process of it, so, things are moving around. For now, I’ll go with neutral, tech, quaint, glass, ivy.

8. How do you want people to feel after they've read your story?

Surprised, but intrigued. Ready to read the next settlement - if it has one, like my current WIP. I also really want them to care about the characters and what happens to them.

9. What do you do when you’re struggling with writing?

It depend on the struggle. Right now, I'm struggling with time and mood. So, I try to force it a little, careful not to get uncomfortable with it. If I'm having writer’s block... I take a break - no matter how long - and, sometimes, try to work on different aspects of the writing process - like character development or world building.

10. What writer do you aspire to be like?

No one in particular. I usually bounce between reading books from different authors, not following the works of anyone in particularly. I'm extremely picky, so, usually, even if I really like this one book or series from an author, their next book is different enough for me not to feel like picking it up, because it doesn't seem to be up my street.

11. What is your average chapter length?

Not sure. It still varies a lot, and, since I don’t have a finished novel, I still don’t know.

I tag @whicheverwarrior, @azawrites, @angelolytle, @blueinkblot, @cookiecuttercritter, @erinnharper, @thel3tterm, @wordsofpaintandsmoke, @eternalvertigos, @onedayillwriteabook and @linestorm. Do feel free to ignore this, if you don’t feel like doing it.

In case you decide to do this, here are my questions:

1. What made you want to be a writer? Or not, if that’s the case?

2. What makes you instantly dislike a main character?

3. What types of romance you love, in fiction?

4. What types of romance you hate, in fiction?

5. What do you think about the popular “show, don’t tell” advice?

6. How do you usually outline your stories?

7. What are the clichés or recurrent troops you just can’t stand any more?

8. How did you choose the title of your current WIP?

9. How would you give a negative description of your WIP’s main character?

10. How far along are you with your WIP?

11. What is your sign and how much do you take Astrology into consideration when it comes to character development?

#writblr #writing community #writer community #tag game #11/11/11 tag #personal #tagged

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lilicriticallanguages · 7 years

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How To Create a Self-Study Schedule Part II: Casual Studying

Hello polyglots! I apologize for the lateness of this post! As you know I posted about how to create a study schedule if you are studying a language(s) intensively. Now I’m going to talk about how to study one language or multiple languages casually.

First, I need to define what casual studying even means. Studying casually means that you are foregoing certain aspects of language study in order to maintain a slow and low commitment pace. For example, say you’re learning French casually. Instead of psycho crazy grammar schedules filled with practicing grammar and vocab over and over, and quizzing yourself every day until your brain turns to pulp, you opt for a simple audio lesson every day for 15 minutes after you come home from work or school. Easy right? Yes! That’s the goal. With casual studying your schedule is freed up for other things. In addition, casual studying gives you the leisure to take your time to learn things deeply and thoroughly. Casual studying, however, implies that you are not studying so much for full fluency but for practical, everyday usage. So casual learners care a little less about learning the specifics about complicated grammar but instead want to learn how to use it in conversation by learning dialogues and repeating phrases. So how do you create a casual study schedule? Here’s what you’ll need to get started.

STUDY SCHEDULE AND LEARNING GOALS

One Language

If you are casually studying one single language, it doesn’t get much easier for you! While there are certainly difficult aspects of the language you’re learning, you can take all the time you need to get it right. I suggest finding audio lessons that are conversation based and not grammar based. What do I mean by that? I mean that you want lessons that provide a real conversation between native speakers (you do NOT want to hear native English speakers in your dialogue because that’s practically useless to you *cough* Rocket Language Japanese *cough*) and then they break down the conversation. This is the simplest way to learn practical language. So what does grammar based lessons look like? They provide lessons based on one or two grammar points and spend the whole time explaining that grammar point in English and only provide a few sentences as examples. That’s certainly useful sometimes, but you do not want your entire studies to be based on learning one grammar point to the next, unless you’re studying for an exam (like TOPIK or HSK), and you especially don’t want to hear a bunch of English instead of conversation in your target language. Your lessons should be conversation based so you can begin conversing immediately.

If you are studying one language this is what your daily study checklist should be:

· 10-25 minutes: Daily Audio lesson

· 10 – 15 minutes: Review vocabulary and grammar points

· 5 – 10 minutes: Review dialogue and practice saying outloud

That’s it! Every day you spend less than an hour a day studying your language! About 25 – 45 minutes to be exact! In a week, that’s about 2 to 4 hours a week (assuming you don’t study on the weekend)! Of course, you can increase this time if you like. It’s entirely up to you!

Your weekly learning goals will vary depending on what program you are using to study, but you should aim to learn at least 25 new words every week and 7-10 grammar points. Quite easy coming from someone who learns 10 grammar points a day.

Two Languages

If you are studying two or more languages just double or triple the time that you see above and that is how long you will be studying all of your languages all together. Since you are studying your languages casually, I actually do not recommend studying more than one language per day. You may not have time in your schedule or it may be confusing. So I recommend studying one language per day. You can alternate days or even weeks if you like. Whatever works best for you and your learning needs!

You should aim to study 50 new words and 10 grammar points a week. Make sure to have a notebook for every language you are studying.

YOUR NOTEBOOK AND ORGANIZATION

The most important aspect about studying casually (or studying intensively too for that matter) is organization. You will often have large gaps of time between your studying so you will need to make sure your dedicated language note book(s) is very organized, so you can easily pick up where you left off.

It is important that you write down everything you learn in your lessons so that you can review them on the go. Make sure to get a notebook that will fit in your purse or bag so you can easily pull it out and review should you be on a train or waiting at the doctor’s office for an appointment. You may also use an iPad or something similar if that’s more convenient for you. Evernote is an excellent app for notetaking. I like to use about three pages per lesson. The first page is just the list of new vocabulary words and phrases; the second page is the grammar points covered including explanations and details about usage, and example sentences. The third page consists only of a blank page for writing out new vocab words about 5 times each.

Also make sure you date every page at the top so you can keep track of your learning. If you have any questions, make sure to stick them in your notes so you can look up the answer to it later on.

Language Types

European Languages

If you’re studying a European language, the hardest thing you will encounter are conjugations. They will probably introduce them in your audio lessons but make sure you study them on your own time so that you fully understand them. Use online flashcards if you need to. I recommend either Study Blue or Cram.

Asian Languages

If you’re studying an Asian language, you need to decide if learning to write is important to you at all. If you would prefer to just learn to read and speak, then it will make studying that much easier. In every Asian language there is a kind of romanji or transliterated text to help you read words (Chinese uses pinyin since it has tones). You can use that to help you learn to speak and pronounce things, but you should remove your dependence on romanji/pinyin as soon as you can because it will cripple you in the long run.

If you do decide to learn to write, go SLOWLY. Try to learn 5 characters a day. If you’re learning Korean, you’ll learn the alphabet quickly but Chinese and Japanese are another story. If you’re learning Chinese and Japanese, start with radicals and go from there. The order should basically be: radicals, numbers, basic words (dog, cat, big, small, man, woman, etc.), then harder stuff. Just focus on speaking in the beginning.

It is very important for a casual learner to remain consistent. You have to keep chugging along with your studies either until you make progress. The biggest downside to casual studying is that progress is much slower. So you’ll need to keep yourself motivated to do your lessons every day even though you may not be able to see your progress at that time. Give it some more time and some more practice and you’ll be speaking in no time!

I’m sorry this post was so long but I hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to ask questions and make suggestions for posts you want to see and I’ll do my best to provide the best tips and advice that I can! Good luck!

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thebrotherscupheadandmugman · 6 years

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Double Z’s Fourth Follower Forever!!

Four hundred. Four hundred followers. When did I start this blog? December 13, 2017. That’s four months. Four months. My mind is literally blown rn guys. Ever since I was young, my only dream was to make people smile. I literally cannot even fathom that my words make at least 400 people do that. If you literally told me as a child that I would enjoy writing, I would never have believed you.

Anyway, the follower forever is going under the cut this time, because the last thing I want is to clog people’s dashes asdghjk

Let’s start things off with the blog that inspired me to join the rpc in the first place. They were recommended to me while I was more active on my Team Skull OC blog, and I would see their writing and was inspired to join once I knew I wanted to write for Cuphead. Miles of @gamblingcxp @playerxwo @islandkitsu @team-strife @vulpinewarrior and probably more that I can’t think of! Miles is honestly such a sweet heart, and such a supportive bean! I wouldn’t be anywhere close to where we stand now with out them! They deserve all the love and support in the world!!

Next is @plate-of-blins! Some of y’all know how selective I am with OC’s, but Blinchik is so creative and the mun is a freakin’ cinnamon roll! Not to mention clever and smart! English is well known to be one of the hardest second languages to learn, yet she speaks it so fluently and comprehensively! She probably speaks it better than some people who are native English speakers! Her and her OC deserve more love and attention!!

@djimmi-the-great-and-powerful. I’ve gotta be honest. Back in December, Djimmi was a somewhat forgettable boss for someone who hadn’t played it yet. I usually remembered bosses from their music after I bought the soundtrack, and Pyramid Peril was probably my least favorite. But now Djimmi’s a character I really love! Puphead too! You will absolutely adore their Puphead! Sweet wooden boi!! Mun is just an absolutely fantastic person too! Whether you need someone to laugh and make fart jokes with, or you need someone to give you advise, djimmi-the-great-and-powerful is a great partner and friend!! Mun also runs @askredwoodfamily and @the-devils-waiter

@askcupheadthings. Sweet boi. Sweet mun. Whether you need some angst in you life or ketchup, Taco Taako has got you freakin’ covered!! What can I really say about Taco Taako that hasn’t already been said? We may have disagreeing headcanons, but the fact that they are willing to make compromises and work with their partner is glorious! I personally think that’s what every partner should do when it comes to familial characters! Not only that, but they will go out of their way to make sure their partner is comfortable, which is so so important and admirable!! Taako also runs @boristwolf @agentlemanlyscientist @devilish-dishes @merman-cuphead @barry-boxington-the-box-kid @a-home-for-broken-mugs and @the-real-clockwork-queen

I know that @easyriches is on hiatus until they get out of school, but their mun is the frickin’ best! They’re so supportive and will never fail to make you laugh. Or scream. Usually at memes. Heck, they managed to start a war over “Milk and Cookies” vs “Cookie and Milk”...needless to say, I ended up firing them from cookies. They also combined Squeesh and Cronch to create ‘squonch,’ which I later found out upon listening to the sound effect for Goopy’s fight that it was the perfect onomatopoeia for a slime getting crushed by a tombstone falling from the sky. Who knew?

@cutieunderthesea is such a love honestly! I know we don’t talk or interact much, but I seriously love them, and love seeing them pop up in my activity feed! English is also their second language, but you probably wouldn’t have guessed that if they didn’t say so on their blog!! They’re much smarter than me, and they’re also learning how to code and stuff, which I think is really cool! They also run @sent-from-above

@dxmonsxcarnival is such a great friend that looks out for you!! I genuinely feel bad that our threads tend to get dropped before they even get started, but honestly, even if you don’t role-play much they are still a great person to talk to! I mean they keep a folder of cat images for their internet friends when they need a pick-me-up! How awesome and thoughtful is that?! They also run @shyxbrotherxmxgman and @scaredxsightless

@bashfulreptile and I haven’t known each other long, but I really like the way they portray the dragon bean!! I hope we talk more and have more threads in the future!!

@do-or-dice and I think so much alike when it comes to striving for accuracy of the times!! I even headcanon that the events in the game take place in 1934, making this blog take place in 1935- which just so happens to also be the same year that they write in! They’re super fun to share headcanons with too! I know I suck at talking friend, but I hope we interact more in the future!!

@inthediehouse aka @hornedheathen! So much potential for angst! I know I haven’t interacted with you Dice much, but I hope to change that at some point!! I really love our threads together and I hope these two fools can butt heads more in the future!!

@devilishcrybaby I know we haven’t known each other long as well, nor have we had many consistent threads, but I can just tell we’ll get along just great!!

@cala-marix is such a sweetheart too! Sweet and caring! I’m so glad whenever I see them on my dash no matter what blog they’re using! Whenever I see cat photos on my dash I can’t help but think of them! Good friend! They also run @rxmor-honeybottomx

I think this’ll be my cutoff on saying nice things because it’s been almost two hours since I started this I think. I’m only going to mention their personal since they run so many Cuphead side-blogs and I don’t know them all. I know they caused a bit of controversy a little while back, but given their young age, I’d say it’s more than excusable, and definitely worth giving them a second chance. @eye-tossing-ghostie is really such a nice person to talk to- again even if you don’t end up doing much role-playing. They’re kind and caring and they try their best to be calm and understanding. They really do mean well, and I think they deserve more patience than I see them get. They really are a nice kid, but they’re still growing an learning. I consider them a friend, even if we don’t talk or interact much.

Hold on to your butts cuz we ain’t done yet.

Cuphead: @impvlsive-gxmblcr @porcelainjokers @confidentcuphead @twocupsandacontract (I believe I’ve mentioned the others I’ve interacted with already?)

Mugman: @merrymugsy @porcelainjokers @twocupsandacontract(Again I’ve already mentioned the rest)

King Dice: @six-sided-sinner @snakeiis @gamest-intheland @diceptixn

Root Pack: @psycarota

Goopy le Grande: @bnlgoopywooper

Cagney Carnation: @getouttatherosebush @txtaldomination @twocupsandacontract @sillycxrnxtion

Ribby&Croaks: @wrongsidefthelilyp4d

Hilda Burg: @a-threatenin-zeppelin

Djimmi the Great: @its-your-pal-djimmi

Baroness Von Bon Bon: @notyoursugarqueen

Wally Jr: @juniorwarbles

Beppi the Clown: @inkwellharlequin (Mentioned the rest I believe?)

Brineybeard: @drunkensxilor

Cala Maria: @highseachighjinxs (mentioned the rest)

Werner Werman: @muriinecorps @vermin-veteran @rat-in-a-can

Dr. Khal: @whoyougonnakahl

Phantom Express: @blxndspxctcr

Casino Bosses: @wheezycigar @rxssian-roulette @poker-chip-cowboy @melty-8ball

Devil: @casinx @whenyouareevil (I know there’s way more but I either can’t find them or already mentioned them)

Demon Cups/Mugs: @goodmugbadmug @diabolical-ceramics

OCs: @cxrtoon-hxnter @saltyocsrp @hellssecretary @doggone-doneit @claireinette @polaroidxcamera @williamstripes @rollthediceheads @drumline-doom @cupfull-o-muses

Whew!! That was a lot!! Now some may be missing because I have the memory of a gnat, and others may have gone on hiatus. There were a couple of people on here that I was going to mention but then I remembered they were on hiatus for one reason or another. So if I mentioned a blog that’s no longer active, I really apologize for that. If I forgot to mention you, I also apologize for that.

That being said, that y’all so much again for 400!! Next follower forever happens at 800!! We can totally do this guys!! I love you all so much!

~ Double Z))

#Out of Luck #400 Followers!#Double Z's Follower Forever #((I can't say enough thanks because all of y'all are amazing!!))

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wesleyv21-blog · 7 years

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One Week Down!

¡Hola, todos! Sending out good vibes from Quito!

Damn has a lot happened this weekend! Perhaps both the most exciting and nerve-wracking part of the experience so far has finally come: I moved in with my homestay family! But there’s quite a story leading up to this point so I’ll start from the beginning.

Friday was taken up by one-on-one interviews with our program director, Faba, during which we just checked in about our medical information and how we’re doing so far. Since there are 24 of us, and each interview took about 10 minutes, and somehow we fell behind at some point, this took almost half the day. When it was finally done around 1:30, a big group of us went out for tapas and had quite the time. It will be our last meal together for some time, because at around 4:00 on Friday, our host families came to pick us up from our hotel!

I was quite the ball of nerves and excitement while waiting for my family to arrive. Hell, we all were! All I had to go on was a letter they wrote me describing how excited they were to welcome me into their home, as well as a photo of the family and some info about them that the program provided. Well, the funny thing was that my family did not show up on Friday. The whole family had taken a weeklong vacation to the beaches of Esmeraldas, a province to the northwest of Quito that is a looooooong car ride from the city lol probably 6-8 hours with traffic. So, one of their good friends who is hosting another student and who lives close by picked me up. She was so nice and hospitable, feeding us cake, tea, and a scrumptious dinner. She is quite experienced in hosting foreign scholars, and in fact I ended up meeting two additional students from other universities and doing other stuff in the country that were wrapping up their time in Ecuador. My temporary host mom has a daughter and a son around our age, so all 6 of us ended up going out to a house party after dinner. Oh, one cool thing about my temporary host family is that the father’s brother is an ex-president of Ecuador who is also a famous economist. In addition to his famous books he’s written, my temporary host mom showed us a picture album with the whole family which was amazing and cute.

Now, this house party was something else. Getting there took around 40 minutes, as we had to drive out of Quito to Tumbaco, a little town out to the west. Let’s just say that the young Quiteño upper-class plays hard. First of all the estate was enormous, surrounded by this huge wall that enclosed probably three or four buildings on this large piece of land. Behind the mansion was this patio that was replete with a huge grill, a hammock, access to the kitchen, comfortable furniture, and even security cameras lol. There were many young men and only four young women including my temporary host sister. The men were going hard, forcing each other to drink, smoking cigarettes, forcing each other to drink more, running around all over the place, fighting over control of the music, grabbing the women as if they owned them. I had heard from one of the program assistants during our safety lecture that in Ecuadorian society, men are under such pressures from patriarchy that they vent all their pent-up emotions by drinking excessively. I don’t know enough to claim that this is what I witnessed, but it is a tempting conclusion to draw. Of course what I saw at the party is also heavily influenced by class, since these kids (my age) have the leisure and money to drink hard on a Friday night. It should also be said that this entire weekend is a dry weekend; bars are closed and you can’t buy alcohol anywhere. The reason? There was a national referendum today, and I take it that for all elections, since voting is mandated by law, alcohol disappears so as to ensure people’s faithful compliance. Nonetheless these individuals had procured alcohol from somewhere and were indulging. The most fun I had was swapping party stories with this one guy who ended up getting so drunk he couldn’t stand by the end of the night, and talking with this truly intercultural young man who spoke English, Spanish, and German, had studied abroad almost as much as he had in Ecuador, and who has plans to continue his education in Europe. One other thing I learned was that marijuana is super taboo here, way different from the states lol.

Saturday morning, my friend’s host family dropped me off at my real host family, and I finally got to meet them! Their house is also enormous. Just like every other house I’ve seen in Pichincha province (which includes Quito and the surrounding towns I’ve visited, like Pifo and Tababela), their house is enclosed in a tall wall covered in spikes. It has three stories, including a large patio and a home office for the parents’ travel agency they’ve owned for over 20 years. The sitting rooms are spacious and filled with cool art, the kitchen is small but intimate, and the house is super well located: just a few minutes’ walk to Parque La Carolina, El Jardín Mall, and our class building. Two parents, a daughter, two sons, and their grandmother all live in this incredible house. There’s even room for a visiting aunt who lives in London who is also very charming. In addition, a lovely Japanese woman named Ayumi rents office space and works as a travel agent for Japanese tourists. Her office is right next to my room; she’s also super friendly! Everyone is so welcoming and nice! We talked, watched Black Mirror in Spanish lol, ate delish traditional Ecuadorian food, compared the Spanish and English in different countries across the world, and went out the shopping mall. More on the food. It’s all soo yummy. There’s like a mini corn-on-the-cob that’s called choclo, and it’s usually served with a slice of cheese. They brought out a cacao fruit, which looks really cool, and when you cut it open you expose the brown seeds that are covered in a white slime. You can suck on the seeds and ingest the white slime, which sounds kinda gross but is actually a good mixture of sweetness and tartness. Oritos are mini bananas that are super sweet. Habas reminded me of edamame, as they’re kinda a bean-looking food whose shell you bust open to reveal a kinda bland inside that you can scoop out and eat. It’s really good with just a pinch of salt added to it! The main course of lunch featured a sardine flank that was served cold in a red sauce with tiny round potatoes. At breakfast there was thick papaya juice which was really good, and with lunch there was this sparkling apple juice that somehow had no sugar whatsoever in it. Tonight for dinner I had pastel de plátano, which is exactly what is sounds like: a little pan-seared cake made of smooshed sweet plantains called maduros. Oh I guess should I explain how meals work lol. Lunch is the main course of the day, usually consisting of 3-4 dishes served around 1-2 pm. Breakfast and dinner are both very light. Coffee or tea is usually served at both, and I’ve had grilled cheese sandwiches served at both as well lol. At breakfast, they bring out the rich fruits, whether in slices or juiced. Dinner, if served at all, tends to be pretty late, like around 8 pm. Needless to say everything I’ve eaten so far is delish(;

But I have to say that moving in with the host family has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Saturday was one of the longest days of my life. I’m overwhelmed still from being here and being so far away from what’s comfortable; add to that the awkwardness of getting to know an established family unit so intimately and the mindfuck of re-socializing your brain to speak only another language. There was a lot of time to myself Saturday, which was hard. But, it was also very fun and I can’t say I regret it. I knew going in that this weekend would be the hardest, but once I get over this hump then it should be relatively smooth sailing. On the positive side, they treat me very well and I can hold my own in conversations with three generations of native speakers. Think about the differences in pronunciation that accompany age in English-speaking lands; well, I’m slowly building the satisfaction of mastering that in Spanish as well. I also get along very well with both sons, which is cool to think that I’m making international friends! It’s a long journey I’ve just begun, but I wouldn’t go back for anything.

Another cool thing was a conversation I had with the youngest son about voting today. This won’t be his first time voting (that came in Lenín Moreno’s election last year), but he nonetheless had some cool perspectives on the referendum. Voting is mandated by law for all those above age 18 and is optional for those aged 16 and 17. If you do not vote, you incur a steep fine. In addition, upon voting, one receives a certificate that one needs to do official citizen business like procure a passport or visa. The referendum consists of 7 questions that will amend the Constitution. These questions are:

1. Would prohibit those accused of corruption from ever serving in public office (Ecuador has a long history of political corruption, yet the last straw in adding this question to the referendum was the recent imprisonment of former vice president Jorge Glas on corruption charges)

2. Would limit all elected officials to only 2 terms in the same office (brought about by the last president, Rafael Correa, who changed the constitution to allow himself to run indefinitely)

3. Would replace all current members of the Citizens’ Participation and Social Control Council (the 5th branch of government here) and replace them all with new appointees (to flush out the last remaining allies of president Correa)

4. Would remove statute of limitation for sex crimes against minors (due to over 1,000 cases of sex crimes against minors brought to court over the last 2 years)

5. Would prohibit mining in protected areas, untouchable zones, and urban centers (mining is on the rise in Ecuador, yet this question might prove decisive for the young industry’s future)

6. Would get rid of the law of plusvalía, which essentially treats the sale of property of any kind as speculation, meaning that the seller must pay like 70% of the revenue from the sale to the state as tax

7. Would expand the protected areas of the Yasuní National Park, the single most biodiverse place on earth that also sadly houses much of Ecuador’s oil reserves (this question would thus prohibit future oil drilling in Yasuní)

The general populace was expected to vote to pass all of them in what many see as a middle finger to the last president, Rafael Correa, and a vote of confidence for Moreno’s young regime. Yet that’s not how my host brother necessarily sees it. He doesn’t support the current regime, and he certainly didn’t support the last. According to him, both presidents have raised taxes, especially on imports, which has raised the cost of living significantly. In addition, neither president supports/ed policies that are favorable toward foreigners, something he doesn’t like. His perspective is quite interesting and will need to be investigated further. Another interesting thing about the referendum came when Sebastián told me that many voters don’t understand the wording of the questions, not to mention all the annexes that are on the flipside of the ballot page. Very interesting. Also last night I watched a government news channel ahead of the vote today. After going into detail about each of the questions, the focus turned to the actual process itself. Even though this is the 11th national referendum since the return to democracy in 1979, there are some new and exciting steps being implemented in this referendum. For example, there is a new electronic rapid-response exit-poll-type technology designed to report trustworthy results ahead of the official tally. Lots of domestic and international observers were invited to oversee the polls. Something that I guess isn’t new is that all ballots are translated into indigenous languages, and for the many hard-to-access communities scattered across Ecuador, the government helicopters ballots in so people can still vote. Another highly promoted feature on this program was the accessibility of all voting stations so that people with different abilities can still vote. The temptation at looking at this at first was to dismiss it as government propaganda, which it no doubt is. After all, in the U.S., elections are a piece of cake and no one ever has reason to question the outcome (except Trump lol). But, I had to catch myself. This is a country whose democracy is relatively young. Building up these institutions is key for achieving long-lasting social justice. Who am I to come in and laugh at things that Ecuadorians take pride in? Nonviolent, inclusive elections aren’t a given. So, I learned a lot more than I thought I would watching that program last night.

Today I accompanied my host brother, Matías, as he went and voted. It was quite the process to get to his assigned voting place. We had to take a bus probably a mile or so (which, in Quito traffic, took about 30 minutes) and walk to the destination. Although we didn’t know at first which street the school was on, so we were walking around asking people where it was. Finally, we found it, and I watched as Matías showed his I.D., was handed the piece of paper with each question labeled and color-coded, walked over to a schooldesk on which stood a cardboard trifold to act as a privacy shield, and deposited the ballot in the cardboard box in which was cut a slit to slip in the ballot. And home we went. At night, nos reunimos para cenar y mirar los comentarios a cerca de la votación. As expected, all measures passed. Now the country awaits the implementation of each question.

After lunch I had the opportunity to talk to the ones I love most. I cannot overstate how happy I was to reconnect with them and catch up, even just to see their faces and hear their voices. No matter where I am on this earth, I know where home is (:

Classes finally begin tomorrow. I’m actually looking forward both to their content and the sense of routine they’ll bring.

¡Hasta luego!

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breathing-the-same-air · 7 years

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So, I decided I'm gonna make a tutorial for self-learning new languages. Sounds strange but honestly I've found many people who would like to know a new language so, since I've had the experience of learning English all by myself, I thought maybe some of the tips that worked for me could work for you too so here we go. It will be long, but if you're really interested in learning it may (I hope) be worth it. 0. Introduction. Why learn a new language? There may be many reasons. Like when you need to go to another country and you have no choice but to learn a language, and in a few months you're able to understand and talk. But what if you just want to learn a new language by yourself, for no reason at all? Sometimes we like a language that may not be very useful, maybe one that isn't even spoken anymore. Learn anyway. New languages make the mind learn how to work in a new way, they open your thoughts to new possibilities and develop new abilities in all of you. You're never too old, nor to young, for learning a language. Children might be faster in their first years of life but the ability to create new neurological connections exists in everyone, at every age, all that matters is how willing to learn and make the effort needed you actually are. The first language you learn after your native language is always the hardest. The second is easier and so on, because not only your mind is better prepared, but you also have a wider vocabulary and many more grammar rules to relate what you learn to. So, if you're wondering if you should really start learning a new language, the answer is yes. Even if you have a crazy schedule, if you already study or work all day. There's always a little time for learning even one new word a day. And it will surprise you how refreshing it is for your mind and how happy the idea of coming home and learning something new will make you. It will take years, and if you expect it to be faster you will only feel very disappointed. But during these years you will be doing yourself such a favour, and you have nothing to lose. Many people spend most of their lives without learning anything new. You have the opportunity to go on with your everyday life and at the same time learn something that will make your life much richer. So don't try to hurry things up and don't give up at the first sign of difficulty. There will be difficult things to understand and all of the process will be slow. It only means it's worth it. If you're lucky enough to have a friend who speaks your language and is also a native speaker of the one you want to learn, you're half the way. They will be able to teach you the little things, the ones only a native speaker knows, and will make your practice become something funny and natural. So, if you've reached this part and still didn't get bored, I suggest you keep reading to find an easy and useful guide for self-learning languages. 1. First grammar rules, vocabulary and basis of the language. Find some online free websites for learning the language. Finding the right one for you might take a while. It depends on how well things are explained, and what kind of explanations fit the best to you. I've found a site for learning English quite easily, but for instance I've spent weeks looking for a good place where to learn Bahasa Indonesia (what having an Indonesian parabatai makes you do...). Sometimes even the combination of more than one website can be the right thing. At that point, you could just memorise things by reading one lesson at a time or, and I suggest you do, you could keep a notebook and write in it all you learn. Especially if the language uses a different alphabet from yours it will be useful at the beginning to have everything written down on a paper in a way that's understandable to you. 2. Reading Once you've learnt the basic grammar rules and have a vocabulary good enough, it would be a very good idea to start reading something. The first books have to be special though. Take the book you like the most, the one you've read a hundred times in your native language, and read that. Since you already know the story perfectly you will not worry about missing the meaning of some words so your mind will not get exhausted at the second line, and many words you will understand exactly because you already know what the line is supposed to mean. Don't get surprised if it takes months to finish the book, you’re reading in a foreign language it is supposed to be hard. Understand that your mind is learning all over again what most of the people learn only once in their lives. Read these kind of books, the ones you know well, all the times you want. After a long while, you will be able to read a new book, but this while might be years, so be patient. When you read a new book, it's also a good idea to have a translator or a dictionary near you to look for the words you don't know the meaning of. You may not remember all the words you learn from the first time you look them up but as you trip over them over and over again, there'll come a day when you will automatically get its meaning. Reading is to me one of the most useful things to do when you learn a language. The amount of grammar rules and expression you learn implicitly is astonishing. The language enters your mind without you even noticing, and it will come out the same way. 3. Writing This part comes a little bit after the reading one. It's inevitable. Reading is easier than writing, as well as listening is easier than speaking. Receiving is easier than giving, in a learning context. When you're ready, is anyway a good idea to get international friends. An amazing idea actually. Social networks like tumblr, for instance, are good because you can see other people interacting and get how communication has to be and, after a while, you can also start talking to some native speaker. Tell them you need practice, and ask them to correct you if you make a big mistake. Learning how to learn from your mistakes is one of the most important things in life. As for writing exercises like writing stories, articles and the like, you can try and write something whenever you want. But it will surely be easier when you already got some practice chatting with friends and talking about every day life things. 4. Listening One of the two last parts of the learning process which are, in fact, the hardest ones. Though I put it in fourth place, you don't have to wait for other things to be done before starting to practice. It can totally be one of the first things you do, whilst going on with the other parts of the learning process. Listen to the radio. Watch movies and shows. As for this, the same rule used with books is valid. Movies whose lines you know by heart will be easier and more useful than ones you've never seen. But either way, having the tv on with something in a foreign language, even if you're not really paying attention, even if you're not understanding every word, will make the sound of the language enter your unconscious mind. When you want to watch something and really get what people are saying, it's good to put on the subtitles in the language itself (like, if you want to learn English and are watching a movie in English, put on the English subtitles) because written languages are always easier to understand than spoken ones, basically because you probably learnt how to read and write first and better than how to talk. At some point you will only look at the images on the screen and avoid the subtitles and you'll get almost everything. At some point you will no longer need to put on the subtitles and you'll just understand. You may even be able to discern easily between the different accents of the language. Also, for listening practice, it's good to ask your native friends to send some voice note every now and then. They will most probably speak quickly and with a particular accent so you'll need to listen to the note at least twice before getting all the meaning, but yet it makes a good practice. 5. Speaking The last part. Here is where international friends become essential. Unless you go live or visit the place where the language is spoken, which of course would be the best you can do, but many of us don't have that possibility so we have to make do. There all you can do is practice, practice all the time. Sending voice notes to friends or making calls and videochats, and also talking to yourself when you're alone, singing songs or even trying to emule some of your favourite actors or actresses in their parts (that last one is silly, I know, but I always find it really funny to do it). Practice and never be shy. Don't be ashamed of your accent even if it's terrible. Don't be ashamed of the mistakes you make. This is valid also for when you write or whatever else. You will most probably find yourself saying 'sorry for my __English_ (insert here the language you're learning)' a thousand times. It's polite, I get it. I've said it myself more times than I can remember. But you actually have nothing to apologise for. You're learning a whole new language. Something most people could and would never do. Something usually people do only once in their lives. You're amazing. Your ability is amazing, and especially your perseverance, strength, patience and love for learning are amazing. 6. Abstract I have to admit I still don't know how the hell I got there, nor if someone will give a damn about this post. Anyway, if you liked it or found it useful, you can totally write to me if you have questions, if you want me to explain something I didn't write in the post, or if you just want to share your experience. I'm a native Spanish and Italian speaker and started learning English something like five years ago. In case you needed advice, want to make some practice or whatever, don't be shy, just write to me! I'd love to help you, I wrote this out of some sudden inspiration and it might be too short, or too long, or have missing points. Tell me whatever you think about it. Hope it was of some help, love and blessings for you all!!♡

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hindisanskrittutor-blog · 5 years

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Is Hindi really that Hard to learn? How Can You Learn Hindi?

Hindi is one of the most common languages in the world with about 50 Crore native speakers. Bollywood, which mostly deals with Hindi movies, is also one of the largest film industries on the earth and comes after Hollywood's at the second most popular film industry. In recent years, many of the world's top actors in Bollywood have transited to Hollywood and narrowed the cultural gap between English and Hindi movies.

They were introduced more to Hindi through pop culture, films and music than they know. These may be some of the reasons for the deep insight into Hindi and you might be surprised by the depth of the language. So is it difficult to learn Hindi for native English speakers? And if so, what could you do?

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How hard is Hindi?

Some foreign experts say that Hindi is one of the ten hardest languages in the world to learn, and there are several reasons behind this according to them. One of Hindi's most disheartening features is definitely the script, which is close to the Arabic form of writing, which is hardly understandable than even by Chinese characters, most claims. Hindi pronunciation can be challenging for native English speakers as it needs for a more flexible vocabulary and many variations in words are so slight that it is so simple for a new student to keep his foot in the mouth and say the wrong thing!

Moreover, the fact that Hindi is an SOV (Subject, Object and Verb) language in comparison to English’s SVO way of talking. It can take a lot of time for getting used to learning to speak: ‘I the ball picked up’ as opposed to ‘I picked up the ball’.

Is it not possible to learn?

The answer to this question is very simple: definitely not! There is no language in this world which cannot be learned by humans. Whether or not you can able to talk, it depends heavily on your commitment to learning. I noticed that one of the great things about Hindi is that many English words have already been embedded in the language. In modern India, the middle class usually speaks Hindi but includes a bit of English into a lot of discussions.

What's amazing is that when you're trying to learn Hindi, learning is a much simpler task. You can understand what people are saying, or at least the meaning, if you build a strong word list of Hindi terms from learners, by using what you learn and listening to the English words that you use. Obviously, you may not have such an easy time while talking, but, like with any word, as you practice, the better the process becomes.

How can you learn Hindi?

No tricks or shortcuts are required to learn Hindi. It takes you quite a while to get to the complicated pronunciation and to understand the sometimes unusual word order and vocabulary. However, you are fortunate because Hindi has resources almost everywhere in the world, almost more so than other languages: I'm talking about native Indians! Indians like to travel and particularly like to share their culture wherever they go.

There is an ongoing joke among the Indians that you cannot visit a city in the world until you meet some of your fellow citizens. You can find Indian restaurants almost everywhere around the world. While this might not be entirely true, there is a high probability that there will be Hindi natives in your area. So that's what you should benefit from! Many people like to encourage others to know their mother tongue and, even better, you’ll have somebody to watch and discuss Bollywood movies with!

Although Hindi is not going to be an easy language to learn, it is definitely an adventure to learn the skills to speak the Hindi language. If you want to learn Hindi them Dr Ramesh Mishra a very famous and experienced Hindi Home Tutors In Delhi will surely help you. It will open your eyes to a variety of rich culture that takes a lifetime to explore. I am sure you, as I am, will fall in love and be happy to always know more about the glorious Indian culture and one of the great languages called “Hindi”!

Have you got tips to help English speakers to learn Hindi? Share them with us!

For more details about learning Hindi, visit: http://hindisanskrittutor.in/ or you can directly call us @9810766253.

#Hindi Tutor in Delhi #Hindi Home Tutor #Hindi Teacher #Hindi Home Tutors In Delhi #Hindi Language Home Tutor

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monologuedb · 8 years

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I have things to do besides YOUR homework...

I understand that my readership is mostly young people - primarily high school and college students - and I think that’s super. Seriously, I love that my writing appeals to young people. I wrote a lot of my most popular plays when I was in high school myself, and disgruntled over the lack of relatable characters in the plays that were considered “suitable” for students. It’s why I started writing plays in the first place - because I wasn’t seeing characters onstage who talked the way I talked, and cared about the things I cared about.

But sometimes it really bugs me when actors and students want me to do their homework for them. I have had people send me their entire homework assignment - 20+ questions asking for an analysis of the monologue and/or the play, expecting me to do it for them. And a lot of the time, they don’t even ask nicely or use proper spelling, grammar, and capitalization. I cannot stress this enough: if you are asking someone to do you a favor, ask POLITELY. Use the word PLEASE, and do your best to spell my name correctly. And unless English is your second language, there is no excuse for using non-words like “cuz”.

I don’t charge a lot of money to download my plays, because I want you to read them. If you write to me and say, “I don’t have a credit card or PayPal and I really want to read the play,” I will e-mail it to you for free. I do this, like, twice a week. I do it happily. So expense is not the issue. But if you are too lazy to read the play, please do not write to ask me about the given circumstances of the monologue. They are in the play.

If you read the play and still have questions, then absolutely, write to me, I would love to hear from you. I love talking about my work! That’s why I put my personal e-mail address - the one I check every day - all over my website. It’s not that I don’t want to hear from my readers. I want to hear from you. What I don’t want to hear from you is, “I want to perform your monologue, but I don’t want to read the play it’s from, can you just summarize it for me / write a paragraph I can plagiarize and hand in to my English teacher / answer these seventeen questions that I could figure out myself by taking half and hour and reading the play?”

I know you’re busy, but it doesn’t take long to read a play. Especially a ten-minute play or a one-act. And if you are too busy to read the play, then why do you have time to e-mail me and then wait for me to respond? Are you really pressed for time, or do you just think your time is somehow more valuable than mine?

Here is an example of a message you should NEVER write to someone if you want them to HELP you:

I know what you’re thinking. “Kellie, if you don’t have time to answer questions for lazy readers, why do you have time to write this ranty post and screen-cap your conversation and edit out the girl’s identifying info and put it on your tumblr?”

The short answer is, “It’s not really about the time. It’s about respect.”

It’s about taking two minutes to make sure your message is polite and spelled correctly. I’m not asking for perfection. I’m just asking that you make an effort. Demonstrate some respect for the English language, folks. Writers like myself tend to appreciate that kind of thing. I’m not going to be a bitch if your e-mail has a typo - nobody’s perfect, including me. And if English is not your first language, don’t worry! English is probably one of the hardest languages to master, and I applaud your effort! Lord knows, if I wrote someone an e-mail in Spanish it would be a disaster. And if you’re not a native speaker, it’s okay to let me know that in your message. I will do my best to make sure you have all the help you need understanding the monologue you’re performing and the play it’s from.

To be clear:

I am glad you want to do my monologue. I’m glad you like what I wrote!

I am glad you decided to get in touch with me. I want to hear from you!

It’s okay to ask me to send you the play for free if there’s something that interferes with you being able to pay me for the play. I want you to read the play, even if you can’t pay for it.

I would appreciate it if you keep in mind that I am: a.) a writer who cares about grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and the English language in general, and b.) a stranger who you are asking for a favor.

Anytime you ask for someone’s help, it’s a good idea to use the word “please” somewhere in your request. “Thank you” also goes a long way!

Please keep in mind that you are asking a stranger for a favor, not texting your mom to let her know that volleyball practice is running long - and adjust your tone accordingly. Typos are one thing, text-speak is quite another. Seriously, text-speak makes me want to cry myself to sleep at night.

If I let you know that you’ve made a mistake in your message to me, I’m really not doing it to be a bitch. I’m trying to help you avoid alienating the next person you write an e-mail to, whether it be a teacher, a stranger, or a potential employer. I may be snarky and sarcastic sometimes, but I genuinely do want to help you.

Finally: If you tell me that you are too busy to read the play, I am going to tell you that I am too busy to help you avoid doing your work. Even if I’m not. Because if you are going to use “too busy” as code for “too lazy” ... then so am I.

#r-e-s-p-e-c-t #how to ask for a favor #playwright life #playwright problems #the magic word is please #reader correspondence

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englishchinesetranslations · 5 years

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(简体字：为什么中文这么TM难？)

(繁體字：為什麼中文這麼TM難？)

The first question any thoughtful person might ask when reading the title of this essay is, "Hard for whom?" A reasonable question. After all, Chinese people seem to learn it just fine. When little Chinese kids go through the "terrible twos", it's Chinese they use to drive their parents crazy, and in a few years the same kids are actually using those impossibly complicated Chinese characters to scribble love notes and shopping lists. So what do I mean by "hard"? Since I know at the outset that the whole tone of this document is going to involve a lot of whining and complaining, I may as well come right out and say exactly what I mean. I mean hard for me, a native English speaker trying to learn Chinese as an adult, going through the whole process with the textbooks, the tapes, the conversation partners, etc., the whole torturous rigmarole. I mean hard for me -- and, of course, for the many other Westerners who have spent years of their lives bashing their heads against the Great Wall of Chinese.

From

Schriftfestschrift: Essays on Writing and Language in Honor of John DeFrancis on His Eightieth Birthday

(Sino-Platonic Papers)

No. 27, August 1991), edited by Victor H. Mair

If this were as far as I went, my statement would be a pretty empty one. Of course Chinese is hard for me. After all, any foreign language is hard for a non-native, right? Well, sort of. Not all foreign languages are equally difficult for any learner. It depends on which language you're coming from. A French person can usually learn Italian faster than an American, and an average American could probably master German a lot faster than an average Japanese, and so on. So part of what I'm contending is that Chinese is hard compared to ... well, compared to almost any other language you might care to tackle. What I mean is that Chinese is not only hard for us (English speakers), but it's also hard in absolute terms. Which means that Chinese is also hard forthem, for Chinese people.1

If you don't believe this, just ask a Chinese person. Most Chinese people will cheerfully acknowledge that their language is hard, maybe the hardest on earth. (Many are even proud of this, in the same way some New Yorkers are actually proud of living in the most unlivable city in America.) Maybe all Chinese people deserve a medal just for being born Chinese. At any rate, they generally become aware at some point of the Everest-like status of their native language, as they, from their privileged vantage point on the summit, observe foolhardy foreigners huffing and puffing up the steep slopes.

Everyone's heard the supposed fact that if you take the English idiom "It's Greek to me" and search for equivalent idioms in all the world's languages to arrive at a consensus as to which language is the hardest, the results of such a linguistic survey is that Chinese easily wins as the canonical incomprehensible language. (For example, the French have the expression "C'est du chinois", "It's Chinese", i.e., "It's incomprehensible". Other languages have similar sayings.) So then the question arises: What do the Chinese themselves consider to be an impossibly hard language? You then look for the corresponding phrase in Chinese, and you find Gēn tiānshū yíyàng 跟天书一样 meaning "It's like heavenly script."

There is truth in this linguistic yarn; Chinese does deserve its reputation for heartbreaking difficulty. Those who undertake to study the language for any other reason than the sheer joy of it will always be frustrated by the abysmal ratio of effort to effect. Those who are actually attracted to the language precisely because of its daunting complexity and difficulty will never be disappointed. Whatever the reason they started, every single person who has undertaken to study Chinese sooner or later asks themselves "Why in the world am I doing this?" Those who can still remember their original goals will wisely abandon the attempt then and there, since nothing could be worth all that tedious struggle. Those who merely say "I've come this far -- I can't stop now" will have some chance of succeeding, since they have the kind of mindless doggedness and lack of sensible overall perspective that it takes.

Okay, having explained a bit of what I mean by the word, I return to my original question: Why is Chinese so damn hard?

1. Because the writing system is ridiculous.

Beautiful, complex, mysterious -- but ridiculous. I, like many students of Chinese, was first attracted to Chinese because of the writing system, which is surely one of the most fascinating scripts in the world. The more you learn about Chinese characters the more intriguing and addicting they become. The study of Chinese characters can become a lifelong obsession, and you soon find yourself engaged in the daily task of accumulating them, drop by drop from the vast sea of characters, in a vain attempt to hoard them in the leaky bucket of long-term memory.

The beauty of the characters is indisputable, but as the Chinese people began to realize the importance of universal literacy, it became clear that these ideograms were sort of like bound feet -- some fetishists may have liked the way they looked, but they weren't too practical for daily use.

For one thing, it is simply unreasonably hard to learn enough characters to become functionally literate. Again, someone may ask "Hard in comparison to what?" And the answer is easy: Hard in comparison to Spanish, Greek, Russian, Hindi, or any other sane, "normal" language that requires at most a few dozen symbols to write anything in the language. John DeFrancis, in his book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, reports that his Chinese colleagues estimate it takes seven to eight years for a Mandarin speaker to learn to read and write three thousand characters, whereas his French and Spanish colleagues estimate that students in their respective countries achieve comparable levels in half that time.2 Naturally, this estimate is rather crude and impressionistic (it's unclear what "comparable levels" means here), but the overall implications are obvious: the Chinese writing system is harder to learn, in absolute terms, than an alphabetic writing system.3 Even Chinese kids, whose minds are at their peak absorptive power, have more trouble with Chinese characters than their little counterparts in other countries have with their respective scripts. Just imagine the difficulties experienced by relatively sluggish post-pubescent foreign learners such as myself.

Everyone has heard that Chinese is hard because of the huge number of characters one has to learn, and this is absolutely true. There are a lot of popular books and articles that downplay this difficulty, saying things like "Despite the fact that Chinese has [10,000, 25,000, 50,000, take your pick] separate characters you really only need 2,000 or so to read a newspaper". Poppycock. I couldn't comfortably read a newspaper when I had 2,000 characters under my belt. I often had to look up several characters per line, and even after that I had trouble pulling the meaning out of the article. (I take it as a given that what is meant by "read" in this context is "read and basically comprehend the text without having to look up dozens of characters"; otherwise the claim is rather empty.)

This fairy tale is promulgated because of the fact that, when you look at the character frequencies, over 95% of the characters in any newspaper are easily among the first 2,000 most common ones.4 But what such accounts don't tell you is that there will still be plenty of unfamiliar words made up of those familiar characters. (To illustrate this problem, note that in English, knowing the words "up" and "tight" doesn't mean you know the word "uptight".) Plus, as anyone who has studied any language knows, you can often be familiar with every single word in a text and still not be able to grasp the meaning. Reading comprehension is not simply a matter of knowing a lot of words; one has to get a feeling for how those words combine with other words in a multitude of different contexts.5 In addition, there is the obvious fact that even though you may know 95% of the characters in a given text, the remaining 5% are often the very characters that are crucial for understanding the main point of the text. A non-native speaker of English reading an article with the headline "JACUZZIS FOUND EFFECTIVE IN TREATING PHLEBITIS" is not going to get very far if they don't know the words "jacuzzi" or "phlebitis".

The problem of reading is often a touchy one for those in the China field. How many of us would dare stand up in front of a group of colleagues and read a randomly-selected passage out loud? Yet inferiority complexes or fear of losing face causes many teachers and students to become unwitting cooperators in a kind of conspiracy of silence wherein everyone pretends that after four years of Chinese the diligent student should be whizzing through anything from Confucius to Lu Xun, pausing only occasionally to look up some pesky low-frequency character (in their Chinese-Chinese dictionary, of course). Others, of course, are more honest about the difficulties. The other day one of my fellow graduate students, someone who has been studying Chinese for ten years or more, said to me "My research is really hampered by the fact that I still just can't read Chinese. It takes me hours to get through two or three pages, and I can't skim to save my life." This would be an astonishing admission for a tenth-year student of, say, French literature, yet it is a comment I hear all the time among my peers (at least in those unguarded moments when one has had a few too many Tsingtao beers and has begun to lament how slowly work on the thesis is coming).

A teacher of mine once told me of a game he and a colleague would sometimes play: The contest involved pulling a book at random from the shelves of the Chinese section of the Asia Library and then seeing who could be the first to figure out what the book was about. Anyone who has spent time working in an East Asia collection can verify that this can indeed be a difficult enough task -- never mind reading the book in question. This state of affairs is very disheartening for the student who is impatient to begin feasting on the vast riches of Chinese literature, but must subsist on a bland diet of canned handouts, textbook examples, and carefully edited appetizers for the first few years.

The comparison with learning the usual western languages is striking. After about a year of studying French, I was able to read a lot. I went through the usual kinds of novels -- La nausée by Sartre, Voltaire'sCandide, L'étranger by Camus -- plus countless newspapers, magazines, comic books, etc. It was a lot of work but fairly painless; all I really needed was a good dictionary and a battered French grammar book I got at a garage sale.

This kind of "sink or swim" approach just doesn't work in Chinese. At the end of three years of learning Chinese, I hadn't yet read a single complete novel. I found it just too hard, impossibly slow, and unrewarding. Newspapers, too, were still too daunting. I couldn't read an article without looking up about every tenth character, and it was not uncommon for me to scan the front page of the People's Daily and not be able to completely decipher a single headline. Someone at that time suggested I read The Dream of the Red Chamber and gave me a nice three-volume edition. I just have to laugh. It still sits on my shelf like a fat, smug Buddha, only the first twenty or so pages filled with scribbled definitions and question marks, the rest crisp and virgin. After six years of studying Chinese, I'm still not at a level where I can actually read it without an English translation to consult. (By "read it", I mean, of course, "read it for pleasure". I suppose if someone put a gun to my head and a dictionary in my hand, I could get through it.) Simply diving into the vast pool of Chinese in the beginning is not only foolhardy, it can even be counterproductive. As George Kennedy writes, "The difficulty of memorizing a Chinese ideograph as compared with the difficulty of learning a new word in a European language, is such that a rigid economy of mental effort is imperative."6 This is, if anything, an understatement. With the risk of drowning so great, the student is better advised to spend more time in the shallow end treading water before heading toward the deep end.

As if all this weren't bad enough, another ridiculous aspect of the Chinese writing system is that there are two (mercifully overlapping) sets of characters: the traditional characters still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and the simplified characters adopted by the People's Republic of China in the late 1950's and early 60's. Any foreign student of Chinese is more or less forced to become familiar with both sets, since they are routinely exposed to textbooks and materials from both Chinas. This linguistic camel's-back-breaking straw puts an absurd burden on the already absurdly burdened student of Chinese, who at this point would gladly trade places with Sisyphus. But since Chinese people themselves are never equally proficient in both simplified and complex characters, there is absolutely no shame whatsoever in eventually concentrating on one set to the partial exclusion the other. In fact, there is absolutely no shame in giving up Chinese altogether, when you come right down to it.

2. Because the language doesn't have the common sense to use an alphabet.

To further explain why the Chinese writing system is so hard in this respect, it might be a good idea to spell out (no pun intended) why that of English is so easy. Imagine the kind of task faced by the average Chinese adult who decides to study English. What skills are needed to master the writing system? That's easy: 26 letters. (In upper and lower case, of course, plus script and a few variant forms. And throw in some quote marks, apostrophes, dashes, parentheses, etc. -- all things the Chinese use in their own writing system.) And how are these letters written? From left to right, horizontally, across the page, with spaces to indicate word boundaries. Forgetting for a moment the problem of spelling and actually making words out of these letters, how long does it take this Chinese learner of English to master the various components of the English writing system? Maybe a day or two.

Now consider the American undergraduate who decides to study Chinese. What does it take for this person to master the Chinese writing system? There is nothing that corresponds to an alphabet, though there are recurring components that make up the characters. How many such components are there? Don't ask. As with all such questions about Chinese, the answer is very messy and unsatisfying. It depends on how you define "component" (strokes? radicals?), plus a lot of other tedious details. Suffice it to say, the number is quite large, vastly more than the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. And how are these components combined to form characters? Well, you name it -- components to the left of other components, to the right of other components, on top of other components, surrounding other components, inside of other components -- almost anything is possible. And in the process of making these spatial accommodations, these components get flattened, stretched, squashed, shortened, and distorted in order to fit in the uniform square space that all characters are supposed to fit into. In other words, the components of Chinese characters are arrayed in two dimensions, rather than in the neat one-dimensional rows of alphabetic writing.

Okay, so ignoring for the moment the question of elegance, how long does it take a Westerner to learn the Chinese writing system so that when confronted with any new character they at least know how to move the pen around in order to produce a reasonable facsimile of that character? Again, hard to say, but I would estimate that it takes the average learner several months of hard work to get the basics down. Maybe a year or more if they're a klutz who was never very good in art class. Meanwhile, their Chinese counterpart learning English has zoomed ahead to learn cursive script, with time left over to read Moby Dick, or at least Strunk & White.

This is not exactly big news, I know; the alphabet really is a breeze to learn. Chinese people I know who have studied English for a few years can usually write with a handwriting style that is almost indistinguishable from that of the average American. Very few Americans, on the other hand, ever learn to produce a natural calligraphic hand in Chinese that resembles anything but that of an awkward Chinese third-grader. If there were nothing else hard about Chinese, the task of learning to write characters alone would put it in the rogues' gallery of hard-to-learn languages.

3. Because the writing system just ain't very phonetic.

So much for the physical process of writing the characters themselves. What about the sheer task of memorizing so many characters? Again, a comparison of English and Chinese is instructive. Suppose a Chinese person has just the previous day learned the English word "president", and now wants to write it from memory. How to start? Anyone with a year or two of English experience is going to have a host of clues and spelling rules-of-thumb, albeit imperfect ones, to help them along. The word really couldn't start with anything but "pr", and after that a little guesswork aided by visual memory ("Could a 'z' be in there? That's an unusual letter, I would have noticed it, I think. Must be an 's'...") should produce something close to the target. Not every foreigner (or native speaker for that matter) has noted or internalized the various flawed spelling heuristics of English, of course, but they are at least there to be utilized.

Now imagine that you, a learner of Chinese, have just the previous day encountered the Chinese word for "president" (总统 zǒngtǒng ) and want to write it. What processes do you go through in retrieving the word? Well, very often you just totally forget, with a forgetting that is both absolute and perfect in a way few things in this life are. You can repeat the word as often as you like; the sound won't give you a clue as to how the character is to be written. After you learn a few more characters and get hip to a few more phonetic components, you can do a bit better. ("Zǒng 总 is a phonetic component in some other character, right?...Song? Zeng? Oh yeah, cong 总 as in cōngmíng 聪明.") Of course, the phonetic aspect of some characters is more obvious than that of others, but many characters, including some of the most high-frequency ones, give no clue at all as to their pronunciation.

All of this is to say that Chinese is just not very phonetic when compared to English. (English, in turn, is less phonetic than a language like German or Spanish, but Chinese isn't even in the same ballpark.) It is not true, as some people outside the field tend to think, that Chinese is not phonetic at all, though a perfectly intelligent beginning student could go several months without noticing this fact. Just how phonetic the language is a very complex issue. Educated opinions range from 25% (Zhao Yuanren)7 to around 66% (DeFrancis),8 though the latter estimate assumes more knowledge of phonetic components than most learners are likely to have. One could say that Chinese is phonetic in the way that sex is aerobic: technically so, but in practical use not the most salient thing about it. Furthermore, this phonetic aspect of the language doesn't really become very useful until you've learned a few hundred characters, and even when you've learned two thousand, the feeble phoneticity of Chinese will never provide you with the constant memory prod that the phonetic quality of English does.

Which means that often you just completely forget how to write a character. Period. If there is no obvious semantic clue in the radical, and no helpful phonetic component somewhere in the character, you're just sunk. And you're sunk whether your native language is Chinese or not; contrary to popular myth, Chinese people are not born with the ability to memorize arbitrary squiggles. In fact, one of the most gratifying experiences a foreign student of Chinese can have is to see a native speaker come up a complete blank when called upon to write the characters for some relatively common word. You feel an enormous sense of vindication and relief to see a native speaker experience the exact same difficulty you experience every day.

This is such a gratifying experience, in fact, that I have actually kept a list of characters that I have observed Chinese people forget how to write. (A sick, obsessive activity, I know.) I have seen highly literate Chinese people forget how to write certain characters in common words like "tin can", "knee", "screwdriver", "snap" (as in "to snap one's fingers"), "elbow", "ginger", "cushion", "firecracker", and so on. And when I say "forget", I mean that they often cannot even put the first stroke down on the paper. Can you imagine a well-educated native English speaker totally forgetting how to write a word like "knee" or "tin can"? Or even a rarely-seen word like "scabbard" or "ragamuffin"? I was once at a luncheon with three Ph.D. students in the Chinese Department at Peking University, all native Chinese (one from Hong Kong). I happened to have a cold that day, and was trying to write a brief note to a friend canceling an appointment that day. I found that I couldn't remember how to write the character 嚔, as in da penti 打喷嚔 "to sneeze". I asked my three friends how to write the character, and to my surprise, all three of them simply shrugged in sheepish embarrassment. Not one of them could correctly produce the character. Now, Peking University is usually considered the "Harvard of China". Can you imagine three Ph.D. students in English at Harvard forgetting how to write the English word "sneeze"?? Yet this state of affairs is by no means uncommon in China. English is simply orders of magnitude easier to write and remember. No matter how low-frequency the word is, or how unorthodox the spelling, the English speaker can always come up with something, simply because there has to be some correspondence between sound and spelling. One might forget whether "abracadabra" is hyphenated or not, or get the last few letters wrong on "rhinoceros", but even the poorest of spellers can make a reasonable stab at almost anything. By contrast, often even the most well-educated Chinese have no recourse but to throw up their hands and ask someone else in the room how to write some particularly elusive character.

As one mundane example of the advantages of a phonetic writing system, here is one kind of linguistic situation I encountered constantly while I was in France. (Again I use French as my canonical example of an "easy" foreign language.) I wake up one morning in Paris and turn on the radio. An ad comes on, and I hear the word "amortisseur" several times. "What's an amortisseur?" I think to myself, but as I am in a hurry to make an appointment, I forget to look the word up in my haste to leave the apartment. A few hours later I'm walking down the street, and I read, on a sign, the word "AMORTISSEUR" -- the word I heard earlier this morning. Beneath the word on the sign is a picture of a shock absorber. Aha! So "amortisseur" means "shock absorber". And voila! I've learned a new word, quickly and painlessly, all because the sound I construct when reading the word is the same as the sound in my head from the radio this morning -- one reinforces the other. Throughout the next week I see the word again several times, and each time I can reconstruct the sound by simply reading the word phonetically -- "a-mor-tis-seur". Before long I can retrieve the word easily, use it in conversation, or write it in a letter to a friend. And the process of learning a foreign language begins to seem less daunting.

When I first went to Taiwan for a few months, the situation was quite different. I was awash in a sea of characters that were all visually interesting but phonetically mute. I carried around a little dictionary to look up unfamiliar characters in, but it's almost impossible to look up a character in a Chinese dictionary while walking along a crowded street (more on dictionary look-up later), and so I didn't get nearly as much phonetic reinforcement as I got in France. In Taiwan I could pass a shop with a sign advertising shock absorbers and never know how to pronounce any of the characters unless I first look them up. And even then, the next time I pass the shop I might have to look the characters up again. And again, and again. The reinforcement does not come naturally and easily.

4. Because you can't cheat by using cognates.

I remember when I had been studying Chinese very hard for about three years, I had an interesting experience. One day I happened to find a Spanish-language newspaper sitting on a seat next to me. I picked it up out of curiosity. "Hmm," I thought to myself. "I've never studied Spanish in my life. I wonder how much of this I can understand." At random I picked a short article about an airplane crash and started to read. I found I could basically glean, with some guesswork, most of the information from the article. The crash took place near Los Angeles. 186 people were killed. There were no survivors. The plane crashed just one minute after take-off. There was nothing on the flight recorder to indicate a critical situation, and the tower was unaware of any emergency. The plane had just been serviced three days before and no mechanical problems had been found. And so on. After finishing the article I had a sudden discouraging realization: Having never studied a day of Spanish, I could read a Spanish newspaper more easily than I could a Chinese newspaper after more than three years of studying Chinese.

What was going on here? Why was this "foreign" language so transparent? The reason was obvious: cognates -- those helpful words that are just English words with a little foreign make-up.9 I could read the article because most of the operative words were basically English: aeropuerto, problema mechanico, un minuto, situacion critica, emergencia, etc. Recognizing these words as just English words in disguise is about as difficult as noticing that Superman is really Clark Kent without his glasses. That these quasi-English words are easier to learn than Chinese characters (which might as well be quasi-Martian) goes without saying.

Imagine you are a diabetic, and you find yourself in Spain about to go into insulin shock. You can rush into a doctor's office, and, with a minimum of Spanish and a couple of pieces of guesswork ("diabetes" is just "diabetes" and "insulin" is "insulina", it turns out), you're saved. In China you'd be a goner for sure, unless you happen to have a dictionary with you, and even then you would probably pass out while frantically looking for the first character in the word for insulin. Which brings me to the next reason why Chinese is so hard.

5. Because even looking up a word in the dictionary is complicated.

One of the most unreasonably difficult things about learning Chinese is that merely learning how to look up a word in the dictionary is about the equivalent of an entire semester of secretarial school. When I was in Taiwan, I heard that they sometimes held dictionary look-up contests in the junior high schools. Imagine a language where simply looking a word up in the dictionary is considered a skill like debate or volleyball! Chinese is not exactly what you would call a user-friendly language, but a Chinese dictionary is positively user-hostile.

Figuring out all the radicals and their variants, plus dealing with the ambiguous characters with no obvious radical at all is a stupid, time-consuming chore that slows the learning process down by a factor of ten as compared to other languages with a sensible alphabet or the equivalent. I'd say it took me a good year before I could reliably find in the dictionary any character I might encounter. And to this day, I will very occasionally stumble onto a character that I simply can't find at all, even after ten minutes of searching. At such times I raise my hands to the sky, Job-like, and consider going into telemarketing.

Chinese must also be one of the most dictionary-intensive languages on earth. I currently have more than twenty Chinese dictionaries of various kinds on my desk, and they all have a specific and distinct use. There are dictionaries with simplified characters used on the mainland, dictionaries with the traditional characters used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and dictionaries with both. There are dictionaries that use the Wade-Giles romanization, dictionaries that use pinyin, and dictionaries that use other more surrealistic romanization methods. There are dictionaries of classical Chinese particles, dictionaries of Beijing dialect, dictionaries of chéngyǔ (four-character idioms), dictionaries of xiēhòuyǔ(special allegorical two-part sayings), dictionaries of yànyǔ (proverbs), dictionaries of Chinese communist terms, dictionaries of Buddhist terms, reverse dictionaries... on and on. An exhaustive hunt for some elusive or problematic lexical item can leave one's desk "strewn with dictionaries as numerous as dead soldiers on a battlefield."10

For looking up unfamiliar characters there is another method called the four-corner system. This method is very fast -- rumored to be, in principle, about as fast as alphabetic look-up (though I haven't met anyone yet who can hit the winning number each time on the first try). Unfortunately, learning this method takes about as much time and practice as learning the Dewey decimal system. Plus you are then at the mercy of the few dictionaries that are arranged according to the numbering scheme of the four-corner system. Those who have mastered this system usually swear by it. The rest of us just swear.

Another problem with looking up words in the dictionary has to do with the nature of written Chinese. In most languages it's pretty obvious where the word boundaries lie -- there are spaces between the words. If you don't know the word in question, it's usually fairly clear what you should look up. (What actually constitutes a word is a very subtle issue, of course, but for my purposes here, what I'm saying is basically correct.) In Chinese there are spaces between characters, but it takes quite a lot of knowledge of the language and often some genuine sleuth work to tell where word boundaries lie; thus it's often trial and error to look up a word. It would be as if English were written thus:

FEAR LESS LY OUT SPOKE N BUT SOME WHAT HUMOR LESS NEW ENG LAND BORN LEAD ACT OR GEORGE MICHAEL SON EX PRESS ED OUT RAGE TO DAY AT THE STALE MATE BE TWEEN MAN AGE MENT AND THE ACT OR 'S UNION BE CAUSE THE STAND OFF HAD SET BACK THE TIME TABLE FOR PRO DUC TION OF HIS PLAY, A ONE MAN SHOW CASE THAT WAS HIS FIRST RUN A WAY BROAD WAY BOX OFFICE SMASH HIT. "THE FIRST A MEND MENT IS AT IS SUE" HE PRO CLAIM ED. "FOR A CENS OR OR AN EDIT OR TO EDIT OR OTHER WISE BLUE PENCIL QUESTION ABLE DIA LOG JUST TO KOW TOW TO RIGHT WING BORN AGAIN BIBLE THUMP ING FRUIT CAKE S IS A DOWN RIGHT DIS GRACE."

Imagine how this difference would compound the dictionary look-up difficulties of a non-native speaker of English. The passage is pretty trivial for us to understand, but then we already know English. For them it would often be hard to tell where the word boundaries were supposed to be. So it is, too, with someone trying to learn Chinese.

6. Then there's classical Chinese (wenyanwen).

Forget it. Way too difficult. If you think that after three or four years of study you'll be breezing through Confucius and Mencius in the way third-year French students at a comparable level are reading Diderot and Voltaire, you're sadly mistaken. There are some westerners who can comfortably read classical Chinese, but most of them have a lot of gray hair or at least tenure.

Unfortunately, classical Chinese pops up everywhere, especially in Chinese paintings and character scrolls, and most people will assume anyone literate in Chinese can read it. It's truly embarrassing to be out at a Chinese restaurant, and someone asks you to translate some characters on a wall hanging.

"Hey, you speak Chinese. What does this scroll say?" You look up and see that the characters are written in wenyan, and in incomprehensible "grass-style" calligraphy to boot. It might as well be an EKG readout of a dying heart patient.

"Uh, I can make out one or two of the characters, but I couldn't tell you what it says," you stammer. "I think it's about a phoenix or something."

"Oh, I thought you knew Chinese," says your friend, returning to their menu. Never mind that an honest-to-goodness Chinese person would also just scratch their head and shrug; the face that is lost is yours.

Whereas modern Mandarin is merely perversely hard, classical Chinese is deliberately impossible. Here's a secret that sinologists won't tell you: A passage in classical Chinese can be understood only if you already know what the passage says in the first place. This is because classical Chinese really consists of several centuries of esoteric anecdotes and in-jokes written in a kind of terse, miserly code for dissemination among a small, elite group of intellectually-inbred bookworms who already knew the whole literature backwards and forwards, anyway. An uninitiated westerner can no more be expected to understand such writing than Confucius himself, if transported to the present, could understand the entries in the "personal" section of the classified ads that say things like: "Hndsm. SWGM, 24, 160, sks BGM or WGM for gentle S&M, mod. bndg., some lthr., twosm or threesm ok, have own equip., wheels, 988-8752 lv. mssg. on ans. mach., no weirdos please."

In fairness, it should be said that classical Chinese gets easier the more you attempt it. But then so does hitting a hole in one, or swimming the English channel in a straitjacket.

7. Because there are too many romanization methods and they all suck.

Well, perhaps that's too harsh. But it is true that there are too many of them, and most of them were designed either by committee or by linguists, or -- even worse -- by a committee of linguists. It is, of course, a very tricky task to devise a romanization method; some are better than others, but all involve plenty of counterintuitive spellings.11 And if you're serious about a career in Chinese, you'll have to grapple with at least four or five of them, not including the bopomofu phonetic symbols used in Taiwan. There are probably a dozen or more romanization schemes out there somewhere, most of them mercifully obscure and rightfully ignored. There is a standing joke among sinologists that one of the first signs of senility in a China scholar is the compulsion to come up with a new romanization method.

8. Because tonal languages are weird.

Okay, that's very Anglo-centric, I know it. But I have to mention this problem because it's one of the most common complaints about learning Chinese, and it's one of the aspects of the language that westerners are notoriously bad at. Every person who tackles Chinese at first has a little trouble believing this aspect of the language. How is it possible thatshùxué means "mathematics" while shūxuě means "blood transfusion", or that guòjiǎng means "you flatter me" while guǒjiàng means "fruit paste"?

By itself, this property of Chinese would be hard enough; it means that, for us non-native speakers, there is this extra, seemingly irrelevant aspect of the sound of a word that you must memorize along with the vowels and consonants. But where the real difficulty comes in is when you start to really use Chinese to express yourself. You suddenly find yourself straitjacketed -- when you say the sentence with the intonation that feels natural, the tones come out all wrong. For example, if you wish say something like "Hey, that's my water glass you're drinking out of!", and you follow your intonational instincts -- that is, to put a distinct falling tone on the first character of the word for "my" -- you will have said a kind of gibberish that may or may not be understood.

Intonation and stress habits are incredibly ingrained and second-nature. With non-tonal languages you can basically import, mutatis mutandis, your habitual ways of emphasizing, negating, stressing, and questioning. The results may be somewhat non-native but usually understandable. Not so with Chinese, where your intonational contours must always obey the tonal constraints of the specific words you've chosen. Chinese speakers, of course, can express all of the intonational subtleties available in non-tonal languages -- it's just that they do it in a way that is somewhat alien to us speakers of non-tonal languages. When you first begin using your Chinese to talk about subjects that actually matter to you, you find that it feels somewhat like trying to have a passionate argument with your hands tied behind your back -- you are suddenly robbed of some vital expressive tools you hadn't even been aware of having.

9. Because east is east and west is west, and the twain have only recently met.

Language and culture cannot be separated, of course, and one of the main reasons Chinese is so difficult for Americans is that our two cultures have been isolated for so long. The reason reading French sentences like "Le président Bush assure le peuple koweitien que le gouvernement américain va continuer à défendre le Koweit contre la menace irakienne," is about as hard as deciphering pig Latin is not just because of the deep Indo-European family resemblance, but also because the core concepts and cultural assumptions in such utterances stem from the same source. We share the same art history, the same music history, the same history history -- which means that in the head of a French person there is basically the same set of archetypes and the same cultural cast of characters that's in an American's head. We are as familiar with Rimbaud as they are with Rambo. In fact, compared to the difference between China and the U.S., American culture and and French culture seem about as different as Peter Pan and Skippy peanut butter.

Speaking with a Chinese person is usually a different matter. You just can't drop Dickens, Tarzan, Jack the Ripper, Goethe, or the Beatles into a conversation and always expect to be understood. I once had a Chinese friend who had read the first translations of Kafka into Chinese, yet didn't know who Santa Claus was. China has had extensive contact with the West in the last few decades, but there is still a vast sea of knowledge and ideas that is not shared by both cultures.

Similarly, how many Americans other than sinophiles have even a rough idea of the chronology of China's dynasties? Has the average history major here ever heard of Qin Shi Huangdi and his contribution to Chinese culture? How many American music majors have ever heard a note of Peking Opera, or would recognize a pipa if they tripped over one? How many otherwise literate Americans have heard of Lu Xun, Ba Jin, or even Mozi?

What this means is that when Americans and Chinese get together, there is often not just a language barrier, but an immense cultural barrier as well. Of course, this is one of the reasons the study of Chinese is so interesting. It is also one of the reasons it is so damn hard.

Conclusion

I could go on and on, but I figure if the reader has bothered to read this far, I'm preaching to the converted, anyway. Those who have tackled other difficult languages have their own litany of horror stories, I'm sure. But I still feel reasonably confident in asserting that, for an average American, Chinese is significantly harder to learn than any of the other thirty or so major world languages that are usually studied formally at the university level (though Japanese in many ways comes close). Not too interesting for linguists, maybe, but something to consider if you've decided to better yourself by learning a foreign language, and you're thinking "Gee, Chinese looks kinda neat."

It's pretty hard to quantify a process as complex and multi-faceted as language-learning, but one simple metric is to simply estimate the time it takes to master the requisite language-learning skills. When you consider all the above-mentioned things a learner of Chinese has to acquire -- ability to use a dictionary, familiarity with two or three romanization methods, a grasp of principles involved in writing characters (both simplified and traditional) -- it adds up to an awful lot of down time while one is "learning to learn" Chinese.

How much harder is Chinese? Again, I'll use French as my canonical "easy language". This is a very rough and intuitive estimate, but I would say that it takes about three times as long to reach a level of comfortable fluency in speaking, reading, and writing Chinese as it takes to reach a comparable level in French. An average American could probably become reasonably fluent in two Romance languages in the time it would take them to reach the same level in Chinese.

One could perhaps view learning languages as being similar to learning musical instruments. Despite the esoteric glories of the harmonica literature, it's probably safe to say that the piano is a lot harder and more time-consuming to learn. To extend the analogy, there is also the fact that we are all virtuosos on at least one "instrument" (namely, our native language), and learning instruments from the same family is easier than embarking on a completely different instrument. A Spanish person learning Portuguese is comparable to a violinist taking up the viola, whereas an American learning Chinese is more like a rock guitarist trying to learn to play an elaborate 30-stop three-manual pipe organ.

Someone once said that learning Chinese is "a five-year lesson in humility". I used to think this meant that at the end of five years you will have mastered Chinese and learned humility along the way. However, now having studied Chinese for over six years, I have concluded that actually the phrase means that after five years your Chinese will still be abysmal, but at least you will have thoroughly learned humility.

There is still the awe-inspiring fact that Chinese people manage to learn their own language very well. Perhaps they are like the gradeschool kids that Baroque performance groups recruit to sing Bach cantatas. The story goes that someone in the audience, amazed at hearing such youthful cherubs flawlessly singing Bach's uncompromisingly difficult vocal music, asks the choir director, "But how are they able to perform such difficult music?"

"Shh -- not so loud!" says the director, "If you don't tell them it's difficult, they never know."

Bibliography

(A longer version of this paper is available through CRCC, Indiana University, 510 N. Fess, Bloomington, IN, 47408.)

Chen, Heqin, (1928)"Yutiwen yingyong zihui" [Characters used in vernacular literature], Shanghai.

DeFrancis, John (1966) "Why Johnny Can't Read Chinese", Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, Vol. 1, No. 1, Feb. 1966, pp. 1-20.

DeFrancis, John (1984) The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

DeFrancis, John (1989) Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Kennedy, George (1964) "A Minimum Vocabulary in Modern Chinese", in Selected Works of George Kennedy, Tien-yi Li (ed.), New Haven: Far Eastern Publications.

Mair, Victor (1986) "The Need for an Alphabetically Arranged General Usage Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese: A Review Article of Some Recent Dictionaries and Current Lexicographical Projects", Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 1, February, 1986 (Dept. of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania).

Zhao, Yuanren, (1972) Aspects of Chinese Sociolinguistics, Anwar S. Dil (ed.), Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Notes

I am speaking of the writing system here, but the difficulty of the writing system has such a pervasive effect on literacy and general language mastery that I think the statement as a whole is still valid. back

John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984, p.153. Most of the issues in this paper are dealt with at length and with great clarity in both this book and in his Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989. back

Incidentally, I'm aware that much of what I've said above applies to Japanese as well, but it seems clear that the burden placed on a learner of Japanese is much lighter because (a) the number of Chinese characters used in Japanese is "only" about 2,000 -- fewer by a factor of two or three compared to the number needed by the average literate Chinese reader; and (b) the Japanese have phonetic syllabaries (the hiragana and katakana characters), which are nearly 100% phonetically reliable and are in many ways easier to master than chaotic English orthography is. back

See, for ex., Chen Heqin, "Yutiwen yingyong zihui" [Characters used in vernacular literature], Shanghai, 1928. back

John DeFrancis deals with this issue, among other places, in "Why Johnny Can't Read Chinese", Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, Vol. 1, No. 1, Feb. 1966, pp. 1-20. back

George Kennedy, "A Minimum Vocabulary in Modern Chinese", inSelected Works of George Kennedy, Tien-yi Li (ed.), New Haven, 1964, p. 8. back

Zhao Yuanren, Aspects of Chinese Sociolinguistics, Anwar S. Dil (ed.), Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976, p. 92. back

John DeFrancis, The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, p. 109.back

Charles Hockett reminds me that many of my examples are really instances of loan words, not cognates, but rather than take up space dealing with the issue, I will blur the distinction a bit here. There are phonetic loan words from English into Chinese, of course, but they are scarce curiosities rather than plentiful semantic moorings. back

A phrase taken from an article by Victor Mair with the deceptively boring title " The Need for an Alphabetically Arranged General Usage Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese: A Review Article of Some Recent Dictionaries and Current Lexicographical Projects" (Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 1, February, 1986, Dept. of Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania). Mair includes a rather hilarious but realistic account of the tortuous steeplechase of looking up a low-frequency lexical item in his arsenal of Chinese dictionaries. back

I have noticed from time to time that the romanization method first used tends to influence one's accent in Chinese. It seems to me a Chinese person with a very keen ear could distinguish Americans speaking, say, Wade-Giles-accented Chinese from pinyin-accented Chinese. back

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fluentlanguage · 6 years

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7 Reasons Your Cultural Awareness Matters More Than Perfect Vocabulary

The following post is written by the lovely Michele from Intrepid Guide, a blog dedicated to language and travel.

How well would you say you speak the foreign language you’re learning? Are you beginner, intermediate or even advanced and near fluency?

Now, I don’t want to bust your bubble, but, you may not be as ‘fluent’ as you think.

While we may learn languages with the goal of being fluent (whatever that means to you) the most important question to ask here is, how culture-savvy are you?

You may understand a foreign language but that doesn’t guarantee that you understand the nuances and the whole range of meaning that native speakers communicate to you.

Communicating in another language requires more than just memorising words and grammar. We have to learn how to communicate beyond words by understanding its culture. Therefore, as we study a language, we must learn it alongside its culture.

Afterall, language is culture!

What is Cultural Awareness?

Cultural awareness understanding that our own culture differs from one individual and group to the next, and specifically from our target language.

Being culturally aware helps us recognise and have an appreciation for other’s values, customs and beliefs and meet it without judgement or prejudice.

As we encounter new languages and cultures we begin to make comparisons and realise that our own behaviours, values and beliefs are not the general norm found elsewhere in the world.

Why is Cultural Awareness Important?

Cultural awareness is key when we communicate with people from other cultures. Since we use language to communicate, our knowledge of foreign languages gives us ‘access’ to different societies and cultures. We become mediators between cultures.

The most important reason why we should be culturally aware is so we have an increased awareness of people all over the world. This helps us develop a deeper understanding of our own and other people’s cultures, while broadening the mind and increasing tolerance.

Expressing Respect

When we are culturally aware we know what is considered inappropriate or offensive to others. For example, incorrect body language and can lead to misunderstandings. Even something as simple as nodding your head in agreement can be misunderstood in places such as Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania where shaking one's head can actually mean yes.

In Western culture we’re taught that it’s polite to look someone straight in the face when talking to someone, however, in Japan this is considered disrespectful.

Being culturally aware isn’t just for those learning a foreign languages either. As an Australian who swapped her life in Melbourne for a life in Rome and then again for London (where I’m currently based), I learned that even between English speaking countries our cultures can differ and that these differences can surface in unsuspecting ways.

During the past 5 years of living in the UK, I’ve accidentally ruffled a few feathers and learned some important cultural lessons the hard way.

Here are 7 times learning cultural awareness changed my life way more than any vocab table ever could

1. Inviting STRANGERS Round To Yours - Kidnapping Or Hospitality?

Whilst living in Italy, I travelled the country extensively and took many walks and tours with local guides. Each of Italy’s regions has its own personality, unique history, culinary delights and beauty. You can’t just visit Florence or Rome. You have to visit other cities too to really understand Italy.

When I was on one of these local tours in Milan, our guide explained that we shouldn’t be ‘discouraged’ if we encountered a ‘rude’ Milanese. She explained that people from Milan can seem rude or cold at first, but once you make an effort to get to know them they are just as warm and welcoming as we’ve come to know Italians to be.

Compare this with an experience I had at the opposite end of Italy in Sicily. One summer I was in Palermo celebrating a girlfriend’s birthday with 4 other girlfriends. we went to dinner at a popular restaurant frequented only by locals. It’s fair to say we stuck out a sore thumb.

After about 10 minutes at our table, a middle-aged lady from a neighbouring table who was with her family enquired where we were from. Her eyes lit up when we replied in Italian. After no more than 5 minutes of chatting, Maria invited all 5 of use around to her house the next day for coffee and cake! She gave us her number, address and a time. It was all set.

I’d never in my life received such an invitation. After some internal juggling wondering if we were about to experience Liam Neeson’s movie ‘Taken’, we decided to take our chances and go. I’m so glad we did. Maria had very kindly baked two different homemade cakes and even gave us her recipe.

This would whole encounter would never happen in Australia, or the UK for that matter. To this day I still can’t believe it did. It just goes to show that just because you do things one way in your country, doesn’t mean it’s the same everywhere else.

2. American, British, and Australian English: Similar but Different

Even though Australia is a British colony and Australian English is based on British English, we’re not very politically correct with our choice of words. Australians say things that can be considered highly offensive, but we do so without malicious intent.

It's like we’ve used these words so much in everyday speech that they've lost all power and negative connotations that it no longer offends anyone, hopefully.

This was and still is the hardest lesson for me to learn since living in London and something I still struggle with today.

An example of a word that Australians will use without batting an eyelid and which makes up part of many common Australian idioms is the word ‘bloody’. So common is it for us to say ‘bloody’ that it was even part for a A$180 million advertising campaign by Tourism Australia that was banned in the UK for being too offensive. The slogan read “So, where the bloody hell are you?”.

A more extreme example, which I know will probably make you cringe, is the use of the highly offensive c-word. It may surprise you to learn that many Australian males will use this as a sort of term of endearment towards other males. They’ll say things like, “Hey c&!, how are ya?”, or “he’s a good c%!.” The c-word is never directed to females or used by them as it’s still considered an offensive word, but it’s not nearly as taboo as it is in the UK or America.

3. Being 'On Time' Means Being Early, Late, Or Just On Time Depending On Where You Are

Even being punctual can cause misunderstandings. While Germans consider punctuality to be very important, the exact opposite is true in South America where it is considered rude to arrive on time.

During my early days in Rome, I distinctly remember the first time I was running late to an appointment with my Italian friends. I messaged my friend Marta and apologised for running 5 minutes late. She responded with Ma Michele, sei troppo anglofono. Non ti preoccupare! (Michele, you’re too English, don’t worry!).

When I started learning Arabic leading up to my trip to Egypt, I learned that if you say to someone that you’ll see them tomorrow they might reply with, ‘in sha Allah’ or ‘insha'Allah’ which literally means ‘god willing’. This is often used in response to anything tentative, or when timing is in question.

The phrase expresses the belief that nothing happens unless God wills it ("if God doesn't want me to be on time..." ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ). From this one phrase we can see just how much of an influence religion plays in the Arabic language and in the lives of those who speak it.

A similar phrase is also found in Spanish and Portuguese, ojalá (Spanish) and oxalá (Portuguese). This was adopted into both languages after they came into contact with the Arabic speaking world as far back as the 8th century.

4. Saying 'Thank You' Can Make Your Host Unhappy - Only In Italy?

One year I celebrated Easter with a friend’s family in Naples. They welcomed me and my Dad who was visiting into their home and fussed over us making sure we had everything we needed and making special dishes just for us. They made us feel so special, like we were part of the family. I was so grateful and I wanted to let them to know.

Everytime Carmela, my friend’s mum, would hand me a plate, or do anything, I would say “grazie” (thank you). On the third day, Carmela said something I’ve never forgotten.

“Michele, devi smettere a ringraziarmi, mi fa piacere. Siamo famiglia e non si ringrazia familia. Non mi piace,... ci separa.” (Michele, you have to stop thanking me, it’s my pleasure. We’re family and you don’t thank family. I don’t like it,... it separates us.)

Before that moment, I never thought that thanking someone could offend them but I could understand Carmela’s point. At the same time, it felt foreign to me to not show my appreciation and gratefulness towards her for everything she was doing for us. I felt like I was being rude, but it was what she wanted so I had to fight my instincts so I wouldn’t not offend her again.

5. You Can Scare Italians With An Ill-Timed Party

After organising my birthday party whilst living in Rome, I learned just how superstitious Italians are.

You see, I have the unfortunate pleasure of being born two days after Christmas when most people aren’t around to celebrate with me. This usually means I have organise my birthday celebrations a couple of weeks in advance while everyone is still around.

The first time my birthday rolled around in Rome, I knew I wanted all my friends to be there and that since most of my friends weren’t from Rome and would be heading home for Christmas, no one would be around to celebrate my birthday on the 27th of December.

With that in mind, I booked a venue two weekends prior to my actual birthday and sent out the invites. Within minutes I was inundated with messages “Ma, Michele, non si può festeggiare il compleanno in anticipo, porta sfortuna!” (But, Michele, you can’t celebrate your birthday early, it’s bad luck!).

Up until this point I had never heard of such a thing. Growing up in Australia, it was something I was used to doing otherwise I’d never see my friends for my birthday. I felt that if I celebrated after the fact (which by then would be New Year’s Eve) everyone would be all partied out and celebrating the following year just didn’t feel right.

After explaining that for an Australia it wasn’t bad luck, they tried to understand but it still didn’t sit well with them. On the night of the party they didn’t wish me happy birthday, they insisted on waiting until the my actual birthday to tell me.

6. Gruesome Things Can Happen If You Don't Make A Toast With Caution

The custom of making a toast is universal. That moment when you say Cheers! Prost! Salud! or L’chaim! in celebration of anything from New Year’s Eve to weddings to a night out with friends.

This seemingly simple and harmless practice comes with disclaimers in some culture who have their own twists on this tradition.

In Spain, for example, making a toast with water or any non-alcoholic drink is considered bad luck resulting in ‘seven years of bad sex.’

Those in France or Germany believe the same to be true it you don’t make and hold eye contact whilst making a toast.

Living in Italy, I learned that Italians take things a step further. Aside from not being able to toast with water, and making sure you maintain eye contact, you also can’t toast with a plastic cup and you have to touch a table or ledge with the bottom of your drink after clinking glasses with everyone.

Interestingly, this superstition comes from the Ancient Greeks who, according to Greek mythology, would toast to the dead with glasses of water to symbolise their voyage, via the River Lethe, to the Underworld.

Who knew making a toast could be so complicated?

7. La Dolce Vita, Let It Change Your Outlook On The Working World

When I moved to Italy, I left behind a pretty intense job where I worked crazy hours, sometimes working til 1 or 2 am. In places like Australia, the UK and America, you’re rewarded for working overtime which usually comes in the form of a pay rise or promotion, where funnily enough you’re given even more work to do!

Living in Rome made me realise how flawed this whole concept was of working hard and sacrificing time with friends and family for the sake of climbing the corporate ladder. I quickly learned that Romans value time with their family and friends so much that they don’t have this poisonous desire to work overtime just to get ahead. Quite often, I would go out with friends til 1, 2 sometimes 3 am on a “school night”. We weren’t getting drunk, were were just socialising and just hanging out.

I never did this in Australia, but in Rome I was living La Dolce Vita or the Sweet Life. I replaced my work addiction with friendships and I began to value my relationships over work. I enjoyed life to the fullest with the people who matter and sometimes that meant staying out until the wee hours of the night.

La Dolce Vita isn’t just for Italians though, the Danes have their own version of this too. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the Danish word hygge (pronounced hue-guh) has gained worldwide popularity. Hygge describes the feeling you get, either alone or with friends, where you feel cosy and have warm feelings of togetherness, contentedness and enjoying the simple things in life.

The Danes also don’t believe in overtime. Helen Russells explains in her book, a The Year of Living Danishly, that working overtime is not only frowned upon by your peers but you’re considered as being inefficient!

In Conclusion

Being knowledgeable in foreign languages shows native speakers that you respect their ideas and their way of living. This is why I encourage travellers to learn some of the local language before their travels and I’ve created a collection of free travel phrase guides to help my readers do that. Knowing even a just a little bit of the language can help offset cultural shock and open you up to new experiences in a destination.

Cultural awareness extends into your everyday life, not just while travelling. Think about how valuable this skill can be (and it is a skill) to the development and advancement of your career. Being able to communicate with global communities is invaluable to a business when they scout new talent.

Being able to communicate effectively has a lot to do with context and culture. Therefore, understanding cultural implications is just as important as learning correct grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Neglecting this part of the learning process can lead to unnecessary misunderstandings or miscommunications.

When Have You Learnt More Than Just Language?

What moments of cultural awareness have you encountered? Ever you offended someone or embarrassed yourself like me? I'd love to hear from you - share your story in the comments below.

About Michele

Michele from The Intrepid Guide is a language and travel blogger and author of Learn Italian FAST. Originally from Australia, Michele moved to Rome in pursuit of improving her Italian. Currently based in London, she lives by the motto “The more we travel, the more we learn.”

With her blog, Michele shares her passion for bringing language and travel closer together with detailed destinations guides, and free travel phrase guides, and more! You can follow her on social media as she shares fascinating and little-known linguistic and cultural facts.

#culture #intercultural awareness #italy #guest post #travel #expats

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