Speaking and Listening

The other day my Chinese professor walked in and just began speaking to us full blast.  She then instructed us to open our texts and read along, full speed.  She insists that we speak the speed native speakers speak.

She’s right.  While speaking and listening to slow Chinese makes it easier for me in the short-term, I feel I will benefit the most overall.

In Practical Phonetics, it’s challenging to me because my Spanish teacher appears to speak with a strong accent from Spain.  It makes it challenging for me to follow, especially with all the unfamiliar technical vocabulary we are using.  On the other hand, with the textbook purely in Spanish, and essentially with all communication in Spanish, I remain convinced I will make gains in my oral comprehension and hopefully my speaking as well.

It is such a relief that my Chinese professor is putting a huge emphasis on speaking and listening and my Spanish class is purely in Spanish.

I’ve also been watching a lot of videos on Tudou recently.  Even though they maybe in English, I find myself focusing the most on trying to read the Chinese subtitles.  It’s rather amusing.

A New Semester

Today I had both of my foreign language classes. For Spanish, I’m taking Practical Phonetics, which will focus a lot on pronunciation. It will be a content class that is taught in Spanish. That’s fine with me though! I think I might enjoy it.

For Chinese, my professor walked in and started spurting out a bunch of Chinese. I was definitely rusty. It’s good for me to get practice with different people though, so that will be good. Hopefully CHI 412K will be a lot less stressful – I won’t have a test every week.

I’m also taking another language class though, I’ll go to it tomorrow. However, it’s a programming language class. It’s a C++ class. A lot of companies seem to want C++, so I’ll go ahead and learn it. C++ is similar to Java, so there should be very few “big” ideas to learn. It will probably be more semantics and “table manners” that I will need to pick up. Not to mention, general experience.

I’m back…

I have returned home once more.  No longer overwhelmed with pending exams, I finally have time to just immerse myself in the language.  Unfortunately, the holiday tendency to sloth has kicked in.  The tendency to vegetate is amuck.  Also, my laptop screen is falling off the back, hindering my opportunity to catch up on my Anki reps.

As a result, I need to back up my Anki reps online, so I can pull them onto any computer I desire.  I also desire to get ahead in Chinese, so I don’t have to work so much just learning vocabulary next semester.  I want to catch up on one of my TV shows, so I’m planning on watching the season in Spanish, if just to catch up on my listening.  Harry Potter y la cámara secreta is also calling my name to be read, as well as Las Crónicas de Narnia.  For Chinese exposure,  I will continue talking with my pals on MSN and QQ.

Instant messaging, whether it be over Skype, MSN, QQ, as well as voice chatting is an incredible chance for language exchange.  It allows me the chance to see how people speak informally to each other, and people are often very willing to correct you over IM, or just say “I don’t know/understand”.  It also gives both parties more time to process a response, but not too much time.  You can also just exchange for 5 minutes, if you have a time constraint, or 5 hours.  I can also multitask, when I am busy doing homework at the same time.  I’m a big fan of instant messaging.

As a shameless promotion, one of my friends is currently in China over the winter break.  She’s blogging the “eccentric” things she finds (with pictures).  If you are interested the blog is: http://www.ohhaiworld.blogspot.com

Obligatory “Where I’ve Been”

It was Thanksgiving break, so I went home. It’s also really close to the end of the semester and that results in lots of projects and tests looming in the next 2 weeks. Don’t expect me to be posting too much until 2 weeks from now then!

Of course, this could become a method of procrastinating.

Chinatown Center visit

This Saturday a few of my friends and I hopped on a bus and went down to “Chinatown”, which in reality is more like a shopping center.  We spent a lot of our time grocery shopping and in a way, it motivated me.  I saw some of the characters I was able to understand, but the rest were blank to me.  While I knew what the item was because English was provides, it provides me with the goal to be able to read it without depending upon Engrish.  Not to mention, I got lots of delicious snacks.  Best of all – instant milk tea!

3 weeks until finals begin, so it is a push to finish for me.

Chinese Tongue Twisters

I was excited because on this reading quiz I managed to get an A! Maybe my tones are slowly improving. One can hope at least!

My friend was trying to teach me a Chinese tongue twister, but I made him wait until the end of the week to teach me. Now that it’s the weekend, I have learned it and am now working on making it faster.

If you’re curious here it is:
吃葡萄不吐葡萄皮不吃葡萄到吐葡萄皮。
chi1 pu2 tao2 bu4 tu3 pu2 tao2 pi2 bu4 chi1 pu2 tao2 dao4 tu3 pu2 tao2 pi2

I think it’s fun, but it’s pretty hard to get up to speed and get pronunciation right.

救命啊！

The title of my post means like “Help me!” or “Save life!” (if you want to be literal).

My friend was helping me with Chinese pronunciation and told me to say that to my TA when I have difficulty.  I think that may be the most useful phrase I’ve learned then.  It is the phrase I would use if I was drowning.

I’ve been sucking up to my friends and begging them to listen to me read once a day to get ready for my reading quiz.  Maybe it’s helping.  It feels like they’re correcting me less – which is always a good thing, unless they are too lazy to correct me.

I’ve also realized I’ve totally stopped doing Anki with the advent of school.  I’ll try to regenerate it over Christmas break, but I should probably make it with English on the side I see, instead of the characters.  I think that will enable better retention.

加油!  I will learn, if it is one of the last things I do!

Midterms, etc.

As one might guess from the title, I’ve been busy with midterms.  For example, today I had one in computer architecture.  As a result, I haven’t had any time to blog because I’ve been doing programming projects or getting ready for a test.

I think I’m going to put off my CS honors class to take Chinese, I am almost sure.

To anyone who comes here who is learning Chinese: I have a reading quiz next week (and I just want to read better) – any advice on improving that second tone I just can’t seem to pull off?

I’m planning on maybe doing a longer post soon on the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis (and maybe tie it to computer science)

Classes Update

My university took down the preliminary schedule for next semester, since changes will be made to schedule.  I’m crossing my fingers that Chinese or my computer science class will be one of them.

I also have a Chinese test on Monday, computer science project for one class due Tuesday, Spanish midterm on Wednesday, another computer science class project/homework due on Thursday, and an internship application due Friday.  I may not be updating for the next week, but I’ll still be studying my Chinese and Spanish, if for no other reason than for my upcoming tests.

On the other hand, going to see my TA helped me realize the tone I have the most problem with is the 2nd tone.  I think “rising” but 1st tone comes out.  I also don’t go high enough for my 1st tone initially.

Class conflict

Being the internet creeper that I am, I managed to come across my university’s class schedule for next semester.  As a result, I am incredibly frustrated.  The times for one of my honors CS classes and third semester Chinese conflict!  The honors classes are only offered once a year.  However, I also want to go study abroad next year (for the whole academic year), and don’t know if I want to go to China yet.  But most places have a bare minimum requirement of 3 semesters of Chinese before you can go.  I’m also afraid I may be unable to take some other classes that will have a prerequisite of the honors CS class though.

Hence, my frustration.