Nimen hao!
This past week has been interesting! On Monday we took a checkup on the new vocab words and Hanzi. We also learned some new vocabulary dealing with names and introducing yourself politely and in a friendly way to others! A few of the various vocab words we learned are: mingzi (name), Qingwen (may I ask), shei (who), shenme (what), wei shenme (for what, why?), shihou (when), gui (noble, honored) xing (family surname), and many others. Next we learned some of the Hanzi for those words, and the order of the strokes for such. Lastly, we learned how to place those vocab words into sentences, both in Hanzi and in pinyin, for example: Qingwen, nin gui xing? Means "May I ask, what is your family surname?" This is very popular in the Chinese culture because it is the formal and polite way to ask your colleague or superior their name, since Chinese culture values their family name highly. Another sentence we leanrned was, " Ni jiao shenme mingzi?" and that means "What is your name?"
Wednesday we took another checkup that dealt with listening aspects and tones of the new Chapter 2 vocab we have learned, and also the rearranging of the Hanzi to make correct statements and questions. Some of the words in the listening section of the pinyin were: gui, shui, xue, wang, laoshi, and shenme. Next, Sun Laoshi showed our class a variety of different Hanzi characters that we had to rearrange into the correct sentence order. These were all dealing with the questions we learned previously on Monday.
Friday, we went over some sentence patterns to begin, like the common questions of "Ni jiao sheme mingzi?, and "Ni jiao shenme zhongwen mingzi?", and lastly, "Qingwen nin gui xing?" For that we had to speak orally with our partners and answer the dialogue back and forth. We also learned how to say "I'm very happy to meet you" which is "Wo hen gaoxing renshi ni(n)".
All in all, I do notice an improvement in my speaking and writing of the characters. Although it will take time to learn these things I would say that it is not as difficult as I once though coming into this course. I definitely still need to work on the stroke orders of the Hanzi, for me, that is the most difficult part of all and will definitely need more practice. Another part that I need work on still is the tones, and working on the correct inflection in my voice to match the tones on the word.
While I do not have any interesting Chinese culture news, I did go to Chinese corner for the first time this Tuesday and had a lot of fun! It was fun to learn the different tongue twisters with the other students and we all had a lot of laughs while doing it! I also think that it helped with my pronuciation of certain words for example "shi" because one tongue twister involves multiple "si" and "shi" recitings in a row. I almost have it down just need a little more practice!!
Zai Jian!
Courtney
Friday, September 28, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Chinese Week 2
Ni hao! Well, we have officially ended week two and I would say it was a success! We furthered our learning on a couple different aspects of the Chinese Language. On Monday, we took a checkup on our learning process. The first part of that was listening to pinyin and seeing if we could match the voice with the correct word choice. I only missed one problem in that section which was exciting! The next section was matching the pinyin to the english meaning which was not too bad. Lastly (the hardest section in my opinion) was choosing the right Hanzi for its pinyin.
After that, we took notes on hanzi and practiced some of the stroke orders and names. We also learned some new greetings such as wo ai ni, wo e le, wo re le, wan shang, wangshang, and zaoshanghao.
Wednesday's class also began with a checkup and we had to listen to the pinyin word and write it out in pinyin on paper. The next section was reorganizing the sentence, laoshi, shi, bu, wo and placing it in the correct order of wo bu shi laoshi. The last part was rearranging the hanzi to form a sentence. After we went over that, we practiced our hanzi and stroke orders by writing out different words in the hanzi form.
Friday, we went over the greetings and had an oral conversation with our partners. We also went over the proper way to answer specific questions such as "You wenti ma? and how to answer that. Lastly we did some hanzi and reviewed strokes and such
Overall I would say it has been a succesful week, this weekend when I was in Madison, Wisconsin there was a Chinese festival that featured different tents that had Chinese crafts. There was also a show that they put on and it had a huge dragon that they danced and sang with! It was really cool! Although I missed a couple problems on the checkup, it is all about making mistakes and learning from them! Hope to have a great week next week!
Zai Jian!
Courtney
After that, we took notes on hanzi and practiced some of the stroke orders and names. We also learned some new greetings such as wo ai ni, wo e le, wo re le, wan shang, wangshang, and zaoshanghao.
Wednesday's class also began with a checkup and we had to listen to the pinyin word and write it out in pinyin on paper. The next section was reorganizing the sentence, laoshi, shi, bu, wo and placing it in the correct order of wo bu shi laoshi. The last part was rearranging the hanzi to form a sentence. After we went over that, we practiced our hanzi and stroke orders by writing out different words in the hanzi form.
Friday, we went over the greetings and had an oral conversation with our partners. We also went over the proper way to answer specific questions such as "You wenti ma? and how to answer that. Lastly we did some hanzi and reviewed strokes and such
Overall I would say it has been a succesful week, this weekend when I was in Madison, Wisconsin there was a Chinese festival that featured different tents that had Chinese crafts. There was also a show that they put on and it had a huge dragon that they danced and sang with! It was really cool! Although I missed a couple problems on the checkup, it is all about making mistakes and learning from them! Hope to have a great week next week!
Zai Jian!
Courtney
Friday, September 14, 2012
Week One
Ni hao! My name is Courtney and this is my blog on my adventures through my Chinese 101 course. I decided to take this course in order to further my ability with my double major of both International Business and Marketing. I am also minoring in Spanish but I decided that two years extra of Chinese would not hurt!:) It is way more fun to learn than I thought it would be, although it is a difficult language, I'm all about having an open mind with it!
As far as my class notes go, this past week we learned something called pinyin which is basically the Chinese language's version of what we would consider english spelling. It is composed of two parts both initials and finals. There are twenty one initials with the possibility of twenty three total. These, composed with the 6 finals (a, o, e, i, u, and an u with two dots above it) are what make up the Chinese words, and help assist us in learning and reading the words with ease. Hanzi is the traditional Chinese characters, we have briefly started to learn about these, in that there are a specific order of strokes that need to be completed when writing out the characters. There are also four steps, 1) strokes, 2) orders, 3) particles- these are made of strokes and are what create the Hanzi, 4) combinations- of the particles. Lastly we learned a variety of expressions that allow us to greet our teacher and say goodbye and hello. We also learned the commands of read, speak, listen, write; and the basics of sorry, and excuse me.
Chinese although different, is not as difficult as I had initially thought it would be. I think it will be an interesting process to see, since I have already taken Spanish before and this is completely different than Spanish as far as the learning process goes. However, I am excited for the journey ahead!:)
-Courtney
As far as my class notes go, this past week we learned something called pinyin which is basically the Chinese language's version of what we would consider english spelling. It is composed of two parts both initials and finals. There are twenty one initials with the possibility of twenty three total. These, composed with the 6 finals (a, o, e, i, u, and an u with two dots above it) are what make up the Chinese words, and help assist us in learning and reading the words with ease. Hanzi is the traditional Chinese characters, we have briefly started to learn about these, in that there are a specific order of strokes that need to be completed when writing out the characters. There are also four steps, 1) strokes, 2) orders, 3) particles- these are made of strokes and are what create the Hanzi, 4) combinations- of the particles. Lastly we learned a variety of expressions that allow us to greet our teacher and say goodbye and hello. We also learned the commands of read, speak, listen, write; and the basics of sorry, and excuse me.
Chinese although different, is not as difficult as I had initially thought it would be. I think it will be an interesting process to see, since I have already taken Spanish before and this is completely different than Spanish as far as the learning process goes. However, I am excited for the journey ahead!:)
-Courtney
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