The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
Do Chinese characters bypass speech to directly represent meaning?
Table from p. 129 of the book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy, by John DeFrancis
Comments are enabled on this blog, so if you are so inclined, comment away!
A news feed for this blog is available here.
The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
Should we Chinese field language learners view the Learn From the Bible book as being “just stories for children”?
Comments are enabled on this blog, so if you are so inclined, comment away!
A news feed for this blog is available here.
Next week, we will begin studying the Bearing Witness (bt) book at the Congregation Bible Study. A list of resources related to this book, that may be helpful to Chinese field language learners, is now available at:
Besides listing some great new official resources that are now available, this short link also lists the refreshed and re-uploaded web page for downloading the 3-line XLP-iPhone-A5 LN-A PDF files that had been made for the Bearing Witness book years ago, when it had previously been studied at the CBS. Perhaps some will find the particular features of these files helpful. (It should be noted, though, that the material in these files was based on an older printing of the Mandarin Bearing Witness book.)
[NOTE: For spiritual food (which is for you yourself to learn spiritual things from, and which ideally should be in your own mother tongue), please go to jw.org.
The supplementary language-learning material mentioned in this post is for helping you to learn about how the Mandarin language is used in an official publication, so that you will be better able to help others in the Mandarin language field.]
The Enjoy Life Forever! (lff) book is now officially recommended for use on Bible studies, and it is now part of the Teaching Toolbox in the JW Library app. To help us Mandarin field language learners to be prepared language-wise to make good use of this new book without being unnecessarily hindered by the Great Wall of Chinese characters that’s mandated by mere human tradition and cultural pride, the following unofficial Pīnyīn Plus web material resource is being made available, which matches the 2023-07 Printing now on the Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY:
can be used offline in supporting browsers, icon can be added to the home screenVideos are used extensively in the Enjoy Life Forever! book, and a noteworthy feature of the above resource is Pīnyīn Plus video transcripts. These should help us Mandarin field language learners to analyze and understand the Mandarin speech used in the many videos referenced in the Mandarin Enjoy Life Forever! book. This in turn should help us make more effective use of these videos while participating in Mandarin Bible discussions using this book.
Also, using the Pīnyīn Plus video transcripts while watching and listening to the corresponding Mandarin videos gives us good practice at listening to Mandarin speech, with help when needed so that we can actually follow along and understand it, and learn to use it ourselves in the future.
(Tapping/clicking on the above image will take you to the web page represented.)
In the above resource, material matching both the current 2023-07 Printing of the Mandarin Enjoy Life Forever! book and the current 2023 Study Edition (nwtsty) of the Mandarin NWT Bible is now available that covers the following:
(Even in the latter category above, headings and relatively short paragraphs are typically rendered with fully proofread Pīnyīn Plus material.)
Material with a grey background has been partially proofread. Pīnyīn material with a golden-hued background has been proofread, but not all of its “flashcards” have been added and proofread.
More Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn Plus web material based on the Mandarin Enjoy Life Forever! book will be made available in the above resource as time allows.
(NOTE: While the organization expresses valid general concerns here about posting copies of official publications to the Internet, there are good legal and spiritual reasons for concluding that those concerns do not apply to this particular material, since such material should NOT be considered to be infringing on copyright, and since such material is specifically designed to be, NOT SPIRITUAL FOOD, but rather, material FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING. See this disclaimer for more information.)
The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
What does changing field service reports have to do with changing technologies?
Comments are enabled on this blog, so if you are so inclined, comment away!
A news feed for this blog is available here.
Readiness to follow the Japanese emperor & armed forces during World War II:
— tiandi, Links News (@TiandiLinksNews) October 11, 2023
BAD
Readiness to follow Jehovah and his organization:
GOOD
Readiness to follow human traditions like those involving Chinese characters:
BAD
Readiness to use new, better ways to serve God:
GOOD pic.twitter.com/pekFXSpeAJ
The Mandarin Expression of the Week is:
Ultimately, in the Chinese fields, how valuable or not valuable is knowledge of the secrets of Chinese characters?
Comments are enabled on this blog, so if you are so inclined, comment away!
A news feed for this blog is available here.
