Da., Ho., Joe., and Am. Audio Files

The audio files for Da., Ho., Joe., and Am. have been posted to the NWT Audio Files page.

Complete Require Br. Material Posted

The complete Chinese, Pinyin, & English Require br. material has finally been posted on the Chinese, Pinyin, & English Require Br. page! Both Simplified and Traditional Chinese versions are available.

Those of you who had printed out previous incomplete versions of the material may want to reprint with the current version, as the English translations have been revised from the beginning to the end to conform with the latest development of my English translation system. Basically, my current system follows these principles:

• As far as possible, the meaning of each individual Chinese character is translated literally according to how it is used in the context in which it appears.


• Curly brackets, or braces, i.e. { }, are used to surround sets of English words that together convey the literal meaning of the Chinese character(s) they are above.


• When a single English word or a set of English words surrounded by curly brackets is over two or more Chinese characters, that means that it corresponds to the literal meaning of each of those Chinese characters.


• When literal translations do not make sense, or are not understandable enough, then the effective meanings are used instead, surrounded by square brackets, i.e. [ ].


• English words corresponding to Chinese characters that are selected for their sound and not their meaning, such as those used for many names, are not surrounded by square brackets. However, if necessary, they will be surrounded by curly brackets to specify which Chinese characters they correspond to.

While some other recent 3-line material has been released by others without being proofread, which does have the benefit of allowing the material to be released more quickly, this Require br. material has been carefully translated and proofread so that those learning Mandarin can reliably use it to help increase their insight into the meanings of the Chinese characters and how they are used in various contexts. However, the material may of course still contain errors. If you find any, email me to let me know.

Overseas Chinese

I recently came across this interesting article on overseas Chinese:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Chinese

A question arose regarding the population numbers used in the article, so someone clarified it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Overseas_Chinese#The_numbers_are_from.3F

Keeping in mind that these numbers are from a couple of years ago, that they're approximate, and that the actual figures are always changing, it is still interesting to note that if we for argument's sake say that there are now about 65 million Chinese outside of mainland China, and that there are about 1.3 billion Chinese inside mainland China (see this page, top left corner), that means that only about 5% of all the Chinese in the world are outside mainland China.

Proofreaders Wanted

Mark Lewis is looking for proofreaders to help with the various "3-line" material he produces. I can confirm from personal experience that while users of the material will obviously benefit, any who help out will also benefit themselves from the Chinese practice and research they will be doing. It would be up to you to decide how much or how little time you would be able to contribute to this.

Anyone interested in helping Mark out should email him here.

Require Br. Material Up to Ch. 15 Posted

Require br. material up to ch. 15 has been posted on the Chinese, Pinyin, & English Require Br. page. Previously, only material up to ch. 14 was available.

I will work to get ch. 16 finished as soon as possible so that this Require br. material can finally be complete.

Chinese Measure Words on Wikipedia

Someone just sent me this link to a great Wikipedia article on Chinese measure words:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_measure_word

It contains tables of measure words with columns for Traditional characters, Simplified characters, pinyin, Cantonese Yale romanization, and main uses.

What is Wikipedia? There is an explanation in their introduction. Of course, such an openly collaborative environment can be abused by some, especially in this world, but it can often heal itself, at least to a degree, and many have found Wikipedia to be at least one useful source of information on many things.

A Couple of Blogs by Floridians

I have recently come across a couple of interesting blogs written by fellow students of Chinese, who happen to be from Florida, USA. Here are the links, along with some excerpts from their About pages:

http://stephenanddianna.com/

“This website is dedicated to providing useful information for preparing, traveling and living in Taiwan. Hopefully, this online blog will answer alot of questions and mysteries about living in Taiwan. Plus we wanted a way to keep in touch with our family and friends. Send us an email if you’d like and just drop a comment. We hope you can live and enjoy this experience with us.”

http://pandagator.info/blog/

“This blog is dedicated to those learning Mandarin Chinese. Learning another language is not just about vocabulary and grammar, it’s also about the people who speak it. Their language is inextricably tied in with their history, their food, and their land.

“I also write about my own experience learning Mandarin as someone who lives on the other side of the world in Florida, USA. I comment on the unique challenges this sometimes presents.”

(Note that there is other content on this site besides the blog. It is listed in the Blogroll section on the right.)