Heisig: my just desserts

I was reminded recently that there is a large gap between knowing individual Chinese characters, and being able to understand what the entire phrase or sentence might mean.

This is already an idea I know well, I certainly mentioned it a few times in my series on learning to read using the Heisig system, and I've left numerous comments on others' blogs to that effect.

Nevertheless, I felt this example was 'extreme' enough to be worth sharing.


As you can see from the photo attached, there is an item on this late-night dessert place, which says:
    南北杏木瓜雪耳


(By the way, I did screw up a bit by initially confusing the 杏 character with 否. Forgive me?)

Anyway ... so doing what I normally do, I tried to work out what the dessert was. Actually, from my Heisig days, I knew the meaning of every character, which are as follow:
    = South North apricot wood melon snow ear

I had no idea what that was!   (All I could guess was that there was melon in there.)

It's easy enough to put this through a dictionary, but even here, it doesn't get much better, because I'm still left with:
    = South North apricot [papaya] snow ear


Upon discussing this with a HK friend, it turns out that the expressions are Cantonese in nature, and so knowing Mandarin (or using a Mandarin dictionary) isn't going to help much. But I persisted ...

Now, using human input and a Cantonese dictionary, I discover that the grouping should be as follows:
    (南北杏)(木瓜)(雪耳)
    (almond)(papaya)(white fungus)


Aside: According to Wikipedia, apricot kernels are sometimes used instead of bitter almonds, but it seems to be accepted in HK amongst those I spoke to that when they see 南北杏 they generally take it to mean 'almond'. White Fungus, in this case, does indeed look more ear-like than mushroom-like.

So there we have it. (Although *I* didn't have it.  No, I ate some kind of warm red bean soup instead. Mainly because I didn't need a dictionary for that one!).

Chinese seems hard, but it's actually harder than that! :-)


Can you recall any specific words that you learned along the way where the word or phrase looks *nothing* like the characters which make it up? If so, please leave a comment below.

Who's on First?

Gym has been helping me improve my Chinese since I moved to HK. (And my Chinese would be even better if I went more often!)

While running on treadmill, not only am I listening to Mandarin music, but I'm also watching the (silent) TV screens. Actually, I'm not even looking at the picture - just reading the subtitles as they flash past.  It's too fast and too complicated for me to work out what's going on, but it's good practice for the characters that I know ...

This time there was one character that kept on flashing past - I couldn't remember seeing it before, but sadly I also couldn't remember it well enough to reproduce it - which meant even a few minutes with a dictionary came up with blanks. (Forgive me, I was concentrating more on the burn in my thighs, and less on the shape of Chinese characters at that time.)

I got to work this morning, and asked a colleague what this character meant - and after a few failed attempts, she recognised it as 甚. She pointed out that it is usually associated with another character: 甚麼.

The dialogue then went as follows:
     G: 这是什么?  (zhè​ shì​ shén​me​?) ("This is what?")
(Yes, I've been learning Simplified characters, so I talk in Simplified too :-)
     E:  这是甚麼   (zhè​ shì​ shén​me​) ("This is 'what'.")
(Note the identical pinyin, which is why I was confused ...)
     G: 我问你: 这是什么?  ("I'm asking you: This is what?")
     E:  对 我告诉你: 这是甚麼  ("Correct, I'm telling you: This is 'what' ")

If you haven't worked it out by now, the word for 'what' in Simplified is 什么 - which according to the dictionary is written as 什麼 in Traditional Characters. However, there is a variant of this word in Traditional which is 甚麼.

This is what?
Yes, this is what.

Kinda reminded me of the old Abbot & Costello sketch called "Who's on First?". If you don't know it, you'd better see it!


Have you ever listened to a story that sounded like it was going to have an amazing climax, but didn't?  Ah yes, well this is one of those :-)

Neither Coke nor Water

Sometimes I really don't understand why people can't understand my Chinese.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I use the wrong words, the wrong tones, the wrong facial expressions a lot of the time. But still, if you don't understand a person, don't you sit there trying to work out what they might have meant?

Of course, it's not just with Chinese - this is an English problem too. Let me start with an example that happened in Boston USA about a year ago. A small group of us were sitting in a restaurant (including my cousin, who had been living in Boston for 10 years).

The waitress asks us what we'd like to drink, my cousin orders a coffee, I order a "Sam Adams" (the beer is actually called "Samuel Adams", but this waitress is so smart, so she managed to work out what I wanted), and Charlie orders a water. She orders water using her English accent, saying "water" very clearly.

"What?"
"Water."
"Sorry, what?"
"Water?"

The waitress is really struggling to understand the word "water", in spite of the fact that she just asked us what we'd like to drink. "Wheelbarrow" would not have made sense, but "water" seems quite obvious.

My cousin interrupts: "She wants water."  Lynn says this with a Boston accent, which sounds more like "wadder" than "waw-tuh".

"Oh wadder?  Sure, no problem," and off the waitress goes.

Seriously. This really happened.


And so to Chinese.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Shenzhen. I'm in a restaurant, and wanting to order a Diet Coke. Dammit! I can't remember the Chinese word for diet Coke - so I say ​kě​lè​ (可乐)(可樂)('cola'). This part she understands.

I remember that the word for "lose weight" is jiǎn​féi (减肥), which kinda rings bells. I know it's not quite right, but it's close ... so I take a guess by asking for "jiǎn kě​lè".

She doesn't get it. I clarify by saying "méi​yǒu​ táng​" (no sugar), then I repeat "jiǎn kě​lè".  This is not going anywhere, and after another minute of trying, I give up and just order a normal coke.

Now the truly frustrating part is that the word I was looking for was "jiàn​yí​ kě​lè" (健怡可乐)(健怡可樂). When I looked that up back in HK, I was dumbfounded - because she knew I was looking for a type of cola, it doesn't contain sugar, and it sounds like "jiǎn kě​lè".

Wouldn't "jiàn​yí​ kě​lè" be an obvious guess?  I guess not.


tom-A-to is different to tom-ah-to,  but people can work that out.
water is almost the same as wadder, but people can't work that one out.


And I know that what I speak is is waaaaay different to proper Chinese, but still ....

Now blogging from Hong Kong

Hi all

I was shocked to notice that I haven't posted in nearly two months!  Thanks for the emails from those of you who were wondering if I was still "around" ...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had plans to move to Hong Kong. And in fact, I have moved to HK. Indeed, this is me now, blogging from Hong Hong.

The picture you see to the right is from my current apartment window, in the heart of Wanchai. This coming weekend I will move to my permanent apartment further east.

In the last couple of months I got tied up with the process of moving, using up some leave that was still due to me (in the US & South Africa), and coming across here. I've also been settling in HK, doing 'domestic' things grocery shopping and getting haircuts.

I've not had that much opportunity to practise my Mandarin (well, more than London, but less than I would want) - except for the last two days which I spent in Shenzhen for China's 61st birthday. I've also been having to re-learn some of my reading, because HK uses the Traditional character set, whereas I learned the Simplified set - but I've done this learning "in the wild" and not from books.

So, following soon, I'll be writing more articles. I've got so many ideas in the last couple of weeks. Keep an eye out for my next post called "Neither Coke nor Water".

If you're still reading, drop me a note below to say hi. (And if you're based in HK, let me know - it would be fun to meet up.)

Getting Sentenced in Mandarin

This is another article in the Life Sentences series.  In my opening post, I wrote the following:

"Copyright acknowledgement: Over time I have collected a variety of sentences, and loaded them into my flashcard system. By this stage, I no longer have any idea where they came from. Some are of my own construction, or from friends who have emailed or instant-messaged me. Others have been copied from websites along the way. To make sure I give credit where due, the following sites are the most likely external sources ... "

The purpose of this article is to say a few words about why I bother getting sentences, and where.


Why?
Originally I used to just read the sentences and convince myself that I 'got' the structure, but over time I realised I didn't - so I then started adding entire sentences into my Anki flashcards collection. There are two major benefits to this:

• Chinese sentence constructs can be really different to English (as mentioned in my previous post). You can't just memorise lists of words and do literal word-by-word translations, it doesn't work that way.
• You should make sure you're using the words in the right context. In English, for example, there is a difference between jealousy & envy,  disinterested and uninterested - and you'll want to use the right words in Chinese too.

Where?

Daily sentences

• Whether you're a beginner just learning words, or an intermediate learning sentences, it's worthwhile subscribing to mandarin.About.com's Word of the Day. Here you can see a sample for yǐngxiǎng (影響)(影响). Almost every day, I pick a word or sentence from the email, and enter it into my flashcard system. Highly recommended.
• There are several pre-made databases for the Anki flashcard system, one of which contains 20,000 thousand sentences. Whether you set it to one new sentence a day, or many, is up to you - but start that habit today.

Rolling your own sentences

• The jukuu.com website is basically designed to take words that you input (English, Mandarin, Japanese) and track down sentences which use that word. I find that lots of the resulting sentences are too long to interest me, and often of a technology theme, but you can still get some great sentences to copy into your flashcard system. Here's a sample using the word yǐngxiǎng again.
• The nciku dictionary is one of the better web-based Mandarin/English dictionaries, and it also has a sample sentence facility - take a look at the yǐngxiǎng examples.
• I only discovered Engkoo.com while in the final draft of this article, but so far I'm very impressed.  The sentences tend to be quite long, but the front-end is quite polished. You can see the yǐngxiǎng examples here.
• iChaCha offers yet another option, neat presentation and nicely short sentences. You can also see the example sentences for yǐngxiǎng.
• Of course, you always have the option of simply entering the Chinese characters into your favourite search engine (I'm now using Bing, but you may still be using Google). It certainly takes more effort than the above options because it requires a lot more reviewing of the results to find good sentences, but maybe that's your preference.
• I have a little paper dictionary  called Collins Chinese Dictionary (in colour), which often gives sample sentences for the words I look up. 
• Finally, I have installed the free Pleco dictionary on my iPad,  which usually gives example sentences for looked-up words. For yǐngxiǎng it provides about a dozen sentences.

Pre-loved sentences

• Sometimes when I'm listening to Chinese podcasts (usually ChinesePod or Popup Chinese) I hear a sentence that I really* like - whether because it contains useful words, or has an interesting structure, or simply because I think I will use it often. I then enter a version of that sentence (English, pinyin, hanzi) into my flashcard system, and wait for it to come into the queue.
• When emailing or instant-messaging (let's pretend that's a verb, OK?)  with a Chinese friend, they might use a sentence which strikes me as likely to be of common use, or it may have interesting vocab or sentence structure. So I sometimes paste sentences like that into my flashcard collection.

If you use other sites for finding sentences, or even completely difference methods, then please leave a comment below. I hope you find this useful ...


* JP, I know you're reading this. One of the sentences coming through my flashcards at the moment is from an old ChinesePod QingWen episode with you, Connie & Amber. From that, I took this sentence: "难怪你那么佩服JP" :-)
** Some links are affiliated. 

Karate Kid - the qi force

I recently watched the new Karate Kid movie, with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. It really is a good movie - but this post is not a movie review.

This (very short) post is actually about Chinese writing systems.

The movie is based in mainland China, where the Simplified Character Set is used. And throughout the movie you see writing in this Simplified set, as you'd expect.

But there is one scene (no, this is not a spoiler) where Jackie Chan is explaining the concept of life-force or qi, and he writes the symbol as follows: 氣. Of course, this is actually the Traditional version, whereas the Simplified version is: 气  (and you also get a Z-variant: 気).

OK, so Jackie Chan is from Hong Kong where they use Traditional characters, and I accept that the above version looks more 'appropriate' for a scene in a movie.

So I begrudge that it is the right thing to do for Karate Kid.  Although, to be fair, my heart did miss a beat when I saw the technical goof.

Small things amuse small minds.   (Go on, don't be shy to tell me that in the comments below ...)

I'm moving to Hong Kong!

No, this is not a lesson to teach you how to say that in Mandarin.  This is an announcement: I'm moving to Hong Kong.

This probably won't come as a surprise to most of you that I'm interested enough in Asia to want to go spend some time there. For the last five years, I've been travelling to Asia up to half a dozen times a year, and it was through these business trips that I (by mistake :-) ended up learning Mandarin. And my interest in the language, the people, the culture, has continued to grow.

I work for a large international company, and I put it out there that I'm available for an Asian opportunity. I had done this before, over 10 years ago, when I was working for their South African operation, and got transferred to the UK. And now it's time to do it again. My bags will already by unpacked by mid-September.

There's a lot I'm going to miss about London - it's an amazing city.  And I'll obviously miss my family and friends too (you know who you are - because I know you're reading this). But there is also so much that I'm looking forward to.

Of course I'll try pick up some Cantonese too, but HK gives plenty of opportunity to improve my Mandarin. One of the big changes is having to re-learn my reading skills, because I've been focusing on Simplified Chinese, yet HK uses Traditional Characters. But that's another story for another blog post.

For the readers of Mandarin Segments who are based in HK, please leave me a comment, or send me an email to say hi. And for those passing through the city, let me know when you're coming.

Anyway, I better go pack another box ...

Reading Chinese (in Japan!)

Another trip, another (Mandarin) discovery ...

I have just spent a couple of weeks in Japan - my last trip having been three years ago. At that time, I probably knew only about 12 Kanji (Japanese characters, which were originally borrowed from Chinese about 2000 years ago), whereas this time I know about 100 times as many characters.

I was curious to see how my Chinese reading skills would work in Japan.

Here is the background:

• I have been studying the Simplified Chinese character set - whereas of course Kanji would be closer to the Traditional Chinese character set
• I am referring here to recognising individual characters, and piecing together enough of them to get the general meaning of what I'm reading
• After all, I'm not a fluent Chinese reader, so I couldn't exactly expect to manage Japanese without a hitch.

And here are some quick observations about my experiences understanding:

• In spite of the above points, I was still able to follow much of the Kanji which I read in signs, menus, posters, etc.
• Even when signs were a mixture of Kanji and Hiragana (the one phonetic alphabet of Japanese), I sometimes found that the core meaning came from the Kanji. (For example, if you look at the picture below (sorry for the bad lighting, I took it in a shrine) in the right-column you can recognise the characters 帽子 (hat) and 脱 (take-off) -I'm sure you can work out what you have to do!

• Sometimes the Kanji means exactly the same as the chinese, for example 注意 (zhù​yì, see below)
• And whereas the character 天 (tiān)​ is used in day-based words in Chinese (昨天: yesterday,  今天: today,  明天: tomorrow), in Japanese the 天 doesn't appear, and instead 日 is used in it's place  
• Sometimes the Japanese have different words for common objects to what the Chinese use, even though you can still read the Japanese version and work out what they mean. For example (Chinese/Japanese):  'car' (汽車 = gas vehicle / 自動車 = automatic vehicle), 'emergency exit' (紧急出口 = urgency exit / 非常口 = extreme doorway), 'no smoking' (吸煙禁止 / 禁煙), 'train' (火車 = fire vehicle / 電車 = electric vehicle), 'push' (on doors) (推 / 押), 'fire extinguisher' (灭火器 vs 消火器) etc.

Finally, here are some fun observations:

• The Japanese love the word 注意 (zhù​yì, meaning 'notice' or 'caution') - I saw it all over the place - either stand-alone or at the end of the sentence
• I discovered that the Chinese word 先生 (xiān​sheng​, or 'mister') is the same word as Japan's "sensei".  Similarly, Japan's "onsen" (the famous style hot baths, usually from spring water) is written as 温泉 (wēn​quán)​, which is of course "hot spring" in Chinese
• In China the word for 'tap' is 水龍頭 (water dragon head) whereas in Japan they call it 蛇口 (snake mouth)

• Before I knew that 自動車 is the Kanji for 'car', I was seeing the following words (see below) a lot: 自動車x除x. I read this as "automatic vehicle blah blah" - and for some odd reason I started thinking about those automated parking lots in Japan, where you drive onto a platform, and that takes your car away in a space-efficient manner. When you return for your car, you select the bay number, and it comes out again, almost like a vending machine :-)   So I had assumed the sign below made reference to there being one of those automated parking bays being in the vicinity - only to discover that it's not meant to imply 'automatic car-park', but rather just 'car-something'. (I'm sure the above paragraph is confusing to you, the reader. Please treat it as a stream-of-consciousness description of little import.)

Conclusion? Learning to read Chinese has use even outside the Chinese-speaking countries. It was fun to see that for myself.

If you know of other differences or similarities between between Chinese and Japanese, please drop a note for us below. And if you don't, then pretend you do and just make something up!

Life Sentences - a new series

This is the first part of a new series about sentences in Mandarin Chinese.

For a few months now, I have been on a new journey in my Mandarin learning. The previous one was working through Heisig & Richardson's first book (simplified or traditional, affiliated links) on learning how to read and write Chinese. I made it through 1500 characters in about 3-4 months, and I had great support from all of you as I did so.

But now being able to read & write characters, and having learned a whole bunch of compound words (through flashcards), I have extended this into understanding how Mandarin sentences are constructed. In my opinion, this is the least intuitive part of learning Chinese, and it's what keeps me from having coversations which flow as smoothly as I'd like.

Don't believe people who tell you that Mandarin is the same as English: subject-verb-object.  I mean, it is. Kinda.

The problem is that when you first get past "I drink beer" (我喝啤酒, wǒ​ hē​ pí​jiǔ) (subject-verb-object, in both cases), things get a bit fuzzy and non-intuitive. But once you've got a feel for Chinese sentences, it starts to come back into focus, and you realise that to a large degree (again!) it is S-V-O.

Just to show you what I mean about this being non-intuitive, take a look at the following sentences, which are arranged as follows:
   English
   Simplified Chinese
   Traditional Chinese
   Pinyin
   Literal translation

S1. What should I give him as a gift?
我该送什么礼物给他?
我該送什麼禮物給他?
wǒ gāi sòng shénme lǐwù gěi tā?
(I) (should) (give) (what gift) (give him)?

S2. She enjoys sharing her experience of learning the Chinese language.
她很喜歡跟別人分享她學習中文的經驗｡
她很喜欢跟别人分享她学习中文的经验｡
Tā hěn xǐhuan gēn biérén fēnxiǎng tā xuéxí Zhōngwén de jīngyàn.
(she) (very likes) (with others) (share) (her) (study Chinese)'s (experience).

S3. People who want a tattoo must go to a proper tatto parlour.
要文身的人, 必须去专业的文身店｡
要文身的人, 必須去專業的文身店｡
yào​ wén​shēn​ de rén​, bì​xū​ qù​ zhuān​yè​ de wén​shēn​ diàn​.
(want tattoo)'s (people), (must) (go to) (professional)'s (tattoo parlour)


Certainly not intuitive, but definitely learnable.


The purpose of this series is to get you as quickly from the "newbie S-V-O" to the "more advanced S-V-O" phase, without getting too stuck in the middle. And this is as much to document my learning for myself, as it is to share my learning for your benefit.


To make sure you don't miss out, ensure you subscribe to Mandarin Segments. I look forward to your active participation.

Copyright acknowledgement: Over time I have collected a variety of sentences, and loaded them into my flashcard system. By this stage, I no longer have any idea where they came from. Some are of my own construction, or from friends who have emailed or instant-messaged me. Others have been copied from websites along the way. To make sure I give credit where due, the following sites are the most likely external sources:
   About Mandarin
   JuKuu
   iChaCha
   Engkoo
   Bing Search
   20,000 Mandarin Sentences
   Nciku Dictionary
   ChinesePod
   Popup Chinese
   Collins (paper) dictionary


Articles in the Life Sentences series so far:

• Getting Sentenced in Mandarin: where to get sample sentences

To see all posts in the "Life Sentences" series, click here. 

I was Chinese for 1.5 minutes today ...

I had lunch today with a friend from New York. He knows I'm learning Mandarin, so he got his one work colleague - a Chinese person - to teach him a couple of phrases before coming to London. The dialogue went roughly like this ...

NY:  This is the phrase I learned ...
Greg:  Go ahead.
NY:  wǒ​ shì​ huàn​ hé​chà​
Greg:  Uhm ...

So in my mind, I'm trying to work out what he said. And the thoughts are buzzing through my head ...

• The sentence clearly begins with "I am" (wǒ​ shì​) - I can hear that. 
• Next is huàn, which sounds like 换 (change/exchange). There are probably other versions of huàn, but right now I can't think of others. If I can work out the rest of the sentence, then maybe this part will make more sense. I'll come back to it ...
• What on earth is hé​chà? I've seen a few words lately that begin with 合 (join/together/...)​, like 合适 (hé​shì=suitable), 合资 (hé​zī= joint venture), but what is hé​chà??
• No, I really can't work out what he said. Let me ask him ...

Greg: Uhm, sorry.  I give up. What are you saying?
NY: wǒ​ shì​ huàn​ hé​chà​ ...

(Dear readers of Mandarin Segments, have you worked it out yet?)

NY:  "I like to drink tea."
Greg:  Oh ... you mean "wǒ xǐ​huan​ hē chá​" !
NY:  Yes, that's what I said.
Greg:  !!!

And this, ladies & gentlemen, is the moment when I experienced how Chinese people must feel when foreigners speak to them in Chinese. The words are wrong. The tones are wrong. And they (just like me) have no idea what is being said.

But I was flattered that he had bothered to memorise a short phrase for me, and it led onto an interesting conversation about tones.

And you know what? It's not so bad to be Chinese and hear a foreigner make mistakes when trying to speak Chinese. Why was I so nervous to try in the beginning?

You're not nervous, are you? I can say for sure, having been Chinese for 1.5 minutes, that you have nothing to be nervous about!


You're welcome to leave comments in English, but for fun, why don't you leave comments in Chinese - whether using hanzi or pinyin? Keep it as simple as you like, and take a risk. How many of you will dare?