Learning Chinese :)

[littletune]

Well so I'm not sure how to start learning... I mean like what's the first thing I should learn?   

[ongaku_oniko]

Well, first of all, all chinese words are made of certain sounds. Unlike English, where "a' could sound like "eh", like ape, or "ah" like apple, an "a" sound in Chinese is always the same.

It's sort of like "ahhh".

There are 6 vowels in Chinese, a, o, e, i, u, ü (man, took me a long time to find that)

And consonants: b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, zh, ch, sh, z, c, s, w, r, y (I can't remember the order exactly, there's a song for this sort of like the ABC song, but it's not like the order matters)

So basically, you notice that there is no "v". The "v" on the keyboard corresponds to "ü" (at least for English keyboards)

There are also compound vowels

ai, ei, ui

ia, ie, iu

an, en, in, un

uan

ang, eng, ing, ong

ao, uo

ou


Most words in chinese starts with one consonant (MUST have a consonant, and ONLY ONE)

And end in ONE AND ONLY ONE of the above vowels or compound vowels.

So you can have ba, be, bu, bi, bo, pa, po, pe, pi, pu...

(the ü vowel is not often used, only for j, q, x, where there is no "u" vowel", andl, n, and there might be more but I can't think of any right now)

There are four tones to each combination of sound, so there's four "ba"s.

I heard (since I never went to chinese school) that Chinese schools here first teach you to say

"ma ma ma ma" (mother swears at the horse)

So as you can see, ever single word in Chinese is one syllabe, and there are only a certain number of combinations (ad a lot of themare not used), so there are very few unique words in Chinese.

EDIT:

There is ONE exception:

er.

That one starts with a vowel and ends in a consonant, but it is the only one, and it only has one pronouniation, not four. And it's a very special one that should not be taught until you're fairly good at Chinese. Heck, most southern Chinese don't know how to use it.

EDIT: ignore the last paragraph, I wasn't thinking clearly.l

[ongaku_oniko]

After that,

do you want to learn written (as in, to read)

or spoken (as in, to listen)

?

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

  你好 (nǐhǎo) !   (nǐhǎo means hello )

Yay you finally made this thread

Personally I recommend you learn how to speak and listen to Chinese. You can always learn to read and write later, I mean that's how most of us learn languages right?
If you want to learn to speak, it's good to learn pinyin.
 You can think of pinyin as an alphabet transliterates Chinese words into the Latin alphabet... Read what ongaku wrote about the vowels and consonants
The letters in pinyin tell you what sounds (consonants and vowels) to make, and the accent markings tell you what tone to use.
 
Here are some videos for you:

Pinyin

Tones

And about the 5th or neutral tone, another example of it is when she says māma （妈妈), which means mom. The first ma is using the first tone, but the second ma is using the 5th tone. I think it's a better example than the one she gave at the end, which sounded a little too stressed. It's hard to use the fifth tone on its own. (:

Oh and not to confuse you but when ongaku said that every word in Chinese only has one syllable, he means every Chinese character is one syllable. Chinese has a lot of compound words so we still have words that are more than one syllable, like English and Slovenian .
For example, Zhōng (中) means middle, and guó ( 国) means country. But if you put them together, you have a new word, Zhōngguó (中国), which means China.
Or pútáo (葡萄) means grape, but 葡 means nothing on its own and neither does 萄...  

"ma ma ma ma" (mother swears at the horse)

I've never learned that before!

@ongaku, what do you mean when you say each Chinese word must start with a consonant? I don't understand what you mean by that...   Like what about 愛, isn't that just using vowels?
 Also, what are you trying to say when you say er only has 1 pronunciation?

[ongaku_oniko]

Okay, that ai was traditional wasn't it :O

Well my brain was filled with water, and I can't really teach on the spot like that, so sorry :|

You're right, there are a few words that don't have a consonant :|

But besides Ai, is there anything else?

ai, en, o, a, an, I think that's it.

And well, when I said "er", I was thinking of er hua yin, where you add an er at the end of words. Er by itself has two sounds, second and third tones.

And also, Chinese words (字） are only one syllable. They are only one character. 词 are made of multiple words, but has the effect of a single word in other languages. But they're still multiple words.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Okay, that ai was traditional wasn't it :O

Well my brain was filled with water, and I can't really teach on the spot like that, so sorry :|

You're right, there are a few words that don't have a consonant :|

But besides Ai, is there anything else?

ai, en, o, a, an, I think that's it.

And well, when I said "er", I was thinking of er hua yin, where you add an er at the end of words. Er by itself has two sounds, second and third tones.

Ah I see. Well maybe you should edit your post so we don't confuse littletune.
And yeah, on this computer I have traditional and simplified! To be honest I'm more used to traditional... because that's what I learned in school! But I write my name using simplified characters  

And also, Chinese words (字） are only one syllable. They are only one character. 词 are made of multiple words, but has the effect of a single word in other languages. But they're still multiple words.

Ok, but it's easier to explain 词 as a compound word in this case since littletune speaks (many of!) those other languages. EDIT： Besides, some characters have no meaning on their own, so they aren't really words. For example, 葡萄 means grape, but 葡 doesn't really mean anything neither does 萄...  I mean I guess it's understood as "grape" but I don't think it has an independent meaning.

Linguistically speaking, Chinese still isn't considered a monosyllabic language Unlike Vietnamese

[ongaku_oniko]

I was gonna make a recording of myself teaching chinese, but I guess that's not needed now. My voice sounds ugly anyway, and I don't want you to say "hey, that's nowhere near CCTV level!" since even though I can sort of speak like that, it takes waaaay too much energy to even say one sentence.

I don't like the second video's Chinese. It sounds too sharp

I don't like the third video's English



And there are FOUR tones in Chinese the other one isn't even a tone. it's basically a short version of the first or fourth tone, depending on context and the speaker.

I did edit, but editing my posts is really hard, because this stupid writer thing on this forum has the scrolling thing moving up and down and it's really annoying because I can't highlight or see the words on the line I'm typing... anyone else have this problem?


And I prefer to think of Ci as separate words. It is easier, makes more sense, and more beautiful. You're simply describing something with more than one word, there's nothing wrong with that...


but take 电脑 for example, a computer. It's made up of the words electricity and brain. An electric brain, a computer. Isn't that beautiful? If you understand this concept of adding words together to describe something else, it's so beautiful. Well, I guess it's sort of like prefixes in English, but I think it's more beautiful

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I was gonna make a recording of myself teaching chinese, but I guess that's not needed now. My voice sounds ugly anyway, and I don't want you to say "hey, that's nowhere near CCTV level!" since even though I can sort of speak like that, it takes waaaay too much energy to even say one sentence.

I don't like the second video's Chinese. It sounds too sharp

I don't like the third video's English



And there are FOUR tones in Chinese the other one isn't even a tone. it's basically a short version of the first or fourth tone, depending on context and the speaker.

I used to be a member of livemocha, and I was a "teacher" for Mandarin. I made a ton of recordings. I wonder what you would say about my Chinese... I know what you would say about my voice   (To think I used to enter tons of Chinese singing and public speaking competitions   )
I don't think we should ignore the neutral tone, as I said before. It sounds really unnatural if you don't use it when you speak

Anyway I don't want to derail the thread. If you have any questions littletune, just ask, and we'll *try* to explain. Or find you a video. Or if needed, I'll make one.

I did edit, but editing my posts is really hard, because this stupid writer thing on this forum has the scrolling thing moving up and down and it's really annoying because I can't highlight or see the words on the line I'm typing... anyone else have this problem?

FIREFOX. Use Firefox. (Well at least for me, the scrolly problem only happens on IE)

Well even a Chinese character on its own is beautiful... The radicals, the appearance, etc all can contribute to the meaning. The Chinese writing system is pretty ingenious, if it were only easier to learn...  
EDIT: Look here https://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writchin/ciandzi.html
They even used my example of putao! I only thought of it because I was eating grapes at the moment, haha.

[ongaku_oniko]

Wow you must be better than me then. Definitely. No way I'd ever participate in a public speaking competition... öÖ

post some of your recordings

And what's livemocha?

I still don't think it can count as a tone. I still think it's just an unaccented version of the fourth or first tones, depending on context and speaker. It's not different from the other tones. And from every chinese place I've learnt at (schools in China), they say there are four tones.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

 Maybe because public speaking is a scary thing, and not because I'm better than you?
I was a fearless and cute little kid back then, with pushy teachers. I was kind of expected to compete.  I don't sing solos in public anymore, in ANY language.  You should all be thankful
Livemocha is a language learning website. It's where I learned my Ukrainian 101 (:
Some of my teachers said there were 4 tones, but they always taught the neutral tone, they just didn't count it. It doesn't matter to me. Are we planning on not telling littletune about it, just because you insist there are 4

[pianowolfi]

I know my questions might be pretty naive, like "what song should I play next, I play ForEliseSong"

But anyway, some questions: What do "you" use to express emotion, when it's not the pitch?
And: How do "you" get all your school kids to memorize 2000+ extremely complicated characters? I am fighting almost to the death to make my piano students memorize at least and at last 10 lines and 8 spaces on the grand staff

[ongaku_oniko]

I know my questions might be pretty naive, like "what song should I play next, I play ForEliseSong"

But anyway, some questions: What do "you" use to express emotion, when it's not the pitch?
And: How do "you" get all your school kids to memorize 2000+ extremely complicated characters? I am fighting almost to the death to make my piano students memorize at least and at last 10 lines and 8 spaces on the grand staff

The common Chinese person learns 3000 (exactly 3000) Chinese characters in Elementary school, and an additional 500 in high school. Of course, some of the more obscure ones are forgotten, so the average Chinese adult knows around 3000 Chinese words.

Now, not all these Chinese words are all that hard or different. Let's take 1 to 10:

一二三四五六七八九十 Are they really that hard? No.

And most words have a radical and another word, like 青 could combine with a lot of different radicals to make

清请情晴 and many more.

So really there might be 1000ish words that are completely different.

I'd say it's a lot easier to learn than English, which now has over 1,000,000,000 words in the Oxford dictionary (compared to 50,000 in the most comprehensive Chinese dictionary, and most of the 50k words are chemistry terms that are not used elsewhere).

at thinkgreen: :O:O:O sing please! record and post here

Singing is actually a great way to learn a language so teach littletunes some chinese songs

I will teach him some chinese songs if you post some of your recordings and solo singing performances

I will be singing China's national anthem, "Without communism there will be no new China", "We are the future of communism".. etc :D:D:D:D


And I doubt I'd be good enough to participte at a speech competition even if I wasn't nervous

[pianowolfi]

The characters are beautiful I admire them, they are like pictures. And perhaps Chinese piano students have less difficulties with learning music reading because the four/five tones are already like different little melodies, and because they are anyway used to memorize a lot of written structures?

[ongaku_oniko]

The characters are beautiful I admire them, they are like pictures. And perhaps Chinese piano students have less difficulties with learning music reading because the four/five tones are already like different little melodies, and becaues they are anyway used to memorize a lot of written structures?

They were originally pictures. If you look at how the words like Fish evolved over time, it really was a picture of a fish before now it's 鱼

And I doubt it... certainly it's not easier for me to learn music... but maybe because I'm musically handicapped

The thing is, the tones are not pitches. It's not like a first tone is a C, a second tone is a D... Nothing like that.

There really are tones in other languages too. It's just that the words themselves don't have a fixed tone, but you change tones when you're asking a question and stuff.

And chinese isn't really that hard, even written. People look at it and think it's hard because it's so compact, but in reality it's not that difficult...

[ongaku_oniko]

Basically there are about 10 or less "strokes" in Chinese.

Each of these strokes are put together in some combination to create the words.

So really, you can think of strokes as alphabets. Except they don't really tell you how the word will sound.

So really Chinese writing isn't that hard, since it's also made from little alphabets, you just stack them closely together instead of putting them one by one like in european languages.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

 Here's a picture of how some Chinese characters came from pictures:


Other words in Chinese will have radicals that give you clues on the meaning or pronunciation of the word.
For example 快 (kuai4) means "fast or rapid" but when you add a 竹(zhu2), [bamboo], to the top of the word, you get the word 筷， which is pronounced the same as 快 but it means chopstick.
(had to make it bigger so that the characters are visible （：）


The tones are not specific pitches themselves, but different tones call for a different change in your voice's pitch. For example, to say a word with the second tone, the pitch of your voice would go up. So I guess its more of a "relative pitch" thing

@Ongaku: If I can find friends to sing with me so their voices can protect your ears You may not have perfect pitch, but do you really want to lose your hearing completely? Besides, I'm sure I can find tons of Chinese songs on Youtube sung by better singers. When I was a little girl I was a huge 卓依婷 fan. (:

[ongaku_oniko]

did you draw that? how cute...


singing + chinese lesson recording pl0x

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

did you draw that? how cute...


singing + chinese lesson recording pl0x

No I didn't draw it. My MS Paint isn't working... But I wanted to make one for 大 and 小and 人。
About singing I edited my above post. Read.  
Seriously, not even my mom has heard me sing for years... I only sing in groups (eg: choir).

[ongaku_oniko]

When I was a little girl I was a huge 卓依婷 fan. (:

hahahaha I almost get the impression that you're trying to imply that you're not a little girl anymore hahahahahaha...

ANYWAY, I have no idea who that is. I used to completely shut myself off from pop culture, thinking that only stupid bandwagoners would be so tasteless to enjoy it. Especially american pop culture. I've become slightly more accepting, but I still hate rappers and such, and don't know much about pop culture at all. Except a little bit of japanese pop, but only because I'm trying to learn japanese, and singing is a good way to learn a new language, and some japanese songs ain't that bad.

the only chinese songs I know are the old communist songs they're everywhere even though my parents HATE chinese communist party for what they've done to our family, my dad still sings the tunes cuz that's basically all he knows how to sing and the tunes are catchy

Oh, and Tong Hua. I know Tong Hua. But who doesn't?

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

 

She sang a lot of traditional music, like Chinese new year songs ... I had a whole set of her music videos! I don't know what she sings now though....
 When I mean little girl, I mean 5, 6, 7, 8. Back when I dreamed of becoming a singer   In the videos I had of her, she was probably 10. She's like 20 now.
I hate to stereotype but I'm not really into most Asian music.. it's too pop-ish for me. And I can't stand rap, my sister plays Eminem songs EVERYDAY. AGH!

I used to sing lots of Chinese folk songs with my grandma as a kid. We'd also sing along to 卓依婷 's music. I don't think I ever learned ANY communist song... Who knows, at that age I didn't even know what communism was.
I do know the CANADIAN national anthem in Chinese though
 

 For littletune (sorry for such a long thread already! ) here's a Chinese song that probably everyone in China knows... It's called Mo4 li2 hua1, which means Jasmine Flower. If you like it and want to learn it, I can write the lyrics in pinyin once you learn pinyin and translate the song for you!

I picked the most childish video I could find... because ongaku_oniko thinks I'm 5...  

[ongaku_oniko]

I don't know that song o.o

&feature=fvwrel   <---- I love this song

Though now I think about it... it's about communism too LOL

Not explicitly though.

A lot of songs are like that. Communist but not explicit.

I never said you're 5 o.o... what gave you that idea?

Another child song: I don't wanna sing it, cuz my voice is ugly, and I don't think I can find a video, so here're the lyrics. I hope you've heard it before

我在马路边，捡到一盒儿烟
把它交给警察叔叔手里面
叔叔不要脸，拿了我的烟
我生气地对他说“哥们儿，给钱！”

EDIT：你的名字不会是sophie吧。。。？

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

A lot of songs are like that. Communist but not explicit.

I know that song! I have a video of that song too! But I never really sang it. And before I had no clue it was about communism, but now, years later, I totally notice it. :O

It's Subliminal messaging. !!!!
       
EDIT: Sorry, never heard of the 2nd song.
And little girl to me= 5. (:
And no my name is not Sophie, is that the name of your parents' friend's daughter ?

EDIT again: This is really going off topic... I'm gonna reply to you in the much blah blah about nothing thread.

[ongaku_oniko]

I know that song! But I never really sang it. And before I had no clue it was about communism, but now, years later, I totally notice it. :O

It's Subliminal messaging. !!!!
      

Exactly. I always loved that song, until just now when I digged it up again and listened, and realized how communist it is. Sort of pissed me off, seeing as my great-great grandfather was a landlord, but he was so nice! They provided children from the whole village FREE EDUCATION! (that's why he wasn't killed; he was a big landlord so would've been executed, but the villagers all liked him and "allowed" him to escape, sort of) But in the end because of the pressure the state put on people, he eventually couldn't bare it anymore and commited suicide T_T

[littletune]

Wow thanks! That's really a lot of posts in one day    I watched those videos... this is really cool! I didn't think the tones were that important!! That the meaning of the word changes completely with the different tones!!  cool 
I have to have a little more time to read everything you wrote now
Oh... and you must have a perfect pitch if you speak Chinese! I mean they said that tone was the note g (or so)! Then you must always know a g when you hear it! don't you?   
Thanks

[ongaku_oniko]

Wow thanks! That's really a lot of posts in one day    I watched those videos... this is really cool! I didn't think the tones were that important!! That the meaning of the word changes completely with the different tones!!  cool 
I have to have a little more time to read everything you wrote now
Oh... and you must have a perfect pitch if you speak Chinese! I mean they said that tone was the note g (or so)! Then you must always know a g when you hear it! don't you?   
Thanks

No, it's not always a G. I don't think spoken tones can really be compared to musical tones. It's just not the same. You're not exactly on the scale when you're speaking. It doesn't automatically jump a semitone or a whole tone, it goes smoothly, and hits a quartertone, a third-tone, etc.

In other words, it's a continuous function, and not a discontinuous one.

And even the same sound can have like 100 different meanings depending on what comes before or after

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

No, it's not always a G. I don't think spoken tones can really be compared to musical tones. It's just not the same. You're not exactly on the scale when you're speaking. It doesn't automatically jump a semitone or a whole tone, it goes smoothly, and hits a quartertone, a third-tone, etc.

In other words, it's a continuous function, and not a discontinuous one.

And even the same sound can have like 100 different meanings depending on what comes before or after

Yes, I think the video is just comparing the pitches of the different tones so you can understand how low or high each tone is compared to another tone
More like relative pitch, rather than absolute!

[littletune]

Oh yes I guess that's true I was telling my mum about different tones in Chinese and I tried saying "ma" with different tones and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be   

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Oh yes I guess that's true I was telling my mum about different tones in Chinese and I tried saying "ma" with different tones and it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be   

That's great! Did you try calling her "māma" ?

[ongaku_oniko]

you should upload yourself saying the tones.

They're not that easy. I mean they're not hard, but it's hard if you don't have someone to correct you. You might think you're right, but in fact you're not.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

you should upload yourself saying the tones.

They're not that easy. I mean they're not hard, but it's hard if you don't have someone to correct you. You might think you're right, but in fact you're not.

I think the hardest part is to remember which tone to use... when I hear non native speakers speak, it's not that they can't make the sounds, but when they speak fast it's easy to forget to change the tone!

But I agree, why don't you post recordings? It'll be easier for us to help you
And I guess once you learn the tones and pinyin, we can teach you vocab and sentences

[ongaku_oniko]

I think the hardest part is to remember which tone to use... when I hear non native speakers speak, it's not that they can't make the sounds, but when they speak fast it's easy to forget to change the tone!

But I agree, why don't you post recordings? It'll be easier for us to help you
And I guess once you learn the tones and pinyin, we can teach you vocab and sentences

Remembering which tone to use is just like remembering which word to use, so I don't think that's a big problem

A lot of times I find people distorting the sounds when they use tones, it doesn't sound natural at all. It's hard to describe, it's like they're really trying to accent the pitch change, and it comes out sounding difficult and unnatural.

[littletune]

Yes I know I should record myself so you could correct me I will do that, I just have to practice a little more  And you have to promise not to make fun if I get everything wrong! 

That's great! Did you try calling her "māma" ?

Oh but how do you say the second "ma" is that a tone too or not? 

[littletune]

The characters are beautiful I admire them, they are like pictures. And perhaps Chinese piano students have less difficulties with learning music reading because the four/five tones are already like different little melodies, and because they are anyway used to memorize a lot of written structures?

Wolfi how do you see the characters? All I see are empty squares when Thinkgreen and Ongaku write with their letters  I mean I saw them in a video but I don't see them here. Do you see them here?

Thinkgreenlovepiano: You should post yourself singing! I was scared to post myself singing too... because once a teacher told me to just open my mouth when I was singing in a school choir and after that I felt soo bad about my singing I couldn't sing anymore when other people were around... but then some time ago I posted a recording of me singing here and people were really nice and said my singing was nice so it made me feel a lot better  and I'm sure you sing really nice too!! 

[ongaku_oniko]

o.o little tune u should post urself singing agian I wanna hear. Maybe in chinese?

The second ma, it really depends where you're from and what you're saying.

Thinkgreen is thinking of using the "5th" tone, so the really short one that doesn't really exist.

That's the most common way to say "mama", I think

But when you're calling your mom, say to say "mom, is dinner ready?" YOu (At least I, and I'm pretty sure northerners) simply say "ma (first tone)" loudly and lasting the length of two ma's.

or "ma a" (the sounds are connected, so it's really "maaaaa".

But I guess since the first and second "ma" are the same word, it should be both first tone. And it is okay to say it both first tone, but the silent tone is easier to say, so people sort of take a short cut, and eventually now everyone says the second "ma" with a silent (5th) tone.

Hope I don't sound too confusing

[littletune]

No no it's not confusing at all! actually I was kinda thinking that probably the other "ma" should be that silent tone or the same one as the first one so I was right 
Hmm well me singing in Chinese? Didn't you say it was difficult? Well I mean maybe I will some day...  But now I don't think I could do that very well yet  I think Thinkgreenlovepiano should do it now 

[ongaku_oniko]

It's not particularly difficult to sing, especially if you don't have the tones down completely yet.

The thing is, when you sing, your tones obviously have to follow the melody of the song and not the tone of the words, so a lot of the words sound distorted.

But it's not hard TO sing it, just hard to recognize the words when you're listening, for beginners, I would assume. When you know Chinese well, based on context it's quite easy to tell, and it's not like the tone is completely lost. It's still there, just not as obvious.

Although there are these recent pop singers whose singing not even native chinese people can understand...

[uthacalthing]

Here’s another reason to learn Chinese. I just went to the small bookshop inside the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and came back with the following:
- JSB’s French Suites (Breitkopf);
- Chopin’s Etudes (urtext);
- A separate book on how to play the etudes;
- Chopin’s Impromptus (Wiener urtext);
- Rachmaninov’s Etudes Tableaux;
- Rach’s 24 Preludes;
- Godowsky’s Chopin etudes (two volumes);
- A translation of the Pianist’s Guide to Pedalling;
- A primer on reading music for a friend;
- Liszt’s daily exercises,
for a total of about 60 USD, i.e. about the price of a single volume of Godowsky’s on Amazon. Now it’ll take me ten years to learn the left-hand only version of Chopin 10-1, but never mind.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Here’s another reason to learn Chinese. I just went to the small bookshop inside the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and came back with the following:
- JSB’s French Suites (Breitkopf);
- Chopin’s Etudes (urtext);
- A separate book on how to play the etudes;
- Chopin’s Impromptus (Wiener urtext);
- Rachmaninov’s Etudes Tableaux;
- Rach’s 24 Preludes;
- Godowsky’s Chopin etudes (two volumes);
- A translation of the Pianist’s Guide to Pedalling;
- A primer on reading music for a friend;
- Liszt’s daily exercises,
for a total of about 60 USD, i.e. about the price of a single volume of Godowsky’s on Amazon. Now it’ll take me ten years to learn the left-hand only version of Chopin 10-1, but never mind.

I'm so going to that bookstore when I visit China... !

[uthacalthing]

Also check the other small bookstore across the street (second ring road) from the Central Conservatory, which is equally cheap and well-stocked.

[ongaku_oniko]

heck, I bought all of Beethoven's sonata's for 200 bucks RMB...

in the main bookstore in beijing, Pudan bookstore, I think it was called.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

Now I REALLY want to go to China. The last time I went was like, 5 years ago. I didn't care for shopping or piano back then.

@ littletune, how is the Chinese learning going? I still remember some Slovenian... but until my French exams are over, I need to keep my brain thinking en francais

[ongaku_oniko]

who cares about shopping

It's all about 羊肉串，豆腐脑，锅巴菜，煎饼果子 etc

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

who cares about shopping

It's all about 羊肉串，豆腐脑，锅巴菜，煎饼果子 etc

If I cared more about shopping, I woulda found those bookstores 
I wouldn't go to China just to shop... but I do enjoy shopping in general... well actually just window shopping. Buying things is too stressful... unless they're presents, or stuff for other people. Then that's really fun

As for food, the most memorable is  狮子头...
 When I was 3 and went to preschool during my 6 month "vacation", 狮子头 was the Tuesday special for lunch. Everyone loved it. Except me.
I blame the ginger!!! To this day, ginger makes me want to vomit. I will never understand how ginger is supposed to help with nausea, because it makes me nauseous! (I like gingerbread though. )
Anyway, being the spoiled brat that I was , I refused to eat it and I got the alternate menu option... 雪菜面... lucky me cause that was my favourite food back then 

[ongaku_oniko]

that's cuz you've never been to tianjin.

once you've had breakfast in tianjin you'll realize that you won't be satisfied with anything else.

I had the same things in a lot other places, including beijing, shijiazhuang, etc, I thought that these cities were so close to tianjin that they wouldn't be very different;

but I was wrong. Once you're out of tianjin you won't find true tianjinese food.

[littletune]

@ littletune, how is the Chinese learning going? I still remember some Slovenian... but until my French exams are over, I need to keep my brain thinking en francais

Yes I had sooo much to do now too, but I'll have holidays now so I'll learn Chinese again... Oh I think I heard to people talking in Chinese on the bus last friday... but I wasn't completely sure if it was Chinese...  but I think it was 

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

that's cuz you've never been to tianjin.

once you've had breakfast in tianjin you'll realize that you won't be satisfied with anything else.

I had the same things in a lot other places, including beijing, shijiazhuang, etc, I thought that these cities were so close to tianjin that they wouldn't be very different;

but I was wrong. Once you're out of tianjin you won't find true tianjinese food.

actually, I have been in Tianjin... I think I told you before, I have family friends from there. But I'll admit I can't remember it much. I have faint memories of sneaking out of a restuarant with my family friends' kids... they were like 10, 12, I was 3 or 4. But here's the general rule for me when it comes to Chinese food: 1) I like spicy stuff, but I hate anything with peppercorns. I like lots of non spicy foods too... but I need at least one spicy dish. Hot sauce does the trick too.   2) It can't have ginger... or taste like ginger... or look like ginger. Period.

@littletune Oh cool you're on holiday now? Lucky Enjoy your holiday and happy studying! (:

[littletune]

well I don't have holidays yet, I still have a little school tomorrow and then  holidays till May 2nd!   

[amie_de_chopin]

I had started to learn Chinese, just some very basic things. I was in particular interested in studying Chinese characters, their connections etc. I still remember that forget for example is a combination of die and heart. This was when I had just started the piano a few years ago, and I sort of neglected Chinese... 
I would really like to start again though, I find it so fascinating!!

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

I had started to learn Chinese, just some very basic things. I was in particular interested in studying Chinese characters, their connections etc. I still remember that forget for example is a combination of die and heart. This was when I had just started the piano a few years ago, and I sort of neglected Chinese... 
I would really like to start again though, I find it so fascinating!!

Awesome... feel free to browse through the thread or post something
And welcome to pianostreet

[amie_de_chopin]

Thank you! 

I will go through the thread and see if I can remember something... 

I have never properly learned pronunciation. I had two cassettes that were really good, but my mother lost them. I think there are also courses online though, with pronunciation etc. Maybe I can find a nice site!

OK, I just grabbed out my characters book...
It is called "Reading and Writing Chinese - Simplified Character Edition" (by William McNaughton)
It is basically this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804832064/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=1278548962&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0804835098&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1AN43ZF12B30G93DG1B9

Has anybody used it here?