Not too far from the Xinbei campus of C.I.T. is a lake that was often used by bathers, clothes washing older ladies, and fishermen. This is a scene from August, 2006. When I left in 2008, the beach had been replaced with a new building that served as the sales office for urban development around the lake. Fishing had been banned. But, one could still find older ladies washing clothes on the southern shoreline. China is changing fast. I wonder what this scene will look like when I return in August of this year?
Well, getting back into learning Chinese is getting more interesting and I have narrowed down the sites I use from the list I gave out last post. I am creating my own resource folder that contains sound files as well as the characters, pinyin version and English meanings of various expressions. I am focusing on expressions rather than vocabulary as I found it to be more helpful in doing basic communication. I am also including my audio version of these same expressions as a means of comparing what I say in contrast to a native speaker. That allows me to improve my tonal pronunciation. Change the tone of a word, and you change the meaning. Change the context of the word and you change the meaning as well – this is why I am finding it important to learn expressions and small sentences that have words embedded in context. Thankfully, there are some words that are universally understood in China regardless of pronunciation because of context.
For example, the word “Hello” is “Nĭ Hăo.” (knee how is a good approximation for pronunciation ) and it is almost impossible to mess it up. I do hear native speakers pronounce it differently and that surprised me until I realised that there is a lot of variation from city to city and province to province. If one speaks the official version in terms of pronunciation, most will understand. But, never take it for granted that you are understood. You may think you have said it perfectly but only to find people either looking confused or else laughing as they have heard something entirely different and it likely made little to no sense at all.
Learning a new language is fun as well as frustrating. The reward comes in being able to accomplish being understood, even if only in a simple communication task. Now, back to my studies.