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langbangpop · 1 month

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Chinese Ethnic Minority Literature

I just finished taking an incredibly eye-opening class about Chinese ethnic minority literature. China has a thriving minority literature scene, and it's absolutely fascinating and full of interesting works, so I wanted to share some of the authors that I learned about this semester! This is, obviously, an incomplete list-- it's pretty heavily biased towards what we read about in class, and there's probably a lot I've missed!

For any authors with full works that have been translated into English, I've listed it under their names. Some other authors may also have poems or short stories published in translation online or in anthologies.

Hani 哈尼

Mo Du 莫獨 (b. 1963) - poems

Hui 回族

Huo Da 霍達 (b. 1945) - novels

The Jade King: History of a Chinese Muslim Family (1992)

Zhang Chengzhi 張承志 (b. 1948) -novels, short stories

The Black Steed (1990)

Korean 朝鮮族

Jin Renshun 金仁順 (b. 1970) - novels, short stories

Jin Wenxue 金文學 (b. 1962) - novels

Manchu 滿族

Duanmu Hongliang 端木蕻良 (1912-1996)

Lao She 老舍 (1899-1966) - novels, short stories, plays

Rickshaw Boy (1945, 2010)

Miao (Hmong) 苗族

He Xiaozhu 何小竹 (b. 1963) - poems, novels

Shen Congwen* 沈從文 (1902-1988) - novels, short stories

Imperfect Paradise (1995)

Border Town (2009)

Mongolian 蒙古族

Altai 阿爾泰 (b. 1949) - poems

Bao Liying 包麗英 (b. 1968) - novels

Baoyinhexige 寶音賀希格 - poems

Chen Ganglong 陳崗龍 (b. 1970) - poems

Guo Xuebo 郭雪波 (b. 1948) - novels, short stories

The Desert Wolf (1996)

Malaqinfu 瑪拉沁夫 (b. 1930)- novels

Naxi 納西族

Sha Li 沙蠡 (1953-2008) - novels

Yang Zhengwen 楊正文 (b. 1943) - novels

Qiang 羌族

Qiang Renliu 羌人六 (b. 1987) - poems

Yangzi/Yang Guoqing 羊子/楊國慶 - poems

Tibetan 藏族

Alai 阿來 (b. 1959) - novels, short stories

Red Poppies (2003)

The Song of King Gesar (2013)

Tashi Dawa 扎西達娃 (b. 1959) - novels, short stories

A Soul in Bondage: Stories from Tibet (1992)

Yangdron 央珍 (b. 1963) - novels

Uyghur 維吾爾族

Alat Asem 阿拉提·阿斯木 (b. 1958) - novels, short stories

Confessions of a Jade Lord (2019)

Wa/Va 佤族

Burao Yilu 布饒依露 - poems

Yi 彝族

Aku Wuwu 阿庫烏霧 (b. 1964) - poems, essays

Tiger Traces: Selected Nuosu and Chinese Poetry of Aku Wuwu (2006)

Coyote Traces: Aku Wuwu's Poetic Sojourn in America (2015)

Bamo Qubumo 巴莫曲佈嫫 (b. 1964) - poems, academic articles

Eni Mushasijia 俄尼·牧莎斯加 (b. 1970) - poems

Jidi Majia 吉狄馬加 (b. 1961) - poems

I, Snow Leopard (2016)

Words from the Fire: Poems by Jidi Majia (2018)

Jimu Langge 吉木狼格 (b. 1963) - poems

Lu Juan 魯娟 (b. 1982) - poems

Ma Deqing 馬德清 (1952-2013) - poems, novels

*Shen has both Miao and Tujia ancestry, as well as Han. However, I see him listed most frequently as Miao.

More Resources on Ethnic Minority Literature:

Altaic Storytelling: The blog of translator Bruce Humes (translator of Confessions of a Jade Lord, among other works). Has a fairly broad focus, but he's written a lot about ethnic minorities.

Chinese Women Writers on the Environment: An anthology of eco-fiction by female ethnic minority writers.

Golden Horse Award 駿馬獎: This is an annual award for ethnic minority literature. The wikipedia link lists all the previous winners.

Paper Republic: This organization is devoted to translated Chinese writing and isn't specific to ethnic minority literature but has information about and translations of some of the writers on this list.

Poetry International: This website isn't specific to ethnic minorities or even to China, but many of the poets on this list have pages there with a few poems translated into English.

The Leeds Center for New Chinese Writing: Again not specific to ethnic minorities, but features several ethnic minority authors.

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langbangpop · 4 months

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how i'm studying mandarin (in 2024)

as a low-maintenance language learner working a 9-6 office job, i've been muddling around how to improve my mandarin in my free time and keep it fun! And I've found what works for me (thanks to a lot of lurking on here - appreciate all you mandarin langblrs <3), so wanted to share :)

Evening lessons (or italki) - Self studying is great but I do need a kick up the ass sometimes, so these really help. Plus my teacher is great at giving tips here and there which I probably wouldn't pick up on on my own.

ChinesePod - Their podcasts are really well made and accessible, I can't recommend them enough!

HelloChinese - This is my 'I'm bored waiting for my train/bus but I still want to learn Chinese' option that isn't Duolingo. It's not perfect but it has fairly good grammar explanations and native listening segments. You do have to pay a subscription if you're over HSK1 level FYI.

I am an anki hater first and foremost, so here's the vocab learning / dictionary tools I use instead:

TofuLearn - It's straightforward, uses spaced repetition learning AND teaches you stroke order - so ticks all my boxes. Picked it up due to @marilearnsmandarin's posts about it!

Pleco - Obviously, everyone has it downloaded for a reason.

Yabla Chinese Dictionary - Not seen this one talked about so much, but would recommend! It sometimes has video examples of the hanzi in use, which I find helpful.

A big goal for me this year is to consume mandarin content more regularly! It's all well and good watching Peppa Pig, but I need something that I actively want to engage with:

Bilibili Comics - Currently reading 肉店楼上的工作室 and able to understand a fair chunk, so would recommend as a "easier" option.

Mandopop - Not sure how much I'm picking up from listening, especially at my level, but it's fun to jam out to some good tunes. Faves include TIA RAY, Song Qian, Lexie Liu, No Party for Cao Dong & Shi Shi.

Dramas/Movies - Modern chinese dramas are a lot more hit-or-miss for me, especially compared to historical/fantasy. Recent faves include Accidentally in Love & Stay with Me (on Netflix/Viki). Currently watching Reset :) Any other recs, please send my way!

YouTube - I have a separate YT account just to follow Taiwanese/Chinese creators - it takes a bit of searching but you can find some great youtubers who talk about whatever hobby you're into (whether that's cute golden retriever vlogs, travel vlogs or reading vlogs!)

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langbangpop · 6 months

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Hi! Love your TikTok translations, they help me learn so much. Sorry if you've answered this before already, but as a language student myself, I was just curious about how you got so good at Chinese - is it a native language for you, or what's your background in using/studying it? Thank you!

I think I answered this a long time ago (like 2021 maybe) so I will just tell it again. It's kind of a longwinded boring post that's very self-centric (😬) and also probably not going to have any helpful advice to the average language learner, so I'm going to put it under a read more!

Background

My family is Chinese so it's my heritage language. I did learn it before English as a baby but then forgot a lot of it. My parents speak Chinese at home but I always replied in English growing up. Part of this is because I have a twin sibling and because we spoke English at school, we also started speaking English to each other at home.

We went to Chinese school on Sundays growing up (this is like a community/cultural school; it included other courses like math, Chinese dance, art, pre-SATs (lol), etc, depending on who in the community was available to teach), but I didn't really pay attention so my Chinese was pretty shit for a long time—like broken conversational level shitty, although I have always had a strong comprehension ability. My dad's side is from Sichuan so I grew up understanding a bit of Sichuanese.

The beginning of my "studying"

I don't actually have much of a background studying Chinese in a formal setting. I took Chinese 101-103 in college as part of a language requirement (specifically chose to start with 101 so I could relearn basics, even though my teachers kept offering to place me in higher levels). I really credit my Chinese 101 prof who was also the college's calligraphy teacher for making us focus on brush stroke order and recognising characters and understanding semantic components, which is something other profs did not emphasise (they were more focused on building conversational skills).

Anyway, that was only my freshman year of college because I ended up changing majors and not having a language requirement anymore (boo). I continued studying a bit of Chinese in the intervening years, but I am not a very disciplined person when it comes to self-study, so much of it was just translating song lyrics for my own amusement. During this time, I also started watching some cdramas, but mostly just Chinese web shows, which maybe helped? (I don't think I was watching enough for it to really make a difference).

Fast forward a couple years to 2020 and I started watching more cdramas during lockdowns, including watching 成化十四年 (The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty), which I was super invested in for about two years (this used to be a fandom blog lol). Basically, hyperfixation led me to rapidly improve my Chinese; I started translating a few behind-the-scenes videos for fandom friends. In order to keep up with Chinese fans and gain access to more material about the show, I started venturing onto Chinese sites such as weibo, bilibili, and eventually, douyin, which I downloaded around October of 2020 (so this was 6 months into my increased interest into Chinese things). At first, I translated a couple of douyins to share with fandom friends as I had done with behind-the-scenes materials, but for whatever reason I felt like some of the videos I wanted to translate would just be annoying to spam into the chat... I couldn't figure out a way to connect them to the blorbos, but I still wanted to translate them, so I started posting them here on tumblr. That's how my douyin translations started out. This was the height of covid-19 related sinophobia, too, so at some point I started realising how important it was to continue translating douyins, and that motivated me to continue even beyond it just being a fun thing to do. On that topic, it was through this blog that I realised how poorly understood China and Chinese people are, specifically on this site. I feel like that has changed a lot, or maybe that's just a comment on insular online spaces, but I have to think not; since I started translating douyins, I've seen a noticeable decrease in sinophobic comments and messages (not that I don't still get them, but it's lessened), and I think that's also thanks in great part to other blogs on here that were posting/have started to post more content from China to help increase exposure to tumblr users.

Improving

In any case, in the beginning, I did a lot of translations mostly by ear rather than reading captions because my Chinese reading wasn't that good.

It's kind of slowly improved with time and repetitive reading, and over the last three years now, I've also gone through periods of taking notes and actively seeking out some vocab lists or grammar explanations... but it usually comes in the process of trying to translate something. My motivations in "studying" (it's more like "figuring out") Chinese is largely based on the simple desire to know what people are talking about... what they're joking about... what they're ranting about and roasting. Related: I also started reading fanfics in Chinese about a year ago. Some fics have been easier to read than others, but some of the best ones I've read were also the ones that challenged me the most, and which I had to take a lot of notes on while reading. I'll admit! There have been times where I just took a fic and dumped that sucker in google translate and have it read the Chinese to me, so I could just listen to it like a podfic. But even so, I would take notes, because I think my improvements in Chinese are heavily connected to my Chinese literacy.

Reading douyin comments and forums on douban or comment sections on bilibili has been one of the main ways that I've picked up on common phrases and characters. I often write things down but I do so more as a muscle memory practice, because I have never really been the sort of person who reads back notes (this was also how I studied in school, iirc). Branching out and translating things that are written in formal or non-colloquial styles is also a way I challenge myself from time to time, and I do like to look up the etymology of Chinese characters from time to time because it helps me pick up patterns of semantics and phonetic hints when I'm reading (this makes it easier to guess what a character might mean or sound like, even if you've never seen it before). Overall, translation has been the great learning tool for me. I think maybe it comes down to learning styles? I have always learned better from trying to teach others, and I feel like translation works a similar muscle in the mind; translation is about figuring out ways to efficiently communicate a message, and in order to do so, you must be able to grasp the essence of what it is you're relaying.

All this said... And to try and return to your original ask after all my usual Wawa rambling... I actually don't think my Chinese is that good, lol. In fact, there's probably people who follow this blog who are studying Chinese in a more conventional and methodical manner whose Chinese is objectively much better than mine 🤷🏻‍♂️ I mean, if you crunch the numbers, I have really only be self-"studying" for three years. Three years of what is really just vibe-based learning. There's a lot of vocab I still don't know (I mean my English vocab is pretty limited too, sooo.... 😭), a lot of areas that I can still improve on, and am improving on, and try to improve on... when the mood strikes. Again, I am not a very disciplined self-study type.

Maybe this will give any other Chinese diaspora hope, though. I feel like it's never too late for us to start learning. There is probably a seed or language foundation within you already which will make it easier for you to start, and then after that, I think it sort of comes down to finding what interests you and will keep you motivated.

Most of the stuff I talk about on here when it comes to culture or folk art or what have you, I did not know even five years ago! I learned about it because I was interested to find out more. (That's another reason I have to laugh when I get some of the asks I do in my inbox... The stuff I don't answer is dumbfounding at times. You translate a couple of funny videos and people think you're some kind of Tripadvisor cultural ambassador guy! I swear...)

The "study" resources I use regularly are the following:

Pleco

Zh-En browser extension

Yellowbridge (usually to check brush stroke order, since I have Pleco)

Baidu etymology pages / Chinese etymology dictionaries such as hanziyuan

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langbangpop · 8 months

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Hello language learners!

Have you tried Librivox?

It's a website that has public domain audio books in TONS (47 to be exact) of languages! (my followers, yes, it has Finnish too!)

You can find loads of free books on there! I recommend it a lot!

For Finnish books, I noticed they even have Seitsemän Veljestä which is a must-read for every Finnish student.

Here's a link:

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langbangpop · 8 months

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Listening to 不明白's episode on the LGBT community in China, I just thought I'd share some of the interesting vocabulary I was able to pick up :

打壓 [dâ yâ] -› to suppress

報導 [bào dâo] -> to report (in the media)

針對 (zhēn duì] -> to target, to be aimed at or against

審查 (shēn chá] -> to censor out

保守 [bâo shôu] -> conservative

右翼 [yòu yì] -> (politically) right wing

極端 [jí duān]右翼 -> extreme right wing

性少數 (xìng shâo shū] -> Igbt (sexual minorities)

跨性別 [ku�� xing bié] -> transgender

One of the best things about this podcast is that they post transcripts pretty fast after each episode, which makes the content so approachable even for intermediate learners like me.

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langbangpop · 9 months

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Obviously I really love learning Chinese, but sometimes I just 🫠🥲😭

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langbangpop · 9 months

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My latest obsession: The XX子 pattern

So what is XX子? Well I made that term up because I didn't know what else to use. As for what it means, Chinese has many nouns that end in 子, so they are of the form X子. Sometimes the character X can also be a verb. So in some cases, you can actually say you Xed an X子, and it will make perfect sense!

种种子 zhòng zhǒngzi 种 zhòng - to plant / to grow / to cultivate 种子 zhǒngzi - seed

扇扇子 shān shànzi 扇 shān - to fan 扇子 shànzi - fan

盖（上）盖子 gài gàizi 盖 gài - to cover 盖子 gàizi - cover / lid

扣（上）扣子 kòu kòuzi 扣 kòu - to fasten / to button 扣子 kòuzi - button

包包子 bāo bāozi 包 bāo - to wrap 包子 bāozi - bun / bao

钉钉子 dìng dīngzi 钉 dìng - to nail / to pin 钉子 dīngzi - nail

辫辫子 biàn biànzi 辫 biàn - to plait / to braid 辫子 biànzi - plait / braid / pigtail

As you can see, sometimes the tone of character X is different...but I feel like that could be a whole other post. I'm "collecting" more of these, so if you can think of any, let me know! I looked for a list online but couldn't find anything.

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langbangpop · 9 months

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Random list of a few of my favorite Chinese words so far:

电灯泡 - literally "light bulb," figuratively, an unwanted third wheel

放鸽子 - literally "to place/put a pigeon," figuratively, to stand someone up/no show

死定 - screwed (as in doomed, not as in fucked)

圣诞老人 - Old Man Christmas, Santa Claus

鹅毛大雪 - goose-feather snow, a heavy snow of fluffy flakes

Every single time a word is made "the same but more" by doubling it, or doubling characters in general for emphasis (高高兴兴，长长久久, 安安轻轻，大大小小, 酸酸甜甜，干巴巴，to name a few)

半边天 - literally "half the sky," figuratively womankind

The vast versatility of 蛋 as a way to insult people (坏蛋，笨蛋，混蛋)

赖床 - laze about in bed

惊喜 - pleasantly surprised

大丈夫 - literally big husband, figuratively a manly man

厉害 - cool, awesome, incredible

干嘛 - why on earth...?

大姨妈 - literally great aunt, figuratively shark week/that time of the month/menstruation

想得美 - in your dreams!

My personal constant ability to confuse 妇女 and 妓女. (Woman and prostitute)

Likewise, my personal constant ability to confuse 瓜子 and 傻瓜. (Melon seeds and fool)

轮椅 - wheelchair

And, of course

饭圈 - fandom!

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langbangpop · 9 months

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Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of free resources for different sign languages:

American Sign Language (ASL)

Australian Sign Language (Auslan)

Black American Sign Language (BASL)

British Sign Language (BSL)

Chinese Sign Language (CSL)

Emirati Sign Language (ESL)

French Sign Language (LSF)

Indian Sign Language (ISL)

International Sign Language (IS)

Irish Sign Language (ISL)

Japanese Sign Language (JSL)

Mexican Sign Language (LSM)

Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL)

Ukrainian Sign Language (USL)

Please feel free to add on if you know of others, be it more resource for one of the sign languages above, or resources for learning any of the other 300 plus sign languages.

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langbangpop · 11 months

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Learn languages through live TV and comprehensible input!

Zero to Hero is a Chinese company specialising in English and Chinese education (and a channel I will endlessly promote, because I think they’re brilliant), but ALSO offer resources for a vast number of other languages.

They have recently updated their flagship website which allows you to click on a world map, navigate to the language you are interested in and access live TV, television shows, dictionaries, phrasebooks and other useful features. You can then click around to filter by country, region, type of television and more!

https://www.zerotohero.ca

When you zoom into the map, you are also able to see much smaller languages. Even if they don’t have live television available, this websites has:

- guided readers (click on any website and use a dictionary to get word)

- a dictionary (Scottish Gaelic has 15,000 words, for example) with options to save words and phrases

- talks and other videos that link to Youtube

- a full learning path that details how to respond at each stage of the learning, with resources for each

- a text reader

Here’s a video with Jon explaining how to use it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJN5hwOoz-Q

And all of this on top of its almost frighteningly large library of Chinese content! Check it out - it may be just what you’re looking for.

加油！

- 梅晨曦

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langbangpop · 11 months

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75 MORE essential single-character verbs (单字动词)

People seemed to really enjoy my recent post 75 essential single-character verbs (单字动词)...so here's 75 MORE VERBS.

It was really difficult to put together the first list. I had a spreadsheet of literally hundreds of characters that I had to whittle down. So I was happy to give some of the eliminated characters a second chance.

Definitions are from MDBG. For some characters with additional meanings, I have bolded the meanings I want to highlight.

(76) 欠 qiàn - to owe / to lack / (literary) to be deficient in / (bound form) yawn / to raise slightly (a part of one's body)

(77) 顿 dùn - to stop / to pause / to arrange / to lay out / to kowtow / to stamp (one's foot) / at once / classifier for meals, beatings, scoldings etc: time, bout, spell, meal

(78) 逗 dòu - to tease (playfully) / to entice / (coll.) to joke / (coll.) funny / amusing / to stay / to sojourn / brief pause at the end of a phrase (variant of 讀｜读)

(79) 沉 chén - to submerge / to immerse / to sink / to keep down / to lower / to drop / deep / profound / heavy

(80) 挡 dǎng - to resist / to obstruct / to hinder / to keep off / to block (a blow) / to get in the way of / cover / gear (e.g. in a car's transmission)

(81) 晒 shài - (of the sun) to shine on / to bask in (the sunshine) / to dry (clothes, grain etc) in the sun / (fig.) to expose and share (one's experiences and thoughts) on the Web (loanword from "share") / (coll.) to give the cold shoulder to

(82) 聚 jù - to congregate / to assemble / to mass / to gather together / to amass / to polymerize

(83) 派 pài - clique / school / group / faction / to dispatch / to send / to assign / to appoint / pi (Greek letter Ππ) / the circular ratio pi = 3.1415926 / (loanword) pie

(84) 叠 dié - to fold / to fold over in layers / to furl / to layer / to pile up / to repeat / to duplicate

(85) 缠 chán - to wind around / to wrap round / to coil / tangle / to involve / to bother / to annoy

(86) 嫁 jià - (of a woman) to marry / to marry off a daughter / to shift (blame etc)

(87) 逼 bī - to force (sb to do sth) / to compel / to press for / to extort / to press on towards / to press up to / to close in on / euphemistic variant of 屄

(88) 喊 hǎn - to yell / to shout / to call out for (a person)

(89) 躲 duǒ - to hide / to dodge / to avoid

(90) 抓 zhuā - to grab / to catch / to arrest / to snatch / to scratch

(91) 藏 cáng - to conceal / to hide away / to harbor / to store / to collect

(92) 瞒 mán - to conceal from / to keep (sb) in the dark

(93) 挑 tiāo - to carry on a shoulder pole / to choose / to pick / to nitpick

(94) 扑 pū - to throw oneself at / to pounce on / to devote one's energies / to flap / to flutter / to dab / to pat / to bend over

(95) 踏 tà - to tread / to stamp / to step on / to press a pedal / to investigate on the spot

(96) 断 duàn - to break / to snap / to cut off / to give up or abstain from sth / to judge / (usu. used in the negative) absolutely / definitely / decidedly

(97) 捡 jiǎn - to pick up / to collect / to gather

(98) 拖 tuō - to drag / to tow / to trail / to hang down / to mop (the floor) / to delay / to drag on

(99) 肯 kěn - to agree / to consent / to be willing to

(100) 挖 wā - to dig / to excavate / to scoop out

(101) 摔 shuāi - to throw down / to fall / to drop and break

(102) 伸 shēn - to stretch / to extend

(103) 摸 mō - to feel with the hand / to touch / to stroke / to grope / to steal / to abstract

(104) 绕 rào - to wind / to coil (thread) / to rotate around / to spiral / to move around / to go round (an obstacle) / to by-pass / to make a detour / to confuse / to perplex

(105) 飘 piāo - to float

(106) 碰 pèng - to touch / to meet with / to bump

(107) 染 rǎn - to dye / to catch (a disease) / to acquire (bad habits etc) / to contaminate / to add color washes to a painting

(108) 搁 gē - to place / to put aside / to shelve

(109) 铺 pū - to spread / to display / to set up / (old) holder for door-knocker

(110) 托 tuō - to trust / to entrust / to be entrusted with / to act as trustee

(111) 捧 pěng - to clasp / to cup the hands / to hold up with both hands / to offer (esp. in cupped hands) / to praise / to flatter

(112) 剥 bō | bāo - to peel / to skin / to shell / to shuck

(113) 挠 náo - to scratch / to thwart / to yield

(114) 填 tián - to fill or stuff / (of a form etc) to fill in

(115) 瞅 chǒu - (dialect) to look at

(116) 蹲 dūn - to crouch / to squat / to stay (somewhere)

(117) 溜 liū - to slip away / to escape in stealth / to skate

(118) 坠 zhuì - to fall / to drop / to weigh down

(119) 撩 liáo - to tease / to provoke / to stir up (emotions)

(120) 牵 qiān - to lead along / to pull (an animal on a tether) / (bound form) to involve / to draw in

(121) 装 zhuāng - adornment / to adorn / dress / clothing / costume (of an actor in a play) / to play a role / to pretend / to install / to fix / to wrap (sth in a bag) / to load / to pack

(122) 望 wàng - full moon / to hope / to expect / to visit / to gaze (into the distance) / to look towards / towards

(123) 编 biān - to weave / to plait / to organize / to group / to arrange / to edit / to compile / to write / to compose / to fabricate / to make up

(124) 冻 dòng - to freeze / to feel very cold / aspic or jelly

(125) 抛 pāo - to throw / to toss / to fling / to cast / to abandon

(126) 喷 pēn - to puff / to spout / to spray / to spurt

(127) 刻 kè - quarter (hour) / moment / to carve / to engrave / to cut / oppressive / classifier for short time intervals

(128) 逃 táo - to escape / to run away / to flee

(129) 偷 tōu - to steal / to pilfer / to snatch / thief / stealthily

(130) 吐 tù - to vomit / to throw up

(131) 摁 èn - to press (with one's finger or hand)

(132) 瞪 dèng - to open (one's eyes) wide / to stare at / to glare at

(133) 递 dì - to hand over / to pass on / to deliver / (bound form) progressively / in the proper order

(134) 扭 niǔ - to turn / to twist / to wring / to sprain / to swing one's hips

(135) 轮 lún - wheel / disk / ring / steamship / to take turns / to rotate / classifier for big round objects: disk, or recurring events: round, turn

(136) 混 hùn - to mix / to mingle / muddled / to drift along / to muddle along / to pass for / to get along with sb / thoughtless / reckless

(137) 揪 jiū - to seize / to clutch / to grab firmly and pull

(138) 卷 juǎn - to roll up / roll / classifier for small rolled things (wad of paper money, movie reel etc)

(139) 瞧 qiáo - to look at / to see / to see (a doctor) / to visit

(140) 刺 cì - thorn / sting / thrust / to prick / to pierce / to stab / to assassinate / to murder

(141) 搜 sōu - to search

(142) 遮 zhē - to cover up (a shortcoming) / to screen off / to hide / to conceal

(143) 争 zhēng - to strive for / to vie for / to argue or debate / deficient or lacking (dialect) / how or what (literary)

(144) 撤 chè - to remove / to take away

(145) 闪 shǎn - to dodge / to duck out of the way / to beat it / shaken (by a fall) / to sprain / to pull a muscle / lightning / spark / a flash / to flash (across one's mind) / to leave behind / (Internet slang) (of a display of affection) "dazzlingly" saccharine

(146) 耍 shuǎ - to play with / to wield / to act (cool etc) / to display (a skill, one's temper etc)

(147) 忍 rěn - to bear / to endure / to tolerate / to restrain oneself

(148) 摇 yáo - to shake / to rock / to row / to crank

(149) 戳 chuō - to jab / to poke / to stab / (coll.) to sprain / to blunt / to f*ck (vulgar) / to stand / to stand (sth) upright / stamp / seal

(150) 晃 huàng - to sway / to shake / to wander about huǎng - to dazzle / to flash past

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langbangpop · 1 year

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Like with any language, there are several resources and tools for those looking to learn Mandarin Chinese. I know because I’ve been there. And in this guide, I’ll set out some of the main things to know when starting your language learning journey and key resources to master Chinese grammar and vocabulary

The amazing Jaenelle, who did her thesis in Mandarin Chinese and studied in China, wrote up this post for beginners.

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langbangpop · 1 year

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As you post a lot from taobao I wanted to know how to find girly kei things on there.

Glad that you asked as I wanted to make a post on that for a while now. Taobao is very prone to keyword spam in titles but the Chinese name for the overall fashion genre would be 少女风. However, as Taobao shops also love to label everything frilly as Lolita regardless of following the proper anatomy, you also can find plenty of Girly Kei pieces searching it.

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langbangpop · 1 year

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4 exercises to improve speaking skills in your target language:

Tell a story. It’s a great exercise to improve not only your speaking, but also your grammar and vocabulary. Think about what happened to you or anyone else, that you would talk about to your friends or family. Then tell a story out loud using only your target language. Telling stories is a huge part of our everyday talks, so it’s really important to practice that.

Talk about a book, a movie or whatever you want. Imagine you’re convincing someone to check out (or not to check out) a book you have already read. Review every movie or TV series you want, and don’t worry about spoiling anything or offending someone. If it’s a piece of shit, learn how to say that when talking to Queen Elizabeth II, and how to say that when chatting with someone you’d meet at the bar.

Discuss an important topic that is interesting to you. You can choose from anything: society issues, politics, economics, science, environment, culture… First try to explain it and then tell your own opinion on the subject. It’s different than the second exercise since it develops the specific vocabulary.

Read an article and summarise it. Find an article in your target language that interests you and talk about it. You can do it like you would when asked about it in school, or you can do it in more of a “sharing knowledge with my friends” manner.

Et c’est tout! You can call it “act like a youtuber” exercises. If you want, record yourself while speaking. Remember that work is the key to success.

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langbangpop · 1 year

Audio

Episode 79: Tone and Intonation? Tone and Intonation!

Spoken languages can change the pitch or melody of words to convey several different kinds of information. When the pitch affects the meaning of the whole phrase, such as rising to indicate a question in English, linguists call it intonation. When the pitch affects the meaning of an individual word, such as the difference between mother (high mā) and horse (low rising mǎ) in Mandarin, linguists call it tone.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about tone, intonation, and the combination of the two. We talk about various meanings of intonation, such as question, list, floor-holding, emphasis, enthusiasm, and sarcasm, and how different languages use different shapes of intonation contours for functions like these. We also talk about things languages do with tones, from changing meanings of individual words to indicating grammatical information like negation. Finally, we talk about the many, many options for writing tone and intonation (from highly technical proposals to fun internet creations), how tone interacts with lyrics/melody in songs, and how “high” versus “low” tone is actually a culturally-specific metaphor – could we start calling tones “thin” and “thick” or “big” and “small” instead?

Read the transcript here.

Announcements: In this month’s bonus episode, originally recorded as a liveshow on the Lingthusiasm patron Discord server, your host Gretchen gets enthusiastic about how languages do gender with special guest Dr. Kirby Conrod. We answer your questions about lots of things related to language and gender, including: gender-neutral versions of sir/ma'am and dude/bro, why linguistic gender even exists, how people are doing gender-neutral and nonbinary things across related languages, and how neopronouns are often made by recycling bits from a language’s canonical pronouns. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds! Our patrons let us keep making the main episodes free for everyone and we really appreciate every level of support. Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Original tumblr post on New Internet Grammar question marks from @pervocracy

Formal definitions of tone and intonation from the Routledge handbook

Gender Reveal episode on the social dynamics of pitch and other features with regard to gender

Falling question intonation in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and Hawaiʻi Creole English

All Things Linguistic post on transfer features of our intonation into writing

‘Tone’ by Moira Yip, for information on prevalence of tone in the worlds languages

The Four Mandarin Chinese Tones

All Things Linguistic post on understanding tone as a non-tone language speaker

Hacking Chinese post ‘7 ways to write Mandarin tones’

Zhao Yuanren/Yuen Ren Chao, such a cool Chinese linguist (he also translated Jabberwocky! and gave his daughter the name Lensey, which contains the only two syllables that are possible in the Chinese language but not actually present in any no Chinese words, thus making her name impossible to write properly in Chinese. Just like, please go read his Wikipedia article.)

Wikipedia entry for Gwoyeu Romatzyh

Wikipedia entry for Chinese tongue twisters

ChinesePod Blog post ‘How to read a Chinese poem with only one sound’

Wikipedia entry for Vietnamese tone

‘Tones in San Juan Quiahije Chatino’ by Emiliana Cruz

‘High Tone Docking in Sierra Juárez Zapotec’ by Lee Bickmore and George Aaron Broadwell

WALS entry for tone

‘The tone system of the Luanyjang dialect of Dinka’ by Bert Remijsen and D. Robert Ladd

‘Tone and intonation: A case study in two Tibetic languages’ by Teo, A., L. Gawne and M. Baese-Berk

HK Magazine post ‘Ask Mr. Know-It-All: How do you sing in a tonal language like Cantonese?’

‘The Thickness of Musical Pitch: Psychophysical Evidence for Linguistic Relativity’ by S. Dolscheid, S. Shayan, A. Majid, and D. Casasanto

Other relevant Lingthusiasm episodes:

Lingthusiasm episode ‘What Does it Mean to Sound Black? Intonation and Identity Interview with Nicole Holliday’

Lingthusiasm episode ‘Various vocal fold vibes’

Lingthusiasm episode ‘Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change’ Lingthusiasm episode ‘Making books and tools speak Chatino - Interview with Hilaria Cruz’

Lingthusiasm episode ‘What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles’

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, and our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

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langbangpop · 1 year

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吃飽睡好

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langbangpop · 1 year

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A restaurant review

English added by me :)

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