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Learn Chinese Through Listening to Chinese Music

Duncan — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 07:56:40 +0000

A small follow-up of our previous post on methods on how to learn Chinese by watching Chinese TV shows, another way that you can improve your Chinese is to listen to and learn Chinese songs- and don’t forget to put it all to practice by going to the KTV with your friends!

There are many online music streaming websites in China, but one of the popular ones that I enjoy to use is Google China’s 谷歌音乐 (Google Music), however I believe that this service may only work for users who are located within China, as I know that users from the US aren’t able to connect to this service.

We’ll walk through some of the basic features of the Google Music website.

Looking first at the search bar, we can see several options of searching for the music that you’re looking for:

In the search bar, you can search for songs [搜索音乐] sou1suo3 yin1yue4, or you can search the website [搜索网页] sou1suo3 wang3ye4:

[输入歌手] shu1ru4 ge1shou3: Enter singer’s name

[专辑] zhuan1ji2: Enter album name

[歌曲名称或歌词] ge1qu3ming2cheng1 huo4 ge1ci2: Enter song name or lyrics

You can also browse the website by looking through the menu:

[首页] shou3ye4: Home page

[排行榜] pai2hang2bang3: Browse by top charts

[音乐分类] yin1yue4 fen1lei4: Browse by song genre

[挑歌] tiao2ge1: Customized selection

[歌手库] ge1shou3ku4: Browse by artist name

[私房歌] si1fang2 ge1: Artist’s recommendations

On the homepage, the main view lets you browse by songs of different languages:

[华语榜单] hua2yu3 bang4dan1: Chinese Songs

[欧美榜单] ou1mei3 bang4dan1: Europe and American Songs

[日韩榜单] ri4han2 bang4dan1: Japanese and Korean Songs

You can also see a listing of new songs, and popular songs of each language category, and on the very far right, a listing of the popular artists.

[新歌] xin1ge1: New songs

[热歌] re4ge1: Popular songs

[歌手] ge1shou3: Artists

Hopefully this gives you a good start on browsing Google China’s Music service, and will help you on your way in improving your Chinese language learning. [Google Music]

If you have any other popular Chinese music streaming websites that you like to use, be sure to share them with the rest of us in the comments!

Chinese Character Writing Competition – Top Finalists

Duncan — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 12:34:54 +0000

This past week we had a chinese character writing competition among our students at school. Students were allowed to write either a short essay, or just characters from their new vocabulary list from their lessons. After our students had submitted their entries, teachers and fellow students were given the opportunity to vote for which student had the best written characters.

Congratulations to Ruth for taking first place!

For those who are looking to improve their Chinese character writing, one of the most important aspects is understanding the stroke order of Chinese characters. If you’re unsure of how a character should be written, most online Chinese-English tools will have an animation of how particular characters should be written.

The three most popular among our students is Skritter – a web app that helps you learn Chinese characters fast, nciku and MDBG, which they all show the stroke order of characters.

1. Skritter is a web app that helps you learn Chinese characters, with a focus on writing and vocabulary, using handwriting recognition and advanced spaced repetition scheduling algorithms, Skritter is the most efficient way to learn those thousands of characters you’re going to need to tackle one of these languages. They stated that you can learn a new character every 192 seconds and remember 95% of what you learn. I heard very positive feedback from our current students, you can sign up for an account to use this awesome tool for two weeks for free, no harm to find out. Click to get your two week for free.

2. On nciku, you can see the stroke order of a character by clicking on the button to the right.

3. For MDBG, the stroke order feature isn’t as obvious, but you can access it by clicking on the yellow brush image to the left of the character.

If you have any other tips that have helped you learn and write Chinese characters, please do share them in the comments!

Learning Chinese Through Listening – Stream Chinese TV Dramas Online

Duncan — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:23:12 +0000

The three mantras that seem to be drilled into any student trying to learn the Chinese language is: “多看, 多说, 多听” (duo4kan4, duo4shuo4, duo4ting1), meaning: “read a lot, speak a lot, and listen a lot”, of Chinese that is.

Moving to China to live or study is one way to practice these three directives, however, probably not an option everyone can take. One other way to help with your Chinese learning is to pick up a Chinese TV drama to follow, and I’ve heard many-a-story of friends learning to speak Chinese, or a dialect of Chinese by watching a Chinese TV series.

Fortunately, there are many options and methods of finding Chinese TV shows to follow online, and which also allow you to stream the shows online for free as well.

MySoju.com and YellowCinema.com are two popular websites that are solely dedicated to streaming Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) TV dramas online, and let you browse through shows by popularity.

Check out each of these website’s Mainland TV Drama sections:

Popular Mainland Dramas on MySoju

Mainland Dramas on YellowCinema

Zhongwen: A Chinese Pop Up Translator for Chrome

Duncan — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:48:30 +0000

Here’s another one for all you Chinese-learning Google Chrome users out there- this follows suit after our previous post about the Perapera-kun Chinese translator plugin for Firefox. Likewise, Zhongwen is a Google Chrome extension that brings up pop-up translations of Chinese characters and words from webpages that you are browsing.

The Zhongwen plugin translates both traditional and simplified Chinese characters into English, and uses the popular CEDICT Chinese English dictionary to do so. Most importantly, it also shows the Hanyu Pinyin along both the simplified and traditional characters.

Installing the Zhongwen plugin is quite a bit easier than the Perapera-kun plugin. All you need to do is navigate to the Zhongwen plugin page and click install; no separate dictionary file installation is required. Activating the plugin for use just requires you to click the plugin button in your browser, and mousing over Chinese characters will automatically call the translation popup to show.

To get started with the Zhongwen Extension:

1. Get the Google Chrome browser

2. Install the Zhongwen Extension

Happy surfing!

功夫梦 – The Karate Kid Streaming Online

Duncan — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:34:43 +0000

For those who have yet to watch the latest 2010 remake of the 1984 “The Karate Kid”, you can stream it for free through QiYi.com (奇艺 qi2yi4); though I feel that the movie title should be changed to “The Kung Fu Kid”, since the Chinese title of the movie is 功夫梦 (gong1fu meng4 – aka: dreaming of Kung Fu), and the martial art in the movie is no longer the Japanese Karate, but the Chinese Kung Fu- but that’s just me =)

I hadn’t heard of QiYi before, so I did a bit of research, and I found out that the difference between qiyi.com and other mainland online streaming video services, such as tudou.com and youku.com, is that QiYi aims to gather all of its video content through legal means through several copyright intermediary sources. This also allows QiYi to obtain higher quality and resolution videos, which is pretty nice if you’re wanting to project a movie on a screen to watch with friends.

Here’s the direct link to The Karate Kid on QiYi.com
(http://www.qiyi.com/dianying/20100725/n26619.html)

By the way, if you are those who would like to learn Chinese by watching movies, I’d recommend a product launched recently, it’s great option for those who wanted to learn Chinese in a casual and fun way.

Traveling to Beijing – What to bring on your trip?

Duncan — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:18:23 +0000

I never enjoy packing for a trip overseas- there’s always the constant wonder of: “did I over-pack?”, or “am I forgetting something?” After overhearing some friends talking about the ‘must-have’ items for their trip here to Beijing, I thought it would be good to have a quick post highlighting some things that we were glad to bring over, or wished that we had stuck in our suitcase.

Medication:

Starting off with keeping your health in check, it’s recommended that you bring a small bag of basic medications such as Aspirin, Tylenol, Pepto Bismol, Imodium, NyQuil/DayQuil, band-aids, and Neosporin. It is possible to get most of these drugs (or local forms of them) in Beijing, it’s best to have a small stash ready for when you need to use it. It’s no fun trying to run around Beijing looking for medication when you’re already feeling under the weather.

Hygiene:

I want to say that it isn’t a huge issue regarding finding hygiene products here in Beijing, but then again, I’m a guy and I use pretty much anything that I can find, as long as it gets me clean. I have heard that specific western skin products and lotions aren’t available here though, so if you have specific dermatology needs, then it’d be best to bring your lotions from back home.

One thing that does need mentioning though, is that dental floss is somewhat hard to find in the local marts. So unless you are fortunate to have a BHG supermarket or Carrefour close by your apartment in Beijing, it could be hard to come by.

Another seemingly common item for westerners, that (unfortunately) isn’t commonly available here in Beijing are deodarants and anti-perspirants. It’s quite a pity that this isn’t a cultural norm here, since the summer heat brings out the worst odors in the crowded public transportation systems in Beijing.

Clothing:

It’s fine to pack light regarding clothing, since you can always pick up more attire here if needed; you just won’t find your usual Gap, Banana Republic, J. Crew, etc. stores here- though Beijing does have it’s Gap equivalent called Uniqlo.

The seasons to be aware of in Beijing are summer and winter. The summers are swelteringly hot and humid, so you’ll want to make sure to pack short and t-shirts; but the winters are frigidly cold, so you’ll want to make sure to pack one set of base layers, and outer layers. You can purchase thermal under-layers almost anywhere here, and if you’re not planning to be in Beijing for many winters, you can also pick up cheap knock-off winter gear at the fake markets (YaShow [雅秀 ya3xiu4] and Silk Street [秀水街 xiu4shui3jie1]) that will last you a year or so. However, if you’re going to need something to last you through several winters, it’s best to pick up a good jacket or outer-layer back at home, since many of the brand name stores here are marked up considerably.

Something that also needs mentioning, however, is that size labeling here doesn’t match up with size labeling in the US, so be sure to try on whatever you’re wanting to purchase. Also, US extra-large sizes and tall-and-long sizes aren’t easy to come by here either. Note that this also applies to large shoe sizes. You have been warned.

Electronics and Internet:

The general rule about electronics is: “all (name-brand) computers and electronics (MP3 payers, cameras, phones etc.) are marked up by at least $100USD [and smaller electronics, marked up by respective amounts]“, so purchase whatever electronics you need from home, though you can also head over to Hong Kong to make any electronics purchases as well if you’re already planning to make a trip there.

If you’re a Facebook and Twitter addict, and must have access to these social networks, getting set up with a VPN is the way to go- you can still purchase your VPN after you arrive in China, though it would be wise to start reading up on some of the services available. Three of the popular VPN services are: Strong VPN, WiTopia, and Invisible Browsing VPN.

Additional Items:

Two books that I would recommend to help you hit the ground running when you arrive, are the Insider’s Guide to Beijing, and the Mandarin Phrasebook.

Also, get plugged in with other Beijing expats at: theBeijinger, Chinese-Forums, and City Weekend Beijing

That’s got most things covered. If you think that we’ve missed anything out, please do share with the rest of us in the comments!

Perapera-kun: A Chinese Pop Up Translator for Firefox

Duncan — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:09:55 +0000

I wanted to highlight an awesome translator pop-up tool for those who use the Firefox internet browser, called Perapera-kun. Perapera-kun is an extension add-on for Firefox that acts as a pop-up translator for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese, into English or German. I haven’t tried out the Korean, Japanese, or German dictionaries, but the Chinese-to-English dictionary provides translated meanings of words, and also the pinyin pronunciation of the word. This is a great tool to have if you’re wanting to venture into the Chinese net-space to browse some local BBS forums or news sites.

To get started with Perapera-kun:

1. Get the Firefox browser

2. Install the Perapera-kun add-on

3. Install the Chinese-to-English dictionary file

(Note: The Perapera-kun website is hosted on a WordPress site, which is blocked by the Chinese firewall. Here is a direct link to the Chinese-to-English dictionary file)

Happy surfing!

Wubi and Pinyin – Which Chinese Character Input Method?

Duncan — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:21:42 +0000

Writing Chinese characters by hand is a confusing task of memorizing strokes and characters, but the use of computers has made it slightly easier- perhaps an unfortunate blessing since I’ve heard time and time again from local coworkers how their grasp of writing out Chinese characters has regressed because they only now need to recognize characters due to their constant use of Chinese input methods. There are many types of input methods available; some which are based on pronunciation, while others on character structure, character set or a combination of pronunciation and character structure. I’d like to talk about two of the popular Chinese character input method editors (IME): Pinyin and Wubi.

Pinyin (拼音输入法)

The Pinyin IME (拼音输入法 pin1yin1 shu1ru4fa3) allows users to input Chinese characters by typing in the pinyin of a Chinese character, and the Pinyin IME then presents the user with a list of characters with that pinyin pronunciation. The advantage of the pinyin input method is that it’s very easy to learn for Mandarin speakers, since those who are familiar with pinyin will already be able to input Chinese characters with almost no training, which is not the case with other input methods. The Pinyin IME is very popular in mainland China, since children are already required to learn pinyin in school. However the Pinyin IME was created based on the pronunciation of standard-Mandarin so native Mandarin speakers who speak with accents will have a hard time distinguishing a number of similar sounding syllables, such as c and ch, s and sh, z and zh, n and ng, h or hu and f, or n and l. Moreover, Chinese dialect speakers who don’t know pinyin, or speak Mandarin, will not be able to use this input method at all.

Wubizixing (五笔字型输入法)

The Wubi IME, short for The Wubizixing (五笔字型输入法 wu3bi3zi4xing2shu1ru4fa3) allows users to input Chinese characters based on the structure of characters rather than their pronunciation, making it possible to enter Chinese characters even when the user doesn’t know the pronunciation, or if the user speaks a dialect of Chinese. As the name suggets, the Wubi 五笔 (wu3bi3) IME divides the keyboard into five regions, which is assigned a certain type of character stroke, which allows for the user to efficiently write characters with at most 4 keystrokes. Another efficiency in using Wubi over phonetic character input methods, is that users don’t have to select characters from a list of similar homo-phonic choices, and so there’s a greater ability for a Wubi typist to ‘touch’ type without having to look at the computer screen. However, a major drawback to learning Wubi is that it has a high learning curve, and requires memorization and practice for a user to use it proficiently.

Which Input Method?

My recommendation for choosing between these two Chinese character input methods would be to consider your goal for typing Chinese. If you aim to be a professional Chinese typist, and need to input Chinese characters at a high rate, then it may be well worth your time to learn the Wubi IME system. However, if you are a standard-Mandarin speaker, and only need to input Chinese for casual computer use such as online chatting and surfing, then the Pinyin IME system will be more than sufficient for your needs.

Are you a well versed Chinese typist? Share your views on these two Chinese character input methods, or any other input method that you may be using already, in the comments below.

Learn Chinese Blog | Learn to speak Chinese » mandarin

Learn Chinese Through Listening to Chinese Music

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