Experiences and lessons.
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Category Archives: learning
PROMPT: Curious
Everything… except mid-18th century Dunwich Haberdashery.
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BOOK: “Old Master Q Chinese Idioms LOL 5” by Wong Chak
Old Master Q Chinese Idioms LOL 5 by Wong ChakMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Instagram – Ng Hing Kee
This collection of chengyu (four-character Chinese idioms) are presented by means of humorous comic strips. Each idiom takes up one page, which includes: the chengyu in both Traditional Chinese characters and pinyin (Romanized phoneticization,) very brief literal and colloquial definitions as well as a statement of the general circumstances under which the idiom might be used, and a four to six panel comic strip that shows the reader a humorous scenario for which the idiom is applicable.
The book is divided into five parts, and at the end of each part there are a few pages of exercises to test the reader’s understanding of that section’s material. (Answer keys are provided — upside-down at the end of each quiz.)
As someone learning Chinese, I found this book to be useful. However, it doesn’t require any Chinese literacy to learn. If you’re interested in compact bits of wisdom or quotes, you may find this book worthwhile.
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BOOKS: “Rise of the Monkey King” ed. / trans. Jeff Pepper & Xiao Hui Wang
The Rise of the Monkey King: A Story in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin, 600 Word Vocabulary Level by Jeff PepperMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – Imagin8
This is an abridged and linguistically simplified telling of the first two chapters of Journey to the West. It contains the birth story of Sun Wukong (i.e. the Monkey King) and describes his studies with a sage in an attempt to become immortal.
As someone learning Chinese but at a point where I can only read grammatically and lexically simple content, it’s not easy to find reading material that is both fun to read and readable. The discovery of this series was a godsend. It’s hard to get more thrilling than the story of the Monkey King, and it helps that I’ve already read translations – and so have a bit of context to piece together challenging sentences and to avoid the misunderstandings that can arise when reading a new language. It’s much easier to be a disciplined reader when reading something that is neither a children’s book nor the life story of a preternaturally typical person [which is the usual adult equivalent of a beginner level reader.]
I was pleased by how this book was laid out. Often reading material for learners puts the Chinese characters (hanzi,) the Romanized phonetics (pinyin,) and the English translation all in adjacent rows. While this has its advantages, it also makes it too easy to cheat by eye saccade and not be reading as well as one thinks one is. This book does have all three elements, but it alternates paragraphs of hanzi and pinyin but then puts the translation in an unbroken format after the Mandarin. The book also has a glossary of the book’s vocabulary.
Whether you’ve already read Journey to the West or not, if you’re just learning to read Simplified Chinese, I’d highly recommend this book.
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PROMPT: Authority
Absolutely nothing. I’m more of a mile-wide-inch-deep type than a mile-deep-inch-wide type, which is to say a generalist rather than a specialist. So, I do have some insight into how to think about thinking about matters diverse and sundry.
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PROMPT: Teacher
What makes a teacher great?
If students choose the teacher, that is an excellent first indicator. In the typical top-down selection of teachers, it is easy to produce an abundance of shitty teachers. Of course, there is still the danger of charismatic bullshitters and easy people-pleasers, problems ever-present. But among students (as opposed to followers) they usually reveal themselves in time.
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PROMPT: Friend
What quality do you value most in a friend?
The ability to converse intelligently on a wide range of subjects.
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PROMPT: Talk
I’d like to be able to talk to anyone in Mandarin soon, unfortunately my pace of learning is so glacial as to preclude talking “soon” — at least on broad and undefined topics. [Note: When I say “anyone” I mean anyone who speaks Mandarin and has interesting things to say.]
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PROMPT: Job… for a day
“Maker of pies” leaps to mind, but then it occurs to me that any baker who worked at it for just a day would be the worst. It seems to me that any job that is interesting would be one that a person would be terrible at if that person did it for only a day. Conversely, any job one could successfully do for just one day would be tedious and unrewarding.
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“A learned man came to me once” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]
A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way, -- come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost."
Tiger Riding for Beginners 