Central Dragon Mandarin

07/09/2023

Ancient Dying Chinese Dialect at the Toronto Fringe festival! This is about Hokkien. Sounds interesting! Second link is an interview with the creator, Chantal Lim.

https://www.blogto.com/events/ancient-dying-chinese-dialect-at-toronto-fringe-toronto/

https://www.sesayarts.com/chantal-lim/

As for getting into comedy, I didn’t so much decide to pursue it as fall backwards into it…” Interview with imprand storyteller Chantal Lim

02/02/2022

Tips to improve your language learning. Some good ideas here. The first one is very important as like any long-term training, regular practice is important.

Make up your own language habits, it is the fastest way to learn a new language! Language habits can make your learning more effective.

02/02/2022

Chinese Wordle using idioms. Nice little game to check out and a good learning tool. And even without knowing the idioms, it's still possible to guess the final idiom as seen in the example below which was my first time to hear of this idiom. - JC.

cu4 bu4 ji2 fang2 = to be taken by surprise

LINK to Chinese Wordle site.
https://pinyincaichengyu.com/

Idiom explanation:
https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E7%8C%9D%E4%B8%8D%E5%8F%8A%E9%98%B2

12/05/2021

There are different ways to keep 'tally marks' in different parts of the world. In China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, it's does in groups of 5 strokes that make a character 正 (pronounced zhèng), which means “correct” or “true/right.

The Canada/US/AUS/NZ system is different than the one in France/South America. Interesting! - JC

https://www.digmandarin.com/chinese-tally-mark.html

12/02/2021

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-01/china-says-85-of-citizens-will-use-mandarin-by-2025

Beijing (AP) -- China is launching an aggressive campaign to promote Mandarin, saying 85% of its citizens will use the national language by 2025.

05/24/2021

Tonight, I cooked and ate Chinese Oil Vegetable ( #5 on the list A.K.A Yao Choy).

油菜

Yau choy (translated from Chinese to mean “oil vegetable”) has dark-green leaves and pale, thin stems, and sometimes is attached with edible yellow flowers. Use yau choy the same way as bok choy — steamed or stir-fried.

I love the vegetable section in Asian grocery stores because there are so many greens to choose from, especially when I’m tired of kale and chard. But for those who haven’t cooked a lot with Asian greens, the produce aisle might be a bit overwhelming, especially since the greens can go by multip...

05/22/2021

This is where Chinese characters are used now (dark green) and where they were formerly used (light green). While Vietnam and North Korea I knew about, I didn't realize Mongolia had previously used Chinese characters.

05/22/2021

I've been looking for a good way to explain the origins of the written Chinese numbers (1-9) to my students.

I like this review and commentary as it shows explanations from oracle bones and provides some interesting commentary. It also reinforces that there is some uncertainty for why some of the symbols are the way they are: for example, the vertical line for the number 7 is about "cutting" the numbers (e.g. between 6 and 8, or as an 'extreme number'). 七

Also, the origins for the number four 四 seem a little uncertain and could use more scholarly input (rather than being 4 lines, why is there the number eight 八 in a box?

Main Question: What is the glyph origin of the Chinese number characters (一二三四五六七八九十百千)? Related question: Why isn't 四 four lines? (the origin of 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九) I decide to write a Q&A-st...

04/04/2021

It was a great day of Mandarin teaching! One student was so impressed with what he's been learning in Mandarin, not only did he ask me to teach him Japanese, and also Cantonese (which I'm not qualified to teach though I think I'll share ways to order dim sum in a resto during a future lesson), today he asked me to teach him Korean!

03/20/2021

I've been looking for ways to simplify teaching tones to beginning Mandarin students. Thought of finding English expressions that match the Chinese tones. For example....'And?' in question format is pretty close to the 2nd tone. I had my students say this if they forget what the 2nd tone is or need to re-centre on what it sounds like.

And? ... as if you're waiting for someone to say something else.

03/08/2021

Here is a short 5-minute introduction video on what a tonal language is. Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai, Yoruba all qualify. And I've noticed that Japanese is partially tonal in that a few words' meanings change if the intonation changes. Interestingly (e.g. paper vs. god).

In this video you will learn what a tonal language is. We will talk about Chinese tones and others.🇵🇱 wersja polska: https://youtu.be/dicGddtzay4🇪🇸 ver...

02/09/2021

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