This proverb is one that describes exactly what has happed causing the current global recession. It talks about solving a problem, by creating the exact same problem elsewhere. Which is exactly what has happened in modern society shifting debt around until it got out of control.

拆东墙补西墙
chāi​ dōng ​qiáng ​bǔ ​xī ​qiáng​
pull down the east wall to repair the west wall

This Chinese proverb means that sometimes things can't be prevented. Much like my recent experience of having a broken laptop could not have been prevented. This allows thought to be taken away from the incident and how to deal with it instead. If it could not have been prevented, now look to how to deal with it.

Just a quick note to say I am back, with my new laptop after my old one broke a while ago. It is very beautiful (windows 7 seems to be working well), much faster than the old laptop and has loud inbuilt speakers.

All very impressive I'm sure, but I have been busy in my absense. I started Heisig's Remembering the Simplified Hanzi as anticipated when the book came. Although I haven't been testing myself much, past asking my girlfriend to casually quiz me on them every now and then. I have learnt the first 170 fairly confidently, though not quite sticking to the 15 a day anticpated, it seems to be going well. (I think she is accidently picking some characters up too.) There are a couple of blog posts waiting to be written about this experience. They will come soon, I will also by downloading ANKI soon.

I would like to thank all of you who dropped by in my absense. I guess I will have missed out on many a blog post. I hope to get back round to you all and read some of what I have missed out on. Here is to continuing Mandarin and blogging about it.

The interenet regulator ICANN has now allowed web addresses to be in non-Latin characters – such as Chinese, Arabic, Hindi or Russian Cyrillic script. The first of these Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) is thought to be up and running by the middle of next year.

This is quite exciting and interesting although all web addresses will still need "http://" at the beggining. It is being billed as one of the biggest changes to the interenet in the last 15 years.

The Internet had its 40th Birthday yesterday.

"Of the 1.6 billion users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," Beckstrom said at the opening of Icann's conference in Seoul, South Korea, this week. The conference approved the change today, its last day, following more than nine years of work and two years of testing.

"It's more incremental [than previous changes] but it's the single biggest change in 10 or 15 years," Beckstrom said. "It's about making the internet more global and more accessible. One world, one internet."

This is another Guest post from a friend that continues to learn Mandarin. Today's guest post is from Boyd, who runs several successful and interesting blogs related to Chinese culture. Boyd runs an Business English course for Chinese speakers. Chinese speakers My favourite of Boyd's blogs is Boyd's Bijou or his Musings on China. Here is a little about Boyd's journey Learning Mandarin.

• Forcing myself to interact with Mandarin speakers daily.
  
  
• Moving to and spending time in Mandarin-speaking areas such as Taiwan and China.
  
  
• Working in local companies and immersing myself in Mandarin-speaking environments.
• Reading Chinese-language newspapers daily (with dictionary in hand) and attempting to write letters to the editor.
  
  
• More recently, reading Chinese-language blogs and using character recognition input devices (so I can practice writing) and pinyin input to comment.

I wanted to do a proper post about learning Hanyu Pinyin and the Chinese tones.

I found this video which is remarkably helpful distinguishing the intials, finals and tones. Though it looks like it was made for children, It hink it is useful for anyone learning the language.




I will write a post when I get my new laptop with tables of the intials, the finals and the tones. With tips on how they are pronounced and equivalents in English. Hopefully this will give a little more deatail to what this video shows with how the syllables can be put together.

Just a quick message to those of you who do drop by here fairly often. A massive thank you for all helping me out with my Mandarin and I wanted to let you know that I haven't stopped and I certainly haven't quit writing here or learning Mandarin.

This Chinese proverb means to crave something, to desire it and this proverb although could be taken to mean to literally salivate. I prefer the meaning to have a strong desire or craving. 'to drool over'.

垂涎三尺
chuí xián sān chǐ
To drool over

The picture depicts my desire to get to China, and the celebration that will ensue. One of my goals is to spend Chinese New Year in China at least once.

This Chinese proverb comes with a fine story, about a wise man. It comes to mean a blessing in disguise. When smething bad happens, we must look for the good that follows. Equally when something great happens, we must be ready for something bad to happen as a consequence. Things are comparitive; the good comes with the bad.

This Chinese proverb describes someone taking advantage of a confused situation. It is similiar in use to 趁火打劫 (to loot a burning house.)

China seems to like to be the best at everything, even if it doesnt always turn out the way they had intended. (See South China Shopping Mall for example) Also see 'The Onions' satirical and funny take on a certain recent rather large parade.

Here are two Chinese building projects that are fantastic but a little crazy:

"You visit the first external ramp of the museum with your own private car, like a SAFARI, you park your car on the roof and visit by foot the internal ramp going down," said Francesco Gatti of 3Gatti, the architecture studio which won the commission.

Firstly, my Heisig book came today. Excited!!!! (due to being busy I start learning tomorrow.)

The main reason for this post is that I have been asked by several people recently, to include Heisig's suggested 1500 Traditional characters as I had eluded to them in a previous post.

Heisig proposes a method of learning where you only learn the meaning of the character and a way to remember how to write it through a story of its primitives and their meanings. Not the pronounciation in tones or the pinyin.

I include links to buy both the traditional characters (listed below) and the simplifed characters I talked about last week.

I apologise for not organising them as neatly as the last post. But I hope those that had asked for them, will be happy.

This Chinese proverb serves as a warning to us. It talks about how some people are never satisfied with what they have. It is also important to realise that happiness is found in moments not things.

This proverb is used to describe how someone might follow a fad, and as soon as it falls out of fashion change to something new.

This Chinese proverb describes the feeling of a paradox. Where something seems correct but leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition.

似是而非
sì shì ér fēi
Apparently right, Actually wrong

This Chinese proverb describes perfectly what I hope the Heisig method of learning Mandarin will do to my learning process. Intensify it.

This proverb is actually more often used in a negative way though. How one may aggravate or cause a situation to intensify through their actions.

I ordered Heisig's the 'Remembering the Simplified Hanzi' last week as you may know if you read my post about my excitement. Whilst learning with this method I am still going to be carrying on learning sentences from books and carrying on with Rosetta Stone (although I have been finding my progress in it rather slow recently.)

I won't be doing much preparation before I start this method of learning the Hanzi. Though, I did hunt out the list of all of the 1500 Hanzi characters published in his first book to see what I would be trying to overcome. (Thanks to John @ Chinese Quest for helping me find them. Also check out his great post about the Heisig method and its criticisms)

If you want to download the excel file with all the hanzi, hanyu pinyin, stroke numbers and lesson numbers for the first Heisig book (this is the ANKI file for simplified hanzi in excel essentially) I include the link here for you.

Heisig & Richardon say that these characters (shown below) are the most frequently used 1000 hanzi plus some additional Chinese characters that make sense to learn with the primitives learnt along the way.

(If you would like to download the sample chapter from their book Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1: and give this method a go yourself you can do so here. I have breifly looked over it, but havent commited to learning them yet. I will start when the book gets here.)

Below, I list the hanzi in order they are taught in Heisig & Richardson's 'Remembering Simplified Hanzi'. It really serves its purpose for me because I wanted to print them out and stick them up in my room. But also illustrates quite how many characters I aim to learn and how dizzy 1500 hanzi can make the uninitiated.

This Chinese proverb has come to mean all good things must first go through many trials and tribulations. It means that things that are good* are worth a struggle, and working towards. It is used especially in regards to love, and serves a reminder that perseverance through problems is a requirement of true love.

*(whilst good is only a comparative statement contrasted by something being made bad, it serves its purpose here.)

This is the next edition of what I now hope to become a regular part of my blog. Guest posts from Mandarin learning friends, explaining why they decided to learn Mandarin. How they have gone about the learning process and where they are now in their journey, learning Mandarin. Today's guest post is from Bill Glover founder of #MandarinMonday who has been a great help and inspiration to me in keeping Discovering Mandarin moving forwards.

In Chinese we call it… 猫头鹰 [māo tóu yīng] literally, cat headed eagle

In Chinese we call it… 电脑 [diàn nǎo] literally, electronic brain

In Chinese we call it… 手机 [shǒu jī] literally, hand device

In Chinese we call it… 黄油 [huáng yóu] literally, yellow oil

This Chinese proverb is about standing out, being so different from everything around you. This proverb is used to describe prominent people with good looks and impressive abilities among a crowd of people with lesser abilities.

This Chinese proverb relates to how one can be narrow sighted and even complacent. Nowadays it is used more widely to describe someone who is ignorant of the things around them.

This Chinese proverb comes from the Chinese creation myth about Pan Gu creating the world. It is used to describe something advancing with giant strides.

This Chinese proverb refers to how you might miscommunicate with people by aiming the communication level too high. It can mean that the method of communication you are using to talk to someone is too sophisticated and therefore will not work. This proverb implies that someone speaks or writes without considering his audience. Generally speaking, it means the speaker or writer has over-estimated his listeners or readers. In these cases, the proverb mocks the audience rather than the speaker.

This proverb can also be taken to mean 'to talk philosophy to a fool.'

As I talked about in my blog post 'My First Three Months Of Learning Mandarin' I am going to start learning with the help of Heisig method so I can recognise characters more easily.

Today I bought Heisig's book, after reading though the first section that you can download the Simplified version's First Chapter for free and if it inspires you I recommend you buy the entire book.

Greg at Mandarin Segments has now learnt over 1000 characters in a month and a half using this method as described in his blog.

I recommend this book to you all, and hope to document some of my progress with this method soon. Below are the links for this book in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters.



Also on a side note: before I started learning Mandarin I bought this book: Reading and Writing Chinese: Guide to the Chinese Writing System But sadly it is traditional characters and not the simplified, so if someone can find a good home for it and cover postage, I would be willing to send it on. Please get in touch!!

This Chinese proverb is about letting your mind run away with itself. Even becoming preoccupied or obsessed with an idea. The proverb could also be used to describe someone who often daydreams.

胡思乱想
hú ​sī ​luàn ​xiǎng
to let one's imagination run wild
​

Another couple of English Proverbs with similiar meaning are

A bee in your bonnet; and

Flights of fancy

Both those proverbs have the meaning to let thoughts preoccupy yourself and to maybe even become obsessed with those ideas.

Photo Source:
Flickr

This Chinese proverb speaks of something I am certainly cursed with sometimes, and something we all might get affected by from time to time. Overconfidence is usually shortly followed by the feeling of stupidity when you realise you were not as good as you thought you were. Sometimes this is a good dose of humility, other times it can be disastrous...

This Chinese proverb is used to describe something is continuous or that doesnt stop. I get the feeling it can describe a large flock of birds, and possibly the way I see it, this proverb could be used to talk about time...

络绎不绝
luò ​yì ​bù ​jué​
an endless stream

Photo Source:
Flickr

Three Months of Learning Mandarin

I started writing this blog just after I decided to commit and start learning Mandarin. In the three months since, I feel like I have made good if a little slow progress. Before people jump up and tell me off for thinking that I have made slow progress. It is not that it is slow, so much as, I haven’t spent and dedicated enough time (that I told myself I would) revising the things I have learnt.

I have certainly thrown myself in at the deep end by starting this blog and forcing myself to keep up with the goals I set myself. Yet, I still find myself wanting to know more, a real craving and frustration that I can’t say anything I want to.

So What I Can Say After Three Months Learning Mandarin:

Basic Greetings,
Basic Colours,
Basic Numbers,
Days of the week,
Months,
Basic Foods,
Basic Drinks,
and some basic actions (eating / running / cooking etc)
Most recently some basic items of clothing, and basic household items.

I can say : thank you, I want, I like, I love etc.

And about 70 Daily Proverbs... Although I would certainly not claim that I remember them off the top of my head.

And this is my current problem, I am learning a lot, but the memory recall of it isn’t strong currently. Hopefully it will get better with time.

Discovering Mandarin:

I intended this blog to be a collection of the things I had learnt as a reference point for myself, and for other people who are learning too. It has turned out that through the daily updates and being busy that I haven’t had time to update with things I have learnt quite as often as I had hoped.

I started out writing this blog because I did not have anyone to practise my Mandarin with, and my housemates were both learning Japanese. Truth be told, they haven’t stuck at Japanese at all and my motivation has sunk a little. The people I have met through this blog are very inspiring and have made me continue with my dream and I want to thank you all for the little bits of help you give me daily.

Learning Mandarin - What Now?

The three months I have been learning Mandarin I have learnt more than I have ever learnt in French that I learnt for four years at school. This is largely due to the fact I wanted to learn Mandarin and never wanted to learn French.

I want to carry on learning and actually stick to my commitment of daily learning. I think I am also going to try out the much talked about Heisig method of learning characters. Although, many of the drawbacks are outlined well in Chris' Mandarin Student blog post. I think I would like the ability to know that I can understand a large amount of characters much like Greg’s experience of the theory in Mandarin Segments blog.

I intend to carry on using Rosetta stone for my basic vocabulary and helping to build it up bit by bit, alongside my other research. Also using Heisig as mentioned to increase my knowledge and recollection of Chinese characters I hope that my writing and reading ability will increase with my spoken Mandarin.

So here is to another three months of Mandarin learning, and to hopefully many years of learning Mandarin happily and as excitedly as these first three months.