Life is good...
Feb. 16th, 2007 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkan...for I discovered, upon visiting the public library today, that free Chinese classes are on offer. You may imagine the speed with which I signed up. I will now be having twice as much instruction as I was previously. やった！
On a related note, my long held belief that the phrase book method of foreign language learning is utter shite was reinforced today. I'd been going through a series of Chinese language tapes my father had, as classes were canceled this week thanks to the rotten weather, and discovered that a given character's tone will change based on the other tones surrounding it; a fact which my professor has yet to mention. This goes a looong way toward explaining the problems I was having with the 2nd tone (for instance); I've spent the better part of four weeks trying to listen for sounds that aren't actually there. This is something I would not have done had the rules for tone changes been clearly explained to me at the outset, instead of the professor giving us the tone of each individual character and then the entire phrase or sentence without mentioning that those tones don't alter. Mystery solved. But still, grr.
That will be all.
On a related note, my long held belief that the phrase book method of foreign language learning is utter shite was reinforced today. I'd been going through a series of Chinese language tapes my father had, as classes were canceled this week thanks to the rotten weather, and discovered that a given character's tone will change based on the other tones surrounding it; a fact which my professor has yet to mention. This goes a looong way toward explaining the problems I was having with the 2nd tone (for instance); I've spent the better part of four weeks trying to listen for sounds that aren't actually there. This is something I would not have done had the rules for tone changes been clearly explained to me at the outset, instead of the professor giving us the tone of each individual character and then the entire phrase or sentence without mentioning that those tones don't alter. Mystery solved. But still, grr.
That will be all.
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no subject
on 2007-02-16 04:46 am (UTC)I am completely lost with all this talk of tones. Can you explain it, or is something you can only understand after application?
no subject
on 2007-02-16 04:53 pm (UTC)Short answer: yes. (To both.)
And the longer version: tones are differences in pitch. In English these differences give different connotations. Say "no" with your voice falling and you sound incredulous and slightly scandalized. Say "no" in a singsong voice and you're disagreeing, but not in an angry way. Say "no" with a rising pitch and you sound like you're losing your patience with someone who isn't listening. Same word, but the feeling is different in each case. In Chinese however, the pitch differences distinguish between different words, not just connotation. So you're uttering the same syllable, but the pitch changes its meaning from one word to another.
Having thouroughly confused you, I will now send you to someone who explains it much better than I (http://www.wku.edu/~shizhen.gao/Chinese101/pinyin/tones.htm).