Wanted in China: More Male Teachers, to Make Boys Men - The New York Times --Feb. 7, 2016
Lin Wei is a sixth-grade teacher at a primary school in Fuzhou, China. Chinese educators are worried that a shortage of male teachers has produced a generation of timid, self-centered students. Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesFUZHOU, China — The history class began with a lesson on being manly.
Lin Wei, 27, one of a handful of male sixth-grade teachers at a primary school here, has made a habit of telling stories about warlords who threw witches into rivers and soldiers who outsmarted Japanese troops. “Men have special duties,” he said. “They have to be brave, protect women and take responsibility for wrongdoing.”
Worried that a shortage of male teachers has produced a generation of timid, self-centered and effeminate boys, Chinese educators are working to reinforce traditional gender roles and values in the classroom.
In Zhengzhou, a city on the Yellow River, schools have asked boys to sign petitions pledging to act like “real men.” In Shanghai, principals are trying boys-only classes with courses like martial arts, computer repair and physics. In Hangzhou, in eastern China, educators have started a summer camp called “West Point Boys,” complete with taekwondo classes and the motto, “We bring out the men in boys.”
Education officials across China are aggressively recruiting male teachers, as the Chinese news media warn of a need to “salvage masculinity in schools.” The call for more male-oriented education has prompted a broader debate about gender equality and social identity at a time when the country’s leaders are seeking to make the labor market more meritocratic.
It also reflects a general anxiety about boys in Chinese society. While boys outnumber girls as a result of thelongstanding one-child policy and a cultural preference for sons, they consistently lag in academic performance. Some parents worry about their sons’ prospects in an uncertain economy, so they are putting their hopes in male role models who they believe impart lessons on assertiveness, courage and sacrifice.
The view that there is an overabundance of female teachers that has had a negative effect on boys has, perhaps predictably, led to a backlash. Parents have accused schools of propagating rigid concepts of masculinity and gender norms, and female educators have denounced efforts to attract more male teachers with lavish perks as sexist. (Read more here)
Lin Wei, 27, one of a handful of male sixth-grade teachers at a primary school here, has made a habit of telling stories about warlords who threw witches into rivers and soldiers who outsmarted Japanese troops. “Men have special duties,” he said. “They have to be brave, protect women and take responsibility for wrongdoing.”
Worried that a shortage of male teachers has produced a generation of timid, self-centered and effeminate boys, Chinese educators are working to reinforce traditional gender roles and values in the classroom.
In Zhengzhou, a city on the Yellow River, schools have asked boys to sign petitions pledging to act like “real men.” In Shanghai, principals are trying boys-only classes with courses like martial arts, computer repair and physics. In Hangzhou, in eastern China, educators have started a summer camp called “West Point Boys,” complete with taekwondo classes and the motto, “We bring out the men in boys.”
Education officials across China are aggressively recruiting male teachers, as the Chinese news media warn of a need to “salvage masculinity in schools.” The call for more male-oriented education has prompted a broader debate about gender equality and social identity at a time when the country’s leaders are seeking to make the labor market more meritocratic.
It also reflects a general anxiety about boys in Chinese society. While boys outnumber girls as a result of thelongstanding one-child policy and a cultural preference for sons, they consistently lag in academic performance. Some parents worry about their sons’ prospects in an uncertain economy, so they are putting their hopes in male role models who they believe impart lessons on assertiveness, courage and sacrifice.
The view that there is an overabundance of female teachers that has had a negative effect on boys has, perhaps predictably, led to a backlash. Parents have accused schools of propagating rigid concepts of masculinity and gender norms, and female educators have denounced efforts to attract more male teachers with lavish perks as sexist. (Read more here)
中文在线学习平台ChineseBon中文帮在北京上线 -- Feb. 2, 2016
From: http://news.xinhuanet.com/tech/2016-01/29/c_128684632.htm
1月29日,社交化中文在线学习平台ChineseBon中文帮 (http://chinesebon.com/) 在北京上线, 该平台将服务于全球中文教师和中文学习者,汇聚行业资源,形成中文网络教学模式与国际化教学产业链。
1月29日,社交化中文在线学习平台ChineseBon中文帮 (http://chinesebon.com/) 在北京上线, 该平台将服务于全球中文教师和中文学习者,汇聚行业资源,形成中文网络教学模式与国际化教学产业链。
随着中国经济的发展,学中文正在变成一件时髦的事情。“中文热”在很多外贸商务人士、国外学者、游客和年轻人中盛行。据统计,目前全球有1亿中文学习者。但是,他们分布范围广、学习目的多样化、文化背景差异大、多语种,也为中文教学增加了难度。
据多年从事人文对外教学的业内人士介绍,目前国外部分高等院校开设了汉语课程、中文学校等,但海外本土化教材匮乏,汉语教师严重不足,教学方式上比较单一;而国内优质资源大部分集中在高校,教学内容创新度不足,不能完全满足市场需求;同时民营对外汉语教学机构招生渠道匮乏,教学质量参差不齐。
是“互联网+”的趋势为对外汉语带来了新的发展契机,基于社交化的中文在线学习平台“ChineseBon中文帮”应运而生。该平台由中国外文局、国家汉办、国家侨办指导,汇聚中文对外教育行业资源,以C2C为核心模式,支持O2O服务,以视频化、移动化、社交化产品理念,使中文学习的用户体验全面升级。
平台汇集全球中文教师,并标明老师特色和专长,学生可以通过搜索轻松找到适合自己的老师。平台精心设置数百门学习课程,并基于数据分析,向学习者推送最适用的学习资料。对于初学者或口语学习者,平台提供“语言交换”服务,在轻松交流中快乐学习。(For more, please click here)
据多年从事人文对外教学的业内人士介绍,目前国外部分高等院校开设了汉语课程、中文学校等,但海外本土化教材匮乏,汉语教师严重不足,教学方式上比较单一;而国内优质资源大部分集中在高校,教学内容创新度不足,不能完全满足市场需求;同时民营对外汉语教学机构招生渠道匮乏,教学质量参差不齐。
是“互联网+”的趋势为对外汉语带来了新的发展契机,基于社交化的中文在线学习平台“ChineseBon中文帮”应运而生。该平台由中国外文局、国家汉办、国家侨办指导,汇聚中文对外教育行业资源,以C2C为核心模式,支持O2O服务,以视频化、移动化、社交化产品理念,使中文学习的用户体验全面升级。
平台汇集全球中文教师,并标明老师特色和专长,学生可以通过搜索轻松找到适合自己的老师。平台精心设置数百门学习课程,并基于数据分析,向学习者推送最适用的学习资料。对于初学者或口语学习者,平台提供“语言交换”服务,在轻松交流中快乐学习。(For more, please click here)
當選總統 蔡英文晚會致詞全文 Speech by President-elect Tsai party
民主進步黨總統候選人蔡英文以大幅領先票數贏得2016年總統大選,她晚間從競選總部走出向支持群眾發表談話。 聯合報記者黃義書/攝影
民主進步黨總統候選人蔡英文以大幅領先票數贏得2016年總統大選,她晚間從競選總部走出向支持群眾發表談話,她說,「我拚了命,也要把各位的淚水轉化成笑容。各位,我們都做到了」。蔡英文向支持者發表談話全文如下:
各位現場的朋友,各位電視機前面的好朋友,網路上收看直播的年輕朋友,我們全體的台灣人民,大家好,大家晚安。
我們的競選搭檔陳建仁院士,競選總部主任委員陳菊市長,還有我們所有的競選總部的同仁,各位辛苦了。我們今天很高興,我們幾位前副總統和前主席,一起來參加這歷史的時刻。
我說過,我拚了命,也要把各位的淚水轉化成笑容。各位,我們都做到了。
所以,如果你的眼中還有淚水,請大家把它擦乾。我們一起用快快樂樂的心情,來迎接台灣新時代的開始,好不好?
我的工作同仁告訴我,今天我們的這個現場,從中午開始,就有支持者坐在這裡等開票了。
大家有歡喜某?大家有歡喜某?
我知道,這些年來,你們對蔡英文有一個小小的抱怨。就是大家認為,我太過理性,從來不公開表達自己的情緒。所以,在這裡,我要跟大家說,如果大家真的很高興,我們就大聲為台灣歡呼一次,好不好?
我們一起為台灣完成了一件重要的事,這是我此時此刻,心裡的感覺。我的心情其實很平靜,因為,我知道,未來我的責任將會很重。感謝大家對蔡英文、陳建仁的支持,感謝大家對民主進步黨的支持,我再一次代表民主進步黨,向全體台灣人民,致上我最深的謝意。
感謝所有的台灣人民,我們一起,完成了台灣民主史上第三次的政黨輪替。我們點亮了台灣,我們再一次用行動告訴全世界,台灣等於民主,民主等於台灣。
我要謝謝我的兩位競爭對手,朱主席和宋主席,我們一起為台灣的民主政治,寫下了歷史新頁。我了解他們對這個國家的期待。選舉有輸贏,但是,最終勝利的永遠是台灣的民主。在這裡,我誠摯地邀請他們,這個國家,未來改革的路上,不能沒有你們。
我還要謝謝我的工作同仁,我們的後援會,我們的志工。你們犧牲假日,犧牲陪伴家人的時間,無論晴天雨天,就算生病感冒,都跟我並肩作戰。你們是最強的團隊。能跟各位一起走完著最後一里路,是我這一生最大的榮幸。
我還要特別謝謝這次競選總部中年輕的工作同仁們,尤其是黨工。過去,這麼多年來,我心中一直有一句話想跟大家說。這個黨曾經失敗過,但是,我一直告訴我自己,總有一天,我要讓大家穿著這個黨的制服,走到外面的時候,心中是充滿著信心和責任感。我們做到了。
接下來,我要謝謝每一位在這次選舉中,貢獻小額捐款,用小豬或其他方法,出錢出力的好朋友。因為你們,民進黨再一次確認,我們就是台灣人民的政黨。
投票是一天,選舉是幾個月,不過,改變這個國家,卻是每一天都必須持續的工作。今天晚上,我們可以慶祝,各位可以高高興興的慶祝。明天太陽升起的時候,我們就要為這個國家,負起改革的責任。
此時此刻的台灣,有很多老人家,正在等待一個更健全的長照系統。
此時此刻的台灣,台灣的年輕人,正在等待一個更公平的住宅環境。
我們不能忘記,還有很多中小企業,正在等待升級轉型的契機。
我們也不能忘記,還有一個快要破產的年金制度,正在等待我們去挽救。
我們更沒有忘記,維持台海安全及兩岸關係的和平和穩定,是大家共同的期待,也是兩岸要一起努力的事。「維持現狀」,是我對台灣人民以及對國際社會的承諾,我一定說到做到。我也向大家保證,未來我處理兩岸關係,會積極溝通,不挑釁,也不會有意外。
親愛的台灣人民,民主的勝利,是我們共同創造的;改革,也要由我們一起來推動。我們將會面對很多挑戰,改革的過程一定會很辛苦,但無論是怎麼樣的磨難,台灣人從來不曾被擊倒過。
改革的第一里路,已經開始。只要我們相互扶持,堅定走下去,一個更自由、更民主、更繁榮、更公義的國家,就在我們眼前。對不對?
二月一號,新國會即將開始。民進黨會優先處理人民關心的法案。改革的能量要放到最大,同時,改革的動盪會減到最小。
民主進步黨,現在是國會的多數黨。我們單獨過半,我們就要兌現對選民的承諾,我們一定要兌現對選民的承諾,改革絕對不能剩一半。
這是台灣第一次的國會政黨輪替。我們身上的責任,比以前沉重。我再一次強調,民進黨不會整碗捧去。我們會繼續開放民進黨,努力傾聽那些沒有進入國會的聲音。同時,我們也會和包括國民黨、親民黨和時代力量在內的所有政黨,一起為了改革全力以赴。
在這裡,我要以總統當選人的身分,也要以黨主席的身分,對民主進步黨全體黨公職人員,下達第一個命令,謙卑、謙卑、再謙卑。
台灣人民,不分藍綠、不分政黨、不分族群,在新時代裡,一起為改革這個國家努力。這就是蔡英文的承諾。這就是蔡英文的保證。
昨天的選前之夜,我看到已經98歲的史明歐吉桑,在那麼冷的天氣裡,淋著雨,還來到舞台前面,為我加油。他說話已經很困難,但是我知道,歐吉桑是要告訴我,做台灣的總統,要有志氣,要有決心,要堅強。
我在這裡要跟歐吉桑說,我一定會堅強。面對台灣的困境,我每一分鐘都會堅強。蔡英文堅強,台灣人民才會跟著我一起堅強。台灣是一個民主自由的國家。這個國家偉大的地方,就在於每一個人都有做自己的權利。這個國家,保障所有國民,自由選擇的權利。在這裡,我要以總統當選人的身分,鄭重呼籲,任何人,都必須尊重這份自由。
今天的選舉結果,是向世界證明,台灣人就是自由人,台灣人就是民主人。只要我當總統的一天,我會努力,讓我的國民,沒有一個人必須為他們的認同道歉。
各位親愛的台灣人民,新時代已經開始。「天色漸漸光,這裡有一群人,為了守護我們的夢,變成更加勇敢的人」。
我們就是這一群人。經過這次選舉,我們已經更加勇敢。明天開始,我們要繼續為我們的手足同胞,為我們的下一代而努力。
再一次謝謝所有現場的好朋友,謝謝所有的台灣人民。
尊嚴、團結、自信,這就是新台灣。謝謝大家。天佑台灣。
各位現場的朋友,各位電視機前面的好朋友,網路上收看直播的年輕朋友,我們全體的台灣人民,大家好,大家晚安。
我們的競選搭檔陳建仁院士,競選總部主任委員陳菊市長,還有我們所有的競選總部的同仁,各位辛苦了。我們今天很高興,我們幾位前副總統和前主席,一起來參加這歷史的時刻。
我說過,我拚了命,也要把各位的淚水轉化成笑容。各位,我們都做到了。
所以,如果你的眼中還有淚水,請大家把它擦乾。我們一起用快快樂樂的心情,來迎接台灣新時代的開始,好不好?
我的工作同仁告訴我,今天我們的這個現場,從中午開始,就有支持者坐在這裡等開票了。
大家有歡喜某?大家有歡喜某?
我知道,這些年來,你們對蔡英文有一個小小的抱怨。就是大家認為,我太過理性,從來不公開表達自己的情緒。所以,在這裡,我要跟大家說,如果大家真的很高興,我們就大聲為台灣歡呼一次,好不好?
我們一起為台灣完成了一件重要的事,這是我此時此刻,心裡的感覺。我的心情其實很平靜,因為,我知道,未來我的責任將會很重。感謝大家對蔡英文、陳建仁的支持,感謝大家對民主進步黨的支持,我再一次代表民主進步黨,向全體台灣人民,致上我最深的謝意。
感謝所有的台灣人民,我們一起,完成了台灣民主史上第三次的政黨輪替。我們點亮了台灣,我們再一次用行動告訴全世界,台灣等於民主,民主等於台灣。
我要謝謝我的兩位競爭對手,朱主席和宋主席,我們一起為台灣的民主政治,寫下了歷史新頁。我了解他們對這個國家的期待。選舉有輸贏,但是,最終勝利的永遠是台灣的民主。在這裡,我誠摯地邀請他們,這個國家,未來改革的路上,不能沒有你們。
我還要謝謝我的工作同仁,我們的後援會,我們的志工。你們犧牲假日,犧牲陪伴家人的時間,無論晴天雨天,就算生病感冒,都跟我並肩作戰。你們是最強的團隊。能跟各位一起走完著最後一里路,是我這一生最大的榮幸。
我還要特別謝謝這次競選總部中年輕的工作同仁們,尤其是黨工。過去,這麼多年來,我心中一直有一句話想跟大家說。這個黨曾經失敗過,但是,我一直告訴我自己,總有一天,我要讓大家穿著這個黨的制服,走到外面的時候,心中是充滿著信心和責任感。我們做到了。
接下來,我要謝謝每一位在這次選舉中,貢獻小額捐款,用小豬或其他方法,出錢出力的好朋友。因為你們,民進黨再一次確認,我們就是台灣人民的政黨。
投票是一天,選舉是幾個月,不過,改變這個國家,卻是每一天都必須持續的工作。今天晚上,我們可以慶祝,各位可以高高興興的慶祝。明天太陽升起的時候,我們就要為這個國家,負起改革的責任。
此時此刻的台灣,有很多老人家,正在等待一個更健全的長照系統。
此時此刻的台灣,台灣的年輕人,正在等待一個更公平的住宅環境。
我們不能忘記,還有很多中小企業,正在等待升級轉型的契機。
我們也不能忘記,還有一個快要破產的年金制度,正在等待我們去挽救。
我們更沒有忘記,維持台海安全及兩岸關係的和平和穩定,是大家共同的期待,也是兩岸要一起努力的事。「維持現狀」,是我對台灣人民以及對國際社會的承諾,我一定說到做到。我也向大家保證,未來我處理兩岸關係,會積極溝通,不挑釁,也不會有意外。
親愛的台灣人民,民主的勝利,是我們共同創造的;改革,也要由我們一起來推動。我們將會面對很多挑戰,改革的過程一定會很辛苦,但無論是怎麼樣的磨難,台灣人從來不曾被擊倒過。
改革的第一里路,已經開始。只要我們相互扶持,堅定走下去,一個更自由、更民主、更繁榮、更公義的國家,就在我們眼前。對不對?
二月一號,新國會即將開始。民進黨會優先處理人民關心的法案。改革的能量要放到最大,同時,改革的動盪會減到最小。
民主進步黨,現在是國會的多數黨。我們單獨過半,我們就要兌現對選民的承諾,我們一定要兌現對選民的承諾,改革絕對不能剩一半。
這是台灣第一次的國會政黨輪替。我們身上的責任,比以前沉重。我再一次強調,民進黨不會整碗捧去。我們會繼續開放民進黨,努力傾聽那些沒有進入國會的聲音。同時,我們也會和包括國民黨、親民黨和時代力量在內的所有政黨,一起為了改革全力以赴。
在這裡,我要以總統當選人的身分,也要以黨主席的身分,對民主進步黨全體黨公職人員,下達第一個命令,謙卑、謙卑、再謙卑。
台灣人民,不分藍綠、不分政黨、不分族群,在新時代裡,一起為改革這個國家努力。這就是蔡英文的承諾。這就是蔡英文的保證。
昨天的選前之夜,我看到已經98歲的史明歐吉桑,在那麼冷的天氣裡,淋著雨,還來到舞台前面,為我加油。他說話已經很困難,但是我知道,歐吉桑是要告訴我,做台灣的總統,要有志氣,要有決心,要堅強。
我在這裡要跟歐吉桑說,我一定會堅強。面對台灣的困境,我每一分鐘都會堅強。蔡英文堅強,台灣人民才會跟著我一起堅強。台灣是一個民主自由的國家。這個國家偉大的地方,就在於每一個人都有做自己的權利。這個國家,保障所有國民,自由選擇的權利。在這裡,我要以總統當選人的身分,鄭重呼籲,任何人,都必須尊重這份自由。
今天的選舉結果,是向世界證明,台灣人就是自由人,台灣人就是民主人。只要我當總統的一天,我會努力,讓我的國民,沒有一個人必須為他們的認同道歉。
各位親愛的台灣人民,新時代已經開始。「天色漸漸光,這裡有一群人,為了守護我們的夢,變成更加勇敢的人」。
我們就是這一群人。經過這次選舉,我們已經更加勇敢。明天開始,我們要繼續為我們的手足同胞,為我們的下一代而努力。
再一次謝謝所有現場的好朋友,謝謝所有的台灣人民。
尊嚴、團結、自信,這就是新台灣。謝謝大家。天佑台灣。
The Future of Language-- Sep. 24, 2015
To some extent, Americans have an advantage over much of the world's population: The country's two most widely spoken languages — English and Spanish — are among the most widely spoken worldwide. So, are Americans still willing to take language classes?
The number of American students who learned a language other than English decreased by about 100,000 between 2009 and 2013, according to research by the Modern Language Association. For many, taking a class in economics might seem more beneficial than a French course. But is it really?
The Chinese dialects combined already have more native speakers than any other language, followed by Hindi and Urdu, which have the same linguistic origins in northern India. English comes next with 527 million native speakers. Arabic is spoken by nearly 100 million more native speakers than Spanish, which has 389 million speakers
The number of American students who learned a language other than English decreased by about 100,000 between 2009 and 2013, according to research by the Modern Language Association. For many, taking a class in economics might seem more beneficial than a French course. But is it really?
The Chinese dialects combined already have more native speakers than any other language, followed by Hindi and Urdu, which have the same linguistic origins in northern India. English comes next with 527 million native speakers. Arabic is spoken by nearly 100 million more native speakers than Spanish, which has 389 million speakers
Which languages will dominate the future? Predictions vary, depending on your location and purpose. But here are a few ways to approach this question.
You want to make money in growth markets? These will be your languages.
In a recent U.K.-focused report, the British Council, a think tank, identified more than 20 growth markets and their main languages. The report features languages spoken in the so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China — that are usually perceived as the world's biggest emerging economies, as well as more niche growth markets that are included in lists produced by investment bank Goldman Sachs and services firm Ernst & Young........More
You want to make money in growth markets? These will be your languages.
In a recent U.K.-focused report, the British Council, a think tank, identified more than 20 growth markets and their main languages. The report features languages spoken in the so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China — that are usually perceived as the world's biggest emerging economies, as well as more niche growth markets that are included in lists produced by investment bank Goldman Sachs and services firm Ernst & Young........More
Can 1 Million American Students Learn Mandarin? Obama just announced a new initiative promising just that — and all by 2020. --Sep. 25, 2015
From http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/25/china-us-obamas-one-million-students-chinese-language-mandarin/
BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN
When U.S. President Barack Obama announced the 100,000 Strong Initiative in November 2009, setting the goal of sending 100,000 American students to study in China by 2014, it seemed like a lofty aspiration. In the 2008-2009 academic year, only 13,674 American students studied abroad in China. But that number rose steadily over the next five years, with help from private donations and Chinese governmentscholarships, and in July 2014 Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the goal had been met.
Now the American president’s back with an even bigger goal and one closer to home. On Sept. 25, in a joint press conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is wrapping up an official state visit, Obama announced the launch of “1 Million Strong,” an initiative that aims to bring the total number of stateside learners of Mandarin Chinese to 1 million by the year 2020. “If our countries are going to do more together around the world,” said Obama, “then speaking each other’s language, truly understanding each other, is a good place to start.”
One million may seem like a lot, but it’s just under 2 percent of the total number of U.S. students; in fall 2015, there were about 55 million studentsenrolled in U.S. public and private primary and secondary schools. Still, there’s much catching up to do. “Estimates suggest that between 300 and 400 million Chinese students are learning English today, while only about 200,000 American students are studying Chinese,” Travis Tanner, senior vice president and chief operating officer at the 100,000 Strong Foundation, told Foreign Policy in an email. “We must bridge that gap.”
The new program, administered by the 100,000 Strong Foundation, a nonprofit that also oversees the 2009 initiative, recognizes the growing importance of the U.S.-China relationship and aims to prepare a new generation of U.S. leaders to engage effectively with China.
Increasing the number of American students who study Mandarinwill “create a pipeline of China-savvy employees in a range of fields”
Increasing the number of American students who study Mandarin will “create a pipeline of China-savvy employees in a range of fields” and, Tanner remarked, will “ensure our trade relationship with China continues to benefit the American economy and that the future generation of American entrepreneurs, business owners, journalists, engineers, scientists, doctors, as well as government officials at both the national and state levels, understand China.”
The new initiative also aims to create a standardized national Chinese curriculum, flexible enough to allow for adaptations at the local school board level but comprehensive enough to prepare students for the AP Chinese-language exam and later advanced study. One Million Strong will also promote advances in language-learning technology and online instruction, promote investment in teachers colleges, and establish a consortium of governors who support Mandarin learning in public schools.
Such a huge goal, of course, also comes with huge challenges, not the least of which is funding. Though both Presidents Obama and Xi have endorsed the initiative, it will rely primarily on private funding, according to Tanner, who hopes that the official state-level endorsement will “inspire” financial support from “individuals, organizations and corporations.”
Attempts to bring Mandarin into the classroom haven’t been free from controversy in the past. China’s own huge soft power initiative to increase Mandarin learning around the globe, the Confucius Institutes, also operates primary and secondary education initiatives called Confucius Classrooms, which receive Chinese government funding. There are 357 such classrooms stateside, according to Chinese government data. But according to a January 2011 CNN report, community members in school districts in Ohio and California objected to the use of Chinese government funds to provide instruction to American students, with one calling it “communist propaganda.” A domestic push to increase Chinese-language instruction and adopt a nationally accepted Mandarin curriculum may help depoliticize the issue.
The importance and practicality of mastering Chinese has lately become more apparent. When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg met with Xi during the president’s recent visit to business and technology leaders in Seattle, the founder held a conversation with the Chinese president entirely in Mandarin. (Facebook is blocked in China and would benefit handsomely if allowed to operate there.)
“This is such an inspiring example of how important linguistic and cultural understanding is to enrich U.S.-China relationships in business and beyond,” said Jessica Beinecke, founder of Chinese-language learning platform Crazy Fresh Chinese. “Zuckerberg’s a busy guy. If he has time to learn Mandarin, so do American high school students.”
BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN
When U.S. President Barack Obama announced the 100,000 Strong Initiative in November 2009, setting the goal of sending 100,000 American students to study in China by 2014, it seemed like a lofty aspiration. In the 2008-2009 academic year, only 13,674 American students studied abroad in China. But that number rose steadily over the next five years, with help from private donations and Chinese governmentscholarships, and in July 2014 Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the goal had been met.
Now the American president’s back with an even bigger goal and one closer to home. On Sept. 25, in a joint press conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is wrapping up an official state visit, Obama announced the launch of “1 Million Strong,” an initiative that aims to bring the total number of stateside learners of Mandarin Chinese to 1 million by the year 2020. “If our countries are going to do more together around the world,” said Obama, “then speaking each other’s language, truly understanding each other, is a good place to start.”
One million may seem like a lot, but it’s just under 2 percent of the total number of U.S. students; in fall 2015, there were about 55 million studentsenrolled in U.S. public and private primary and secondary schools. Still, there’s much catching up to do. “Estimates suggest that between 300 and 400 million Chinese students are learning English today, while only about 200,000 American students are studying Chinese,” Travis Tanner, senior vice president and chief operating officer at the 100,000 Strong Foundation, told Foreign Policy in an email. “We must bridge that gap.”
The new program, administered by the 100,000 Strong Foundation, a nonprofit that also oversees the 2009 initiative, recognizes the growing importance of the U.S.-China relationship and aims to prepare a new generation of U.S. leaders to engage effectively with China.
Increasing the number of American students who study Mandarinwill “create a pipeline of China-savvy employees in a range of fields”
Increasing the number of American students who study Mandarin will “create a pipeline of China-savvy employees in a range of fields” and, Tanner remarked, will “ensure our trade relationship with China continues to benefit the American economy and that the future generation of American entrepreneurs, business owners, journalists, engineers, scientists, doctors, as well as government officials at both the national and state levels, understand China.”
The new initiative also aims to create a standardized national Chinese curriculum, flexible enough to allow for adaptations at the local school board level but comprehensive enough to prepare students for the AP Chinese-language exam and later advanced study. One Million Strong will also promote advances in language-learning technology and online instruction, promote investment in teachers colleges, and establish a consortium of governors who support Mandarin learning in public schools.
Such a huge goal, of course, also comes with huge challenges, not the least of which is funding. Though both Presidents Obama and Xi have endorsed the initiative, it will rely primarily on private funding, according to Tanner, who hopes that the official state-level endorsement will “inspire” financial support from “individuals, organizations and corporations.”
Attempts to bring Mandarin into the classroom haven’t been free from controversy in the past. China’s own huge soft power initiative to increase Mandarin learning around the globe, the Confucius Institutes, also operates primary and secondary education initiatives called Confucius Classrooms, which receive Chinese government funding. There are 357 such classrooms stateside, according to Chinese government data. But according to a January 2011 CNN report, community members in school districts in Ohio and California objected to the use of Chinese government funds to provide instruction to American students, with one calling it “communist propaganda.” A domestic push to increase Chinese-language instruction and adopt a nationally accepted Mandarin curriculum may help depoliticize the issue.
The importance and practicality of mastering Chinese has lately become more apparent. When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg met with Xi during the president’s recent visit to business and technology leaders in Seattle, the founder held a conversation with the Chinese president entirely in Mandarin. (Facebook is blocked in China and would benefit handsomely if allowed to operate there.)
“This is such an inspiring example of how important linguistic and cultural understanding is to enrich U.S.-China relationships in business and beyond,” said Jessica Beinecke, founder of Chinese-language learning platform Crazy Fresh Chinese. “Zuckerberg’s a busy guy. If he has time to learn Mandarin, so do American high school students.”
Dual-language elementary students performed as well as AP high Schoolers in Mandarin -- June 30, 2015
Dual-language elementary students performed as well as AP hi...-language elementary students performed as well as AP high schoolers in Mandarin, study saysscpr.org / Deepa Fernandes Kindergartener Gemma Gomez practices Chinese writing at a dual-language immersion program in Pasadena.; Credit: Deepa Fernandes/KPCC A new Stanford Univ... read more
A new Stanford University study reports some surprising results: fourth and fifth graders at a Palo Alto school performed on par with high school students in Mandarin.
The elementary students attend Palo Alto's Ohlone Elementary dual-language immersion program, which means they are taught all subjects for at least half the day in Mandarin. The high school students were 4th and 5th level Advanced Placement Mandarin students.
The Stanford Graduate School of Education researchers found the elementary and high school students had the same level of linguistic competency in Mandarin, with some fifth graders even outperforming the high schoolers in reading. The results of their study are published in the spring issue of Foreign Language Annals.
The Stanford researchers also found no difference in linguistic ability between native Mandarin speakers and non-Chinese students in dual-language immersion school by the time they reached 4th and 5th grade.
Researchers said they believe this to be the first study to compare immersion language learners with high school AP language learners, and it is new fuel in the growing movement to introduce language learning in the younger grades.
UCLA linguist Nina Hyams has studied language acquisition in babies and children. The Stanford research backs up her work in the field.
“We know that around puberty is the point when [the language program in the brain] seems not to be as active anymore, and in this country that’s the point at which we start teaching second languages, generally, in middle school,” Hyams said.
“So we’re introducing second language instruction at precisely the point where people are much less cognitively prepared to acquire a second language. It’s harder work for them and they just don’t do it as naturally.”
Some parents might worry that immersing an elementary aged child in a language other than English for their formative learning years might hinder English proficiency. Fear not, according to the Stanford researchers. An earlier study they conducted found that the same Palo Alto school students did as well as their peers learning only in English across all subjects. The tests they took were in English.
A new Stanford University study reports some surprising results: fourth and fifth graders at a Palo Alto school performed on par with high school students in Mandarin.
The elementary students attend Palo Alto's Ohlone Elementary dual-language immersion program, which means they are taught all subjects for at least half the day in Mandarin. The high school students were 4th and 5th level Advanced Placement Mandarin students.
The Stanford Graduate School of Education researchers found the elementary and high school students had the same level of linguistic competency in Mandarin, with some fifth graders even outperforming the high schoolers in reading. The results of their study are published in the spring issue of Foreign Language Annals.
The Stanford researchers also found no difference in linguistic ability between native Mandarin speakers and non-Chinese students in dual-language immersion school by the time they reached 4th and 5th grade.
Researchers said they believe this to be the first study to compare immersion language learners with high school AP language learners, and it is new fuel in the growing movement to introduce language learning in the younger grades.
UCLA linguist Nina Hyams has studied language acquisition in babies and children. The Stanford research backs up her work in the field.
“We know that around puberty is the point when [the language program in the brain] seems not to be as active anymore, and in this country that’s the point at which we start teaching second languages, generally, in middle school,” Hyams said.
“So we’re introducing second language instruction at precisely the point where people are much less cognitively prepared to acquire a second language. It’s harder work for them and they just don’t do it as naturally.”
Some parents might worry that immersing an elementary aged child in a language other than English for their formative learning years might hinder English proficiency. Fear not, according to the Stanford researchers. An earlier study they conducted found that the same Palo Alto school students did as well as their peers learning only in English across all subjects. The tests they took were in English.
11 Tips for Mastering a New Language -- June 16, 2015
From: http://mentalfloss.com/article/64425/11-tips-mastering-new-language-summer
11 Tips for Mastering a New Language This Summer
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IMAGE CREDIT:
ISTOCK
LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
There’s never a bad time to learn a new language. While we often think of picking up a new tongue as a pursuit that’s best left to the young (and indeed, it’s easier for kids to pick up a new language without a discernable accent), it’s a beneficial exercise for everyone, both from a cultural and cognitive standpoint.
Studies have shown learning a new language can improve your memory and maybe even slow the effects of aging, among other cognitive benefits. And of course, not having to resort to asking for the English-language menu while traveling doesn’t hurt, either.
Here are a few tips to help you pick up some new conversation skills this summer, whether you’re looking to learn a few words in your second language or become an expert in your fifth.
1. HAVE A CONVERSATION—EVEN IF IT’S WITH YOURSELF.Talking is an essential part of learning a new language. People have multiple types of vocabulary: oral and written, receptive and productive. The words you understand when you hear them (receptive) may not be the same as the words you can use in speech yourself, and the words you say aloud (productive) are not always the same as words you might use in writing. Unless you’re looking to pick up a new language solely for the purpose of translating written documents, you’re probably going to want to have a conversation at some point. In order to develop your oral, productive vocabulary (the words you can produce, rather than just understand if you happen to hear them), you have to have practice generating those words.
2. DON’T BE AFRAID TO SOUND RIDICULOUS.Having a conversation in a language you’re not entirely comfortable with inevitably leads to a few mistakes. You may mispronounce words, invert sentence structures, or spit out something completely unintelligible to a native speaker. But no one expects you to be perfectly eloquent from the get-go. And, on the bright side, the more embarrassing your mistake, the more likely you are to have the correct grammatical construct burned into your memory when someone points it out.
3. IF YOU’RE GOING TO TAKE A CLASS, MAKE SURE IT’S CONDUCTED IN THE LANGUAGE YOU’RE LEARNING.Children take between two and five years to fully master the grammar of their first language, even with hours of practice every day. Even if you can’t recreate that environment while you’re learning a second language, it helps to expose yourself to it for as much time as possible. Don’t waste vital learning time with a teacher who speaks to you in English. Instead, take an immersive class where the instructor uses the language you’re trying to learn.
4. GRAB SOME FLASH CARDS.One study of Japanese students learning English found that encountering a word 10 times in context helped students learn it—but the researcher noted that more than 10 repetitions may be needed to fully understand the word. Get a jump on your vocabulary by making a set of flash cards and looking at them regularly.
5. MAKE SURE TO LISTEN.One study from a New Zealand university found that frequent exposure to the sound of a foreign language—regardless of whether you understand the words—helps you learn. Listening to native speech can help familiarize you with the new sound patterns of your target language. So even if the plot goes over your head, tune in to Spanish language television or listen to radio news.
6. FIGURE OUT WHY YOU’RE LEARNING.Studies have found motivation to be one of the key drivers of second-language learning. Mastering a new language is hard work, and it takes practice. Identifying why you want to learn this particular language can help keep you going, even when you would rather do anything but run through another round of flash cards or have another stilted conversation. Will becoming a better speaker help you at work? Will it give you greater access to a culture that fascinates you?
7. CHECK OUT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY.Many public libraries have language-learning software in their collections, as well as audio books in your target language. Rather than shelling out hundreds of dollars for a fancy online lesson plan, ask your local librarian about those taxpayer-funded resources.
8. DOWNLOAD AN APP.To become a language master, you need to practice every day. Plenty of apps (many of them free!) offer vocabulary lessons that you can access on the go, so standing in line or sitting around in a waiting room can become an educational experience.
9. GO ON A VACATION—OR AT LEAST HEAD TO A NEW PART OF TOWN.As mentioned previously, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. It’s more helpful to practice with native speakers than other students who make the same mistakes you do and know all the same vocabulary you’ve learned—but finding native speakers to chat with can be tricky in the course of a normal day. If you can’t actually take that trip to Beijing, try visiting your nearest Chinatown, or join a meetup group of local native speakers. And remember, no English!
10. TAKE A DEEP BREATH.Recent studies have shown that some students experience “foreign language anxiety,” much like anxiety over taking tests. Speaking in a foreign language can feel like a performance, but conversation is an integral part of learning a new tongue.
11. SET REALISTIC GOALS.If you aren’t fluent in just a few weeks, don’t give up. It took you years to achieve complete fluency in your first language, after all. Don’t be disconcerted if a 5-year-old can talk circles around you. They’ve been practicing longer.
11 Tips for Mastering a New Language This Summer
14 Share
IMAGE CREDIT:
ISTOCK
LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
There’s never a bad time to learn a new language. While we often think of picking up a new tongue as a pursuit that’s best left to the young (and indeed, it’s easier for kids to pick up a new language without a discernable accent), it’s a beneficial exercise for everyone, both from a cultural and cognitive standpoint.
Studies have shown learning a new language can improve your memory and maybe even slow the effects of aging, among other cognitive benefits. And of course, not having to resort to asking for the English-language menu while traveling doesn’t hurt, either.
Here are a few tips to help you pick up some new conversation skills this summer, whether you’re looking to learn a few words in your second language or become an expert in your fifth.
1. HAVE A CONVERSATION—EVEN IF IT’S WITH YOURSELF.Talking is an essential part of learning a new language. People have multiple types of vocabulary: oral and written, receptive and productive. The words you understand when you hear them (receptive) may not be the same as the words you can use in speech yourself, and the words you say aloud (productive) are not always the same as words you might use in writing. Unless you’re looking to pick up a new language solely for the purpose of translating written documents, you’re probably going to want to have a conversation at some point. In order to develop your oral, productive vocabulary (the words you can produce, rather than just understand if you happen to hear them), you have to have practice generating those words.
2. DON’T BE AFRAID TO SOUND RIDICULOUS.Having a conversation in a language you’re not entirely comfortable with inevitably leads to a few mistakes. You may mispronounce words, invert sentence structures, or spit out something completely unintelligible to a native speaker. But no one expects you to be perfectly eloquent from the get-go. And, on the bright side, the more embarrassing your mistake, the more likely you are to have the correct grammatical construct burned into your memory when someone points it out.
3. IF YOU’RE GOING TO TAKE A CLASS, MAKE SURE IT’S CONDUCTED IN THE LANGUAGE YOU’RE LEARNING.Children take between two and five years to fully master the grammar of their first language, even with hours of practice every day. Even if you can’t recreate that environment while you’re learning a second language, it helps to expose yourself to it for as much time as possible. Don’t waste vital learning time with a teacher who speaks to you in English. Instead, take an immersive class where the instructor uses the language you’re trying to learn.
4. GRAB SOME FLASH CARDS.One study of Japanese students learning English found that encountering a word 10 times in context helped students learn it—but the researcher noted that more than 10 repetitions may be needed to fully understand the word. Get a jump on your vocabulary by making a set of flash cards and looking at them regularly.
5. MAKE SURE TO LISTEN.One study from a New Zealand university found that frequent exposure to the sound of a foreign language—regardless of whether you understand the words—helps you learn. Listening to native speech can help familiarize you with the new sound patterns of your target language. So even if the plot goes over your head, tune in to Spanish language television or listen to radio news.
6. FIGURE OUT WHY YOU’RE LEARNING.Studies have found motivation to be one of the key drivers of second-language learning. Mastering a new language is hard work, and it takes practice. Identifying why you want to learn this particular language can help keep you going, even when you would rather do anything but run through another round of flash cards or have another stilted conversation. Will becoming a better speaker help you at work? Will it give you greater access to a culture that fascinates you?
7. CHECK OUT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY.Many public libraries have language-learning software in their collections, as well as audio books in your target language. Rather than shelling out hundreds of dollars for a fancy online lesson plan, ask your local librarian about those taxpayer-funded resources.
8. DOWNLOAD AN APP.To become a language master, you need to practice every day. Plenty of apps (many of them free!) offer vocabulary lessons that you can access on the go, so standing in line or sitting around in a waiting room can become an educational experience.
9. GO ON A VACATION—OR AT LEAST HEAD TO A NEW PART OF TOWN.As mentioned previously, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. It’s more helpful to practice with native speakers than other students who make the same mistakes you do and know all the same vocabulary you’ve learned—but finding native speakers to chat with can be tricky in the course of a normal day. If you can’t actually take that trip to Beijing, try visiting your nearest Chinatown, or join a meetup group of local native speakers. And remember, no English!
10. TAKE A DEEP BREATH.Recent studies have shown that some students experience “foreign language anxiety,” much like anxiety over taking tests. Speaking in a foreign language can feel like a performance, but conversation is an integral part of learning a new tongue.
11. SET REALISTIC GOALS.If you aren’t fluent in just a few weeks, don’t give up. It took you years to achieve complete fluency in your first language, after all. Don’t be disconcerted if a 5-year-old can talk circles around you. They’ve been practicing longer.
3 Fun Ways to Learn Chinese This Summer -- June 15, 2015
3 Fun Ways to Learn Chinese This Summer
In my junior year of college I decided to do something drastic - change majors. I originally was an urban studies major, but was having some issues in a tough economic course. I'm a prelaw student, so I took a risk and changed my area of study to Asian studies with a concentration in Mandarin Chinese. I've been studying Chinese since my freshmen year of high school, but I never focused on it too intensely. But with grad school just around the corner, I figured why not really become fluent in Mandarin. Plus by learning a new language like Chinese, I'm opening myself up to a whole new world of culture and experience.
This is the summer before my senior year of undergrad, and initially I was really stressed out about why I wasn't becoming fluent in Mandarin more quickly. After all I've been studying Chinese on and off for seven years now, and I still feel like a newbie. So this summer I've made the commitment to myself, to make learning my second language a type priority.
Disclaimer: while learning Chinese has been a challenge, no language is easy to learn. There is this misconception that Chinese is especially difficult to learn. It's difficult for westerners to conceptualize learning a language without an alphabet, or how to speak in a tonal language. Chinese tones trip me up all the time. It's okay, you're going to make mistakes. The fear of learning Chinese, though, is your real hurdle. Believe in yourself, and you can do it. Here are three fun tips I'm using to help myself practice:
1) Find a good medium to learn with
Learning a language from a textbook has never been my thing. If that works for you, that's amazing, but I have recently stumbled upon this great site called ChinesePod. They post all sorts of podcasts that I literally listen to everywhere - on my commute, before I go to bed, or even when I'm working out. They also have their content divided by fluency level, too. Everyone is welcome to learn Mandarin with this easy format.
In high school I was also exposed to Growing Up With Chinese, which was a show for English speakers who were trying to learn Chinese in China. Most of the episodes are on YouTube, so that's a great resource as well.
2) Subscribe to a Chinese word of the day service
For the last few years I've subscribed to Transparent Language's Chinese word of the day service. Everyday they send me a Chinese word, a sample sentence, and a recording of a native speaker saying the word to my email.
3) Fire up your Netflix account!
When you're finished binge watching Orange is The New Black, you can consult thislist of movies to watch on Netflix to help you master your Mandarin. Movies are an excellent and entertaining way to learn a language. Plus you have a unique opportunity to delve into the culture you're trying to immerse yourself in through film, so it's a win-win.
These are only a few ways to get your feet wet and bone up on your Chinese. Obiously taking a formal class, or putting your language work to practice in real life contexts are always good ideas. Do what you can, and that whole new world of the Chinese language will be open to you. Happy learning!
祝你好运!
(I wish you the best of luck!)
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-norton/3-fun-ways-to-learn-chine_b_7578364.html
In my junior year of college I decided to do something drastic - change majors. I originally was an urban studies major, but was having some issues in a tough economic course. I'm a prelaw student, so I took a risk and changed my area of study to Asian studies with a concentration in Mandarin Chinese. I've been studying Chinese since my freshmen year of high school, but I never focused on it too intensely. But with grad school just around the corner, I figured why not really become fluent in Mandarin. Plus by learning a new language like Chinese, I'm opening myself up to a whole new world of culture and experience.
This is the summer before my senior year of undergrad, and initially I was really stressed out about why I wasn't becoming fluent in Mandarin more quickly. After all I've been studying Chinese on and off for seven years now, and I still feel like a newbie. So this summer I've made the commitment to myself, to make learning my second language a type priority.
Disclaimer: while learning Chinese has been a challenge, no language is easy to learn. There is this misconception that Chinese is especially difficult to learn. It's difficult for westerners to conceptualize learning a language without an alphabet, or how to speak in a tonal language. Chinese tones trip me up all the time. It's okay, you're going to make mistakes. The fear of learning Chinese, though, is your real hurdle. Believe in yourself, and you can do it. Here are three fun tips I'm using to help myself practice:
1) Find a good medium to learn with
Learning a language from a textbook has never been my thing. If that works for you, that's amazing, but I have recently stumbled upon this great site called ChinesePod. They post all sorts of podcasts that I literally listen to everywhere - on my commute, before I go to bed, or even when I'm working out. They also have their content divided by fluency level, too. Everyone is welcome to learn Mandarin with this easy format.
In high school I was also exposed to Growing Up With Chinese, which was a show for English speakers who were trying to learn Chinese in China. Most of the episodes are on YouTube, so that's a great resource as well.
2) Subscribe to a Chinese word of the day service
For the last few years I've subscribed to Transparent Language's Chinese word of the day service. Everyday they send me a Chinese word, a sample sentence, and a recording of a native speaker saying the word to my email.
3) Fire up your Netflix account!
When you're finished binge watching Orange is The New Black, you can consult thislist of movies to watch on Netflix to help you master your Mandarin. Movies are an excellent and entertaining way to learn a language. Plus you have a unique opportunity to delve into the culture you're trying to immerse yourself in through film, so it's a win-win.
These are only a few ways to get your feet wet and bone up on your Chinese. Obiously taking a formal class, or putting your language work to practice in real life contexts are always good ideas. Do what you can, and that whole new world of the Chinese language will be open to you. Happy learning!
祝你好运!
(I wish you the best of luck!)
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-norton/3-fun-ways-to-learn-chine_b_7578364.html
HOW TO LEARN CHARACTERS MORE EFFICIENTLY--June 12, 2015
http://www.mezzoguild.com/how-to-learn-chinese-characters/
HOW TO LEARN CHARACTERS MORE EFFICIENTLYThe first principle of effective memorization is meaningfulness: you must at least be able to make sense of or attach meaning to what you’re memorizing in some way.
This is why mnemonic techniques are so effective. You attach a keyword or mental image to a character component that you don’t know, and suddenly it has some meaning to you.
The problem with these mnemonic techniques is that they often obscure how the character is actually structured. Many of them ignore the function that a particular component plays in the character, and they often break down the character in ways that hide the logic of the underlying system.
But knowing this system gives your mind a mental framework into which you can put new characters, reinforces characters you already know, and makes it easier to learn characters in the future. In fact, understanding something is tantamount to making it moremeaningful to you, which means that increasing your understanding of how the Chinese writing system works is tantamount to increasing the effectiveness of your learning.
So it seems that the most effective way to learn characters would be one which combines powerful mnemonic techniques with a correctunderstanding of how characters work.
With China’s rising influence in the world, there’s a greater need than ever for people to be able to learn Chinese to a high level in order to understand China on its own terms and foster cultural exchange. And to do this, we need better tools and more efficient learning methods.
Academics like Victor Mair and David Moser have written fairly extensively about the need for a better, more etymologically accurate way to teach characters.
But there’s the problem: there is nothing out on the market for learners which accurately explains how Chinese characters work.
They might get it 70% right, but that leaves you with a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings.
To truly understand how the modern Chinese writing system works, you have to trace it all the way back to its earliest forms. And to understand how sound components in Chinese work, you have to trace the spoken language all the way back to the creation of the characters.
Obviously, this takes a great deal of academic training, and most of us don’t want to have to get a PhD in Chinese just to learn Chinese.
That’s why we’ve started developing a new dictionary of Chinese characters for learners.
We’ve taken our extensive academic training and are using it to build a new dictionary of Chinese characters which focuses on increasing learning efficiency by fostering a correct understanding of the system underlying the characters. David Moser has called it “easy to use, user-friendly, very clear — but at the same time correct and comprehensive.”
We explain how Chinese actually work: they’re comprised of functional components.
HOW TO LEARN CHARACTERS MORE EFFICIENTLYThe first principle of effective memorization is meaningfulness: you must at least be able to make sense of or attach meaning to what you’re memorizing in some way.
This is why mnemonic techniques are so effective. You attach a keyword or mental image to a character component that you don’t know, and suddenly it has some meaning to you.
The problem with these mnemonic techniques is that they often obscure how the character is actually structured. Many of them ignore the function that a particular component plays in the character, and they often break down the character in ways that hide the logic of the underlying system.
But knowing this system gives your mind a mental framework into which you can put new characters, reinforces characters you already know, and makes it easier to learn characters in the future. In fact, understanding something is tantamount to making it moremeaningful to you, which means that increasing your understanding of how the Chinese writing system works is tantamount to increasing the effectiveness of your learning.
So it seems that the most effective way to learn characters would be one which combines powerful mnemonic techniques with a correctunderstanding of how characters work.
With China’s rising influence in the world, there’s a greater need than ever for people to be able to learn Chinese to a high level in order to understand China on its own terms and foster cultural exchange. And to do this, we need better tools and more efficient learning methods.
Academics like Victor Mair and David Moser have written fairly extensively about the need for a better, more etymologically accurate way to teach characters.
But there’s the problem: there is nothing out on the market for learners which accurately explains how Chinese characters work.
They might get it 70% right, but that leaves you with a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings.
To truly understand how the modern Chinese writing system works, you have to trace it all the way back to its earliest forms. And to understand how sound components in Chinese work, you have to trace the spoken language all the way back to the creation of the characters.
Obviously, this takes a great deal of academic training, and most of us don’t want to have to get a PhD in Chinese just to learn Chinese.
That’s why we’ve started developing a new dictionary of Chinese characters for learners.
We’ve taken our extensive academic training and are using it to build a new dictionary of Chinese characters which focuses on increasing learning efficiency by fostering a correct understanding of the system underlying the characters. David Moser has called it “easy to use, user-friendly, very clear — but at the same time correct and comprehensive.”
We explain how Chinese actually work: they’re comprised of functional components.
Mandarin Chinese Immersion Classroom Teachers (Portland, OR)--May 27, 2015
The Northwest Chinese Academy is seeking dedicated and enthusiastic Mandarin Chinese immersion teachers to join our community for the 2015/2016 school year.
As a Mandarin Immersion Classroom Teacher you will work collaboratively within our school community of teachers, parents and a wonderful group of students. You will implement a creative, multicultural curriculum providing instruction in both small group and whole class settings. We are looking for enthusiastic, creative and dynamic teachers who embrace student-centered education and are committed to providing a warm and nurturing environment for our students to learn.
QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS
Commitment to student-centered, multicultural education
Native level fluency in spoken Mandarin
Experience in teaching both reading and writing Mandarin using Simplified Chinese
Expertise of Chinese customs and culture
Knowledgeable of the content and nature of immersion programs
Ability to plan and implement creative, hands-on and engaging lessons
Ability to be a cooperative player on a highly collaborative educational team
Knowledgeable of effective techniques for classroom management
Knowledge of evaluation and assessment of student progress
Knowledgeable of effective use of technology in the classroom
Legal authorization to work in the U.S
Professional teaching experience in bilingual, Mandarin immersion or foreign language classroom preferred
Degree, teaching credentials or other relevant certifications from an accredited college or university in education/related field or relevant experience.
Must be available to attend Summer Teacher Training at the Northwest Chinese Academy.
Candidates should send a resume, cover letter, and references to
[email protected].
As a Mandarin Immersion Classroom Teacher you will work collaboratively within our school community of teachers, parents and a wonderful group of students. You will implement a creative, multicultural curriculum providing instruction in both small group and whole class settings. We are looking for enthusiastic, creative and dynamic teachers who embrace student-centered education and are committed to providing a warm and nurturing environment for our students to learn.
QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS
Commitment to student-centered, multicultural education
Native level fluency in spoken Mandarin
Experience in teaching both reading and writing Mandarin using Simplified Chinese
Expertise of Chinese customs and culture
Knowledgeable of the content and nature of immersion programs
Ability to plan and implement creative, hands-on and engaging lessons
Ability to be a cooperative player on a highly collaborative educational team
Knowledgeable of effective techniques for classroom management
Knowledge of evaluation and assessment of student progress
Knowledgeable of effective use of technology in the classroom
Legal authorization to work in the U.S
Professional teaching experience in bilingual, Mandarin immersion or foreign language classroom preferred
Degree, teaching credentials or other relevant certifications from an accredited college or university in education/related field or relevant experience.
Must be available to attend Summer Teacher Training at the Northwest Chinese Academy.
Candidates should send a resume, cover letter, and references to
[email protected].
Teaching position--May 26, 2015
Buckley Country Day school
Roslyn ,New York
Seeks a qualified teacher for Mandarin
· Grades Pre-K –Grade 3
· BA degree required
· Native speaker or fluent in Mandarin
· Experience with teaching young children
· Good communication skills
· Fluent in English
Please send resume to:
[email protected]
Roslyn ,New York
Seeks a qualified teacher for Mandarin
· Grades Pre-K –Grade 3
· BA degree required
· Native speaker or fluent in Mandarin
· Experience with teaching young children
· Good communication skills
· Fluent in English
Please send resume to:
[email protected]
Top 10 Reasons To Learn Chinese--May 24, 2015
From: http://www.thelanguageclass.co.uk/top-10-reasons-learn-chinese/
Top 10 Reasons To Learn Chinese
chinese language will open the doors to a new culture – source
Position Yourself for Future Opportunities
The world is a global village with a billion of us being of Chinese origin. This is a market segment you can never choose to ignore. The Chinese economy is also experiencing some robust growth and many companies and governments all over the world are finding themselves increasingly trading with the Chinese. So think about it, if your firm is competing with another firm to partner with a Chinese firm who do you think they Chinese will go with? Will they go with the foreigner who needs a translator to communicate with them or the foreigner who is cracking all those Mandarin jokes like he was born in Chongqing?
Export-Import Trade
China is regarded as the “factory of the world”. This is according to Robert Mundell, the Nobel Prize Winner. If you look at the balance of trade between big economies like the U.S, you find that it is in favor of China with over $41 billion in 2006 alone. If you are in the import-export business you will realize that most of your business dealings are with Chinese firms. If your company is not, then your contemporaries and competitors are most likely doing better business than you are. Equip yourself with the Chinese language and look East for a better bottom line.
Political Advantages
If you are fluent in Chinese and have an interest in politics then there are countless opportunities for you within your country and beyond. This is because China is a growing global investor and many countries are finding it advantageous to work with the Chinese. Knowing the language gives you a leg up against other political pundits competing for the same posts. If you do not believe me just ask former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, a fluent Mandarin speaker.
Community
As mentioned, the world is a global village. Therefore, it pays to be multi-lingual to communicate better with others in your community. Your next door neighbor could be Chinese or your son could bring home a Chinese bride. Talking with the in-laws will be much less awkward and much more fun. Organizing a neighborhood watch won’t be so complicated either if we could all know what the other is talking about, wouldn’t it?
Study Abroad
If you are thinking of gaining new academic exposure by studying abroad then knowledge of the Chinese language could be a great help. You will understand theoretical and academic concepts easier and you will enjoy your classes more. No more retarded looks as your Chinese tutor explains how simple electronic circuits work.
The Japanese are Studying Chinese
Japan is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. And over there, they are teaching as much Chinese as they are teaching English. The Japanese realize that in order to take advantage of economic opportunities and advance their national strategies, it is in their best interests if their population consists of a good number of Chinese speakers. Do you think the Japanese are wrong?
New Perspectives
If you are American and have never left your country then you might have a very closed view on how the rest of the world works. This is true even for a Chinese who has never left his/her country or a European for that matter. Learning a new language exposes you to new cultures and new ways of thinking and this widens your knowledge and expands your perspectives.
Social Advantages
Imagine walking into a singles bar and opening up conversation with the Chinese ladies seated at the next table. Your friends will be looking at you in awe and I assure you, your phone book will have new phone numbers by the end of the night. Well, even the waitress might just offer you hers! Everybody admires people who seem worldly and have good communication skills with others from different social settings.
Increased Brain Function
It has been scientifically proven that knowing more than one language is good for your brain. The cognitive muscles of your brain get more exercise when you switch between languages and this makes you more alert and more focused in general. Studies show that multi-lingual people are more effective in their tasks, can multi-task better, and are good at prioritizing.
Negotiations
If I was haggling prices or negotiating some big business deal I would prefer if I am talking the same language with my trade partner. The presence and actions of a translator will be at best amusingly distracting, and at worst extremely irritating. Besides, if you have watched those soap operas with subtitles you know that translators do not always convey the same meaning as was intended by the speaker.
Learning a new language can be beneficial on many fronts and there is no better choice of language than Chinese. It will benefit your social interactions, business dealings, cultural knowledge, and political actions.
Morgan Dalloway grew up as an army brat, following his dad to army stations in various Asian, Middle East, and African posts. The challenge of making new friends after every new posting made him the multi-lingual expert that he is today. Speaking over 8 languages fluently and with a more than passing knowledge of over 10 other languages, he has taught various Chinese languages online and in classroom settings.
- See more at: http://www.thelanguageclass.co.uk/top-10-reasons-learn-chinese/#sthash.OCk3wYd7.dpuf
Top 10 Reasons To Learn Chinese
- 2
EmailShare - SHAREBAR
chinese language will open the doors to a new culture – source
Position Yourself for Future Opportunities
The world is a global village with a billion of us being of Chinese origin. This is a market segment you can never choose to ignore. The Chinese economy is also experiencing some robust growth and many companies and governments all over the world are finding themselves increasingly trading with the Chinese. So think about it, if your firm is competing with another firm to partner with a Chinese firm who do you think they Chinese will go with? Will they go with the foreigner who needs a translator to communicate with them or the foreigner who is cracking all those Mandarin jokes like he was born in Chongqing?
Export-Import Trade
China is regarded as the “factory of the world”. This is according to Robert Mundell, the Nobel Prize Winner. If you look at the balance of trade between big economies like the U.S, you find that it is in favor of China with over $41 billion in 2006 alone. If you are in the import-export business you will realize that most of your business dealings are with Chinese firms. If your company is not, then your contemporaries and competitors are most likely doing better business than you are. Equip yourself with the Chinese language and look East for a better bottom line.
Political Advantages
If you are fluent in Chinese and have an interest in politics then there are countless opportunities for you within your country and beyond. This is because China is a growing global investor and many countries are finding it advantageous to work with the Chinese. Knowing the language gives you a leg up against other political pundits competing for the same posts. If you do not believe me just ask former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, a fluent Mandarin speaker.
Community
As mentioned, the world is a global village. Therefore, it pays to be multi-lingual to communicate better with others in your community. Your next door neighbor could be Chinese or your son could bring home a Chinese bride. Talking with the in-laws will be much less awkward and much more fun. Organizing a neighborhood watch won’t be so complicated either if we could all know what the other is talking about, wouldn’t it?
Study Abroad
If you are thinking of gaining new academic exposure by studying abroad then knowledge of the Chinese language could be a great help. You will understand theoretical and academic concepts easier and you will enjoy your classes more. No more retarded looks as your Chinese tutor explains how simple electronic circuits work.
The Japanese are Studying Chinese
Japan is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. And over there, they are teaching as much Chinese as they are teaching English. The Japanese realize that in order to take advantage of economic opportunities and advance their national strategies, it is in their best interests if their population consists of a good number of Chinese speakers. Do you think the Japanese are wrong?
New Perspectives
If you are American and have never left your country then you might have a very closed view on how the rest of the world works. This is true even for a Chinese who has never left his/her country or a European for that matter. Learning a new language exposes you to new cultures and new ways of thinking and this widens your knowledge and expands your perspectives.
Social Advantages
Imagine walking into a singles bar and opening up conversation with the Chinese ladies seated at the next table. Your friends will be looking at you in awe and I assure you, your phone book will have new phone numbers by the end of the night. Well, even the waitress might just offer you hers! Everybody admires people who seem worldly and have good communication skills with others from different social settings.
Increased Brain Function
It has been scientifically proven that knowing more than one language is good for your brain. The cognitive muscles of your brain get more exercise when you switch between languages and this makes you more alert and more focused in general. Studies show that multi-lingual people are more effective in their tasks, can multi-task better, and are good at prioritizing.
Negotiations
If I was haggling prices or negotiating some big business deal I would prefer if I am talking the same language with my trade partner. The presence and actions of a translator will be at best amusingly distracting, and at worst extremely irritating. Besides, if you have watched those soap operas with subtitles you know that translators do not always convey the same meaning as was intended by the speaker.
Learning a new language can be beneficial on many fronts and there is no better choice of language than Chinese. It will benefit your social interactions, business dealings, cultural knowledge, and political actions.
Morgan Dalloway grew up as an army brat, following his dad to army stations in various Asian, Middle East, and African posts. The challenge of making new friends after every new posting made him the multi-lingual expert that he is today. Speaking over 8 languages fluently and with a more than passing knowledge of over 10 other languages, he has taught various Chinese languages online and in classroom settings.
- See more at: http://www.thelanguageclass.co.uk/top-10-reasons-learn-chinese/#sthash.OCk3wYd7.dpuf
Wall Street Journal: Flashcards Get Smarter So You Can, Too - WSJ -- May 7, 2015
Learning Mandarin is mentioned in the article.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/flashcards-get-smarter-so-you-can-too-1430253560?KEYWORDS=flashcards+get+smarter+so+you+can
Flashcards Get Smarter So You Can, Too
A new learning technique called spaced repetition is spreading fast to adults in many occupations and walks of life. WSJ's Sue Shellenbarger discusses. Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto
By
Sue Shellenbarger
April 28, 2015 4:39 p.m. ET
The old-fashioned flashcard is taking on new, digital life with a promise to make you smarter and more productive.
New flashcard programs on your phone or computer make it possible to memorize facts and concepts in what were wasted minutes waiting in line at the store or commuting to work. Users say they put a world of knowledge tantalizingly within reach, including Mandarin to programming, math, nutrition, bird calls and the bar exam.
The programs are based on research showing that spaced repetition, or repeated exposure to information at planned intervals, is the most powerful way to fix knowledge in one’s memory. Each digital flashcard is repeated at intervals, based on the degree of difficulty for the user. The hardest quiz items come up for review within a few hours or days, and easier ones are repeated every few weeks or months—when the user may be about to forget the answer.
ENLARGE
Cerego’s program tracks the user’s performance item by item. Above, a set of quiz items found on Cerego for learning the history of 18th and 19th century art. CEREGO
Eden Full uses a program called Anki to create about 200 flashcards that she reviews several times a week on her smartphone while waiting in line or riding the subway. She studies memorable quotes, new ideas, helpful writing techniques or photos of important business contacts, with prompts to recall the person’s name and some personal information. Ms. Full, New York, founder of SunSaluter, New York, a nonprofit provider of solar panel technology, says the program helps her remember concepts and strengthen ties with business partners.
“When you’re having a friendly conversation with someone who is genuinely important to you, maybe you want to remember the person has a dog named Sparky,” Ms. Full says. Once she has information firmly in mind, she discards the card.
Catherine Rankine, a structural engineer based in London, is using a spaced-repetition program called Skritter to learn Mandarin, in hopes of doing more work in China. She can study as many as 243 words or characters in 16 minutes on her smartphone during her commute, Ms. Rankine says. Her studies recently helped her complete a project in Shanghai, designing and installing a Fashion Week exhibit in front of a restaurant. “It would have been impossible to get the same results without communicating in Chinese,” she says.
Spaced-repetition programs started catching on several years ago among people studying languages and programming, and spread rapidly via blogs and word-of-mouth to people in many walks of life. Many basic flashcard programs are free and allow users to create their own sets of quiz items, using video, audio or graphics if they wish, or to use decks created by others.
ENLARGE
A set of quiz items on Cerego for learning Chinese CEREGO
Anki has been downloaded 2.5 million times since it was launched in 2006, including 850,000 installations in the past 12 months, says Damien Elmes of Sydney, Australia, the program’s creator. Nicolas Raoul, a Tokyo software engineer who developed AnkiDroid, a version of Anki for Android devices, in 2009, says the Android program has 1.5 million users. A program called the Janki Method, also based on Anki and developed by Jack Kinsella of Berlin, is for people learning to code. Anki is free for computers and on the Web, or $24.99 for the iPhone and iPad mobile app when purchased through the Apple store.
Other, more elaborate programs use spaced repetition in combination with other learning tools. London-based Memrise uses spaced repetition along with frequent testing, competitions among users, and memory-boosting tricks, such as showing users how to link facts they’re trying to learn with memorable images or things they already know. A user might connect the Spanish word “aburrido,” which means “boring,” for example, with a made-up sentence such as, “It’s boring to eat a burrito with every meal.”
Most programs rely on users to rate the difficulty of each quiz item by clicking on one of several buttons beneath each answer. Cerego, San Francisco, a program designed for use both in classrooms and by consumers, tracks the user’s performance item by item, measuring how long each answer takes and analyzing patterns of correct and incorrect responses, says Andrew Smith Lewis, co-founder and executive chairman. The program selects the items the user most needs to review, creates lessons based on them and graphs the user’s progress in each course.
The effectiveness of spaced-repetition programs has been documented in hundreds of studies dating back more than a century, says a 2012 study in Educational Psychology Review. Researchers and students began using spaced repetition with paper flashcards as early as the 1970s, employing a method called the Leitner system.
ENLARGE
A set of quiz items provided by Cerego for learning dog breeds. CEREGO
A memory is a pattern of connections between neurons that is formed by a person’s experience. One neuron can be part of many memory networks, and new memories are fragile. Taking in a lot of new information at once, whether via lectures, reading or cramming, can distort or erase recent memories. Recalling memories periodically, at increasing intervals, helps the brain encode them in lasting form.
Most conventional courses shower students with new material, test them and move on, and few textbooks include frequent reviews. Several spaced-repetition programs were founded by people frustrated by traditional teaching methods. Nick Winter of San Francisco co-founded Skritter in 2009 because studying Chinese in college was so difficult. “You spend eight hours a day in the classroom trying to learn facts, and after the semester is over you forget 98% of it—and all those years of your life are gone,” he says.
Researchers at Excelsior College are studying whether using Cerego can help students learn more in online math and biology classes, says Jason Bryer, a senior researcher at Excelsior College, Albany, N.Y. Preliminary results from a 2014 study of 1,000 students found those who used the program got better grades, compared with controls, Dr. Bryer says.
Use of spaced-repetition programs in the workplace is growing as professionals and managers try to keep pace with mounting demands to learn new information, technology and techniques. People use Memrise to improve their technical vocabulary in fields ranging from oil drilling to medicine, says Ed Cooke, chief executive officer of Memrise, whose memory skills and coaching were described in the book, “Moonwalking with Einstein.”
AnkiDroid’s Mr. Raoul says people use the program to pass licensing exams in such fields as nutrition or first aid. Some doctors create sets of quiz items on Cerego to recall the names and faces of all their residents, Mr. Smith Lewis says.
Others use flashcard programs for self-improvement. Spencer Greenberg of New York, founder of ClearerThinking.org, a website offering tools to help people improve their decision-making, uses a spaced-repetition system he created to remember tips on interviewing software engineers and making successful presentations.
Mr. Winter, co-founder of CodeCombat, a videogame that teaches programming, has created flashcards to remind him which vegetables he should buy only in organic form, such as kale, and the date his passport will expire.
Write to Sue Shellenbarger at [email protected]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/flashcards-get-smarter-so-you-can-too-1430253560?KEYWORDS=flashcards+get+smarter+so+you+can
Flashcards Get Smarter So You Can, Too
A new learning technique called spaced repetition is spreading fast to adults in many occupations and walks of life. WSJ's Sue Shellenbarger discusses. Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto
By
Sue Shellenbarger
April 28, 2015 4:39 p.m. ET
The old-fashioned flashcard is taking on new, digital life with a promise to make you smarter and more productive.
New flashcard programs on your phone or computer make it possible to memorize facts and concepts in what were wasted minutes waiting in line at the store or commuting to work. Users say they put a world of knowledge tantalizingly within reach, including Mandarin to programming, math, nutrition, bird calls and the bar exam.
The programs are based on research showing that spaced repetition, or repeated exposure to information at planned intervals, is the most powerful way to fix knowledge in one’s memory. Each digital flashcard is repeated at intervals, based on the degree of difficulty for the user. The hardest quiz items come up for review within a few hours or days, and easier ones are repeated every few weeks or months—when the user may be about to forget the answer.
ENLARGE
Cerego’s program tracks the user’s performance item by item. Above, a set of quiz items found on Cerego for learning the history of 18th and 19th century art. CEREGO
Eden Full uses a program called Anki to create about 200 flashcards that she reviews several times a week on her smartphone while waiting in line or riding the subway. She studies memorable quotes, new ideas, helpful writing techniques or photos of important business contacts, with prompts to recall the person’s name and some personal information. Ms. Full, New York, founder of SunSaluter, New York, a nonprofit provider of solar panel technology, says the program helps her remember concepts and strengthen ties with business partners.
“When you’re having a friendly conversation with someone who is genuinely important to you, maybe you want to remember the person has a dog named Sparky,” Ms. Full says. Once she has information firmly in mind, she discards the card.
Catherine Rankine, a structural engineer based in London, is using a spaced-repetition program called Skritter to learn Mandarin, in hopes of doing more work in China. She can study as many as 243 words or characters in 16 minutes on her smartphone during her commute, Ms. Rankine says. Her studies recently helped her complete a project in Shanghai, designing and installing a Fashion Week exhibit in front of a restaurant. “It would have been impossible to get the same results without communicating in Chinese,” she says.
Spaced-repetition programs started catching on several years ago among people studying languages and programming, and spread rapidly via blogs and word-of-mouth to people in many walks of life. Many basic flashcard programs are free and allow users to create their own sets of quiz items, using video, audio or graphics if they wish, or to use decks created by others.
ENLARGE
A set of quiz items on Cerego for learning Chinese CEREGO
Anki has been downloaded 2.5 million times since it was launched in 2006, including 850,000 installations in the past 12 months, says Damien Elmes of Sydney, Australia, the program’s creator. Nicolas Raoul, a Tokyo software engineer who developed AnkiDroid, a version of Anki for Android devices, in 2009, says the Android program has 1.5 million users. A program called the Janki Method, also based on Anki and developed by Jack Kinsella of Berlin, is for people learning to code. Anki is free for computers and on the Web, or $24.99 for the iPhone and iPad mobile app when purchased through the Apple store.
Other, more elaborate programs use spaced repetition in combination with other learning tools. London-based Memrise uses spaced repetition along with frequent testing, competitions among users, and memory-boosting tricks, such as showing users how to link facts they’re trying to learn with memorable images or things they already know. A user might connect the Spanish word “aburrido,” which means “boring,” for example, with a made-up sentence such as, “It’s boring to eat a burrito with every meal.”
Most programs rely on users to rate the difficulty of each quiz item by clicking on one of several buttons beneath each answer. Cerego, San Francisco, a program designed for use both in classrooms and by consumers, tracks the user’s performance item by item, measuring how long each answer takes and analyzing patterns of correct and incorrect responses, says Andrew Smith Lewis, co-founder and executive chairman. The program selects the items the user most needs to review, creates lessons based on them and graphs the user’s progress in each course.
The effectiveness of spaced-repetition programs has been documented in hundreds of studies dating back more than a century, says a 2012 study in Educational Psychology Review. Researchers and students began using spaced repetition with paper flashcards as early as the 1970s, employing a method called the Leitner system.
ENLARGE
A set of quiz items provided by Cerego for learning dog breeds. CEREGO
A memory is a pattern of connections between neurons that is formed by a person’s experience. One neuron can be part of many memory networks, and new memories are fragile. Taking in a lot of new information at once, whether via lectures, reading or cramming, can distort or erase recent memories. Recalling memories periodically, at increasing intervals, helps the brain encode them in lasting form.
Most conventional courses shower students with new material, test them and move on, and few textbooks include frequent reviews. Several spaced-repetition programs were founded by people frustrated by traditional teaching methods. Nick Winter of San Francisco co-founded Skritter in 2009 because studying Chinese in college was so difficult. “You spend eight hours a day in the classroom trying to learn facts, and after the semester is over you forget 98% of it—and all those years of your life are gone,” he says.
Researchers at Excelsior College are studying whether using Cerego can help students learn more in online math and biology classes, says Jason Bryer, a senior researcher at Excelsior College, Albany, N.Y. Preliminary results from a 2014 study of 1,000 students found those who used the program got better grades, compared with controls, Dr. Bryer says.
Use of spaced-repetition programs in the workplace is growing as professionals and managers try to keep pace with mounting demands to learn new information, technology and techniques. People use Memrise to improve their technical vocabulary in fields ranging from oil drilling to medicine, says Ed Cooke, chief executive officer of Memrise, whose memory skills and coaching were described in the book, “Moonwalking with Einstein.”
AnkiDroid’s Mr. Raoul says people use the program to pass licensing exams in such fields as nutrition or first aid. Some doctors create sets of quiz items on Cerego to recall the names and faces of all their residents, Mr. Smith Lewis says.
Others use flashcard programs for self-improvement. Spencer Greenberg of New York, founder of ClearerThinking.org, a website offering tools to help people improve their decision-making, uses a spaced-repetition system he created to remember tips on interviewing software engineers and making successful presentations.
Mr. Winter, co-founder of CodeCombat, a videogame that teaches programming, has created flashcards to remind him which vegetables he should buy only in organic form, such as kale, and the date his passport will expire.
Write to Sue Shellenbarger at [email protected]
Why Chinese Characters Aren’t as Scary as You Think--May 4, 2015
From: http://www.lingholic.com/chinese-characters-arent-as-scary-as-you-think/
Why Chinese Characters Aren’t as Scary as You Think
When I started learning Chinese, I was terrified of learning Chinese characters. I know that sounds contradictory: Characters are an inherent part of Chinese – but it’s true. Let me tell you why I was afraid. Firstly, I knew that there was no way to tell what a particular character meant. This would make it much harder to recognise the character. I also knew that Chinese characters are much more complex than western letters. This would make them much harder to write. Finally, I encountered the Chinese character below:
That’s biáng, the most complicated Chinese character there is. It has so many strokes that Microsoft doesn’t actually allow you to type it. You can probably guess how that made me feel when I first saw it, having just started learning Chinese. Soon after, I actually started learning the characters. I had been right: For my class’ first few vocabulary tests, I had to spend an entire weekend learning just 10 or so characters.
Chinese characters don’t have to be scarySeveral years on, I’m no longer afraid of Chinese characters. More importantly, it doesn’t take me two days to learn 10 of them. This is because I’ve found a way to learn (and remember) characters much more efficiently. In this guest post, I’d like to show you too how Chinese characters aren’t all that bad after all.
An introduction to radicals
Chinese characters are not stand alone entities, unrelated to every other character. They are actually all made out of different building blocks called radicals. These building blocks are like toppings in a make-your-own-sundae place! There’s a fairly small number of toppings (chocolate sprinkles, strawberry sauce and so on). But out of these you can make any sundae you want. In the same way, there are only 214 radicals but out of these you can make almost any character. The important bit is that each radical has a meaning. As an example; 女 is the radical for woman and 子 is the radical for child. So in the same way that “strawberry sauce” refers to some flavoured pink goo, “woman radical” refers to those specific three strokes.
Radicals mean that there’s less to rememberImagine that you want someone else to get a sundae for you. You’re very picky so it has to have exactly the right toppings. You’ll most likely describe the sundae to them as “ice cream with chocolate sprinkles and strawberry sauce”. Or something. The point is that you’ll specify the toppings. What you won’t do is list all the ingredients in the chocolate sprinkles and strawberry sauce.
There’s a good reason for this: it’s much easier to remember a few toppings than all of the ingredients that went into them. The same principle applies to Chinese characters. It’s much easier to remember two or three radicals than twenty strokes which happen to make up those two or three radicals.
The mistake I made, when wasting all those weekends, was that I was trying to memorize all of the ingredients rather than the few toppings.
Alright, I’ve probably stretched this metaphor enough now so I’ll just spell it out for you: your life will be much easier if you remember a character based on its radicals rather than all of its strokes.
Radicals allow you to create storiesAs radicals have a certain meaning, you can use them to break characters down into stories! Just take a hard to learn character with a couple of radicals in it and combine their meanings into a mnemonic. The story could be made up, or you could research the real etymology behind the character. To give but one example, here’s the actual etymology of the character 看 – to watch.
On the top of the character you should be able to see 手. This is the hand radical (and literally a picture of a hand). Below it is the eye radical 目. The eye radical also originates from a picture of an eye (you can see its earlier form below). So the character 看 shows someone putting their hand just over the eye. This is to keep the sun out so they can see more easily!
How to learn radicalsAt this point, you may be thinking that all I’ve done is replaced character learning with radical learning. Well to be honest, that’s what I’ve just done indeed. But there are two reasons why this is easier:
1. There aren’t that many of themThere are 214 Chinese radicals of which only around 100 are common. This really isn’t much to learn. Beginners quickly learn how to recognize more than 100 characters, but if you really want to know Chinese you’ll need to know around 5000 characters. It’s therefore a really good move to learn 100 radicals because they’ll help you with such a huge number of characters.
2. They’re fairly simple (and therefore easy!)Back when I was slaving over those ten characters every weekend, the thing which made characters hard was the number of strokes. The thing is that most radicals don’t have many strokes. So, although you can’t remember the radicals to learn the radicals (obviously), they’re still easy to learn. Basically, radicals are easy to learn and well worth the effort for the benefits you’ll receive.
ConclusionI’ve shown you how radicals will change the way you learn Chinese characters. Firstly they make it easy to “chunk” the characters, just like I’ve shown you with my little “ice cream sundae” metaphor. Secondly, they allow you to make and see stories within each character. This is great not just because they’re memorable, but also because the stories are really interesting. So, I really recommend you check out some of the more common Chinese radicals. If you don’t know where to start, you could try downloading a shared deck of them on Anki. Anki is a really cool flashcard program that can also be of huge help to memorize Chinese characters and words.
Now that you’ve got this new knowledge about how radicals fit together to make characters, you should definitely use this to your advantage. Unless, that is, you like spending your weekends learning the same 10 characters.
Ollie blogs about learning Chinese at ChineseMusings.com. Check out the site for tips on how to learn Chinese and on the meaning of Chinese characters. Alternatively, visit ChineseMusings.com/lingholic for more content related to this post.
Why Chinese Characters Aren’t as Scary as You Think
When I started learning Chinese, I was terrified of learning Chinese characters. I know that sounds contradictory: Characters are an inherent part of Chinese – but it’s true. Let me tell you why I was afraid. Firstly, I knew that there was no way to tell what a particular character meant. This would make it much harder to recognise the character. I also knew that Chinese characters are much more complex than western letters. This would make them much harder to write. Finally, I encountered the Chinese character below:
That’s biáng, the most complicated Chinese character there is. It has so many strokes that Microsoft doesn’t actually allow you to type it. You can probably guess how that made me feel when I first saw it, having just started learning Chinese. Soon after, I actually started learning the characters. I had been right: For my class’ first few vocabulary tests, I had to spend an entire weekend learning just 10 or so characters.
Chinese characters don’t have to be scarySeveral years on, I’m no longer afraid of Chinese characters. More importantly, it doesn’t take me two days to learn 10 of them. This is because I’ve found a way to learn (and remember) characters much more efficiently. In this guest post, I’d like to show you too how Chinese characters aren’t all that bad after all.
An introduction to radicals
Chinese characters are not stand alone entities, unrelated to every other character. They are actually all made out of different building blocks called radicals. These building blocks are like toppings in a make-your-own-sundae place! There’s a fairly small number of toppings (chocolate sprinkles, strawberry sauce and so on). But out of these you can make any sundae you want. In the same way, there are only 214 radicals but out of these you can make almost any character. The important bit is that each radical has a meaning. As an example; 女 is the radical for woman and 子 is the radical for child. So in the same way that “strawberry sauce” refers to some flavoured pink goo, “woman radical” refers to those specific three strokes.
Radicals mean that there’s less to rememberImagine that you want someone else to get a sundae for you. You’re very picky so it has to have exactly the right toppings. You’ll most likely describe the sundae to them as “ice cream with chocolate sprinkles and strawberry sauce”. Or something. The point is that you’ll specify the toppings. What you won’t do is list all the ingredients in the chocolate sprinkles and strawberry sauce.
There’s a good reason for this: it’s much easier to remember a few toppings than all of the ingredients that went into them. The same principle applies to Chinese characters. It’s much easier to remember two or three radicals than twenty strokes which happen to make up those two or three radicals.
The mistake I made, when wasting all those weekends, was that I was trying to memorize all of the ingredients rather than the few toppings.
Alright, I’ve probably stretched this metaphor enough now so I’ll just spell it out for you: your life will be much easier if you remember a character based on its radicals rather than all of its strokes.
Radicals allow you to create storiesAs radicals have a certain meaning, you can use them to break characters down into stories! Just take a hard to learn character with a couple of radicals in it and combine their meanings into a mnemonic. The story could be made up, or you could research the real etymology behind the character. To give but one example, here’s the actual etymology of the character 看 – to watch.
On the top of the character you should be able to see 手. This is the hand radical (and literally a picture of a hand). Below it is the eye radical 目. The eye radical also originates from a picture of an eye (you can see its earlier form below). So the character 看 shows someone putting their hand just over the eye. This is to keep the sun out so they can see more easily!
How to learn radicalsAt this point, you may be thinking that all I’ve done is replaced character learning with radical learning. Well to be honest, that’s what I’ve just done indeed. But there are two reasons why this is easier:
1. There aren’t that many of themThere are 214 Chinese radicals of which only around 100 are common. This really isn’t much to learn. Beginners quickly learn how to recognize more than 100 characters, but if you really want to know Chinese you’ll need to know around 5000 characters. It’s therefore a really good move to learn 100 radicals because they’ll help you with such a huge number of characters.
2. They’re fairly simple (and therefore easy!)Back when I was slaving over those ten characters every weekend, the thing which made characters hard was the number of strokes. The thing is that most radicals don’t have many strokes. So, although you can’t remember the radicals to learn the radicals (obviously), they’re still easy to learn. Basically, radicals are easy to learn and well worth the effort for the benefits you’ll receive.
ConclusionI’ve shown you how radicals will change the way you learn Chinese characters. Firstly they make it easy to “chunk” the characters, just like I’ve shown you with my little “ice cream sundae” metaphor. Secondly, they allow you to make and see stories within each character. This is great not just because they’re memorable, but also because the stories are really interesting. So, I really recommend you check out some of the more common Chinese radicals. If you don’t know where to start, you could try downloading a shared deck of them on Anki. Anki is a really cool flashcard program that can also be of huge help to memorize Chinese characters and words.
Now that you’ve got this new knowledge about how radicals fit together to make characters, you should definitely use this to your advantage. Unless, that is, you like spending your weekends learning the same 10 characters.
Ollie blogs about learning Chinese at ChineseMusings.com. Check out the site for tips on how to learn Chinese and on the meaning of Chinese characters. Alternatively, visit ChineseMusings.com/lingholic for more content related to this post.
Learning Chinese changes young lives--May 4, 2015
http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/2015/04/learning-chinese-changes-young-lives/
Learning Chinese changes young livesBy Dong Leshuo and May Zhou in Atlanta | Published April 21, 2015
From left: Jeff Wang, director of China learning initiatives at Asia Society, moderates a talk on Chinese learning experiences by panelists Kara Babb, Nathan Bueachamp-Mustafaga, Jeff Kellogg, Maeusz Naslonski, Clarissa Shah and Ashley Tolbert on April 17 in Atlanta. [May Zhou / China Daily]
A group of young Americans shared their experiences of Chinese learning at the eighth National Chinese Language Conference in Atlanta.
“This conference is designed to demonstrate how language learning can provide multiple ways of global engagement, how language learning leads ordinary students to amazing careers and lives,” said Jeff Wang, director of China Learning initiatives of the Asia Society, on April 17.
Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga of Washington, DC made up his mind to learn Chinese as a foreign language over other languages when he was 12.
Now Beauchamp-Mustafaga is the editor of China Brief. He was selected as one of the Under 25 top rising scholars on US-China relations by Yale University’s China Hands magazine.
“Chinese has given me passion. It is a very fundamental part of my life,” he said.
Kara Babb, who works for Amazon in Seattle, has been learning Chinese for five years.
Babb’s major in college is international business. When her professor suggested she learn Chinese as a foreign language, she thought it was a mission impossible.
“I thought it was pretty difficult. When I look at the characters for the first time I thought I can’t do this,” Babb said.
However, by working hard and keeping at it every day, she now speaks fluent Mandarin.
“What Chinese is for me is giving me confidence that there is nothing I can’t do,” Babb said. “It’s this kind of attitude that got me a job at Amazon that I had no experience for. Learning Chinese helped build my confidence. ”
Mateusz Naslonski heard Chinese for the first time watching the movie Rush Hour as a freshman in high school.
“I thought it was really cool pronunciation,” he said. Then he started his journey with learning Chinese, which opened the door to his future. As a sophomore at Georgetown, he decided, besides majoring in Chinese, he would also learn Korean. “I want to compare different East Asian cultures to gain better understanding of Asia.”
Attorney Clarissa Shah experienced frustration in the very beginning, as her parents did not agree with her when she decided to learn Chinese in college.
“But I insisted on learning Chinese and my parents are very happy with what I have achieved now,” Shah said.
Shah found out that speaking the language was really helpful to “engage in genuine conversations”.
Jeff Kellogg, who has been learning Chinese for nine years, “wasn’t thinking of continuing to learn Chinese from the start”.
Now Kellogg has been using his Chinese skill to grow his own travel business. “I want Chinese visitors to the US to be moved by their experiences here as I was in China,” said Kellogg.
The panelists also shared some personal insights. For Beauchamp-Mustafaga, his best moments would be Christmas spent on Mt Qomolangma and visits to Tibet and Xinjiang. “When one gets outside of major cities like Beijing and Shanghai and explores further, one gets a sense of the fuller picture of China,” he said.
“In 2013 I lived in China for a few months. It was a cool and eye-opening experience,” said Ashley Tolbert, whose Chinese name is Aisha.
“One time I volunteered at a rural school outside of Beijing, I was talking to people there about the difference in education between urban and rural areas. The fact that I could carry a meaningful conversation in Chinese blew my mind away,” said Tolbert.
“Chinese is difficult but if you are excited about it and continue to keep that drive, it is not a hard as you thought,” Shah said.
Learning Chinese changes young livesBy Dong Leshuo and May Zhou in Atlanta | Published April 21, 2015
From left: Jeff Wang, director of China learning initiatives at Asia Society, moderates a talk on Chinese learning experiences by panelists Kara Babb, Nathan Bueachamp-Mustafaga, Jeff Kellogg, Maeusz Naslonski, Clarissa Shah and Ashley Tolbert on April 17 in Atlanta. [May Zhou / China Daily]
A group of young Americans shared their experiences of Chinese learning at the eighth National Chinese Language Conference in Atlanta.
“This conference is designed to demonstrate how language learning can provide multiple ways of global engagement, how language learning leads ordinary students to amazing careers and lives,” said Jeff Wang, director of China Learning initiatives of the Asia Society, on April 17.
Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga of Washington, DC made up his mind to learn Chinese as a foreign language over other languages when he was 12.
Now Beauchamp-Mustafaga is the editor of China Brief. He was selected as one of the Under 25 top rising scholars on US-China relations by Yale University’s China Hands magazine.
“Chinese has given me passion. It is a very fundamental part of my life,” he said.
Kara Babb, who works for Amazon in Seattle, has been learning Chinese for five years.
Babb’s major in college is international business. When her professor suggested she learn Chinese as a foreign language, she thought it was a mission impossible.
“I thought it was pretty difficult. When I look at the characters for the first time I thought I can’t do this,” Babb said.
However, by working hard and keeping at it every day, she now speaks fluent Mandarin.
“What Chinese is for me is giving me confidence that there is nothing I can’t do,” Babb said. “It’s this kind of attitude that got me a job at Amazon that I had no experience for. Learning Chinese helped build my confidence. ”
Mateusz Naslonski heard Chinese for the first time watching the movie Rush Hour as a freshman in high school.
“I thought it was really cool pronunciation,” he said. Then he started his journey with learning Chinese, which opened the door to his future. As a sophomore at Georgetown, he decided, besides majoring in Chinese, he would also learn Korean. “I want to compare different East Asian cultures to gain better understanding of Asia.”
Attorney Clarissa Shah experienced frustration in the very beginning, as her parents did not agree with her when she decided to learn Chinese in college.
“But I insisted on learning Chinese and my parents are very happy with what I have achieved now,” Shah said.
Shah found out that speaking the language was really helpful to “engage in genuine conversations”.
Jeff Kellogg, who has been learning Chinese for nine years, “wasn’t thinking of continuing to learn Chinese from the start”.
Now Kellogg has been using his Chinese skill to grow his own travel business. “I want Chinese visitors to the US to be moved by their experiences here as I was in China,” said Kellogg.
The panelists also shared some personal insights. For Beauchamp-Mustafaga, his best moments would be Christmas spent on Mt Qomolangma and visits to Tibet and Xinjiang. “When one gets outside of major cities like Beijing and Shanghai and explores further, one gets a sense of the fuller picture of China,” he said.
“In 2013 I lived in China for a few months. It was a cool and eye-opening experience,” said Ashley Tolbert, whose Chinese name is Aisha.
“One time I volunteered at a rural school outside of Beijing, I was talking to people there about the difference in education between urban and rural areas. The fact that I could carry a meaningful conversation in Chinese blew my mind away,” said Tolbert.
“Chinese is difficult but if you are excited about it and continue to keep that drive, it is not a hard as you thought,” Shah said.
OMG! American English--May 3, 2015
From: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18825
The star of this popular Voice of America program is Jessica Beinecke (Bái Jié 白洁). Her Mandarin is quite amazing; indeed, I would say that it is nothing short of phenomenal. Here's a sample:
The title of that particular video is "OMG! 美语 Pick-up Line Do's & Don'ts!" The Mandarin term in question that she is illustrating is dāshàn 搭讪, which means "strike up a conversation; smooth over an awkward situation; etc."
Before discussing Jessica's incredibly good Mandarin and how it got that way, a couple more notes on the clever title of her show. Měiyǔ 美语 means both "American English" and "beautiful language". As for "OMG", she pronounces it "oh em gee", which surprised me a bit, because I've actually never heard it pronounced that way before, though I've certainly seen it written as "OMG" countless times. Perhaps it's common for people to say "oh em gee", but I myself have not been exposed to it being spoken that way before Jessica's videos. It makes sense, though, to pronounce "OMG" as "oh em gee", since it doesn't just stand for "Oh My God", but can also mean "Oh my goodness", "Oh my gosh", "Oh my golly", or "Oh my gracious", and saying "oh em gee" preserves the ambiguity of the referent.
Here's the rather sketchy Wikipedia article on Jessica (since she's so young and operating in a niche environment, we're lucky to have this much):
Jessica Beinecke [Chinese: 白洁 (Bai Jie)] (born about 1987) is an American educator entertainer and journalist. She works for the Mandarin Chinese broadcast of Voice of America. Her program is OMG! 美语 (OMG! Meiyu or OMG! American English) which achieved widespread popularity inChina and Taiwan. Her personality and program have been covered in both American and Chinese media. She is a graduate of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism of Ohio University and received a graduate degree at Middlebury College in Vermont.
The Washington Post reports that in 2011 her video explaining sleep gunk that can be in your eyes when you wake up in the morning went viral.
In the introduction to her pick-up lines video, she says that her program runs daily from Monday to Friday. If she and her support staff (mostly the show is produced by Jessica herself) can come up with a quality video like this one five days a week, that's all the more impressive, since it means she's versatile and spontaneous, and not restricted to a few well-rehearsed skits.
The big question for me is how Jessica's Mandarin got to be so good. I do not know Jessica, but just judging from the nature of her near native fluency, I would guess that she — in learning Mandarin — paid far more attention to speaking and listening than to reading and writing. In fact, she can probably say a lot more than she can read or write. Learners of Mandarin tend to fixate on the characters, and they are often encouraged in this mistaken approach by their teachers, as though the number of characters one has memorized were some sort of index of the level of one's ability in the language. Quite the contrary, paying undue attention to the characters, especially during the first months of the learning process, often cripples one's ability to learn the language. It is far more important to master the pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar first, and then worry about the characters later (or never, if reading and writing is not what you're after). Learn Mandarin like a baby, like a native — without reference to the characters until you are fluent.
Here are a couple of Language Log posts advocating that method:
OMG! 美语 Yucky GUNK!
Note that, in English, she refers to the stuff that comes out of your eyes overnight as "sleepies", and in Mandarin as yǎnshǐ 眼屎 (lit., "eye poop"), which my Shandong in-laws always referred to as yǎnshǐ baba, where the "baba" (which I'm not sure how to write in characters) I think refers to the crusty nature of this dried mucosal discharge. Other English terms for it are rheum and perhaps gum and gound. Sometimes it is just referred to as having "sleep" in your eyes. Slang terms for this substance include "eye boogers", "eye mattering", "eye gunk" (as in the title of the video), and "eye pus".
OMG! 美语 Bai Jie TOAST!
This is Jessica's bilingual paean to bagels, baguettes, and bread in general.
According to this Washington Post article of September 14, 2011, when Jessica was already completely fluent and famous in China for her Mandarin ability, this Ohio girl had only been studying the language for five years by that time:
"‘OMG Meiyu,’ a breakout hit Web show, schools Chinese in American slang ".
With the right methods, it can be achieved; with the wrong methods, it will never happen.
The star of this popular Voice of America program is Jessica Beinecke (Bái Jié 白洁). Her Mandarin is quite amazing; indeed, I would say that it is nothing short of phenomenal. Here's a sample:
The title of that particular video is "OMG! 美语 Pick-up Line Do's & Don'ts!" The Mandarin term in question that she is illustrating is dāshàn 搭讪, which means "strike up a conversation; smooth over an awkward situation; etc."
Before discussing Jessica's incredibly good Mandarin and how it got that way, a couple more notes on the clever title of her show. Měiyǔ 美语 means both "American English" and "beautiful language". As for "OMG", she pronounces it "oh em gee", which surprised me a bit, because I've actually never heard it pronounced that way before, though I've certainly seen it written as "OMG" countless times. Perhaps it's common for people to say "oh em gee", but I myself have not been exposed to it being spoken that way before Jessica's videos. It makes sense, though, to pronounce "OMG" as "oh em gee", since it doesn't just stand for "Oh My God", but can also mean "Oh my goodness", "Oh my gosh", "Oh my golly", or "Oh my gracious", and saying "oh em gee" preserves the ambiguity of the referent.
Here's the rather sketchy Wikipedia article on Jessica (since she's so young and operating in a niche environment, we're lucky to have this much):
Jessica Beinecke [Chinese: 白洁 (Bai Jie)] (born about 1987) is an American educator entertainer and journalist. She works for the Mandarin Chinese broadcast of Voice of America. Her program is OMG! 美语 (OMG! Meiyu or OMG! American English) which achieved widespread popularity inChina and Taiwan. Her personality and program have been covered in both American and Chinese media. She is a graduate of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism of Ohio University and received a graduate degree at Middlebury College in Vermont.
The Washington Post reports that in 2011 her video explaining sleep gunk that can be in your eyes when you wake up in the morning went viral.
In the introduction to her pick-up lines video, she says that her program runs daily from Monday to Friday. If she and her support staff (mostly the show is produced by Jessica herself) can come up with a quality video like this one five days a week, that's all the more impressive, since it means she's versatile and spontaneous, and not restricted to a few well-rehearsed skits.
The big question for me is how Jessica's Mandarin got to be so good. I do not know Jessica, but just judging from the nature of her near native fluency, I would guess that she — in learning Mandarin — paid far more attention to speaking and listening than to reading and writing. In fact, she can probably say a lot more than she can read or write. Learners of Mandarin tend to fixate on the characters, and they are often encouraged in this mistaken approach by their teachers, as though the number of characters one has memorized were some sort of index of the level of one's ability in the language. Quite the contrary, paying undue attention to the characters, especially during the first months of the learning process, often cripples one's ability to learn the language. It is far more important to master the pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar first, and then worry about the characters later (or never, if reading and writing is not what you're after). Learn Mandarin like a baby, like a native — without reference to the characters until you are fluent.
Here are a couple of Language Log posts advocating that method:
- "How to learn Chinese and Japanese " (2/17/14)
- "How to learn to read Chinese " (5/25/08)
OMG! 美语 Yucky GUNK!
Note that, in English, she refers to the stuff that comes out of your eyes overnight as "sleepies", and in Mandarin as yǎnshǐ 眼屎 (lit., "eye poop"), which my Shandong in-laws always referred to as yǎnshǐ baba, where the "baba" (which I'm not sure how to write in characters) I think refers to the crusty nature of this dried mucosal discharge. Other English terms for it are rheum and perhaps gum and gound. Sometimes it is just referred to as having "sleep" in your eyes. Slang terms for this substance include "eye boogers", "eye mattering", "eye gunk" (as in the title of the video), and "eye pus".
OMG! 美语 Bai Jie TOAST!
This is Jessica's bilingual paean to bagels, baguettes, and bread in general.
According to this Washington Post article of September 14, 2011, when Jessica was already completely fluent and famous in China for her Mandarin ability, this Ohio girl had only been studying the language for five years by that time:
"‘OMG Meiyu,’ a breakout hit Web show, schools Chinese in American slang ".
With the right methods, it can be achieved; with the wrong methods, it will never happen.
WHY CHINESE IS EASY: THE SMART WAY TO LEARN CHINESE TONES--April 23, 2015
From: http://www.fluentin3months.com/chinese-tones/
Tones. A huge issue people have when learning Chinese is the fact that it’s a tonal language.
Let’s start with the bad news. If you don’t get tones down well, it will be really hard for native Mandarin speakers to understand you.
Now for the good news. Getting tones right isn’t nearly as hard as you think. In fact, tones can be easy – if you adopt the right approach.
Let’s look at how to make Chinese tones simple.
PRACTICE WITH TEACHERSWhen I first arrived in Taiwan, I spoke what I saw written down in my phrasebook. It didn’t go down well. Locals had no idea what I was saying. Why? My tones were completely off.
You can’t get far in speaking Chinese without getting a hold on tones.
That said, you do not need to master Mandarin tones in a hurry. I discovered a loophole that allows you to ease into tones while you learn other aspects of Chinese. The secret? Speaking with teachers.
I’ve found that Chinese teachers are more imaginative than most native speakers and will be flexible with your early tonal mistakes. Plus, hiring a teacher is the perfect way to kickstart your mission to learn Chinese.
When you’re starting out, simply aim to get tones as good as you can. Don’t let yourself get paralysed by perfectionism. If you get about 3 out of 5 tones right in most sentences then your teacher will still be able to deduct from the context what you mean, even when you get a couple of the other tones wrong.
With time and practice, you’ll fix your tone problems and soon you’ll be ready for conversations with people not used to speaking with learners. When I travelled in China, I was the first foreigner that many Chinese people had ever spoken to, and we could converse fine. This was mostly because I eased myself in through conversations with patient teachers and language exchange partners.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND CHINESE TONESWith that in mind, how do you actually get the tones right?
You might have heard of the phrase “tone-deaf” in reference to music. When it comes to learning tonal languages, this doesn’t apply. You are not tone-deaf in a way that would prevent you from saying words in Mandarin. Nobody is. You can say every single tone in Mandarin. How do I know this? Because we have tones in English, too.
You are used to using tones to convey emotions, not to distinguish completely different words. In English, tones subtly indicate mood rather than having an obvious effect on meaning. When you realize this and make the right associations you start to distinguish the tones in Chinese much more easily.
Tones in Mandarin have some parallels with the way we express emotion through intonation in English. Along those lines, I’ve found Kaiser’s Dude System a really helpful way to understand how each tone would sound in English examples.
To actually get the tones right, I suggest you listen to native content and try to mimic it as best as you can.
I realized early in my studies that distinguishing tones was going to be a major influencer in how well I could understand those speaking to me, which would subsequently affect my ability to create tones. Because of this, I decided to make tones the central focus for my first two weeks of study. I aimed to get them right most of the time, rather than mastering them. As a consequence, I made less progress in memorizing vocabulary, but those two weeks made a world of difference for the rest of my Chinese mission.
After I fixed my initial problems with tones, I found that I had greatest difficulty distinguishing the second and third tones. So I went off to watch more Youtube videos focused on these tones. I also asked my teachers for help until I had my comprehension down.
The first step, before you can say tones correctly, is to understand them correctly. You can train your ear to hear the different tones as best as you can using the following resources:
First, take a recording of a native speaker, ideally saying a phrase you are likely to say often, and play it back slowly. For example, I recorded my teacher saying “I am Irish” (Wǒ shì ài’ěrlán rén). Play each word and try to repeat not just the pronunciation but the intonation. Then play two words and try to repeat them together. Keep increasing the wordcount until you have a whole sentence. Repeat this aloud as many times as you can, for several minutes if you have to.
Next, work with your teacher to prepare a short script about yourself, and have it ready in pinyin. Next time you get on Skype or see your teacher, try to read that script slowly while staying focused on the tones rather than the meaning of the sentences. Keep practising this one script and you will get to grips with its tones.
To make you feel better that you aren’t alone as a beginner, check out this video I recorded 2 weeks into learning Chinese. I spent several days on this one prepared script, to get the tones as right as I could. I then tried to memorize the script itself for a day straight so that I wasn’t reading it. It’s painful to watch, but if I can put a video like this online for the world to see, you can easily make a quick intro about yourself and practise those tones for your teacher.
It was only one script, but it skyrocketed my progress in being able to produce tones for all conversations. Give something similar a try for yourself.
Tones. A huge issue people have when learning Chinese is the fact that it’s a tonal language.
Let’s start with the bad news. If you don’t get tones down well, it will be really hard for native Mandarin speakers to understand you.
Now for the good news. Getting tones right isn’t nearly as hard as you think. In fact, tones can be easy – if you adopt the right approach.
Let’s look at how to make Chinese tones simple.
PRACTICE WITH TEACHERSWhen I first arrived in Taiwan, I spoke what I saw written down in my phrasebook. It didn’t go down well. Locals had no idea what I was saying. Why? My tones were completely off.
You can’t get far in speaking Chinese without getting a hold on tones.
That said, you do not need to master Mandarin tones in a hurry. I discovered a loophole that allows you to ease into tones while you learn other aspects of Chinese. The secret? Speaking with teachers.
I’ve found that Chinese teachers are more imaginative than most native speakers and will be flexible with your early tonal mistakes. Plus, hiring a teacher is the perfect way to kickstart your mission to learn Chinese.
When you’re starting out, simply aim to get tones as good as you can. Don’t let yourself get paralysed by perfectionism. If you get about 3 out of 5 tones right in most sentences then your teacher will still be able to deduct from the context what you mean, even when you get a couple of the other tones wrong.
With time and practice, you’ll fix your tone problems and soon you’ll be ready for conversations with people not used to speaking with learners. When I travelled in China, I was the first foreigner that many Chinese people had ever spoken to, and we could converse fine. This was mostly because I eased myself in through conversations with patient teachers and language exchange partners.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND CHINESE TONESWith that in mind, how do you actually get the tones right?
You might have heard of the phrase “tone-deaf” in reference to music. When it comes to learning tonal languages, this doesn’t apply. You are not tone-deaf in a way that would prevent you from saying words in Mandarin. Nobody is. You can say every single tone in Mandarin. How do I know this? Because we have tones in English, too.
You are used to using tones to convey emotions, not to distinguish completely different words. In English, tones subtly indicate mood rather than having an obvious effect on meaning. When you realize this and make the right associations you start to distinguish the tones in Chinese much more easily.
Tones in Mandarin have some parallels with the way we express emotion through intonation in English. Along those lines, I’ve found Kaiser’s Dude System a really helpful way to understand how each tone would sound in English examples.
To actually get the tones right, I suggest you listen to native content and try to mimic it as best as you can.
I realized early in my studies that distinguishing tones was going to be a major influencer in how well I could understand those speaking to me, which would subsequently affect my ability to create tones. Because of this, I decided to make tones the central focus for my first two weeks of study. I aimed to get them right most of the time, rather than mastering them. As a consequence, I made less progress in memorizing vocabulary, but those two weeks made a world of difference for the rest of my Chinese mission.
After I fixed my initial problems with tones, I found that I had greatest difficulty distinguishing the second and third tones. So I went off to watch more Youtube videos focused on these tones. I also asked my teachers for help until I had my comprehension down.
The first step, before you can say tones correctly, is to understand them correctly. You can train your ear to hear the different tones as best as you can using the following resources:
- Listen to the early podcasts in Chineseclass101 where each tone is explained in detail. Because this is an audio resource, it’s perfect for learning tones. No amount of reading about Mandarin will help you until you start hearing it.
- Watch this very detailed video by my friend (and native speaker) Yangyang onThe Most Effective Way to Learn Chinese Tones.
- Use online tests and you’ll start to see which tones give you greatest difficulty. There are several tests available online including the Arch Chinese test and theQuick Mandarin test.
- Any time you come across a new word and want to be sure that you get its tones right, search for it using the Chinese characters on forvo.com.
First, take a recording of a native speaker, ideally saying a phrase you are likely to say often, and play it back slowly. For example, I recorded my teacher saying “I am Irish” (Wǒ shì ài’ěrlán rén). Play each word and try to repeat not just the pronunciation but the intonation. Then play two words and try to repeat them together. Keep increasing the wordcount until you have a whole sentence. Repeat this aloud as many times as you can, for several minutes if you have to.
Next, work with your teacher to prepare a short script about yourself, and have it ready in pinyin. Next time you get on Skype or see your teacher, try to read that script slowly while staying focused on the tones rather than the meaning of the sentences. Keep practising this one script and you will get to grips with its tones.
To make you feel better that you aren’t alone as a beginner, check out this video I recorded 2 weeks into learning Chinese. I spent several days on this one prepared script, to get the tones as right as I could. I then tried to memorize the script itself for a day straight so that I wasn’t reading it. It’s painful to watch, but if I can put a video like this online for the world to see, you can easily make a quick intro about yourself and practise those tones for your teacher.
It was only one script, but it skyrocketed my progress in being able to produce tones for all conversations. Give something similar a try for yourself.
Skype Translator Preview adds Mandarin, the language of 1 billion people -- April 8, 2015
From: http://mashable.com/2015/04/08/skype-translator-preview-update-brings-mandarin-fluency/
BY LANCE ULANOFF11 HOURS AGO
Skype Translator Preview, the multi-lingual video conferencing tool from Microsoft, has added what is arguably the world's most popular language: Mandarin Chinese.
Starting today, Skype Translator Preview, which is still in invite-only beta and only works on Windows 8.1 and above, can do real-time voice translations of Mandarin and Italian. As with the preview's previous language skills, Skype Translator can, in real time, translate spoken words from English to Mandarin and Mandarin to English, creating a near fluent conversation between two people who might otherwise not be able to communicate.
SEE ALSO: The real-world test on Microsoft Skype Translator Preview
The translation is not yet perfect, according to Microsoft Research's Olivier Fontana, but both Italian and Mandarin Chinese have reached a level of competency where the Skype Translator team is comfortable releasing the update to the tens of thousands of people currently in the invite-only program.
The addition of Chinese, which is spoken by over 1 billion people world-wide, brings the total number of real-time voice translation languages to four: Spanish, English, Chinese (Mandarin) and Italian. Microsoft recently added Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian to the app’s text translations services, which brings that number of supported languages to 50.
Olivier, who admitted that his native French is not yet supported, noted that the team's work on Mandarin Chinese was greatly assisted by having a Microsoft Research team based in China. "It helped us work out the specificities of Chinese," he told Mashable.
Skype Translator Preview can do voice translation for four languages and real-time text translation for 50.
IMAGE: MICROSOFT
The new languages will arrive automatically in Skype Translator Preview, but Microsoft Research also has a handful of interface updates that Windows 8.1 users (where Translator is supported), will have to download an app update to access.
The new app will now show partial sentence translations as the system figures them out. Fontana said this may aid in more fluid conversations.
They've also done some work to try and clear up confusion that can occur when two people are speaking in different languages and the system is speaking over them in translated voices. The update will, when it's ready to speak the translation, subtlety lower the audio on the native speaker's voice. So on the English side, you’ll better hear an English-speaking translation and on the Chinese side, they'll better hear a Chinese translation.
The update will also make it easier to hide the on screen text-to-speech, to cut down on the confusion of seeing other languages, which they cannot read anyway, transcribed on screen.
Microsoft's Fontana said that Skype Translator will work natively with Windows 10 machines. No word yet on when the company will officially release Skype Translator. For now, Fontana is most interested in gathering more and more data to improve the system. “Data is our gas, that’s how we go forward,” he said.
.....................................................
BY LANCE ULANOFF11 HOURS AGO
Skype Translator Preview, the multi-lingual video conferencing tool from Microsoft, has added what is arguably the world's most popular language: Mandarin Chinese.
Starting today, Skype Translator Preview, which is still in invite-only beta and only works on Windows 8.1 and above, can do real-time voice translations of Mandarin and Italian. As with the preview's previous language skills, Skype Translator can, in real time, translate spoken words from English to Mandarin and Mandarin to English, creating a near fluent conversation between two people who might otherwise not be able to communicate.
SEE ALSO: The real-world test on Microsoft Skype Translator Preview
The translation is not yet perfect, according to Microsoft Research's Olivier Fontana, but both Italian and Mandarin Chinese have reached a level of competency where the Skype Translator team is comfortable releasing the update to the tens of thousands of people currently in the invite-only program.
The addition of Chinese, which is spoken by over 1 billion people world-wide, brings the total number of real-time voice translation languages to four: Spanish, English, Chinese (Mandarin) and Italian. Microsoft recently added Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian to the app’s text translations services, which brings that number of supported languages to 50.
Olivier, who admitted that his native French is not yet supported, noted that the team's work on Mandarin Chinese was greatly assisted by having a Microsoft Research team based in China. "It helped us work out the specificities of Chinese," he told Mashable.
Skype Translator Preview can do voice translation for four languages and real-time text translation for 50.
IMAGE: MICROSOFT
The new languages will arrive automatically in Skype Translator Preview, but Microsoft Research also has a handful of interface updates that Windows 8.1 users (where Translator is supported), will have to download an app update to access.
The new app will now show partial sentence translations as the system figures them out. Fontana said this may aid in more fluid conversations.
They've also done some work to try and clear up confusion that can occur when two people are speaking in different languages and the system is speaking over them in translated voices. The update will, when it's ready to speak the translation, subtlety lower the audio on the native speaker's voice. So on the English side, you’ll better hear an English-speaking translation and on the Chinese side, they'll better hear a Chinese translation.
The update will also make it easier to hide the on screen text-to-speech, to cut down on the confusion of seeing other languages, which they cannot read anyway, transcribed on screen.
Microsoft's Fontana said that Skype Translator will work natively with Windows 10 machines. No word yet on when the company will officially release Skype Translator. For now, Fontana is most interested in gathering more and more data to improve the system. “Data is our gas, that’s how we go forward,” he said.
.....................................................
The new paperless revolution in Chinese reading -- April 8, 2015
From: http://www.hackingchinese.com/the-new-paperless-revolution-in-chinese-reading/
This is a guest article by David Moser about the incredible changes the digital age has brought to learners of Chinese all over the world. David holds a Master’s and a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan, with a major in Chinese Linguistics and Philosophy. He’s currently Academic Director at CET Chinese Studies at Beijing Capital Normal University. David has previously contributed to my ask-the-experts article about learning Chinese grammar. In this article, he provides both a background for those who started learning Chinese recently, as well as an in-depth discussion about what has changed and what it means for learners today.
The pre-digital days
Two decades ago, after I had studied Chinese for about four years, I suddenly realized that I had never read a novel in Chinese. In fact, I had not read any Chinese book in its entirety – the task was just too daunting. This would be a rather embarrassing admission for a fourth-year student of, say, Spanish, but back then this was a pretty common situation for us learners of Chinese.
I had fairly good spoken Mandarin and a fair sense for the written language. Yet reading Chinese literature was virtually impossible. There were so many unfamiliar characters on virtually every line of the text that there was no way I could look them all up. So usually I would give up in despair after a frustrating few paragraphs of: “Here, Second-Elder-Sister, quickly take this (something) that our father (something) to Old Chen when his(something) was so tragically (something, something) during the Japanese (something), and never speak of this (something) to a soul (something something), I beg you!” You know the feeling.
At that time Qian Zhongshu’s famous novel Weicheng《围城》was having a revival of popularity, partly due to a TV series adaptation of the novel. My friends at Peking University were all raving about it, so I decided to read the book myself – and I meanreally read it. My goal was to understand every word, every idiom, and every unfamiliar character, getting as close to a full understanding of the text as I possibly could.
The task took me six months, and I can’t exactly describe it as “reading for pleasure.” I found I had to look up a couple dozen words per page, sometimes consulting three or four different dictionaries, in order to grasp all the subtlety and nuance of Qian’s satirical novel. Not wanting to waste my dictionary efforts, I pencilled in glosses to every new vocabulary item I encountered so that I could go back and reread passages without looking up the characters again. My battered copy of the book still rests on the bookcase like a war memento. Here’s a typical page:
As you can see from this one page, the whole process was painfully tedious. In those dark pre-digital days, we Chinese learners had to look up unfamiliar characters using the old radical-and-stroke-count method. Just searching for one pesky character might take me as much as three minutes, at which point I would have forgotten the plot of the book.
At the time, a Chinese literature professor who I respected said to me, “This is not the right strategy for students to read Chinese literature. You don’t need to understand every single word to get the gist. Just keep reading forward through the text, and don’t get hung up on every unfamiliar character.”
This advice, which is still common today, seemed like pure horse pucky to me. Reading a great novel is not like skimming the Terms of Agreement before installing a piece of new software. You don’t read Chinese literature to “get the gist of it”. Quite the contrary; you want to fully understand each sentence, savor the flavor of every colorful adjective and juicy adverb. Otherwise, why go to all the trouble of reading it at all? (The whole state of affairs reminds me of a Woody Allen joke: “I took a course in speed reading. The other day I read War and Peace in just 15 minutes. It’s about Russia.”)
I currently teach at an overseas Chinese study program for American undergraduates. One of the most common laments I hear from my students goes something like this: “I can fairly easily understand the material in my intermediate Chinese reader, but whenever I try to read an actual newspaper or magazine article, I can barely get through the first paragraph. And novels are almost impossible. When am I going to be able to actually read texts in the real world?”
Go digital, young man
The solution to my students’ problem is to go digital — that is, read your texts in e-format, whenever possible. The Chinese may have invented Chinese characters and paper, but it’s time to separate the two. Don’t get me wrong; I have a deep nostalgic love for ink on paper, but who has a leisurely hour to devote to one lousy page of text? There’s an amazing arsenal of new Chinese character processing technology out there, and it’s time we made full use it. The plethora of smart phone apps, web browser extensions, digital dictionaries and Chinese character processing devices that students are now using – or should be using – every day have totally revolutionized the previously Sisyphean task of reading in Chinese. By abandoning paper, the new digital technology finally makes it possible for the student to jump into the ocean of Chinese characters without the risk of drowning.
Apps such as Pleco or KTdict feature “document reader” or “web page reader” features that allow you to copy and paste entire articles or books into a window, create a TXT file, and read the text using the pop-up window definition features of these programs. (For those of you who have been using these dictionary apps to look up words, but have never investigated the document reader feature, try it immediately! It will change the way you read forever.) If you include features like Chrome’s automatic translation tool, plus built-in tools like Google Translate, and there’s a hardly any page of modern Mandarin out there that can’t be successfully decoded by a diligent intermediate student. For the intermediate student with three or four semesters of Chinese under their belt, there is now no reason not to escape the confines of the textbook and start navigating a wide range of real-world texts. The only question is where to find such texts.
Any text that is digitized can be a learning text
Unfortunately, the world of Chinese pedagogy has not quite caught up to the potential of the new technology, and so in some cases you will need a little creative Googling to find the materials you need. The good news is that any text that is in electronic form (Word, PDF, etc.) or on a web page can be converted to a format that is readable in one or another of the digital dictionary tools available. Thanks to the burgeoning array of Internet sites and digital resources (examples of which are helpfully available right here on the Hacking Chinese site) you can begin exploring – relatively painlessly – new textual territories that accord perfectly with your literary tastes, your research, your hobbies, and even your passions.
For those interested in Chinese literature, with a little clever searching you can find sites with online-accessible works such as Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West are out there somewhere (see for example, Chun wenxue wang 纯文学网站), and works by modern authors such as Mo Yan, Han Han and Yu Hua can be found with a little digging (see http://www.kanunu8.com). By cutting and pasting the texts into your Chinese app, students can finally begin reading such authors with relative ease.
If you want to try delving digitally into Daoism or the rest of the classical philosophy tradition, there are sites such as The Chinese Text Project. And there are an increasing number of sites that provide a wide range of public domain texts from all different areas, chosen with the Chinese learner in mind, such as “Chinese Text Sampler,” which can be found at this user-friendly University of Michigan website: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dporter/sampler/sampler.html.
For current events, there are helpful news sites in both English and Chinese bilingual format, such as the New York Times’ new Chinese site: http://cn.nytimes.com/
And the VOA’s bilingual news site: http://www.voachinese.com/archive/bilingual-news/latest/1737/2404.html
By comparing the Chinese with the English, and by checking unfamiliar characters in the pop-up definition windows, a student at almost any level can read a newspaper article with nearly 100% comprehension.
Warning: Not all these files you discover on the Internet will be complete, correct, comprehensive, or even legal, strictly speaking. The Internet is like a gigantic digital garage sale, and one person’s trash is another’s treasure. But if you’re serious about building a small digital library of the kinds of Chinese material that you’d like to familiarize yourself with, some sites can be absolute gold mines.
At the outset, your primary goal for reading is to improve your speaking
Why is it so important that you begin to read more extensively? Adult learners of a foreign language don’t have the luxury of learning to speak the way babies do. To a great extent, we must absorb a foreign language via written texts. The linguist Ferdinand Saussure tells us that written language is merely the external representation of speech; the spoken language is the basis of the written language. Thus, for a student of a foreign language, who usually doesn’t have as much verbal linguistic input as a baby has, reading is a way of getting familiar with the nuts and bolts of the language, a shortcut to developing an intuitive “feeling for the language” (Sprachgefühl in German, or, in Chinese, yǔgǎn 语感). And this path is what has, up to now, been very difficult for Chinese learners.
Contrast Chinese with an “easy” language like French, where the skills of speaking and reading meld seamlessly into and strengthen one another, thanks to the phonetic nature of the script (which, among other things, makes dictionary lookup a cinch). Even lower-level French students are quickly able to read and process a vast amount of real-world texts, using the written language as a vehicle to gradually acquire mastery of the grammar and syntax.
This is no longer the case. Chinese is becoming more and more almost like a “normal language” from the point of view of reading. This means that learners of Chinese can now start using Chinese texts to directly bolster their speaking ability. With this in mind, it is a good idea to choose reading material that is essentially a record of natural speech, such as movie and TV scripts, transcripts of actual interviews, talk shows, lectures, and even posts on social media platforms like Weibo and Weixin.
Doubts?
There are those who will be sceptical of this approach to reading, considering it to be a lazy digital crutch, tantamount to cheating. Ignore such people. There is no such thing as “cheating.” But be prepared for some of the possible objections:
The approach I’m advocating here is clearly not for everyone. It still takes a student with a certain degree of dedication to get over the technological hump and create this kind of digitized reading environment. But for those willing to make the effort, the result is a new access to entire semantic worlds that were virtually inaccessible to previous generations of Chinese learners.
There are still a surprising number of struggling Chinese learners who have not seen the wisdom of this paperless path. But if you are already doing the bulk of your Chinese reading with digital tools, know that you are on the vanguard of a digital revolution that will eventually free all our Chinese-learning comrades from the tyranny of printed books, those mute and unhelpful “paper tigers” who have preyed on our precious hours and energies for far too long.
This is a guest article by David Moser about the incredible changes the digital age has brought to learners of Chinese all over the world. David holds a Master’s and a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies from the University of Michigan, with a major in Chinese Linguistics and Philosophy. He’s currently Academic Director at CET Chinese Studies at Beijing Capital Normal University. David has previously contributed to my ask-the-experts article about learning Chinese grammar. In this article, he provides both a background for those who started learning Chinese recently, as well as an in-depth discussion about what has changed and what it means for learners today.
The pre-digital days
Two decades ago, after I had studied Chinese for about four years, I suddenly realized that I had never read a novel in Chinese. In fact, I had not read any Chinese book in its entirety – the task was just too daunting. This would be a rather embarrassing admission for a fourth-year student of, say, Spanish, but back then this was a pretty common situation for us learners of Chinese.
I had fairly good spoken Mandarin and a fair sense for the written language. Yet reading Chinese literature was virtually impossible. There were so many unfamiliar characters on virtually every line of the text that there was no way I could look them all up. So usually I would give up in despair after a frustrating few paragraphs of: “Here, Second-Elder-Sister, quickly take this (something) that our father (something) to Old Chen when his(something) was so tragically (something, something) during the Japanese (something), and never speak of this (something) to a soul (something something), I beg you!” You know the feeling.
At that time Qian Zhongshu’s famous novel Weicheng《围城》was having a revival of popularity, partly due to a TV series adaptation of the novel. My friends at Peking University were all raving about it, so I decided to read the book myself – and I meanreally read it. My goal was to understand every word, every idiom, and every unfamiliar character, getting as close to a full understanding of the text as I possibly could.
The task took me six months, and I can’t exactly describe it as “reading for pleasure.” I found I had to look up a couple dozen words per page, sometimes consulting three or four different dictionaries, in order to grasp all the subtlety and nuance of Qian’s satirical novel. Not wanting to waste my dictionary efforts, I pencilled in glosses to every new vocabulary item I encountered so that I could go back and reread passages without looking up the characters again. My battered copy of the book still rests on the bookcase like a war memento. Here’s a typical page:
As you can see from this one page, the whole process was painfully tedious. In those dark pre-digital days, we Chinese learners had to look up unfamiliar characters using the old radical-and-stroke-count method. Just searching for one pesky character might take me as much as three minutes, at which point I would have forgotten the plot of the book.
At the time, a Chinese literature professor who I respected said to me, “This is not the right strategy for students to read Chinese literature. You don’t need to understand every single word to get the gist. Just keep reading forward through the text, and don’t get hung up on every unfamiliar character.”
This advice, which is still common today, seemed like pure horse pucky to me. Reading a great novel is not like skimming the Terms of Agreement before installing a piece of new software. You don’t read Chinese literature to “get the gist of it”. Quite the contrary; you want to fully understand each sentence, savor the flavor of every colorful adjective and juicy adverb. Otherwise, why go to all the trouble of reading it at all? (The whole state of affairs reminds me of a Woody Allen joke: “I took a course in speed reading. The other day I read War and Peace in just 15 minutes. It’s about Russia.”)
I currently teach at an overseas Chinese study program for American undergraduates. One of the most common laments I hear from my students goes something like this: “I can fairly easily understand the material in my intermediate Chinese reader, but whenever I try to read an actual newspaper or magazine article, I can barely get through the first paragraph. And novels are almost impossible. When am I going to be able to actually read texts in the real world?”
Go digital, young man
The solution to my students’ problem is to go digital — that is, read your texts in e-format, whenever possible. The Chinese may have invented Chinese characters and paper, but it’s time to separate the two. Don’t get me wrong; I have a deep nostalgic love for ink on paper, but who has a leisurely hour to devote to one lousy page of text? There’s an amazing arsenal of new Chinese character processing technology out there, and it’s time we made full use it. The plethora of smart phone apps, web browser extensions, digital dictionaries and Chinese character processing devices that students are now using – or should be using – every day have totally revolutionized the previously Sisyphean task of reading in Chinese. By abandoning paper, the new digital technology finally makes it possible for the student to jump into the ocean of Chinese characters without the risk of drowning.
Apps such as Pleco or KTdict feature “document reader” or “web page reader” features that allow you to copy and paste entire articles or books into a window, create a TXT file, and read the text using the pop-up window definition features of these programs. (For those of you who have been using these dictionary apps to look up words, but have never investigated the document reader feature, try it immediately! It will change the way you read forever.) If you include features like Chrome’s automatic translation tool, plus built-in tools like Google Translate, and there’s a hardly any page of modern Mandarin out there that can’t be successfully decoded by a diligent intermediate student. For the intermediate student with three or four semesters of Chinese under their belt, there is now no reason not to escape the confines of the textbook and start navigating a wide range of real-world texts. The only question is where to find such texts.
Any text that is digitized can be a learning text
Unfortunately, the world of Chinese pedagogy has not quite caught up to the potential of the new technology, and so in some cases you will need a little creative Googling to find the materials you need. The good news is that any text that is in electronic form (Word, PDF, etc.) or on a web page can be converted to a format that is readable in one or another of the digital dictionary tools available. Thanks to the burgeoning array of Internet sites and digital resources (examples of which are helpfully available right here on the Hacking Chinese site) you can begin exploring – relatively painlessly – new textual territories that accord perfectly with your literary tastes, your research, your hobbies, and even your passions.
For those interested in Chinese literature, with a little clever searching you can find sites with online-accessible works such as Dream of the Red Chamber and Journey to the West are out there somewhere (see for example, Chun wenxue wang 纯文学网站), and works by modern authors such as Mo Yan, Han Han and Yu Hua can be found with a little digging (see http://www.kanunu8.com). By cutting and pasting the texts into your Chinese app, students can finally begin reading such authors with relative ease.
If you want to try delving digitally into Daoism or the rest of the classical philosophy tradition, there are sites such as The Chinese Text Project. And there are an increasing number of sites that provide a wide range of public domain texts from all different areas, chosen with the Chinese learner in mind, such as “Chinese Text Sampler,” which can be found at this user-friendly University of Michigan website: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dporter/sampler/sampler.html.
For current events, there are helpful news sites in both English and Chinese bilingual format, such as the New York Times’ new Chinese site: http://cn.nytimes.com/
And the VOA’s bilingual news site: http://www.voachinese.com/archive/bilingual-news/latest/1737/2404.html
By comparing the Chinese with the English, and by checking unfamiliar characters in the pop-up definition windows, a student at almost any level can read a newspaper article with nearly 100% comprehension.
Warning: Not all these files you discover on the Internet will be complete, correct, comprehensive, or even legal, strictly speaking. The Internet is like a gigantic digital garage sale, and one person’s trash is another’s treasure. But if you’re serious about building a small digital library of the kinds of Chinese material that you’d like to familiarize yourself with, some sites can be absolute gold mines.
At the outset, your primary goal for reading is to improve your speaking
Why is it so important that you begin to read more extensively? Adult learners of a foreign language don’t have the luxury of learning to speak the way babies do. To a great extent, we must absorb a foreign language via written texts. The linguist Ferdinand Saussure tells us that written language is merely the external representation of speech; the spoken language is the basis of the written language. Thus, for a student of a foreign language, who usually doesn’t have as much verbal linguistic input as a baby has, reading is a way of getting familiar with the nuts and bolts of the language, a shortcut to developing an intuitive “feeling for the language” (Sprachgefühl in German, or, in Chinese, yǔgǎn 语感). And this path is what has, up to now, been very difficult for Chinese learners.
Contrast Chinese with an “easy” language like French, where the skills of speaking and reading meld seamlessly into and strengthen one another, thanks to the phonetic nature of the script (which, among other things, makes dictionary lookup a cinch). Even lower-level French students are quickly able to read and process a vast amount of real-world texts, using the written language as a vehicle to gradually acquire mastery of the grammar and syntax.
This is no longer the case. Chinese is becoming more and more almost like a “normal language” from the point of view of reading. This means that learners of Chinese can now start using Chinese texts to directly bolster their speaking ability. With this in mind, it is a good idea to choose reading material that is essentially a record of natural speech, such as movie and TV scripts, transcripts of actual interviews, talk shows, lectures, and even posts on social media platforms like Weibo and Weixin.
Doubts?
There are those who will be sceptical of this approach to reading, considering it to be a lazy digital crutch, tantamount to cheating. Ignore such people. There is no such thing as “cheating.” But be prepared for some of the possible objections:
- Do not worry that you might not retain all the new characters you are reading. By reading extensively and quickly, you are gaining a passiveunderstanding of words and phrases, which will slowly become active additions to your vocabulary. The most common characters will soon be added to your long-term memory, and the rarer, low-frequency items can be thought of as temporary life vests, which can be discarded when you reach safer semantic waters.
- Above all, do not worry that you are not learning to write by hand all these characters with which you are having a fleeting encounter. Even Chinese natives arelosing the ability to write characters by hand. The crucial skill for the 21st century learner is recognizing characters, not writing them.
The approach I’m advocating here is clearly not for everyone. It still takes a student with a certain degree of dedication to get over the technological hump and create this kind of digitized reading environment. But for those willing to make the effort, the result is a new access to entire semantic worlds that were virtually inaccessible to previous generations of Chinese learners.
There are still a surprising number of struggling Chinese learners who have not seen the wisdom of this paperless path. But if you are already doing the bulk of your Chinese reading with digital tools, know that you are on the vanguard of a digital revolution that will eventually free all our Chinese-learning comrades from the tyranny of printed books, those mute and unhelpful “paper tigers” who have preyed on our precious hours and energies for far too long.
Can Cartoons Teach You a New Language? -- April 8, 2015

ON APRIL 8, 2015 BY KATY FRENCH
Cartoons are an ancient art form, present throughout human existence—and in unique iterations throughout our lives. Their simplicity can communicate a story simply and powerfully, from the earliest cave paintings to modern-day versions, which is why they resonate with people around the world.
Today, cartoons are perhaps more popular than ever. Children worldwide enjoy animated films and TV shows; advertisements feature classic characters. Adults are attracted to them, too. Worldwide, large subcultures have formed around the cartoon. Take the rise of the manga comic in Japan, for example.
Japanese commuters engrossed in Manga comics.
And while cartoons appeal to children and adults as entertainment, we’ve also witnessed their power to communicate more serious topics in the form of political cartoons.
Publications like Private Eye and VIZ feature social satire.
Why are cartoons so impactful? Because they project images but allow for some emotional distance. They are a representation, not a reflection, and therefore let us synthesize information in a different way. (Ever noticed that every airplane flight safety card features illustrations—not photos—to tell us what to do in an emergency?)
Cartoons as a visual medium have the ability to entertain and educate, and entrepreneurShaoLan Hsueh is looking to use the medium in a completely new way: To teach people Chinese. Chinese is a global language spoken 1.3 billion people, but its symbol-based language is challenging for Westerners to comprehend. What if there were a hyper-visual way to learn? Hsueh decided that there could and should be, so she created Chineasy, a new language-learning program that turns the seemingly impenetrable symbols into beautiful and memorable cartoon illustrations.
Chineasy was born out of Hsueh’s frustration in trying to teach British-born children to speak Chinese. She found it incredibly difficult to help them easily learn the basics. And it’s no surprise: There are 20,000 symbols in the Mandarin language, a daunting task. An understanding of 1,000 symbols is needed for basic literacy, 200 to do basic things like understand road signs and order from restaurant menus.
To solve this challenge, Hsueh broke her teaching down into a fun system that is effective and quick to understand.
Chineasy uses cartoon illustrations to teach the Chinese. It starts with a simple set of building blocks, giving you a fundamental understanding of the basic 8 characters.
For example, put the symbols of a tree and mouth together and you get “idiot,” because a talking tree is pretty stupid. It’s this sense of humor and the boldness of the illustrations that make Chineasy an ingenious way of learning.
As Hsueh explains on her successful Kickstarter: “The magical power of the Chineasy method is that by learning one small set of building blocks, students can build many new words, characters, and phrases. Master a few building block sets and your learning will accelerate to a whole new level. With very little effort, learners are able to read several hundred Chinese characters and phrases whilst simultaneously gaining a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural influences behind the vocabulary.”
Who knew that cartoons could be homework? For more info, visit Chineasy.org.
Cartoons are an ancient art form, present throughout human existence—and in unique iterations throughout our lives. Their simplicity can communicate a story simply and powerfully, from the earliest cave paintings to modern-day versions, which is why they resonate with people around the world.
Today, cartoons are perhaps more popular than ever. Children worldwide enjoy animated films and TV shows; advertisements feature classic characters. Adults are attracted to them, too. Worldwide, large subcultures have formed around the cartoon. Take the rise of the manga comic in Japan, for example.
Japanese commuters engrossed in Manga comics.
And while cartoons appeal to children and adults as entertainment, we’ve also witnessed their power to communicate more serious topics in the form of political cartoons.
Publications like Private Eye and VIZ feature social satire.
Why are cartoons so impactful? Because they project images but allow for some emotional distance. They are a representation, not a reflection, and therefore let us synthesize information in a different way. (Ever noticed that every airplane flight safety card features illustrations—not photos—to tell us what to do in an emergency?)
Cartoons as a visual medium have the ability to entertain and educate, and entrepreneurShaoLan Hsueh is looking to use the medium in a completely new way: To teach people Chinese. Chinese is a global language spoken 1.3 billion people, but its symbol-based language is challenging for Westerners to comprehend. What if there were a hyper-visual way to learn? Hsueh decided that there could and should be, so she created Chineasy, a new language-learning program that turns the seemingly impenetrable symbols into beautiful and memorable cartoon illustrations.
Chineasy was born out of Hsueh’s frustration in trying to teach British-born children to speak Chinese. She found it incredibly difficult to help them easily learn the basics. And it’s no surprise: There are 20,000 symbols in the Mandarin language, a daunting task. An understanding of 1,000 symbols is needed for basic literacy, 200 to do basic things like understand road signs and order from restaurant menus.
To solve this challenge, Hsueh broke her teaching down into a fun system that is effective and quick to understand.
Chineasy uses cartoon illustrations to teach the Chinese. It starts with a simple set of building blocks, giving you a fundamental understanding of the basic 8 characters.
For example, put the symbols of a tree and mouth together and you get “idiot,” because a talking tree is pretty stupid. It’s this sense of humor and the boldness of the illustrations that make Chineasy an ingenious way of learning.
As Hsueh explains on her successful Kickstarter: “The magical power of the Chineasy method is that by learning one small set of building blocks, students can build many new words, characters, and phrases. Master a few building block sets and your learning will accelerate to a whole new level. With very little effort, learners are able to read several hundred Chinese characters and phrases whilst simultaneously gaining a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural influences behind the vocabulary.”
Who knew that cartoons could be homework? For more info, visit Chineasy.org.
Chinese as a second language growing in popularity -- March 26, 2015
Grace Shao
March 3, 2015
Guess what the former Australian Prime minister, Kevin Rudd; the successful entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg and the U.S. President Obama’s daughter, Malia Obama have in common? They all take Chinese as their second language. The study of the Chinese language opens the way to different important fields such as Chinese politics, economy, business opportunities, history or archaeology.
In 2010 alone, 750,000 people from around the world took the Official Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK). All these people from different industries, backgrounds are learning in hope to understand the often-misunderstood country better and benefit from knowing the most widely spoken language in the world whether it is for personal reasons or business opportunities.
There is a huge growth in numbers of non-Chinese heritage people learning Mandarin, but Westerners actually started learning Chinese as early as the 16th century. The first westerners to master Chinese, were the Italian Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci, they were also the first foreigners teaching Chinese. So the often-claimed “Asia Century” isn’t really as new of a trend as you may think, like the old saying “what comes around goes around”. The Chinese civilisation ruled the world in the 15th century when Europe was still in the dark ages. Now, after a couple centuries of the West being in the lead of the economy, the Chinese economy is predicted to overtake as the world’s largest economy once again.
China has over 5000 years of history and has 1.28 billion people, which equates to approximately one fifth of the global population; the significance of knowing Mandarin and understanding China in this world is more obvious than not. China is currently the second largest economy in the world that has strong economic ties with world powerhouses such as the U.S., EU and etc. It is said in 2014 that China’s 10 biggest trading partners are: the U.S. at $521 billion, Hong Kong at $401 billion then in following order, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil and Russia.
That being said, one can only imagine the increase in demand for Chinese as a second language service. According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, there are 330 official institutions teaching Chinese as a foreign language around the world, with 40,000 foreign students enrolled. As of 2014, there were over 480 Confucius Institutes established on six continents. Confucius Institutes (孔子学院) are non-profit public institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China whose stated aim is to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.
Chinese teaching services are increasing day by day, not only are there government-funded institutions such as the Confucius Institutes but also Mandarin Chinese courses held through universities, colleges, private companies as well as individual tutoring.
To further understand this growing phenomenon; I interviewed a few students from “the West” who are from countries among China’s 10 biggest trading partners’ list: U.S., Australia and Germany on why and how they started their Chinese learning journey, they bring us their insights on the importance of learning this language and what they have gained from acquiring this skill.
America, the “Chinese- trend setters”
“Chinese isn’t the new French, it’s the new English” says Robert Davis, director of the Chinese-language program in Chicago’s public school system, which has 8,000 students studying Mandarin.
Today, there are Chinese programs in more than 550 elementary, junior high and senior high schools, a 100% increase in two years. While at the college level, enrolment in Chinese-language classes has increased 51% since 2002, according to the Modern Language Association, a language and literature education organization. Marty Abbott, the spokeswoman for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, says early figures suggest the number of students now studying Chinese has “got to be somewhere around 30,000 to 50,000.” (Information retrieved from USA Today)
Ford Johnson
Ford Johnson is a recent graduate with a degree in International Relations and Chinese from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ford studied and continues to study Chinese because he wants to distinguish himself from other Non-Chinese Americans. He completed six semesters of Chinese at his university before going to Tsinghua University in Beijing for a year, where he credits his fluency in Chinese today.
“My greatest strides in Chinese came about when I first arrived at Tsinghua and had to navigate my new environment without any translators-and for a few days- any other foreigners. Playing basketball and other sports with Chinese people my age also opened up ability for me to build friendships and in turn practice my Chinese.”
Ford pursued Chinese because he believed the ability to speak a language other than Spanish or French by Americans who weren’t born into a non-English speaking culture is quite rare. His interest in Asia and China began early on and he wanted a better understanding of Chinese culture because it has such a rich history and exotic appeal to it. And the knowledge of Chinese is a great conversation starter.
“I think it’s important to learn it because China is a cultural and economic giant in today’s world. Having even a rudimentary knowledge of Mandarin allows a person to travel to China and navigate the culture and the country in ways totally inaccessible to non-Chinese speakers. Some of my greatest cultural insights were gained purely because I understand what natives were saying in a completely uncensored manner.”
When asked, compare to Americans, whether it is equally important for other nationalities to learn Chinese? Ford said:
“Other nationalities are in the exact same position as me and other Americans in my opinion. If someone wants to understand one of the most important cultures in the history of civilization while also distinguishing themselves as a well-rounded and capable individual, knowledge of Chinese is essential.”
Ford also mentioned that in the U.S., most private schools are offering Mandarin Chinese in their curriculums, especially targeting the younger students and many public schools are following the footsteps. “It’s the hot topic in language education at all levels”. Ford says his classmates at Tsinghua were from all over the world, some with Chinese heritage but surprisingly more not. Many came to China on scholarships and programs sponsored by the Confucius Institute or their universities.
Ford believes his fluency in Mandarin and experiences in China has made him standout against others from his degree, which consequently has provided him an advantage in the demanding workforce. He has now taken up a new challenge working at a tech start up based in Atlanta.
The Australians are jumping on the Mandarin Bandwagon
Many countries have started to introduce Chinese Mandarin in to their curriculums, and Australia has definitely been one of the leaders of this phenomenon. The Former Australian Prime minister, Kevin Rudd was renowned for his fluency in Mandarin and this has had its influence on the education system in Australia. Couple generations ago, when Australians chose to learn an Asian- Pacific language, it was often Japanese or Indonesian due to the countries’ close proximity and economic ties. But today there seems to be an increase in Australians learning Mandarin.
Annika Aitken
Annika Aitken received her Masters degree (Honours) from the University of Western Australia (UWA) where she had a major in Economics and International Studies and minor in Chinese. I was intrigued to know why a South African born Australian with a European heritage chose to study Mandarin as her second language at university. Annika started her Chinese studies at UWA and went on exchange programs to China during the summers during her summer holidays. After graduation, she continued to study at the Western Australia Confucius Institute.
Annika tells me that she chose to study Chinese for a number of reasons. China’s close proximity to Perth (Australia), has consequently led to many Chinese expats living in Perth, so she has been exposed to a lot of Chinese language and culture over the years, which has made her more eager to learn. Acquiring Chinese also gives her university degree in Economics and International Relations a more competitive international edge. She talks about the importance of learning Mandarin to herself as well as why others should also pick up this language:
“These days so many of our Chinese neighbours are expected to learn English in order to get ahead and foster positive ties with the West, but I think for Australia to really facilitate a strong relationship with China we too need to make an effort to understand Chinese language and culture. It goes both ways! I also think it’s equally important for other nationalities to learn Chinese, as it is the world’s most widely spoken language (ahead of both Spanish and English!).”
When asked how the Australian government demonstrated encouragement or influence on students to learn? Annika said that there are several government funded opportunities designed to encourage students to travel to China for tertiary study, but more recently there has been a push for Chinese language to be offered more widely as a subject even starting as early as primary and secondary school level.
The Deutsch are learning Mandarin. Imme Warneke is in her last year of studies at the University of Applied Sciences Konstanz, majoring in Asian Studies and Management. She has been learning Mandarin in Germany and China for approximately 5 years now. Imme has an education background from Germany, Canada and China as well as work experience in Germany and Hong Kong. She gave me her opinion on why she is chose to focus on Mandarin to her already international resume.
Imme Warneke
“I have discovered people have different motives to study Chinese:
1. Many choose to study Chinese due to China’s economic influence, so you see a lot of business students studying Mandarin.
2. Others want to learn an exotic language (so not just French or Spanish like everyone in Europe is doing) and who are drawn to China because of its economic success. These students either learn Chinese in Germany or go to China directly and combine some business studies with Chinese.
3. Some study Chinese because they are interested in the history and culture and think that the language is fascinating since it is so different from Romanic languages. And off course to explore a foreign culture it is crucial to learn the language.
4. Lastly, some just want to travel to China and are not students anymore, or who are interested in China, because of family relations. China has a major media influence in Germany and some people may study it due to pure fascination.”
And for Imme the reason to study Chinese is due to the combination of the four above. Imme wants to tell the Germans that want to learn Mandarin that they can attend classes at professional institutions such as universities, where they use books originally written in China with corresponding German translation. There are also prep courses accompanying the popular HSK tests, which are also offered in Germany. Although she thinks Chinese taught at school can often be slightly outdated, it is a good place to start and get your first taste of Mandarin. She suggests downloading Pleco, as well as obtaining a German- Chinese dictionary, which can also be downloaded on to your smartphones, all of which can help in increasing vocabulary, and bettering pronunciation.
She is now working on passing the HSK 5 test and she has given some useful tips on learning Mandarin as a native German:
“It is useful to follow some Chinese TV shows (teachers can often recommend something that is not too difficult, maybe even children’s show). Find books with CD recordings of the vocabulary and tests. Lastly, it is very useful to find a native speaker in your city to practise with.”
According to the German professional association for Chinese, there are approximately 10,000 students learning Mandarin in Germany. There are 15 established Confucius Institute in across Germany. The German government has also founded different scholarship programs, which support students for one or two semesters or an internship abroad in China.
Students from the U.S., Australia, and Germany shared their Chinese learning journey. There are various places and ways to start:
1. Universities offered classes, some are purely focused on the language while others combine Chinese studies (language and culture) with a business programme, but there are also more historical focused programs, which focus on ancient literature (古文古诗) and history.
2. High schools offer extracurricular activities with Chinese: either more culture focused or even some Chinese classes (many governments are supporting these efforts)
3. Chat groups where you meet up where you can meet native speakers to practise with or meet other students and share your study tips.
4. Study in China (with a scholarship) often universities have their own scholarships and partner programs, since a lot of Chinese students also want to come to Germany
5. Technology. From more well-known programs like Rosetta Stone to newer local Mandarin local portal Mandarin Minds, as well as online help developed by the Beijing Language and Culture University. However almost every student had the smartphone App Pleco (Chinese- English and English- Chinese all-in-one” dictionary) downloaded for the ease of digital flashcards and instant translation.
As China’s economy grows, the importance for non-Chinese to understand the culture, and language is becoming more and more imperative. Therefore many from elementary students to influential politicians to billionaire entrepreneurs are taking Chinese Mandarin lessons. Although Chinese is widely known as a very difficult language and often people quit before even starting due to this prejudice, some students actually said that Chinese has a relatively uncomplicated grammar. Unlike French, German or English, Chinese has no verb conjugation and no noun declension therefore once you build your base level of vocabulary, you can excel faster than other languages in comparison.
But it is learning the first few thousands of characters and the pronunciation that is the hardest for non- native speakers. With growing ties between China and the West, especially massive trading dependencies between China- U.S., China-Australia and China-Germany, the individuals learning this language are gaining a competitive advantage to their degree, differentiating themselves from peers, learning a new communication skill as well as increasing their global business acumen. With the asset of Chinese, they are not only helping themselves in the workforce but also closing gaps between the East and the West as a true citizen of the world. With this all said, what’s stopping you?
Read more: http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/03/03/chinese-as-a-second-language-growing-in-popularity#ixzz3VXcNwDIO
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March 3, 2015
Guess what the former Australian Prime minister, Kevin Rudd; the successful entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg and the U.S. President Obama’s daughter, Malia Obama have in common? They all take Chinese as their second language. The study of the Chinese language opens the way to different important fields such as Chinese politics, economy, business opportunities, history or archaeology.
In 2010 alone, 750,000 people from around the world took the Official Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK). All these people from different industries, backgrounds are learning in hope to understand the often-misunderstood country better and benefit from knowing the most widely spoken language in the world whether it is for personal reasons or business opportunities.
There is a huge growth in numbers of non-Chinese heritage people learning Mandarin, but Westerners actually started learning Chinese as early as the 16th century. The first westerners to master Chinese, were the Italian Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci, they were also the first foreigners teaching Chinese. So the often-claimed “Asia Century” isn’t really as new of a trend as you may think, like the old saying “what comes around goes around”. The Chinese civilisation ruled the world in the 15th century when Europe was still in the dark ages. Now, after a couple centuries of the West being in the lead of the economy, the Chinese economy is predicted to overtake as the world’s largest economy once again.
China has over 5000 years of history and has 1.28 billion people, which equates to approximately one fifth of the global population; the significance of knowing Mandarin and understanding China in this world is more obvious than not. China is currently the second largest economy in the world that has strong economic ties with world powerhouses such as the U.S., EU and etc. It is said in 2014 that China’s 10 biggest trading partners are: the U.S. at $521 billion, Hong Kong at $401 billion then in following order, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, Brazil and Russia.
That being said, one can only imagine the increase in demand for Chinese as a second language service. According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, there are 330 official institutions teaching Chinese as a foreign language around the world, with 40,000 foreign students enrolled. As of 2014, there were over 480 Confucius Institutes established on six continents. Confucius Institutes (孔子学院) are non-profit public institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China whose stated aim is to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.
Chinese teaching services are increasing day by day, not only are there government-funded institutions such as the Confucius Institutes but also Mandarin Chinese courses held through universities, colleges, private companies as well as individual tutoring.
To further understand this growing phenomenon; I interviewed a few students from “the West” who are from countries among China’s 10 biggest trading partners’ list: U.S., Australia and Germany on why and how they started their Chinese learning journey, they bring us their insights on the importance of learning this language and what they have gained from acquiring this skill.
America, the “Chinese- trend setters”
“Chinese isn’t the new French, it’s the new English” says Robert Davis, director of the Chinese-language program in Chicago’s public school system, which has 8,000 students studying Mandarin.
Today, there are Chinese programs in more than 550 elementary, junior high and senior high schools, a 100% increase in two years. While at the college level, enrolment in Chinese-language classes has increased 51% since 2002, according to the Modern Language Association, a language and literature education organization. Marty Abbott, the spokeswoman for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, says early figures suggest the number of students now studying Chinese has “got to be somewhere around 30,000 to 50,000.” (Information retrieved from USA Today)
Ford Johnson
Ford Johnson is a recent graduate with a degree in International Relations and Chinese from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Ford studied and continues to study Chinese because he wants to distinguish himself from other Non-Chinese Americans. He completed six semesters of Chinese at his university before going to Tsinghua University in Beijing for a year, where he credits his fluency in Chinese today.
“My greatest strides in Chinese came about when I first arrived at Tsinghua and had to navigate my new environment without any translators-and for a few days- any other foreigners. Playing basketball and other sports with Chinese people my age also opened up ability for me to build friendships and in turn practice my Chinese.”
Ford pursued Chinese because he believed the ability to speak a language other than Spanish or French by Americans who weren’t born into a non-English speaking culture is quite rare. His interest in Asia and China began early on and he wanted a better understanding of Chinese culture because it has such a rich history and exotic appeal to it. And the knowledge of Chinese is a great conversation starter.
“I think it’s important to learn it because China is a cultural and economic giant in today’s world. Having even a rudimentary knowledge of Mandarin allows a person to travel to China and navigate the culture and the country in ways totally inaccessible to non-Chinese speakers. Some of my greatest cultural insights were gained purely because I understand what natives were saying in a completely uncensored manner.”
When asked, compare to Americans, whether it is equally important for other nationalities to learn Chinese? Ford said:
“Other nationalities are in the exact same position as me and other Americans in my opinion. If someone wants to understand one of the most important cultures in the history of civilization while also distinguishing themselves as a well-rounded and capable individual, knowledge of Chinese is essential.”
Ford also mentioned that in the U.S., most private schools are offering Mandarin Chinese in their curriculums, especially targeting the younger students and many public schools are following the footsteps. “It’s the hot topic in language education at all levels”. Ford says his classmates at Tsinghua were from all over the world, some with Chinese heritage but surprisingly more not. Many came to China on scholarships and programs sponsored by the Confucius Institute or their universities.
Ford believes his fluency in Mandarin and experiences in China has made him standout against others from his degree, which consequently has provided him an advantage in the demanding workforce. He has now taken up a new challenge working at a tech start up based in Atlanta.
The Australians are jumping on the Mandarin Bandwagon
Many countries have started to introduce Chinese Mandarin in to their curriculums, and Australia has definitely been one of the leaders of this phenomenon. The Former Australian Prime minister, Kevin Rudd was renowned for his fluency in Mandarin and this has had its influence on the education system in Australia. Couple generations ago, when Australians chose to learn an Asian- Pacific language, it was often Japanese or Indonesian due to the countries’ close proximity and economic ties. But today there seems to be an increase in Australians learning Mandarin.
Annika Aitken
Annika Aitken received her Masters degree (Honours) from the University of Western Australia (UWA) where she had a major in Economics and International Studies and minor in Chinese. I was intrigued to know why a South African born Australian with a European heritage chose to study Mandarin as her second language at university. Annika started her Chinese studies at UWA and went on exchange programs to China during the summers during her summer holidays. After graduation, she continued to study at the Western Australia Confucius Institute.
Annika tells me that she chose to study Chinese for a number of reasons. China’s close proximity to Perth (Australia), has consequently led to many Chinese expats living in Perth, so she has been exposed to a lot of Chinese language and culture over the years, which has made her more eager to learn. Acquiring Chinese also gives her university degree in Economics and International Relations a more competitive international edge. She talks about the importance of learning Mandarin to herself as well as why others should also pick up this language:
“These days so many of our Chinese neighbours are expected to learn English in order to get ahead and foster positive ties with the West, but I think for Australia to really facilitate a strong relationship with China we too need to make an effort to understand Chinese language and culture. It goes both ways! I also think it’s equally important for other nationalities to learn Chinese, as it is the world’s most widely spoken language (ahead of both Spanish and English!).”
When asked how the Australian government demonstrated encouragement or influence on students to learn? Annika said that there are several government funded opportunities designed to encourage students to travel to China for tertiary study, but more recently there has been a push for Chinese language to be offered more widely as a subject even starting as early as primary and secondary school level.
The Deutsch are learning Mandarin. Imme Warneke is in her last year of studies at the University of Applied Sciences Konstanz, majoring in Asian Studies and Management. She has been learning Mandarin in Germany and China for approximately 5 years now. Imme has an education background from Germany, Canada and China as well as work experience in Germany and Hong Kong. She gave me her opinion on why she is chose to focus on Mandarin to her already international resume.
Imme Warneke
“I have discovered people have different motives to study Chinese:
1. Many choose to study Chinese due to China’s economic influence, so you see a lot of business students studying Mandarin.
2. Others want to learn an exotic language (so not just French or Spanish like everyone in Europe is doing) and who are drawn to China because of its economic success. These students either learn Chinese in Germany or go to China directly and combine some business studies with Chinese.
3. Some study Chinese because they are interested in the history and culture and think that the language is fascinating since it is so different from Romanic languages. And off course to explore a foreign culture it is crucial to learn the language.
4. Lastly, some just want to travel to China and are not students anymore, or who are interested in China, because of family relations. China has a major media influence in Germany and some people may study it due to pure fascination.”
And for Imme the reason to study Chinese is due to the combination of the four above. Imme wants to tell the Germans that want to learn Mandarin that they can attend classes at professional institutions such as universities, where they use books originally written in China with corresponding German translation. There are also prep courses accompanying the popular HSK tests, which are also offered in Germany. Although she thinks Chinese taught at school can often be slightly outdated, it is a good place to start and get your first taste of Mandarin. She suggests downloading Pleco, as well as obtaining a German- Chinese dictionary, which can also be downloaded on to your smartphones, all of which can help in increasing vocabulary, and bettering pronunciation.
She is now working on passing the HSK 5 test and she has given some useful tips on learning Mandarin as a native German:
“It is useful to follow some Chinese TV shows (teachers can often recommend something that is not too difficult, maybe even children’s show). Find books with CD recordings of the vocabulary and tests. Lastly, it is very useful to find a native speaker in your city to practise with.”
According to the German professional association for Chinese, there are approximately 10,000 students learning Mandarin in Germany. There are 15 established Confucius Institute in across Germany. The German government has also founded different scholarship programs, which support students for one or two semesters or an internship abroad in China.
Students from the U.S., Australia, and Germany shared their Chinese learning journey. There are various places and ways to start:
1. Universities offered classes, some are purely focused on the language while others combine Chinese studies (language and culture) with a business programme, but there are also more historical focused programs, which focus on ancient literature (古文古诗) and history.
2. High schools offer extracurricular activities with Chinese: either more culture focused or even some Chinese classes (many governments are supporting these efforts)
3. Chat groups where you meet up where you can meet native speakers to practise with or meet other students and share your study tips.
4. Study in China (with a scholarship) often universities have their own scholarships and partner programs, since a lot of Chinese students also want to come to Germany
5. Technology. From more well-known programs like Rosetta Stone to newer local Mandarin local portal Mandarin Minds, as well as online help developed by the Beijing Language and Culture University. However almost every student had the smartphone App Pleco (Chinese- English and English- Chinese all-in-one” dictionary) downloaded for the ease of digital flashcards and instant translation.
As China’s economy grows, the importance for non-Chinese to understand the culture, and language is becoming more and more imperative. Therefore many from elementary students to influential politicians to billionaire entrepreneurs are taking Chinese Mandarin lessons. Although Chinese is widely known as a very difficult language and often people quit before even starting due to this prejudice, some students actually said that Chinese has a relatively uncomplicated grammar. Unlike French, German or English, Chinese has no verb conjugation and no noun declension therefore once you build your base level of vocabulary, you can excel faster than other languages in comparison.
But it is learning the first few thousands of characters and the pronunciation that is the hardest for non- native speakers. With growing ties between China and the West, especially massive trading dependencies between China- U.S., China-Australia and China-Germany, the individuals learning this language are gaining a competitive advantage to their degree, differentiating themselves from peers, learning a new communication skill as well as increasing their global business acumen. With the asset of Chinese, they are not only helping themselves in the workforce but also closing gaps between the East and the West as a true citizen of the world. With this all said, what’s stopping you?
Read more: http://www.cctv-america.com/2015/03/03/chinese-as-a-second-language-growing-in-popularity#ixzz3VXcNwDIO
Watch us live anywhere at http://www.cctvamericalive.com
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关于语言,两会代表们有话要说 -- March 11, 2015
The last item, 汉语不等于普通话, may be of interest to us.
繁简字之争
全国政协委员冯小刚在文艺组小组讨论中表示,希望部分恢复有丰富文化含义的繁体字,让它们回归学生课本。冯小刚说,繁体字中的“親愛”二字最具代表性,“親要相见,愛要有心”,而简体字的表现形式则“亲不见,爱无心”,削弱了本身的意义,无法体现对汉语言文化的传承。
“汉字首先是工具,会认字、写好字是对每个人的基本要求,用不着上升为一种艺术!”郁钧剑说。他坦言,自己在以前政协会议时提出过关于繁体汉字的建议,但教育部出具一个函就给打回来了,因为我国有《汉字简化方案》,简单说,恢复繁体字是违规的。
互联网语言“duang”字近期火爆网络,关于互联网上众多新造词汇会不会影响汉语今后的发展,教育部副部长、国家语委主任、全国政协委员李卫红跟记者分享了她的看法。
李卫红表示,随着社会的不断发展、互联网的日益普及以及不同语言文字交流影响的增多,新的语言现象层出不穷。比如近年来网络语言等的使用就是社会生活发展变化在语言应用中的反映,它们在某种程度上、一定领域内适应了社会公众更便捷地传递信息、更丰富地表情达意的需求,其存在有一定必然性。
李卫红介绍,语言符号的本质是约定俗成。也就是说,对于一种新的语言现象,如果大家共同认可,符合语言的发展规律,它就有生命力;反之,它的生命力也不会长久。网络语言的发展也符合这样的规律,新词新语诞生后要有一个自然选择的过程,一部分可能会自生自灭,另外一部分将从网上走下来,成为人们的日常生活用语。这也是语言自我丰富、自我发展的一个途径。
“屌丝”是语言的糟粕?
“‘屌丝’这种词语是语言的糟粕,不应任其在网络平台‘放纵’。”全国人大代表、中国书法家协会副主席陈振濂已连续三年关注汉字的命运,对于这个中华文化的根基,他呼吁在国家层面组织“汉字文化工程”并启动《汉语文字保护法》立法。当电邮取代了书信,键盘输入换下了传承千年的汉字书写,电脑的频繁使用,让许多中国人成了提笔忘字的“新文盲”。“汉字,它在目前情况下成了一个躯壳,”
5日,谈到信息化时代对汉字的冲击,陈振濂不无担忧地说,电脑、手机以拼音输入成为主要方法,当下一代孩子习惯以拼音拼写,不是笔顺书写对待汉字,汉字就成了标音文字而不是造形文字。这已经是陈振濂第三年关注汉字保护了,而每一年都会有新的内容加入进来。今年,除了遗憾键盘替代书写外,他还揪心当盛行的广告因“噱头”乱改成语,误导青少年。
保护西藏语言
来自西藏自治区墨脱县的格桑卓嘎委员说:“我这次带来了‘进一步推进少数民族语言的保护和传承’和‘进一步加强边疆少数民族地方法制宣传力度’两个提案。”
“我们乡有2种语言,使用的人越来越少,再这样下去可能就要失传了,我要为少数民族语言的保护和传承鼓与呼。”稍微停顿,这位墨脱县达木珞巴民族乡乡长又说。
英语退出高考
政协委员、新东方英语培训机构创始人俞敏洪在小组讨论后表示,2016年英语退出高考统考的改革是合理的。“采用平时多次考查(会考),取代一次考试成绩,如果能够减轻学生的考试负担,有利于学生投入更加有思想性和创新性的学习,我是完全不反对的。(英语退出高考)对学习英语的热情和新东方的培训生意没什么影响。英语是全球性学习需求,很多家庭自己会衡量要不要学。”
汉语不等于普通话“‘汉语’可不能等同于‘普通话’,‘汉语’包括汉民族多种方言,而‘普通话’是我国《宪法》和《通用语言文字法》确定的国家通用语言,《宪法》第十九条规定,国家推广全国通用的普通话。”全国政协副主席、民进中央常务副主席罗富和由此谈到了今年两会民进中央的一个提案,即关于修订我国《教育法》规范国家通用语言文字表述的提案。
一直以来外界都是用“中文”表示中国的通用语言,英文单词用“Chinese”。联合国中文网站右上方的官方语文栏里写的仍是“中文”,而在百度百科中,联合国工作语言之一被改为“汉语”。由于我们语言表述得不规范,加上“汉语桥”等大型活动的推广,一些外国人也时而“中文”时而“汉语”了。为此,提案建议:
——将《教育法》第十二条中“汉语言文字为学校及其他教育机构的基本教学语言文字”修改为“全国通用的普通话和规范字为学校及其他教育机构的基本教学语言文字”。
——明确双语教学中“双语”是指“民族语言和普通话”。
——国际交流应坚持“中文”推广,避免推广“汉语”造成误解。可以将中国国家汉语国际推广领导小组办公室(国家汉办)改称为“中文国际推广领导小组办公室”。
——加大推广普通话的力度,精心组织并开展好每年一度的推广普通话宣传周活动。
繁简字之争
全国政协委员冯小刚在文艺组小组讨论中表示,希望部分恢复有丰富文化含义的繁体字,让它们回归学生课本。冯小刚说,繁体字中的“親愛”二字最具代表性,“親要相见,愛要有心”,而简体字的表现形式则“亲不见,爱无心”,削弱了本身的意义,无法体现对汉语言文化的传承。
“汉字首先是工具,会认字、写好字是对每个人的基本要求,用不着上升为一种艺术!”郁钧剑说。他坦言,自己在以前政协会议时提出过关于繁体汉字的建议,但教育部出具一个函就给打回来了,因为我国有《汉字简化方案》,简单说,恢复繁体字是违规的。
互联网语言“duang”字近期火爆网络,关于互联网上众多新造词汇会不会影响汉语今后的发展,教育部副部长、国家语委主任、全国政协委员李卫红跟记者分享了她的看法。
李卫红表示,随着社会的不断发展、互联网的日益普及以及不同语言文字交流影响的增多,新的语言现象层出不穷。比如近年来网络语言等的使用就是社会生活发展变化在语言应用中的反映,它们在某种程度上、一定领域内适应了社会公众更便捷地传递信息、更丰富地表情达意的需求,其存在有一定必然性。
李卫红介绍,语言符号的本质是约定俗成。也就是说,对于一种新的语言现象,如果大家共同认可,符合语言的发展规律,它就有生命力;反之,它的生命力也不会长久。网络语言的发展也符合这样的规律,新词新语诞生后要有一个自然选择的过程,一部分可能会自生自灭,另外一部分将从网上走下来,成为人们的日常生活用语。这也是语言自我丰富、自我发展的一个途径。
“屌丝”是语言的糟粕?
“‘屌丝’这种词语是语言的糟粕,不应任其在网络平台‘放纵’。”全国人大代表、中国书法家协会副主席陈振濂已连续三年关注汉字的命运,对于这个中华文化的根基,他呼吁在国家层面组织“汉字文化工程”并启动《汉语文字保护法》立法。当电邮取代了书信,键盘输入换下了传承千年的汉字书写,电脑的频繁使用,让许多中国人成了提笔忘字的“新文盲”。“汉字,它在目前情况下成了一个躯壳,”
5日,谈到信息化时代对汉字的冲击,陈振濂不无担忧地说,电脑、手机以拼音输入成为主要方法,当下一代孩子习惯以拼音拼写,不是笔顺书写对待汉字,汉字就成了标音文字而不是造形文字。这已经是陈振濂第三年关注汉字保护了,而每一年都会有新的内容加入进来。今年,除了遗憾键盘替代书写外,他还揪心当盛行的广告因“噱头”乱改成语,误导青少年。
保护西藏语言
来自西藏自治区墨脱县的格桑卓嘎委员说:“我这次带来了‘进一步推进少数民族语言的保护和传承’和‘进一步加强边疆少数民族地方法制宣传力度’两个提案。”
“我们乡有2种语言,使用的人越来越少,再这样下去可能就要失传了,我要为少数民族语言的保护和传承鼓与呼。”稍微停顿,这位墨脱县达木珞巴民族乡乡长又说。
英语退出高考
政协委员、新东方英语培训机构创始人俞敏洪在小组讨论后表示,2016年英语退出高考统考的改革是合理的。“采用平时多次考查(会考),取代一次考试成绩,如果能够减轻学生的考试负担,有利于学生投入更加有思想性和创新性的学习,我是完全不反对的。(英语退出高考)对学习英语的热情和新东方的培训生意没什么影响。英语是全球性学习需求,很多家庭自己会衡量要不要学。”
汉语不等于普通话“‘汉语’可不能等同于‘普通话’,‘汉语’包括汉民族多种方言,而‘普通话’是我国《宪法》和《通用语言文字法》确定的国家通用语言,《宪法》第十九条规定,国家推广全国通用的普通话。”全国政协副主席、民进中央常务副主席罗富和由此谈到了今年两会民进中央的一个提案,即关于修订我国《教育法》规范国家通用语言文字表述的提案。
一直以来外界都是用“中文”表示中国的通用语言,英文单词用“Chinese”。联合国中文网站右上方的官方语文栏里写的仍是“中文”,而在百度百科中,联合国工作语言之一被改为“汉语”。由于我们语言表述得不规范,加上“汉语桥”等大型活动的推广,一些外国人也时而“中文”时而“汉语”了。为此,提案建议:
——将《教育法》第十二条中“汉语言文字为学校及其他教育机构的基本教学语言文字”修改为“全国通用的普通话和规范字为学校及其他教育机构的基本教学语言文字”。
——明确双语教学中“双语”是指“民族语言和普通话”。
——国际交流应坚持“中文”推广,避免推广“汉语”造成误解。可以将中国国家汉语国际推广领导小组办公室(国家汉办)改称为“中文国际推广领导小组办公室”。
——加大推广普通话的力度,精心组织并开展好每年一度的推广普通话宣传周活动。
Tones and the brain -- March 5, 2015
March 3, 2015 @ 12:30 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Psycholinguistics, Tones
« previous post | next post »
People are always trying to exoticize things Chinese. Now comes this article with the sensationalistic and patently suspect headline:
"If you speak Mandarin, your brain is different" (2/24/15)
This is based on the following paper:
Jianqiao Ge, Gang Peng, Bingjiang Lyu, Yi Wang, Yan Zhuo, Zhendong Niu, Li Hai Tang, Alexander P. Leff, and, Jia-Hong Gao, "Cross-language differences in the brain network subserving intelligible speech", PNAS (1/22/15).
Significance:
Language processing is generally left hemisphere dominant. However, whether the interactions among the typical left hemispheric language regions differ across different languages is largely unknown. An ideal method to address this question is modeling cortical interactions across language groups, but this is usually constrained by the model space with the prior hypothesis due to massive computation demands. With cloud-computing, we used functional MRI dynamic causal modeling analysis to compare more than 4,000 models of cortical dynamics among critical language regions in the temporal and frontal cortex, established the bias-free information flow maps that were shared or specific for processing intelligible speech in Chinese and English, and revealed the neural dynamics between the left and right hemispheres in Chinese speech comprehension.
Abstract:
How is language processed in the brain by native speakers of different languages? Is there one brain system for all languages or are different languages subserved by different brain systems? The first view emphasizes commonality, whereas the second emphasizes specificity. We investigated the cortical dynamics involved in processing two very diverse languages: a tonal language (Chinese) and a nontonal language (English). We used functional MRI and dynamic causal modeling analysis to compute and compare brain network models exhaustively with all possible connections among nodes of language regions in temporal and frontal cortex and found that the information flow from the posterior to anterior portions of the temporal cortex was commonly shared by Chinese and English speakers during speech comprehension, whereas the inferior frontal gyrus received neural signals from the left posterior portion of the temporal cortex in English speakers and from the bilateral anterior portion of the temporal cortex in Chinese speakers. Our results revealed that, although speech processing is largely carried out in the common left hemisphere classical language areas (Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas) and anterior temporal cortex, speech comprehension across different language groups depends on how these brain regions interact with each other. Moreover, the right anterior temporal cortex, which is crucial for tone processing, is equally important as its left homolog, the left anterior temporal cortex, in modulating the cortical dynamics in tone language comprehension. The current study pinpoints the importance of the bilateral anterior temporal cortex in language comprehension that is downplayed or even ignored by popular contemporary models of speech comprehension.
Before critiquing the claims put forward by the investigators, let's talk about how tones really work in daily life in Chinese languages.
Tones are not absolute, they are not sacrosanct, they are not immutable. Chinese often argue among themselves about what tones certain words should be pronounced in.
To read the rest of the story, please go to:
Tones and the brain
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17949
« previous post | next post »
People are always trying to exoticize things Chinese. Now comes this article with the sensationalistic and patently suspect headline:
"If you speak Mandarin, your brain is different" (2/24/15)
This is based on the following paper:
Jianqiao Ge, Gang Peng, Bingjiang Lyu, Yi Wang, Yan Zhuo, Zhendong Niu, Li Hai Tang, Alexander P. Leff, and, Jia-Hong Gao, "Cross-language differences in the brain network subserving intelligible speech", PNAS (1/22/15).
Significance:
Language processing is generally left hemisphere dominant. However, whether the interactions among the typical left hemispheric language regions differ across different languages is largely unknown. An ideal method to address this question is modeling cortical interactions across language groups, but this is usually constrained by the model space with the prior hypothesis due to massive computation demands. With cloud-computing, we used functional MRI dynamic causal modeling analysis to compare more than 4,000 models of cortical dynamics among critical language regions in the temporal and frontal cortex, established the bias-free information flow maps that were shared or specific for processing intelligible speech in Chinese and English, and revealed the neural dynamics between the left and right hemispheres in Chinese speech comprehension.
Abstract:
How is language processed in the brain by native speakers of different languages? Is there one brain system for all languages or are different languages subserved by different brain systems? The first view emphasizes commonality, whereas the second emphasizes specificity. We investigated the cortical dynamics involved in processing two very diverse languages: a tonal language (Chinese) and a nontonal language (English). We used functional MRI and dynamic causal modeling analysis to compute and compare brain network models exhaustively with all possible connections among nodes of language regions in temporal and frontal cortex and found that the information flow from the posterior to anterior portions of the temporal cortex was commonly shared by Chinese and English speakers during speech comprehension, whereas the inferior frontal gyrus received neural signals from the left posterior portion of the temporal cortex in English speakers and from the bilateral anterior portion of the temporal cortex in Chinese speakers. Our results revealed that, although speech processing is largely carried out in the common left hemisphere classical language areas (Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas) and anterior temporal cortex, speech comprehension across different language groups depends on how these brain regions interact with each other. Moreover, the right anterior temporal cortex, which is crucial for tone processing, is equally important as its left homolog, the left anterior temporal cortex, in modulating the cortical dynamics in tone language comprehension. The current study pinpoints the importance of the bilateral anterior temporal cortex in language comprehension that is downplayed or even ignored by popular contemporary models of speech comprehension.
Before critiquing the claims put forward by the investigators, let's talk about how tones really work in daily life in Chinese languages.
Tones are not absolute, they are not sacrosanct, they are not immutable. Chinese often argue among themselves about what tones certain words should be pronounced in.
To read the rest of the story, please go to:
Tones and the brain
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17949
Millions share new Chinese character -- March 3, 2015
The character 'duang' has taken China's internet by storm
Continue reading the main storyBest of BBC Trending
A new word is taking the internet by storm in China - but no one knows quite what it means.
The character "duang" is so new that it does not even exist in the Chinese dictionary. But it has already spread like wildfire online in China, appearing more than 8 million times on China's micro-blogging site Weibo, where it spawned a top-trending hashtag that drew 312,000 discussions among 15,000 users. On China's biggest online search engine Baidu, it has been looked up almost 600,000 times. It's beennoticed in the West too, with Foreign Policy seeing it as a "break the internet" viral meme - like a certain Kim Kardashian image, or a certain multicoloured dress.
But what does it mean?
"Everyone's duang-ing and I still don't know what it means! Looks like it's back to school for me," said Weibo user Weileiweito.
Another user asked: "Have you duang-ed today? My mind is full of duang duang duang."
"To duang or not to duang, that is the question," wrote user BaiKut automan.
Continue reading the main storyBest of BBC Trending
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A new word is taking the internet by storm in China - but no one knows quite what it means.
The character "duang" is so new that it does not even exist in the Chinese dictionary. But it has already spread like wildfire online in China, appearing more than 8 million times on China's micro-blogging site Weibo, where it spawned a top-trending hashtag that drew 312,000 discussions among 15,000 users. On China's biggest online search engine Baidu, it has been looked up almost 600,000 times. It's beennoticed in the West too, with Foreign Policy seeing it as a "break the internet" viral meme - like a certain Kim Kardashian image, or a certain multicoloured dress.
But what does it mean?
"Everyone's duang-ing and I still don't know what it means! Looks like it's back to school for me," said Weibo user Weileiweito.
Another user asked: "Have you duang-ed today? My mind is full of duang duang duang."
"To duang or not to duang, that is the question," wrote user BaiKut automan.
"Duang" seems to be an example of onomatopoeia, a word that phonetically imitates a sound. It all seems to have started with Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan, who in 2004 was featured in a shampoo commercial where he said famously defended his sleek, black hair using the rhythmical-sounding "duang". The word resurfaced again recently after Chan posted it on his Weibo page. Thousands of users then began to flood Chan's Weibo page with comments, coining the word in reference to his infamous shampoo appearance.
The word appears to have many different meanings, and there's no perfect translation, but you could use it as an adjective to give emphasis to the word that follows it. A kitten might be "duang cute", for example. Or you might be "very duang confused" by this blog.
For readers of Chinese characters, the Jackie Chan theme is also apparent from the quirky way in which the word is written: a combination of Chan's names written in Chinese.
Reporting by Heather Chen and Mukul Devichand
Next story: Talk to me: the students working to resolve the Ukraine crisis
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
The word appears to have many different meanings, and there's no perfect translation, but you could use it as an adjective to give emphasis to the word that follows it. A kitten might be "duang cute", for example. Or you might be "very duang confused" by this blog.
For readers of Chinese characters, the Jackie Chan theme is also apparent from the quirky way in which the word is written: a combination of Chan's names written in Chinese.
Reporting by Heather Chen and Mukul Devichand
Next story: Talk to me: the students working to resolve the Ukraine crisis
You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.
If You Speak Mandarin, Your Brain Is Different -- Feb. 25, 2015
If You Speak Mandarin, Your Brain Is Different
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1263315-if-you-speak-mandarin-your-brain-is-different/
By Larry Taylor, Northumbria University, Newcastle | February 25, 2015 | Last Updated: February 25, 2015 8:11 pm
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1263315-if-you-speak-mandarin-your-brain-is-different/
By Larry Taylor, Northumbria University, Newcastle | February 25, 2015 | Last Updated: February 25, 2015 8:11 pm
We speak so effortlessly that most of us never think about it. But psychologists and neuroscientists are captivated by the human capacity to communicate with language. By the time a child can tie his or her shoes, enough words and rules have been mastered to allow the expression of an unlimited number of utterances. The uniqueness of this behaviour to the human species indicates its centrality to human psychology.
That this behaviour comes naturally and seemingly effortlessly in the first few years of life merely fascinates us further. Untangling the brain’s mechanisms for language has been a pillar of neuroscience since its inception. New research published in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences about the different connections going on in the brains of Mandarin and English speakers, demonstrates just how flexible our ability to learn language really is.
Real-time Brain NetworkingBefore functional brain imaging was possible, two areas on the left side of the brain, called Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, had already revealed their importance for language. Victims of stroke or traumatic brain injury to either of these crucial areas on the left side of the brain exhibited profound disabilities for producing and understanding language. Modern theories on connectionism – the idea that knowledge is distributed across different parts of the brain and not tucked into dedicated modules like Broca’s area – have compelled researchers to take a closer look.
For example, language requires real-time mappings between words and their meanings. This requires that the sounds heard in speech – decoded in the auditory cortex – must be integrated with knowledge about what they mean – in the frontal cortex. Modern theories in neuroscience are enamoured with this type of “network” approach. Instead of pinning miracles of cognition to singular brain areas, complex processes are now viewed as distributed across different cortical areas, relying on several parts of the brain interacting dynamically.
Comparing TonguesBy six to ten months children have already learned to be sensitive to the basic sounds, known as phonemes, that matter in their native language. Yet different languages differ profoundly in the sounds that are important for communication.
Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language in which the same basic sounds can refer to vastly different things based on the tone with which it is spoken. In a non-tonal language such as English, tone might convey emotional information about the speaker, but indicates nothing about the meaning of the word that is spoken.
MORE:
Now a group of Chinese researchers, led by Jianqiao Ge at Peking University, Beijing, has found that these differences between Mandarin Chinese and English change the way the brain’s networks work.
The researchers took advantage of the basic differences between Mandarin Chinese and English to investigate the differences between the language networks of native speakers of tonal and non-tonal languages. Thirty native Chinese speakers were matched on age, gender, and handedness (they were all right-handed) with a sample of native English speakers. All participants listened to intelligible and unintelligible speech and were asked to judge the gender of the speaker.
The Right SideBoth groups of speakers showed activation of the brain’s classic go-to areas for speech – including Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas – on the left side of the brain. But two important differences emerged. The first difference was the operation of the brain networks shared by English and Chinese speakers. English speakers showed stronger connectivity leading from Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area. This increased connectivity was attributed to English relying more heavily on phonological information, or sounds rather than tones.
Two areas on the left hand side of the brain associated with language. (OpenStax College/Wikimedia, CC BY)
Meanwhile, Chinese speakers had stronger connections leading from an area of the brain called the anterior superior temporal gyrus – which has been identified as a “semantic hub” critical in supporting language – to both Broca’s and Wernicke’s area. This increased connectivity is attributed to the enhanced mapping of sound and meaning going on in people who speak tonal languages.
The second difference showed activation in an area of the brain’s right hemisphere, but only among the Chinese speakers. This brain area, the right superior temporal pole, has been implicated in Chinese tones before but – perhaps more importantly – has until now been considered completely separate from the classic language network in the left hemisphere.
The findings emphasise the importance of developing a bilateral network between the two brain hemispheres to speak and understand languages, particularly for tonal languages like Mandarin Chinese.
New Avenues for ResearchWe can expect more such differences to emerge as future research focuses increasingly on non-English speaking participants. Much of what we think we know about human psychology is based on“WEIRD” participants: western, educated university students from industrialised, rich, and developed nations. Other cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, or cross-class differences might emerge as more research develops.
MORE:
Provocative though the results might be, they raise questions for future research. Tone matters in English, just not to the same extent as in Chinese. For example, think of how your delivery might change the meaning of the question “Where have you been?” to convey suspicion, surprise, curiosity, or jealousy. Language might be among our most important windows to human thought, but research has barely scratched the surface of this complex and curiously unique human ability.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
That this behaviour comes naturally and seemingly effortlessly in the first few years of life merely fascinates us further. Untangling the brain’s mechanisms for language has been a pillar of neuroscience since its inception. New research published in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences about the different connections going on in the brains of Mandarin and English speakers, demonstrates just how flexible our ability to learn language really is.
Real-time Brain NetworkingBefore functional brain imaging was possible, two areas on the left side of the brain, called Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, had already revealed their importance for language. Victims of stroke or traumatic brain injury to either of these crucial areas on the left side of the brain exhibited profound disabilities for producing and understanding language. Modern theories on connectionism – the idea that knowledge is distributed across different parts of the brain and not tucked into dedicated modules like Broca’s area – have compelled researchers to take a closer look.
For example, language requires real-time mappings between words and their meanings. This requires that the sounds heard in speech – decoded in the auditory cortex – must be integrated with knowledge about what they mean – in the frontal cortex. Modern theories in neuroscience are enamoured with this type of “network” approach. Instead of pinning miracles of cognition to singular brain areas, complex processes are now viewed as distributed across different cortical areas, relying on several parts of the brain interacting dynamically.
Comparing TonguesBy six to ten months children have already learned to be sensitive to the basic sounds, known as phonemes, that matter in their native language. Yet different languages differ profoundly in the sounds that are important for communication.
Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language in which the same basic sounds can refer to vastly different things based on the tone with which it is spoken. In a non-tonal language such as English, tone might convey emotional information about the speaker, but indicates nothing about the meaning of the word that is spoken.
MORE:
- How to Learn Foreign Languages When Doing Nothing
- 4 Easy and Free Tips for Learning Foreign Languages
Now a group of Chinese researchers, led by Jianqiao Ge at Peking University, Beijing, has found that these differences between Mandarin Chinese and English change the way the brain’s networks work.
The researchers took advantage of the basic differences between Mandarin Chinese and English to investigate the differences between the language networks of native speakers of tonal and non-tonal languages. Thirty native Chinese speakers were matched on age, gender, and handedness (they were all right-handed) with a sample of native English speakers. All participants listened to intelligible and unintelligible speech and were asked to judge the gender of the speaker.
The Right SideBoth groups of speakers showed activation of the brain’s classic go-to areas for speech – including Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas – on the left side of the brain. But two important differences emerged. The first difference was the operation of the brain networks shared by English and Chinese speakers. English speakers showed stronger connectivity leading from Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area. This increased connectivity was attributed to English relying more heavily on phonological information, or sounds rather than tones.
Two areas on the left hand side of the brain associated with language. (OpenStax College/Wikimedia, CC BY)
Meanwhile, Chinese speakers had stronger connections leading from an area of the brain called the anterior superior temporal gyrus – which has been identified as a “semantic hub” critical in supporting language – to both Broca’s and Wernicke’s area. This increased connectivity is attributed to the enhanced mapping of sound and meaning going on in people who speak tonal languages.
The second difference showed activation in an area of the brain’s right hemisphere, but only among the Chinese speakers. This brain area, the right superior temporal pole, has been implicated in Chinese tones before but – perhaps more importantly – has until now been considered completely separate from the classic language network in the left hemisphere.
The findings emphasise the importance of developing a bilateral network between the two brain hemispheres to speak and understand languages, particularly for tonal languages like Mandarin Chinese.
New Avenues for ResearchWe can expect more such differences to emerge as future research focuses increasingly on non-English speaking participants. Much of what we think we know about human psychology is based on“WEIRD” participants: western, educated university students from industrialised, rich, and developed nations. Other cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, or cross-class differences might emerge as more research develops.
MORE:
- Do Morals Shift When We Use a Foreign Language?
- Woman Speaks Foreign Language Without Learning It—as It Was Spoken 150 Years Ago: Past Life Memories?
Provocative though the results might be, they raise questions for future research. Tone matters in English, just not to the same extent as in Chinese. For example, think of how your delivery might change the meaning of the question “Where have you been?” to convey suspicion, surprise, curiosity, or jealousy. Language might be among our most important windows to human thought, but research has barely scratched the surface of this complex and curiously unique human ability.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Common mistakes when writing Characters -- Feb. 22, 2015

From: http://blog.skritter.com/2015/02/common-mistakes-when-writing-characters.html
Common mistakes when writing Characters
Just starting to learn how to write Chinese characters? Or thinking about taking up the brush and starting to learn? Then this article is just for you!
We asked Cōngmíng, one of our most experienced 汉字 teachers at Hutong School about her experiences teaching 汉字 to total beginners. And here are her findings and useful tips.
Carefully read through them and you’re already better armed in starting this learning journey!
1. What are the most common mistakes students make when starting to learn how to write Chinese characters?
This is an easy one! Most mistakes beginners make are with stroke order and stroke direction. As the structure of Chinese characters is totally different from the Roman alphabet for instance, students very easily mix up the rules of the strokes.
Example:
How to distinguish them?
Calligraphy!
Calligraphy allows you to see much clearer how a stroke has been written. As the ink is much thicker where the brush first touches the paper (the start of the stroke), you clearly see what direction the calligraphy master has used to write this particular stroke.
Example:
2. What tips you always give students learning how to write Chinese characters?
Tip #1: Start with the right tools!
The first thing that’s really essential when learning how to write Chinese characters are the textbook and software you will use.
At Hutong School, we have carefully selected textbooks specialized in teaching 汉字 for each level and furthermore simply love Skritter, as we find it the best app to learn how to write characters.
Whatever you choose, here’s a list of aspects I strongly feel every good learning tool needs to have:
Tip #2: Follow the instructions carefully!
Your textbook is king. Follow the instructions on stroke order and direction very carefully. As we like to say, writing Chinese characters is actually not difficult, it just comes down to copying. As a student, you don’t need any creativeness. The hardest part is remembering how to write it, that’s it.
I often need to tell my students they can’t just change the way of writing characters to their liking. It’s a fixed science so to say, just like math (2+3 will always be 5).
Common mistakes
niú牛 (bull)
Lastly, love characters. Students who use their heart, don’t find writing characters difficult. The hardest part is simply to remember how to write them.
The four essentials of remembering:
What mistakes are you encountering when first starting to learn how to write characters? Or do you have any other questions you would like to ask the team of teachers at Hutong School? Write it in the comments!
Common mistakes when writing Characters
Just starting to learn how to write Chinese characters? Or thinking about taking up the brush and starting to learn? Then this article is just for you!
We asked Cōngmíng, one of our most experienced 汉字 teachers at Hutong School about her experiences teaching 汉字 to total beginners. And here are her findings and useful tips.
Carefully read through them and you’re already better armed in starting this learning journey!
1. What are the most common mistakes students make when starting to learn how to write Chinese characters?
This is an easy one! Most mistakes beginners make are with stroke order and stroke direction. As the structure of Chinese characters is totally different from the Roman alphabet for instance, students very easily mix up the rules of the strokes.
Example:
- piě: down stroke to the left
- tí: upward stroke
How to distinguish them?
Calligraphy!
Calligraphy allows you to see much clearer how a stroke has been written. As the ink is much thicker where the brush first touches the paper (the start of the stroke), you clearly see what direction the calligraphy master has used to write this particular stroke.
Example:
2. What tips you always give students learning how to write Chinese characters?
Tip #1: Start with the right tools!
The first thing that’s really essential when learning how to write Chinese characters are the textbook and software you will use.
At Hutong School, we have carefully selected textbooks specialized in teaching 汉字 for each level and furthermore simply love Skritter, as we find it the best app to learn how to write characters.
Whatever you choose, here’s a list of aspects I strongly feel every good learning tool needs to have:
- detailed explanations on the rules of the strokes
- introduction of the origin and development of characters
- examples of common words and phrases
- information on radicals and the meaning of radicals
Tip #2: Follow the instructions carefully!
Your textbook is king. Follow the instructions on stroke order and direction very carefully. As we like to say, writing Chinese characters is actually not difficult, it just comes down to copying. As a student, you don’t need any creativeness. The hardest part is remembering how to write it, that’s it.
I often need to tell my students they can’t just change the way of writing characters to their liking. It’s a fixed science so to say, just like math (2+3 will always be 5).
Common mistakes
niú牛 (bull)
- mistake: The vertical stroke doesn’t cross the upper horizontal one
- memory trick: Cutting off the head, will kill the bull
- mistake: The vertical stroke doesn’t cross the upper horizontal one
- memory trick: It’s like the head, you can’t cut it off, or there’s no life anymore.
- mistake: all strokes touch
- memory trick: Your character can simply not look like an arrow
Lastly, love characters. Students who use their heart, don’t find writing characters difficult. The hardest part is simply to remember how to write them.
The four essentials of remembering:
- understanding
- association
- practice
- love/affection
What mistakes are you encountering when first starting to learn how to write characters? Or do you have any other questions you would like to ask the team of teachers at Hutong School? Write it in the comments!
Celebrating International Mother Language Day! -- Feb. 21, 2015

Celebrating International Mother Language Day!
http://blog.rosettastone.com/international-mother-language-day/
Celebrating International Mother Language Day!Posted on February 20, 2015 by Rosetta Stone
February 21, 2015 will mark the 16th anniversary of International Mother Language Day. The celebration was instituted by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as a way to promote linguistic and cultural diversity.
Why is it important to celebrate your mother language?
For those who speak English as their native language, it may seem odd to focus on the mother language instead of promoting much-needed second-language acquisition. However, for many people throughout the world, the dominant language in a given community has a tendency to displace local minority languages (which, of course, are mother languages more often than not). For example, a person in Peru may speak Quechua in the home, but Spanish is prevalent across the country, and outside opportunities to use Quechua are few. The individual may gradually lose the ability to read and speak Quechua, and, consequently, will not teach the language to his or her children. The pattern repeats from family to family, impacting succeeding generations. Similarly, groups in the United States may suffer the loss of a native language such as Navajo due to a lack of educational resources to support maintenance of the language.
Why is it important to preserve languages?
According to the BBC, a language goes extinct every three months. UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger identifies 576 languages as being critically endangered, with grandparents and older as the youngest speakers of the language. Additionally, there are thousands of other languages that fit into UNESCO’s endangered and threatened language categories. Each time a language ceases to exist, we no longer have access to oral stories and traditions from that language, and particular meanings that can only be conveyed by the words and structure of that language are lost. The death of any language threatens the rich cultural diversity that exists on Earth.
How can I celebrate International Mother Language Day?
Show a little appreciation for your own native language by reading a classic written in your language or learning new vocabulary words to strengthen your command of the language. And if your native language (like English) is in no danger of becoming obsolete, you can help in the effort to preserve minority languages. UNESCO has announced that this year’s theme is “Inclusion in and through education: Language counts.” Speakers of minority languages often have the least access to quality education, particularly because instruction is not offered in their mother tongue. Voice your support at a local level for giving children the opportunity to first learn literacy skills in their native language, which will be transferable to the second, more dominant language. On February 21, take the opportunity to appreciate your own mother tongue and advocate for linguistic diversity throughout the globe.
http://blog.rosettastone.com/international-mother-language-day/
Celebrating International Mother Language Day!Posted on February 20, 2015 by Rosetta Stone
February 21, 2015 will mark the 16th anniversary of International Mother Language Day. The celebration was instituted by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as a way to promote linguistic and cultural diversity.
Why is it important to celebrate your mother language?
For those who speak English as their native language, it may seem odd to focus on the mother language instead of promoting much-needed second-language acquisition. However, for many people throughout the world, the dominant language in a given community has a tendency to displace local minority languages (which, of course, are mother languages more often than not). For example, a person in Peru may speak Quechua in the home, but Spanish is prevalent across the country, and outside opportunities to use Quechua are few. The individual may gradually lose the ability to read and speak Quechua, and, consequently, will not teach the language to his or her children. The pattern repeats from family to family, impacting succeeding generations. Similarly, groups in the United States may suffer the loss of a native language such as Navajo due to a lack of educational resources to support maintenance of the language.
Why is it important to preserve languages?
According to the BBC, a language goes extinct every three months. UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger identifies 576 languages as being critically endangered, with grandparents and older as the youngest speakers of the language. Additionally, there are thousands of other languages that fit into UNESCO’s endangered and threatened language categories. Each time a language ceases to exist, we no longer have access to oral stories and traditions from that language, and particular meanings that can only be conveyed by the words and structure of that language are lost. The death of any language threatens the rich cultural diversity that exists on Earth.
How can I celebrate International Mother Language Day?
Show a little appreciation for your own native language by reading a classic written in your language or learning new vocabulary words to strengthen your command of the language. And if your native language (like English) is in no danger of becoming obsolete, you can help in the effort to preserve minority languages. UNESCO has announced that this year’s theme is “Inclusion in and through education: Language counts.” Speakers of minority languages often have the least access to quality education, particularly because instruction is not offered in their mother tongue. Voice your support at a local level for giving children the opportunity to first learn literacy skills in their native language, which will be transferable to the second, more dominant language. On February 21, take the opportunity to appreciate your own mother tongue and advocate for linguistic diversity throughout the globe.
Washington Post Quiz: Which foreign language should you learn? -- Feb. 27, 2015
Are Americans losing their interest in foreign languages? According to astudy by the Modern Language Association, the number of students who learn a language other than English decreased by about 100,000 between 2009 and 2013.
As The Post's Roberto A. Ferdman assessed earlier this month, one of the reasons for the sudden drop could be that in times of economic crises students prioritize "more practical, or at least immediately useful, courses."
Many of those who decided against learning a foreign language might nevertheless regret their decision in the future. Recent studies have shown that the ability to speak languages other than English can boost average wages, and have positive effects on students' brains and cognitive abilities. What doesn't seem "immediately useful" might be highly rewarding later in life.
One excuse for being indecisive about choosing to study a foreign language is that there are so many options. In order to facilitate you the decision-making process, we have prepared an easy seven-step multiple-choice test that shouldn't take longer than one minute to complete.
1 When you travel abroad, which climate do you prefer?
Brian Synder/ Reuters
I want a winter wonderland
Victor Sokolowicz/ Bloomberg News
I prefer chilly winters and warm summers
Albert Cesare/ AP
There should at least be as much sun as in Texas
2 Speaking a foreign language can boost your income. How important would this be for you?
It's the main goal for me
This would be a nice side-effect
I would study a foreign language primarily out of personal interest
3 How much time are you willing to spend on studying a foreign language?
About one hour every day
A few hours spread over the week
Just one hour a week
4 What is more important to you: being able to speak and understand conversations, or the ability to read and write?
I want to be able to speak the language
Being able to read and write would be sufficient at first
I want to excel in both
I'm seeking a challenge and I don't mind if neither speaking nor writing are skills that are easy to acquire
5 Would you like to be able to communicate in this foreign language in the U.S.?
This is crucial for me
It would be nice to do it from time to time
This isn't too relevant for me
6 Do you want to study a widely spoken language, or are you looking to distinguish yourself by mastering a less widely spread one?
Widely spoken
Less widely spoken
I like languages nobody ever speaks anywhere
7. How similar should this language be to English?
Not similar at all. I'm looking for a challenge
I want to speak another language without facing too many challenges
Are you interested in getting to know more about foreign languages you could potentially learn? Here are the other 10 languages you could have had as a result of this quiz.
French: A trip to Paris would only be one advantage of mastering French. The language is spoken by more than 200 million people worldwide, for instance in some parts of Switzerland and many African countries. Furthermore, research has shown that French speakers earn about$77,000 extra throughout their careers than people who do not speak a foreign language.
German: This central European country has become the economic envy of Europe. If you are able to speak German, you could earn $128,000 extra throughout your career, according to MIT scientist Albert Saiz. At least financially, German is worth twice as much as French and nearly three times as much as Spanish.
Spanish: Given the large number of Spanish-speakers in the U.S., learning the language can be an asset. It is definitely a plus that you would be able to easily apply your skills without having to travel abroad. The downside, however, is that there are quite a lot of people who speak Spanish, which makes it less valuable in the eyes of employers. Speaking Spanish will boost your income less than mastering most other foreign languages.
Arabic: Being able to speak Arabic opens up a vast, varied region to you. However, it does come with its issues: If you want to apply your language skills in practice, you may have to choose a regional version of Arabic (the most widely known one is Egyptian Arabic), or use classical Arabic, which is primarily used by media outlets.
Portuguese: It's among the world's most spoken languages, with over 200 million natives worldwide. You would primarily be able to speak it in Portugal and Brazil, which are both great tourist destinations. Brazil's dominance in South America makes Portuguese a relevant business language for Americans, as well.
Chinese: China's economic rise is undeniable -- and so is the fact that few Americans truly master Chinese. You will also run into fewer problems trying to learn the language than several years ago. The number of colleges that teach Chinese has risen by 110 percent between 1990 and 2013, making the language more accessible. However, learning it can turn out to be quite tough for Americans because many Chinese words sound similar to each other, but have completely different meanings.
Japanese: The Asian giant has lost some of its economic strength in recent years, but its vibrant culture is certainly worth a visit or a longer stay. There are more than 100 million native Japanese speakers worldwide. Learning Japanese can be tough, although there is a trend to use more English loanwords.
Russian: With the end of the Cold War, interest in learning Russian dropped in the United States. Between 1990 and 2013, the number of offered Russian college courses decreased by 30 percent. However, the recent role of Russia in eastern European conflicts shows that being able to speak and write Russian could be an advantage for economics and politics students.
Italian: Italy is among Europe's tourism hotspots, and it has quite a lot to offer: Venice, Rome, Florence, delicious coffee, and great beaches, among many other features. Its economy, however, has suffered recently, which is why many Italians are learning foreign languages themselves to find work abroad. Nevertheless, Italian is not only a language for would-be tourists, but is also widely popular in Pennsylvania and New Jersey where it is thethird most spoken one after English and Spanish.
Korean: Korean is increasingly popular in the U.S.: Between 1990 and 2013, the number of American colleges teaching it grew by 208 percent. Korean immigrants seem to have awoken a strong interest in the language which is being spoken by about 80 million worldwide. Learning the language may also help you understand one of the most mysterious countries on earth: North Korea.
Latin: You seem to be really interested in a language nobody really speaks anymore. But there are quite a lot of reasons why you might decide to study it anyway. For instance, if you master Latin, it will be much easier for you to learn other Romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French. Another bonus: If you're interested in history, being able to read Latin will enable you to dig into sources few others are able to read.
As The Post's Roberto A. Ferdman assessed earlier this month, one of the reasons for the sudden drop could be that in times of economic crises students prioritize "more practical, or at least immediately useful, courses."
Many of those who decided against learning a foreign language might nevertheless regret their decision in the future. Recent studies have shown that the ability to speak languages other than English can boost average wages, and have positive effects on students' brains and cognitive abilities. What doesn't seem "immediately useful" might be highly rewarding later in life.
One excuse for being indecisive about choosing to study a foreign language is that there are so many options. In order to facilitate you the decision-making process, we have prepared an easy seven-step multiple-choice test that shouldn't take longer than one minute to complete.
1 When you travel abroad, which climate do you prefer?
Brian Synder/ Reuters
I want a winter wonderland
Victor Sokolowicz/ Bloomberg News
I prefer chilly winters and warm summers
Albert Cesare/ AP
There should at least be as much sun as in Texas
2 Speaking a foreign language can boost your income. How important would this be for you?
It's the main goal for me
This would be a nice side-effect
I would study a foreign language primarily out of personal interest
3 How much time are you willing to spend on studying a foreign language?
About one hour every day
A few hours spread over the week
Just one hour a week
4 What is more important to you: being able to speak and understand conversations, or the ability to read and write?
I want to be able to speak the language
Being able to read and write would be sufficient at first
I want to excel in both
I'm seeking a challenge and I don't mind if neither speaking nor writing are skills that are easy to acquire
5 Would you like to be able to communicate in this foreign language in the U.S.?
This is crucial for me
It would be nice to do it from time to time
This isn't too relevant for me
6 Do you want to study a widely spoken language, or are you looking to distinguish yourself by mastering a less widely spread one?
Widely spoken
Less widely spoken
I like languages nobody ever speaks anywhere
7. How similar should this language be to English?
Not similar at all. I'm looking for a challenge
I want to speak another language without facing too many challenges
Are you interested in getting to know more about foreign languages you could potentially learn? Here are the other 10 languages you could have had as a result of this quiz.
French: A trip to Paris would only be one advantage of mastering French. The language is spoken by more than 200 million people worldwide, for instance in some parts of Switzerland and many African countries. Furthermore, research has shown that French speakers earn about$77,000 extra throughout their careers than people who do not speak a foreign language.
German: This central European country has become the economic envy of Europe. If you are able to speak German, you could earn $128,000 extra throughout your career, according to MIT scientist Albert Saiz. At least financially, German is worth twice as much as French and nearly three times as much as Spanish.
Spanish: Given the large number of Spanish-speakers in the U.S., learning the language can be an asset. It is definitely a plus that you would be able to easily apply your skills without having to travel abroad. The downside, however, is that there are quite a lot of people who speak Spanish, which makes it less valuable in the eyes of employers. Speaking Spanish will boost your income less than mastering most other foreign languages.
Arabic: Being able to speak Arabic opens up a vast, varied region to you. However, it does come with its issues: If you want to apply your language skills in practice, you may have to choose a regional version of Arabic (the most widely known one is Egyptian Arabic), or use classical Arabic, which is primarily used by media outlets.
Portuguese: It's among the world's most spoken languages, with over 200 million natives worldwide. You would primarily be able to speak it in Portugal and Brazil, which are both great tourist destinations. Brazil's dominance in South America makes Portuguese a relevant business language for Americans, as well.
Chinese: China's economic rise is undeniable -- and so is the fact that few Americans truly master Chinese. You will also run into fewer problems trying to learn the language than several years ago. The number of colleges that teach Chinese has risen by 110 percent between 1990 and 2013, making the language more accessible. However, learning it can turn out to be quite tough for Americans because many Chinese words sound similar to each other, but have completely different meanings.
Japanese: The Asian giant has lost some of its economic strength in recent years, but its vibrant culture is certainly worth a visit or a longer stay. There are more than 100 million native Japanese speakers worldwide. Learning Japanese can be tough, although there is a trend to use more English loanwords.
Russian: With the end of the Cold War, interest in learning Russian dropped in the United States. Between 1990 and 2013, the number of offered Russian college courses decreased by 30 percent. However, the recent role of Russia in eastern European conflicts shows that being able to speak and write Russian could be an advantage for economics and politics students.
Italian: Italy is among Europe's tourism hotspots, and it has quite a lot to offer: Venice, Rome, Florence, delicious coffee, and great beaches, among many other features. Its economy, however, has suffered recently, which is why many Italians are learning foreign languages themselves to find work abroad. Nevertheless, Italian is not only a language for would-be tourists, but is also widely popular in Pennsylvania and New Jersey where it is thethird most spoken one after English and Spanish.
Korean: Korean is increasingly popular in the U.S.: Between 1990 and 2013, the number of American colleges teaching it grew by 208 percent. Korean immigrants seem to have awoken a strong interest in the language which is being spoken by about 80 million worldwide. Learning the language may also help you understand one of the most mysterious countries on earth: North Korea.
Latin: You seem to be really interested in a language nobody really speaks anymore. But there are quite a lot of reasons why you might decide to study it anyway. For instance, if you master Latin, it will be much easier for you to learn other Romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and French. Another bonus: If you're interested in history, being able to read Latin will enable you to dig into sources few others are able to read.
How to Write Characters: The 5 Leading Strategies -- Feb. 8, 2015
From: http://www.fluentu.com/japanese/blog/learn-how-to-write-japanese-characters/
Kanji are actually Chinese characters, so the methods recommended are for learning Chinese characters.
How to Write Japanese Characters: The 5 Leading Strategies
Want to learn how to write Japanese characters?
It’s easy to get overwhelmed…after all, there are thousands of kanji out there.
Just to read the newspaper, you’re supposed to know 2,000.
So what’s the best way to learn all these kanji?
There are just a few main strategies…
Some people compare kanji to pictures, while others create stories from the kanji.
Some learners use flashcards and some even look into the history of the characters.
But which approach is best?
To answer that question, let’s take a closer look at five of the most popular approaches, so you can try them out and pick the right one for you.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
How to Write Japanese Characters: The 5 Leading StrategiesMethod 1: The Historical ApproachOne method for learning kanji is to study the history of each character—that is, to study the etymology.
This is the approach taken by Kenneth Henshall in his book “A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters.”
This unique book focuses on the jōyō kanji, or the General Use Characters (as of 1995, so it does not include the 2010 update). Henshall’s book provides the in-depth history of each character, from the earliest ideograms to the current versions.
At the bottom of each entry is a mnemonic device designed to help students remember the character’s meaning. Each one is based on what Henshall thinks will help the student remember the meaning, including past meanings and other characters that use the same elements.
This strategy is appropriate for people who like to go deep.
Independent learners, upper intermediate, advanced and even near-native students can make use of this approach. By itself, the book doesn’t offer any hands-on practice, so it’s useful as a supplement to existing studies.
If you want to really know the inner workings of the Japanese language, then you may want to try this approach.
But it’s not as fast as some of the others claim to be.
Method 2: Remembering Through Stories
Another unique approach is the one created by James Heisig. His series of books, “Remembering the Kanji,” takes a story-based mnemonic approach.
Each “primitive element” of a kanji, such as strokes, radicals and other basic elements, are associated with a specific meaning. Heisig then puts these meanings together to create stories or other “imaginative” associations.
To remember the kanji for “old,” for example (古), Heisig suggests thinking of a tombstone with a cross on top.
Though Heisig sometimes associates the kanji with pictures—which is another common strategy—he tackles what he calls the “imaginative memory.” By creating an “alphabet” of kanjis’ primitive elements, he hopes students’ imaginations will fuel the rest.
Heisig provides stories part of the way through, then only includes the meanings of the primitive elements so the reader can create their own stories. This will help students remember the characters more easily, Heisig says.
In fact, the focus in this book is exclusively on meaning.
There are no phonetics, there’s nothing about stroke order and there are no vocabulary words or exercises. There are suggestions for creating flashcards, though.
If you search around online, you’ll find that some students hate this approach, but others swear by it.
His book has been updated to include the newest 196 kanji added to the list of General Use Characters.
If you want an approach that focuses only on remembering kanji meanings, without worrying about other details such as phonetics or vocabulary, then this may be suitable for you.
Method 3: PicturesAnother common approach is learning kanji through pictures. The “Kanji Look and Learn,” “Kanji in MangaLand” and “Kanji Pict-O-Graphix” books are examples of this approach.
Since many modern kanji started out as pictographs, this approach to learning makes sense. But over time, most characters changed so much that they no longer resemble their original.
So many of the textbooks that use this approach create new pictures for kanji. The “Pict-O-Graphix” front cover, for example, shows the kanji for “stop” (止) and turns it into a picture of a policeman holding his hand out to stop traffic.
Many of these types of books are geared towards beginners or younger audiences. They often include exercises, vocabulary words and a breakdown of the stroke order.
If you are just starting out, if you like manga and pictures or if you want a fun approach, then give the picture-based strategy a try.
Method 4: The Japanese WayThe Japanese way of learning involves writing, re-writing, re-writing some more…and re-writing some more. When Japanese students learn their kanji, they’ll fill up pages upon pages of notebooks upon notebooks with character after character, after character, after character.
Not many Westerners are fans of this approach.
And most of the books above don’t have great things to say about the Japanese approach. But does it work?
When I studied Japanese in high school, my teacher—an American—liked this strategy. I learned all my kana and my first few hundred kanji through rote memorization.
Now, at a certain point everyone’s got to learn by doing. And writing characters over and over is one way to do that. The best way to learn stroke order, for instance, is through practice.
Many of the kanji books out there incorporate this strategy to an extent. They’ll have a set of empty squares set aside as a practice space. But not too many.
To try this method out, grab a notebook (I like those gridded Moleskines) and start filling it up.
If you don’t need lots of entertainment or extra learning aids, and if you havea long attention span and can focus well, then this method may work well for you.
Method 5: FlashcardsFlashcards are another common approach to learning and memorization.
The traditional approach to flashcards would be to write the kanji on one side and the meaning on the other.
Some commercially produced flashcards include more information. The cards produced by White Rabbit Press, for example, have lots of information.
One side has kanji, several vocabulary words, the stroke order and similar-looking kanji. The other side has translations for the vocabulary words, plus the meaning and readings for the kanji.
Purchasing printed flashcards is often pricier than using flashcard apps, however. Many apps are free, but they aren’t always as robust or bug-free as commercially produced flashcard apps.
One of the most accepted ways to use flashcards is the Leitner system.
The Leitner system involves sorting the cards into piles based on how well you know the material. Many flashcard apps and kanji apps incorporate the Leitner system automatically, which is called spaced repetition software (SRS).
So much more than flashcards, FluentU is one such example of an app using SRS. FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
Want to learn Japanese with fun videos?
Try Japanese immersion online with FluentU!
In its “learn mode,” you can study new words from videos and organize them into flashcard sets. The interactive flashcards have an image, in-context definition, example sentences and even other video clips where that particular word is used. The context and authenticity really help engrain words to your memory.
In general, flashcards are a great supplement to most other learning strategies. If you want a fast and easy way to refresh your memory and stay on top of your kanji, you should experiment with flashcards or a flashcard app.
Which Method Is Right for You?There is not one right way for everyone.
No matter who you talk to, they’ll offer up their own unique advice, so talk to lots of people to get a variety of good tips.
Your “right way” will depend on your learning style. We won’t get into the different learning styles here, though, since that’s such a big topic.
So just ask yourself: How do you learn best?
Do you:
I, for instance, like to know the big picture. That’s why I prefer the etymological approach. The more deeply I can learn about the history and meaning of the language, the easier it is for me to remember the kanji and their meanings.
But I’ve used all the above methods at one point or another.
So my suggestion is: Try all of them, then stick with the ones that work.
Once you find a great fit for your preferred learning style, the kanji will be that much easier to learn! Good luck!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
Kanji are actually Chinese characters, so the methods recommended are for learning Chinese characters.
How to Write Japanese Characters: The 5 Leading Strategies
Want to learn how to write Japanese characters?
It’s easy to get overwhelmed…after all, there are thousands of kanji out there.
Just to read the newspaper, you’re supposed to know 2,000.
So what’s the best way to learn all these kanji?
There are just a few main strategies…
Some people compare kanji to pictures, while others create stories from the kanji.
Some learners use flashcards and some even look into the history of the characters.
But which approach is best?
To answer that question, let’s take a closer look at five of the most popular approaches, so you can try them out and pick the right one for you.
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
How to Write Japanese Characters: The 5 Leading StrategiesMethod 1: The Historical ApproachOne method for learning kanji is to study the history of each character—that is, to study the etymology.
This is the approach taken by Kenneth Henshall in his book “A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters.”
This unique book focuses on the jōyō kanji, or the General Use Characters (as of 1995, so it does not include the 2010 update). Henshall’s book provides the in-depth history of each character, from the earliest ideograms to the current versions.
At the bottom of each entry is a mnemonic device designed to help students remember the character’s meaning. Each one is based on what Henshall thinks will help the student remember the meaning, including past meanings and other characters that use the same elements.
This strategy is appropriate for people who like to go deep.
Independent learners, upper intermediate, advanced and even near-native students can make use of this approach. By itself, the book doesn’t offer any hands-on practice, so it’s useful as a supplement to existing studies.
If you want to really know the inner workings of the Japanese language, then you may want to try this approach.
But it’s not as fast as some of the others claim to be.
Method 2: Remembering Through Stories
Another unique approach is the one created by James Heisig. His series of books, “Remembering the Kanji,” takes a story-based mnemonic approach.
Each “primitive element” of a kanji, such as strokes, radicals and other basic elements, are associated with a specific meaning. Heisig then puts these meanings together to create stories or other “imaginative” associations.
To remember the kanji for “old,” for example (古), Heisig suggests thinking of a tombstone with a cross on top.
Though Heisig sometimes associates the kanji with pictures—which is another common strategy—he tackles what he calls the “imaginative memory.” By creating an “alphabet” of kanjis’ primitive elements, he hopes students’ imaginations will fuel the rest.
Heisig provides stories part of the way through, then only includes the meanings of the primitive elements so the reader can create their own stories. This will help students remember the characters more easily, Heisig says.
In fact, the focus in this book is exclusively on meaning.
There are no phonetics, there’s nothing about stroke order and there are no vocabulary words or exercises. There are suggestions for creating flashcards, though.
If you search around online, you’ll find that some students hate this approach, but others swear by it.
His book has been updated to include the newest 196 kanji added to the list of General Use Characters.
If you want an approach that focuses only on remembering kanji meanings, without worrying about other details such as phonetics or vocabulary, then this may be suitable for you.
Method 3: PicturesAnother common approach is learning kanji through pictures. The “Kanji Look and Learn,” “Kanji in MangaLand” and “Kanji Pict-O-Graphix” books are examples of this approach.
Since many modern kanji started out as pictographs, this approach to learning makes sense. But over time, most characters changed so much that they no longer resemble their original.
So many of the textbooks that use this approach create new pictures for kanji. The “Pict-O-Graphix” front cover, for example, shows the kanji for “stop” (止) and turns it into a picture of a policeman holding his hand out to stop traffic.
Many of these types of books are geared towards beginners or younger audiences. They often include exercises, vocabulary words and a breakdown of the stroke order.
If you are just starting out, if you like manga and pictures or if you want a fun approach, then give the picture-based strategy a try.
Method 4: The Japanese WayThe Japanese way of learning involves writing, re-writing, re-writing some more…and re-writing some more. When Japanese students learn their kanji, they’ll fill up pages upon pages of notebooks upon notebooks with character after character, after character, after character.
Not many Westerners are fans of this approach.
And most of the books above don’t have great things to say about the Japanese approach. But does it work?
When I studied Japanese in high school, my teacher—an American—liked this strategy. I learned all my kana and my first few hundred kanji through rote memorization.
Now, at a certain point everyone’s got to learn by doing. And writing characters over and over is one way to do that. The best way to learn stroke order, for instance, is through practice.
Many of the kanji books out there incorporate this strategy to an extent. They’ll have a set of empty squares set aside as a practice space. But not too many.
To try this method out, grab a notebook (I like those gridded Moleskines) and start filling it up.
If you don’t need lots of entertainment or extra learning aids, and if you havea long attention span and can focus well, then this method may work well for you.
Method 5: FlashcardsFlashcards are another common approach to learning and memorization.
The traditional approach to flashcards would be to write the kanji on one side and the meaning on the other.
Some commercially produced flashcards include more information. The cards produced by White Rabbit Press, for example, have lots of information.
One side has kanji, several vocabulary words, the stroke order and similar-looking kanji. The other side has translations for the vocabulary words, plus the meaning and readings for the kanji.
Purchasing printed flashcards is often pricier than using flashcard apps, however. Many apps are free, but they aren’t always as robust or bug-free as commercially produced flashcard apps.
One of the most accepted ways to use flashcards is the Leitner system.
The Leitner system involves sorting the cards into piles based on how well you know the material. Many flashcard apps and kanji apps incorporate the Leitner system automatically, which is called spaced repetition software (SRS).
So much more than flashcards, FluentU is one such example of an app using SRS. FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
Want to learn Japanese with fun videos?
Try Japanese immersion online with FluentU!
In its “learn mode,” you can study new words from videos and organize them into flashcard sets. The interactive flashcards have an image, in-context definition, example sentences and even other video clips where that particular word is used. The context and authenticity really help engrain words to your memory.
In general, flashcards are a great supplement to most other learning strategies. If you want a fast and easy way to refresh your memory and stay on top of your kanji, you should experiment with flashcards or a flashcard app.
Which Method Is Right for You?There is not one right way for everyone.
No matter who you talk to, they’ll offer up their own unique advice, so talk to lots of people to get a variety of good tips.
Your “right way” will depend on your learning style. We won’t get into the different learning styles here, though, since that’s such a big topic.
So just ask yourself: How do you learn best?
Do you:
- learn by doing?
- like to know theory and the big picture?
- like imaginative or creative approaches?
- want straight facts?
I, for instance, like to know the big picture. That’s why I prefer the etymological approach. The more deeply I can learn about the history and meaning of the language, the easier it is for me to remember the kanji and their meanings.
But I’ve used all the above methods at one point or another.
So my suggestion is: Try all of them, then stick with the ones that work.
Once you find a great fit for your preferred learning style, the kanji will be that much easier to learn! Good luck!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
China: Stroke patient loses Chinese language ability -- Feb. 3, 2015
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-31114123
An elderly Chinese woman is only able to speak English after suffering a stroke, it's been reported.
Liu Jaiyu, a 94-year-old former English teacher, has found herself no longer able to speak Chinese after parts of her brain relating to native language were damaged by a cerebral infarction, the local Hunan TV reports. Television pictures show her in bed, answering simple questions in English, which means the nursing staff are having to brush up on their language skills. "She greets me in the morning using English, after she's eaten her meals in the afternoon she uses English," one nurse tells the TV. "My memory of the language isn't too good, sometimes I don't understand what she's saying!"
A doctor at the hospital says that Ms Liu is suffering from paralysis of all her limbs, as well as an "obstacle" to her language functions. "It seems the part of her brain responsible for her mother tongue has been damaged, however the part that uses English has been preserved," Li Yanfang says.
There have been rare cases where patients develop a different accentafter a stroke, migraine or head trauma. But Ms Liu's case appears different because she has apparently turned to an already-learned language. Experts say that the complex Chinese language requires the use of both parts of the brain, while English only uses one side.
An elderly Chinese woman is only able to speak English after suffering a stroke, it's been reported.
Liu Jaiyu, a 94-year-old former English teacher, has found herself no longer able to speak Chinese after parts of her brain relating to native language were damaged by a cerebral infarction, the local Hunan TV reports. Television pictures show her in bed, answering simple questions in English, which means the nursing staff are having to brush up on their language skills. "She greets me in the morning using English, after she's eaten her meals in the afternoon she uses English," one nurse tells the TV. "My memory of the language isn't too good, sometimes I don't understand what she's saying!"
A doctor at the hospital says that Ms Liu is suffering from paralysis of all her limbs, as well as an "obstacle" to her language functions. "It seems the part of her brain responsible for her mother tongue has been damaged, however the part that uses English has been preserved," Li Yanfang says.
There have been rare cases where patients develop a different accentafter a stroke, migraine or head trauma. But Ms Liu's case appears different because she has apparently turned to an already-learned language. Experts say that the complex Chinese language requires the use of both parts of the brain, while English only uses one side.
How to learn any language in six months -- Feb. 1, 2015
这个TED演讲 (http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/How-to-learn-any-language-in-si;search%3Atag%3A%22tedxlingnanuniversity%22) 是来由自新西兰的语言学家Chris Lonsdale在视频中讲了语言学习的方法。
在评估了所有语言学习的研究之后,他总结出了5个原则、7个行动。
他相信只要遵从这5个原则、践行这7个行动,任何人都能在6个月内学会一种外语~下面我们就一起来看看吧!
The five principles are:
5个原则:
1. Focus on language content that is relevant to you.
专注和你日常相关的语言内容。
2. Use your language as a tool to communicate from day 1.
从学习这门语言的第一天开始,就把它当做你的交流方式。
3. When you understand the message you will acquire the language unconsciously.
当你明白含义之后,你会慢慢不知不觉地习得这门语言。
4. Language is not about accumulating a lot of knowledge but is rather a type of physiological training.
语言学习不是大量知识的积累,而更像是一种生理训练。
5. Psycho-physiological state matters – you need to be happy, relaxed, and most importantly, you need to be tolerant of ambiguity. Don’t try to understand every detail as it will drive you crazy.
心理状态和生理状态都很重要:你需要愉快、放松,最重要的是对于模棱两可要有一定容忍性。对于细枝末节不要过于纠结,因为那会把你逼疯的。
The seven actions are:
7个行动:
1. Listen a lot – it doesn’t matter if you understand or not. Listen to rhythms andpatterns.
多听——理解与否不重要,尽管去听吧!去听听语言节奏和说话模式。
2. Focus on getting the meaning first, before the words. Body language and facial expressions can help.
先专注理解整体意思,再弄清单词含义。身体语言和面部表情会有所帮助。
3. Start mixing, get creative, and use what you’re learning
开始混合,创造话语并使用你所学到的一切。
4. Focus on the core – use the most commonly-use the words, and use the language to learn more
把注意力集中在核心部分——使用高频词汇,利用你已经学会的东西学到更多。
5. Get a language parent – someone who is fluent in the language and who will do their best to understand what you mean; who will not correct your mistakes; who will feedback their understanding of what you’re saying using correct language, and uses words that you know.
找个语伴——能流利讲这门语言的人,或者能尽可能理解你说什么的人。注意,语伴不会纠正你的错误,但能够用正确的语言、你明白的语言来对你的表现做出反馈。
6. Copy the face – watch native speakers and observe their face, and particular their mouth moves when they’re speaking.
模仿面部表情——有些人的母语正是你要学习的新语言,你要观看他们讲话,观察他们的面部表情、尤其是讲话时的嘴型。
7. “Direct connect” to the target language – find ways to connect words directly with images and other internal representations.
在大脑和目的语之间建立“直接联系”——想办法让语言和大脑中的图像或其他内部表象产生直接联系。
在评估了所有语言学习的研究之后,他总结出了5个原则、7个行动。
他相信只要遵从这5个原则、践行这7个行动,任何人都能在6个月内学会一种外语~下面我们就一起来看看吧!
The five principles are:
5个原则:
1. Focus on language content that is relevant to you.
专注和你日常相关的语言内容。
2. Use your language as a tool to communicate from day 1.
从学习这门语言的第一天开始,就把它当做你的交流方式。
3. When you understand the message you will acquire the language unconsciously.
当你明白含义之后,你会慢慢不知不觉地习得这门语言。
4. Language is not about accumulating a lot of knowledge but is rather a type of physiological training.
语言学习不是大量知识的积累,而更像是一种生理训练。
5. Psycho-physiological state matters – you need to be happy, relaxed, and most importantly, you need to be tolerant of ambiguity. Don’t try to understand every detail as it will drive you crazy.
心理状态和生理状态都很重要:你需要愉快、放松,最重要的是对于模棱两可要有一定容忍性。对于细枝末节不要过于纠结,因为那会把你逼疯的。
The seven actions are:
7个行动:
1. Listen a lot – it doesn’t matter if you understand or not. Listen to rhythms andpatterns.
多听——理解与否不重要,尽管去听吧!去听听语言节奏和说话模式。
2. Focus on getting the meaning first, before the words. Body language and facial expressions can help.
先专注理解整体意思,再弄清单词含义。身体语言和面部表情会有所帮助。
3. Start mixing, get creative, and use what you’re learning
开始混合,创造话语并使用你所学到的一切。
4. Focus on the core – use the most commonly-use the words, and use the language to learn more
把注意力集中在核心部分——使用高频词汇,利用你已经学会的东西学到更多。
5. Get a language parent – someone who is fluent in the language and who will do their best to understand what you mean; who will not correct your mistakes; who will feedback their understanding of what you’re saying using correct language, and uses words that you know.
找个语伴——能流利讲这门语言的人,或者能尽可能理解你说什么的人。注意,语伴不会纠正你的错误,但能够用正确的语言、你明白的语言来对你的表现做出反馈。
6. Copy the face – watch native speakers and observe their face, and particular their mouth moves when they’re speaking.
模仿面部表情——有些人的母语正是你要学习的新语言,你要观看他们讲话,观察他们的面部表情、尤其是讲话时的嘴型。
7. “Direct connect” to the target language – find ways to connect words directly with images and other internal representations.
在大脑和目的语之间建立“直接联系”——想办法让语言和大脑中的图像或其他内部表象产生直接联系。
What's Lost When a Language Dies -- Jan. 23, 2015
Language is something that many of us take for granted. We use it everyday, and more often than not, we can find people who share the same languages as us.
We can communicate in those languages, tell stories, and in the process, partake in an oral tradition unique to our alphabet, vocabulary and culture.
But that's not true of everyone. In some parts of the world, there are only a few dozen people left who speak a language, or in some cases, only one person. In fact, of the 6,000 languages humans speak, half of them will be extinct in the next 50 years.
The new PBS documentary "Language Matters," premiering January 25, looks at some of these languages, and what may die along with them.
The documentary is hosted by poet Bob Holman and is directed by David Grubin. Both Holman and Grubin share their thoughts on language and loss with The Takeaway.
We can communicate in those languages, tell stories, and in the process, partake in an oral tradition unique to our alphabet, vocabulary and culture.
But that's not true of everyone. In some parts of the world, there are only a few dozen people left who speak a language, or in some cases, only one person. In fact, of the 6,000 languages humans speak, half of them will be extinct in the next 50 years.
The new PBS documentary "Language Matters," premiering January 25, looks at some of these languages, and what may die along with them.
The documentary is hosted by poet Bob Holman and is directed by David Grubin. Both Holman and Grubin share their thoughts on language and loss with The Takeaway.
Eileen Chang’s ‘Half a Lifelong Romance’ Gets an English-Language Translation --Jan. 23, 2015
PHOTO: PENGUIN BOOKS By ILARIA MARIA SALA
From: http://www.wsj.com/articles/eileen-changs-half-a-lifelong-romance-gets-an-english-language-translation-1421917507
The Chinese Author’s Story Set in 1930s Shanghai Is One of Her Most Beloved NovelsEileen Chang’s ‘Half a Lifelong Romance’ has been widely popular with the author’s Chinese readers since it was first published in 1950 in serial form.
It took 46 years, but at long last English-language readers are now able to enjoy one of Eileen Chang ’s most popular works, “Half a Lifelong Romance,” published last year by Penguin Classics, with a U.S. edition from Vintage Books scheduled for release next month.
A dramatic story of love, betrayal, opportunism and family oppression set in 1930s Shanghai, it is an enveloping, haunting and insightful read, rich in Chang’s trademark passionate prose. This is arguably the author’s most beloved novel, widely popular with her Chinese readers since it was first published in 1950 in serial form. (It was rewritten in 1968 in book form.) It has been adapted again and again—into a number of plays and television series, at least one full-length movie and even a stage musical.
All this raises a question: Why did it take decades for “Half a Lifelong Romance” to be translated into English?
The translator, Karen S. Kingsbury, says it is about the audience. Prof. Kingsbury, who teaches international studies at Chatham University in Pennsylvania, explains that Chang’s itinerant life and political insouciance removed her from her most natural readers.
Born in Shanghai in 1920, Chang attended university in Hong Kong but had to return to Shanghai when the Japanese invaded in December 1941. Back in Shanghai, she wrote—and was published—abundantly and, in Prof. Kingsbury’s words, “became something of a diva.” After the Communist Revolution, Prof. Kingsbury explains, Chang’s wartime history—notably having allowed her work to be published during the occupation—and her openly indifferent attitude toward the new government put her under growing political pressure. Chang retreated to Hong Kong in 1952 and then to the U.S. three years later.
PHOTO: PENGUIN BOOKS
“She spent 40 years in the U.S., mostly in Los Angeles, and wrote many works directly in English, but the American public was simply not ready for her,” says Prof. Kingsbury. Widowed in 1967, Chang became a recluse, though by the 1980s and ’90s she did enjoy a steady income from her royalties thanks to an Eileen Chang craze that developed in Hong Kong and Taiwan. (She died in 1995.)
At least in part, that craze and the current growing interest in her life and work among English-language readers can be credited to the numerous film versions of her stories and novels. Among the most famous of the directors attracted to her work are Ang Lee, with his adaptation of “Lust, Caution,” as well as Ann Hui, with “Eighteen Springs” (the title of an earlier version of “Half a Lifelong Romance”) and “Love in a Fallen City,” and Stanley Kwan, with “Red Rose White Rose.”
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Little wonder, given how eminently visual and cinematic her stories are. Take this, from the second chapter of “Half a Lifelong Romance”: “Her hair was done in a permanent wave with a wispy fringe at the front, and she was knitting a bright red sweater. The weather had warmed up; her light blue dress was short-sleeved, made of summer-weight cotton. The red knitting yarn brought out the lusciousness of her plump white arms. Encircling her forearm was a green bracelet, made of heat-processed artificial jade.” The blue, the red, the green, set against the woman’s black hair and white arms jump from the page so vividly, that no filmmaker could hope for more detailed indications on how to set the atmosphere.
Chang’s cinematic touch may be explained by her deep familiarity with the form. Not only did she write more than a dozen scripts for Hong Kong studios, but her second husband, the American writer Ferdinand Reyher, had a number of Hollywood screenplays to his credit.
Now the attention from the silver screen together with the steady internationalization of China mean that the audience Chang missed when she was alive is emerging.
“She is the only Chinese woman published in Penguin Classics,” says Jessica Harrison, editor and curator at the Penguin Classics unit of publisher Penguin Group. “We do have lots of Chinese classical novels, of course, but she is among the very few Chinese writers from the 20th century to be in our collection. There is a real appetite for Chinese novels right now.”
“Her books are in close contact with the mainstream of European culture,” says Edwin Frank, editor at the New York Review of Books’ publishing arm, New York Review Books. Mr. Frank edited “Love in a Fallen City” (2007)—a collection of short stories, also translated by Prof. Kingsbury—for the imprint and is now at work on “Naked Earth,” due out this year. Chang’s books aren’t in blockbuster territory, he says, but “every week, she sells more. There is definitely a growing interest in Chang, and her attention to women’s experience is a major draw for our readers.”
Indeed, Chang explores the claustrophobia of traditional family bonds and the intricacies of male-female relationships in a manner so perceptive and modern that many of her fans call her China’s Virginia Woolf. (Prof. Kingsbury observes, though, that Chang was less determined than Woolf to break the literary conventions that went before her, and so might be described as “a Virginia Woolf who actually wants to echo all the Victorian conventions in her work.”)
But unlike Woolf fans—who can follow the “Virginia Woolf Trail” to visit Woolfian sites in London and in the south-coast English county of Sussex, including the author’s home, Monk’s House—Chang fans who want to explore their author’s material memory will find themselves stymied.
Chang’s onetime home at 195 Changde Rd. in Shanghai offers nothing more than a commemorative plaque mentioning that she once lived there, with no further details. Her former flat remains a flat, rather than a museum, and her name is more whispered than loudly mentioned.
“There is a coffee shop downstairs, with lots of books,” says the executor of Chang’s estate, Roland Soong, who lives in Hong Kong. “The owner wanted to call it Chang Eileen’s Café, but that would have been too problematic. You have to consider that to hold a symposium about her in the mainland was impossible even just 10 years ago, because there are still politics involved,” he says.
The problem, in the eyes of the authorities, isn’t simply that she kept on writing and publishing successfully even under Japanese occupation. Her first husband, Hu Lancheng, was a Japanese sympathizer, and even though the marriage only lasted three years and ended in divorce, the association has cast a long shadow over Chang’s own politics.
“She was never a left-wing writer. … She was never a communist,” says Prof. Kingsbury, explaining why, for the time being at least, Chang is unlikely to have a museum in Shanghai. “That set her apart from a lot of the writers active in those years.”
What about Hong Kong? She lived in the then-British colony as a student, and again after she left mainland China for good in 1952, but Mr. Soong sees a museum dedicated to Chang as a very difficult project.
“It is political, too, since you need certain government officials to say yes and sponsor the project, and it is commercial, as always with public buildings in Hong Kong, which are supposed to make money,” he says. “I have offered the material I have, which would definitely fill a museum, and floated the idea many times, but there seem to be too many issues involved.”
And yet, in spite of all these obstacles, as Chang is gaining a growing number of readers in different languages, her work is being positioned where it always belonged, next to other world classics.
Liangzhu Writing and the Shenno -- Jan. 20, 2015
良渚文字的發現與神農社會關係的考證
及商甲骨文之前4000年中國文字演變史簡介
(English summary: Mr. Hing Wan Cheng, an art collector and connoisseur, will discuss in this lecture the discovery of the writing in the Liangzhu period, 5300-4200 BC, and the light it sheds on the existence of a Shennong society in China.)
華美人文學會1月25日(星期日)下午2時至4時特邀紐約收藏家、文字學家鄭慶雲做"良渚文字的發現與神農社會關係的考證"的專題講座。
鄭慶雲先生是「美國亞洲(鄭氏)文化基金會」的創始人,收藏家,古代文字民間研究學者。收藏研究廣泛。通過對藏品的研究,對中國古代文字的起源、演變有深入見解。通過對良渚文字的發現及考證,確定神農社會的存在。並成功破解倉頡造字誤導中華民族5000年的迷團。這次演講將以良渚文字發現研究為重點,講述社會考古學發現的重要性,並結合田野考古學的成果,確定炎、黃社會是歷史上真在存在的實物証據,使上古傳說的歷史變成真實的歷史研究拉開了序幕。呼籲有關專家、學者廣開思路,重視社會考古學。免使遠古資源再次煙沒,愧對古人,愧對後人。鄭氏並准備了大量遠古甲剮文實物圖片資料,講介個人研究心得,圖文並茂。
講座免費﹐因座位有限,請預先訂位。網上訂位請訪http://chineselectures.org/012515.html.
Date: Sunday, January 25, 2015
Time: 2:00-4:00 pm
For videos of selected Renwen lectures, please visit http://chineselectures.org/videos.html.
及商甲骨文之前4000年中國文字演變史簡介
(English summary: Mr. Hing Wan Cheng, an art collector and connoisseur, will discuss in this lecture the discovery of the writing in the Liangzhu period, 5300-4200 BC, and the light it sheds on the existence of a Shennong society in China.)
華美人文學會1月25日(星期日)下午2時至4時特邀紐約收藏家、文字學家鄭慶雲做"良渚文字的發現與神農社會關係的考證"的專題講座。
鄭慶雲先生是「美國亞洲(鄭氏)文化基金會」的創始人,收藏家,古代文字民間研究學者。收藏研究廣泛。通過對藏品的研究,對中國古代文字的起源、演變有深入見解。通過對良渚文字的發現及考證,確定神農社會的存在。並成功破解倉頡造字誤導中華民族5000年的迷團。這次演講將以良渚文字發現研究為重點,講述社會考古學發現的重要性,並結合田野考古學的成果,確定炎、黃社會是歷史上真在存在的實物証據,使上古傳說的歷史變成真實的歷史研究拉開了序幕。呼籲有關專家、學者廣開思路,重視社會考古學。免使遠古資源再次煙沒,愧對古人,愧對後人。鄭氏並准備了大量遠古甲剮文實物圖片資料,講介個人研究心得,圖文並茂。
講座免費﹐因座位有限,請預先訂位。網上訂位請訪http://chineselectures.org/012515.html.
Date: Sunday, January 25, 2015
Time: 2:00-4:00 pm
For videos of selected Renwen lectures, please visit http://chineselectures.org/videos.html.
10 Easy Steps to Learn Conversational Chinese on Your Path to Fluency -- Jan. 16, 2015
From: http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/blog/2015/01/15/learn-conversational-mandarin-chinese/
10 Easy Steps to Learn Conversational Chinese on Your Path to Fluency
Have you ever felt like you’ve studied Chinese for hours and hours but you can’t say a sentence?
Have Chinese people approached you with a question but you just couldn’t find the right words to express yourself?
Don’t worry! That doesn’t mean you are incapable of learning to speak Chinese well.
It only means that you’re probably using the wrong method to practice your speaking.
So what’s the right method? Keep on reading, and I’ll explain in ten easy steps. But first, why
Why It’s Important to Have Conversational Chinese SkillsChina is a leading economic power and becoming more and more important in today’s business world. Almost every leading Western company has set foot in China first to take advantage of the cheap labor and now to get their share of the world’s biggest market with a population that has a continuously increasing spending power.
Leading companies are looking for professionals who can master Mandarin Chinese in order to engage with important business partners. Even today, Chinese is the language with the most native speakers worldwide. Statistically, one in every five people on Earth speaks Chinese. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to communicate with one fifth of the world?
When I tell people that I speak Chinese, the first questions I usually get are, “Isn’t it hard to learn?” and “Isn’t it the most difficult language?” Why no, it’s not!
With the right techniques, material and enough motivation, anyone will be able to speak Chinese. So to get you there the right way, here are ten steps to master conversational Chinese.
10 Easy Steps to Learn Conversational Mandarin Chinese on Your Path to Fluency1. Get the Right MaterialYou decided to learn Chinese or you want to improve your conversational Chinese? That’s great! The first step is to get the right material! This can be tricky since every learner is different. However, it’s always clever to get a good conversational trainer or a phrasebook.
I have been using the Lonely Planet Phrasebook & Dictionary for Mandarin and other languages, and it’s helpful to get the basics of conversational Chinese down. Another great book I can recommend is called “Mastering Conversational Chinese” which includes an audio CD.
2. Read Chinese Conversations AloudOnce you have your book, it’s time to get started. The biggest mistake you can make is to not speak enough. Reading sentences aloud is the key to getting used to a language and its proper phonetics.
Make sure you start simple. First, take a look at the pinyin, the Chinese alphabet. Once you master the pronunciation of each sound, it’s time to start with words!
What’s the first thing you usually learn when learning a new language? Greetings!
My Chinese teacher once told me: “When you are able to greet and introduce yourself in perfect Chinese, your listeners will think your language skills are great!”
Start with basic conversations and work your way up. Always read the conversations aloud and maybe even record yourself to check if your pronunciation is correct.
3. Listen to Chinese Audio and RepeatI am a believer in learning languages like a child. Babies pick up a language by listening and repeating. This method has been proven effective even for adults or older learners.
Buy a phrasebook with an audio CD or listen to Chinese podcasts on a daily basis. The more Chinese you hear, the more language you will absorb and learn passively.
Try your best to repeat new words in order to make them stick in your memory.
4. Write Down ConversationsOnce you’ve built a sturdy basis in conversational Chinese, it’s time to construct your own conversations. Write down random conversations while speaking them aloud.
Constructing your own conversations is an effective method and stimulates your language memory to be able to quickly make sentences in a new language.
To make sure what you wrote and said is correct, have it corrected for errors. I recommend lang-8.com, a platform from and for native speakers of any language. Simply put in your conversation and native speakers will correct it for you!
5. Practice with Chinese SongsMusic is an important part of Chinese culture, and a lot of emotions or topics are expressed in songs. This is one of my favorite parts of language learning!
Search for Chinese songs you like and break down their lyrics. Not sure where to look? Start here! Songs make much more sense if you know the actual lyrics, and the association between music and lyrics make the new learned vocabulary stick.
A fantastic way to learn song lyrics is with FluentU, which offers a great selection of Chinese songs in music videos—both classics and modern. FluentU takes real-world videos (like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks) and turns them into Mandarin Chinese learning lessons.
Every word in the videos comes with an in-context definition, image and multiple example sentences, plus there’s a learn mode with personalized lessons based on the videos you’re watching. With FluentU, you’ll quickly and effectively learn the song lyrics, their meaning and new vocabulary thanks to the real-world context!
Want to learn Chinese with music videos?
Try Chinese immersion online with FluentU!
You can also check out the site Chinese Pinyin Lyrics, which offers a broad selection of great songs for practicing Chinese. If you can’t read characters yet, don’t worry, because all lyrics are laid out in pinyin as well.
6. Practice with Chinese TV Shows or MoviesEven if you don’t speak Chinese fluently, don’t think you can’t watch Chinese TV! There are certain TV shows that are especially suitable for beginners, such as “Voice of China” or “非诚勿扰” (You Are the One, a Chinese dating show). Both of these shows feature a lot of “introduction” vocabulary and are easier to understand than others.
You can also learn Chinese through shows like 非诚勿扰 (You Are the One) on FluentU. FluentU will take clips from 非诚勿扰 and turn them into Chinese learning lessons that use scenes from the show as context.
If you want to watch movies or dramas, don’t hesitate! You can find a wide range of Chinese shows, movies or dramas with English subtitles online at Drama Fever. Even when watching with subtitles, you still pick up a lot of words here and there, and are able to make use of the “listen and repeat” technique.
7. Get a Language PartnerIf you live in China, you should definitely get a language partner. Search for someone who is interested in improving their English or learning your mother tongue. Even if you don’t live in China, you can still find Chinese exchange students at local universities, for instance. If not, try online language partnerships through Skype on language groups from Facebook, for example.
Try to practice each language equally long with your tandem. Maybe you meet each other once a week for an hour. Practice Chinese for 30 minutes and switch to the other language after, or vice versa. Try to talk about current events, hobbies or everyday situations.
My go-to website for finding good language partners is italki. On this site, you can see a detailed profile of potential language partners with real photos!
8. Try to Use the Language ActivelyYou won’t improve your conversational Chinese just by reading phrases aloud at home. If you live in China, go out and use the language is much as possible. Try to force yourself into difficult situations without the help of native speakers. I upgraded my electricity card, registered a bank account and set up a cell phone plan all by myself while broadening my vocabulary.
If you don’t live in China, go check out information boards or Chinese related courses or clubs at your local university. You could also try posting an ad on Craigslist for a Chinese conversation partner. There are thousands of Chinese nationals studying overseas who are looking for language partnerships as well!
9. Travel to a Chinese-speaking CountryIf you don’t live in China at the moment, don’t give up! Plan your next travels to China or another Chinese-speaking country such as Singapore and use the language. Communicate with locals and embrace what you have learned so far.
Why not spend your summer vacation in China this year? Or visit a language program at Hutong school in Shanghai? If you are in for a longer adventure, how about studying abroad in China? Chinese universities are much cheaper compared to the United States or Britain! Give it a try and find your future Chinese university now!
10. Don’t Be ShyThe most important part in improving your spoken language is to not be shy! Making mistakes is normal and native speakers will always appreciate your effort. Most Chinese people are in complete awe when foreigners start to talk Chinese, even if it’s just “Nǐ hǎo! (Hello!)”
If you live in China, set yourself daily goals, such as greeting at least ten people or starting random conversations with three. That way you will push yourself to get out of your comfort zone!
If you aren’t in China, try to practice a new song every week. Memorize its lyrics and sing it in the shower or while cooking. Just try to speak as much as possible!
Never Forget: Practice Makes PerfectNo master fell just from heaven! Being able to speak a language takes time and effort. Don’t expect too much too soon.
Try to stay focused and motivated by rotating learning methods and make them diverse. Why don’t you create a study plan? It’s a lot easier to reach goals when you have them laid out in front of you!
Are you ready to speak Chinese? Great! Don’t wait until tomorrow or next week—start now, start today!
Just follow these tips, keep your goals in mind, stay motivated and never give up!
10 Easy Steps to Learn Conversational Chinese on Your Path to Fluency
Have you ever felt like you’ve studied Chinese for hours and hours but you can’t say a sentence?
Have Chinese people approached you with a question but you just couldn’t find the right words to express yourself?
Don’t worry! That doesn’t mean you are incapable of learning to speak Chinese well.
It only means that you’re probably using the wrong method to practice your speaking.
So what’s the right method? Keep on reading, and I’ll explain in ten easy steps. But first, why
Why It’s Important to Have Conversational Chinese SkillsChina is a leading economic power and becoming more and more important in today’s business world. Almost every leading Western company has set foot in China first to take advantage of the cheap labor and now to get their share of the world’s biggest market with a population that has a continuously increasing spending power.
Leading companies are looking for professionals who can master Mandarin Chinese in order to engage with important business partners. Even today, Chinese is the language with the most native speakers worldwide. Statistically, one in every five people on Earth speaks Chinese. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to communicate with one fifth of the world?
When I tell people that I speak Chinese, the first questions I usually get are, “Isn’t it hard to learn?” and “Isn’t it the most difficult language?” Why no, it’s not!
With the right techniques, material and enough motivation, anyone will be able to speak Chinese. So to get you there the right way, here are ten steps to master conversational Chinese.
10 Easy Steps to Learn Conversational Mandarin Chinese on Your Path to Fluency1. Get the Right MaterialYou decided to learn Chinese or you want to improve your conversational Chinese? That’s great! The first step is to get the right material! This can be tricky since every learner is different. However, it’s always clever to get a good conversational trainer or a phrasebook.
I have been using the Lonely Planet Phrasebook & Dictionary for Mandarin and other languages, and it’s helpful to get the basics of conversational Chinese down. Another great book I can recommend is called “Mastering Conversational Chinese” which includes an audio CD.
2. Read Chinese Conversations AloudOnce you have your book, it’s time to get started. The biggest mistake you can make is to not speak enough. Reading sentences aloud is the key to getting used to a language and its proper phonetics.
Make sure you start simple. First, take a look at the pinyin, the Chinese alphabet. Once you master the pronunciation of each sound, it’s time to start with words!
What’s the first thing you usually learn when learning a new language? Greetings!
My Chinese teacher once told me: “When you are able to greet and introduce yourself in perfect Chinese, your listeners will think your language skills are great!”
Start with basic conversations and work your way up. Always read the conversations aloud and maybe even record yourself to check if your pronunciation is correct.
3. Listen to Chinese Audio and RepeatI am a believer in learning languages like a child. Babies pick up a language by listening and repeating. This method has been proven effective even for adults or older learners.
Buy a phrasebook with an audio CD or listen to Chinese podcasts on a daily basis. The more Chinese you hear, the more language you will absorb and learn passively.
Try your best to repeat new words in order to make them stick in your memory.
4. Write Down ConversationsOnce you’ve built a sturdy basis in conversational Chinese, it’s time to construct your own conversations. Write down random conversations while speaking them aloud.
Constructing your own conversations is an effective method and stimulates your language memory to be able to quickly make sentences in a new language.
To make sure what you wrote and said is correct, have it corrected for errors. I recommend lang-8.com, a platform from and for native speakers of any language. Simply put in your conversation and native speakers will correct it for you!
5. Practice with Chinese SongsMusic is an important part of Chinese culture, and a lot of emotions or topics are expressed in songs. This is one of my favorite parts of language learning!
Search for Chinese songs you like and break down their lyrics. Not sure where to look? Start here! Songs make much more sense if you know the actual lyrics, and the association between music and lyrics make the new learned vocabulary stick.
A fantastic way to learn song lyrics is with FluentU, which offers a great selection of Chinese songs in music videos—both classics and modern. FluentU takes real-world videos (like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks) and turns them into Mandarin Chinese learning lessons.
Every word in the videos comes with an in-context definition, image and multiple example sentences, plus there’s a learn mode with personalized lessons based on the videos you’re watching. With FluentU, you’ll quickly and effectively learn the song lyrics, their meaning and new vocabulary thanks to the real-world context!
Want to learn Chinese with music videos?
Try Chinese immersion online with FluentU!
You can also check out the site Chinese Pinyin Lyrics, which offers a broad selection of great songs for practicing Chinese. If you can’t read characters yet, don’t worry, because all lyrics are laid out in pinyin as well.
6. Practice with Chinese TV Shows or MoviesEven if you don’t speak Chinese fluently, don’t think you can’t watch Chinese TV! There are certain TV shows that are especially suitable for beginners, such as “Voice of China” or “非诚勿扰” (You Are the One, a Chinese dating show). Both of these shows feature a lot of “introduction” vocabulary and are easier to understand than others.
You can also learn Chinese through shows like 非诚勿扰 (You Are the One) on FluentU. FluentU will take clips from 非诚勿扰 and turn them into Chinese learning lessons that use scenes from the show as context.
If you want to watch movies or dramas, don’t hesitate! You can find a wide range of Chinese shows, movies or dramas with English subtitles online at Drama Fever. Even when watching with subtitles, you still pick up a lot of words here and there, and are able to make use of the “listen and repeat” technique.
7. Get a Language PartnerIf you live in China, you should definitely get a language partner. Search for someone who is interested in improving their English or learning your mother tongue. Even if you don’t live in China, you can still find Chinese exchange students at local universities, for instance. If not, try online language partnerships through Skype on language groups from Facebook, for example.
Try to practice each language equally long with your tandem. Maybe you meet each other once a week for an hour. Practice Chinese for 30 minutes and switch to the other language after, or vice versa. Try to talk about current events, hobbies or everyday situations.
My go-to website for finding good language partners is italki. On this site, you can see a detailed profile of potential language partners with real photos!
8. Try to Use the Language ActivelyYou won’t improve your conversational Chinese just by reading phrases aloud at home. If you live in China, go out and use the language is much as possible. Try to force yourself into difficult situations without the help of native speakers. I upgraded my electricity card, registered a bank account and set up a cell phone plan all by myself while broadening my vocabulary.
If you don’t live in China, go check out information boards or Chinese related courses or clubs at your local university. You could also try posting an ad on Craigslist for a Chinese conversation partner. There are thousands of Chinese nationals studying overseas who are looking for language partnerships as well!
9. Travel to a Chinese-speaking CountryIf you don’t live in China at the moment, don’t give up! Plan your next travels to China or another Chinese-speaking country such as Singapore and use the language. Communicate with locals and embrace what you have learned so far.
Why not spend your summer vacation in China this year? Or visit a language program at Hutong school in Shanghai? If you are in for a longer adventure, how about studying abroad in China? Chinese universities are much cheaper compared to the United States or Britain! Give it a try and find your future Chinese university now!
10. Don’t Be ShyThe most important part in improving your spoken language is to not be shy! Making mistakes is normal and native speakers will always appreciate your effort. Most Chinese people are in complete awe when foreigners start to talk Chinese, even if it’s just “Nǐ hǎo! (Hello!)”
If you live in China, set yourself daily goals, such as greeting at least ten people or starting random conversations with three. That way you will push yourself to get out of your comfort zone!
If you aren’t in China, try to practice a new song every week. Memorize its lyrics and sing it in the shower or while cooking. Just try to speak as much as possible!
Never Forget: Practice Makes PerfectNo master fell just from heaven! Being able to speak a language takes time and effort. Don’t expect too much too soon.
Try to stay focused and motivated by rotating learning methods and make them diverse. Why don’t you create a study plan? It’s a lot easier to reach goals when you have them laid out in front of you!
Are you ready to speak Chinese? Great! Don’t wait until tomorrow or next week—start now, start today!
Just follow these tips, keep your goals in mind, stay motivated and never give up!
10 things China does better than anywhere else -- Jan. 10, 2015
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/08/travel/10-things-china/index.html, where you can see 10 photos, one for each item on the list.
10 things China does better than anywhere else
(CNN)Ask people for a list of things China is famous for and you might expect a healthy dose of sarcasm.
But cast aside cynicism and you'll find a number of incredible things China does best.
We've got 10 of them right here.
Pork
As the first place to domesticate pigs, we can be sure China knows a thing or two about making pork delicious.
According to the U.S. National Pork Board, the earliest evidence of domestication of the wild boar can be dated to 4900 BC in China.
Historically, the animal has been so integral to Chinese society that the Chinese character for "home" is a pictogram of a pig with a roof over its head.
Today, China is the world's top producer and consumer of hogs -- and, wow, how it's consumed.
There are arguably two pinnacles of pork cooking in China: dongbo rou, a glistening block of braised pork belly prized for the melt-in-mouth fat and char siu, a sweet-salty cut of meat barbecued til tender and smoky.
Both dishes are tricky and time-consuming to create, but so worth it.
We love and respect the traditions of the entire world of barbecue out there, but China's unparalleled experience and variety of dishes places it atop the pork pile.
Indoor sports
So China isn't all that great at football -- so what?
Its state system of athletic training has perfected a foolproof method for producing top gymnasts, ping pong champs, badminton aces and diving divas.
Since it first participated in the modern Olympics in 1984, it's steadily risen toward the top of the medals table.
Chinese-style athleticism reached a climax at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing when the country garnered 51 gold medals and ranked number one overall.
Although a top contender in diving and gymnastics, Chinese competitors are practically unbeatable at badminton and table tennis, winning more gold medals in these events than any other country at the Olympics.
In comparison, the United States is undeniably the long-standing king of the Olympics, but it's had an 18-Olympic head start on China.
Pragmatism
China's achievements today, including several of the items on this list, can be credited to a deep sense of pragmatism, which assesses most situations by looking at the practical consequences of actions.
On a policy level, China will engage with any country, regardless of moral standing.
As Deng Xiaoping, architect of modern China, famously said: "It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice." Deng pretty much captured the political and entrepreneurial zeitgeist for the past few decades.
On a grassroots level, Chinese people embrace pragmatism on a daily basis.
The philosophy explains most of China's customs and cultural norms, including the gifting of hongbao (red envelopes filled with cash), the importance of maintaining guanxi (interpersonal relationships) and filial piety.
Calligraphy
Calligraphy in China is an art form, a meditative practice, a scholarly pursuit and, nowadays, an investment.
With a rich tradition of calligraphy tracing back thousands of years, China reveres the works on paper by great masters, as well as the experimental new media calligraphic works of contemporary artists.
At auction, these calligraphic artworks routinely fetch millions of dollars, collected by connoisseurs around the world, such as the paper scroll "Gong Fu Tie," which sold for $8.2 million at Sotheby's New York in September 2013. The ancient work was written by the famous poet Su Shi and consists of just nine characters.
Copying
Why reinvent the wheel?
China is great at copying other people's version of the wheel and making it more affordable.
There's a cheap Chinese version of almost everything and anything, from luxury fashions to electronic gadgets.
While the iPhone 6 Plus is selling at almost $2,400 in China ($299 in the United States), counterfeit iPhone "models"sell for between $2 and $75 on China's online shop Taobao.
A copycat version of the Eiffel Tower? Small fry.
Try these ambitious copies of entire towns, such as the historic Austrian town recreated in Guangdong and the one ofManhattan proposed in Tianjin.
Building fast
Not just cheap -- China builds thing fast as well.
A fast-growing middle class and an explosion in domestic travel means China needs hotels.
It's meeting the demand with the fastest, quirkiest and most impressive construction boom the world has ever seen.
Budget chain Hanting Inns boasts two hotel openings per day across China. The company expects to be the world's largest chain by 2020.
Meanwhile, a 30-story hotel was created in 15 days in Hunan Province at a cost of $17 million. The construction company is now aiming to pull off the same feat in eight days.
It's not just the cheap and cheerful the country excels in.
Check out these outrageously glamorous hotels that can be visited in China right away.
Tea
The first in the world to appreciate the simple drink made from steeping leaves in water, China has since developed a profound appreciation for tea.
Evaluated much in the way that wine is in the West, different teas have distinct characteristics depending on terroir, treatment and storage.
Was it picked before or after the rainy season? Were the leaves air dried, wok dried, fermented or aged?
Has the tea been steeped and served in earthenware and, if so, where did the clay for the teapot originate?
The culture of tea has become so integral to China and held in such esteem that prestigious varietals regularly sell for thousands of dollars per kilo -- it's practically currency.
Getting to high places
While the world's highest point, Mount Everest (8,848 meters), exists on the border between Nepal and China, and is claimed by both countries, this in itself isn't an achievement, just a geographical fact.
The triumph is in bringing the masses quickly and efficiently to the world's peaks.
China claims the world's highest railway.
The Tanggula Pass at more than 5,000 meters in the Tanggula Mountains can be traversed via the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
Meanwhile, the new Daocheng Yading Airport in Sichuan Province lies at 4,411 meters and is the highest civilian airport.
It will be usurped by the proposed Nagqu Dagring Airport in Tibet planned at 4,436 meters, when it gets built in 2015.
Dumplings
China has countless styles of delicious dumplings.
The humble dumpling has been elevated to art form in China.
Nowhere can you find a diversity and sophistication that matches China's exhaustive list of dumpling variations.
Sure, many cuisines boast a savory or sweet dumpling, maybe even a fried dumpling, but China's got dumplings with transparent wrappers (the classic dim sum, har gow), dumplings in a mouth-numbing sauce (Sichuan's signature longchaoshou), dumplings that burst with soup at first bite (xiaolongbao), dumplings made with fish meat dough (Chiu Chow-style) ... let's just stop there or we'll be here all day.
The dumpling is also a marker of auspicious things in China: families gather during New Year celebrations to wrap and eat dumplings together in the hope of prosperous times ahead.
Olympic opening ceremonies
The world is still shaking in its boots from the raucous display of totalitarian jazz hands that opened the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
Whether you saw it as a spectacle of precision showmanship or the result of a lockstep society trying to freak out the entire planet, there's no denying it was the opening ceremony that made all others tremble in shock and awe.
The hour-long cinematic showcase, directed by celebrated filmmaker Zhang Yimou, incorporated every Chinese art form, from ink painting to acrobatics to tai chi and opera.
It succeeded in stirring patriotism at home and inspiring new fans abroad during an Olympics fraught with political tension and human rights issues.
Hong Kong-based freelancer Zoe Li writes regularly on Chinese art, culture, food and travel.
10 things China does better than anywhere else
(CNN)Ask people for a list of things China is famous for and you might expect a healthy dose of sarcasm.
But cast aside cynicism and you'll find a number of incredible things China does best.
We've got 10 of them right here.
Pork
As the first place to domesticate pigs, we can be sure China knows a thing or two about making pork delicious.
According to the U.S. National Pork Board, the earliest evidence of domestication of the wild boar can be dated to 4900 BC in China.
Historically, the animal has been so integral to Chinese society that the Chinese character for "home" is a pictogram of a pig with a roof over its head.
Today, China is the world's top producer and consumer of hogs -- and, wow, how it's consumed.
There are arguably two pinnacles of pork cooking in China: dongbo rou, a glistening block of braised pork belly prized for the melt-in-mouth fat and char siu, a sweet-salty cut of meat barbecued til tender and smoky.
Both dishes are tricky and time-consuming to create, but so worth it.
We love and respect the traditions of the entire world of barbecue out there, but China's unparalleled experience and variety of dishes places it atop the pork pile.
Indoor sports
So China isn't all that great at football -- so what?
Its state system of athletic training has perfected a foolproof method for producing top gymnasts, ping pong champs, badminton aces and diving divas.
Since it first participated in the modern Olympics in 1984, it's steadily risen toward the top of the medals table.
Chinese-style athleticism reached a climax at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing when the country garnered 51 gold medals and ranked number one overall.
Although a top contender in diving and gymnastics, Chinese competitors are practically unbeatable at badminton and table tennis, winning more gold medals in these events than any other country at the Olympics.
In comparison, the United States is undeniably the long-standing king of the Olympics, but it's had an 18-Olympic head start on China.
Pragmatism
China's achievements today, including several of the items on this list, can be credited to a deep sense of pragmatism, which assesses most situations by looking at the practical consequences of actions.
On a policy level, China will engage with any country, regardless of moral standing.
As Deng Xiaoping, architect of modern China, famously said: "It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice." Deng pretty much captured the political and entrepreneurial zeitgeist for the past few decades.
On a grassroots level, Chinese people embrace pragmatism on a daily basis.
The philosophy explains most of China's customs and cultural norms, including the gifting of hongbao (red envelopes filled with cash), the importance of maintaining guanxi (interpersonal relationships) and filial piety.
Calligraphy
Calligraphy in China is an art form, a meditative practice, a scholarly pursuit and, nowadays, an investment.
With a rich tradition of calligraphy tracing back thousands of years, China reveres the works on paper by great masters, as well as the experimental new media calligraphic works of contemporary artists.
At auction, these calligraphic artworks routinely fetch millions of dollars, collected by connoisseurs around the world, such as the paper scroll "Gong Fu Tie," which sold for $8.2 million at Sotheby's New York in September 2013. The ancient work was written by the famous poet Su Shi and consists of just nine characters.
Copying
Why reinvent the wheel?
China is great at copying other people's version of the wheel and making it more affordable.
There's a cheap Chinese version of almost everything and anything, from luxury fashions to electronic gadgets.
While the iPhone 6 Plus is selling at almost $2,400 in China ($299 in the United States), counterfeit iPhone "models"sell for between $2 and $75 on China's online shop Taobao.
A copycat version of the Eiffel Tower? Small fry.
Try these ambitious copies of entire towns, such as the historic Austrian town recreated in Guangdong and the one ofManhattan proposed in Tianjin.
Building fast
Not just cheap -- China builds thing fast as well.
A fast-growing middle class and an explosion in domestic travel means China needs hotels.
It's meeting the demand with the fastest, quirkiest and most impressive construction boom the world has ever seen.
Budget chain Hanting Inns boasts two hotel openings per day across China. The company expects to be the world's largest chain by 2020.
Meanwhile, a 30-story hotel was created in 15 days in Hunan Province at a cost of $17 million. The construction company is now aiming to pull off the same feat in eight days.
It's not just the cheap and cheerful the country excels in.
Check out these outrageously glamorous hotels that can be visited in China right away.
Tea
The first in the world to appreciate the simple drink made from steeping leaves in water, China has since developed a profound appreciation for tea.
Evaluated much in the way that wine is in the West, different teas have distinct characteristics depending on terroir, treatment and storage.
Was it picked before or after the rainy season? Were the leaves air dried, wok dried, fermented or aged?
Has the tea been steeped and served in earthenware and, if so, where did the clay for the teapot originate?
The culture of tea has become so integral to China and held in such esteem that prestigious varietals regularly sell for thousands of dollars per kilo -- it's practically currency.
Getting to high places
While the world's highest point, Mount Everest (8,848 meters), exists on the border between Nepal and China, and is claimed by both countries, this in itself isn't an achievement, just a geographical fact.
The triumph is in bringing the masses quickly and efficiently to the world's peaks.
China claims the world's highest railway.
The Tanggula Pass at more than 5,000 meters in the Tanggula Mountains can be traversed via the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
Meanwhile, the new Daocheng Yading Airport in Sichuan Province lies at 4,411 meters and is the highest civilian airport.
It will be usurped by the proposed Nagqu Dagring Airport in Tibet planned at 4,436 meters, when it gets built in 2015.
Dumplings
China has countless styles of delicious dumplings.
The humble dumpling has been elevated to art form in China.
Nowhere can you find a diversity and sophistication that matches China's exhaustive list of dumpling variations.
Sure, many cuisines boast a savory or sweet dumpling, maybe even a fried dumpling, but China's got dumplings with transparent wrappers (the classic dim sum, har gow), dumplings in a mouth-numbing sauce (Sichuan's signature longchaoshou), dumplings that burst with soup at first bite (xiaolongbao), dumplings made with fish meat dough (Chiu Chow-style) ... let's just stop there or we'll be here all day.
The dumpling is also a marker of auspicious things in China: families gather during New Year celebrations to wrap and eat dumplings together in the hope of prosperous times ahead.
Olympic opening ceremonies
The world is still shaking in its boots from the raucous display of totalitarian jazz hands that opened the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
Whether you saw it as a spectacle of precision showmanship or the result of a lockstep society trying to freak out the entire planet, there's no denying it was the opening ceremony that made all others tremble in shock and awe.
The hour-long cinematic showcase, directed by celebrated filmmaker Zhang Yimou, incorporated every Chinese art form, from ink painting to acrobatics to tai chi and opera.
It succeeded in stirring patriotism at home and inspiring new fans abroad during an Olympics fraught with political tension and human rights issues.
Hong Kong-based freelancer Zoe Li writes regularly on Chinese art, culture, food and travel.
The World Is Yours: 5 Effective Ways to Learn Chinese by Yourself -- Jan. 4, 2015
You’ve decided that taking Chinese classes and following a rigid course schedule is not your kind of thing.
But you’d still love to improve your Chinese language skills.
So what can you do? Simple: Learn Chinese on your own!
You’ll be amazed at the variety of resources you can gain access to on the web. From pinyin to chengyu, there is so much out there available for you!
But what’s the most effective way to learn by yourself? Which resources are the best?
Those questions are exactly the reason why we’ve put this guide together for you. So it’s time to channel your inner superhero and get pumped up to start your journey. We’ll find some great motivation in the answers to the question: Why should you learn Chinese anyway?
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhereClick here to get a copy. (Download)
Why You Should Start Learning Mandarin ChineseLearning Chinese on your own may sometimes be a feat. So if you’re one of those people who still has a few doubts regarding this, then these three features of the Chinese language will definitely help you cement that decision. You’ll be happy to know that however intimidating it may first seem to be, the Chinese language is, in fact, something that can be learned and enjoyed by everyone. Here’s why:
Global PhenomenonMore and more people are jumping onto the Chinese bandwagon. It’s the very reason why there are a lot of online Chinese courses cropping up. Or the fact that there is a huge spike in the number of foreign students enrolling in Chinese language courses in Beijing and Shanghai. It’s become a global phenomenon! People wanted to learn all about it and you should too.
PracticalityThe very reason why there is a sudden interest in the Chinese language is mainly due to its applicability. When China opened its doors to foreign trade,investors and entrepreneurs started flowing in. But English is not widely used in the country, so the most practical solution is to adapt to the locals. How? By learning their language.
Today, one out of every five companies has a satellite office or at least an external working relation in China. Most likely, the corporation you’re a part of has a Chinese shareholder—be it a supplier, client or a director. So it’s quite obvious that learning Chinese will give you a huge advantage in the business world.
Rich Culture and HistoryChina is one of the oldest nations in the world. With over 8,000 years of history, there’s no doubt why people across the globe are taking a special interest in its rich culture and history. The Chinese language is a piece of art in and of itself. You’ll be amazed at how the characters were formed or how each character relates to a specific object. Learning the language will help you untangle the many mysteries of Chinese culture. You’ll get a glimpse of it, and then you’ll surely want to keep on unraveling them.
Challenges You’ll Encounter While Learning ChineseThere will be a few stumbling blocks along the way—that’s a given. When you first encounter any dialogue or text written in Mandarin, you’ll realize that they are just so alien to you. Mandarin is not like other foreign languages that use the Roman alphabet; Mandarin Chinese has its own alphabet. The language has other various elements that are new to English speakers, fromintonation to the number of strokes.
Even the simplified and traditional characters may seem daunting to you. But you know what? There’s always a way around it. Little by little, the more you familiarize yourself to the language, the less alien it will feel. Read more. Listen more. Practice more. The more you expose yourself to the language, the more familiar it becomes. And once you’re able to overcome that fear, your thirst for knowledge and curiosity for the new language will emerge.
Tips on How to Get Started Learning Chinese by YourselfNow that we’ve set those fears aside, it’s time to grab your cape and inner strength, as we prepare for your wonderful journey in learning the Chinese language. Here are a few tips that will help you get the most out of your learning:
1. Use music videosUsing music is one of the best ways to learn a new language because it’s fun and interesting! But why use music videos instead of just listening to Chinese songs? Well, sometimes what’s going on in the music video can give you context to better understand the song, and other times it’s a great peek into the culture. But the biggest benefit is that you can have a preview of the Chinese characters and follow along with the lyrics.
The best way to learn Chinese from music videos is with FluentU. FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons. Every word of each video is carefully annotated with an in-context definition, image and multiple example sentences. You can even click on a word to see how it’s used in other videos across the site.
Want to learn Chinese with music videos?
Try Chinese immersion online with FluentU!
Watching these music videos will really help you become familiar with the pronunciation, as intonations are learned over time with more exposure. So choose the genre that best suits your taste. Not sure where to start? We’ve gathered the best Mandopop songs and karaoke classics for you. If these work out well and you want more, check out youku.com or tudou.com, which have a really comprehensive list of videos.
2. Regularly meet with a conversation partnerWhen I was taking up Chinese in Beijing, I was fortunate enough to have a language partner. I got to learn more Mandarin from her while she learned English from me: a win-win situation! We get to cover more areas than the ones taught in class, like slang and various expressions. I became familiar with their actual way of talking.
So if you have a friend who’s good in Mandarin, you can do that too. Chances are you’ll have to look for a conversation partner, but it’s completely doable! Is there a university near where you live, or a Chinese restaurant? Check there first. You can also look for a Chinese conversation partner online—that’s becoming quite the trend nowadays.
You can check out mylanguageexchange.com orconversationexchange.com for skilled online conversation partners. Interacting with someone in Chinese will greatly help you appreciate the language because you’ll see the practical side of learning. It will motivate you to expand your knowledge and walk on unfamiliar ground. Trust me, it’ll do you wonders.
3. Watch Chinese shows with subtitlesOnce you’ve covered the basics, watching Chinese shows is the next step. Whether it’s dramas or variety shows, you’ll be exposed to new characters and vocabulary. Like with music, pick the genre that you love most. There’s nothing more satisfying than getting to learn something new while enjoying what you’re doing.
If you ask me, I suggest that you choose Chinese dramas that border on romantic comedies. Why? They’re the easiest to understand! Talk shows or variety shows are equally entertaining, but there’s a tendency for you to feel lost in their conversations. If you’re not that familiar with Chinese current events and culture, you might not fully understand what their humorous statements are all about.
Also, choose shows with subtitles. There are so many video streaming sites available in the web; start with dramafever.com or maplestage.com. These are only some of the more famous sites out there that feature shows with Chinese subtitles. Watching with subtitles will greatly help your character recognition skills.
But if you prefer to really get to know each character, again you can check out the FluentU videos. They explain every dialogue for you, character by character, and you’ll learn the pronunciation in pinyin along with an accompanying English explanation.
4. Listen to audio booksIf you’ve noticed, all the references I’ve listed here so far target both your listening and reading skills. That’s because it works best that way. You won’t get the most out of your learning if you merely target one of them. It’s for this exact reason that audio books will really help you out. Merely reading a book won’t do, you have to listen to the words at the same time.
For starters, you can download Chinese course textbooks. Most of these have an accompanying audio book, so it’ll help you grasp the basics of the language. But if you wish to stick to novels and comics, there is a wide range of topics and titles available in 书声bar (Audio Book Bar), 天方听书网 (Tianfang Book Listening Web) and verycd.com.
You can also check out these Chinese novels, but they’re only recommended if you’re already in the intermediate level. These novels are purely Chinese characters; there’s no pinyin or zhuyin to help you out.
5. Listen to podcastsFinally, if you know where to look, podcasts can become your new on-the-go best friend. There is a great variety of topics, as well as numerous podcasts focused on teaching the Chinese basics to beginners. You can download these to start. But if you can already manage, I suggest you pick podcasts that are geared towards specific interests and Chinese culture. This will exposed you to a wider range of vocabulary—words that aren’t normally covered in the former.
For a start, try 好简单 (How Easy) or 黑米公主 (Princess Remy). These are the common favorites of both Chinese speakers and Chinese learners. They cover a variety of topics from culture to arts to daily news. You can also tryBBC news for more detailed updates on politics, but be forewarned, you have to possess some intermediate level of Chinese to listen to them. News has a totally different lingo.
If you’re looking for podcasts that are aimed at specific interests, you can check out the iTunes store. Some of these include NBA 前线 (Front Line) for updates and reviews about NBA, 电影不无聊 (Movies Are Not Boring) for all info about movies and 科学脱口秀 (Science Talk Show) for science related talk shows, among others.
And that completes the list! These five tools are sure-fire ways to learn Mandarin Chinese by yourself.
Remember that you already have the superpowers within to make your mark in the world, so use that power to learn Chinese on your own—and enjoy the journey!
But you’d still love to improve your Chinese language skills.
So what can you do? Simple: Learn Chinese on your own!
You’ll be amazed at the variety of resources you can gain access to on the web. From pinyin to chengyu, there is so much out there available for you!
But what’s the most effective way to learn by yourself? Which resources are the best?
Those questions are exactly the reason why we’ve put this guide together for you. So it’s time to channel your inner superhero and get pumped up to start your journey. We’ll find some great motivation in the answers to the question: Why should you learn Chinese anyway?
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhereClick here to get a copy. (Download)
Why You Should Start Learning Mandarin ChineseLearning Chinese on your own may sometimes be a feat. So if you’re one of those people who still has a few doubts regarding this, then these three features of the Chinese language will definitely help you cement that decision. You’ll be happy to know that however intimidating it may first seem to be, the Chinese language is, in fact, something that can be learned and enjoyed by everyone. Here’s why:
Global PhenomenonMore and more people are jumping onto the Chinese bandwagon. It’s the very reason why there are a lot of online Chinese courses cropping up. Or the fact that there is a huge spike in the number of foreign students enrolling in Chinese language courses in Beijing and Shanghai. It’s become a global phenomenon! People wanted to learn all about it and you should too.
PracticalityThe very reason why there is a sudden interest in the Chinese language is mainly due to its applicability. When China opened its doors to foreign trade,investors and entrepreneurs started flowing in. But English is not widely used in the country, so the most practical solution is to adapt to the locals. How? By learning their language.
Today, one out of every five companies has a satellite office or at least an external working relation in China. Most likely, the corporation you’re a part of has a Chinese shareholder—be it a supplier, client or a director. So it’s quite obvious that learning Chinese will give you a huge advantage in the business world.
Rich Culture and HistoryChina is one of the oldest nations in the world. With over 8,000 years of history, there’s no doubt why people across the globe are taking a special interest in its rich culture and history. The Chinese language is a piece of art in and of itself. You’ll be amazed at how the characters were formed or how each character relates to a specific object. Learning the language will help you untangle the many mysteries of Chinese culture. You’ll get a glimpse of it, and then you’ll surely want to keep on unraveling them.
Challenges You’ll Encounter While Learning ChineseThere will be a few stumbling blocks along the way—that’s a given. When you first encounter any dialogue or text written in Mandarin, you’ll realize that they are just so alien to you. Mandarin is not like other foreign languages that use the Roman alphabet; Mandarin Chinese has its own alphabet. The language has other various elements that are new to English speakers, fromintonation to the number of strokes.
Even the simplified and traditional characters may seem daunting to you. But you know what? There’s always a way around it. Little by little, the more you familiarize yourself to the language, the less alien it will feel. Read more. Listen more. Practice more. The more you expose yourself to the language, the more familiar it becomes. And once you’re able to overcome that fear, your thirst for knowledge and curiosity for the new language will emerge.
Tips on How to Get Started Learning Chinese by YourselfNow that we’ve set those fears aside, it’s time to grab your cape and inner strength, as we prepare for your wonderful journey in learning the Chinese language. Here are a few tips that will help you get the most out of your learning:
- Familiarize yourself with the sounds. Familiarization is the key to learning any language. You have to know how to distinguish someone who is speaking in Mandarin from those who are not. Listen to anyone or anything that uses Mandarin, be it an audio book, a video or a mere commentary. It’ll help you learn the basics of the Chinese language: the sounds and the intonation. You’ll notice what sounds are most commonly used, and which are not present in Mandarin.
- Look for the practical side of the language. Think about it. What’s your main motivation for learning Chinese? Is it for business, for travel or just for the heck if it? Whatever your reasons are, use it as motivation for you to continue learning. There will always be a time when you feel discouraged or out of sorts. When that time comes, think of your reason for learning the language. That will get you back on track. You can also gear your lessons toward these goals. If you’re learning for travel purposes, acquaint yourself with the basic Chinese travel and shoppingphrases. Once you see the practical applications of the language, you’ll want to keep on learning.
- Listen to the words and conversations over and over. Repetition is the best way to remember whatever you’ve learned. You’ll be confused by everything you read or listen to at first, but over time, it’ll slowly start to make sense. Repetition helps you understand. You don’t need to look for the meaning of each character. Over time, you’ll understand what characters mean through context clues.
- Combine your various interests with your learning. This will make it more fun! Don’t keep your learning so serious to the point that it becomes a burden to you. Learning should be enjoyable, so try to match it with your interests. If you’re into music, for example, use music to learn Chinese. If you love reading, check out these interesting Chinese novels. If you’re a fan of movies and TV shows, then use the Chinese counterpart. There are so many avenues of learning available for you to discover!
- Practice every day. Never stop practicing. No matter how busy life gets, set aside time to practice the things you’ve learned. It’ll help you remember them and encourage you to further your learning.
1. Use music videosUsing music is one of the best ways to learn a new language because it’s fun and interesting! But why use music videos instead of just listening to Chinese songs? Well, sometimes what’s going on in the music video can give you context to better understand the song, and other times it’s a great peek into the culture. But the biggest benefit is that you can have a preview of the Chinese characters and follow along with the lyrics.
The best way to learn Chinese from music videos is with FluentU. FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons. Every word of each video is carefully annotated with an in-context definition, image and multiple example sentences. You can even click on a word to see how it’s used in other videos across the site.
Want to learn Chinese with music videos?
Try Chinese immersion online with FluentU!
Watching these music videos will really help you become familiar with the pronunciation, as intonations are learned over time with more exposure. So choose the genre that best suits your taste. Not sure where to start? We’ve gathered the best Mandopop songs and karaoke classics for you. If these work out well and you want more, check out youku.com or tudou.com, which have a really comprehensive list of videos.
2. Regularly meet with a conversation partnerWhen I was taking up Chinese in Beijing, I was fortunate enough to have a language partner. I got to learn more Mandarin from her while she learned English from me: a win-win situation! We get to cover more areas than the ones taught in class, like slang and various expressions. I became familiar with their actual way of talking.
So if you have a friend who’s good in Mandarin, you can do that too. Chances are you’ll have to look for a conversation partner, but it’s completely doable! Is there a university near where you live, or a Chinese restaurant? Check there first. You can also look for a Chinese conversation partner online—that’s becoming quite the trend nowadays.
You can check out mylanguageexchange.com orconversationexchange.com for skilled online conversation partners. Interacting with someone in Chinese will greatly help you appreciate the language because you’ll see the practical side of learning. It will motivate you to expand your knowledge and walk on unfamiliar ground. Trust me, it’ll do you wonders.
3. Watch Chinese shows with subtitlesOnce you’ve covered the basics, watching Chinese shows is the next step. Whether it’s dramas or variety shows, you’ll be exposed to new characters and vocabulary. Like with music, pick the genre that you love most. There’s nothing more satisfying than getting to learn something new while enjoying what you’re doing.
If you ask me, I suggest that you choose Chinese dramas that border on romantic comedies. Why? They’re the easiest to understand! Talk shows or variety shows are equally entertaining, but there’s a tendency for you to feel lost in their conversations. If you’re not that familiar with Chinese current events and culture, you might not fully understand what their humorous statements are all about.
Also, choose shows with subtitles. There are so many video streaming sites available in the web; start with dramafever.com or maplestage.com. These are only some of the more famous sites out there that feature shows with Chinese subtitles. Watching with subtitles will greatly help your character recognition skills.
But if you prefer to really get to know each character, again you can check out the FluentU videos. They explain every dialogue for you, character by character, and you’ll learn the pronunciation in pinyin along with an accompanying English explanation.
4. Listen to audio booksIf you’ve noticed, all the references I’ve listed here so far target both your listening and reading skills. That’s because it works best that way. You won’t get the most out of your learning if you merely target one of them. It’s for this exact reason that audio books will really help you out. Merely reading a book won’t do, you have to listen to the words at the same time.
For starters, you can download Chinese course textbooks. Most of these have an accompanying audio book, so it’ll help you grasp the basics of the language. But if you wish to stick to novels and comics, there is a wide range of topics and titles available in 书声bar (Audio Book Bar), 天方听书网 (Tianfang Book Listening Web) and verycd.com.
You can also check out these Chinese novels, but they’re only recommended if you’re already in the intermediate level. These novels are purely Chinese characters; there’s no pinyin or zhuyin to help you out.
5. Listen to podcastsFinally, if you know where to look, podcasts can become your new on-the-go best friend. There is a great variety of topics, as well as numerous podcasts focused on teaching the Chinese basics to beginners. You can download these to start. But if you can already manage, I suggest you pick podcasts that are geared towards specific interests and Chinese culture. This will exposed you to a wider range of vocabulary—words that aren’t normally covered in the former.
For a start, try 好简单 (How Easy) or 黑米公主 (Princess Remy). These are the common favorites of both Chinese speakers and Chinese learners. They cover a variety of topics from culture to arts to daily news. You can also tryBBC news for more detailed updates on politics, but be forewarned, you have to possess some intermediate level of Chinese to listen to them. News has a totally different lingo.
If you’re looking for podcasts that are aimed at specific interests, you can check out the iTunes store. Some of these include NBA 前线 (Front Line) for updates and reviews about NBA, 电影不无聊 (Movies Are Not Boring) for all info about movies and 科学脱口秀 (Science Talk Show) for science related talk shows, among others.
And that completes the list! These five tools are sure-fire ways to learn Mandarin Chinese by yourself.
Remember that you already have the superpowers within to make your mark in the world, so use that power to learn Chinese on your own—and enjoy the journey!
U.S. Schools Are Saying Goodbye to Foreign Languages -- Dec. 31, 2014
Hope that this doesn't happen with Chinese.
From: http://m.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/12/us-schools-saying-goodbye-to-foreign-languages/383691/
U.S. Schools Are Saying Goodbye to Foreign Languages
SONALI KOHLIDEC 13 2014, 9:00 AM ET USAG- Humphreys/Flickr
Success Academy Charter Schools is responsible for about 9,000 students in 32 charter schools around New York City.Eva Moskowitz, the school's CEO and founder, recently spoke with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute about how to fit everything she deems important for students—coding, recess, and science—into the school day, five times a week. One of the school's new "solutions," she said, was to cut foreign languages.
From the interview:
So something’s got to go. We picked—and you know this may be shocking to this audience—we picked foreign languages. People say “Don’t you believe in foreign languages?” I love multilingualism. I speak French, but something had to go. … We can’t do everything. And by the way, Americans don’t tend to do foreign languages very well. I think if I were doing schools in Europe I might feel differently. But my son took three years of French and he could barely say, “How are you?” … I really believe whatever we do we should do it exceptionally well and I wasn’t sure that I could find foreign language instructors that were really really good and could do it at a very very high level.(Here's a video of the interview, in full.)
Indeed, foreign language instruction has been on the decline around the U.S., at least in elementary and middle schools—which is Success Academy’s sweet spot. (High schools remained steady, with 91 percent of them offering foreign languages, and Success only has one high school so far.)
Here’s the change in the percentage of U.S. schools offering foreign language instruction in 2008 versus 1997, according to a study funded by the U.S. Department of Education:
Schools Offering Foreign Language K-12Quartz
In Moskowitz’s defense, English continues to assert its dominance as the language of the global economy. But some would argue that just relying on everyone else to speak English could be detrimental to American business growth—while potentially sacrificing the benefits of bilingualism and of foreign language study.
From: http://m.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/12/us-schools-saying-goodbye-to-foreign-languages/383691/
U.S. Schools Are Saying Goodbye to Foreign Languages
SONALI KOHLIDEC 13 2014, 9:00 AM ET USAG- Humphreys/Flickr
Success Academy Charter Schools is responsible for about 9,000 students in 32 charter schools around New York City.Eva Moskowitz, the school's CEO and founder, recently spoke with the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute about how to fit everything she deems important for students—coding, recess, and science—into the school day, five times a week. One of the school's new "solutions," she said, was to cut foreign languages.
From the interview:
So something’s got to go. We picked—and you know this may be shocking to this audience—we picked foreign languages. People say “Don’t you believe in foreign languages?” I love multilingualism. I speak French, but something had to go. … We can’t do everything. And by the way, Americans don’t tend to do foreign languages very well. I think if I were doing schools in Europe I might feel differently. But my son took three years of French and he could barely say, “How are you?” … I really believe whatever we do we should do it exceptionally well and I wasn’t sure that I could find foreign language instructors that were really really good and could do it at a very very high level.(Here's a video of the interview, in full.)
Indeed, foreign language instruction has been on the decline around the U.S., at least in elementary and middle schools—which is Success Academy’s sweet spot. (High schools remained steady, with 91 percent of them offering foreign languages, and Success only has one high school so far.)
Here’s the change in the percentage of U.S. schools offering foreign language instruction in 2008 versus 1997, according to a study funded by the U.S. Department of Education:
Schools Offering Foreign Language K-12Quartz
In Moskowitz’s defense, English continues to assert its dominance as the language of the global economy. But some would argue that just relying on everyone else to speak English could be detrimental to American business growth—while potentially sacrificing the benefits of bilingualism and of foreign language study.
5 Education Tech Trends For 2015 -- Dec. 30, 2014
From: http://www.informationweek.com/government/open-government/5-education-tech-trends-for-2015/a/d-id/1318396
Education is being flipped on its head by technology. Teachers see the promise -- and the pitfalls.
This is an exciting time to be in education technology. The global spend on edtech in classrooms is on the rise, fueling a market that is projected to reach $19 billion by 2018, according to a market study released by Futuresource Consulting earlier this year. As blended learning environments evolve, administrators and teachers continue to celebrate the promise of digital learning and experience the pitfalls of underwhelming edtech tools. Below are five edtech trends and opportunities for developers of these tools to consider.
Technology for flipped-learning
The rationale behind the flipped class -- a form of blended learning in which students learn content online by watching video lectures, usually at home, and homework is done in class with teachers and students discussing and solving questions -- is to engage learners in and out of the classroom. The dynamic nature of this approach enables teachers to create effective and fun asynchronous and synchronous learning experiences.
Experts agree that passive learning with video doesn't boost student achievement. As flipped learning becomes more prevalent, the distribution tools and video streaming that are central to this approach must be optimized for interactivity. The stakes are higher than ever, with next-generation, cloud-based solutions displacing older learning management systems (LMS). Features such as powerful analytics that measure student responses and mobile learning capabilities will become the hallmarks of the best flipped classrooms.
[Check out 8 STEM Websites To Excite Kids About Tech.]
Device agnostic learning
While videos and websites are basically ubiquitous across all devices, many apps are native, even exclusive, to one device or mobile operating system. The pain points caused by multiple standards, multiple screen sizes, and multiple operating systems are not sustainable.
Teachers and students shouldn't bear the burden of device management. Their priorities should be centered on learning. The most innovative edtech creators realize that the future is to develop device agnostic services. As more and more teachers integrate mobile learning, this flexibility will be a requirement.(Source: Wesley Fryer)
Assistive technologies in the classroom
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges for designers of software systems and technology products is to deliver a uniform experience to a large and diverse human population. Creators of edtech stand to benefit from ensuring that their products and services are designed to allow differently-abled students the same access to learning.
US federal accessibility standards pertaining to information technology, known as Section 508, should be a core design and development requirement, rather than an afterthought. A burgeoning industry continues to go beyond these baseline compliance standards, leading development of assistive technologies.
Earlier this month, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking made headlines with his commentary about the role of assistive technologies that support him. The same Fortune article cited a Gartner report issued in late 2013, estimating that approximately 15% of the world's population could benefit directly from assistive technologies -- and the rest of us will also feel a positive impact from the innovation behind them. It's clear that assistive technologies, ranging from simple to complex, are playing an increasingly vital role in reducing barriers to learning for students with a variety of special needs and challenges.
Mobile learning
Mobile learning apps were everywhere in 2014. This next year, we expect more mobile learning platforms and apps to be available on iOS and Android, along with heightened expectations related to enhanced learning experiences and outcomes. At its best, mobile learning technology can drive collaboration and engage different types of individual learners and various groups of interconnected learners.
My company, WizIQ, is heavily focused on how such technologies enable sturdier scaffolding for student learning and broaden the virtual classroom experience. Features such as live participation, location-aware notification delivery, and ubiquitous access are paving the way for context-aware adaptive and personalized mobile learning systems -- functionality that has the potential to fuel lifelong learning in an unprecedented way.
Personalized blended learning
Customization is king and the array of edtech tools that can meet the needs of students in a personalized, meaningful, and timely manner based on best practices stand to rule. But first, a word of advice to all creators of edtech tools: Technology isn't the driver. Your strong belief in your innovation is secondary to the needs of students, teachers, and administrators.
Recognize that teachers are tasked with implementing, and often times, identifying, the best mix of digital learning tools for each student. Different approaches to learning, such as project-based learning, maker education, game-based learning, and more, will continue to be explored as part of personalized blended learning models. Accordingly, such innovations will push edtech vendors to deliver more than technology or content -- but will require them to demonstrate how their product or service improves learning outcomes.
Get the latest information to migrate your systems, services, and applications to the next level at Enterprise Connect. Cisco, Microsoft, Avaya, and Oracle will lead the keynote lineup, and thought leaders from enterprises and vendors will cover the full range of platforms, services, and applications that will simplify your migration to next-gen communications and collaboration systems. Register for Enterprise Connect with code DIWKWEB to save $100 off the early-bird rate. It happens in Orlando, Fla., March 16 to 19.
Harman Singh is the CEO of WizIQ,a SaaS-based online education platform with 300,000 active educators and 3.7 million registered learners. Recognized for his expertise in conceptualizing, planning and developing specialized solutions for the online learning industry, Singh ... View Full Bio
Education is being flipped on its head by technology. Teachers see the promise -- and the pitfalls.
This is an exciting time to be in education technology. The global spend on edtech in classrooms is on the rise, fueling a market that is projected to reach $19 billion by 2018, according to a market study released by Futuresource Consulting earlier this year. As blended learning environments evolve, administrators and teachers continue to celebrate the promise of digital learning and experience the pitfalls of underwhelming edtech tools. Below are five edtech trends and opportunities for developers of these tools to consider.
Technology for flipped-learning
The rationale behind the flipped class -- a form of blended learning in which students learn content online by watching video lectures, usually at home, and homework is done in class with teachers and students discussing and solving questions -- is to engage learners in and out of the classroom. The dynamic nature of this approach enables teachers to create effective and fun asynchronous and synchronous learning experiences.
Experts agree that passive learning with video doesn't boost student achievement. As flipped learning becomes more prevalent, the distribution tools and video streaming that are central to this approach must be optimized for interactivity. The stakes are higher than ever, with next-generation, cloud-based solutions displacing older learning management systems (LMS). Features such as powerful analytics that measure student responses and mobile learning capabilities will become the hallmarks of the best flipped classrooms.
[Check out 8 STEM Websites To Excite Kids About Tech.]
Device agnostic learning
While videos and websites are basically ubiquitous across all devices, many apps are native, even exclusive, to one device or mobile operating system. The pain points caused by multiple standards, multiple screen sizes, and multiple operating systems are not sustainable.
Teachers and students shouldn't bear the burden of device management. Their priorities should be centered on learning. The most innovative edtech creators realize that the future is to develop device agnostic services. As more and more teachers integrate mobile learning, this flexibility will be a requirement.(Source: Wesley Fryer)
Assistive technologies in the classroom
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges for designers of software systems and technology products is to deliver a uniform experience to a large and diverse human population. Creators of edtech stand to benefit from ensuring that their products and services are designed to allow differently-abled students the same access to learning.
US federal accessibility standards pertaining to information technology, known as Section 508, should be a core design and development requirement, rather than an afterthought. A burgeoning industry continues to go beyond these baseline compliance standards, leading development of assistive technologies.
Earlier this month, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking made headlines with his commentary about the role of assistive technologies that support him. The same Fortune article cited a Gartner report issued in late 2013, estimating that approximately 15% of the world's population could benefit directly from assistive technologies -- and the rest of us will also feel a positive impact from the innovation behind them. It's clear that assistive technologies, ranging from simple to complex, are playing an increasingly vital role in reducing barriers to learning for students with a variety of special needs and challenges.
Mobile learning
Mobile learning apps were everywhere in 2014. This next year, we expect more mobile learning platforms and apps to be available on iOS and Android, along with heightened expectations related to enhanced learning experiences and outcomes. At its best, mobile learning technology can drive collaboration and engage different types of individual learners and various groups of interconnected learners.
My company, WizIQ, is heavily focused on how such technologies enable sturdier scaffolding for student learning and broaden the virtual classroom experience. Features such as live participation, location-aware notification delivery, and ubiquitous access are paving the way for context-aware adaptive and personalized mobile learning systems -- functionality that has the potential to fuel lifelong learning in an unprecedented way.
Personalized blended learning
Customization is king and the array of edtech tools that can meet the needs of students in a personalized, meaningful, and timely manner based on best practices stand to rule. But first, a word of advice to all creators of edtech tools: Technology isn't the driver. Your strong belief in your innovation is secondary to the needs of students, teachers, and administrators.
Recognize that teachers are tasked with implementing, and often times, identifying, the best mix of digital learning tools for each student. Different approaches to learning, such as project-based learning, maker education, game-based learning, and more, will continue to be explored as part of personalized blended learning models. Accordingly, such innovations will push edtech vendors to deliver more than technology or content -- but will require them to demonstrate how their product or service improves learning outcomes.
Get the latest information to migrate your systems, services, and applications to the next level at Enterprise Connect. Cisco, Microsoft, Avaya, and Oracle will lead the keynote lineup, and thought leaders from enterprises and vendors will cover the full range of platforms, services, and applications that will simplify your migration to next-gen communications and collaboration systems. Register for Enterprise Connect with code DIWKWEB to save $100 off the early-bird rate. It happens in Orlando, Fla., March 16 to 19.
Harman Singh is the CEO of WizIQ,a SaaS-based online education platform with 300,000 active educators and 3.7 million registered learners. Recognized for his expertise in conceptualizing, planning and developing specialized solutions for the online learning industry, Singh ... View Full Bio
Skype's newest app will translate your speech in real time -- Dec. 17, 2014
Microsoft’s Skype software will start translating voice calls between people today. As part of a preview program, Skype Translator makes it possible for English and Spanish speakers to communicate in their native language, without having to learn a new one. It sounds like magic , but it’s the result of years of work from Microsoft’s research team and Skype to provide an early working copy of software that could help change the way the world communicates in the future.
Skype Translator Preview works on Windows 8.1 or preview copies of Windows 10, and it works by translating voice input from an English or Spanish speaker into text and translated audio. An English speaker will hear a translation from a Spanish speaker, and vice versa. Microsoft previously demonstrated the technology working between English and German, but Spanish will be the only language outside of English that will be initially supported during the preview.
A BIG TEST FOR SKYPE TRANSLATOR IN THE REAL WORLD
Microsoft is marketing Skype Translator as a tool for schools, and the company tested it out with students in the US and Mexico. Skype is already popular in the classroom, with teachers participating in video conferences around the world to connect their schools to classrooms across the globe. While tests and demonstrations have been in limited and controlled experiments, Microsoft’s move today opens up its Skype Translator to a much wider audience to test it in the real world.
Microsoft is also translating instant messaging conversations through Skype Translator, with more than 40 languages supported. If you’re interested in testing Skype Translator then you’ll need to request an invite at Microsoft’s Skype site, and using registration codeSTVER4230 may help you get an invite a little quicker.
Skype Translator Preview works on Windows 8.1 or preview copies of Windows 10, and it works by translating voice input from an English or Spanish speaker into text and translated audio. An English speaker will hear a translation from a Spanish speaker, and vice versa. Microsoft previously demonstrated the technology working between English and German, but Spanish will be the only language outside of English that will be initially supported during the preview.
A BIG TEST FOR SKYPE TRANSLATOR IN THE REAL WORLD
Microsoft is marketing Skype Translator as a tool for schools, and the company tested it out with students in the US and Mexico. Skype is already popular in the classroom, with teachers participating in video conferences around the world to connect their schools to classrooms across the globe. While tests and demonstrations have been in limited and controlled experiments, Microsoft’s move today opens up its Skype Translator to a much wider audience to test it in the real world.
Microsoft is also translating instant messaging conversations through Skype Translator, with more than 40 languages supported. If you’re interested in testing Skype Translator then you’ll need to request an invite at Microsoft’s Skype site, and using registration codeSTVER4230 may help you get an invite a little quicker.
Article of interest: Mandarin's moment-- Dec. 4, 2014
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/us/2014-11/28/content_18996118_2.htm
Zhang Shanshan teaches Kalen McBrien, 5, basic Mandarin vocabulary about colors and fruits at the Hudson Way Immersion School. Photos by Lu Huiquan / For China Daily
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg addressed a Beijing audience in Mandarin last month. He has been studying a language spoken by 1.3 billion Chinese, and he's not alone. The study of Mandarin in the US is booming, WILLIAM HENNELLY reports from New York.
The pupils in teacher Zhang Shanshan's class at the Hudson Way Immersion School were asked what they needed to do to get more smiley faces on an assignment.
"Ting lao shi (listen to the teacher)," the mostly 4- to 5-year-olds answered uniformly in Mandarin with hardly any foreign accent.
Soon the class began to get noisy. Sensing this, the teacher asked if she should erase some smiley faces off the blackboard, making the lesson longer.
"Bu" (no), the children replied.
"When I first taught this class, they didn't understand what the Chinese storybook was about," Zhang said. "But after two or three months, they can read many of the characters in it."
"By the time they are 9 or 10, if they turn their backs, you can't tell" whether they are native Chinese or not when speaking, said Elizabeth Willaum, a veteran language-immersion expert and director of Hudson Way. "Learning Chinese isn't just about marketability," she said. "When you learn a language, the culture opens to you."
Be it at the private Hudson Way school on Manhattan's Upper West Side or at public schools in Kentucky, Indiana and other states, the study of Mandarin in the United States is booming. In some cases, it is replacing Spanish, French or other languages that have long been more popular in US schools.
"We see a bump in enrollment in the languages of the countries that we see as economic competitors," said Marty Abbott, executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in Alexandria, Virginia.
"In the 1980s, we definitely experienced a surge in Japanese programs," Abbott told China Daily. "I think we're seeing something similar happen with the increased interest in Chinese programs. It reflects China's economic growth, and it's being seen as the economic power to compete with."
Over at Avenues: The World School in Manhattan's Chelsea section more than 300 students from nursery school to grade 3 are enrolled in an alternate-day Mandarin immersion program. The private school has close to 40 Mandarin teachers.
Founded by noted educators and media professionals Chris Whittle, Benno Schmidt and AlanGreenberg, Avenues opened in 2012 with 740 students. It now has 1,270 students from nursery school to grade 12, with plans for schools in 20 "world" cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Chinese an 'essential' language
"Chinese is an essential language of the 21st century world," said Sarah Bayne, global director of Education Design at Avenues. "We are opening one of our world schools in Beijing in 2016, because we recognize the critical importance of China and our relationships there.
"Our model is based on the fact that most of our students come from English-speaking households, so they are all learning Chinese as a second language," she said.
The Internet abounds with stories of increasing demand for Chinese language instruction, and it's not only happening at affluent private schools.
In Louisville, Kentucky, the Hite Elementary School dropped its Spanish classes and switched to Chinese at the beginning of the school year for pupils in grades K-5. The school cited the Chinese counting system as more conducive to learning mathematics, a subject in which Chinese pupils outscore their Western peers on tests.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, has a publicly funded Chinese immersion charter school. The Yinghua School (Yinghua means English-Chinese in Mandarin) was featured in an Oct 26 New York Times article.
In Los Angeles, Yoyo Chinese, a video-centered online Mandarin instructional program, announced on Oct 30 that 7 million lessons have been taken on its website.
"Chinese students learn English in high school, read English literature, watch American television programs, and immerse themselves in American culture," saidYangyang Cheng, founder and CEO of Yoyo Chinese, in a press release."On the other hand, how much do Americans know about China? English speakers learning Chinese have recognized this knowledge gap prevents them from accessing a large percent of the world's population, as well as an entire reservoir of knowledge contained within 5,000 years of history."
In New York City during the 2013-2014 school year, 10,583 students took Chinese language courses across 69 middle and high schools, according to Will Mantell, a spokesman for the city's public schools. That includes both Mandarin and Cantonese courses and Chinese-language instruction for students who are studying it as a foreign language, as well as students whose home language is Chinese.
"Part of our Chinese-language instruction is in bilingual programs that strengthen English language learners' native language development and content knowledge while they build their social and academic English skills," he wrote in an e-mail to China Daily. The bilingual programs may also include non-language courses taught in Chinese, for example, math taught in Mandarin.
New York had 41 Chinese bilingual programs in the 2013-2014 school year - 20 were in elementary schools, 18 in high schools and three in middle schools. Of the bilingual programs, 17 were in Brooklyn, while Manhattan and Queens had 12 apiece.
Going global, too
In Sao Joao da Madei, Portugal, a shoemaking capital, the study of Mandarin is mandatory for 8- and 9-year-olds. The Chinese taste for luxury items extends to fancy Portuguese shoes, which are considered second-best in the world to Italian shoes. The Portuguese deduce that Mandarin will help them expand their shoe market in China, which, according to Agence France-Presse, went from 10,000 pairs in 2011 to 170,000 pairs in 2013.
Recent research by the British Council and Hanban found that 3 percent of primary schools, 6 percent of state secondary schools and 10 percent of independent schools offer Mandarin courses, China Daily reported. Over the next five to 10 years, those numbers are expected to grow by 4 percent to 8 percent.
"I want Britain linked up to the world's fast-growing economies, and that includes our young people learning the languages to seal tomorrow's business deals," UK Prime Minister David Cameron said in 2013.
"By the time the children born today leave school, China is set to be the world's largest economy. So it's time to look beyond the traditional focus on French and German and get many more children learning Mandarin."
In South Korea, the number of people taking the official Chinese proficiency test has risen to 110,000 in 2013 from 400 in 1993.
The ACTFL's latest survey on the number of students taking foreign languages in grades K-12 in the US was conducted in 2007-2008. In that school year, there were 60,000 students studying Mandarin, an increase of 195 percent compared with the 2004-2005 survey, the highest jump of any language.
Shuhan C. Wang, director of the Chinese Early Language and Immersion Network (CELIN) at the Asia Society, estimated that the number is easily above 100,000 now, and counting students of Chinese heritage studying privately, about 300,000, she said.
"Chinese programs are growing," Wang told China Daily. "The field is growing. Because it's growing, we don't have a very good mechanism or money to collect data. All the data is outdated. The American council (ACTFL) data is the latest official data we have.
"In K-12, definitely over 100,000 students taking Chinese, not including Chinese heritage students," Wang said. "That's another 150,000 students. Their home language is Chinese. We have over 250,000 students taking Chinese in the country; over 300,000, including the universities."
Wang said the reasons for studying Chinese or other foreign languages are obvious.
"In order to compete in the global market, you can no longer compete with your neighboring state; instead, you need to compete with your neighboring country or any country in the world where the labor force is cheap - but good," she said. "Global competency has become a very important concept in education, although it has not been as prominent as what we would like to see for the 21st century, but it is coming up."
"Parents and students are looking at bilingualism, especially learning Chinese, as a ticket to future markets and jobs and as an asset for personal human capital," said Wang. "You use the target language, the buyer's language to open the conversation and the market, but you use English to close the deal. Use their language and culture to win their trust and to build relationships, and that's No 1 to opening the market," she said.
Wang's CELIN network, which started in 2012, numbers 150 schools and is growing. Thirty-seven of the immersion schools are in California; 26 are in Utah, a state that has an Asian-American population of only 2 percent.
Jon Huntsman lends a hand
"When Jon Huntsman [a Chinese speaker] was the governor there, he decided that Utah will develop students and a workforce that is proficient in world languages, mainly Chinese, French, and Spanish," explained Wang. "The goal was to establish dual-language immersion programs. Then the National Security Education Program established a Chinese Language flagship program to support the Utah initiative."
The Language Flagship sponsors Chinese programs at 11 US universities, which aim to provide undergraduates with "pathways to professional-level proficiency in Chinese alongside the academic major of their choice."
Yea-Fen Chen, director of the Chinese Flagship Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, said that students are studying Chinese at an earlier age, and she sees "a very high level of proficiency" in students by the time they reach college. The public schools in Monroe County, where Indiana University is located, just started offering Chinese.
Chinese is the most popular language at STARTALK, a federal program established in 2006 that supports summer programs for students and training for teachers in 11 "critical needs" languages. It is administered by the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland. In 2014, STARTALK offered 55 Chinese programs for students and 40 for teachers, compared with 2007, when there were 18 for students and 17 for teachers.
"Now that China has opened up considerably for trade and tourism and has become more market-oriented, Americans find it fascinating culturally and historically," Catherine Ingold, director of the National Foreign Language Center and principal investigator for the STARTALK program, wrote to China Daily in an e-mail.
As the programs grow, so does the need for teachers. Chen said "we're not producing enough qualified teachers to meet the needs of students, especially K-12".
Said CELIN's Wang: "We still need a lot more teachers, and more effective teachers. The guest teachers from China, mostly brought here by an initiative under the College Board, have been able to fill this void.
"If we had more home-grown teachers, the quantity and quality of Chinese programs in the US would be greatly enhanced," Wang said. "The guest teachers are really good and bring in a fresh perspective and authentic Chinese culture. But they are restricted by policy that they can only stay here for up to three years. Most of them stay for one or two years, which is a lot of sacrifice on their part."
At the Asia Society, a NewYork-based educational organization founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1956, Jeff Wang is the director of Chinese Language Initiatives and Education and oversees 100 pairs of sister schools in the US and China.
"We work with them to improve their Chinese language programs," he said of the schools. "Our goal is really to find a group of schools that have the potential to be exemplary programs for the region or for the country. The program needs to be good. Our biggest issue is teacher quality, instructor quality and effectiveness. We have about 300 teachers in our network; 90-plus percent of them are American-based teachers."
Confucius Classrooms
Also helping meet the demand for Chinese instruction is the Beijing-based Hanban, part of China's Ministry of Education. In the US, Hanban operates Confucius Institutes on 97 college campuses and runs 357 Confucius Classrooms in the K-12 category. Worldwide, those numbers are 443 and 648, respectively, according to Hanban's website.
"Schools are interested in offering Chinese because they do see some financial incentives from the Chinese government, funding Confucius Classrooms at the K-12 level," Abbott of ACTFL said.
Hanban's stated goals are: to make policies and development plans for promoting the Chinese language internationally; to support Chinese language programs at educational institutions of various types and levels in other countries; and to draft international Chinese teaching standards and develop and promote Chinese language teaching materials."
The US has the most Confucius programs by far. Those programs have run into some controversy in North America. Penn State University and the University of Chicago have dropped Confucius Institutes from their campuses, citing issues of academic freedom.
Wang looks at those situations more as "incidents of cultural communications breakdown" rather than rejection of the programs.
"The Chinese come in with their view of how things should be done, and not being familiar with how Americans do things, and vice-versa," she said. "I have visited numerous Confucius Institutes. Every Confucius Institute is different depending on what activities they propose to Hanban."
"Let it be fact-based," said Jeff Wang, on the disagreement between some Confucius Institutes and their hosts in the US. "If there are clauses in the agreement points in the arrangement of the collaboration that are inconsistent with the values and integrity of those institutions in the US, then they shouldbe reviewed and negotiated until satisfactory.Bring them out and you can negotiate that away."
"What I think is most important is engagement," he said. "By having a Chinese institution have a presence on an American campus, we should have confidence in the intelligence and critical thinking and skills of the American public, whether it's students or faculty of these truly great institutions. They're not easily persuaded one way or the other.
"Great institutions should be able to manage that influence much better than losing that benefit altogether. They're [the personnel coming from China to work with Confucius Institutes] also being influenced by Americans."
Wang said the value of the engagement outweighs the negatives that can arise between two different cultures.
Lui Huiquan contributed to this story.
Contact the writer at [email protected]
Zhang Shanshan teaches Kalen McBrien, 5, basic Mandarin vocabulary about colors and fruits at the Hudson Way Immersion School. Photos by Lu Huiquan / For China Daily
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg addressed a Beijing audience in Mandarin last month. He has been studying a language spoken by 1.3 billion Chinese, and he's not alone. The study of Mandarin in the US is booming, WILLIAM HENNELLY reports from New York.
The pupils in teacher Zhang Shanshan's class at the Hudson Way Immersion School were asked what they needed to do to get more smiley faces on an assignment.
"Ting lao shi (listen to the teacher)," the mostly 4- to 5-year-olds answered uniformly in Mandarin with hardly any foreign accent.
Soon the class began to get noisy. Sensing this, the teacher asked if she should erase some smiley faces off the blackboard, making the lesson longer.
"Bu" (no), the children replied.
"When I first taught this class, they didn't understand what the Chinese storybook was about," Zhang said. "But after two or three months, they can read many of the characters in it."
"By the time they are 9 or 10, if they turn their backs, you can't tell" whether they are native Chinese or not when speaking, said Elizabeth Willaum, a veteran language-immersion expert and director of Hudson Way. "Learning Chinese isn't just about marketability," she said. "When you learn a language, the culture opens to you."
Be it at the private Hudson Way school on Manhattan's Upper West Side or at public schools in Kentucky, Indiana and other states, the study of Mandarin in the United States is booming. In some cases, it is replacing Spanish, French or other languages that have long been more popular in US schools.
"We see a bump in enrollment in the languages of the countries that we see as economic competitors," said Marty Abbott, executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) in Alexandria, Virginia.
"In the 1980s, we definitely experienced a surge in Japanese programs," Abbott told China Daily. "I think we're seeing something similar happen with the increased interest in Chinese programs. It reflects China's economic growth, and it's being seen as the economic power to compete with."
Over at Avenues: The World School in Manhattan's Chelsea section more than 300 students from nursery school to grade 3 are enrolled in an alternate-day Mandarin immersion program. The private school has close to 40 Mandarin teachers.
Founded by noted educators and media professionals Chris Whittle, Benno Schmidt and AlanGreenberg, Avenues opened in 2012 with 740 students. It now has 1,270 students from nursery school to grade 12, with plans for schools in 20 "world" cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Chinese an 'essential' language
"Chinese is an essential language of the 21st century world," said Sarah Bayne, global director of Education Design at Avenues. "We are opening one of our world schools in Beijing in 2016, because we recognize the critical importance of China and our relationships there.
"Our model is based on the fact that most of our students come from English-speaking households, so they are all learning Chinese as a second language," she said.
The Internet abounds with stories of increasing demand for Chinese language instruction, and it's not only happening at affluent private schools.
In Louisville, Kentucky, the Hite Elementary School dropped its Spanish classes and switched to Chinese at the beginning of the school year for pupils in grades K-5. The school cited the Chinese counting system as more conducive to learning mathematics, a subject in which Chinese pupils outscore their Western peers on tests.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, has a publicly funded Chinese immersion charter school. The Yinghua School (Yinghua means English-Chinese in Mandarin) was featured in an Oct 26 New York Times article.
In Los Angeles, Yoyo Chinese, a video-centered online Mandarin instructional program, announced on Oct 30 that 7 million lessons have been taken on its website.
"Chinese students learn English in high school, read English literature, watch American television programs, and immerse themselves in American culture," saidYangyang Cheng, founder and CEO of Yoyo Chinese, in a press release."On the other hand, how much do Americans know about China? English speakers learning Chinese have recognized this knowledge gap prevents them from accessing a large percent of the world's population, as well as an entire reservoir of knowledge contained within 5,000 years of history."
In New York City during the 2013-2014 school year, 10,583 students took Chinese language courses across 69 middle and high schools, according to Will Mantell, a spokesman for the city's public schools. That includes both Mandarin and Cantonese courses and Chinese-language instruction for students who are studying it as a foreign language, as well as students whose home language is Chinese.
"Part of our Chinese-language instruction is in bilingual programs that strengthen English language learners' native language development and content knowledge while they build their social and academic English skills," he wrote in an e-mail to China Daily. The bilingual programs may also include non-language courses taught in Chinese, for example, math taught in Mandarin.
New York had 41 Chinese bilingual programs in the 2013-2014 school year - 20 were in elementary schools, 18 in high schools and three in middle schools. Of the bilingual programs, 17 were in Brooklyn, while Manhattan and Queens had 12 apiece.
Going global, too
In Sao Joao da Madei, Portugal, a shoemaking capital, the study of Mandarin is mandatory for 8- and 9-year-olds. The Chinese taste for luxury items extends to fancy Portuguese shoes, which are considered second-best in the world to Italian shoes. The Portuguese deduce that Mandarin will help them expand their shoe market in China, which, according to Agence France-Presse, went from 10,000 pairs in 2011 to 170,000 pairs in 2013.
Recent research by the British Council and Hanban found that 3 percent of primary schools, 6 percent of state secondary schools and 10 percent of independent schools offer Mandarin courses, China Daily reported. Over the next five to 10 years, those numbers are expected to grow by 4 percent to 8 percent.
"I want Britain linked up to the world's fast-growing economies, and that includes our young people learning the languages to seal tomorrow's business deals," UK Prime Minister David Cameron said in 2013.
"By the time the children born today leave school, China is set to be the world's largest economy. So it's time to look beyond the traditional focus on French and German and get many more children learning Mandarin."
In South Korea, the number of people taking the official Chinese proficiency test has risen to 110,000 in 2013 from 400 in 1993.
The ACTFL's latest survey on the number of students taking foreign languages in grades K-12 in the US was conducted in 2007-2008. In that school year, there were 60,000 students studying Mandarin, an increase of 195 percent compared with the 2004-2005 survey, the highest jump of any language.
Shuhan C. Wang, director of the Chinese Early Language and Immersion Network (CELIN) at the Asia Society, estimated that the number is easily above 100,000 now, and counting students of Chinese heritage studying privately, about 300,000, she said.
"Chinese programs are growing," Wang told China Daily. "The field is growing. Because it's growing, we don't have a very good mechanism or money to collect data. All the data is outdated. The American council (ACTFL) data is the latest official data we have.
"In K-12, definitely over 100,000 students taking Chinese, not including Chinese heritage students," Wang said. "That's another 150,000 students. Their home language is Chinese. We have over 250,000 students taking Chinese in the country; over 300,000, including the universities."
Wang said the reasons for studying Chinese or other foreign languages are obvious.
"In order to compete in the global market, you can no longer compete with your neighboring state; instead, you need to compete with your neighboring country or any country in the world where the labor force is cheap - but good," she said. "Global competency has become a very important concept in education, although it has not been as prominent as what we would like to see for the 21st century, but it is coming up."
"Parents and students are looking at bilingualism, especially learning Chinese, as a ticket to future markets and jobs and as an asset for personal human capital," said Wang. "You use the target language, the buyer's language to open the conversation and the market, but you use English to close the deal. Use their language and culture to win their trust and to build relationships, and that's No 1 to opening the market," she said.
Wang's CELIN network, which started in 2012, numbers 150 schools and is growing. Thirty-seven of the immersion schools are in California; 26 are in Utah, a state that has an Asian-American population of only 2 percent.
Jon Huntsman lends a hand
"When Jon Huntsman [a Chinese speaker] was the governor there, he decided that Utah will develop students and a workforce that is proficient in world languages, mainly Chinese, French, and Spanish," explained Wang. "The goal was to establish dual-language immersion programs. Then the National Security Education Program established a Chinese Language flagship program to support the Utah initiative."
The Language Flagship sponsors Chinese programs at 11 US universities, which aim to provide undergraduates with "pathways to professional-level proficiency in Chinese alongside the academic major of their choice."
Yea-Fen Chen, director of the Chinese Flagship Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, said that students are studying Chinese at an earlier age, and she sees "a very high level of proficiency" in students by the time they reach college. The public schools in Monroe County, where Indiana University is located, just started offering Chinese.
Chinese is the most popular language at STARTALK, a federal program established in 2006 that supports summer programs for students and training for teachers in 11 "critical needs" languages. It is administered by the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland. In 2014, STARTALK offered 55 Chinese programs for students and 40 for teachers, compared with 2007, when there were 18 for students and 17 for teachers.
"Now that China has opened up considerably for trade and tourism and has become more market-oriented, Americans find it fascinating culturally and historically," Catherine Ingold, director of the National Foreign Language Center and principal investigator for the STARTALK program, wrote to China Daily in an e-mail.
As the programs grow, so does the need for teachers. Chen said "we're not producing enough qualified teachers to meet the needs of students, especially K-12".
Said CELIN's Wang: "We still need a lot more teachers, and more effective teachers. The guest teachers from China, mostly brought here by an initiative under the College Board, have been able to fill this void.
"If we had more home-grown teachers, the quantity and quality of Chinese programs in the US would be greatly enhanced," Wang said. "The guest teachers are really good and bring in a fresh perspective and authentic Chinese culture. But they are restricted by policy that they can only stay here for up to three years. Most of them stay for one or two years, which is a lot of sacrifice on their part."
At the Asia Society, a NewYork-based educational organization founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1956, Jeff Wang is the director of Chinese Language Initiatives and Education and oversees 100 pairs of sister schools in the US and China.
"We work with them to improve their Chinese language programs," he said of the schools. "Our goal is really to find a group of schools that have the potential to be exemplary programs for the region or for the country. The program needs to be good. Our biggest issue is teacher quality, instructor quality and effectiveness. We have about 300 teachers in our network; 90-plus percent of them are American-based teachers."
Confucius Classrooms
Also helping meet the demand for Chinese instruction is the Beijing-based Hanban, part of China's Ministry of Education. In the US, Hanban operates Confucius Institutes on 97 college campuses and runs 357 Confucius Classrooms in the K-12 category. Worldwide, those numbers are 443 and 648, respectively, according to Hanban's website.
"Schools are interested in offering Chinese because they do see some financial incentives from the Chinese government, funding Confucius Classrooms at the K-12 level," Abbott of ACTFL said.
Hanban's stated goals are: to make policies and development plans for promoting the Chinese language internationally; to support Chinese language programs at educational institutions of various types and levels in other countries; and to draft international Chinese teaching standards and develop and promote Chinese language teaching materials."
The US has the most Confucius programs by far. Those programs have run into some controversy in North America. Penn State University and the University of Chicago have dropped Confucius Institutes from their campuses, citing issues of academic freedom.
Wang looks at those situations more as "incidents of cultural communications breakdown" rather than rejection of the programs.
"The Chinese come in with their view of how things should be done, and not being familiar with how Americans do things, and vice-versa," she said. "I have visited numerous Confucius Institutes. Every Confucius Institute is different depending on what activities they propose to Hanban."
"Let it be fact-based," said Jeff Wang, on the disagreement between some Confucius Institutes and their hosts in the US. "If there are clauses in the agreement points in the arrangement of the collaboration that are inconsistent with the values and integrity of those institutions in the US, then they shouldbe reviewed and negotiated until satisfactory.Bring them out and you can negotiate that away."
"What I think is most important is engagement," he said. "By having a Chinese institution have a presence on an American campus, we should have confidence in the intelligence and critical thinking and skills of the American public, whether it's students or faculty of these truly great institutions. They're not easily persuaded one way or the other.
"Great institutions should be able to manage that influence much better than losing that benefit altogether. They're [the personnel coming from China to work with Confucius Institutes] also being influenced by Americans."
Wang said the value of the engagement outweighs the negatives that can arise between two different cultures.
Lui Huiquan contributed to this story.
Contact the writer at [email protected]
Some European languages pose challenges for young math students--Nov. 19, 2014
From: http://online.wsj.com/articles/some-european-languages-pose-challenges-for-young-math-students-1416360759
Some European languages pose challenges for young math students.
By SUE SHELLENBARGER
Nov. 18, 2014 8:32 p.m. ET0 COMMENTS
Q: Regarding your column on the challenges English-speaking children face in learning math, what about other languages, such as French? French has strange words for the teen numbers, but its names for larger numbers are even less clear.
—P.H.
A: Several European languages pose distinct challenges for young math students. French is unusual in giving some two-digit numbers names that aren’t based on units of 10 but on units of 20; 82 is “quatre-vingt-deux,” which translates as “four twenty two.” French children often have greater difficulty learning to write and add higher two-digit numbers, says a 2011 research review in the Journal of Psychology.
German and Dutch pose a different challenge, by inverting two-digit numbers. The German name for 24 translates literally to “four and twenty.” Children often reverse the digits when writing numbers from dictation.
Chinese and Japanese are among the most transparent languages for learning math, but some European languages are clearer than others. Italian has number names that correspond with the order of the digits, and Italian first-graders perform better than German children when asked to select the larger of a pair of two-digit numbers, according to a 2011 study in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
The Czech language actually has two number-word systems—one that inverts tens and ones and one that doesn’t; 25 can be expressed as “twenty-five” or “five-and-twenty.” Research shows Czech-speaking children make more errors when working with numbers in the inverted form, but they still perform better than German children on certain math tasks.
Some European languages pose challenges for young math students.
By SUE SHELLENBARGER
Nov. 18, 2014 8:32 p.m. ET0 COMMENTS
Q: Regarding your column on the challenges English-speaking children face in learning math, what about other languages, such as French? French has strange words for the teen numbers, but its names for larger numbers are even less clear.
—P.H.
A: Several European languages pose distinct challenges for young math students. French is unusual in giving some two-digit numbers names that aren’t based on units of 10 but on units of 20; 82 is “quatre-vingt-deux,” which translates as “four twenty two.” French children often have greater difficulty learning to write and add higher two-digit numbers, says a 2011 research review in the Journal of Psychology.
German and Dutch pose a different challenge, by inverting two-digit numbers. The German name for 24 translates literally to “four and twenty.” Children often reverse the digits when writing numbers from dictation.
Chinese and Japanese are among the most transparent languages for learning math, but some European languages are clearer than others. Italian has number names that correspond with the order of the digits, and Italian first-graders perform better than German children when asked to select the larger of a pair of two-digit numbers, according to a 2011 study in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
The Czech language actually has two number-word systems—one that inverts tens and ones and one that doesn’t; 25 can be expressed as “twenty-five” or “five-and-twenty.” Research shows Czech-speaking children make more errors when working with numbers in the inverted form, but they still perform better than German children on certain math tasks.
中国国际广播电台报道音频: Mandarin gains popularity around the globe -- Sep. 15, 2014
You can listen to the clip at http://english.cri.cn/7146/2014/09/15/3481s844205.htm
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the first Confucius Institute.
Over the past decade, the Confucius Institute, along with all sorts of Confucius classrooms, which are tasked with teaching Mandarin and promoting Chinese culture, have popped up around the globe.
Students from around world share their interest in learning Chinese.
"I come from France. I think it maybe started like five years ago. When I was in high school, I started to learn Chinese. It was like some basic words and I like this language."
"I like to learn Chinese and I like to work with Chinese people. I like to work in the Chinese market in the future, to take Chinese people back to our country to show our culture and our history, and to take Srilankas here to show your culture and your history."
"I am from Italy. My country is doing a lot of business deals especially export and import with China. There is a good relationship between our countries. I hope our governments can collaborate more."
Insiders overseas say the Chinese language has been gaining popularity in recent years.
Guo Hong is the Director of the Confucius Institute with the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
"They are really eager to learn Chinese - especially in college campus, not only students but also staffs want to learn Chinese. They are trying to use Nihao to greet us and when they meet together."
Guo Hong also says her institute adds at least 5 new Chinese classrooms every semester.
Dr. Ho Yong is the Chinese language supervisor in the United Nations. He says there has been a significantly increasing number of elementary and secondary schools in the US providing Mandarin courses in the past decade.
"Chicago is a good example. The mayor of Chicago was quite visionary and he decided to provide Mandarin courses in every public school in Chicago. Once there are more classes, there will be more opportunities for young American learners to learn Chinese."
Most learners and potential learners do have a clear vision of what they are looking for from the Mandarin class. They do not treat learning Chinese as a hippy, trendy, short-term fad.
Norah Yao, director of the Confucius Institute of Auckland with University of Auckland, says self-driven motivation is the key to maintaining the growth momentum of Chinese learning institutes overseas.
"One thing we see is very important is that it is not we want you to learn Chinese and know more about China - it is you want to learn Chinese. We are here to help you. So the motivation should come from the students, not something we want to give it to you."
This is exactly what the Confucius Institutes and Confucius classrooms have gradually realized.
Over the past decade, 460 Confucius Institutes and over 700 Confucius classrooms haven been established across some 120 countries. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have taken courses or short-term training at the institute.
Xu Lin is the director of the Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing. She says her organization is experiencing a win-win business particularly with those cooperative projects with local universities.
"Many of the leaders (in America) don't know enough about China, I'm happy to cooperate with a University who want to train leaders who will understand China well."
However, insiders say the Confucius Institute can do more to expand its influence.
Dr. Ho Yong is encouraging the Chinese authorities to have more exchange programs with the education circle from other countries in order to further promote Chinese learning.
"We should invite more educational leaders from the US, particularly those who can make decisions, to visit China. There should be more efforts in reaching out to American educators, local leaders and parents and have them advocate the learning of Chinese."
Chief of the Confucius Institute Xu Lin says she is trying to explore new ways to make what they do even more meaningful.
"My highest expecation for the Confucius Institute is that it can be welcomed by people all around world someday. We are trying to make the institute a symbol for cultural exchanges."
Just as Xu Lin says, Mandarin educators around the world are trying to make sure their students enjoy their language courses as well as the culture behind it.
For Studio+, I'm Wang Lei.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the first Confucius Institute.
Over the past decade, the Confucius Institute, along with all sorts of Confucius classrooms, which are tasked with teaching Mandarin and promoting Chinese culture, have popped up around the globe.
Students from around world share their interest in learning Chinese.
"I come from France. I think it maybe started like five years ago. When I was in high school, I started to learn Chinese. It was like some basic words and I like this language."
"I like to learn Chinese and I like to work with Chinese people. I like to work in the Chinese market in the future, to take Chinese people back to our country to show our culture and our history, and to take Srilankas here to show your culture and your history."
"I am from Italy. My country is doing a lot of business deals especially export and import with China. There is a good relationship between our countries. I hope our governments can collaborate more."
Insiders overseas say the Chinese language has been gaining popularity in recent years.
Guo Hong is the Director of the Confucius Institute with the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
"They are really eager to learn Chinese - especially in college campus, not only students but also staffs want to learn Chinese. They are trying to use Nihao to greet us and when they meet together."
Guo Hong also says her institute adds at least 5 new Chinese classrooms every semester.
Dr. Ho Yong is the Chinese language supervisor in the United Nations. He says there has been a significantly increasing number of elementary and secondary schools in the US providing Mandarin courses in the past decade.
"Chicago is a good example. The mayor of Chicago was quite visionary and he decided to provide Mandarin courses in every public school in Chicago. Once there are more classes, there will be more opportunities for young American learners to learn Chinese."
Most learners and potential learners do have a clear vision of what they are looking for from the Mandarin class. They do not treat learning Chinese as a hippy, trendy, short-term fad.
Norah Yao, director of the Confucius Institute of Auckland with University of Auckland, says self-driven motivation is the key to maintaining the growth momentum of Chinese learning institutes overseas.
"One thing we see is very important is that it is not we want you to learn Chinese and know more about China - it is you want to learn Chinese. We are here to help you. So the motivation should come from the students, not something we want to give it to you."
This is exactly what the Confucius Institutes and Confucius classrooms have gradually realized.
Over the past decade, 460 Confucius Institutes and over 700 Confucius classrooms haven been established across some 120 countries. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have taken courses or short-term training at the institute.
Xu Lin is the director of the Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing. She says her organization is experiencing a win-win business particularly with those cooperative projects with local universities.
"Many of the leaders (in America) don't know enough about China, I'm happy to cooperate with a University who want to train leaders who will understand China well."
However, insiders say the Confucius Institute can do more to expand its influence.
Dr. Ho Yong is encouraging the Chinese authorities to have more exchange programs with the education circle from other countries in order to further promote Chinese learning.
"We should invite more educational leaders from the US, particularly those who can make decisions, to visit China. There should be more efforts in reaching out to American educators, local leaders and parents and have them advocate the learning of Chinese."
Chief of the Confucius Institute Xu Lin says she is trying to explore new ways to make what they do even more meaningful.
"My highest expecation for the Confucius Institute is that it can be welcomed by people all around world someday. We are trying to make the institute a symbol for cultural exchanges."
Just as Xu Lin says, Mandarin educators around the world are trying to make sure their students enjoy their language courses as well as the culture behind it.
For Studio+, I'm Wang Lei.
The Best Language for Math -- Sep. 10, 2014
http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-best-language-for-math-1410304008
What's the best language for learning math? Hint: You're not reading it.
Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish use simpler number words and express math concepts more clearly than English, making it easier for small children to learn counting and arithmetic, research shows.
The language gap is drawing growing attention amid a push by psychologists and educators to build numeracy in small children—the mathematical equivalent of literacy. Confusing English word names have been linked in several recent studies to weaker counting and arithmetic skills in children. However, researchers are finding some easy ways for parents to level the playing field through games and early practice.
Differences between Chinese and English, in particular, have been studied in U.S. and Chinese schools for decades by Karen Fuson, a professor emerita in the school of education and social policy at Northwestern University, and Yeping Li, an expert on Chinese math education and a professor of teaching, learning and culture at Texas A&M University. Chinese has just nine number names, while English has more than two dozen unique number words.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images (5)
The trouble starts at "11." English has a unique word for the number, while Chinese (as well as Japanese and Korean, among other languages) have words that can be translated as "ten-one"—spoken with the "ten" first. That makes it easier to understand the place value—the value of the position of each digit in a number—as well as making it clear that the number system is based on units of 10.
English number names over 10 don't as clearly label place value, and number words for the teens, such as 17, reverse the order of the ones and "teens," making it easy for children to confuse, say, 17 with 71, the research shows. When doing multi-digit addition and subtraction, children working with English number names have a harder time understanding that two-digit numbers are made up of tens and ones, making it more difficult to avoid errors.
These may seem like small issues, but the additional mental steps needed to solve problems cause more errors and drain working memory capacity, says Dr. Fuson, author of a school math curriculum, Math Expressions, that provides added support for English-speaking students in learning place value.
It feels more natural for Chinese speakers than for English speakers to use the "make-a-ten" addition and subtraction strategy taught to first-graders in many East Asian countries. When adding two numbers, students break down the numbers into parts, or addends, and regroup them into tens and ones. For instance, 9 plus 5 becomes 9 plus 1 plus 4. The make-a-ten method is a powerful tool for mastering more advanced multi-digit addition and subtraction problems , Dr. Fuson says.
Many U.S. teachers have increased instruction in the make-a-ten method, and the Common Core standards adopted by many states call for first-graders to use it to add and subtract. First-graders' understanding of place value predicts their ability to do two-digit addition in third grade, according to a 2011 study of 94 elementary-school children in Research in Developmental Disabilities.
The U.S.-Asian math-achievement gap—a sensitive and much-studied topic—has more complicated roots than language. Chinese teachers typically spend more time explaining math concepts and getting students involved in working on difficult problems. In the home, Chinese parents tend to spend more time teaching arithmetic facts and games and using numbers in daily life, says a 2010 study in the Review of Educational Research by researchers at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and the University of Hong Kong.
When Chinese preschoolers enter kindergarten, they're ahead of their U.S. counterparts in the adding and counting skills typically taught by Chinese parents. They're also one to two years ahead on a skill their parents don't teach—placing numbers on a number line based on size, according to a 2008 study of 29 Chinese and 24 U.S. preschoolers by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
In math, one concept builds on another. By the time U.S. students reach high school, they rank 30th among students from 65 nations and education systems on international achievement exams, while Chinese and Korean students lead the world.
The negative impact of English is apparent in a 2014 study comparing 59 English-speaking Canadian children from Ottawa, Canada, with 88 Turkish children from Istanbul, ranging in age from 3 to 41/2 years. The Turkish children had received less instruction in numbers and counting than the Canadians. Yet the Turkish children improved their counting skills more after practicing in the lab with a numbered board game, according to the study, co-written by Jo-Anne LeFevre, director of the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario. Turkish students learning to count in their native language "mastered it more quickly" than the children learning in English, Dr. LeFevre says.
Dr. LeFevre is among a growing group of researchers exploring how parents can help instill number skills early. Children whose parents taught them to recognize and name digits and practice simple addition problems tended to do well on such kindergarten tasks as counting and comparing numbers, says a 2014 study of 183 children and their parents in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, co-written by Dr. LeFevre.
More
Board games can offset some of the disadvantages of speaking English, though only if played in a specific way. Some kindergartners who played a board game with the numbers 1 through 100 lined up in straight rows of 10 improved their performance at identifying numbers and placing numbers on a number line, according to a 2014 study led by Elida Laski, an assistant professor of applied and developmental psychology at Boston College. The rows of 10 helped children see that the number system is based on tens.
But the children improved only if researchers had them count aloud starting with the number of the square where they had landed; if children landed on square 5 and spun a 2, for example, they would count, "6, 7." This skill, called "counting on," is useful in early arithmetic. Kids who counted starting with "1" for every turn improved their performance only half as much.
Games such as "Chutes and Ladders" can have the same effect if children count on with each turn, Dr. Laski says. Studies show games without numbers in the squares, or set up in a winding or circular pattern, such as Candy Land, don't provide the same benefits.
Just drawing a board game on paper or cardboard and playing it with a preschooler a few times can firm up counting skills. "It's definitely more fun than doing a work sheet, and just as valuable," Dr. Laski says.
Children whose parents exposed them to number games and showed they enjoyed playing with numbers tended to have better skills, according to the 2014 study co-written by Dr. LeFevre.
Math teacher Andrew Stadel wants to pass on his interest in math to his 4-year-old son Patrick. A videogame, "Hungry Guppy" by Motion Math, based in San Francisco, drew Patrick's attention at age 2; players drag together bubbles with dots to add them, then feed them to a fish. He is now playing its successor for older kids, "Hungry Fish." Patrick is "curious about what numbers will pair up to make the desired sum," and if he makes a mistake, "there's not a huge penalty and it's not deflating to him," Mr. Stadel says.
Such videogames build fluency in doing calculations, freeing mental energy for learning. A game called "Addimal Adventures" by Teachley teaches different strategies for addition, showing "there's more than one way to solve a problem," says Allisyn Levy, vice president of an educational digital-game line, GameUp, offered by BrainPOP, New York City, a creator of animated educational content.
Ten-year-old Luke Sullivan of Marietta, Ga., says a game called "Addition Blocks" by Fluency Games of Smyrna, Ga., helped him learn when he started playing it two years ago. "You realize it's educational, but then you start to enjoy it," Luke says.
What's the best language for learning math? Hint: You're not reading it.
Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish use simpler number words and express math concepts more clearly than English, making it easier for small children to learn counting and arithmetic, research shows.
The language gap is drawing growing attention amid a push by psychologists and educators to build numeracy in small children—the mathematical equivalent of literacy. Confusing English word names have been linked in several recent studies to weaker counting and arithmetic skills in children. However, researchers are finding some easy ways for parents to level the playing field through games and early practice.
Differences between Chinese and English, in particular, have been studied in U.S. and Chinese schools for decades by Karen Fuson, a professor emerita in the school of education and social policy at Northwestern University, and Yeping Li, an expert on Chinese math education and a professor of teaching, learning and culture at Texas A&M University. Chinese has just nine number names, while English has more than two dozen unique number words.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images (5)
The trouble starts at "11." English has a unique word for the number, while Chinese (as well as Japanese and Korean, among other languages) have words that can be translated as "ten-one"—spoken with the "ten" first. That makes it easier to understand the place value—the value of the position of each digit in a number—as well as making it clear that the number system is based on units of 10.
English number names over 10 don't as clearly label place value, and number words for the teens, such as 17, reverse the order of the ones and "teens," making it easy for children to confuse, say, 17 with 71, the research shows. When doing multi-digit addition and subtraction, children working with English number names have a harder time understanding that two-digit numbers are made up of tens and ones, making it more difficult to avoid errors.
These may seem like small issues, but the additional mental steps needed to solve problems cause more errors and drain working memory capacity, says Dr. Fuson, author of a school math curriculum, Math Expressions, that provides added support for English-speaking students in learning place value.
It feels more natural for Chinese speakers than for English speakers to use the "make-a-ten" addition and subtraction strategy taught to first-graders in many East Asian countries. When adding two numbers, students break down the numbers into parts, or addends, and regroup them into tens and ones. For instance, 9 plus 5 becomes 9 plus 1 plus 4. The make-a-ten method is a powerful tool for mastering more advanced multi-digit addition and subtraction problems , Dr. Fuson says.
Many U.S. teachers have increased instruction in the make-a-ten method, and the Common Core standards adopted by many states call for first-graders to use it to add and subtract. First-graders' understanding of place value predicts their ability to do two-digit addition in third grade, according to a 2011 study of 94 elementary-school children in Research in Developmental Disabilities.
The U.S.-Asian math-achievement gap—a sensitive and much-studied topic—has more complicated roots than language. Chinese teachers typically spend more time explaining math concepts and getting students involved in working on difficult problems. In the home, Chinese parents tend to spend more time teaching arithmetic facts and games and using numbers in daily life, says a 2010 study in the Review of Educational Research by researchers at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and the University of Hong Kong.
When Chinese preschoolers enter kindergarten, they're ahead of their U.S. counterparts in the adding and counting skills typically taught by Chinese parents. They're also one to two years ahead on a skill their parents don't teach—placing numbers on a number line based on size, according to a 2008 study of 29 Chinese and 24 U.S. preschoolers by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
In math, one concept builds on another. By the time U.S. students reach high school, they rank 30th among students from 65 nations and education systems on international achievement exams, while Chinese and Korean students lead the world.
The negative impact of English is apparent in a 2014 study comparing 59 English-speaking Canadian children from Ottawa, Canada, with 88 Turkish children from Istanbul, ranging in age from 3 to 41/2 years. The Turkish children had received less instruction in numbers and counting than the Canadians. Yet the Turkish children improved their counting skills more after practicing in the lab with a numbered board game, according to the study, co-written by Jo-Anne LeFevre, director of the Institute of Cognitive Science at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario. Turkish students learning to count in their native language "mastered it more quickly" than the children learning in English, Dr. LeFevre says.
Dr. LeFevre is among a growing group of researchers exploring how parents can help instill number skills early. Children whose parents taught them to recognize and name digits and practice simple addition problems tended to do well on such kindergarten tasks as counting and comparing numbers, says a 2014 study of 183 children and their parents in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, co-written by Dr. LeFevre.
More
Board games can offset some of the disadvantages of speaking English, though only if played in a specific way. Some kindergartners who played a board game with the numbers 1 through 100 lined up in straight rows of 10 improved their performance at identifying numbers and placing numbers on a number line, according to a 2014 study led by Elida Laski, an assistant professor of applied and developmental psychology at Boston College. The rows of 10 helped children see that the number system is based on tens.
But the children improved only if researchers had them count aloud starting with the number of the square where they had landed; if children landed on square 5 and spun a 2, for example, they would count, "6, 7." This skill, called "counting on," is useful in early arithmetic. Kids who counted starting with "1" for every turn improved their performance only half as much.
Games such as "Chutes and Ladders" can have the same effect if children count on with each turn, Dr. Laski says. Studies show games without numbers in the squares, or set up in a winding or circular pattern, such as Candy Land, don't provide the same benefits.
Just drawing a board game on paper or cardboard and playing it with a preschooler a few times can firm up counting skills. "It's definitely more fun than doing a work sheet, and just as valuable," Dr. Laski says.
Children whose parents exposed them to number games and showed they enjoyed playing with numbers tended to have better skills, according to the 2014 study co-written by Dr. LeFevre.
Math teacher Andrew Stadel wants to pass on his interest in math to his 4-year-old son Patrick. A videogame, "Hungry Guppy" by Motion Math, based in San Francisco, drew Patrick's attention at age 2; players drag together bubbles with dots to add them, then feed them to a fish. He is now playing its successor for older kids, "Hungry Fish." Patrick is "curious about what numbers will pair up to make the desired sum," and if he makes a mistake, "there's not a huge penalty and it's not deflating to him," Mr. Stadel says.
Such videogames build fluency in doing calculations, freeing mental energy for learning. A game called "Addimal Adventures" by Teachley teaches different strategies for addition, showing "there's more than one way to solve a problem," says Allisyn Levy, vice president of an educational digital-game line, GameUp, offered by BrainPOP, New York City, a creator of animated educational content.
Ten-year-old Luke Sullivan of Marietta, Ga., says a game called "Addition Blocks" by Fluency Games of Smyrna, Ga., helped him learn when he started playing it two years ago. "You realize it's educational, but then you start to enjoy it," Luke says.
Confucius Institute Day in NYC -- Sep. 10, 2014
On September 27, 2014, 5 Confucius Institutes in Manhattan will join over 400 Confucius Institutes around the world to celebrate Confucius Institute Day in NYC to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of Confucius Institutes worldwide. There will be cultural activities around town that day. Please visit all the details at http://www.confuciusinstituteday.org/. You and your students are most welcome to attend the day's events.
BBC News - Chinese calligraphy classes for China's internet generation -- Aug. 27, 2014
27 August 2014 Last updated at 01:02 BST
Along with gunpowder and paper, many people in China consider the creation of calligraphy to be one of their primary contributions to civilisation.
But is Chinese handwriting becoming a relic of history?
As Celia Hatton reports from Beijing, many people there are forgetting how to write their own language.
You can watch the video at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-28937570
Along with gunpowder and paper, many people in China consider the creation of calligraphy to be one of their primary contributions to civilisation.
But is Chinese handwriting becoming a relic of history?
As Celia Hatton reports from Beijing, many people there are forgetting how to write their own language.
You can watch the video at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-28937570
联合国多语言征文比赛中获奖的中文组选手演讲 -- June 30, 2014
Watch the speeches at http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/chinese/archives/207922/#.U7H4O_ldXao
The second person speaking is 第十二届汉语桥总冠军贝乐泰.
Additional info about the contest:
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/chinese/archives/207879/#.U7H7BPldXao
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/chinese/archives/207828/#.U7H7q_ldXao
The second person speaking is 第十二届汉语桥总冠军贝乐泰.
Additional info about the contest:
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/chinese/archives/207879/#.U7H7BPldXao
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/chinese/archives/207828/#.U7H7q_ldXao
Wall Street Journal: OMG: In China, This Language Teacher Has Swag--June 5, 2014
Jessica Beinecke gets this reaction a lot: She’s walking down the street in a Chinese city, and she’ll be recognized by one of her 400,000 Weibo followers or even one of the 40 million who have watched her videos. With platinum blonde hair and big blue eyes, the young woman who has taught Americans how to say “twerk” in Mandarin and students in China how to talk about “House of Cards” stands out.
“They’ll say, ‘Eh? Bai Jie?’ And then we’ll take a selfie,” says the 27-year-old Ohio native who takes learning a language to a whole new level.
Ms. Beinecke, known to her Chinese fans as Bai Jie (白洁), has made a name for herself since 2011 with her bright, funny and short explanations of English slang – including “twerk,” “swag,” “freaking out,” “awesome,” and “life hack,” as part of a daily Voice of America online video program called OMG Meiyu, or OMG American English.
She says she chose her name in college to sound a bit like her given name. Directly translated, bai means white and jie means “clean” or “pure,” she says. Step aside, Justin Bieber.
Apart from her work with OMG Meiyu, Ms. Beinecke also has two new sites she developed herself and launched in January: Crazy Fresh Chinese, which teaches Chinese terms to English speakers, and Bai Jie LaLaLa, which like OMG Meiyu teaches English expressions to Chinese speakers.
Thanks to such work, she’s got a Chinese following that can reach a certain level of fanaticism. One of the top Google search terms under her name is “Jessica Beinecke boyfriend.” When her male followers ask if they can be her boyfriend, she says, she handles it accordingly: “I just write, in Chinese, the words for ‘ha ha,’ and put a smiley face and just move on. I say, ‘thank you.’ It’s a compliment.”
On the comments section for her Voice of America videos, fans offer English-language tributes such as “Bai Jie is very lovely” and “I love Bai Jie. Hope she was my girlfriend.”This is not your mother’s language instructor. Ms. Beinecke is cheerful to a fault, throws in a goofy giggle in the middle of her mini-lessons – which can be as short as 30 seconds – and seems to have an unerring sense of what her followers might want to understand. For Chinese-language students on her Crazy Fresh Chinese site, that includes how to say “House of Cards,” the popular U.S. television miniseries that explores the machinations of Washington’s power struggles. As part of those lessons, she dressed up as the characters Frank Underwood, Claire Underwood and Zoe Barnes and gave lessons on terms like “Friends make the worst enemies” and “conniving.”
And in the 700 OMG Meiyu broadcasts she’s made so far, she offers English-language students almost an urban dictionary of the kinds of terms young people use, like “get over it,” “wakey wakey,” “tough love,” fantabulous” and “my bad!”
Young people are tired of lessons that slog through statements like “I have three people in my family” and “we have a dog” and “we live in a house,” she says. “It’s a little dry. I kind of spice it up and give them something to use. They can say when they go to Starbucks, ‘Hey, get me a zhong bei dou na tie – give me a medium soy latte. It’s something they can use in the moment. So I think that’s what really connects.”
She is also developing a following among U.S. high school and college students. “The looks on their faces when they learn there’s a word for swag and twerk in Mandarin, they instantly have this new connection to Mandarin and they can more instantly relate to a language that they thought up to that point was foreign to them,” she says.
Ms. Beinecke introduces twerking on her Crazy Fresh Chinese site by giggling and announcing: “This is the most important Mandarin lesson you’ll ever have in your entire life.” She goes on to repeat the words dian tun wu, adding, “It literally means ‘electric butt dance.’ Oh yeah.” And then she dances a bit with her arms in the air.
Recently in Beijing to talk about the 100,000 Strong Foundation, which encourages American students to study in China, she also visited a middle school in Beijing. “This seventh-grade girl came up afterwards and very quietly said, ‘Bai Jie, I drew this for you,’” she says. “It was a really pretty cartoon of me and under it in very pretty writing, it said ‘Jessica.’”
Another student in Chengdu drew a portrait of her in a hat with big glasses, as an illustration of the word “swag” (fan’er). “It’s on my wall in a very narrow hallway,” she says. “My boyfriend won’t let me hang it out in a prominent place.”
She thinks her viewers feel close to her because of the intimacy of her shots: she shoots her videos with a cell phone camera and talks directly to the viewer. “It feels like we’re having a one-on-one conversation. And that’s on purpose,” Ms. Beinecke says.
Her formula seems to be working. She says, “I just think young people have so many similar interests, and for them to have an opportunity to connect in a real way with those with similar interests, is something I hope to provide every day. And to do it in a way that also addresses their attention span.”
– Debra Bruno
“They’ll say, ‘Eh? Bai Jie?’ And then we’ll take a selfie,” says the 27-year-old Ohio native who takes learning a language to a whole new level.
Ms. Beinecke, known to her Chinese fans as Bai Jie (白洁), has made a name for herself since 2011 with her bright, funny and short explanations of English slang – including “twerk,” “swag,” “freaking out,” “awesome,” and “life hack,” as part of a daily Voice of America online video program called OMG Meiyu, or OMG American English.
She says she chose her name in college to sound a bit like her given name. Directly translated, bai means white and jie means “clean” or “pure,” she says. Step aside, Justin Bieber.
Apart from her work with OMG Meiyu, Ms. Beinecke also has two new sites she developed herself and launched in January: Crazy Fresh Chinese, which teaches Chinese terms to English speakers, and Bai Jie LaLaLa, which like OMG Meiyu teaches English expressions to Chinese speakers.
Thanks to such work, she’s got a Chinese following that can reach a certain level of fanaticism. One of the top Google search terms under her name is “Jessica Beinecke boyfriend.” When her male followers ask if they can be her boyfriend, she says, she handles it accordingly: “I just write, in Chinese, the words for ‘ha ha,’ and put a smiley face and just move on. I say, ‘thank you.’ It’s a compliment.”
On the comments section for her Voice of America videos, fans offer English-language tributes such as “Bai Jie is very lovely” and “I love Bai Jie. Hope she was my girlfriend.”This is not your mother’s language instructor. Ms. Beinecke is cheerful to a fault, throws in a goofy giggle in the middle of her mini-lessons – which can be as short as 30 seconds – and seems to have an unerring sense of what her followers might want to understand. For Chinese-language students on her Crazy Fresh Chinese site, that includes how to say “House of Cards,” the popular U.S. television miniseries that explores the machinations of Washington’s power struggles. As part of those lessons, she dressed up as the characters Frank Underwood, Claire Underwood and Zoe Barnes and gave lessons on terms like “Friends make the worst enemies” and “conniving.”
And in the 700 OMG Meiyu broadcasts she’s made so far, she offers English-language students almost an urban dictionary of the kinds of terms young people use, like “get over it,” “wakey wakey,” “tough love,” fantabulous” and “my bad!”
Young people are tired of lessons that slog through statements like “I have three people in my family” and “we have a dog” and “we live in a house,” she says. “It’s a little dry. I kind of spice it up and give them something to use. They can say when they go to Starbucks, ‘Hey, get me a zhong bei dou na tie – give me a medium soy latte. It’s something they can use in the moment. So I think that’s what really connects.”
She is also developing a following among U.S. high school and college students. “The looks on their faces when they learn there’s a word for swag and twerk in Mandarin, they instantly have this new connection to Mandarin and they can more instantly relate to a language that they thought up to that point was foreign to them,” she says.
Ms. Beinecke introduces twerking on her Crazy Fresh Chinese site by giggling and announcing: “This is the most important Mandarin lesson you’ll ever have in your entire life.” She goes on to repeat the words dian tun wu, adding, “It literally means ‘electric butt dance.’ Oh yeah.” And then she dances a bit with her arms in the air.
Recently in Beijing to talk about the 100,000 Strong Foundation, which encourages American students to study in China, she also visited a middle school in Beijing. “This seventh-grade girl came up afterwards and very quietly said, ‘Bai Jie, I drew this for you,’” she says. “It was a really pretty cartoon of me and under it in very pretty writing, it said ‘Jessica.’”
Another student in Chengdu drew a portrait of her in a hat with big glasses, as an illustration of the word “swag” (fan’er). “It’s on my wall in a very narrow hallway,” she says. “My boyfriend won’t let me hang it out in a prominent place.”
She thinks her viewers feel close to her because of the intimacy of her shots: she shoots her videos with a cell phone camera and talks directly to the viewer. “It feels like we’re having a one-on-one conversation. And that’s on purpose,” Ms. Beinecke says.
Her formula seems to be working. She says, “I just think young people have so many similar interests, and for them to have an opportunity to connect in a real way with those with similar interests, is something I hope to provide every day. And to do it in a way that also addresses their attention span.”
– Debra Bruno
红楼梦 on top of the list of the Ten Best Asian Novels of All Time--June 1, 2014
An ancient Chinese masterpiece tops a British newspaper's list of best Asian novels, but experts on both sides of the globe lament the low visibility of contemporary Chinese works, Mei Jia reports.
A Dream of Red Mansions, a Chinese classic written by Cao Xueqin more than 200 years ago, tops the list of the Ten Best Asian Novels of All Time, compiled by British daily The Telegraph newspaper.
To many readers, it's an unsurprising and natural choice, given the novel's traditional influence and stature. But while the list aims to promote appreciation of a wider range of books, some experts argue the list still lacks much knowledge of Chinese writing as a whole. No modern Chinese novels are included.
"Asian literature offers some of the most beautiful prose ever written. We pick the classics all book fans should read," the UK newspaper's editors write.
To Zhou Ruchang, the late master who devoted his whole life to "Redology", the study of A Dream of Red Mansions, the novel wasn't just a love story of the aristocratic protagonists.
"He believed the novel is an ideal window for foreign readers to know the various aspects of Chinese culture," Zhou's daughter Zhou Lunling says. "He'd always say the novel offers them a shortcut, because it almost contains everything."
She helped her father sort out his research, and says the novel well deserves the top spot on the list. Some precious early editions can be found in Britain, she says, so British people have known the novel for a long time.
Ronald Gray, a linguistics professor at Ohio University, agrees, noting that in the last decade the novel has received increasing attention in the West.
Gray, who has written a soon-to-be-published biography of Cao Xueqin, Wandering Between Two Worlds: The Formative Years of Cao Xue-qin, 1715-1745, believes the novel is a great work for several reasons: "Its philosophical sophistication, encyclopedic scope, brilliant plot and the highly realistic way Cao described the novel's many characters."
Mark S. Ferrara, associate professor of English who teaches a translated version of the novel at State University of New York, says Cao's novel is a masterpiece of world literature and a great introduction to Chinese culture for his US students.
"It covers everything from Chinese medicine to art, poetry, architecture, food, clothing, social classes, gender roles, sexual mores, Manchu and Han customs, imperial rituals, and so much more," Ferrara says. "It mixes historical realism with allegory, biography with social critique, and playfully conflates fiction with truth."
Veteran Australian Sinologist Colin Mackerras says: "It is a superb description of what Chinese society among a certain class was like in those days. It is a wonderful 'novel of manners'."
Chinese culture critic Shi Hang says he's relieved to see One Thousand and One Nights also listed, proving that A Dream of Red Mansions isn't there as a token "because of its old age".
Brian Castro, chair of creative writing and director of J.M. Coetzee Center at The University of Adelaide, says: "It is a rather eclectic list. I presume this depended on the translations." An accomplished writer of Chinese origin himself, Castro says the ancient novel was chosen only "because it is so often used as an example".
Castro says he would certainly like to know more about contemporary Chinese writing.
"Apart from these very visible books (like those by Mo Yan), I really would like some that haven't received the attention of the world," Castro says. "I'm sure there are very many talented authors in China. But we need to hear about them in a way that allows readers to make considered judgments."
He would like to see "a really rigorous journal devoted to such reviews of contemporary Chinese literature in English".
Mackerras thinks the list reflects a lack of appreciation of the Chinese approach to contemporary fiction.
"The kind of people who will read The Telegraph have an inbuilt assumption that it is a major function of a contemporary novel to criticize contemporary society and the politics of the day. They think Chinese novels do that much less than, say, Indian ones," Mackerras says.
But he believes awareness is improving.
"If I compare knowledge and appreciation of Chinese culture in the world now with what it was 50, 30, 20, or even 10 years ago, the situation is much better now," Mackerras says.
Gray says that all of the novels listed have sound English versions; some are even originally written in English by Asian writers. More people in the West are becoming interested in Chinese culture, he says, and Chinese movies and modern novels now receive a lot of attention.
In the meantime, the Chinese government is helping publishers and writers promote Chinese writing abroad, and good translations are more important than ever.
Castro says he read Mo Yan's Sandalwood Deaths and enjoyed it, "because the translation was very good".
But he also acknowledges that "what gets translated is often a lottery".
Contact the writer at [email protected].
A Dream of Red Mansions, a Chinese classic written by Cao Xueqin more than 200 years ago, tops the list of the Ten Best Asian Novels of All Time, compiled by British daily The Telegraph newspaper.
To many readers, it's an unsurprising and natural choice, given the novel's traditional influence and stature. But while the list aims to promote appreciation of a wider range of books, some experts argue the list still lacks much knowledge of Chinese writing as a whole. No modern Chinese novels are included.
"Asian literature offers some of the most beautiful prose ever written. We pick the classics all book fans should read," the UK newspaper's editors write.
To Zhou Ruchang, the late master who devoted his whole life to "Redology", the study of A Dream of Red Mansions, the novel wasn't just a love story of the aristocratic protagonists.
"He believed the novel is an ideal window for foreign readers to know the various aspects of Chinese culture," Zhou's daughter Zhou Lunling says. "He'd always say the novel offers them a shortcut, because it almost contains everything."
She helped her father sort out his research, and says the novel well deserves the top spot on the list. Some precious early editions can be found in Britain, she says, so British people have known the novel for a long time.
Ronald Gray, a linguistics professor at Ohio University, agrees, noting that in the last decade the novel has received increasing attention in the West.
Gray, who has written a soon-to-be-published biography of Cao Xueqin, Wandering Between Two Worlds: The Formative Years of Cao Xue-qin, 1715-1745, believes the novel is a great work for several reasons: "Its philosophical sophistication, encyclopedic scope, brilliant plot and the highly realistic way Cao described the novel's many characters."
Mark S. Ferrara, associate professor of English who teaches a translated version of the novel at State University of New York, says Cao's novel is a masterpiece of world literature and a great introduction to Chinese culture for his US students.
"It covers everything from Chinese medicine to art, poetry, architecture, food, clothing, social classes, gender roles, sexual mores, Manchu and Han customs, imperial rituals, and so much more," Ferrara says. "It mixes historical realism with allegory, biography with social critique, and playfully conflates fiction with truth."
Veteran Australian Sinologist Colin Mackerras says: "It is a superb description of what Chinese society among a certain class was like in those days. It is a wonderful 'novel of manners'."
Chinese culture critic Shi Hang says he's relieved to see One Thousand and One Nights also listed, proving that A Dream of Red Mansions isn't there as a token "because of its old age".
Brian Castro, chair of creative writing and director of J.M. Coetzee Center at The University of Adelaide, says: "It is a rather eclectic list. I presume this depended on the translations." An accomplished writer of Chinese origin himself, Castro says the ancient novel was chosen only "because it is so often used as an example".
Castro says he would certainly like to know more about contemporary Chinese writing.
"Apart from these very visible books (like those by Mo Yan), I really would like some that haven't received the attention of the world," Castro says. "I'm sure there are very many talented authors in China. But we need to hear about them in a way that allows readers to make considered judgments."
He would like to see "a really rigorous journal devoted to such reviews of contemporary Chinese literature in English".
Mackerras thinks the list reflects a lack of appreciation of the Chinese approach to contemporary fiction.
"The kind of people who will read The Telegraph have an inbuilt assumption that it is a major function of a contemporary novel to criticize contemporary society and the politics of the day. They think Chinese novels do that much less than, say, Indian ones," Mackerras says.
But he believes awareness is improving.
"If I compare knowledge and appreciation of Chinese culture in the world now with what it was 50, 30, 20, or even 10 years ago, the situation is much better now," Mackerras says.
Gray says that all of the novels listed have sound English versions; some are even originally written in English by Asian writers. More people in the West are becoming interested in Chinese culture, he says, and Chinese movies and modern novels now receive a lot of attention.
In the meantime, the Chinese government is helping publishers and writers promote Chinese writing abroad, and good translations are more important than ever.
Castro says he read Mo Yan's Sandalwood Deaths and enjoyed it, "because the translation was very good".
But he also acknowledges that "what gets translated is often a lottery".
Contact the writer at [email protected].
Metro Money: Comparing Three of New York City's Chinatowns--April 19, 2014
Anne Kadet Visits Chinese Neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens
In Chinatown the other day, I noticed a sign in the window of a dumpling joint: "Coffee 50¢." Such a deal! I ordered a cup to go.
"Seventy-five cents," said the lady behind the counter.
I noted the sign in the window.
"One dollar," she replied, visibly irritated.
I gave her a buck. She countered with a Cantonese tirade, my coffee, and a handful of change—35 cents.
Ah, Chinatown. You're never sure what the heck is going on, or what you've done wrong. It's delightfully disorienting; a chance to escape everyday life without leaving the city.
Happily, there are three major Chinese neighborhoods in New York. For backyard adventurers, the difficult question is whether the Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens option provides the most satisfying experience and best bargains.
It's a deeply complicated matter, but after days of sophisticated research (walking around eating roast duck) and serious thought (creating an arbitrary scoring system and counting points on my fingers) I determined the clear winner.
The most accessible option, of course, is the original Chinatown in Manhattan. Settled for generations by Cantonese speakers, often from Hong Kong, it caters frankly to tourists. There are Zagat stickers in every window, long lines at Joe's Shanghai for soup dumplings, and expensive shops dealing entirely in fancy chopsticks sets or exotic snacks. The area has its own tourist information kiosk (subtract 10 points!) and a museum of Chinese-American culture. The neighborhood's Chinese population, meanwhile, actually dropped 17% in the last U.S. Census.
But there is still something intimate and charming about the heart of old Chinatown, particularly the intersection of Pell and Doyers streets off Mott Street, which looks like something from a Hopper painting—if Hopper haunted back-alley chop suey joints. This neighborhood also has the best roast duck. For $6, I got a portion so perfectly crispy and flavorful that I wanted to die.
"Seventy-five cents," said the lady behind the counter.
I noted the sign in the window.
"One dollar," she replied, visibly irritated.
I gave her a buck. She countered with a Cantonese tirade, my coffee, and a handful of change—35 cents.
Ah, Chinatown. You're never sure what the heck is going on, or what you've done wrong. It's delightfully disorienting; a chance to escape everyday life without leaving the city.
Happily, there are three major Chinese neighborhoods in New York. For backyard adventurers, the difficult question is whether the Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens option provides the most satisfying experience and best bargains.
It's a deeply complicated matter, but after days of sophisticated research (walking around eating roast duck) and serious thought (creating an arbitrary scoring system and counting points on my fingers) I determined the clear winner.
The most accessible option, of course, is the original Chinatown in Manhattan. Settled for generations by Cantonese speakers, often from Hong Kong, it caters frankly to tourists. There are Zagat stickers in every window, long lines at Joe's Shanghai for soup dumplings, and expensive shops dealing entirely in fancy chopsticks sets or exotic snacks. The area has its own tourist information kiosk (subtract 10 points!) and a museum of Chinese-American culture. The neighborhood's Chinese population, meanwhile, actually dropped 17% in the last U.S. Census.
But there is still something intimate and charming about the heart of old Chinatown, particularly the intersection of Pell and Doyers streets off Mott Street, which looks like something from a Hopper painting—if Hopper haunted back-alley chop suey joints. This neighborhood also has the best roast duck. For $6, I got a portion so perfectly crispy and flavorful that I wanted to die.
And while prices for everything from produce to backrubs are higher than Queens or Brooklyn, there are bargains to be found. There's free admission to the Mahayana Buddhist Temple with its two-story golden Buddha, for example, and a $1 donation buys your fortune on a tiny scroll. I didn't like mine, so I bought a second, with better results: "Probability of Success: Excellent." For just a buck, I'd secured a bright new future.New York's Chinese population would fill a city. There are more than 500,000 Chinese in town, and 72,000 Chinese-owned businesses. The largest concentration is at the end of the 7 line in Flushing, a fast-growing area populated by Taiwanese and former Manhattan Chinatowners seeking nicer digs.
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"It's moving up and middle class," said Christopher Kui, executive director of Asian-Americans for Equality.
This Asian shopping hub is the most overwhelming of the city's three Chinatowns. With its riot of neon signs, jumbled architecture and noisy crush of traffic, the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue feels like a small Times Square. It's the third busiest intersection in the city. Stop to gawk and you'll get mowed down by a harried shopper.
This Asian shopping hub is the most overwhelming of the city's three Chinatowns. With its riot of neon signs, jumbled architecture and noisy crush of traffic, the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue feels like a small Times Square. It's the third busiest intersection in the city. Stop to gawk and you'll get mowed down by a harried shopper.
In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a sidewalk cobbler is one of the novel sights that add to that not-in-Kansas-anymore adventure. Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal
There are plenty of mainstream chain stores here, along with oversize Chinese furniture shops, supermarkets and pharmacies. But the mini malls—vast, often subterranean mazes spawned by the area's high rents—are the main attraction. Here, you'll find all sorts of odd businesses and food stalls, often with a yard-sale feel. I like the wonderfully named Busy Mall, offering 30-odd discount clothing shops, a violin maker, a body art parlor featuring eyebrow tattoos, several $20-an-hour massage joints and a manga bookstore so crammed with selections there is no room for customers. Here, the generic $4 black umbrella sells for $2.
Lunch must be taken at the New World Mall's underground food court, a place you'll find only by accident, the way you might discover a magic kingdom in the back of your closet. Here, two dozen purveyors compete for your attention with barkers, flashing signs and free samples. It's hard to spend more than $8 on a meal, and good luck choosing. There are dumpling joints, noodle joints, BBQ stalls, and a trendy tea stall hawking glazed pork ear. Finding a seat at the long communal tables sends you back to your junior high days, when you weren't sure where to sit in the cafeteria.
For novel sights and deals, Flushing beats Manhattan's Chinatown by a mile. But for a sheer not-in-Kansas-anymore experience, there is nothing like Sunset Park. It emerged as the clear winner of the competition.
Stretching along Eight Avenue north of the N train's 62nd Street stop in Brooklyn, this neighborhood attracts the city's newest Chinese, mainly immigrants from the Fujian province. It's the fastest-growing Chinatown, the poorest, and the most insular. The bakeries, pet stores and shoe shops cater strictly to locals. Prices for fresh seafood, egg buns and produce are rock bottom. And there is nothing fancy to buy or eat, making it an ideal destination for cheapskates. You can't even splurge by mistake.
Yes, this is the city's only Chinatown without a Starbucks. No one seems to be collecting sales tax, and it's entirely acceptable on this laid-back thoroughfare to offer tailoring services, massage or shoe repair right on the sidewalk. Signs are in Chinese. What's intriguing is the occasional piece of information shopkeepers deem important enough to translate into English. In one restaurant window: "We do carry Vietnamese ham." Posted on a sidewalk candy display: "DO NOT TRY!"
One reason to visit a Chinatown is the chance to gawk at alarming food options, and Sunset Park doesn't disappoint. Aside from the worst roast duck I've ever tried (rubbery, room temperature), there were live frogs and turtles staring hopefully from their bins, jelly fish wide as frying pans and crates of squirming sea monsters armed with antenna, claws and fins. I asked a Chinese shopper what they tasted like. "Seafood," she said, patting me on the shoulder.
And real estate here is still cheap enough here to allow some slack. A typical shop is the New Lucky Best Center, a popular lottery parlor. A display featured green tea nougat, insoles, packaged fruit labeled "King of Football" and the Financial Times. In the back: lawn chairs, plastic flowers and blank cassette tapes.
If it isn't exactly like going to China, it does feel like a trip back in time, before Dunkin' Donuts took over the city. Plus: live eels for $3.99 a pound. What could possibly go wrong?
There are plenty of mainstream chain stores here, along with oversize Chinese furniture shops, supermarkets and pharmacies. But the mini malls—vast, often subterranean mazes spawned by the area's high rents—are the main attraction. Here, you'll find all sorts of odd businesses and food stalls, often with a yard-sale feel. I like the wonderfully named Busy Mall, offering 30-odd discount clothing shops, a violin maker, a body art parlor featuring eyebrow tattoos, several $20-an-hour massage joints and a manga bookstore so crammed with selections there is no room for customers. Here, the generic $4 black umbrella sells for $2.
Lunch must be taken at the New World Mall's underground food court, a place you'll find only by accident, the way you might discover a magic kingdom in the back of your closet. Here, two dozen purveyors compete for your attention with barkers, flashing signs and free samples. It's hard to spend more than $8 on a meal, and good luck choosing. There are dumpling joints, noodle joints, BBQ stalls, and a trendy tea stall hawking glazed pork ear. Finding a seat at the long communal tables sends you back to your junior high days, when you weren't sure where to sit in the cafeteria.
For novel sights and deals, Flushing beats Manhattan's Chinatown by a mile. But for a sheer not-in-Kansas-anymore experience, there is nothing like Sunset Park. It emerged as the clear winner of the competition.
Stretching along Eight Avenue north of the N train's 62nd Street stop in Brooklyn, this neighborhood attracts the city's newest Chinese, mainly immigrants from the Fujian province. It's the fastest-growing Chinatown, the poorest, and the most insular. The bakeries, pet stores and shoe shops cater strictly to locals. Prices for fresh seafood, egg buns and produce are rock bottom. And there is nothing fancy to buy or eat, making it an ideal destination for cheapskates. You can't even splurge by mistake.
Yes, this is the city's only Chinatown without a Starbucks. No one seems to be collecting sales tax, and it's entirely acceptable on this laid-back thoroughfare to offer tailoring services, massage or shoe repair right on the sidewalk. Signs are in Chinese. What's intriguing is the occasional piece of information shopkeepers deem important enough to translate into English. In one restaurant window: "We do carry Vietnamese ham." Posted on a sidewalk candy display: "DO NOT TRY!"
One reason to visit a Chinatown is the chance to gawk at alarming food options, and Sunset Park doesn't disappoint. Aside from the worst roast duck I've ever tried (rubbery, room temperature), there were live frogs and turtles staring hopefully from their bins, jelly fish wide as frying pans and crates of squirming sea monsters armed with antenna, claws and fins. I asked a Chinese shopper what they tasted like. "Seafood," she said, patting me on the shoulder.
And real estate here is still cheap enough here to allow some slack. A typical shop is the New Lucky Best Center, a popular lottery parlor. A display featured green tea nougat, insoles, packaged fruit labeled "King of Football" and the Financial Times. In the back: lawn chairs, plastic flowers and blank cassette tapes.
If it isn't exactly like going to China, it does feel like a trip back in time, before Dunkin' Donuts took over the city. Plus: live eels for $3.99 a pound. What could possibly go wrong?
Language is better learned in casual study, scholars say--March 11, 2014
International scholars at a conference held in Shanghai on the science of learning suggest an easier, more active way for children to learn a second language than traditional rote memorization in a classroom.
The answer lies in informal learning environments where students not only connect with real life but connect with it in more than one language.
English courses in China have long been criticized for what has been characterized as their dried-up teaching methods and absence of practical application.
Yet studies show that about 81.5 percent of a person's life is spent in informal learning environments. With that in mind, language learning should not be limited to a formal classroom or to a single language, the experts say.
"They should learn English through more active communication, rather than focusing on vocabulary and grammar. It is a way to learn multiple languages," said Dirk Van Damme, head of the innovation and measurement division of the education directorate of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.
"The ability to speak and communicate is very important. And bilingualism can help stimulate the development of the brain. Chinese students - at least those in Shanghai - are very capable in their second-language learning," Van Damme said.
Exposing children to a bilingual environment through informal study is important, said Cheng Kai-ming, a professor of Education at the University of Hong Kong.
"Learning has always been an essential part of human life," Cheng said. "Now we are living in a society with rapid changes, one that is already substantially different from the typical manufacturing base of the past. Therefore, it's prime time to reinterpret learning."
Another expert also saw the value of bilingual learning but offered a caveat.
"The human brain has a remarkable ability to reorganize its structures in response to differences in environmental and behavioral experience, such as educational, social and multicultural learning, or monolingual versus bilingual language learning," said cognitive neuroscientist Laura Ann Petitto, science director of the National Science Foundation's Science of Learning Center.
Bilingual exposure at an early age will produce some positive effects for a child's growth and learning ability, especially in the area of reading. But she also warned that if a child is exposed to two languages or two reading systems simultaneously, it may cause language delay and confusion.
In an academic report, Bilingualism Alters the Brain's White-Matter Microstructure, Patricia Kuhl, a professor at the University of Washington, said that children in bilingual environments demonstrate higher cognitive ability. Experiments showed, for example, that children in a bilingual environment can get toys into a box more quickly than their single-language peers.
In December, the Ministry of Education released a draft reform plan for the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, making it clear that English will be moved from the exam in the future. Provinces and cities across the country are required to work out their own plans under the direction of the ministry.
So far, many regional gaokao reform plans across the country remain undeveloped, but debate continues to swirl about how English is taught.
The answer lies in informal learning environments where students not only connect with real life but connect with it in more than one language.
English courses in China have long been criticized for what has been characterized as their dried-up teaching methods and absence of practical application.
Yet studies show that about 81.5 percent of a person's life is spent in informal learning environments. With that in mind, language learning should not be limited to a formal classroom or to a single language, the experts say.
"They should learn English through more active communication, rather than focusing on vocabulary and grammar. It is a way to learn multiple languages," said Dirk Van Damme, head of the innovation and measurement division of the education directorate of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris.
"The ability to speak and communicate is very important. And bilingualism can help stimulate the development of the brain. Chinese students - at least those in Shanghai - are very capable in their second-language learning," Van Damme said.
Exposing children to a bilingual environment through informal study is important, said Cheng Kai-ming, a professor of Education at the University of Hong Kong.
"Learning has always been an essential part of human life," Cheng said. "Now we are living in a society with rapid changes, one that is already substantially different from the typical manufacturing base of the past. Therefore, it's prime time to reinterpret learning."
Another expert also saw the value of bilingual learning but offered a caveat.
"The human brain has a remarkable ability to reorganize its structures in response to differences in environmental and behavioral experience, such as educational, social and multicultural learning, or monolingual versus bilingual language learning," said cognitive neuroscientist Laura Ann Petitto, science director of the National Science Foundation's Science of Learning Center.
Bilingual exposure at an early age will produce some positive effects for a child's growth and learning ability, especially in the area of reading. But she also warned that if a child is exposed to two languages or two reading systems simultaneously, it may cause language delay and confusion.
In an academic report, Bilingualism Alters the Brain's White-Matter Microstructure, Patricia Kuhl, a professor at the University of Washington, said that children in bilingual environments demonstrate higher cognitive ability. Experiments showed, for example, that children in a bilingual environment can get toys into a box more quickly than their single-language peers.
In December, the Ministry of Education released a draft reform plan for the national college entrance examination, or gaokao, making it clear that English will be moved from the exam in the future. Provinces and cities across the country are required to work out their own plans under the direction of the ministry.
So far, many regional gaokao reform plans across the country remain undeveloped, but debate continues to swirl about how English is taught.
Renwen lecture: Poems and Calligraphy of Two Literary Master--Feb. 25, 2014
文化中國的鄉愁
-杜詩蘇詞及書法賞析
(English summary: Mr. Li Guangcheng, an accomplished calligrapher from Sichuan, whose works are among the collections at many museums and institutions in China, will discuss the poems and calligraphy of two literary masters: Du Fu of the Tang Dynasty and Su Shi of the Song Dynasty, who also hailed from Sichuan Province.)
天下山水之觀在蜀。一部中華文明史,氤氳著巴山蜀水的雲煙朝暮,竹柏陰晴,從這裡走出或者居停的文化名人,杜甫蘇軾允為翹楚。
杜詩蘇詞、巴山蜀水、書法藝術--當三者融於一爐之時,會碰撞出何等奇妙的美學洞見,將觸發出何等醇厚的文化鄉愁?黎光成先生作為地道川籍書畫家,少壯即執掌書法教鞭,浸淫書法藝術凡五十年,書法以行草、繪畫以花鳥名世。黎光成先生作為"少陵草堂"的當代鄰居,將通過從詩歌藝術內涵、書法藝術品鑑兩個角度解讀杜詩,其次品鑑號稱"天下第三行書"的蘇軾"寒食帖",與來賓共同回望文化中國的溫情背影,體味開闔收放之間的美學與鄉愁。
黎光成先生,生於四川省仁壽縣籍田鎮。別號浣花堂主,署紅碑山人,中國人民政治協商會議第十四屆成都市委員會委員,四川省政協書畫研究院書法專委會主任,四川省休閒文化研究會理事長,四川西蜀花鳥畫院副院長,四川書法家協會理事,成都市書法家協會副主席,成都中聯國興書畫院院長。近十餘年作品先後被中南海等博物院(館)收藏。
講座免費。因座位有限,請預先訂位。網上訂位請訪http://chineselectures.org/030114.html。
Date: Saturday, March 1, 2014
Time: 2:00-4:00 pm
-杜詩蘇詞及書法賞析
(English summary: Mr. Li Guangcheng, an accomplished calligrapher from Sichuan, whose works are among the collections at many museums and institutions in China, will discuss the poems and calligraphy of two literary masters: Du Fu of the Tang Dynasty and Su Shi of the Song Dynasty, who also hailed from Sichuan Province.)
天下山水之觀在蜀。一部中華文明史,氤氳著巴山蜀水的雲煙朝暮,竹柏陰晴,從這裡走出或者居停的文化名人,杜甫蘇軾允為翹楚。
杜詩蘇詞、巴山蜀水、書法藝術--當三者融於一爐之時,會碰撞出何等奇妙的美學洞見,將觸發出何等醇厚的文化鄉愁?黎光成先生作為地道川籍書畫家,少壯即執掌書法教鞭,浸淫書法藝術凡五十年,書法以行草、繪畫以花鳥名世。黎光成先生作為"少陵草堂"的當代鄰居,將通過從詩歌藝術內涵、書法藝術品鑑兩個角度解讀杜詩,其次品鑑號稱"天下第三行書"的蘇軾"寒食帖",與來賓共同回望文化中國的溫情背影,體味開闔收放之間的美學與鄉愁。
黎光成先生,生於四川省仁壽縣籍田鎮。別號浣花堂主,署紅碑山人,中國人民政治協商會議第十四屆成都市委員會委員,四川省政協書畫研究院書法專委會主任,四川省休閒文化研究會理事長,四川西蜀花鳥畫院副院長,四川書法家協會理事,成都市書法家協會副主席,成都中聯國興書畫院院長。近十餘年作品先後被中南海等博物院(館)收藏。
講座免費。因座位有限,請預先訂位。網上訂位請訪http://chineselectures.org/030114.html。
Date: Saturday, March 1, 2014
Time: 2:00-4:00 pm
China’s poorest beat our best pupils--Feb. 17, 2014
British schoolchildren are lagging so far behind their peers in the Far East that even pupils from wealthy backgrounds are now performing worse in exams than the poorest students in China, an international study shows.
The children of factory workers and cleaners in parts of the Far East are more than a year ahead of the offspring of British doctors and lawyers, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Researchers said the study, which looked at the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics, showed countries to could overcome traditional social class divides to raise education standards among relatively deprived pupils.
The report was published as a senior European Commission politician attacked the standards of British schools and warned that UK politicians must improve the education system before focusing on changing the country’s relationship with the EU.
Viviane Reding, the vice-president of the European Commission, warned that ministers should focus on raising school standards instead of blaming the country’s problems on foreigners. In a speech in Cambridge she suggested that the UK’s poor education system is the reason Britons cannot compete with foreigners for jobs. She said politicians needed to “work on the quality of education and welfare, so that people in this country can find employment and enjoy reasonable social standards”.
The OECD findings underline the extent to which British pupils now lag behind their peers in high-performing countries in subjects seen as vital to the nation’s economic future and will intensify calls for the UK to adopt a more rigorous education system.
Elizabeth Truss, the education minister, will next week lead a delegation of head teachers and education experts to China in a fact-finding mission. The visit could lead to schools adopting Chinese-style tactics such as more evening classes and eliminating time-wasting between lessons to boost performance in key subjects.
She said English schools needed to adopt the “teaching practices and positive philosophy” that characterised schools in parts of the Far East.
“They have a can-do attitude to maths, which contrasts with the long-term anti-maths culture that exists here,” she said.
“The reality is that unless we change our philosophy, and get better at maths, we will suffer economic decline. At the moment our performance in maths is weakening our skills base and threatening our productivity and growth.” The OECD study was based on performance in independently-administered exams in reading, maths and science sat by 15-year-olds in 65 developed nations.
Overall, the UK was ranked just 26th for maths, 23rd for reading and 21st for science while China’s Shanghai district was the top-rated jurisdiction in each subject. The study assessed how students would be able to use their maths knowledge and skills in real life, rather than just repeating facts and figures.
As part of the study, children were asked to name their parents’ occupation to determine its effect on pupil performance. Across the world, children whose parents work in professional careers generally outperform those in elementary jobs such as caterers, cleaners, factory workers and labourers.
The study, involving more than 500,000 pupils worldwide, found children of elementary workers in many Far Eastern nations outperformed the sons and daughters of professional British children.
The children of UK professionals scored an average of 526 points in maths. But this was overshadowed by an average score of 656 registered by the children of professionals in Shanghai-China and 569 among children of the country’s elementary workers. The children of parents in unskilled jobs in the UK scored an average of 461, the equivalent of two and a half years behind.
Elementary workers’ children in Hong Kong (542), South Korea (538) and Singapore (534), also outperformed more affluent British peers. In Japan, Vietnam, Liechtenstein, Japan and China-Taipei, relatively poor children were only marginally behind the wealthiest British pupils.
The report said: “In the United States and the United Kingdom, where professionals are among the highest-paid in the world, students whose parents work as professionals do not perform as well in mathematics as children of professionals in other countries — nor do they perform as we as the children in Shanghai-China and Singapore whose parents work in manual occupations.”
Andreas Schleicher, deputy director for education and skills at the OECD, said: “If school systems want all their students to succeed in school, they should give the children of factory workers and cleaners the same education opportunities as the children of doctors and lawyers enjoy.”
The delegation to China will include Dame Rachel de Souza, of the Inspiration Trust academies group in Norfolk, Shahed Ahmed, who runs Elmhurst Primary School in east London, and Charlie Stripp, of Mathematics in Education and Industry.
The children of factory workers and cleaners in parts of the Far East are more than a year ahead of the offspring of British doctors and lawyers, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Researchers said the study, which looked at the performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics, showed countries to could overcome traditional social class divides to raise education standards among relatively deprived pupils.
The report was published as a senior European Commission politician attacked the standards of British schools and warned that UK politicians must improve the education system before focusing on changing the country’s relationship with the EU.
Viviane Reding, the vice-president of the European Commission, warned that ministers should focus on raising school standards instead of blaming the country’s problems on foreigners. In a speech in Cambridge she suggested that the UK’s poor education system is the reason Britons cannot compete with foreigners for jobs. She said politicians needed to “work on the quality of education and welfare, so that people in this country can find employment and enjoy reasonable social standards”.
The OECD findings underline the extent to which British pupils now lag behind their peers in high-performing countries in subjects seen as vital to the nation’s economic future and will intensify calls for the UK to adopt a more rigorous education system.
Elizabeth Truss, the education minister, will next week lead a delegation of head teachers and education experts to China in a fact-finding mission. The visit could lead to schools adopting Chinese-style tactics such as more evening classes and eliminating time-wasting between lessons to boost performance in key subjects.
She said English schools needed to adopt the “teaching practices and positive philosophy” that characterised schools in parts of the Far East.
“They have a can-do attitude to maths, which contrasts with the long-term anti-maths culture that exists here,” she said.
“The reality is that unless we change our philosophy, and get better at maths, we will suffer economic decline. At the moment our performance in maths is weakening our skills base and threatening our productivity and growth.” The OECD study was based on performance in independently-administered exams in reading, maths and science sat by 15-year-olds in 65 developed nations.
Overall, the UK was ranked just 26th for maths, 23rd for reading and 21st for science while China’s Shanghai district was the top-rated jurisdiction in each subject. The study assessed how students would be able to use their maths knowledge and skills in real life, rather than just repeating facts and figures.
As part of the study, children were asked to name their parents’ occupation to determine its effect on pupil performance. Across the world, children whose parents work in professional careers generally outperform those in elementary jobs such as caterers, cleaners, factory workers and labourers.
The study, involving more than 500,000 pupils worldwide, found children of elementary workers in many Far Eastern nations outperformed the sons and daughters of professional British children.
The children of UK professionals scored an average of 526 points in maths. But this was overshadowed by an average score of 656 registered by the children of professionals in Shanghai-China and 569 among children of the country’s elementary workers. The children of parents in unskilled jobs in the UK scored an average of 461, the equivalent of two and a half years behind.
Elementary workers’ children in Hong Kong (542), South Korea (538) and Singapore (534), also outperformed more affluent British peers. In Japan, Vietnam, Liechtenstein, Japan and China-Taipei, relatively poor children were only marginally behind the wealthiest British pupils.
The report said: “In the United States and the United Kingdom, where professionals are among the highest-paid in the world, students whose parents work as professionals do not perform as well in mathematics as children of professionals in other countries — nor do they perform as we as the children in Shanghai-China and Singapore whose parents work in manual occupations.”
Andreas Schleicher, deputy director for education and skills at the OECD, said: “If school systems want all their students to succeed in school, they should give the children of factory workers and cleaners the same education opportunities as the children of doctors and lawyers enjoy.”
The delegation to China will include Dame Rachel de Souza, of the Inspiration Trust academies group in Norfolk, Shahed Ahmed, who runs Elmhurst Primary School in east London, and Charlie Stripp, of Mathematics in Education and Industry.
1/3 of foreign students in US are from China--Feb. 14, 2014
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
(2/7/14):http://chronicle.com/blogs/data/2014/02/07/almost-one-third-of-all
-foreign-students-are-from-china/
Almost One-Third of All Foreign Students in U.S. Are From China
More than a quarter of a million Chinese students (287,260, to be exact)
hold active U.S. student visas, which is more than the number of students
from Europe, South America, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere in North
America combined. In fact, Chinese students account for 29 percent of all
foreign students studying in the United States.
China sends more than twice as many students to American colleges,
universities, and postsecondary vocational programs as does India, which,
with more than 105,000 students, is the second-largest source country.
South Korea comes in third, with 91,693.
The data are from a quarterly report
<http://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/by-the-numbers1.pdf> released last
week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and are accurate as of
January 15.
It might not seem surprising that the world’s most populous countries send
the most students to the United States, but the change over the last 15
years is striking.
The proportion of foreign students in the United States who are from China
has increased more than sixfold in that time. In 1997, China accounted for
just 4 percent of student-visa recipients. About one-third as many student
visas were issued in China as were issued in both South Korea and Japan.
And China sent about one-fifth as many students to the United States as
Europe did.
And yet, even with the growth since then, the United States still educates
a very small proportion of Chinese students. In 2010 there were almost 134
million people in China ages 20 to 24 (the closest we can get to “college
age”), according to the latest estimates from the United Nations. So the
number of Chinese students at American universities represents only about
two-tenths of 1 percent of college-age Chinese citizens.
Still, Chinese students are slightly overrepresented at American colleges
in terms of global population ratios. College-age Chinese adults make up
about 20 percent of all college-age adults in the world (outside of the
United States), but represent almost 30 percent of all foreign students in
the United States. International students accounted for just under 4
percent of all students in the United States in 2012-13, according to the
Institute of International Education.
Some more interesting tidbits on student-visa holders in the United States:
It may not come as a surprise that California, with its proximity to the
Pacific Rim, is home to the largest percentage of students from Asia: 16
percent of Asian students in the United States are studying in California.
Likewise, it is probably to be expected that Florida plays host to 17
percent of all students from South America, the largest concentration of
students from that continent.
But here’s a less obvious fact: Students from Africa are most likely to be
studying in Texas. Thirteen percent of all African students are in the
Lone Star State.
Three of the five colleges with the most foreign students are private.
Here are all five, with the number of foreign students and the percent of
all students who are from abroad:
University of Southern California: 10,487 (26%)
Purdue University: 9,673 (24%)
University of Illinois: 9,605 (22%)
New York University: 9,247 (21%)
Columbia University: 9,201(35%*)
Percentages are estimates based on Fall 2012 enrollment data.
(2/7/14):http://chronicle.com/blogs/data/2014/02/07/almost-one-third-of-all
-foreign-students-are-from-china/
Almost One-Third of All Foreign Students in U.S. Are From China
More than a quarter of a million Chinese students (287,260, to be exact)
hold active U.S. student visas, which is more than the number of students
from Europe, South America, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere in North
America combined. In fact, Chinese students account for 29 percent of all
foreign students studying in the United States.
China sends more than twice as many students to American colleges,
universities, and postsecondary vocational programs as does India, which,
with more than 105,000 students, is the second-largest source country.
South Korea comes in third, with 91,693.
The data are from a quarterly report
<http://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/by-the-numbers1.pdf> released last
week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and are accurate as of
January 15.
It might not seem surprising that the world’s most populous countries send
the most students to the United States, but the change over the last 15
years is striking.
The proportion of foreign students in the United States who are from China
has increased more than sixfold in that time. In 1997, China accounted for
just 4 percent of student-visa recipients. About one-third as many student
visas were issued in China as were issued in both South Korea and Japan.
And China sent about one-fifth as many students to the United States as
Europe did.
And yet, even with the growth since then, the United States still educates
a very small proportion of Chinese students. In 2010 there were almost 134
million people in China ages 20 to 24 (the closest we can get to “college
age”), according to the latest estimates from the United Nations. So the
number of Chinese students at American universities represents only about
two-tenths of 1 percent of college-age Chinese citizens.
Still, Chinese students are slightly overrepresented at American colleges
in terms of global population ratios. College-age Chinese adults make up
about 20 percent of all college-age adults in the world (outside of the
United States), but represent almost 30 percent of all foreign students in
the United States. International students accounted for just under 4
percent of all students in the United States in 2012-13, according to the
Institute of International Education.
Some more interesting tidbits on student-visa holders in the United States:
It may not come as a surprise that California, with its proximity to the
Pacific Rim, is home to the largest percentage of students from Asia: 16
percent of Asian students in the United States are studying in California.
Likewise, it is probably to be expected that Florida plays host to 17
percent of all students from South America, the largest concentration of
students from that continent.
But here’s a less obvious fact: Students from Africa are most likely to be
studying in Texas. Thirteen percent of all African students are in the
Lone Star State.
Three of the five colleges with the most foreign students are private.
Here are all five, with the number of foreign students and the percent of
all students who are from abroad:
University of Southern California: 10,487 (26%)
Purdue University: 9,673 (24%)
University of Illinois: 9,605 (22%)
New York University: 9,247 (21%)
Columbia University: 9,201(35%*)
Percentages are estimates based on Fall 2012 enrollment data.
NYU“视觉与声音 中国系列”请柬--Feb. 10, 2014
請柬
紐約大學斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心
“視覺與聲音:中國系列”
啟動儀式
紐約大學斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心(NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts)“視覺與聲音:中國系列”啟動儀式暨“視覺與聲音:中國系列”當代視覺藝術作品揭幕儀式將於2014年2月12日下午, 在紐約大學斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心舉行,屆時敬請光臨。“視覺與聲音:中國系列”將會在2014年2月20日—5月12日舉行,涵蓋中國文化、音樂、戲劇、舞蹈和歌劇等多種藝術。“視覺和聲音:中國系列” 得到中國文化部及中華人民共和國駐紐約總領館的支持。此次活動是為了慶祝中美建交35週年,部分項目同時也是全球“歡樂春節”活動的重要組成部分之一。
與會嘉賓: 執行總監邁克爾·哈林頓先生以及特邀嘉賓(名單稍後公佈)
時間: 2014年2月12日(週三)下午 4:00—6:00
地點: 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square, New York, New York 10012。
“視覺與聲音”系列介紹:
“視覺與聲音”是紐約大學斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心舉辦的年度藝術表演系列,旨在豐富紐約大學的全球校園網絡。今年的主題是聚焦中國,幾位代表藝術家的作品以傳統文化為基礎,融匯了現代視角。未來系列的合作者將有德國、以色列、阿布扎比酋長國和倫敦等。斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心相信,豐富的國際藝術表演不僅能激發紐約觀眾與紐約大學社區的熱情,同時也能促進國際對話與教育發展。
“視覺和聲音:中國系列”包括以下演出:
· 3月26日—30日,中國國家大劇院,21世紀中國劇院的新面孔之一,首演《理查三世》。
· 4月12日放映張猛執導的《鋼的琴》。
· 5月12日“中國系列”結束日,紐約大學交響樂團演奏譚盾的《地圖》,安德魯·西爾(Andrew Cyr)指揮,溫迪·蘇特(Wendy Sutter)大提琴協奏。
· “中國系列”的開場為室外櫥窗行為藝術展,作品來自張建軍與張洹(與大都會博物館合作展出)以及吳建安(與前波畫廊合作展出)
紐約大學斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心
“視覺與聲音:中國系列”
啟動儀式
紐約大學斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心(NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts)“視覺與聲音:中國系列”啟動儀式暨“視覺與聲音:中國系列”當代視覺藝術作品揭幕儀式將於2014年2月12日下午, 在紐約大學斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心舉行,屆時敬請光臨。“視覺與聲音:中國系列”將會在2014年2月20日—5月12日舉行,涵蓋中國文化、音樂、戲劇、舞蹈和歌劇等多種藝術。“視覺和聲音:中國系列” 得到中國文化部及中華人民共和國駐紐約總領館的支持。此次活動是為了慶祝中美建交35週年,部分項目同時也是全球“歡樂春節”活動的重要組成部分之一。
與會嘉賓: 執行總監邁克爾·哈林頓先生以及特邀嘉賓(名單稍後公佈)
時間: 2014年2月12日(週三)下午 4:00—6:00
地點: 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square, New York, New York 10012。
“視覺與聲音”系列介紹:
“視覺與聲音”是紐約大學斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心舉辦的年度藝術表演系列,旨在豐富紐約大學的全球校園網絡。今年的主題是聚焦中國,幾位代表藝術家的作品以傳統文化為基礎,融匯了現代視角。未來系列的合作者將有德國、以色列、阿布扎比酋長國和倫敦等。斯哥爾柏表演藝術中心相信,豐富的國際藝術表演不僅能激發紐約觀眾與紐約大學社區的熱情,同時也能促進國際對話與教育發展。
“視覺和聲音:中國系列”包括以下演出:
- 陶身體劇場的作品《4》以及美國首演作品《5》(2月20日—22日);作品一如既往地展現了編舞陶冶對肢體語言表現力的極限追求。
· 3月26日—30日,中國國家大劇院,21世紀中國劇院的新面孔之一,首演《理查三世》。
· 4月12日放映張猛執導的《鋼的琴》。
· 5月12日“中國系列”結束日,紐約大學交響樂團演奏譚盾的《地圖》,安德魯·西爾(Andrew Cyr)指揮,溫迪·蘇特(Wendy Sutter)大提琴協奏。
· “中國系列”的開場為室外櫥窗行為藝術展,作品來自張建軍與張洹(與大都會博物館合作展出)以及吳建安(與前波畫廊合作展出)
舞劇《十裏紅妝》--posted on Jan. 24, 2014
2014年3月3日-9日,中國經典民俗風情舞劇《十裏紅妝》將登陸紐約林肯中心大衛·寇克劇院,作為中國對外文化集團“中華風韻”品牌繼《牡丹亭》、《絲路花雨》後的又一力作,向美國觀眾展現來自中國江南的瑰麗春閨夢。
與西方象征純潔的白色婚禮不同,古老的東方以妖嬈的大紅寓意著對女兒出嫁的 祝福。《十裏紅妝》取材自中國江南一帶的婚嫁習俗,講述了一個哀婉又唯美的愛情故事:江南古鎮的少年阿甬和少女越兒自小青梅竹馬,在情竇初開的年紀許下了媒妁之約。阿甬對越兒許下了衣錦還鄉即迎娶的諾言,便外出闖蕩。時光流轉,同行的夥伴都已還鄉,阿甬卻歸期飄渺遙遙未定。越兒獨自在相思中憧憬著出嫁之日十裏紅妝的喜慶歡愉,在美好的夢中繼續著沒有盡頭的等待。
舞劇《十裏紅妝》不僅是展現江南民俗的舞臺,也承載著許多中國遊子的鄉愁。觀眾可以身在紐約就能近身感受到中國舊時女子一生中最輝煌隆重的時刻。伴隨著舞劇《十裏紅妝》的上演,花轎、嫁妝、器物這些珍稀的婚嫁物品將在繁華的現代都市紐約亮相,在古典與現代之間搭建起跨越時空的橋梁。
China Express Agency很榮幸連續3年負責“中華風韻”品牌節目在大紐約地區的推廣。歡迎來電(646-236-5008)或微信(ChinaExpressAgency)查詢。
10+人以上團體票七折(30% off)熱賣中。。。(請用代碼ED2014獲得優惠)
演出時間:
禮拜四,3月6日,晚8點;
禮拜五,3月7日,晚8點;
禮拜六,3月8日,晚8點;
禮拜天(夏令時開始),3月9日,下午1點。
票價:
$58, $78, $98, $158(最高票价$158无折扣)
與西方象征純潔的白色婚禮不同,古老的東方以妖嬈的大紅寓意著對女兒出嫁的 祝福。《十裏紅妝》取材自中國江南一帶的婚嫁習俗,講述了一個哀婉又唯美的愛情故事:江南古鎮的少年阿甬和少女越兒自小青梅竹馬,在情竇初開的年紀許下了媒妁之約。阿甬對越兒許下了衣錦還鄉即迎娶的諾言,便外出闖蕩。時光流轉,同行的夥伴都已還鄉,阿甬卻歸期飄渺遙遙未定。越兒獨自在相思中憧憬著出嫁之日十裏紅妝的喜慶歡愉,在美好的夢中繼續著沒有盡頭的等待。
舞劇《十裏紅妝》不僅是展現江南民俗的舞臺,也承載著許多中國遊子的鄉愁。觀眾可以身在紐約就能近身感受到中國舊時女子一生中最輝煌隆重的時刻。伴隨著舞劇《十裏紅妝》的上演,花轎、嫁妝、器物這些珍稀的婚嫁物品將在繁華的現代都市紐約亮相,在古典與現代之間搭建起跨越時空的橋梁。
China Express Agency很榮幸連續3年負責“中華風韻”品牌節目在大紐約地區的推廣。歡迎來電(646-236-5008)或微信(ChinaExpressAgency)查詢。
10+人以上團體票七折(30% off)熱賣中。。。(請用代碼ED2014獲得優惠)
演出時間:
禮拜四,3月6日,晚8點;
禮拜五,3月7日,晚8點;
禮拜六,3月8日,晚8點;
禮拜天(夏令時開始),3月9日,下午1點。
票價:
$58, $78, $98, $158(最高票价$158无折扣)
杭州越剧院2月25日和26日在纽约大学演出:欢迎观赏--posted on Jan. 23, 2014
Jan 23 at 8:52 PM
杭州越剧院2月25日和26日在纽约大学分别演出《心比天高》(Hedda)和《海上夫人》(The Lady from the Sea)两场越剧。欢迎观赏。详情请见http://nyuskirball.org/calendar/hedda 和
http://nyuskirball.org/calendar/thelady.
杭州越剧院2月25日和26日在纽约大学分别演出《心比天高》(Hedda)和《海上夫人》(The Lady from the Sea)两场越剧。欢迎观赏。详情请见http://nyuskirball.org/calendar/hedda 和
http://nyuskirball.org/calendar/thelady.
Come Join Us to Celebrate the Year of the Horse at our Lunar New--Jan. 22, 2014
Dear Friends,
The Confucius Institute at Pace University will be holding our Annual Lunar New Year Celebration on Sunday, February 2nd, 2014, when we will welcome in the Year of the Horse. The celebration will take place in the Schimmel Theater at 3 Spruce Street from 1-3 PM and will include a traditional lion dance, martial arts, instrumental performances, hip hop, crosstalk comedy, a special performance by the United Nations Singers, and a raffle. One of the MCs for the event is a UN staff member from Australia and he will be speaking in Chinese.
This year, we will be cohosting the event with the Pace University Chinese Students and Scholars Association (Pace CSSA) and the New York Chinese Opera Society (NYCOS). If you would like to attend we welcome RSVPs at [email protected].
Happy New Year,
The Staff of the Pace CI
Confucius Institute at Pace University
41 Park Row, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10038 | (212) 346-1880
The Confucius Institute at Pace University will be holding our Annual Lunar New Year Celebration on Sunday, February 2nd, 2014, when we will welcome in the Year of the Horse. The celebration will take place in the Schimmel Theater at 3 Spruce Street from 1-3 PM and will include a traditional lion dance, martial arts, instrumental performances, hip hop, crosstalk comedy, a special performance by the United Nations Singers, and a raffle. One of the MCs for the event is a UN staff member from Australia and he will be speaking in Chinese.
This year, we will be cohosting the event with the Pace University Chinese Students and Scholars Association (Pace CSSA) and the New York Chinese Opera Society (NYCOS). If you would like to attend we welcome RSVPs at [email protected].
Happy New Year,
The Staff of the Pace CI
Confucius Institute at Pace University
41 Park Row, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10038 | (212) 346-1880
America is slipping to No. 2. Don’t panic--Jan. 20, 2014
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/america-is-no-2-and-thats-great-news/2014/01/17/09c10f50-7c97-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html?hpid=z4
America will soon cease to be the world’s largest economy. You can argue about why, when and how bad, but the end is indeed nigh. According to the Penn World Tables — the best data to compare gross domestic product across countries — China’s GDP was worth $10.4 trillion in 2011, compared with a U.S. GDP of $13.3 trillion . But with China’s economy growing 7 to 10 percent a year, compared with the recent U.S. track record of less than 3 percent, China should take the lead by 2017 at the latest.Already, China is the world’s top trading nation , edging the United States in total imports and exports in 2012. And Arvind Subramanian, an economist formerly with the International Monetary Fund, predicts that by 2030 the world will have four major economic players: China will be the heavyweight, followed by the United States and European Union, with economies about half as large, and then India close behind.
Time to panic? A recent Chicago Council survey found that only 9 percent of Americans believe that Chinese growth will mostly benefit the United States, while 40 percent think it will be mostly negative for us. And a 2012 YouGov survey suggests that about half of Americans would prefer to see the United States stay on top, even with anemic economic growth, rather than grow rapidly but be overtaken by China. You only need recall President Obama and Mitt Romney sparring over who would be tougher on China to see how Washington channels this popular angst.
Certainly, China’s growth poses some challenges — but the opportunities it offers far outweigh them. And no matter the hand-wringing, losing the title of largest economy doesn’t really matter much to Americans’ quality of life.
Regardless of its current perch atop the global economy, the United States is only the 19th least corrupt nation, according to Transparency International. It rates 67th in equality of pay between men and women according to the 2013 Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum. And among 31 high-income countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States ranked third in GDP per capita as of 2011 — but 27th in life expectancy, 29th in infant mortality, 23rd in unemployment, 27th in math test scores (as of 2012) and 30th in income equality.
In fact, the link between the absolute size of your economy and pretty much any measure that truly matters is incredibly weak. Whenever China takes over the top spot, it will still lag far behind the world’s leading countries on indicators reflecting quality of life. For starters, there are a lot more people sharing China’s GDP; even the rosiest forecasts for the country’s economic growth suggest that per capita income will be lower than in the United States for decades to come. The average American lives five years longer than the average person in China, and civil and political rights in the world’s soon-to-be-biggest economy are routinely abused. Living in an America that ranks second in GDP to China will still be far, far better than living in China.
There are some real economic costs related to losing the top spot in the GDP rankings, but they are small and manageable. The dollar might lose its dominance as the currency of choice for central bank reserves and trading, and some predict that will increase the cost of U.S. borrowing and exporting. In fact, the dollar share of global reserves has already fallen from about 80 percent in the 1970s to about 40 percent today, with the euro and the renminbi gaining ground, but there isn’t much sign that that has spooked global markets. Meanwhile, businesses in the rest of the world still manage to export, even though they must go through the trouble of exchanging currencies.
And if you want further reassurance that you don’t need to be large to be rich, remember that in tiny Luxembourg, average incomes are almost twice those in the United States.
Of more concern to Washington might be that having the world’s largest economy helps the United States maintain the planet’s largest defense budget. At the moment, America accounts for about four out of every 10 dollars in global defense spending; China, in second place, accounts for less than one out of 10. But one way to think about this is to ask how much the three-quarters increase in defense spending between 2000 and 2011 enhanced America’s well-being. It is distinctly unclear that having one of the world’s largest defense budgets, rather than the largest, poses an existential threat to U.S. citizens’ quality of life.
While the downsides are limited, the upside to the United States of losing the top GDP spot is immense. The country’s declining economic primacy is mainly a result of the developing economies becoming larger, healthier, more educated, more free and less violent. And there is little doubt the United States benefits from that. Just over the past few years, for example, U.S. export markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America have grown rapidly. Three-fifths of America’s exports go to the developing world, and that suggests that about 6 million Americans are employed providing goods and services to emerging markets. As the developing world gets richer, it will import more — and create more jobs here.
The rest of the world is also inventing more stuff, from modular building techniques in China to new drug therapies and low-water cement-manufacturing processes in India to mobile banking applications in Kenya. We can benefit from those inventions as much as we already benefit from foreign innovators coming to the United States. Among the patents awarded in 2011 to teams at the 10 most innovative American universities, for example, three-quarters involved a foreign-born researcher, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy . As more people in developing countries go to college and as more firms there research and develop new products, there’s a potential for increased innovation in both the West and the Rest. That could bring faster progress in a number of different areas here at home, from connectivity to health.
And growth in the developing world, even if it means that some populous economies may eventually grow larger than the United States, also means that there are more places for Americans to travel in security and comfort, and more places to learn, work or while away our retirement years. Americans can get health care at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok — accredited by the Joint Commission International, which certifies health-care organizations worldwide — for a fraction of the cost they can in Bethesda. Or their kids can attend college at the University of Cape Town, rated higher than Georgetown University in international rankings but one-fifth as expensive. Or perhaps they can get jobs at one of the new breed of world-class multinational firms based in the developing world, such as Tata or Huawei.
America’s tenure on top is ending because much of the world is becoming more like America in many ways: richer, more democratic, more secure. The world increasingly shares aspirations, priorities and attitudes similar to ours. This is a success story for U.S. stewardship of the global economy.
So celebrate with me: We’re No. 2!
America will soon cease to be the world’s largest economy. You can argue about why, when and how bad, but the end is indeed nigh. According to the Penn World Tables — the best data to compare gross domestic product across countries — China’s GDP was worth $10.4 trillion in 2011, compared with a U.S. GDP of $13.3 trillion . But with China’s economy growing 7 to 10 percent a year, compared with the recent U.S. track record of less than 3 percent, China should take the lead by 2017 at the latest.Already, China is the world’s top trading nation , edging the United States in total imports and exports in 2012. And Arvind Subramanian, an economist formerly with the International Monetary Fund, predicts that by 2030 the world will have four major economic players: China will be the heavyweight, followed by the United States and European Union, with economies about half as large, and then India close behind.
Time to panic? A recent Chicago Council survey found that only 9 percent of Americans believe that Chinese growth will mostly benefit the United States, while 40 percent think it will be mostly negative for us. And a 2012 YouGov survey suggests that about half of Americans would prefer to see the United States stay on top, even with anemic economic growth, rather than grow rapidly but be overtaken by China. You only need recall President Obama and Mitt Romney sparring over who would be tougher on China to see how Washington channels this popular angst.
Certainly, China’s growth poses some challenges — but the opportunities it offers far outweigh them. And no matter the hand-wringing, losing the title of largest economy doesn’t really matter much to Americans’ quality of life.
Regardless of its current perch atop the global economy, the United States is only the 19th least corrupt nation, according to Transparency International. It rates 67th in equality of pay between men and women according to the 2013 Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum. And among 31 high-income countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States ranked third in GDP per capita as of 2011 — but 27th in life expectancy, 29th in infant mortality, 23rd in unemployment, 27th in math test scores (as of 2012) and 30th in income equality.
In fact, the link between the absolute size of your economy and pretty much any measure that truly matters is incredibly weak. Whenever China takes over the top spot, it will still lag far behind the world’s leading countries on indicators reflecting quality of life. For starters, there are a lot more people sharing China’s GDP; even the rosiest forecasts for the country’s economic growth suggest that per capita income will be lower than in the United States for decades to come. The average American lives five years longer than the average person in China, and civil and political rights in the world’s soon-to-be-biggest economy are routinely abused. Living in an America that ranks second in GDP to China will still be far, far better than living in China.
There are some real economic costs related to losing the top spot in the GDP rankings, but they are small and manageable. The dollar might lose its dominance as the currency of choice for central bank reserves and trading, and some predict that will increase the cost of U.S. borrowing and exporting. In fact, the dollar share of global reserves has already fallen from about 80 percent in the 1970s to about 40 percent today, with the euro and the renminbi gaining ground, but there isn’t much sign that that has spooked global markets. Meanwhile, businesses in the rest of the world still manage to export, even though they must go through the trouble of exchanging currencies.
And if you want further reassurance that you don’t need to be large to be rich, remember that in tiny Luxembourg, average incomes are almost twice those in the United States.
Of more concern to Washington might be that having the world’s largest economy helps the United States maintain the planet’s largest defense budget. At the moment, America accounts for about four out of every 10 dollars in global defense spending; China, in second place, accounts for less than one out of 10. But one way to think about this is to ask how much the three-quarters increase in defense spending between 2000 and 2011 enhanced America’s well-being. It is distinctly unclear that having one of the world’s largest defense budgets, rather than the largest, poses an existential threat to U.S. citizens’ quality of life.
While the downsides are limited, the upside to the United States of losing the top GDP spot is immense. The country’s declining economic primacy is mainly a result of the developing economies becoming larger, healthier, more educated, more free and less violent. And there is little doubt the United States benefits from that. Just over the past few years, for example, U.S. export markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America have grown rapidly. Three-fifths of America’s exports go to the developing world, and that suggests that about 6 million Americans are employed providing goods and services to emerging markets. As the developing world gets richer, it will import more — and create more jobs here.
The rest of the world is also inventing more stuff, from modular building techniques in China to new drug therapies and low-water cement-manufacturing processes in India to mobile banking applications in Kenya. We can benefit from those inventions as much as we already benefit from foreign innovators coming to the United States. Among the patents awarded in 2011 to teams at the 10 most innovative American universities, for example, three-quarters involved a foreign-born researcher, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy . As more people in developing countries go to college and as more firms there research and develop new products, there’s a potential for increased innovation in both the West and the Rest. That could bring faster progress in a number of different areas here at home, from connectivity to health.
And growth in the developing world, even if it means that some populous economies may eventually grow larger than the United States, also means that there are more places for Americans to travel in security and comfort, and more places to learn, work or while away our retirement years. Americans can get health care at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok — accredited by the Joint Commission International, which certifies health-care organizations worldwide — for a fraction of the cost they can in Bethesda. Or their kids can attend college at the University of Cape Town, rated higher than Georgetown University in international rankings but one-fifth as expensive. Or perhaps they can get jobs at one of the new breed of world-class multinational firms based in the developing world, such as Tata or Huawei.
America’s tenure on top is ending because much of the world is becoming more like America in many ways: richer, more democratic, more secure. The world increasingly shares aspirations, priorities and attitudes similar to ours. This is a success story for U.S. stewardship of the global economy.
So celebrate with me: We’re No. 2!
北美华文教育服务中心全体同仁恭祝大家马年吉祥如意--Jan. 30, 2014
北美华文教育服务中心全体同仁在此恭祝各位海外华文教育工作者:新春快乐,马年吉祥!
身体健康,工作顺利!
家庭幸福!万事如意!
在新的一年里,我们将秉承竭诚为华文教育服务的宗旨,实实在在、尽心尽力地为全美各地的中文学校和华文教育机构提供优质服务。目前我们的主要服务项目有:
1) 作为汉办授权的汉语考试中心,我们在全美国范围内继续为众多的中文学校、课后学校以及开设汉语课的中小学校提供YCT(中小学生汉语考试)和HSK(汉语水平考试)服务。
2) 我们继续为全美各地的中文学校提供教材咨询和教材订购服务。请随时注意我们推出的优惠活动。
3) 在2014马年里,我们继续组织各种类型的夏令营活动,如:中国国家汉办/孔子学院总部主办的“汉语考试夏令营”和“孔子学院奖学金”活动;国侨办和地方侨办主办的“寻根夏令营”和“优秀华裔大学生参访团”活动;以及“教师培训团”和“校长访问团”等活动。
4) 我们继续为学校和老师提供印刷、出版服务,如:年鉴、会议文集、著作等。
北美华文教育服务中心是一个开放式的平台。 我们愿意与任何华文教育组织、学校、机构、个人进行各种形式合作。如果贵校或您个人有好的项目,我们热忱地欢迎您把项目带到这个平台上与大家分享,让我们精诚合作、互利共赢!
再次祝愿大家新年快乐,马到成功!
北美华文教育服务中心
2014年1月30日
身体健康,工作顺利!
家庭幸福!万事如意!
在新的一年里,我们将秉承竭诚为华文教育服务的宗旨,实实在在、尽心尽力地为全美各地的中文学校和华文教育机构提供优质服务。目前我们的主要服务项目有:
1) 作为汉办授权的汉语考试中心,我们在全美国范围内继续为众多的中文学校、课后学校以及开设汉语课的中小学校提供YCT(中小学生汉语考试)和HSK(汉语水平考试)服务。
2) 我们继续为全美各地的中文学校提供教材咨询和教材订购服务。请随时注意我们推出的优惠活动。
3) 在2014马年里,我们继续组织各种类型的夏令营活动,如:中国国家汉办/孔子学院总部主办的“汉语考试夏令营”和“孔子学院奖学金”活动;国侨办和地方侨办主办的“寻根夏令营”和“优秀华裔大学生参访团”活动;以及“教师培训团”和“校长访问团”等活动。
4) 我们继续为学校和老师提供印刷、出版服务,如:年鉴、会议文集、著作等。
北美华文教育服务中心是一个开放式的平台。 我们愿意与任何华文教育组织、学校、机构、个人进行各种形式合作。如果贵校或您个人有好的项目,我们热忱地欢迎您把项目带到这个平台上与大家分享,让我们精诚合作、互利共赢!
再次祝愿大家新年快乐,马到成功!
北美华文教育服务中心
2014年1月30日
A Chinese P.E. teacher has adopted 46 kids--posted on Dec. 8, 2013
Ditch French and German lessons for Mandarin, says David Cameron as his visit to China draws to a close--posted on Dec. 5, 2013
David Cameron has thrown his weight behind efforts to prioritise the teaching of Mandarin in UK schools.
The Prime Minister, speaking on the last leg of his visit to China's, urged them to “look beyond the traditional focus on French and German and get many more children learning Mandarin”.
His comments follow a report by the British Council late last month which put Mandarin Chinese in the top five of the ten most important languages that should be taught in UK schools. It was given second place ahead of French and German - and behind only Spanish.
Yet the report acknowledged that only per cent of people in Britain are fluent enough to conduct a conversation in the language.
As the Prime Minister ended his visit, it emerged agreement had been reached between the British Council and the Hanban (the Chinese national office for the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language) to double the number of Chinese language assistants in the UK by 2016 - with a view to also doubling the number of pupils learning the language to 400,000.
Funding will be increased to schools to reducing the cost of training teachers to teach the subject and, in addition, 60 headteachers from the UK will be invited to go on study visits to China next year.
Mr Cameron said: “I want Britain linked up to the world’s fast growing economies - and that includes our young people learning the languages to seal tomorrow’s business deals.
“By the time the children born today leave school, China is set to be be the world’s largest economy. So it’s time to look beyond the traditional focus on French and German and get many more children learning Mandarin.
“As Mandela once said: ‘if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart.”
Mr Cameron is not the first UK politician to highlight the need to increase the number of UK pupils learning Mandarin but - despite good intentions - reaction from schools on the ground has been lukewarm.
Ed Balls when he was Education Secretary said every secondary school pupil should have the right to learn an “up-and-coming” language such as Mandarin whilst at school, He also encouraged primary schools to put languages like Mandarin, Japanese and Arabic on the curriculum.
However, despite that exhortation, growth has been slow with the number of GCSE candidates this year 600 down compared with the highest figure on record of 3,650 three years ago.. At A-level, the number of candidates fell by 99 to 3,326 this summer.
Over the past decade, GCSE numbers have risen by just 377 while A-level candidates have gone up by 1,590.
The British Council believes that the lack of trained teachers in the subjects has played its part in limiting the take-up.
However, Dr Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College - which has a mandarin centre at the school, believes exam boards should set separate papers for native speakers and those approaching the language for the first time - as has happened with the International Baccalaureate. Exam boards, however, reject this approach - saying it has not been necessary with other minority languages such as Urdu.
Some principals and heads say it is the perceived difficulty of the exam that is putting them off entering more pupils for the subject. “I guess some headmasters are not keen on taking Chinese on,” said one. “The reason for that is because they are more keen on league tables and they think Chinese may be too difficult for students and will affect their status, which is understandable.”
After this year’s exam results, exam regulator Ofqual said it was carrying out an investigation into languages - which is expected to look at claims it is harder to get a top grade pass in the subject than in others.
Whether it is a difficult language to learn in itself rather than just - as is suspected of all modern foreign languages subjects - harder to get a top grade pass at either A-level or GCSE is debatable.
“Some people say it’s a difficult language to learn but I think that’s a misconception,” said Tony Xu, principal and managing director of the Confucius Language Academy in Leeds. “They look at the characters and think ‘how can I learn that?’ But Chinese is not a difficult language to learn. It’s easier than English and other European languages in many ways.”
Language experts add that - as with any other language - successful learning is more likely the earlier you take up the subject. That is why they enthusiastically support the Government’s stricture that language learning should be compulsory for all seven-year-olds from next September. Mandarin is one of the languages that can be offered under this extension to the national curriculum.
Further to the announcement on Mandarin, Downing Street also revealed that a group of UK maths teachers would also go to China to study their maths and science teaching in the hope of coming back with ideas about how to improve the UK’s world ranking in these subjects.
Shanghai, China, topped the international league table of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test results published yon Tuesday. Their 15-year-olds were said to be three years ahead of those in the UK in maths.
The Prime Minister, speaking on the last leg of his visit to China's, urged them to “look beyond the traditional focus on French and German and get many more children learning Mandarin”.
His comments follow a report by the British Council late last month which put Mandarin Chinese in the top five of the ten most important languages that should be taught in UK schools. It was given second place ahead of French and German - and behind only Spanish.
Yet the report acknowledged that only per cent of people in Britain are fluent enough to conduct a conversation in the language.
As the Prime Minister ended his visit, it emerged agreement had been reached between the British Council and the Hanban (the Chinese national office for the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language) to double the number of Chinese language assistants in the UK by 2016 - with a view to also doubling the number of pupils learning the language to 400,000.
Funding will be increased to schools to reducing the cost of training teachers to teach the subject and, in addition, 60 headteachers from the UK will be invited to go on study visits to China next year.
Mr Cameron said: “I want Britain linked up to the world’s fast growing economies - and that includes our young people learning the languages to seal tomorrow’s business deals.
“By the time the children born today leave school, China is set to be be the world’s largest economy. So it’s time to look beyond the traditional focus on French and German and get many more children learning Mandarin.
“As Mandela once said: ‘if you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart.”
Mr Cameron is not the first UK politician to highlight the need to increase the number of UK pupils learning Mandarin but - despite good intentions - reaction from schools on the ground has been lukewarm.
Ed Balls when he was Education Secretary said every secondary school pupil should have the right to learn an “up-and-coming” language such as Mandarin whilst at school, He also encouraged primary schools to put languages like Mandarin, Japanese and Arabic on the curriculum.
However, despite that exhortation, growth has been slow with the number of GCSE candidates this year 600 down compared with the highest figure on record of 3,650 three years ago.. At A-level, the number of candidates fell by 99 to 3,326 this summer.
Over the past decade, GCSE numbers have risen by just 377 while A-level candidates have gone up by 1,590.
The British Council believes that the lack of trained teachers in the subjects has played its part in limiting the take-up.
However, Dr Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College - which has a mandarin centre at the school, believes exam boards should set separate papers for native speakers and those approaching the language for the first time - as has happened with the International Baccalaureate. Exam boards, however, reject this approach - saying it has not been necessary with other minority languages such as Urdu.
Some principals and heads say it is the perceived difficulty of the exam that is putting them off entering more pupils for the subject. “I guess some headmasters are not keen on taking Chinese on,” said one. “The reason for that is because they are more keen on league tables and they think Chinese may be too difficult for students and will affect their status, which is understandable.”
After this year’s exam results, exam regulator Ofqual said it was carrying out an investigation into languages - which is expected to look at claims it is harder to get a top grade pass in the subject than in others.
Whether it is a difficult language to learn in itself rather than just - as is suspected of all modern foreign languages subjects - harder to get a top grade pass at either A-level or GCSE is debatable.
“Some people say it’s a difficult language to learn but I think that’s a misconception,” said Tony Xu, principal and managing director of the Confucius Language Academy in Leeds. “They look at the characters and think ‘how can I learn that?’ But Chinese is not a difficult language to learn. It’s easier than English and other European languages in many ways.”
Language experts add that - as with any other language - successful learning is more likely the earlier you take up the subject. That is why they enthusiastically support the Government’s stricture that language learning should be compulsory for all seven-year-olds from next September. Mandarin is one of the languages that can be offered under this extension to the national curriculum.
Further to the announcement on Mandarin, Downing Street also revealed that a group of UK maths teachers would also go to China to study their maths and science teaching in the hope of coming back with ideas about how to improve the UK’s world ranking in these subjects.
Shanghai, China, topped the international league table of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test results published yon Tuesday. Their 15-year-olds were said to be three years ahead of those in the UK in maths.
Shanghai's 'mind boggling' school ambition--posted on Dec. 3, 2013
By Sean CoughlanBBC News education correspondent"It's mind boggling," says the OECD's Andreas Schleicher, describing the ambitions of Shanghai's education system.
The Chinese city has not only remained as the highest performer in this year's international Pisa tests in maths, reading and science, it has accelerated even further ahead.
So what makes it so successful?
Mr Schleicher, who runs the Pisa tests taken every three years, says Shanghai is engaged in a systematic, long-term project to improve education, as a way of transforming its economy.
"You can see from the minister down to the teacher in the classroom that this is their future and they believe education is the great equaliser," says Mr Schleicher, the OECD's education expert.
"That's why they make it prestigious to teach in a tough school," he says.
Ringing parentsA recent survey showed that teachers have a higher status in China than anywhere else in the world - and Mr Schleicher says they are not afraid of using this influence.
"Teachers call up parents at least fortnightly, they ring them on their mobile to check on how their children are working. They also tell them how to improve their parenting," he says.
A characteristic of the Shanghai system is to require continuous professional training for teachers, with time away from the classroom.
"They want every educator on the front line to be a researcher, it's like wanting every doctor to be a research scientist," he says.
Another key to the high numbers passing exams is the expectation that they will.
The Shanghai system is not a "sorting mechanism" in which a diminishing number of people are allowed to progress through a narrowing funnel of education.
Instead it assumes that a large majority of pupils will be willing and able to succeed and that teachers are expected to make this possible.
This doesn't necessarily mean it's a "fair" system, he says. It's an intensely competitive meritocracy.
"If you are better than others, you're going to get better chances. That's the underlying belief," he says.
It isn't a place of safety nets.
And the intense competition means that an estimated 80% of students have private tutors.
Teacher 'generals'There is also competition between teachers, says the OECD, with four grades of professional status.
Teachers are seen as "generals", able to make their own decisions, the OECD reports, and local government education officials are often drawn from the ranks of head teachers and teachers.
The success of Shanghai and Hong Kong has often been put down to a Chinese historic cultural predisposition to education.
But this legacy is a mixed picture.
There is a longstanding belief in education as the route for social mobility, through institutions such as the highly competitive civil examinations system, which operated in China for centuries.
But in the 1950s the Chinese system had adopted a Soviet Russian model, and in the 1980s the country was still trying to get places for all children in primary and secondary school.
The current high-performing system has only been developed in the past couple of decades.
Raising standardsWithin China, Shanghai has been seen as a pioneer in improving education.
It was at the forefront of raising teaching standards, such as the drive for an all-graduate teaching staff.
About 80% of young people in Shanghai enter higher education, far above the Chinese national average, and another reform was to create a local entrance system for the city's universities.
There is no Pisa test result figure for all China, instead the rankings show a handful of urban hothouses such as Shanghai and Hong Kong.
It might not be representative of all China, but Shanghai is a relatively big place in its own right. It's bigger in population terms than countries such as Sweden, Greece and the Netherlands.
And in the next Pisa tests, to be taken in 2015, it is expected there will be enough data to show the performance of China as a whole country.
Mr Schleicher puts the success of Shanghai into the bigger picture of China and Asia.
There is a drive to re-invent the economy, switching from cheap manufacturing to hi-tech innovation.
"They're not afraid of losing jobs in the production sector, they want to move up the value chain, they want to upgrade their talent pool," says Mr Schleicher.
Even in the poorest areas of China they are pushing this educational upgrading, he says.
"So why are they doing it? It's an intriguing question. I guess it comes to how society is balanced, the present against the future. What you have in Asian societies is the willingness to sacrifice the present for a better future."
"You make long-term investments in yourself and in society. You scrape together the last money of the grandparents to pay for the education of your children. As a society you invest in education rather than consumption.
"All of those things are very strong in Asia. There is the belief that to have a better future you have to make compromises today."
The Chinese city has not only remained as the highest performer in this year's international Pisa tests in maths, reading and science, it has accelerated even further ahead.
So what makes it so successful?
Mr Schleicher, who runs the Pisa tests taken every three years, says Shanghai is engaged in a systematic, long-term project to improve education, as a way of transforming its economy.
"You can see from the minister down to the teacher in the classroom that this is their future and they believe education is the great equaliser," says Mr Schleicher, the OECD's education expert.
"That's why they make it prestigious to teach in a tough school," he says.
Ringing parentsA recent survey showed that teachers have a higher status in China than anywhere else in the world - and Mr Schleicher says they are not afraid of using this influence.
"Teachers call up parents at least fortnightly, they ring them on their mobile to check on how their children are working. They also tell them how to improve their parenting," he says.
A characteristic of the Shanghai system is to require continuous professional training for teachers, with time away from the classroom.
"They want every educator on the front line to be a researcher, it's like wanting every doctor to be a research scientist," he says.
Another key to the high numbers passing exams is the expectation that they will.
The Shanghai system is not a "sorting mechanism" in which a diminishing number of people are allowed to progress through a narrowing funnel of education.
Instead it assumes that a large majority of pupils will be willing and able to succeed and that teachers are expected to make this possible.
This doesn't necessarily mean it's a "fair" system, he says. It's an intensely competitive meritocracy.
"If you are better than others, you're going to get better chances. That's the underlying belief," he says.
It isn't a place of safety nets.
And the intense competition means that an estimated 80% of students have private tutors.
Teacher 'generals'There is also competition between teachers, says the OECD, with four grades of professional status.
Teachers are seen as "generals", able to make their own decisions, the OECD reports, and local government education officials are often drawn from the ranks of head teachers and teachers.
The success of Shanghai and Hong Kong has often been put down to a Chinese historic cultural predisposition to education.
But this legacy is a mixed picture.
There is a longstanding belief in education as the route for social mobility, through institutions such as the highly competitive civil examinations system, which operated in China for centuries.
But in the 1950s the Chinese system had adopted a Soviet Russian model, and in the 1980s the country was still trying to get places for all children in primary and secondary school.
The current high-performing system has only been developed in the past couple of decades.
Raising standardsWithin China, Shanghai has been seen as a pioneer in improving education.
It was at the forefront of raising teaching standards, such as the drive for an all-graduate teaching staff.
About 80% of young people in Shanghai enter higher education, far above the Chinese national average, and another reform was to create a local entrance system for the city's universities.
There is no Pisa test result figure for all China, instead the rankings show a handful of urban hothouses such as Shanghai and Hong Kong.
It might not be representative of all China, but Shanghai is a relatively big place in its own right. It's bigger in population terms than countries such as Sweden, Greece and the Netherlands.
And in the next Pisa tests, to be taken in 2015, it is expected there will be enough data to show the performance of China as a whole country.
Mr Schleicher puts the success of Shanghai into the bigger picture of China and Asia.
There is a drive to re-invent the economy, switching from cheap manufacturing to hi-tech innovation.
"They're not afraid of losing jobs in the production sector, they want to move up the value chain, they want to upgrade their talent pool," says Mr Schleicher.
Even in the poorest areas of China they are pushing this educational upgrading, he says.
"So why are they doing it? It's an intriguing question. I guess it comes to how society is balanced, the present against the future. What you have in Asian societies is the willingness to sacrifice the present for a better future."
"You make long-term investments in yourself and in society. You scrape together the last money of the grandparents to pay for the education of your children. As a society you invest in education rather than consumption.
"All of those things are very strong in Asia. There is the belief that to have a better future you have to make compromises today."
China's dynasties in song--posted on Nov. 22, 2013
■ 系哈佛开设在线“中国课”内容
■ 课程注册人数已近3万
■ 课程注册人数已近3万
10月31日,哈佛大学在edX平台(麻省理工大学和哈佛大学于2012年4月联手创建的大规模开放在线课堂平台)上发布了一门“中国课”视频。课程由哈佛东亚语言文明系讲座教授包弼德(Peter K. Bol)和哈佛历史系及商学院讲座教授柯伟林(William C. Kirby)主讲。
课程视频中,包弼德和柯伟林两位教授唱起了用《两只老虎》曲子改编的“中国朝代歌”:“商周秦汉,商周秦汉,隋唐宋,隋唐宋。元明清Republic(注:中华民国),元明清Republic,毛泽东,毛泽东。”此歌一出,萌翻众多观众。也有网友指出三国六朝缺席,于是自编《一闪一闪亮晶晶》版朝代歌:“五帝夏商两周秦,西汉东汉三国晋。凉燕赵,夏汉秦,北继胡,南承晋。隋唐两宋夏辽金,蒙元明清中华民。”(http://culture.ifeng.com/whrd/detail_2013_11/06/30996822_0.shtml)
课程视频中,包弼德和柯伟林两位教授唱起了用《两只老虎》曲子改编的“中国朝代歌”:“商周秦汉,商周秦汉,隋唐宋,隋唐宋。元明清Republic(注:中华民国),元明清Republic,毛泽东,毛泽东。”此歌一出,萌翻众多观众。也有网友指出三国六朝缺席,于是自编《一闪一闪亮晶晶》版朝代歌:“五帝夏商两周秦,西汉东汉三国晋。凉燕赵,夏汉秦,北继胡,南承晋。隋唐两宋夏辽金,蒙元明清中华民。”(http://culture.ifeng.com/whrd/detail_2013_11/06/30996822_0.shtml)
US-China People-to-People Exchange an Opportunity to 'Dream Without Borders--posted on Nov. 14, 2013
The United States and China will hold their fourth Consultation on People-to-People Exchange (CPE) in Washington, DC on November 21, 2013. At the inaugural session in 2010, then-Secretary Hillary Clinton said, "[The U.S.-China relationship] must extend beyond the halls of governments to our homes, businesses, and schools. We need Chinese and Americans of all ages, professions, and walks of life to get to know one another, to understand each other better, to connect and collaborate." We often think relationships between countries are handled by politicians in high office. But in fact, they have always been personal and individual. In a sense, official diplomacy arose as a service to individual citizens’ need for better contact and engagement. Today, with technological advances that connect people and ideas at lightning speed, ordinary people-to-people connections can and should play an ever more instrumental role. Read on.
In this spirit of “dreaming without borders,” I invite you to read the following story of students, who happen to be from China and America, who went beyond learning each other’s language and about each other’s society, and whose friendship is the seminal impetus that leads to a common mission of helping peers realize their dreams.
Extending the Partnership: School Partnerships for a Greater GoodBy Tim Quinn and Lu Haiyun
At the University School of Milwaukee (a member of Asia Society's Confucius Classrooms Network), we have been eager to partner with schools from around the globe, but thanks to one partnership we quickly realized that these relationships can and should benefit more than just the students directly involved in them. Following is the story of our partnership with a school from Harbin, China, which we hope will serve as a model for other schools so that they can use their partnerships to serve an even greater good. We're now convinced that global education programs that do no more than provide students with diverse cultural experiences fall short of the true goal of global education. As idealistic as it may sound, the very point of global education is to make the world a better place for all citizens of the world, no matter what their nationality. Providing travel experiences and cultural exchanges for our students is an important first step, but it alone will not help us solve the many, many problems facing the world today, problems that can only be solved when the powerful nations of the world—such as the U.S. and China—put the interests of others ahead of their own. Read on!
In this spirit of “dreaming without borders,” I invite you to read the following story of students, who happen to be from China and America, who went beyond learning each other’s language and about each other’s society, and whose friendship is the seminal impetus that leads to a common mission of helping peers realize their dreams.
Extending the Partnership: School Partnerships for a Greater GoodBy Tim Quinn and Lu Haiyun
At the University School of Milwaukee (a member of Asia Society's Confucius Classrooms Network), we have been eager to partner with schools from around the globe, but thanks to one partnership we quickly realized that these relationships can and should benefit more than just the students directly involved in them. Following is the story of our partnership with a school from Harbin, China, which we hope will serve as a model for other schools so that they can use their partnerships to serve an even greater good. We're now convinced that global education programs that do no more than provide students with diverse cultural experiences fall short of the true goal of global education. As idealistic as it may sound, the very point of global education is to make the world a better place for all citizens of the world, no matter what their nationality. Providing travel experiences and cultural exchanges for our students is an important first step, but it alone will not help us solve the many, many problems facing the world today, problems that can only be solved when the powerful nations of the world—such as the U.S. and China—put the interests of others ahead of their own. Read on!
欢迎参加联合国学术影响组织--posted on Nov. 14, 2013
潘基文秘书长几年前在联合国总部建立了一个“学术影响”机构,希望全世界各大学能参与。关于此机构和其宗旨,请访 http://academicimpact.org/chipage.php (上面的“工程”一词应译为“项目”)。申请成为联合国学术影响成员完全是免费的,并且没有年费。资格审查过程一般要2个月左右。请将此信息转告您在国内有关系的高校。他们如愿意参加,请发电邮给 [email protected]询问申请方式。资格审查主要是认证对方学校是否授予学位,是否有能力倡导联合国学术影响10项原则 (
http://outreach.un.org/unai/whoandwhat/principles/)。 会员享受权益包括:
1. 受邀参加联合国学术影响活动, 包括校长,教师和学生各层次交流;
2. 每月会收到《联合国学术影响通讯》 (UN Academic Impact
Newsletter);
3. 大学成员组织倡导联合国学术理念的活动可申请联合国学术影响官媒报道,包括网站,Facebook, Twitter, 微博等;
4. 大学成员若需要联合国专家演讲或技术支持,联合国学术影响协助推荐专家给予支持等。
对于大学成员的要求:
每年组织一次倡导联合国学术影响理念的活动。 详见官网:
http://outreach.un.org/unai/whoandwhat/expectations/
联合国“学术影响”(Academic Impact)现在举办一个题为“多种语言,一个世界”的大学生作文比赛。中国学生需用联合国6个官方语言中任何一种语言写(中文除外)。获胜者将获免费机票明年来联合国得奖,食宿费用也包括。请帮助向国内大学生宣传,鼓励他们参加。进一步情况可见附件和下面两个网站:
http://outreach.un.org/unai/2013/10/16/launch-of-elsunai-international-essay-writing-contest/
http://www.els.edu/en/ManyLanguagesOneWorld
如有问题也请发电邮给[email protected]。
http://outreach.un.org/unai/whoandwhat/principles/)。 会员享受权益包括:
1. 受邀参加联合国学术影响活动, 包括校长,教师和学生各层次交流;
2. 每月会收到《联合国学术影响通讯》 (UN Academic Impact
Newsletter);
3. 大学成员组织倡导联合国学术理念的活动可申请联合国学术影响官媒报道,包括网站,Facebook, Twitter, 微博等;
4. 大学成员若需要联合国专家演讲或技术支持,联合国学术影响协助推荐专家给予支持等。
对于大学成员的要求:
每年组织一次倡导联合国学术影响理念的活动。 详见官网:
http://outreach.un.org/unai/whoandwhat/expectations/
联合国“学术影响”(Academic Impact)现在举办一个题为“多种语言,一个世界”的大学生作文比赛。中国学生需用联合国6个官方语言中任何一种语言写(中文除外)。获胜者将获免费机票明年来联合国得奖,食宿费用也包括。请帮助向国内大学生宣传,鼓励他们参加。进一步情况可见附件和下面两个网站:
http://outreach.un.org/unai/2013/10/16/launch-of-elsunai-international-essay-writing-contest/
http://www.els.edu/en/ManyLanguagesOneWorld
如有问题也请发电邮给[email protected]。
Welcome, in Mandarin--posted on Nov. 12, 2013
Mandarin television channels. Congee rice porridges. Smoking rooms.
China has become the biggest travel spender in the world, and hotels are taking notice. Across Europe and America, back-office planners and front desk clerks are learning Chinese customs to attract the new travelers and keep them returning.
The market is large, and growing. China’s economy included $102 billion spent on travel abroad in 2012, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Rising incomes, combined with a relaxation of foreign travel restrictions and the sheer number of citizens, have fueled the Chinese growth.
Scott Taber, a vice president at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, said his company was updating its employee training and guest offerings to meet the 76 percent increase in travelers from mainland China over the previous year. Bellmen, reception clerks and telephone operators are being trained to pronounce Chinese names and offer Chinese newspapers, translated welcome materials and green tea in rooms at hotels in Paris, London, Los Angeles and other cities.
“We operate six hotels in mainland China and have learned cultural expectations and preferences from our experience with guests there,” Mr. Taber said. The Medallia company, which created the customer feedback system for Four Seasons, has translated it into Mandarin so Chinese guests could provide feedback worldwide.
At a minimum, hotels that hope to attract and retain Chinese business teach their front desk staff and reservations agents basic cultural information. Guests from China are not assigned to rooms that include the number four, which is considered unlucky because it sounds like the word for death. Chinese business practices and management hierarchy influence room assignments, so managers need to be assigned to a higher floor than their team, or given a higher room number.
Some hotel chains formalize these amenities and services under names like JW Marriott’s Li Yu, meaning “To Serve with Courtesy.” As part of this program, The JW Marriott London Grosvenor House staffs a Chinese welcome desk for group arrivals, offers Chinese-labeled bathroom products and supplies a Chinese do-not-disturb sign.
The Hilton Worldwide website lists hotels where its Huanying or “welcome” program is offered, including 19 in Europe and 29 in America. Guests of Conrad Hotels and Resorts can use the Conrad Concierge mobile app to choose Chinese television channels, mini-bar foods and other amenities, in Mandarin, on their mobile phone before they arrive.
Sales and reservation departments are also adapting. At the Waldorf-Astoria New York, Robert Armstrong, the sales manager, quotes all-inclusive pricing, with taxes and breakfast, to Chinese guests who ask about reservations, because they are accustomed to that type of pricing in China. He also asks which guests need to stay on a smoking floor. Chinese business groups often travel together, so the staff greets them at the entrance when they arrive.
The Preferred Hotel Group, which oversees 650 luxury hotels, says the number of Chinese guests and their average room rates has increased. “Chinese travelers have also started coming without tour groups, and so we are seeing a shift from traditional wholesale rates,” said Casey Ueberroth, senior vice president for marketing.
To market to these individual travelers, the company is starting a program called “China Ready” next month. Participating hotels will meet more than 25 criteria and become part of the company’s global marketing campaign to attract Chinese travelers via websites and online advertising in China.
“We thought just hotels in the bigger cities would sign up, but we have places like the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs joining because they see the importance to their client base, " Mr. Ueberroth said.
Many hotels in the United States and Europe have not adapted. According to a survey by Hotels.com, three-fourths of Chinese travelers say hoteliers need to improve their offering of translated items, like welcome literature, websites, television programs and newspapers, while 42 percent say that they would like to see more Mandarin-speaking staff.
Ray Zhang has made about 10 business trips to the United States from China since 2006, staying at some of the largest hotel chains in the largest cities. “They expect you to know English,” he said. More than half of the hotels polled by Hotels.com said they had spent less than $10,000 in the last 12 months on programs or products for Chinese travelers.
Hotels can go beyond Asian menu items and translation services to cater to Chinese clients with entertainment, among other items. Richard Sprague, co-founder of a Beijing-based health devices company, travels in the United States regularly with Chinese business colleagues, and says he is often asked to find local karaoke rooms (or “KTV”, as the Chinese refer to them), which can sometimes be found in Chinese hotels.
Si Jingnan, an engineer from Beijing, said he traveled to the United States once or twice a year and brought a shopping list from relatives or friends. “This list not only contains L.V. or Gucci,” Mr. Si said, referring to Louis Vuitton, but it also has new brands he has never heard of in China. A shopping guide or helper from the hotel, even with an extra fee, he said, would be most appreciated.
China has become the biggest travel spender in the world, and hotels are taking notice. Across Europe and America, back-office planners and front desk clerks are learning Chinese customs to attract the new travelers and keep them returning.
The market is large, and growing. China’s economy included $102 billion spent on travel abroad in 2012, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Rising incomes, combined with a relaxation of foreign travel restrictions and the sheer number of citizens, have fueled the Chinese growth.
Scott Taber, a vice president at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, said his company was updating its employee training and guest offerings to meet the 76 percent increase in travelers from mainland China over the previous year. Bellmen, reception clerks and telephone operators are being trained to pronounce Chinese names and offer Chinese newspapers, translated welcome materials and green tea in rooms at hotels in Paris, London, Los Angeles and other cities.
“We operate six hotels in mainland China and have learned cultural expectations and preferences from our experience with guests there,” Mr. Taber said. The Medallia company, which created the customer feedback system for Four Seasons, has translated it into Mandarin so Chinese guests could provide feedback worldwide.
At a minimum, hotels that hope to attract and retain Chinese business teach their front desk staff and reservations agents basic cultural information. Guests from China are not assigned to rooms that include the number four, which is considered unlucky because it sounds like the word for death. Chinese business practices and management hierarchy influence room assignments, so managers need to be assigned to a higher floor than their team, or given a higher room number.
Some hotel chains formalize these amenities and services under names like JW Marriott’s Li Yu, meaning “To Serve with Courtesy.” As part of this program, The JW Marriott London Grosvenor House staffs a Chinese welcome desk for group arrivals, offers Chinese-labeled bathroom products and supplies a Chinese do-not-disturb sign.
The Hilton Worldwide website lists hotels where its Huanying or “welcome” program is offered, including 19 in Europe and 29 in America. Guests of Conrad Hotels and Resorts can use the Conrad Concierge mobile app to choose Chinese television channels, mini-bar foods and other amenities, in Mandarin, on their mobile phone before they arrive.
Sales and reservation departments are also adapting. At the Waldorf-Astoria New York, Robert Armstrong, the sales manager, quotes all-inclusive pricing, with taxes and breakfast, to Chinese guests who ask about reservations, because they are accustomed to that type of pricing in China. He also asks which guests need to stay on a smoking floor. Chinese business groups often travel together, so the staff greets them at the entrance when they arrive.
The Preferred Hotel Group, which oversees 650 luxury hotels, says the number of Chinese guests and their average room rates has increased. “Chinese travelers have also started coming without tour groups, and so we are seeing a shift from traditional wholesale rates,” said Casey Ueberroth, senior vice president for marketing.
To market to these individual travelers, the company is starting a program called “China Ready” next month. Participating hotels will meet more than 25 criteria and become part of the company’s global marketing campaign to attract Chinese travelers via websites and online advertising in China.
“We thought just hotels in the bigger cities would sign up, but we have places like the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs joining because they see the importance to their client base, " Mr. Ueberroth said.
Many hotels in the United States and Europe have not adapted. According to a survey by Hotels.com, three-fourths of Chinese travelers say hoteliers need to improve their offering of translated items, like welcome literature, websites, television programs and newspapers, while 42 percent say that they would like to see more Mandarin-speaking staff.
Ray Zhang has made about 10 business trips to the United States from China since 2006, staying at some of the largest hotel chains in the largest cities. “They expect you to know English,” he said. More than half of the hotels polled by Hotels.com said they had spent less than $10,000 in the last 12 months on programs or products for Chinese travelers.
Hotels can go beyond Asian menu items and translation services to cater to Chinese clients with entertainment, among other items. Richard Sprague, co-founder of a Beijing-based health devices company, travels in the United States regularly with Chinese business colleagues, and says he is often asked to find local karaoke rooms (or “KTV”, as the Chinese refer to them), which can sometimes be found in Chinese hotels.
Si Jingnan, an engineer from Beijing, said he traveled to the United States once or twice a year and brought a shopping list from relatives or friends. “This list not only contains L.V. or Gucci,” Mr. Si said, referring to Louis Vuitton, but it also has new brands he has never heard of in China. A shopping guide or helper from the hotel, even with an extra fee, he said, would be most appreciated.
Aiming for 10,000... --posted on Nov. 9, 2013
More American students are going to China to study under the 100,000 Strong
Initiative and finding it to be a life-changing experience, Chen Weihua reports
from Washington.
It was 4 pm and Chinese tea time at the
Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University on a recent
Thursday. Caitlin Keliher, a senior, was taking part in a group chat in Chinese
led by the center's director Edward McCord, a professor of Chinese history.
The topics were mostly China related,
ranging from studying there and learning Mandarin to Chinese warlords in the
1920s, a subject that is McCord's specialty.
Initiative and finding it to be a life-changing experience, Chen Weihua reports
from Washington.
It was 4 pm and Chinese tea time at the
Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University on a recent
Thursday. Caitlin Keliher, a senior, was taking part in a group chat in Chinese
led by the center's director Edward McCord, a professor of Chinese history.
The topics were mostly China related,
ranging from studying there and learning Mandarin to Chinese warlords in the
1920s, a subject that is McCord's specialty.
Caitlin Keliher, now a senior at George Washington University in Washington, ascends the Great Wall at Badaling in Beijing last summer. Keliher spent six months at the Minzu University of China
in an intensive Chinese-language program. Provided to China Daily.
Keliher, a double major in economics and Chinese who has studied the language since her final year at a high school in Boston, spent six months last year at the Minzu University of China in Beijing
to hone her language skills.
"I had five hours of Chinese language class there every day and the progress was tremendous. But since coming back, my language skill has deteriorated, so I come here to practice," Keliher said in
fluent Chinese.
Sitting next to her was Luis Rodriguez, a sophomore majoring in international trade with
a minor in Chinese. Also speaking in Chinese, he said he started to learn the
language in high school in Miami and plans to study in China next year.
Both Keliher and Rodriguez are among the growing number of American students who have
sought to study in China in the past decade, especially since November 2009 when
US President Barack Obama announced at a town hall meeting in Shanghai the
ambitious goal of sending 100,000 American students to study in China over four
years, from 2010 to 2014, citing the strategic importance of US-China
relations.
The 100,000 Strong Initiative was formally launched in Beijing in May 2010 by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
A special report issued by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in January this year predicted that the 100,000 Strong effort was likely to meet its goal, assuming a sustained or increased
interest in studying in China. The latest data on the number of American
students studying for a degree and credit in China will be released on Nov 12 by
the IIE and the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs.
Carola McGiffert is president of the 100,000 Strong Foundation, a not-for-profit
organization that was set up in January this year to help expand and diversify
the number of American students studying Mandarin and studying in China.
She told China Daily that while the foundation awaits the figure for the 2013 school
year, she also is optimistic about reaching the target.
Numbers climb
The January IIE study showed that there were at least 28,686 American students
participating in educational activities in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and
Macao in 2011.
The report noted that the numbers were almost certainly an undercount since it was
likely that many more US students who go to China on their own, often during
school breaks, were not being tracked or reported by higher-education
institutions.
For the past decade, the number of American students studying in China for academic
credit from their US home institutions climbed an average of 18 percent each
year from 3,291 students in 2000 to 15,647 in 2010/2011, nearly fivefold the
2000 figure.
The IIE study also found that 76 percent of all US students in China pursuing
for-credit and not-for-credit education were undergraduates, 21 percent were
graduate students and a little more than 3 percent associate degree and
non-degree students.
Study programs for credit in China continue to be the most popular, and study tours
were the second-most popular way to get an educational experience in China.
Meanwhile, several thousand students took part in more extended academic and
language course work in China, with some engaged in internships, international
volunteering and service-learning projects.
Since 2007, China has become the most popular study-abroad destination outside of
Western Europe and one of the top five places for American college students
studying abroad for academic credit from their school.
McGiffert said that due to the language barrier, American students are not now going to
China for degree programs.
"But we think it's important to have any sort of exposure to China," she said.
"Whether summer program, or semester or a year abroad, learning the culture,
learning the language, getting a deep sense of Chinese history, politics and
economics is critical to ensure our next generation of leaders from this side
understand China and are able to manage the relationship effectively and move it
forward."
Allison Lee attended a semester-long program in Shanghai in the spring of 2010 when she
was a New York University undergraduate.
Besides learning the language, getting an insight into China by taking courses on
contemporary China and law and society and having an internship with a web-based
publication, she also traveled with friends to Hangzhou and the Yellow
Mountains.
"For me personally, the daily scenes are what I hold closest to my heart," she said.
"Sitting on a makeshift bench attached to a soup station, which was attached to
a peddler bike, eating noodles that tasted like nothing I've had before, and
watching the evening pass was an activity that I never tired of."
"Conversation in Chinese with vendors and fellow customers was basic, but always comical, and solidified my belief in the kindness of the Chinese people," said Lee, who is half Chinese, but did not
speak Chinese originally and did not have family or friends in Shanghai.
She said her perception of China from the media was that of a single unified entity.
in an intensive Chinese-language program. Provided to China Daily.
Keliher, a double major in economics and Chinese who has studied the language since her final year at a high school in Boston, spent six months last year at the Minzu University of China in Beijing
to hone her language skills.
"I had five hours of Chinese language class there every day and the progress was tremendous. But since coming back, my language skill has deteriorated, so I come here to practice," Keliher said in
fluent Chinese.
Sitting next to her was Luis Rodriguez, a sophomore majoring in international trade with
a minor in Chinese. Also speaking in Chinese, he said he started to learn the
language in high school in Miami and plans to study in China next year.
Both Keliher and Rodriguez are among the growing number of American students who have
sought to study in China in the past decade, especially since November 2009 when
US President Barack Obama announced at a town hall meeting in Shanghai the
ambitious goal of sending 100,000 American students to study in China over four
years, from 2010 to 2014, citing the strategic importance of US-China
relations.
The 100,000 Strong Initiative was formally launched in Beijing in May 2010 by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
A special report issued by the Institute of International Education (IIE) in January this year predicted that the 100,000 Strong effort was likely to meet its goal, assuming a sustained or increased
interest in studying in China. The latest data on the number of American
students studying for a degree and credit in China will be released on Nov 12 by
the IIE and the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural
Affairs.
Carola McGiffert is president of the 100,000 Strong Foundation, a not-for-profit
organization that was set up in January this year to help expand and diversify
the number of American students studying Mandarin and studying in China.
She told China Daily that while the foundation awaits the figure for the 2013 school
year, she also is optimistic about reaching the target.
Numbers climb
The January IIE study showed that there were at least 28,686 American students
participating in educational activities in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and
Macao in 2011.
The report noted that the numbers were almost certainly an undercount since it was
likely that many more US students who go to China on their own, often during
school breaks, were not being tracked or reported by higher-education
institutions.
For the past decade, the number of American students studying in China for academic
credit from their US home institutions climbed an average of 18 percent each
year from 3,291 students in 2000 to 15,647 in 2010/2011, nearly fivefold the
2000 figure.
The IIE study also found that 76 percent of all US students in China pursuing
for-credit and not-for-credit education were undergraduates, 21 percent were
graduate students and a little more than 3 percent associate degree and
non-degree students.
Study programs for credit in China continue to be the most popular, and study tours
were the second-most popular way to get an educational experience in China.
Meanwhile, several thousand students took part in more extended academic and
language course work in China, with some engaged in internships, international
volunteering and service-learning projects.
Since 2007, China has become the most popular study-abroad destination outside of
Western Europe and one of the top five places for American college students
studying abroad for academic credit from their school.
McGiffert said that due to the language barrier, American students are not now going to
China for degree programs.
"But we think it's important to have any sort of exposure to China," she said.
"Whether summer program, or semester or a year abroad, learning the culture,
learning the language, getting a deep sense of Chinese history, politics and
economics is critical to ensure our next generation of leaders from this side
understand China and are able to manage the relationship effectively and move it
forward."
Allison Lee attended a semester-long program in Shanghai in the spring of 2010 when she
was a New York University undergraduate.
Besides learning the language, getting an insight into China by taking courses on
contemporary China and law and society and having an internship with a web-based
publication, she also traveled with friends to Hangzhou and the Yellow
Mountains.
"For me personally, the daily scenes are what I hold closest to my heart," she said.
"Sitting on a makeshift bench attached to a soup station, which was attached to
a peddler bike, eating noodles that tasted like nothing I've had before, and
watching the evening pass was an activity that I never tired of."
"Conversation in Chinese with vendors and fellow customers was basic, but always comical, and solidified my belief in the kindness of the Chinese people," said Lee, who is half Chinese, but did not
speak Chinese originally and did not have family or friends in Shanghai.
She said her perception of China from the media was that of a single unified entity.
"There is no question in my mind that any future study or career will include a focus on China and international
relations," she said.
For Keliher who spent six months in Beijing in the program called Associated Colleges in China run by Hamilton
College in New York, highlights of the trip included improving her Chinese
language skills, making friends with Chinese college students and traveling
across the country.
"I really enjoyed when my aunt visited me in Beijing for 10 days and I had the opportunity to show her around the city," Keliher said. "It was also unique being in China for the US presidential
election, watching the presidential debates with other Americans in Beijing and
experiencing how the Chinese media reported the election."
Keliher believes that after living in Beijing, she has a greater understanding of and appreciation for Chinese
culture.
"The Chinese professors at Minzu University were so very intense and demanding. After studying Chinese for six
months, I am confident in my language abilities and am excited to return to
China to use my Chinese," she said.
Keliher did return this past summer and spent seven weeks in southwest China's Yunnan province conducting research on rural education and women's development.
"My senior economics thesis will analyze trends in rural education development in China. In the future, I would like to pursue a China-related career," she said. "I think studying in China for an
extended period of time was the best way to improve my Chinese skills, and I am
very excited to return to China in the future."
Unlike Keliher and Lee, Megan Elliott from the Muscatine Community College along the
Mississippi River in Iowa was among a much smaller percentage of Americans from
community colleges and high schools involved in education activities in
China.
She spent one month in a school in Hangzhou of east China's Zhejiang province this past summer with seven other students from the community college, five from Muscatine High School and three
adult chaperones. The study program under the 100,000 Strong Initiative was
funded by Wanxiang America, a Chinese-owned auto-parts maker.
relations," she said.
For Keliher who spent six months in Beijing in the program called Associated Colleges in China run by Hamilton
College in New York, highlights of the trip included improving her Chinese
language skills, making friends with Chinese college students and traveling
across the country.
"I really enjoyed when my aunt visited me in Beijing for 10 days and I had the opportunity to show her around the city," Keliher said. "It was also unique being in China for the US presidential
election, watching the presidential debates with other Americans in Beijing and
experiencing how the Chinese media reported the election."
Keliher believes that after living in Beijing, she has a greater understanding of and appreciation for Chinese
culture.
"The Chinese professors at Minzu University were so very intense and demanding. After studying Chinese for six
months, I am confident in my language abilities and am excited to return to
China to use my Chinese," she said.
Keliher did return this past summer and spent seven weeks in southwest China's Yunnan province conducting research on rural education and women's development.
"My senior economics thesis will analyze trends in rural education development in China. In the future, I would like to pursue a China-related career," she said. "I think studying in China for an
extended period of time was the best way to improve my Chinese skills, and I am
very excited to return to China in the future."
Unlike Keliher and Lee, Megan Elliott from the Muscatine Community College along the
Mississippi River in Iowa was among a much smaller percentage of Americans from
community colleges and high schools involved in education activities in
China.
She spent one month in a school in Hangzhou of east China's Zhejiang province this past summer with seven other students from the community college, five from Muscatine High School and three
adult chaperones. The study program under the 100,000 Strong Initiative was
funded by Wanxiang America, a Chinese-owned auto-parts maker.
'Inspired me' "This trip definitely inspired me to learn much more about China and its history," said Elliott. "Most likely, I will be encouraged to keep learning and watching what is happening in China, because
now, in a way, I have a tie or a bond with China."
For Elliott, who had never left home in Iowa, she acknowledged missing her family and friends during that month in China.
"It was hard to be away from everyone that long; however, I am glad that there were others there from my school that went along," she said.
For Keliher, life in Beijing was not always pleasant. "The pollution was terrible. I
enjoy running outside and was unable to do so," she said, adding that on some
days several students with asthma had difficulty breathing.
Describing the NYU program in Shanghai as well-run, Lee hoped there could be a better
integration of Chinese and American students so she would feel less isolated as
a "foreign student."
Kirk Martin, director of the Chinese Cultural Exchange Program at Drake University in
Des Moines, Iowa, said while students' previous experience with China and the
Chinese language is far greater than it has ever been, many students still have
a sense that studying in China is much more challenging personally and
academically than studying elsewhere, especially in English-speaking
countries.
Martin said there are more Drake University students studying Chinese language and
studying in China than ever before. While Drake still does not have a Chinese
major, it has developed a variety of programs about China both on and off
campus.
At GWU in Washington, a few more than 100 students study in China each year while
1,000 take Chinese classes, according to McCord.
McGiffert of the 100 Thousand Strong Foundation said the Chinese government and
universities have made great efforts to increase the number of English classes
for American students so they can take intensive Mandarin and keep up other
course work.
The foundation is launching an ambassador program for young Americans who have
studied in China to talk about why the experience has been life transforming for
them.
"We are also working at the state and local level with governors and mayors on how
to better integrate Mandarin learning," McGiffert said.
She believes as Americans improve their Chinese language skills, there will be more
American students going to China for one year or one semester programs.
Besides increasing the number of students studying in China, the foundation is also
emphasizing diversity to ensure that students from under-represented communities
and racial and ethnic minorities can take advantage of the opportunity to study
in China.
20,000 scholarships
The US government and universities offer various scholarships to study in China.
McGiffert said the US is grateful to the Chinese government for providing 20,000
scholarships to American students to study in China under the 100,000 Strong
Initiative.
The foundation's annual conference on Nov 21 at American University in Washington,
its hosting school, will bring together some 200 people from think tanks,
schools, businesses and government to highlight the importance of US-China
relations and investing in the young generation.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong will both address the
conference, which coincides with the Fourth China-US High-Level Consultation on
People-to-People Exchange to be held in Washington.
McGiffert noted that it is nearing the fourth anniversary of Obama's announcement of
sending 100,000 American students to study in China. "The relationship is too
critical to leave anyone out," she said.
Contact
the writer at [email protected]
(China Daily USA 11/08/2013 page20)
now, in a way, I have a tie or a bond with China."
For Elliott, who had never left home in Iowa, she acknowledged missing her family and friends during that month in China.
"It was hard to be away from everyone that long; however, I am glad that there were others there from my school that went along," she said.
For Keliher, life in Beijing was not always pleasant. "The pollution was terrible. I
enjoy running outside and was unable to do so," she said, adding that on some
days several students with asthma had difficulty breathing.
Describing the NYU program in Shanghai as well-run, Lee hoped there could be a better
integration of Chinese and American students so she would feel less isolated as
a "foreign student."
Kirk Martin, director of the Chinese Cultural Exchange Program at Drake University in
Des Moines, Iowa, said while students' previous experience with China and the
Chinese language is far greater than it has ever been, many students still have
a sense that studying in China is much more challenging personally and
academically than studying elsewhere, especially in English-speaking
countries.
Martin said there are more Drake University students studying Chinese language and
studying in China than ever before. While Drake still does not have a Chinese
major, it has developed a variety of programs about China both on and off
campus.
At GWU in Washington, a few more than 100 students study in China each year while
1,000 take Chinese classes, according to McCord.
McGiffert of the 100 Thousand Strong Foundation said the Chinese government and
universities have made great efforts to increase the number of English classes
for American students so they can take intensive Mandarin and keep up other
course work.
The foundation is launching an ambassador program for young Americans who have
studied in China to talk about why the experience has been life transforming for
them.
"We are also working at the state and local level with governors and mayors on how
to better integrate Mandarin learning," McGiffert said.
She believes as Americans improve their Chinese language skills, there will be more
American students going to China for one year or one semester programs.
Besides increasing the number of students studying in China, the foundation is also
emphasizing diversity to ensure that students from under-represented communities
and racial and ethnic minorities can take advantage of the opportunity to study
in China.
20,000 scholarships
The US government and universities offer various scholarships to study in China.
McGiffert said the US is grateful to the Chinese government for providing 20,000
scholarships to American students to study in China under the 100,000 Strong
Initiative.
The foundation's annual conference on Nov 21 at American University in Washington,
its hosting school, will bring together some 200 people from think tanks,
schools, businesses and government to highlight the importance of US-China
relations and investing in the young generation.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong will both address the
conference, which coincides with the Fourth China-US High-Level Consultation on
People-to-People Exchange to be held in Washington.
McGiffert noted that it is nearing the fourth anniversary of Obama's announcement of
sending 100,000 American students to study in China. "The relationship is too
critical to leave anyone out," she said.
Contact
the writer at [email protected]
(China Daily USA 11/08/2013 page20)
The hottest job skill is... posted on Nov. 5, 2013
From: http://www2.smartbrief.com/servlet/encodeServlet?issueid=110DBCA0-B27D-4A45-9099-5FA2FD59042F&sid=8203c4d7-eed8-4cc0-aa47-acbc3e55fb8a
The hottest job skill is...
The Army, NYPD and State Department can't
get enough workers with this job skill. Neither can Fortune 500 companies,
hospitals, local courts and schools.
What is it? Fluency in a foreign
language.
Translators and interpreters are expected
to be one of the 15 fastest growing occupations in the nation, according to the
Department of Labor.
Roughly 25,000 jobs are expected to open up
for interpreters (who focus on spoken language) and translators (who focus on
written language), between 2010 and 2020, the Department of Labor estimates.
That represents 42% growth for the field and does not include the military,
which is also recruiting ferociously for more people.
In the last week alone, roughly 12,000 jobs posted on Indeed.com included the word
"bilingual."
Amazon,
for example, wants to hire a
Brazilian Portuguese translator for its customer service team in Seattle.
Apple is hiring technical translators who speak Korean, Mexican Spanish and Chinese.
A school district in Pasadena, Calif., is hiring Spanish, Korean, Armenian and
Chinese interpreters to work part time for $40 an hour.
Related: Americans lacking in basic skills
Nationwide, workers in this field earn a median salary of $43,000 a year.
Far higher salaries go to people who work in the intelligence community on behalf of
the military, the State Department, CIA, FBI or government contractors. These
jobs can pay well into the six figures, as workers are required to pass
high-level security clearances and enter dangerous situations.
"The government needs languages spoken in the Middle East and Africa. These people
make the most money of all, but this is not just because of their language
skills -- this is because of the high risk of the job," said Jiri Stejskal,
spokesman for the American Translators Association. "They work in war zones.
They may have a $200,000 salary but it's because they're willing to get shot
at."
Not willing to put your life on the line? High salaries are also available to
translators and interpreters who specialize in legal, medical, technical or
scientific knowledge.
Which languages offer the highest returns?
In government jobs, it's middle eastern languages like Arabic, Farsi
and Pashto (Afghani). In the private sector, it's Scandinavian and Asian
languages that pay.
In
contrast, Spanish is the second most common language in the United States after
English, and because it is so prevalent, it offers the lowest return.
Related: The best job you never thought of
Most interpreters and translators work on a freelance basis, which can be both a
blessing and a curse. The work schedule can be flexible, it can be unsteady and
come without benefits.
"Since the majority of people in our field work as independent contractors and run
their own business, the volume of work of course is subject to fluctuations,"
said Dorothee Racette, a German-English translator and president of the American
Translators Association. "Compensation varies a lot based on language
combination, years of experience, area of specialization, and the country or
region where customers are located."
Interpreters tend to get paid by the hour, half-day or day, with a range of $300 to $1,000
per day. The highest caliber interpreters are often certified by the
International Association of Conference Interpreters, and can command the
largest wages, Stejskal said.
Translators, on the other hand, are usually paid by the word. The average rate
for translating the 30 most commonly used languages on the web was 13 cents in
2012, according to market research firm Common Sense Advisory. Rarer languages
command higher per-word rates but also tend to be lower in demand.
Speed is crucial to making the highest
salary. For example, good translators who can do 2,500 to 3,000 words a day,
would earn $325 to $390 a day, whereas a newbie to the field may be capable of
far less.
Related: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required
Kari Carapella, a senior recruiter for
staffing firm Adecco Engineering & Technical, is currently trying to fill a
job for an engineering translator in Big Falls, NY. The ideal candidate must not
only be fluent in Japanese, but also understand electrical and mechanical
engineering blueprints and documents.
"It's especially tough to fill as both the
technical and translation skills must be in place," she said.
Pay starts around $30 an hour, she
added. .....................................................
The hottest job skill is...
The Army, NYPD and State Department can't
get enough workers with this job skill. Neither can Fortune 500 companies,
hospitals, local courts and schools.
What is it? Fluency in a foreign
language.
Translators and interpreters are expected
to be one of the 15 fastest growing occupations in the nation, according to the
Department of Labor.
Roughly 25,000 jobs are expected to open up
for interpreters (who focus on spoken language) and translators (who focus on
written language), between 2010 and 2020, the Department of Labor estimates.
That represents 42% growth for the field and does not include the military,
which is also recruiting ferociously for more people.
In the last week alone, roughly 12,000 jobs posted on Indeed.com included the word
"bilingual."
Amazon,
for example, wants to hire a
Brazilian Portuguese translator for its customer service team in Seattle.
Apple is hiring technical translators who speak Korean, Mexican Spanish and Chinese.
A school district in Pasadena, Calif., is hiring Spanish, Korean, Armenian and
Chinese interpreters to work part time for $40 an hour.
Related: Americans lacking in basic skills
Nationwide, workers in this field earn a median salary of $43,000 a year.
Far higher salaries go to people who work in the intelligence community on behalf of
the military, the State Department, CIA, FBI or government contractors. These
jobs can pay well into the six figures, as workers are required to pass
high-level security clearances and enter dangerous situations.
"The government needs languages spoken in the Middle East and Africa. These people
make the most money of all, but this is not just because of their language
skills -- this is because of the high risk of the job," said Jiri Stejskal,
spokesman for the American Translators Association. "They work in war zones.
They may have a $200,000 salary but it's because they're willing to get shot
at."
Not willing to put your life on the line? High salaries are also available to
translators and interpreters who specialize in legal, medical, technical or
scientific knowledge.
Which languages offer the highest returns?
In government jobs, it's middle eastern languages like Arabic, Farsi
and Pashto (Afghani). In the private sector, it's Scandinavian and Asian
languages that pay.
In
contrast, Spanish is the second most common language in the United States after
English, and because it is so prevalent, it offers the lowest return.
Related: The best job you never thought of
Most interpreters and translators work on a freelance basis, which can be both a
blessing and a curse. The work schedule can be flexible, it can be unsteady and
come without benefits.
"Since the majority of people in our field work as independent contractors and run
their own business, the volume of work of course is subject to fluctuations,"
said Dorothee Racette, a German-English translator and president of the American
Translators Association. "Compensation varies a lot based on language
combination, years of experience, area of specialization, and the country or
region where customers are located."
Interpreters tend to get paid by the hour, half-day or day, with a range of $300 to $1,000
per day. The highest caliber interpreters are often certified by the
International Association of Conference Interpreters, and can command the
largest wages, Stejskal said.
Translators, on the other hand, are usually paid by the word. The average rate
for translating the 30 most commonly used languages on the web was 13 cents in
2012, according to market research firm Common Sense Advisory. Rarer languages
command higher per-word rates but also tend to be lower in demand.
Speed is crucial to making the highest
salary. For example, good translators who can do 2,500 to 3,000 words a day,
would earn $325 to $390 a day, whereas a newbie to the field may be capable of
far less.
Related: Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required
Kari Carapella, a senior recruiter for
staffing firm Adecco Engineering & Technical, is currently trying to fill a
job for an engineering translator in Big Falls, NY. The ideal candidate must not
only be fluent in Japanese, but also understand electrical and mechanical
engineering blueprints and documents.
"It's especially tough to fill as both the
technical and translation skills must be in place," she said.
Pay starts around $30 an hour, she
added. .....................................................
生死的智慧:柯文哲 (Wen-je Ko) at TEDxTaipei 2013--posted on Nov.6, 2013
中文对英语的影响力与日俱增 --posted on Nov. 5, 2013
Words of Chinese origin are playing a
key role in driving the ongoing globalization of English, experts in both
languages say.
"The fact that some 300 million Chinese
people are now studying or have studied English means the important impact of
Chinese on the language can't be denied," said Paul J.J. Payack, president and
chief analyst at Global Language Monitor.
The consultancy, based in Austin in the
US state of Texas, documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage
worldwide, with a particular emphasis on English.
It says some 10,000 words are added to the English language annually, with
about 1.83 billion people using English as their native, second, business or
technical language.
But the global figure was only about
250 million in 1960, with English-speakers mainly located in Britain and its
Commonwealth of former colonies, as well as the United States.
"It's estimated that a new English word
is created every 98 minutes," Payack said.
"One example of a word used in English that originated from Chinese that has
appeared recently is chengguan (city patrol officer). A quick Google search
results in nearly a million citations, far in excess of our minimum number of
required citations."
The Oxford English Dictionary, which waits 10 years before entering a word to
ensure it has "staying power", now has about 1,000 words of Chinese origin, such
as taikonaut.
In China, taikonaut refers to a person trained by a human spaceflight program
to command, pilot, or serve as a spacecraft crew member.
"It's estimated that Chinese, one of the prime drivers of the globalization
of the English language, will continue its influence throughout the 21st
century," Payack said.
In August, The Wall Street Journal used the term dama, which is Chinese
pinyin for "big mother", to describe the middle-aged Chinese women driving the
global gold market.
In a video report, it said it is largely because of dama that China can
compete with India as the world's largest gold consumer. Many Chinese people saw
the use of dama as evidence that the more advanced a country becomes, the more
influential its language is.
Wei Chongxin, dean of Beijing Foreign Studies University's School of Chinese
Language and Literature, said he believes such influence is rooted in China's
growing global clout.
"When more native English speakers come to learn more about China and have
closer relations with the country in daily life, it's normal to see the Chinese
and English languages infiltrate with each other's words," he said.
The convergence of the main languages of global powers has many precedents in
history, including the Greek and Roman conquests and the unification of ancient
China. In more recent times, the languages of Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands,
France and Britain dominated many of the colonies they established from the 16th
to 19th centuries, according to GLM.
However, compared with the impact of English on the Chinese language in the
past, experts say Chinese still has a limited influence on English.
"One reason for the difficulty in translation between English and Chinese is
that they stemmed from entirely different language families," Payack said.
He added that English, with Proto-Indo-European roots has some kinship with
Greek, Latin, Celtic, the Romance languages (which include French and Italian),
Polish and Russian, and even Kurdish, Farsi and Sanskrit. Meanwhile, Mandarin
stems from the Proto-Sino-Tibetan family of languages.
"This makes the contemporary mixing, melding or mash-up of English and
Mandarin even more interesting and complex, which is one reason why some
'Chinglish' phrasing strikes outsiders as confusing and even amusing," Payack
said.
But Han Baocheng, a language professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University,
said the use of "Chinglish" phrases cannot be regarded as Chinese words having
an influence on the English language.
"At present, most of the limited number of new words with Chinese origins
that have been regarded as entering the English language are those that cannot
find proper words in English to express the original meanings in Chinese," he
said.
But Wei Chongxin, who is also a senior professional in cross-cultural
communication, said such mixing of the two languages provides Chinese- and
English-learners with an opportunity to improve their studies and make them
easier.
"Moreover, because the two languages can absorb from each other, both can be
more vigorous and have a wider range of users," he said.
Lisa Hoffman graduated from the
University of International Business and Economics in Beijing this year and now
works at Guinness World Records in the city.
The 24-year-old Canadian can speak Mandarin fluently.
"Since the two languages are completely different, it's really difficult for
foreigners, especially those living overseas, to remember Chinese words," she
said.
"For instance, my mom, who can't speak any Chinese, has to remember ni hao
(hello) by 'knee' and 'how'," she said. "But she can easily say words with
Chinese origins, such as baijiu (liqor), as those words frequently appear in her
daily life."
By Jin Zhu in Beijing and Chen Jia in
San Francisco ( China Daily)
key role in driving the ongoing globalization of English, experts in both
languages say.
"The fact that some 300 million Chinese
people are now studying or have studied English means the important impact of
Chinese on the language can't be denied," said Paul J.J. Payack, president and
chief analyst at Global Language Monitor.
The consultancy, based in Austin in the
US state of Texas, documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage
worldwide, with a particular emphasis on English.
It says some 10,000 words are added to the English language annually, with
about 1.83 billion people using English as their native, second, business or
technical language.
But the global figure was only about
250 million in 1960, with English-speakers mainly located in Britain and its
Commonwealth of former colonies, as well as the United States.
"It's estimated that a new English word
is created every 98 minutes," Payack said.
"One example of a word used in English that originated from Chinese that has
appeared recently is chengguan (city patrol officer). A quick Google search
results in nearly a million citations, far in excess of our minimum number of
required citations."
The Oxford English Dictionary, which waits 10 years before entering a word to
ensure it has "staying power", now has about 1,000 words of Chinese origin, such
as taikonaut.
In China, taikonaut refers to a person trained by a human spaceflight program
to command, pilot, or serve as a spacecraft crew member.
"It's estimated that Chinese, one of the prime drivers of the globalization
of the English language, will continue its influence throughout the 21st
century," Payack said.
In August, The Wall Street Journal used the term dama, which is Chinese
pinyin for "big mother", to describe the middle-aged Chinese women driving the
global gold market.
In a video report, it said it is largely because of dama that China can
compete with India as the world's largest gold consumer. Many Chinese people saw
the use of dama as evidence that the more advanced a country becomes, the more
influential its language is.
Wei Chongxin, dean of Beijing Foreign Studies University's School of Chinese
Language and Literature, said he believes such influence is rooted in China's
growing global clout.
"When more native English speakers come to learn more about China and have
closer relations with the country in daily life, it's normal to see the Chinese
and English languages infiltrate with each other's words," he said.
The convergence of the main languages of global powers has many precedents in
history, including the Greek and Roman conquests and the unification of ancient
China. In more recent times, the languages of Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands,
France and Britain dominated many of the colonies they established from the 16th
to 19th centuries, according to GLM.
However, compared with the impact of English on the Chinese language in the
past, experts say Chinese still has a limited influence on English.
"One reason for the difficulty in translation between English and Chinese is
that they stemmed from entirely different language families," Payack said.
He added that English, with Proto-Indo-European roots has some kinship with
Greek, Latin, Celtic, the Romance languages (which include French and Italian),
Polish and Russian, and even Kurdish, Farsi and Sanskrit. Meanwhile, Mandarin
stems from the Proto-Sino-Tibetan family of languages.
"This makes the contemporary mixing, melding or mash-up of English and
Mandarin even more interesting and complex, which is one reason why some
'Chinglish' phrasing strikes outsiders as confusing and even amusing," Payack
said.
But Han Baocheng, a language professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University,
said the use of "Chinglish" phrases cannot be regarded as Chinese words having
an influence on the English language.
"At present, most of the limited number of new words with Chinese origins
that have been regarded as entering the English language are those that cannot
find proper words in English to express the original meanings in Chinese," he
said.
But Wei Chongxin, who is also a senior professional in cross-cultural
communication, said such mixing of the two languages provides Chinese- and
English-learners with an opportunity to improve their studies and make them
easier.
"Moreover, because the two languages can absorb from each other, both can be
more vigorous and have a wider range of users," he said.
Lisa Hoffman graduated from the
University of International Business and Economics in Beijing this year and now
works at Guinness World Records in the city.
The 24-year-old Canadian can speak Mandarin fluently.
"Since the two languages are completely different, it's really difficult for
foreigners, especially those living overseas, to remember Chinese words," she
said.
"For instance, my mom, who can't speak any Chinese, has to remember ni hao
(hello) by 'knee' and 'how'," she said. "But she can easily say words with
Chinese origins, such as baijiu (liqor), as those words frequently appear in her
daily life."
By Jin Zhu in Beijing and Chen Jia in
San Francisco ( China Daily)
New York Times: The Shanghai Secret --posted on Oct. 22, 2013
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/opinion/friedman-the-shanghai-secret.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1382534826-Wf5olcXpMPVfpK5fnvf6mg
October 22, 2013
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
SHANGHAI
— Whenever I visit China, I am struck by the sharply divergent predictions of
its future one hears. Lately, a number of global investors have been “shorting”
China, betting that someday soon its powerful economic engine will sputter, as
the real estate boom here turns to a bust. Frankly, if I were shorting China
today, it would not be because of the real estate bubble, but because of the
pollution bubble that is increasingly enveloping some of its biggest cities.
Optimists take another view: that, buckle in, China is just getting started, and
that what we’re now about to see is the payoff from China’s 30 years of
investment in infrastructure and education. I’m not a gambler, so I’ll just
watch this from the sidelines. But if you’re looking for evidence as to why the
optimistic bet isn’t totally crazy, you might want to visit a Shanghai
elementary school.
I’ve traveled here with Wendy Kopp,
the founder of Teach
for America, and the leaders of the Teach for All programs modeled on Teach for America that are
operating in 32 countries. We’re visiting some of the highest- and
lowest-performing schools in China to try to uncover The Secret — how is it that
Shanghai’s public secondary schools topped the world charts in the 2009 PISA
(Program for International Student Assessment) exams that measure the ability of
15-year-olds in 65 countries to apply what they’ve learned in math, science and
reading.
After visiting Shanghai’s Qiangwei
Primary School, with 754 students — grades one through five — and 59 teachers, I
think I found The Secret:
There is no secret.
When you sit in on a class here and
meet with the principal and teachers, what you find is a relentless focus on all
the basics that we know make for high-performing schools but that are difficult
to pull off consistently across an entire school system. These are: a deep
commitment to teacher training, peer-to-peer learning and constant professional
development, a deep involvement of parents in their children’s learning, an
insistence by the school’s leadership on the highest standards and a culture
that prizes education and respects teachers.
Shanghai’s secret is simply its
ability to execute more of these fundamentals in more of its schools more of the
time. Take teacher development. Shen Jun, Qiangwei’s principal, who has overseen
its transformation in a decade from a low-performing to a high-performing school
— even though 40 percent of her students are children of poorly educated migrant
workers — says her teachers spend about 70 percent of each week teaching and 30
percent developing teaching skills and lesson planning. That is far higher than
in a typical American school.
Teng Jiao, 26, an English teacher
here, said school begins at 8:35 a.m. and runs to 4:30 p.m., during which he
typically teaches three 35-minute lessons. I sat in on one third-grade English
class. The English lesson was meticulously planned, with no time wasted. The
rest of his day, he said, is spent on lesson planning, training online or with
his team, having other teachers watch his class and tell him how to improve and
observing the classrooms of master teachers.
“You see so many teaching techniques
that you can apply to your own classroom,” he remarks. Education experts will
tell you that of all the things that go into improving a school, nothing — not
class size, not technology, not length of the school day — pays off more than
giving teachers the time for peer review and constructive feedback, exposure to
the best teaching and time to deepen their knowledge of what they’re
teaching.
Teng said his job also includes
“parent training.” Parents come to the school three to five times a semester to
develop computer skills so they can better help their kids with homework and
follow lessons online. Christina Bao, 29, who also teaches English, said she
tries to chat either by phone or online with the parents of each student two or
three times a week to keep them abreast of their child’s progress. “I will talk
to them about what the students are doing at school.” She then alluded
matter-of-factly to a big cultural difference here, “I tell them not to beat
them if they are not doing well.”
In 2003, Shanghai had a very
“average” school system, said Andreas Schleicher, who runs the PISA exams. “A
decade later, it’s leading the world and has dramatically decreased variability
between schools.” He, too, attributes this to the fact that, while in America a
majority of a teacher’s time in school is spent teaching, in China’s best
schools, a big chunk is spent learning from peers and personal development. As a
result, he said, in places like Shanghai, “the system is good at attracting
average people and getting enormous productivity out of them,” while also,
“getting the best teachers in front of the most difficult classrooms.”
China still has many
mediocre schools that need fixing. But the good news is that in just doing the
things that American and Chinese educators know work — but doing them
systematically and relentlessly — Shanghai has in a decade lifted some of its
schools to the global heights in reading, science and math skills. Oh, and Shen
Jun, the principal, wanted me to know: “This is just the
start.”
October 22, 2013
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
SHANGHAI
— Whenever I visit China, I am struck by the sharply divergent predictions of
its future one hears. Lately, a number of global investors have been “shorting”
China, betting that someday soon its powerful economic engine will sputter, as
the real estate boom here turns to a bust. Frankly, if I were shorting China
today, it would not be because of the real estate bubble, but because of the
pollution bubble that is increasingly enveloping some of its biggest cities.
Optimists take another view: that, buckle in, China is just getting started, and
that what we’re now about to see is the payoff from China’s 30 years of
investment in infrastructure and education. I’m not a gambler, so I’ll just
watch this from the sidelines. But if you’re looking for evidence as to why the
optimistic bet isn’t totally crazy, you might want to visit a Shanghai
elementary school.
I’ve traveled here with Wendy Kopp,
the founder of Teach
for America, and the leaders of the Teach for All programs modeled on Teach for America that are
operating in 32 countries. We’re visiting some of the highest- and
lowest-performing schools in China to try to uncover The Secret — how is it that
Shanghai’s public secondary schools topped the world charts in the 2009 PISA
(Program for International Student Assessment) exams that measure the ability of
15-year-olds in 65 countries to apply what they’ve learned in math, science and
reading.
After visiting Shanghai’s Qiangwei
Primary School, with 754 students — grades one through five — and 59 teachers, I
think I found The Secret:
There is no secret.
When you sit in on a class here and
meet with the principal and teachers, what you find is a relentless focus on all
the basics that we know make for high-performing schools but that are difficult
to pull off consistently across an entire school system. These are: a deep
commitment to teacher training, peer-to-peer learning and constant professional
development, a deep involvement of parents in their children’s learning, an
insistence by the school’s leadership on the highest standards and a culture
that prizes education and respects teachers.
Shanghai’s secret is simply its
ability to execute more of these fundamentals in more of its schools more of the
time. Take teacher development. Shen Jun, Qiangwei’s principal, who has overseen
its transformation in a decade from a low-performing to a high-performing school
— even though 40 percent of her students are children of poorly educated migrant
workers — says her teachers spend about 70 percent of each week teaching and 30
percent developing teaching skills and lesson planning. That is far higher than
in a typical American school.
Teng Jiao, 26, an English teacher
here, said school begins at 8:35 a.m. and runs to 4:30 p.m., during which he
typically teaches three 35-minute lessons. I sat in on one third-grade English
class. The English lesson was meticulously planned, with no time wasted. The
rest of his day, he said, is spent on lesson planning, training online or with
his team, having other teachers watch his class and tell him how to improve and
observing the classrooms of master teachers.
“You see so many teaching techniques
that you can apply to your own classroom,” he remarks. Education experts will
tell you that of all the things that go into improving a school, nothing — not
class size, not technology, not length of the school day — pays off more than
giving teachers the time for peer review and constructive feedback, exposure to
the best teaching and time to deepen their knowledge of what they’re
teaching.
Teng said his job also includes
“parent training.” Parents come to the school three to five times a semester to
develop computer skills so they can better help their kids with homework and
follow lessons online. Christina Bao, 29, who also teaches English, said she
tries to chat either by phone or online with the parents of each student two or
three times a week to keep them abreast of their child’s progress. “I will talk
to them about what the students are doing at school.” She then alluded
matter-of-factly to a big cultural difference here, “I tell them not to beat
them if they are not doing well.”
In 2003, Shanghai had a very
“average” school system, said Andreas Schleicher, who runs the PISA exams. “A
decade later, it’s leading the world and has dramatically decreased variability
between schools.” He, too, attributes this to the fact that, while in America a
majority of a teacher’s time in school is spent teaching, in China’s best
schools, a big chunk is spent learning from peers and personal development. As a
result, he said, in places like Shanghai, “the system is good at attracting
average people and getting enormous productivity out of them,” while also,
“getting the best teachers in front of the most difficult classrooms.”
China still has many
mediocre schools that need fixing. But the good news is that in just doing the
things that American and Chinese educators know work — but doing them
systematically and relentlessly — Shanghai has in a decade lifted some of its
schools to the global heights in reading, science and math skills. Oh, and Shen
Jun, the principal, wanted me to know: “This is just the
start.”
1981, China Film Series--posted on Oct. 14, 2013
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2013 7:00
PM
FALL
2013 CHINA FILM SERIES
Sha’ou 沙鸥
Auditorium, Henry R. Luce Hall, 34
Hillhouse Avenue
(1981, 84 minutes, Chinese with
English subtitles)
Director: Zhang
Nuanxin
This film is about Sha'ou, a member
of the Chinese national volleyball team. The film begins in 1977, a few months
before the Asian Games, and continues to follow Sha Ou's life until the end of
the film. Sha'ou dreams of being a world champion but faces many tragedies on
the path to realizing her dream.
Dazed and Confucius: Nine common myths about China--posted on Oct. 8, 2013
Dazed and Confucius: Nine common myths about China
Chinese Whispers was once a party game. A message would be relayed in hushed
tones through a long line of people and emerge at the other end amusingly
garbled. Most of us have found alternative amusements nowadays, but the name
survives as a figure of speech; an idiom used to signify how facts or a story
tend to get twisted over time and distance.
Why 'Chinese' though? There seem to be no concrete answers. One theory has it
that messages relayed between the lonely watchtowers of the Great Wall suffered
this kind of distortion. Another is that China was once a byword for
misunderstanding and confusion in the West, something to do with the supposed
'inscrutability' of the Chinese. It doesn't seem to be a very old usage, with
the first references only appearing in the middle of the 20th century. But
whatever the provenance of Chinese Whispers, there's something rather
appropriate about the name.
China has always loomed large in
the Western imagination because it provides a handy screen on to which we can
project our dreams and nightmares. First the dreams. The Jesuit missionaries of
the 16th century projected China as a country in which men like them achieved,
promoted as councillors to emperors, ignoring (or perhaps ignorant of) the fact
that the ostensibly meritocratic, imperial exam system was riven with corruption
and nepotism. That tradition of wishful projection continues today.
Many executives of Western
multinationals talk of China as a new capitalist Jerusalem, a land of eternally
high GDP growth, the biggest untapped consumer market on the planet, the place
where the state sees its proper function as to help the private sector to make
money. Of course, occasionally they will come up against an awkward fact that
challenges thisf dream – reports of baby milk formula adulterated with a harmful
chemical by a Chinese manufacturer, for instance, or a corruption scandal – but
these are seen as tests of faith to be overcome. They cannot be permitted to
interfere with the glorious vision.
Then there are the China nightmares. The French philosopher Montesquieu, in
the 18th century, reviled China as a country where there reigned "a spirit of
servitude". In a similar vein, the Victorians projected China as a place where
intellectual progress had come to a pathetic stop. What they were both doing was
imagining China as the very antithesis of everything they wanted their own
nations to be: free, vigorous and expansive.
China has sometimes been Caliban's mirror, too. The most common 19th-century
Western complaint about China was that the country had an overweening
superiority complex. The sixth US President, John Quincy Adams, placed the blame
for the Opium War on "the arrogant and insupportable pretensions of China". But
it was, of course, Britain that took gravest offence. The Prime Minister, Lord
Palmerston, bristled at what he called Chinese "assumptions of superiority"
shortly before dispatching some gunboats to blast some inferiority into
them.
This talk of arrogance comes across like psychological projection in the
sense described by Sigmund Freud – attributing one's own unacceptable impulses
to another. For in a contest between China and Britain, one might argue that
Britannia had the more exalted sense of its own superiority. When Lord Macartney
sailed to China to persuade the Qianlong Emperor to open his kingdom to trade in
1792, it apparently came as an immense surprise to the British delegation that
the mechanical contraptions, from clocks to telescopes, that were brandished to
impress the hosts did not lead to an instant acknowledgement from the Chinese of
the Western nation's ascendancy.
Myth: China has an
unstoppable economy - in order to continue growing, China needs to enact
fundamental economic reforms and it is far from certain that the reformers will
prevail (Getty Images) There's a similar kind of negative projection taking place today. As we have seen, China is often presented as an aggressive and nationalistic monster, intent on taking over the
world. Here is a short list that gives a flavour of the books about China that
have been published over the past 15 or so years: The Coming Conflict with
China; China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World; The China Threat; Why China
Wants War with the United States; Communist China's Military Threat to America;
China: 1,000 years of Bloodshed.
One would imagine from this flood of paranoia that China had some uniquely
terrible history of colonial aggression. True, China has been no pacifist
Shangri La through its history, but it wasn't the Middle Kingdom that sailed to
the other side of the world in the 19th century, blasted its way in to another
culture, and proceeded to carve up a distant empire into spheres of influence.
That was the West.
One might describe it as an intellectual pathology. We keep getting swept up
by the same currents of thought, the same dreams and fears that have always
attended our encounters with China. In my new book, I delve into the stories
that we whisper to each other about China. I show how ideas about the Chinese
have historically been warped when passing through the long chains of people
that have mediated between China and the outside world – and how they were often
twisted once again when they arrived. The tradition continues to this very day.
In our interpretation of China and its people, powerful currents in the waters
of our thoughts seem to keep yanking us in the same directions. Often, just as
in a game of Chinese Whispers, we end up hearing what we want to hear.
Ben Chu is Economics Editor of The Independent. His book 'Chinese
Whispers: Why Everything You've Heard About China is Wrong' is published on 10
October by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
MYTH #1
China is the world's oldest civilisation
The myth: Open any travel guide, history book or newspaper
that takes China for its subject and one will read the same assertion: this is a
country with "5,000 years of history".
Why we think it: Romanticism. In 1922, the philosopher and
mathematician Bertrand Russell wrote: "Since the days of Confucius the Egyptian,
Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian and Roman empires have perished; but China has
persisted". We seem to find appealing the idea that the people of an ancient
empire are still walking among us.
The truth: The claim that China has 5,000 years of history
is predicated on the existence of a so-called Yellow Emperor, a god-like
founding father who is supposed to have taught his people how to grow crops,
domesticate animals and even to clothe themselves. There is no evidence for the
existence of such a figure. It is the stuff of legend, not history.
The claim of 5,000 years of history is also relatively recent. Until the late
1990s, the Beijing authorities tended to talk of 3,000 or 4,000 years of Chinese
history. But when former president Jiang Zemin went to Egypt, he found a state
that could claim even more venerable origins. So Chinese leaders unilaterally
awarded their own country an extra thousand years of history in an act of
international one-upmanship.
MYTH #2
The Chinese have an indomitable work ethic
The myth: In the 1930s, Carl Crow, an American journalist
and entrepreneur, described China as a "land of unremitting industry". He went
on: "If it is true that the devil can only find work for idle hands, then China
must be a place of very limited Satanic opportunities.
Why we think it: Because we seem to see the evidence.
Visitors to Chinese cities are often astonished to see construction crews
working through the night. Newspapers show images of workers napping at their
positions on the production line during a brief break on an 18-hour shift.
Chinese immigrants in the West also seem to be frighteningly hard workers.
The truth: Working hours in China are nothing remarkable by
the standards of other developing nations. Figures from the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Social Development think tank (OECD) show that
Mexicans do slightly more paid work per day. Other data suggests the Chinese
work fewer hours than Bangladeshis, Thais, and Indonesians.
Myth: The Chinese all speak the same language - most Chinese use local dialects, and even different
languages from Mandarin, for everyday communication (AFP/Getty
Images)
MYTH #3
China has an unstoppable economy
The myth: "The 19th century belonged to England, the 20th
century belonged to the US, and the 21st century belongs to China. Invest
accordingly," argues Warren Buffett.
Why we think it: Because the story of Chinese growth over
the past three decades is awe-inspiring. In 1979, the economy was smaller than
Britain's. Since then, it has doubled in size roughly every eight years and is
now 22 times larger than when it began its reforms. In 2009, China overtook
Japan to become the second biggest economy in the world. It is expected to
surpass the US in 2017.
The truth: In order to continue growing, China needs to
enact fundamental economic reforms. That means a massive expansion of public
health care and pensions. It means land reform, to prevent farmers being
swindled out of their rightful profits. It means a liberalisation of the
financial sector. It means higher wages and an end to the one child policy.
Every one of those reforms will be fiercely resisted by powerful vested
interests. And it is far from certain that the reformers will prevail.
MYTH #4
Chinese students are the cleverest in the world
The myth: According to the British Education Secretary,
Michael Gove: "Schools in the Far East are turning out students who are working
at an altogether higher level than our own".
Why we think it: Because we see so many smart Chinese
children coming to Western universities. And also because the statistics seem to
back it up. In 2009, 15-year-old children from Shanghai came top in reading,
maths and science in the international standardised tests run by the OECD. They
outperformed children from richer nations such as the US, Britain and
Germany.
The truth: The OECD tests were also taken by children in
nine provinces across China. Yet the Chinese government has not permitted the
OECD to publish the full figures, casting doubt over how representative the
Shanghai results really are. Some Chinese are also voting on China's education
system with their feet. A 2012 survey by the magazine, Hurun Report, found that
around nine out of 10 wealthy Chinese intend to send their children to
universities abroad. A third also want to send their children abroad for high
school.
MYTH #5
The Chinese all speak the same language
The myth:
"Chinese, regardless of whether they live in China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, are
essentially the same," according to the Shanghai-based advertising executive Tom
Doctoroff.
Why we think it:
Because it makes this vast and complex land feel easier to understand and
perhaps less intimidating. Also, the Chinese regard linguistic unity as one of
the pillars of the country's modernisation. The father of the Chinese republican
movement, Sun Yat-sen, proclaimed that the Chinese have a "common language,
common religion and common customs".
The truth: Hundreds of millions of Chinese cannot speak to
each other in a common tongue. China's education ministry reported in 2007 that
only around half of the country's population could communicate effectively in
standard Mandarin. The figure in cities was 66 per cent, while in rural areas it
fell to just 45 per cent. Most Chinese use local dialects, and even different
languages from Mandarin, for everyday communication.
MYTH #6
China is buying up the world
The myth: According to the Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo,
China is winning the global "race for resources". She argues "other countries
seem to be asleep while China is making a concerted effort". Others claim that
China is engaged in neo-imperialist behaviour in Africa.
Why we think it:
Because China's economic growth has truly shaken the world. The country is the
world's largest importer of copper, rice and (pretty soon) oil. China is also
now a considerable lender to African states and is attempting to use its $3.5
trillion war chest of foreign exchange reserves to buy up companies in the
West.
The truth: China's investments in the developing world are
straightforward transactions: they build roads and factories in return for
long-term commodity contracts. And China's mountain of US foreign exchange
reserves are signs of weakness, rather than geopolitical strength, since these
investments are gradually falling in value as the Chinese currency gradually
appreciates against the dollar.
MYTH #7
he Chinese are a biological race
The myth: The late Sinologist, Lucian Pye, said that it was
"self-evident that the Chinese people share the same blood, the same physical
characteristics, the same ancestry".
Why we think it: It appears obvious since many Chinese
people share phenotypical trait such as black hair and high cheekbones. And the
Chinese do nothing to discourage it. One of the most popular Chinese pop songs
of the past 40 years is Hou Dejian's "Heirs of the Dragon" with its lyrics:
"Black eyes, black hair, yellow skin, forever".
The truth: There are at least 56 different minority
'nations' who live mainly in China's borderlands. These range from the Mongols
of the grassy steppes, to the Manchus of the Korean border. Like 'Anglo-Saxons'
or 'Hispanics', the Han Chinese constitute a purely imagined biological
community.
Myth: China is a dangerously nationalistic power - popular nationalistic sentiment in China is
often the flipside of the political reform movement (Getty
Images)
MYTH #8
China is a dangerously nationalistic power
The myth: The political scientist Robert Kagan tells us that
China is "filled with nationalist pride, ambitions and resentments, consumed
with questions of territorial sovereignty".
Why we think it: Because we assume that a rising China will
behave like Western states did in the 19th century. Also, China itself sometimes
throws off belligerent signals. In 1996, a group of Chinese academics produced a
collection of polemical essays entitled China Can Say No. In its pages they
argued that China was sufficiently economically developed to start imposing
itself on the rest of the world.
The truth: Popular nationalistic sentiment in China is often
the flipside of the political reform movement – and a source of deep concern for
the ruling Communist Party. One nationalist blogger, Li Chengpeng, wrote
recently of how he became disillusioned with his own government when he learnt
that schools that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, killing hundreds of
children, had been constructed to poor standards due to the corruption of local
government officials. Li called for a new kind of patriotism, one that put
political reform at home first. "Patriotism is about allowing people to move
freely in our country and letting our children study in the city where they wish
to study," he said. "Patriotism is about speaking more truth. Patriotism is
about dignity for the Chinese people."
MYTH #9
The Chinese are all Confucians
The myth: "It is still impossible to understand modern China
without understanding Confucius," according to the BBC journalist Andrew
Marr.
Why we think it: It makes China feel more comprehensible.
And Confucianism is still certainly a strong influence on China. In 2007, a book
called Confucius from the Heart by a Beijing University literature professor, Yu
Dan, shifted more copies than any printed work since Mao's Little Red Book.
The truth: There is, actually, a long Chinese intellectual
tradition of repudiating Confucianism, stretching back to the radical May Fourth
Movement of 1919. The Chinese writer Jiang Rong, in his bestselling 2004 novel,
Wolf Totem, contrasted the traditional values of China unfavourably with those
of the nomads of the Mongolian steppe.
China: what else don't we know?
"May you live in interesting times" is not a traditional Chinese saying,
contrary to popular belief in the West.
The mother of Kublai Khan (the Chinese emperor who received Marco Polo in the
13th century) was a Christian.
There are twice as many Mongolians in China as there are in Mongolia
itself.
When Zhou Enlai said in the 1970s that it was "too early to say" what the
consequences of the French Revolution would be, he was referring to the events
of 1968, not 1789.
The first mosque in China was built in 627 by Muslim traders, five years
before the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Chinese population tripled between 1700 and 1850 following the
introduction of corn and potatoes from the Americas.
The Beijing authorities allow only 20 foreign films to be screened in Chinese
cinemas every year.
50 per cent of Chinese dollar millionaires are considering leaving the
country.
100,000 Chinese labourers worked on the Western Front alongside the British
and French in the First World War.
'Gung-ho' was a phrase invented by an American soldier who had been inspired
by the Chinese resistance to Japan's occupation in the Second World War.
From 1882 until the 1940s, the US banned all immigration from China.
Poor air quality in China causes 300,000 premature deaths a year.
A Chinese-Jamaican, Randy Chin, helped to popularise reggae.
Many Peking ducks are imported from Britain.
China became the first democratic republic in Asia in 1911.
Rickshaws were invented in Japan.
Tea drinking did not become widely
popular until the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century AD.
Chinese Whispers was once a party game. A message would be relayed in hushed
tones through a long line of people and emerge at the other end amusingly
garbled. Most of us have found alternative amusements nowadays, but the name
survives as a figure of speech; an idiom used to signify how facts or a story
tend to get twisted over time and distance.
Why 'Chinese' though? There seem to be no concrete answers. One theory has it
that messages relayed between the lonely watchtowers of the Great Wall suffered
this kind of distortion. Another is that China was once a byword for
misunderstanding and confusion in the West, something to do with the supposed
'inscrutability' of the Chinese. It doesn't seem to be a very old usage, with
the first references only appearing in the middle of the 20th century. But
whatever the provenance of Chinese Whispers, there's something rather
appropriate about the name.
China has always loomed large in
the Western imagination because it provides a handy screen on to which we can
project our dreams and nightmares. First the dreams. The Jesuit missionaries of
the 16th century projected China as a country in which men like them achieved,
promoted as councillors to emperors, ignoring (or perhaps ignorant of) the fact
that the ostensibly meritocratic, imperial exam system was riven with corruption
and nepotism. That tradition of wishful projection continues today.
Many executives of Western
multinationals talk of China as a new capitalist Jerusalem, a land of eternally
high GDP growth, the biggest untapped consumer market on the planet, the place
where the state sees its proper function as to help the private sector to make
money. Of course, occasionally they will come up against an awkward fact that
challenges thisf dream – reports of baby milk formula adulterated with a harmful
chemical by a Chinese manufacturer, for instance, or a corruption scandal – but
these are seen as tests of faith to be overcome. They cannot be permitted to
interfere with the glorious vision.
Then there are the China nightmares. The French philosopher Montesquieu, in
the 18th century, reviled China as a country where there reigned "a spirit of
servitude". In a similar vein, the Victorians projected China as a place where
intellectual progress had come to a pathetic stop. What they were both doing was
imagining China as the very antithesis of everything they wanted their own
nations to be: free, vigorous and expansive.
China has sometimes been Caliban's mirror, too. The most common 19th-century
Western complaint about China was that the country had an overweening
superiority complex. The sixth US President, John Quincy Adams, placed the blame
for the Opium War on "the arrogant and insupportable pretensions of China". But
it was, of course, Britain that took gravest offence. The Prime Minister, Lord
Palmerston, bristled at what he called Chinese "assumptions of superiority"
shortly before dispatching some gunboats to blast some inferiority into
them.
This talk of arrogance comes across like psychological projection in the
sense described by Sigmund Freud – attributing one's own unacceptable impulses
to another. For in a contest between China and Britain, one might argue that
Britannia had the more exalted sense of its own superiority. When Lord Macartney
sailed to China to persuade the Qianlong Emperor to open his kingdom to trade in
1792, it apparently came as an immense surprise to the British delegation that
the mechanical contraptions, from clocks to telescopes, that were brandished to
impress the hosts did not lead to an instant acknowledgement from the Chinese of
the Western nation's ascendancy.
Myth: China has an
unstoppable economy - in order to continue growing, China needs to enact
fundamental economic reforms and it is far from certain that the reformers will
prevail (Getty Images) There's a similar kind of negative projection taking place today. As we have seen, China is often presented as an aggressive and nationalistic monster, intent on taking over the
world. Here is a short list that gives a flavour of the books about China that
have been published over the past 15 or so years: The Coming Conflict with
China; China's Plan to Dominate Asia and the World; The China Threat; Why China
Wants War with the United States; Communist China's Military Threat to America;
China: 1,000 years of Bloodshed.
One would imagine from this flood of paranoia that China had some uniquely
terrible history of colonial aggression. True, China has been no pacifist
Shangri La through its history, but it wasn't the Middle Kingdom that sailed to
the other side of the world in the 19th century, blasted its way in to another
culture, and proceeded to carve up a distant empire into spheres of influence.
That was the West.
One might describe it as an intellectual pathology. We keep getting swept up
by the same currents of thought, the same dreams and fears that have always
attended our encounters with China. In my new book, I delve into the stories
that we whisper to each other about China. I show how ideas about the Chinese
have historically been warped when passing through the long chains of people
that have mediated between China and the outside world – and how they were often
twisted once again when they arrived. The tradition continues to this very day.
In our interpretation of China and its people, powerful currents in the waters
of our thoughts seem to keep yanking us in the same directions. Often, just as
in a game of Chinese Whispers, we end up hearing what we want to hear.
Ben Chu is Economics Editor of The Independent. His book 'Chinese
Whispers: Why Everything You've Heard About China is Wrong' is published on 10
October by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
MYTH #1
China is the world's oldest civilisation
The myth: Open any travel guide, history book or newspaper
that takes China for its subject and one will read the same assertion: this is a
country with "5,000 years of history".
Why we think it: Romanticism. In 1922, the philosopher and
mathematician Bertrand Russell wrote: "Since the days of Confucius the Egyptian,
Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian and Roman empires have perished; but China has
persisted". We seem to find appealing the idea that the people of an ancient
empire are still walking among us.
The truth: The claim that China has 5,000 years of history
is predicated on the existence of a so-called Yellow Emperor, a god-like
founding father who is supposed to have taught his people how to grow crops,
domesticate animals and even to clothe themselves. There is no evidence for the
existence of such a figure. It is the stuff of legend, not history.
The claim of 5,000 years of history is also relatively recent. Until the late
1990s, the Beijing authorities tended to talk of 3,000 or 4,000 years of Chinese
history. But when former president Jiang Zemin went to Egypt, he found a state
that could claim even more venerable origins. So Chinese leaders unilaterally
awarded their own country an extra thousand years of history in an act of
international one-upmanship.
MYTH #2
The Chinese have an indomitable work ethic
The myth: In the 1930s, Carl Crow, an American journalist
and entrepreneur, described China as a "land of unremitting industry". He went
on: "If it is true that the devil can only find work for idle hands, then China
must be a place of very limited Satanic opportunities.
Why we think it: Because we seem to see the evidence.
Visitors to Chinese cities are often astonished to see construction crews
working through the night. Newspapers show images of workers napping at their
positions on the production line during a brief break on an 18-hour shift.
Chinese immigrants in the West also seem to be frighteningly hard workers.
The truth: Working hours in China are nothing remarkable by
the standards of other developing nations. Figures from the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Social Development think tank (OECD) show that
Mexicans do slightly more paid work per day. Other data suggests the Chinese
work fewer hours than Bangladeshis, Thais, and Indonesians.
Myth: The Chinese all speak the same language - most Chinese use local dialects, and even different
languages from Mandarin, for everyday communication (AFP/Getty
Images)
MYTH #3
China has an unstoppable economy
The myth: "The 19th century belonged to England, the 20th
century belonged to the US, and the 21st century belongs to China. Invest
accordingly," argues Warren Buffett.
Why we think it: Because the story of Chinese growth over
the past three decades is awe-inspiring. In 1979, the economy was smaller than
Britain's. Since then, it has doubled in size roughly every eight years and is
now 22 times larger than when it began its reforms. In 2009, China overtook
Japan to become the second biggest economy in the world. It is expected to
surpass the US in 2017.
The truth: In order to continue growing, China needs to
enact fundamental economic reforms. That means a massive expansion of public
health care and pensions. It means land reform, to prevent farmers being
swindled out of their rightful profits. It means a liberalisation of the
financial sector. It means higher wages and an end to the one child policy.
Every one of those reforms will be fiercely resisted by powerful vested
interests. And it is far from certain that the reformers will prevail.
MYTH #4
Chinese students are the cleverest in the world
The myth: According to the British Education Secretary,
Michael Gove: "Schools in the Far East are turning out students who are working
at an altogether higher level than our own".
Why we think it: Because we see so many smart Chinese
children coming to Western universities. And also because the statistics seem to
back it up. In 2009, 15-year-old children from Shanghai came top in reading,
maths and science in the international standardised tests run by the OECD. They
outperformed children from richer nations such as the US, Britain and
Germany.
The truth: The OECD tests were also taken by children in
nine provinces across China. Yet the Chinese government has not permitted the
OECD to publish the full figures, casting doubt over how representative the
Shanghai results really are. Some Chinese are also voting on China's education
system with their feet. A 2012 survey by the magazine, Hurun Report, found that
around nine out of 10 wealthy Chinese intend to send their children to
universities abroad. A third also want to send their children abroad for high
school.
MYTH #5
The Chinese all speak the same language
The myth:
"Chinese, regardless of whether they live in China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, are
essentially the same," according to the Shanghai-based advertising executive Tom
Doctoroff.
Why we think it:
Because it makes this vast and complex land feel easier to understand and
perhaps less intimidating. Also, the Chinese regard linguistic unity as one of
the pillars of the country's modernisation. The father of the Chinese republican
movement, Sun Yat-sen, proclaimed that the Chinese have a "common language,
common religion and common customs".
The truth: Hundreds of millions of Chinese cannot speak to
each other in a common tongue. China's education ministry reported in 2007 that
only around half of the country's population could communicate effectively in
standard Mandarin. The figure in cities was 66 per cent, while in rural areas it
fell to just 45 per cent. Most Chinese use local dialects, and even different
languages from Mandarin, for everyday communication.
MYTH #6
China is buying up the world
The myth: According to the Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo,
China is winning the global "race for resources". She argues "other countries
seem to be asleep while China is making a concerted effort". Others claim that
China is engaged in neo-imperialist behaviour in Africa.
Why we think it:
Because China's economic growth has truly shaken the world. The country is the
world's largest importer of copper, rice and (pretty soon) oil. China is also
now a considerable lender to African states and is attempting to use its $3.5
trillion war chest of foreign exchange reserves to buy up companies in the
West.
The truth: China's investments in the developing world are
straightforward transactions: they build roads and factories in return for
long-term commodity contracts. And China's mountain of US foreign exchange
reserves are signs of weakness, rather than geopolitical strength, since these
investments are gradually falling in value as the Chinese currency gradually
appreciates against the dollar.
MYTH #7
he Chinese are a biological race
The myth: The late Sinologist, Lucian Pye, said that it was
"self-evident that the Chinese people share the same blood, the same physical
characteristics, the same ancestry".
Why we think it: It appears obvious since many Chinese
people share phenotypical trait such as black hair and high cheekbones. And the
Chinese do nothing to discourage it. One of the most popular Chinese pop songs
of the past 40 years is Hou Dejian's "Heirs of the Dragon" with its lyrics:
"Black eyes, black hair, yellow skin, forever".
The truth: There are at least 56 different minority
'nations' who live mainly in China's borderlands. These range from the Mongols
of the grassy steppes, to the Manchus of the Korean border. Like 'Anglo-Saxons'
or 'Hispanics', the Han Chinese constitute a purely imagined biological
community.
Myth: China is a dangerously nationalistic power - popular nationalistic sentiment in China is
often the flipside of the political reform movement (Getty
Images)
MYTH #8
China is a dangerously nationalistic power
The myth: The political scientist Robert Kagan tells us that
China is "filled with nationalist pride, ambitions and resentments, consumed
with questions of territorial sovereignty".
Why we think it: Because we assume that a rising China will
behave like Western states did in the 19th century. Also, China itself sometimes
throws off belligerent signals. In 1996, a group of Chinese academics produced a
collection of polemical essays entitled China Can Say No. In its pages they
argued that China was sufficiently economically developed to start imposing
itself on the rest of the world.
The truth: Popular nationalistic sentiment in China is often
the flipside of the political reform movement – and a source of deep concern for
the ruling Communist Party. One nationalist blogger, Li Chengpeng, wrote
recently of how he became disillusioned with his own government when he learnt
that schools that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, killing hundreds of
children, had been constructed to poor standards due to the corruption of local
government officials. Li called for a new kind of patriotism, one that put
political reform at home first. "Patriotism is about allowing people to move
freely in our country and letting our children study in the city where they wish
to study," he said. "Patriotism is about speaking more truth. Patriotism is
about dignity for the Chinese people."
MYTH #9
The Chinese are all Confucians
The myth: "It is still impossible to understand modern China
without understanding Confucius," according to the BBC journalist Andrew
Marr.
Why we think it: It makes China feel more comprehensible.
And Confucianism is still certainly a strong influence on China. In 2007, a book
called Confucius from the Heart by a Beijing University literature professor, Yu
Dan, shifted more copies than any printed work since Mao's Little Red Book.
The truth: There is, actually, a long Chinese intellectual
tradition of repudiating Confucianism, stretching back to the radical May Fourth
Movement of 1919. The Chinese writer Jiang Rong, in his bestselling 2004 novel,
Wolf Totem, contrasted the traditional values of China unfavourably with those
of the nomads of the Mongolian steppe.
China: what else don't we know?
"May you live in interesting times" is not a traditional Chinese saying,
contrary to popular belief in the West.
The mother of Kublai Khan (the Chinese emperor who received Marco Polo in the
13th century) was a Christian.
There are twice as many Mongolians in China as there are in Mongolia
itself.
When Zhou Enlai said in the 1970s that it was "too early to say" what the
consequences of the French Revolution would be, he was referring to the events
of 1968, not 1789.
The first mosque in China was built in 627 by Muslim traders, five years
before the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Chinese population tripled between 1700 and 1850 following the
introduction of corn and potatoes from the Americas.
The Beijing authorities allow only 20 foreign films to be screened in Chinese
cinemas every year.
50 per cent of Chinese dollar millionaires are considering leaving the
country.
100,000 Chinese labourers worked on the Western Front alongside the British
and French in the First World War.
'Gung-ho' was a phrase invented by an American soldier who had been inspired
by the Chinese resistance to Japan's occupation in the Second World War.
From 1882 until the 1940s, the US banned all immigration from China.
Poor air quality in China causes 300,000 premature deaths a year.
A Chinese-Jamaican, Randy Chin, helped to popularise reggae.
Many Peking ducks are imported from Britain.
China became the first democratic republic in Asia in 1911.
Rickshaws were invented in Japan.
Tea drinking did not become widely
popular until the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century AD.
Business Week: The New Digital Playbook for Learning Mandarin Chinese--posted on Oct. 8, 2013
David Moser, the academic director at
CET Beijing Chinese Studies, remembers the bad old days of Mandarin-learning
methodology in the 1980s and 1990s. “Before we could even look up a new word in
the dictionary,” he explains, “we had to spend at least six to 12 months
learning more than 200 radicals,” or base components of written Chinese
characters. As a result, he adds, “For most students, it took two to four years
before they could even start to read a newspaper in class.” Among teachers and
students, it has long been a truism that studying the Chinese language is at
least a “five-year lesson in humility.”
Learning Mandarin is no cakewalk today, but new digital technologies—including
translation-software extensions in Web browsers, optical character-recognition
apps, Chinese-character dictionaries embedded in e-book software, text-to-speech
translators, and all-purpose language-learning apps—have radically expanded the
possibilities for teaching and learning written and spoken Chinese (as well as
Arabic, Japanese, and other languages).
Because Chinese characters are not phonetic, there is no obvious link between the
written and spoken language. Being able to say a word does not mean you can
write or recognize that word, or vice versa. Each of the 8,000 or so characters
included in the standard Xinhua News Agency dictionary has a basic component
called a radical, and for centuries dictionaries have arranged Chinese
characters into grids based on their radicals and the number of pen strokes used
in writing them. “But if you guessed the wrong radical, or miscounted the number
of strokes, looking up just one word could turn into a five or 10 minute
steeplechase,” explains Moser.
In China, the official standard for literacy is bifurcated: In urban areas, the
ability to recognize 2,000 characters makes a person “literate”; in rural areas,
it’s 1,500 characters. To read a Chinese magazine or novel easily, one must know
4,000 to 5,000 characters. Even for native speakers, acquiring literacy takes
several years of diligent study. By about third grade, most American students
have internalized the main spelling rules of the English language and can write
down most of the words they can say. Many Chinese students, meanwhile, are still
learning to recognize new characters throughout junior high school or even high
school.
Today’s digital tools allow Mandarin learners to leapfrog some of the hurdles to using
the language, even before they’ve fully mastered the entire system of radicals
and stroke order. Google (GOOG) Chrome has an
extension that provides a quick and dirty online translation from Mandarin
Chinese to several other languages. While the output is far from perfect, the
software is continually improving. For identifying single Chinese characters—in
newspapers, menus, or even on street signs—smartphone apps such as Waygo enable optical recognition by hovering a smartphone
camera over the text. Many e-book editions of Chinese classics now have built-in
dictionaries so students don’t have to pause too long to look up an unknown
character here and there.
Maura Cunningham, a PhD candidate in Chinese history at the University of California,
Irvine, is now conducting her dissertation research in Shanghai. While she is a
fluent Chinese speaker, she nonetheless, while conducting archival research,
often encounters unfamiliar words and “unsimplified” Chinese characters from an
earlier system of writing. She now uses Pleco, a popular language-study app, which allows her to
draw an unfamiliar character on the screen of her iPad
(AAPL) or iPhone to look
up its meaning and pronunciation—a process that takes about 15 seconds. “In
today’s world, a paper dictionary is a huge time-waster,” she says, “although
it’s still good to know how to use it for backup.”
Instead of waiting years to begin reading Chinese newspapers, a beginning or
intermediate Mandarin student can dive right intoPeople’s
Daily or Southern Weekly and use
social-media apps such as Weibo or Weixin by easily looking up unknown words in
Web-based dictionaries. It makes for slow reading, but the ability to focus on
current texts can make a huge difference in student engagement. “Before,
students were limited for the first few years to canned textbook materials and a
teacher’s vocabulary lists,” recalls Moser. “Today, learning Chinese doesn’t
have to be a horrible, front-loaded nightmare anymore.”
CET Beijing Chinese Studies, remembers the bad old days of Mandarin-learning
methodology in the 1980s and 1990s. “Before we could even look up a new word in
the dictionary,” he explains, “we had to spend at least six to 12 months
learning more than 200 radicals,” or base components of written Chinese
characters. As a result, he adds, “For most students, it took two to four years
before they could even start to read a newspaper in class.” Among teachers and
students, it has long been a truism that studying the Chinese language is at
least a “five-year lesson in humility.”
Learning Mandarin is no cakewalk today, but new digital technologies—including
translation-software extensions in Web browsers, optical character-recognition
apps, Chinese-character dictionaries embedded in e-book software, text-to-speech
translators, and all-purpose language-learning apps—have radically expanded the
possibilities for teaching and learning written and spoken Chinese (as well as
Arabic, Japanese, and other languages).
Because Chinese characters are not phonetic, there is no obvious link between the
written and spoken language. Being able to say a word does not mean you can
write or recognize that word, or vice versa. Each of the 8,000 or so characters
included in the standard Xinhua News Agency dictionary has a basic component
called a radical, and for centuries dictionaries have arranged Chinese
characters into grids based on their radicals and the number of pen strokes used
in writing them. “But if you guessed the wrong radical, or miscounted the number
of strokes, looking up just one word could turn into a five or 10 minute
steeplechase,” explains Moser.
In China, the official standard for literacy is bifurcated: In urban areas, the
ability to recognize 2,000 characters makes a person “literate”; in rural areas,
it’s 1,500 characters. To read a Chinese magazine or novel easily, one must know
4,000 to 5,000 characters. Even for native speakers, acquiring literacy takes
several years of diligent study. By about third grade, most American students
have internalized the main spelling rules of the English language and can write
down most of the words they can say. Many Chinese students, meanwhile, are still
learning to recognize new characters throughout junior high school or even high
school.
Today’s digital tools allow Mandarin learners to leapfrog some of the hurdles to using
the language, even before they’ve fully mastered the entire system of radicals
and stroke order. Google (GOOG) Chrome has an
extension that provides a quick and dirty online translation from Mandarin
Chinese to several other languages. While the output is far from perfect, the
software is continually improving. For identifying single Chinese characters—in
newspapers, menus, or even on street signs—smartphone apps such as Waygo enable optical recognition by hovering a smartphone
camera over the text. Many e-book editions of Chinese classics now have built-in
dictionaries so students don’t have to pause too long to look up an unknown
character here and there.
Maura Cunningham, a PhD candidate in Chinese history at the University of California,
Irvine, is now conducting her dissertation research in Shanghai. While she is a
fluent Chinese speaker, she nonetheless, while conducting archival research,
often encounters unfamiliar words and “unsimplified” Chinese characters from an
earlier system of writing. She now uses Pleco, a popular language-study app, which allows her to
draw an unfamiliar character on the screen of her iPad
(AAPL) or iPhone to look
up its meaning and pronunciation—a process that takes about 15 seconds. “In
today’s world, a paper dictionary is a huge time-waster,” she says, “although
it’s still good to know how to use it for backup.”
Instead of waiting years to begin reading Chinese newspapers, a beginning or
intermediate Mandarin student can dive right intoPeople’s
Daily or Southern Weekly and use
social-media apps such as Weibo or Weixin by easily looking up unknown words in
Web-based dictionaries. It makes for slow reading, but the ability to focus on
current texts can make a huge difference in student engagement. “Before,
students were limited for the first few years to canned textbook materials and a
teacher’s vocabulary lists,” recalls Moser. “Today, learning Chinese doesn’t
have to be a horrible, front-loaded nightmare anymore.”
Fun with machine translation--posted on Oct. 8, 2013
New York City has just launched a new official website for the municipal
government (http://www1.nyc.gov) with a Chinese version, but
when you get on the Chinese homepage, you will see the following buttons on top:
纽约 311 市长办公室 活动 接 乔布斯
Can anyone figure out what 接 and
乔布斯 are? 接 is actually "connect" and 乔布斯 is actually "Jobs". It seems that
google translate attaches more importance to Steve Jobs than jobs.
If you click on the button for
市长办公室, you will see a button called "市长生物". Is that for "Mayor's Bio". This site
is a source of laughter.
government (http://www1.nyc.gov) with a Chinese version, but
when you get on the Chinese homepage, you will see the following buttons on top:
纽约 311 市长办公室 活动 接 乔布斯
Can anyone figure out what 接 and
乔布斯 are? 接 is actually "connect" and 乔布斯 is actually "Jobs". It seems that
google translate attaches more importance to Steve Jobs than jobs.
If you click on the button for
市长办公室, you will see a button called "市长生物". Is that for "Mayor's Bio". This site
is a source of laughter.
China Workshop--posted on Oct. 1, 2013
From the East Asia Library:
CHINA WORKSHOP
Thursday, October 3, 2013
English-Language Resources for Research in the China Field
Tang Li - Public Services Librarian, East Asia Library
William Massa - Archivist, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives
Michael Meng – Librarian for Chinese Studies, East Asia Library
Martha Smalley - Special Collections Librarian, The Divinity School
Time and Place: 12:00 PM, Room L01A & B, Bass Library
Lunch will be provided.
A panel of speakers will introduce English language primary resources available at Yale for research on China, as well as special collections throughout the libraries that have repositories of Chinese materials. The workshop is intended for those working on senior essays, but would be useful for many others, as well.
Sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University and the East Asia Library
Tang LI (Ms.)
Public Services Librarian
East Asia Library, Yale University Library
Phone: (203) 432-1794
E-mail: [email protected]
EAL Web: http://web.library.yale.edu/international/east-asia-library
CHINA WORKSHOP
Thursday, October 3, 2013
English-Language Resources for Research in the China Field
Tang Li - Public Services Librarian, East Asia Library
William Massa - Archivist, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives
Michael Meng – Librarian for Chinese Studies, East Asia Library
Martha Smalley - Special Collections Librarian, The Divinity School
Time and Place: 12:00 PM, Room L01A & B, Bass Library
Lunch will be provided.
A panel of speakers will introduce English language primary resources available at Yale for research on China, as well as special collections throughout the libraries that have repositories of Chinese materials. The workshop is intended for those working on senior essays, but would be useful for many others, as well.
Sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University and the East Asia Library
Tang LI (Ms.)
Public Services Librarian
East Asia Library, Yale University Library
Phone: (203) 432-1794
E-mail: [email protected]
EAL Web: http://web.library.yale.edu/international/east-asia-library
China Institute October 2013 Newsletter--posted on Oct.2, 2013
http://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=339jkk18qj4o6#mail
http://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=339jkk18qj4o6#mail
Yale Univerity on China Colloq: Frank Dikotter (Univ. of Hong Kong)--posted on Oct. 2, 2013
http://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=339jkk18qj4o6#mail
http://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=339jkk18qj4o6#mail
From the Asian American Students Alliance--posted on Oct.1, 2013
Remember the 2012 Night Market--tantalizing food, enchanting lights, and amazing performances--that drew more than 500 people? The winner of the 2012 UOFC $5K challenge is back this year, with even more food, performances, and culture!
For those of you who weren’t there, the Asian American Students Alliance's Night Market is an event that seeks to recreate the awesome combination of food, entertainment, and fun found in a Taiwanese night market. After a busy day of studying, Night Market is the place to kick back, relax, and enjoy some performances and booths hosted by Yale’s many cultural groups.
We hope to see you there on Friday, October 4 from 6-9 p.m. @ the JE-Branford Walkway!
Sponsors: Undergraduate Organizations Committee, Intercultural Affairs Council, Council on East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies Council, Office of International Students and Scholars, Council on Southeast Asia Studies.
For those of you who weren’t there, the Asian American Students Alliance's Night Market is an event that seeks to recreate the awesome combination of food, entertainment, and fun found in a Taiwanese night market. After a busy day of studying, Night Market is the place to kick back, relax, and enjoy some performances and booths hosted by Yale’s many cultural groups.
We hope to see you there on Friday, October 4 from 6-9 p.m. @ the JE-Branford Walkway!
Sponsors: Undergraduate Organizations Committee, Intercultural Affairs Council, Council on East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies Council, Office of International Students and Scholars, Council on Southeast Asia Studies.
Special Event from China Institute--posted on Sep. 18, 2013
今秋十月,華美人文學會慶祝成立十週年。在過去的十年裡,人文學會廣邀海内外文化名家做精闢演講,迄今已舉辦了三百餘次講座,成為紐約文化界重要講壇。演講嘉賓包括作家、學者和藝術家夏志清、余秋雨、莫言、白先勇、董鼎山、劉心武、于丹、易中天、閻崇年、王安憶、舒乙(老舍之子)、萬方(曹禺之女)、何大一、馬蘭、濮存昕、田浩江、劉燁、鄭佩佩、張充和、李昌鈺、冀朝鑄等数百知名人士,講題涉及中國文化各方面:文學、歷史、哲學、书法,語言、戲曲、電影、藝術等。
華美人文學會將於10月20日(星期日)下午2時至6時在紐約大學隆重慶祝學會成立十週年。當日活動分兩部分:2時至4時再度邀請文學大家余秋雨以“中國文脈”為题演講。 4時至6時由著名戲劇藝術家、纽约大都會著名演唱家以及音樂及演奏家作精彩表演。此次人文学会活動,協辦單位為紐約大學漢語教師發展中心(Project for Developing Chinese Language Teachers )、美華藝術中心和亞太藝術中心。
余秋雨为中國著名文化學者,曾任上海戲劇學院院長,獲全國優秀教材一等獎、上海市哲學社會科學著作獎、魯迅文學獎、台灣白金作家獎等。為尋找中華文化的靈魂,他在長期鑽研典籍後離開書齋,於上世紀九十年代初期遠行考察,並闡釋了大量中華文化的遺跡。他所發現並寫到的地點,後來大多成為海內外民眾爭相遊觀的熱點。在這過程中,他又創造了“文化大散文”的嶄新文體而開啟一代文風。從上世紀九十年代晚期開始,為了进行中華文化与世界其他重要文化比較研究等工作,他與鳳凰衛視合作,冒著生命危險貼地穿行四萬公里當今世界上最危險的地區,親身考察了人類全部重要古文明的遺址。此後,他又考察了歐洲九十六座城市,繼續致力于此项重要文化工作。余秋雨的此種空前規模的文化考察,通過全球電視直播,感動了全世界。
余秋雨多次應邀到華美人文學會,哈佛大學、耶魯大學、哥倫比亞大學、馬里蘭大學講述中華文化,並荣任聯合國世界文明大會、世界華商大會、全球企業家峰會的首選文化演講者。他的書籍,長期位列全球華文書排行榜前列。目前,他被公認为全球各華人社區影響最大的極少數作家之一。海內外讀者高度評價他集“深度研究、親歷考察、有效傳播”於一身,以整整二十年的不懈努力,為守護和诠释中華文化作出了先於他人的傑出貢獻。
《中國文脈》是余秋雨教授的近作。搜狐網站稱,“此書是繼《文化苦旅》之後,余秋雨教授最重要的作品,也是當今中國當代文史領域最重要的作品之一。”《中國文脈》以中國文字起源為引,從《詩經》講起,到春秋戰國時期的“百家爭鳴”及楚辭,再到秦漢時期的“大一統”與“書同文”對文學的影響,漢賦及《史記》,魏晉時期的三曹及“竹林七賢”等的文采,再到唐宋詩詞,元曲及明清小說,一氣呵成,使歷史與現實相溝通,文理與形象相交融。 10月20日下午,余秋雨將以“中國文脈”為題,细述中國文學的脈絡,以及中國文化演進的輝煌過程。
余秋雨教授的講座後,人文學會將舉辦一場精彩特别的演唱會,由著名黃梅戲表演藝術家演員馬蘭、 著名崑曲表演藝術家岳美緹等中外著名戲曲音樂家演出(全部名單待公佈,請點擊藝術家的名字見她們的簡介)。
此次活動在紐約大學的具體地址為:238 Thompson Street, Auditorium (C95) in the Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life。活動對華美人文學會會員和紐約大學學生免費,對其他人員收費10美元。所有參會人員均須提前訂位,需付費的聽眾付費後訂位才能確認。網上訂位與付費請按此處。
問詢電話:646-912-8861
問詢電郵:[email protected]
華美人文學會將於10月20日(星期日)下午2時至6時在紐約大學隆重慶祝學會成立十週年。當日活動分兩部分:2時至4時再度邀請文學大家余秋雨以“中國文脈”為题演講。 4時至6時由著名戲劇藝術家、纽约大都會著名演唱家以及音樂及演奏家作精彩表演。此次人文学会活動,協辦單位為紐約大學漢語教師發展中心(Project for Developing Chinese Language Teachers )、美華藝術中心和亞太藝術中心。
余秋雨为中國著名文化學者,曾任上海戲劇學院院長,獲全國優秀教材一等獎、上海市哲學社會科學著作獎、魯迅文學獎、台灣白金作家獎等。為尋找中華文化的靈魂,他在長期鑽研典籍後離開書齋,於上世紀九十年代初期遠行考察,並闡釋了大量中華文化的遺跡。他所發現並寫到的地點,後來大多成為海內外民眾爭相遊觀的熱點。在這過程中,他又創造了“文化大散文”的嶄新文體而開啟一代文風。從上世紀九十年代晚期開始,為了进行中華文化与世界其他重要文化比較研究等工作,他與鳳凰衛視合作,冒著生命危險貼地穿行四萬公里當今世界上最危險的地區,親身考察了人類全部重要古文明的遺址。此後,他又考察了歐洲九十六座城市,繼續致力于此项重要文化工作。余秋雨的此種空前規模的文化考察,通過全球電視直播,感動了全世界。
余秋雨多次應邀到華美人文學會,哈佛大學、耶魯大學、哥倫比亞大學、馬里蘭大學講述中華文化,並荣任聯合國世界文明大會、世界華商大會、全球企業家峰會的首選文化演講者。他的書籍,長期位列全球華文書排行榜前列。目前,他被公認为全球各華人社區影響最大的極少數作家之一。海內外讀者高度評價他集“深度研究、親歷考察、有效傳播”於一身,以整整二十年的不懈努力,為守護和诠释中華文化作出了先於他人的傑出貢獻。
《中國文脈》是余秋雨教授的近作。搜狐網站稱,“此書是繼《文化苦旅》之後,余秋雨教授最重要的作品,也是當今中國當代文史領域最重要的作品之一。”《中國文脈》以中國文字起源為引,從《詩經》講起,到春秋戰國時期的“百家爭鳴”及楚辭,再到秦漢時期的“大一統”與“書同文”對文學的影響,漢賦及《史記》,魏晉時期的三曹及“竹林七賢”等的文采,再到唐宋詩詞,元曲及明清小說,一氣呵成,使歷史與現實相溝通,文理與形象相交融。 10月20日下午,余秋雨將以“中國文脈”為題,细述中國文學的脈絡,以及中國文化演進的輝煌過程。
余秋雨教授的講座後,人文學會將舉辦一場精彩特别的演唱會,由著名黃梅戲表演藝術家演員馬蘭、 著名崑曲表演藝術家岳美緹等中外著名戲曲音樂家演出(全部名單待公佈,請點擊藝術家的名字見她們的簡介)。
此次活動在紐約大學的具體地址為:238 Thompson Street, Auditorium (C95) in the Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life。活動對華美人文學會會員和紐約大學學生免費,對其他人員收費10美元。所有參會人員均須提前訂位,需付費的聽眾付費後訂位才能確認。網上訂位與付費請按此處。
問詢電話:646-912-8861
問詢電郵:[email protected]
New York Chinese Characters Festival sponsored by Chinese Cubes--posted on Sep. 8, 2013
We invite you to participate in the First New York Chinese Characters Festival (紐約漢字文化節), which sponsored by Chinese Cubes (中文妙方)and DCLT at NYU (紐約大學 中文教師發展中心). There are many ways you can participate , as outlined below.
Opening Ceremony (開幕式): Sunday, October 6, 2013, 2-5 pm
Closing Ceremony (閉幕式): Sunday, November 3, 2013, 2-5 pm
Location: NYU Kimmel Hall, 9th Floor (Washington Square Park South)
Teachers: You are welcome to participate in these events with your students.Visit www.cc-festival.com for more information. Click “School Events” tab for more details. Sign up before September 20.
Activities before Opening (開幕式前活動):
・My Favorite Chinese Character (我喜歡的漢字): All submissions prior to opening day win prizes (materials available at www.cc-festival.com )
・Chinese character Flash Mob (人體排漢字競賽): Photograph your student "flash mob" in the shape of a Chinese character. (Matching color hats/t-shirts for the picture will be provided!)
・CUBEE team Chinese spelling bee (漢字拼寫比賽): bring a student or a team of students to participate in this contest at the opening ceremony
・Showcase your Chinese program and students' work with a School Booth at the Festival free of charge (學校學生漢字作業展覽)
Encourage your students to participate in the following events as a group or with their families. You might offer them extra credit as incentives!
Activities during the Opening Session ( 開幕式活動):
・Dance, music and cultural performances
・Pineapple tart taste
・Chinese spelling bee
・Exhibits: Digital reading, Chinese character Cubes, school booths showcasing student work, Chinese character postcards and stamps
・Chinese characters games
Activities between the Opening and Closing ( 開幕式和閉幕式之間活動) :
・Submit a picture of your favorite place for the Chinese Characters Festival Cultural Map (due Sep 14)
・Chinese Character T-Shirt Design Contest (due Oct. 23)
・The best Chinese Character Tattoos photo contest (due Oct. 23)
・Best Hidden Chinese Calligraphy photo contest (due Oct. 23)
・NYC Chinese Culture Treasure Hunt: Encourage your students to visit as many places on the map as you can. Then, submit your stamped "passport" for prizes! (due Oct. 23)
Activities at the Closing Ceremony ( 閉幕式活動):
・Festival T-shirt contest fashion show
・Award ceremony: Best Chinese characters, Best Character tattoo, Best T-shirt design, Best summer activities, Flash Mob winner, Cubee winner
・Activities ,games, and exhibits See a flyer attaced. ChineseCharactersFestivalFlyer.docx CCF Invitation_Teachers.docx
Opening Ceremony (開幕式): Sunday, October 6, 2013, 2-5 pm
Closing Ceremony (閉幕式): Sunday, November 3, 2013, 2-5 pm
Location: NYU Kimmel Hall, 9th Floor (Washington Square Park South)
Teachers: You are welcome to participate in these events with your students.Visit www.cc-festival.com for more information. Click “School Events” tab for more details. Sign up before September 20.
Activities before Opening (開幕式前活動):
・My Favorite Chinese Character (我喜歡的漢字): All submissions prior to opening day win prizes (materials available at www.cc-festival.com )
・Chinese character Flash Mob (人體排漢字競賽): Photograph your student "flash mob" in the shape of a Chinese character. (Matching color hats/t-shirts for the picture will be provided!)
・CUBEE team Chinese spelling bee (漢字拼寫比賽): bring a student or a team of students to participate in this contest at the opening ceremony
・Showcase your Chinese program and students' work with a School Booth at the Festival free of charge (學校學生漢字作業展覽)
Encourage your students to participate in the following events as a group or with their families. You might offer them extra credit as incentives!
Activities during the Opening Session ( 開幕式活動):
・Dance, music and cultural performances
・Pineapple tart taste
・Chinese spelling bee
・Exhibits: Digital reading, Chinese character Cubes, school booths showcasing student work, Chinese character postcards and stamps
・Chinese characters games
Activities between the Opening and Closing ( 開幕式和閉幕式之間活動) :
・Submit a picture of your favorite place for the Chinese Characters Festival Cultural Map (due Sep 14)
・Chinese Character T-Shirt Design Contest (due Oct. 23)
・The best Chinese Character Tattoos photo contest (due Oct. 23)
・Best Hidden Chinese Calligraphy photo contest (due Oct. 23)
・NYC Chinese Culture Treasure Hunt: Encourage your students to visit as many places on the map as you can. Then, submit your stamped "passport" for prizes! (due Oct. 23)
Activities at the Closing Ceremony ( 閉幕式活動):
・Festival T-shirt contest fashion show
・Award ceremony: Best Chinese characters, Best Character tattoo, Best T-shirt design, Best summer activities, Flash Mob winner, Cubee winner
・Activities ,games, and exhibits See a flyer attaced. ChineseCharactersFestivalFlyer.docx CCF Invitation_Teachers.docx
國務院公佈《通用規范漢字表》 共收字8105 個--posted on Aug. 26, 2013
From: http://guoqing.china.com.cn/2013-08/20/content_29766008.htm
国务院于6月5日发出关于公布《通用规范汉字表》的通知,国务院同意教育部、国家语言文字工作委员会组织制定的《通用规范汉字表》,并予公布。
《通用规范汉字表》共收字8105个,分为三级:一级字表为常用字集,收字3500个,主要满足基础教育和文化普及的基本用字需要。二级字表收字3000个,使用度仅次于一级字。一、二级字表合计6500字,主要满足出版印刷、辞书编纂和信息处理等方面的一般用字需要。三级字表收字1605个,是姓氏人名、地名、科学技术术语和中小学语文教材文言文用字中未进入一、二级字表的较通用的字,主要满足信息化时代与大众生活密切相关的专门领域的用字需要。
该表是在整合《第一批异体字整理表》(1955年)、《简化字总表》(1986年)、《现代汉语常用字表》(1988年)、《现代汉语通用字表》(1988年)的基础上制定。一、二级字表通过语料库统计和人工干预方法,主要依据字的使用度进行定量、收字和分级。三级字表主要通过向有关部门和群众征集用字等方法,收录音义俱全且有一定使用度的字。
该表对社会上出现的在《简化字总表》和《现代汉语通用字表》之外的类推简化字进行了严格甄别,仅收录了符合该表收字原则且已在社会语言生活中广泛使用的“闫”等226个简化字。
该表在以往相关规范文件对异体字调整的基础上,又将《第一批异体字整理表》中“皙、喆、淼”等45个异体字调整为规范字。
为方便使用,该表后附《规范字与繁体字、异体字对照表》和《<通用规范汉字表>笔画检字表》两个附表。
通知指出,《通用规范汉字表》公布后,社会一般应用领域的汉字使用应以《通用规范汉字表》为准,原有相关字表停止使用。该表可根据语言生活的发展变化和实际需要适时进行必要补充和调整。
据了解,《通用规范汉字表》历经10年研制完成,该表是对50余年来汉字规范整合优化后的最新成果,对提升国家通用语言文字的规范化、标准化水平具有重要意义。
2009年8月12日,教育部曾公开《通用规范汉字表》征求意见稿,公开向公众征求意见,征求意见稿共有8300个字,与1988年的《现代汉语通用字表》相比,征求意见稿增加了1300个字。
国务院于6月5日发出关于公布《通用规范汉字表》的通知,国务院同意教育部、国家语言文字工作委员会组织制定的《通用规范汉字表》,并予公布。
《通用规范汉字表》共收字8105个,分为三级:一级字表为常用字集,收字3500个,主要满足基础教育和文化普及的基本用字需要。二级字表收字3000个,使用度仅次于一级字。一、二级字表合计6500字,主要满足出版印刷、辞书编纂和信息处理等方面的一般用字需要。三级字表收字1605个,是姓氏人名、地名、科学技术术语和中小学语文教材文言文用字中未进入一、二级字表的较通用的字,主要满足信息化时代与大众生活密切相关的专门领域的用字需要。
该表是在整合《第一批异体字整理表》(1955年)、《简化字总表》(1986年)、《现代汉语常用字表》(1988年)、《现代汉语通用字表》(1988年)的基础上制定。一、二级字表通过语料库统计和人工干预方法,主要依据字的使用度进行定量、收字和分级。三级字表主要通过向有关部门和群众征集用字等方法,收录音义俱全且有一定使用度的字。
该表对社会上出现的在《简化字总表》和《现代汉语通用字表》之外的类推简化字进行了严格甄别,仅收录了符合该表收字原则且已在社会语言生活中广泛使用的“闫”等226个简化字。
该表在以往相关规范文件对异体字调整的基础上,又将《第一批异体字整理表》中“皙、喆、淼”等45个异体字调整为规范字。
为方便使用,该表后附《规范字与繁体字、异体字对照表》和《<通用规范汉字表>笔画检字表》两个附表。
通知指出,《通用规范汉字表》公布后,社会一般应用领域的汉字使用应以《通用规范汉字表》为准,原有相关字表停止使用。该表可根据语言生活的发展变化和实际需要适时进行必要补充和调整。
据了解,《通用规范汉字表》历经10年研制完成,该表是对50余年来汉字规范整合优化后的最新成果,对提升国家通用语言文字的规范化、标准化水平具有重要意义。
2009年8月12日,教育部曾公开《通用规范汉字表》征求意见稿,公开向公众征求意见,征求意见稿共有8300个字,与1988年的《现代汉语通用字表》相比,征求意见稿增加了1300个字。
中式英语风靡全球,语言贡献显实力
《華爾街日報》的視頻網站上,有個單詞很引人關注。為了報導中國大媽帶動金價上漲,《華爾街日報》特地創造了“dama”(大媽)這一來自漢語拼音的英語單詞。這表明中國貢獻的英語單詞,正不知不覺、越來越多地融入了國際生活的方方面面。拼音成為英語單詞像“dama”這類從另一種語言中“借”來的詞,通常被稱為“藉詞”,在語言學上不是一個新現象。 近代以來,中文詞彙借來了不少英語單詞,如“拷貝”、“酷”、“可樂”等。這些外來詞生動形象,既保留了英語詞原有的發音,又有中文表意的特點,詞語的內在含義一目了然。 同時,取自漢語拼音的英語單詞近年也頻頻在海外媒體的報導中露面。10多年前,外國人就對“guanxi”(關係)一詞津津樂道。不同於英語中的“relationship”,“guanxi”特用來描繪中國社會獨有的複雜關係網。後來,此詞甚至被收錄進了英美國家的商學院教材《Rules and Networks》中。 這樣的例子還有很多,英國《經濟學人》把中國未婚男士譯成“guanggun”(光棍),《紐約客》把中國激進年輕人譯為“fenqing”(憤青),央視的英語網站將在海外的中國消費者譯成“chinsumer”。 巴克萊資本甚至創造了一個新詞“Likonomics”(李克強經濟學),用來指代李克強為中國製定的經濟增長計劃。 老外熱捧端賴幽默 另一種有趣的語言現像被稱為中式英語(Chinglish),它的典型代表是“Long time no see”(好久不見),一個已經被收錄進標準英語辭典中式英語詞組。 南京大學海外教育學院副院長徐昌火教授說:“由於對英語句法規則、語義語用限制、文化附加義的不了解或了解不深入,中國人容易使用具中文表達方式的英語詞句。” 但部分外國人卻對中式英語情有獨鍾。來自新加坡、現就讀於浙江大學醫學院的留學生何專舉擁有中英雙語背景,在初次聽到“People mountain people sea”(人山人海)時,一下就領略到其中的文化內涵,“和朋友們聊天,我會時不時地使用這種表達方式,多有幽默感呀!”多倫多大學的加拿大學生威廉儘管沒有學過中文,卻也沒少接觸中式英語:“我的中國留學生同學常常教我要'Good good study, day day up'(好好學習,天天向上)。這句話順口又好記,已經成了我的個性簽名!” 全球語言監測機構(Global Language Monitor)從全球視野和英語語言發展的角度給予了中式英語高度評價,認為中式英語是一種“可喜的混合體”。 語言貢獻彰顯國力 英語中的大多數詞彙原本就出自其他語言,如拉丁語、德語、法語等,而如今中文貢獻的英語單詞數量與日俱增。 “文明程度越高、社會越發達、對其他語言社團成員吸引力越強的語言,往往影響力更大更深:如羅馬時代的拉丁語、秦漢之際的漢語以及第二次世界大戰之後的英語。”北京外國語大學漢語文化學院副教授孟德宏這樣解讀漢語影響力的增強。 語言從來都不是孤立存在的。徐昌火認為:“中式英語走向全球,表層原因是反映當代中國社會文化現象的詞彙在英語裡是不可對譯的,從深層次看,則反映了中外語言文化交流的加速,反映了中國正在融入全球化進程。對此,我們應當樂於接受,靜觀其變,因為語言永遠是在變化之中的。” 這些年中國貢獻的英語詞句:shuanggui雙規chengguan城管jiujielity糾結geilivable給力Chimerica中美國We two who and who ?咱倆誰跟誰?Go and look!走著瞧!No money no talk!沒錢免談!
Language Program Grows and Expands--posted on June 21, 2013
A cast and crew of about 300 actors, directors, language specialists, authors, producers and cameramen helped bring to life what is considered the world's first dramatic series aimed at helping US students learn Mandarin Chinese.
Encounters: Chinese Language and Culture - a fully integrated multimedia coursework - began production in 2007 and was officially launched in the US in 2011. The program now assists beginner Chinese language students in 45 high schools and universities across the US.
Last week, members of the Yale University Press and China International Publishing Group (CIPG) met to launch Encounters in Beijing to extend their program to students in foreign high schools and universities in China.
"Immersing students in the language and culture of Chinese through the vehicle of a dramatic series is a very effective method [in teaching the language]," John Donatich, director of Yale University Press, wrote while abroad in response to a China Daily e- mail inquiry. "It not only shows the language being used in a natural setting, but the storyline increases student engagement with the materials."
Yale University Press and China International Publishing Group equally shared the $5.5 million cost to produce the program centered on a 20-episode TV series split into two books and DVDs and includes a website, podcasts, rap songs, screenplays, workbooks and instructor manuals, among other materials.
"The biggest challenge was the scope of the project," Donatich wrote about the five-hour dramatic series with an additional three hours of cultural videos. "The Yale-CIPG partnership was strong and we collaborated well together to make it all work."
Encounters was filmed onsite in Yangshuo, Beijing, Qinghai Lake, Shanghai, Suzhou and Xi'an, and tells the stories of a diverse group of people traveling, living and working in China, and how their lives are changed by their experiences.
"Yale assembled a team of language and film experts to create the storyline and the scope and sequence for the dramatic series, as well as for the cultural videos," Donatich wrote. "The Yale team worked collaboratively with the production team assembled by CIPG to complete the scripting, cast the actors, scout locations and execute the production plan."
The program is based on the latest language learning research, which combines in-class, individual, pair and group activities to better cater to students' preferred study methods and different learning abilities.
Student Book 1, which can be used over one college semester or one high school year, costs $94.99. Topics covered include making introductions and appointments, discussing oneself and family members, and shopping and bargaining, with the aim to prepare students in interacting with Chinese speakers and to have a foundation of Chinese culture.
With the same cost and completion length, Student Book 2 builds on the themes and knowledge gained from Book 1 and introduces more activities essential to living in China, such as grocery shopping, arranging travel itineraries, having dinner in a Chinese friend's home, and eating out.
By the end of the entire course, students may achieve between a low-intermediate and a mid-intermediate level language proficiency and engage in conversations in real-life situations. The series is based on the standards of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Donatich said Yale and CIPG completed filming the video materials in China this week for Encounters II intermediate level language program, which will be published in 2014. He also said an online, electronic workbook to accompany Student Book 1-2 is in production and will be available this fall.
[email protected]
Encounters: Chinese Language and Culture - a fully integrated multimedia coursework - began production in 2007 and was officially launched in the US in 2011. The program now assists beginner Chinese language students in 45 high schools and universities across the US.
Last week, members of the Yale University Press and China International Publishing Group (CIPG) met to launch Encounters in Beijing to extend their program to students in foreign high schools and universities in China.
"Immersing students in the language and culture of Chinese through the vehicle of a dramatic series is a very effective method [in teaching the language]," John Donatich, director of Yale University Press, wrote while abroad in response to a China Daily e- mail inquiry. "It not only shows the language being used in a natural setting, but the storyline increases student engagement with the materials."
Yale University Press and China International Publishing Group equally shared the $5.5 million cost to produce the program centered on a 20-episode TV series split into two books and DVDs and includes a website, podcasts, rap songs, screenplays, workbooks and instructor manuals, among other materials.
"The biggest challenge was the scope of the project," Donatich wrote about the five-hour dramatic series with an additional three hours of cultural videos. "The Yale-CIPG partnership was strong and we collaborated well together to make it all work."
Encounters was filmed onsite in Yangshuo, Beijing, Qinghai Lake, Shanghai, Suzhou and Xi'an, and tells the stories of a diverse group of people traveling, living and working in China, and how their lives are changed by their experiences.
"Yale assembled a team of language and film experts to create the storyline and the scope and sequence for the dramatic series, as well as for the cultural videos," Donatich wrote. "The Yale team worked collaboratively with the production team assembled by CIPG to complete the scripting, cast the actors, scout locations and execute the production plan."
The program is based on the latest language learning research, which combines in-class, individual, pair and group activities to better cater to students' preferred study methods and different learning abilities.
Student Book 1, which can be used over one college semester or one high school year, costs $94.99. Topics covered include making introductions and appointments, discussing oneself and family members, and shopping and bargaining, with the aim to prepare students in interacting with Chinese speakers and to have a foundation of Chinese culture.
With the same cost and completion length, Student Book 2 builds on the themes and knowledge gained from Book 1 and introduces more activities essential to living in China, such as grocery shopping, arranging travel itineraries, having dinner in a Chinese friend's home, and eating out.
By the end of the entire course, students may achieve between a low-intermediate and a mid-intermediate level language proficiency and engage in conversations in real-life situations. The series is based on the standards of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
Donatich said Yale and CIPG completed filming the video materials in China this week for Encounters II intermediate level language program, which will be published in 2014. He also said an online, electronic workbook to accompany Student Book 1-2 is in production and will be available this fall.
[email protected]
Chinese publishing group teams up with Yale in US$5.5m language drama--posted on June 18, 2013
China International Publishing Group and Yale University have launched what they claim is the world's first drama series aimed at helping to teach Mandarin to beginners. The two sides held a launch event for the new integrated multimedia programme, Encounters: Chinese Language and Culture , in Beijing on Friday.The 20-episode series tells the story of several US citizens during their stay in China, and the stories of their Chinese friends. Based around the video series, they have created accompanying textbooks for teachers and students, and developed other products, including DVDs, audio and a rap song. The resources are available on encounterschinese.com . "Growing foreign exchanges with China mean the Chinese language is drawing increasing attention worldwide," said Zhou Mingwei, president of China International Publishing Group. "The enthusiasm for Mandarin presents a growing challenge for publishers to provide good learning materials to students." Zhou said he is confident that Encounters will become widely recognized as an ideal platform for Mandarin study. Han Hui, a chief editor at Sinolingua Co Ltd, a China International Publishing subsidiary that specializes in Chinese language teaching and learning materials for foreigners, added: "It is fair to say that Encounters is, both at home and abroad, the first Mandarin teaching material that blends language and cultural knowledge in a 20-episode plot. " Encounters is different from any published Mandarin learning materials in terms of teaching method. It is a total immersion program that provides a Mandarin language environment to the learners. "The videos, textbooks and online resources are integrated, so that users will find the learning material much more enriched than previous textbooks," she said. An especially strong feature of Encounters , she added, is the cultural detail that is used throughout. "The first 20 episodes include 60 cultural details, from ancient science in China to Chinese people's habit of taking naps," she said. Encounters is already being used as a teaching tool in 40 universities and high schools in the United States. The accompanying textbooks were compiled by Yale professors, and their Chinese counterparts were responsible for scriptwriting and filming. The project cost US$5.5 million to put together, half from China and half from the US. Yale President Richard Levin, who did not manage to attend the ceremony, described Encounters as "a truly monumental collaborative effort" between Yale and China International Publishing Group. "I believe this collaborative effort will prove to be a powerful Chinese language and cultural learning tool for thousands of learners," Levin said in a statement. "I also hope that, true to its name, Encounters will become a bridge that spans East and West. " After Encounters I, being targeted at beginners, the publishers are already preparing Encounters II for more advanced learners. Inda Duzih Pitkanen, a 35-year-old Indonesian who has been in China for four years, and who has been teaching herself Mandarin for two years, said the program "will not only be useful and helpful, but also interesting for prospective learners".
Li Keran, a prominent figure in modern Chinese art-- posted on June 18, 2013
( English Summary : Li Keran (1907-1989) was a prominent figure in modern Chinese art. He developed a personal style of landscape painting that was based upon the emulation of both ancient and contemporary masters. At this lecture, Dr. Li Liang, a researcher at the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social Sciences of China and the biographer of Li Keran, will discuss the master's life and works. )
李可染(1907-1989),中國現代畫家。早年先後入上海美專、國立西湖藝術院學習。1946年任教於北平藝專。1956年為變革山水畫,行程數萬裡旅行寫生。其山水畫早年取法八大山人,筆致簡率酣暢,後從齊白石習畫,用筆趨於凝練。又從黃賓虹處學得積墨法,並參悟林風眠風景畫前亮後暗的陰影處理方式。畫風趨謹嚴,筆墨趨沉厚,至晚年用筆老辣。曾任中央美術學院教授,中國美術家協會副主席等職。代表作有《漓江勝境圖》《萬山紅遍》《井岡山》等。
2010年,《長徵》以1.075億元成交,2012年《韶山》以1.24億元成交、《萬山紅遍》以2.93億元成交。為什麼李可染畫作能夠一再創造拍賣紀錄?是什麼文化背景成就了一代大師李可染?其生前身後又有哪些值得我們思考呢?華美人文學會6月23日(星期日)下午2時至4時特邀李可染同鄉李良博士結合大師的人生片段與代表作品,讀解現象背後的文化存在。
李良博士現在江蘇省社會科學院從事中國現當代文學與文化研究工作,多次參與或主持國家級及省級科研項目,擔任江蘇省海外華文文學暨台港文學研究會秘書長、中文核心期刊《世界華文文學論壇》編輯部主任。近年來,致力於中國現代文學文化名家與北美新移民研究,正在撰寫省級重大社會科學項目"江蘇省歷代名人叢書"之《李可染傳》。近期,以高級訪問學者身份遊學美國耶魯大學、威廉帕特森大學與加拿大滑鐵盧大學。
講座免費。因座位有限,請預先訂位。網上訂位請點擊此處。
華美人文學會的地址是曼哈頓東六十五街一百二十五號(公園大道和勒辛頓大道間) 。四﹐五號地鐵五十九街下﹐六號地鐵六十八街(亨特學院站)下﹐ F地鐵六十三街(勒辛頓大道)下。人文學會電話﹕ (646) 912-8861 。
Sunday, June, 23rd, 2013 2 pm-4 pm This event is free, but advance registration required.
To register and learn more about this lecture,
please visit http://chineselectures.org/062313.html
李可染(1907-1989),中國現代畫家。早年先後入上海美專、國立西湖藝術院學習。1946年任教於北平藝專。1956年為變革山水畫,行程數萬裡旅行寫生。其山水畫早年取法八大山人,筆致簡率酣暢,後從齊白石習畫,用筆趨於凝練。又從黃賓虹處學得積墨法,並參悟林風眠風景畫前亮後暗的陰影處理方式。畫風趨謹嚴,筆墨趨沉厚,至晚年用筆老辣。曾任中央美術學院教授,中國美術家協會副主席等職。代表作有《漓江勝境圖》《萬山紅遍》《井岡山》等。
2010年,《長徵》以1.075億元成交,2012年《韶山》以1.24億元成交、《萬山紅遍》以2.93億元成交。為什麼李可染畫作能夠一再創造拍賣紀錄?是什麼文化背景成就了一代大師李可染?其生前身後又有哪些值得我們思考呢?華美人文學會6月23日(星期日)下午2時至4時特邀李可染同鄉李良博士結合大師的人生片段與代表作品,讀解現象背後的文化存在。
李良博士現在江蘇省社會科學院從事中國現當代文學與文化研究工作,多次參與或主持國家級及省級科研項目,擔任江蘇省海外華文文學暨台港文學研究會秘書長、中文核心期刊《世界華文文學論壇》編輯部主任。近年來,致力於中國現代文學文化名家與北美新移民研究,正在撰寫省級重大社會科學項目"江蘇省歷代名人叢書"之《李可染傳》。近期,以高級訪問學者身份遊學美國耶魯大學、威廉帕特森大學與加拿大滑鐵盧大學。
講座免費。因座位有限,請預先訂位。網上訂位請點擊此處。
華美人文學會的地址是曼哈頓東六十五街一百二十五號(公園大道和勒辛頓大道間) 。四﹐五號地鐵五十九街下﹐六號地鐵六十八街(亨特學院站)下﹐ F地鐵六十三街(勒辛頓大道)下。人文學會電話﹕ (646) 912-8861 。
Sunday, June, 23rd, 2013 2 pm-4 pm This event is free, but advance registration required.
To register and learn more about this lecture,
please visit http://chineselectures.org/062313.html
Joyce's 'Finnegans Wake' Takes Off in China--posted on June 14, 2013
Joyce's 'Finnegans Wake' Takes Off in China By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW BEIJING — From Auckland in the east to San Francisco in the west, through Shanghai, Dublin and New York, this year's Bloomsday will sweep around the world, for the first time featuring a global online reading of James Joyce's most celebrated work, “Ulysses, ” in more than two dozen cities and multiple continents.
The mostly live readings to mark the Global Bloomsday Gathering on June 16, which celebrates the day in the life of the novel's main character, Leopold Bloom, will begin on Saturday evening, Irish time (which is early in the morning Auckland time, on Sunday , Bloomsday itself), said the organizers, the James Joyce Center in Dublin. The readings are scheduled to last about 30 hours, organizers said, with the book being read in its entirety — about 260,000 words — by actors, musicians, scholars and Joyce aficionados.
“Early on in Ulysses, Bloom reflects on what it would be like to accompany the sun in its progress through the day: 'Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically,' ” The Irish Times wrote this week.
The readings can be heard on a Web site, www.globalbloomsday.com . “Hearing Ulysses read in all these multiple voices and multiple accents, living exemplars of the book's own multiple voices and styles, its huge variety and range of linguistic expression, should be an inspiring experience,” the newspaper wrote.
The event is “a terrific opportunity to show the world just how wide reaching the legacy of James Joyce and our Irish cultural heritage extends,” the center's general manager, Mark Traynor, said on its Web site.
“From the beginning we've had a tremendous response from Joyce groups around the world — both big and small who were eager to participate in the project. It's a kind of virtual gathering — a free, accessible way for people all over the globe to celebrate the work of one of Ireland's most iconic figures,” he said.
Here in China, the first four pages of Chapter 9, “Scylla and Charybdis,” are read by Dai Congrong in Shanghai (there will also be a reading in Beijing) — though the translator of Joyce's most difficult work, “Finnegans Wake,” says her contribution was prerecorded earlier this month. “I just sat down and read the book and someone recorded and also videoed it,” she said by telephone from Shanghai, where she is an associate professor of Comparative Literature at Fudan University.
Ms. Dai, 42, says there's a real fascination with Joyce in China, as people search for new ways to express themselves in a fast-changing society.
A Joyce specialist who wrote her Ph.D. on the Irish author, Ms. Dai began translating “Finnegans Wake” in 2006. In December, she has published Book One (of four) of what is widely recognized as Joyce's most difficult work, in a joint effort by Shanghai VI Horae Publishers, a private company, and Shanghai People's Publishing House, a state-run company.
“I'm still working on Book Two. The progress is very slow,” she said. “You can't translate 'Finnegans Wake' quickly, because I have to give footnotes for everything.”
The first, iconic sentence (“riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs”) takes up three lines in Chinese but requires 17 lines of footnotes. The challenge began with the very first word: “riverrun.”
“I have to explain every word, as well as the cultural background and the alternative meanings,” she said.
“For example 'riverrun' could be 'the river ran,' and 'reverend,' and the German word 'Erinnerung,' ” or memory. “Because this book is about the meaning of memory and time, and why. So even the first word in the book you have to explain.”
“About 8 out of 10 of the words I have to write footnotes,” she said.
But the book's mind-boggling complexity — native English speakers struggle with it and many have wondered if it was Joyce's joke — doesn't explain its popularity in China, where the first print run of 8,000 copies sold out within two months. Some have pointed to the way Joyce exploded hierarchy and meaning by tearing up language itself in the text when it was first published in 1939. It took 73 years to reach China in Chinese, but its message has appeal here today.
At the end of March, the private publisher, Ni Weiguo, who has previously published Plato in Chinese, issued another 5,000 copies.
“They've all gone to bookshops,” said Mr. Ni in a telephone interview. “I didn't publish this to make money. It's exceeded my expectations.” Why did he publish it? “I published it to give people a great book.”
Who is buying it? “Professors, people who love modern literature and writers, all kinds of well-known writers. Translators,” he said. Many love the way it lacks a coherent narrative and plot; that shocks readers here.
“Chinese readers are used to story and plot,” Ms. Dai said. “They want to know why this book is so important, so they try to understand it. But it's difficult and challenging.”
“Finnegans Wake” in Chinese may strain the imagination of many, given the almost unsolvable challenges of the original English, but Ms. Dai said that Chinese readers' responses have been almost exactly the same as readers of English.
“They have divided opinions. Some praised it so much, and some complained they couldn't understand it. Some said it was really great, just like a poem, and very enlightening. A touchstone of your intelligence,” she said. “Others thought it was pretending to be smart but they doubted whether those who praised it understood it.”
How much longer will it take to finish the whole book?
“I thought perhaps eight years,” she said. “I am hoping my publisher can find someone to help with the footnotes.”
Mr. Ni said he was “working on it.”
The mostly live readings to mark the Global Bloomsday Gathering on June 16, which celebrates the day in the life of the novel's main character, Leopold Bloom, will begin on Saturday evening, Irish time (which is early in the morning Auckland time, on Sunday , Bloomsday itself), said the organizers, the James Joyce Center in Dublin. The readings are scheduled to last about 30 hours, organizers said, with the book being read in its entirety — about 260,000 words — by actors, musicians, scholars and Joyce aficionados.
“Early on in Ulysses, Bloom reflects on what it would be like to accompany the sun in its progress through the day: 'Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically,' ” The Irish Times wrote this week.
The readings can be heard on a Web site, www.globalbloomsday.com . “Hearing Ulysses read in all these multiple voices and multiple accents, living exemplars of the book's own multiple voices and styles, its huge variety and range of linguistic expression, should be an inspiring experience,” the newspaper wrote.
The event is “a terrific opportunity to show the world just how wide reaching the legacy of James Joyce and our Irish cultural heritage extends,” the center's general manager, Mark Traynor, said on its Web site.
“From the beginning we've had a tremendous response from Joyce groups around the world — both big and small who were eager to participate in the project. It's a kind of virtual gathering — a free, accessible way for people all over the globe to celebrate the work of one of Ireland's most iconic figures,” he said.
Here in China, the first four pages of Chapter 9, “Scylla and Charybdis,” are read by Dai Congrong in Shanghai (there will also be a reading in Beijing) — though the translator of Joyce's most difficult work, “Finnegans Wake,” says her contribution was prerecorded earlier this month. “I just sat down and read the book and someone recorded and also videoed it,” she said by telephone from Shanghai, where she is an associate professor of Comparative Literature at Fudan University.
Ms. Dai, 42, says there's a real fascination with Joyce in China, as people search for new ways to express themselves in a fast-changing society.
A Joyce specialist who wrote her Ph.D. on the Irish author, Ms. Dai began translating “Finnegans Wake” in 2006. In December, she has published Book One (of four) of what is widely recognized as Joyce's most difficult work, in a joint effort by Shanghai VI Horae Publishers, a private company, and Shanghai People's Publishing House, a state-run company.
“I'm still working on Book Two. The progress is very slow,” she said. “You can't translate 'Finnegans Wake' quickly, because I have to give footnotes for everything.”
The first, iconic sentence (“riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs”) takes up three lines in Chinese but requires 17 lines of footnotes. The challenge began with the very first word: “riverrun.”
“I have to explain every word, as well as the cultural background and the alternative meanings,” she said.
“For example 'riverrun' could be 'the river ran,' and 'reverend,' and the German word 'Erinnerung,' ” or memory. “Because this book is about the meaning of memory and time, and why. So even the first word in the book you have to explain.”
“About 8 out of 10 of the words I have to write footnotes,” she said.
But the book's mind-boggling complexity — native English speakers struggle with it and many have wondered if it was Joyce's joke — doesn't explain its popularity in China, where the first print run of 8,000 copies sold out within two months. Some have pointed to the way Joyce exploded hierarchy and meaning by tearing up language itself in the text when it was first published in 1939. It took 73 years to reach China in Chinese, but its message has appeal here today.
At the end of March, the private publisher, Ni Weiguo, who has previously published Plato in Chinese, issued another 5,000 copies.
“They've all gone to bookshops,” said Mr. Ni in a telephone interview. “I didn't publish this to make money. It's exceeded my expectations.” Why did he publish it? “I published it to give people a great book.”
Who is buying it? “Professors, people who love modern literature and writers, all kinds of well-known writers. Translators,” he said. Many love the way it lacks a coherent narrative and plot; that shocks readers here.
“Chinese readers are used to story and plot,” Ms. Dai said. “They want to know why this book is so important, so they try to understand it. But it's difficult and challenging.”
“Finnegans Wake” in Chinese may strain the imagination of many, given the almost unsolvable challenges of the original English, but Ms. Dai said that Chinese readers' responses have been almost exactly the same as readers of English.
“They have divided opinions. Some praised it so much, and some complained they couldn't understand it. Some said it was really great, just like a poem, and very enlightening. A touchstone of your intelligence,” she said. “Others thought it was pretending to be smart but they doubted whether those who praised it understood it.”
How much longer will it take to finish the whole book?
“I thought perhaps eight years,” she said. “I am hoping my publisher can find someone to help with the footnotes.”
Mr. Ni said he was “working on it.”
Mandarin Chinese immersion teachers and teacher's aides, Beaverton, Oregon-- posted on June 14, 2013
The Northwest Chinese Academy is seeking dedicated and enthusiastic Mandarin Chinese immersion teachers and teacher's aides to join our community.
The Northwest Chinese Academy provides a warm, multi-cultural, globally focused, and intellectually stimulating work environment. We are a close-knit community of parents, students and educators who support each other in our common goal of providing an outstanding educational foundation in the true immersion of Mandarin language. We enjoy a respectful relationship between teachers, students and parents that is based upon our commitment to the mission of The Northwest Chinese Academy, high expectations of one another, and a culture of support and accountability.
As a Mandarin Immersion Classroom Teacher or Teacher's Aide you will work collaboratively within our school community of teachers, parents and a wonderful group of students. You will implement a creative, multicultural curriculum providing instruction in both small group and whole class settings. We are looking for enthusiastic, creative and dynamic teachers who embrace student-centered education and are committed to providing a warm and nurturing environment for our students to learn.
QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS
▪Commitment to student-centered, multicultural education
▪Native level fluency in spoken Mandarin
▪Experience in teaching both reading and writing Mandarin using Simplified Chinese
▪Expertise of Chinese customs and culture
▪Knowledgeable of the content and nature of immersion programs
▪Ability to plan and implement creative, hands-on and engaging lessons
▪Ability to be a cooperative player on a highly collaborative educational team
▪Knowledgeable of effective techniques for classroom management
▪Knowledge of evaluation and assessment of student progress
▪Knowledgeable of effective use of technology in the classroom
▪Legal authorization to work in the US
▪Professional teaching experience in bilingual, Mandarin immersion or foreign language classroom preferred
▪Degree, teaching credentials or other relevant certifications from an accredited college or university in education/related field or relevant experience.
▪Must be available to attend Summer Teacher Training at the Northwest Chinese Academy
▪Commitment to student-centered, multicultural education
▪Native level fluency in speaking Mandarin
▪Ability to plan and implement fun and creative activities and lessons
▪Legal authorization to work in the US
▪Teaching experience in bilingual, Mandarin immersion or foreign language classroom preferred
▪Degree, teaching credentials or some completed educational coursework from an accredited college or university in education/ related field or relevant experience.
To Apply:
Please visit our website to view the full Teacher/Teacher's Aide Job Description http://nwchineseacademy.org/employment-opportunities/
Send completed NWCA Employment Application Form along with a cover letter, resume and relevant transcripts to:
Northwest Chinese Academy
Human Resources Department
8565 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway
Beaverton, OR 97225
Via email – [email protected]
The Northwest Chinese Academy provides a warm, multi-cultural, globally focused, and intellectually stimulating work environment. We are a close-knit community of parents, students and educators who support each other in our common goal of providing an outstanding educational foundation in the true immersion of Mandarin language. We enjoy a respectful relationship between teachers, students and parents that is based upon our commitment to the mission of The Northwest Chinese Academy, high expectations of one another, and a culture of support and accountability.
As a Mandarin Immersion Classroom Teacher or Teacher's Aide you will work collaboratively within our school community of teachers, parents and a wonderful group of students. You will implement a creative, multicultural curriculum providing instruction in both small group and whole class settings. We are looking for enthusiastic, creative and dynamic teachers who embrace student-centered education and are committed to providing a warm and nurturing environment for our students to learn.
QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS
▪Commitment to student-centered, multicultural education
▪Native level fluency in spoken Mandarin
▪Experience in teaching both reading and writing Mandarin using Simplified Chinese
▪Expertise of Chinese customs and culture
▪Knowledgeable of the content and nature of immersion programs
▪Ability to plan and implement creative, hands-on and engaging lessons
▪Ability to be a cooperative player on a highly collaborative educational team
▪Knowledgeable of effective techniques for classroom management
▪Knowledge of evaluation and assessment of student progress
▪Knowledgeable of effective use of technology in the classroom
▪Legal authorization to work in the US
▪Professional teaching experience in bilingual, Mandarin immersion or foreign language classroom preferred
▪Degree, teaching credentials or other relevant certifications from an accredited college or university in education/related field or relevant experience.
▪Must be available to attend Summer Teacher Training at the Northwest Chinese Academy
▪Commitment to student-centered, multicultural education
▪Native level fluency in speaking Mandarin
▪Ability to plan and implement fun and creative activities and lessons
▪Legal authorization to work in the US
▪Teaching experience in bilingual, Mandarin immersion or foreign language classroom preferred
▪Degree, teaching credentials or some completed educational coursework from an accredited college or university in education/ related field or relevant experience.
To Apply:
Please visit our website to view the full Teacher/Teacher's Aide Job Description http://nwchineseacademy.org/employment-opportunities/
Send completed NWCA Employment Application Form along with a cover letter, resume and relevant transcripts to:
Northwest Chinese Academy
Human Resources Department
8565 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway
Beaverton, OR 97225
Via email – [email protected]
2012中國語言生活狀況報告發布“你幸福嗎”成熱詞--posted on June 10, 2013
昨天,教育部和國家語委公佈2012年中國語言生活狀況報告。去年,國民語言中出現585條新詞,其中“中國式過馬路、最美教師、房叔”等最具代表性,“中國夢、你幸福嗎”等躋身年度熱詞。
2400個漢字覆蓋媒體用字
去年的調查中,媒體的用字量大約1萬個,其中2400個字是高頻字,覆蓋率達到99%,有30000個詞是高頻詞,覆蓋率達到95%。
這些數據為字詞的分級定量提供了依據,可服務於字典編纂、母語及對外漢語教材撰寫。而其他使用頻率變化較大的字詞反映了當年社會生活和媒體關注的熱點。
對媒體用字用語的調查顯示,去年使用頻率變化較大的漢字為“微、奧、習、島、八、釣、敘、艦、嬛”等,使用頻率變化較大的詞語是“十八大、釣魚島、中國夢、生態文明、電商、新能源、歐洲杯、正能量、三沙市”等。
參與報告調查的北京語言大學教授楊爾弘介紹,字詞使用頻率的變化反映出媒體的關注點,比如“微”字頻率增加,是源於媒體對政務微博、小微企業的報導, “釣魚島”反映出人們對於“釣魚島事件”的關注,“嬛”字使用頻率升高是由於《甄嬛傳》熱播。
新詞針砭時弊
2012年,國民生活中出現585條新詞,仍以二、三、四字詞為主,完全由漢字構成的新詞語有574條,比例超過98%,還有11條新詞則是“中西合璧”,比如有漢字加字母式樣的“H族”、“航母style”,也有漢字加阿拉伯數字的新詞,如“1314結婚潮”、“90歲體”、“最美90後”等。
2012年度新詞特點明顯,針砭時弊。例如“最美”式新詞——“最美教師”、“最美司機”等,記錄了張麗莉、吳斌這樣的見義勇為、捨己救人的先進人物,傳遞正能量;“中國式”新詞——“中國式過馬路”、“中國式逼婚”等,調侃生活陋習現象,折射出公眾對社會、對國民性的體察和反思;“房”系列新詞——“房哥”、“房叔”、 “房爺”等,則展現了網絡反腐曝光的一起起事件。
去年出現的新詞還有“末日商品”、“末日危機”等“末日”系列,還有“白富美”、“黑富帥”、“矮窮搓”、“土肥圓”等。
熱詞記錄社會熱點
伴隨著年度重大事件和熱點話題的發酵,一批詞語熱度躥升,記錄了2012年的世態民情。
十八大召開後,“中國夢”、“美麗中國”等迅速成為年度熱詞,據統計,在國家語言資源監測語料庫中,年使用頻次都超過2400次。同時,“生態文明”、“三個自信”、“五位一體”、“海洋強國”、“文化強國”等迅速進入社會語言生活,傳遞出社會正能量。
此外,“你幸福嗎”、“莫言熱”、“中國好聲音”、“最炫民族風”等熱詞則記錄了公眾的關注焦點,成為熱詞,而“釣魚島”、“選舉年”、 “倫敦奧運”、“敘利亞危機”等熱詞則記錄了2012年的國際局勢。
前幾年躥紅的“××族”、“××哥”、“××門”、“被××”等詞語群使用量開始減少,體現了人們關注焦點的轉變。中文博客發帖率降7成
對博客用戶所做的調查顯示,知名博主的年均發帖量由2011年的116.6篇下降為2012年的34.5篇,下降率超過70%。
楊爾弘分析,這主要是由於微博等社交網絡衝擊,博主轉戰其他媒體。調查還發現,知名博主獨用標籤包括“房地產、蘋果、互聯網、奧運、股市、法國、電子商務、投資、樓市、改革”,而普通博主獨用標籤包括“生日、原創、生命、心情、陽光、快樂、成長、影評、感悟、新年”。由此可以看出,名博們關心的話題多與經濟、政治等相關,而普通博主更關心生活、情感等。
語言能力影響務工人員收入
報告還發現,現今社會對國民語言能力的要求越來越高。全國許多招聘廣告對應聘者口頭、書面語及外語能力提出明確要求,語言表達能力好、善於溝通以及文案文字、公文寫作能力出眾的人更容易受到用人單位歡迎。
教育部語言文字信息管理司副司長田立新透露,有研究表明,普通話水平在一定程度上影響進城務工人員的收入和社會交往能力,普通話熟練的人員有更大的人際交往和社會生活空間。
超十人字庫研發企業僅剩5家
在信息化社會,古老的漢字借助IT技術以數字化形式被傳承發展,字體字庫產業成為文化創意產業的組成部分。但由於相關法律規定不夠完善,社會上知識產權意識淡薄,字體字庫企業面臨生存危機。
據統計,上世紀90年代,我國字體字庫設計研發的企業有幾十家,而如今10人以上規模的研發企業僅剩5家,並且處於勉強維持狀態。這一問題已引起業界人士的關注,專家學者、法律界人士呼籲法律保護這一產業。
此外,方言問題也受到有關部門的重視。教育部和國家語委有關負責人表示,對方言、特別是一些瀕危方言,應利用現代技術手段等進行調查、整理、研究和開發應用。目前,我國東南沿海地區一些城市已開始在幼兒園及中小學等試點方言課程,以保護方言。記者任敏
2400個漢字覆蓋媒體用字
去年的調查中,媒體的用字量大約1萬個,其中2400個字是高頻字,覆蓋率達到99%,有30000個詞是高頻詞,覆蓋率達到95%。
這些數據為字詞的分級定量提供了依據,可服務於字典編纂、母語及對外漢語教材撰寫。而其他使用頻率變化較大的字詞反映了當年社會生活和媒體關注的熱點。
對媒體用字用語的調查顯示,去年使用頻率變化較大的漢字為“微、奧、習、島、八、釣、敘、艦、嬛”等,使用頻率變化較大的詞語是“十八大、釣魚島、中國夢、生態文明、電商、新能源、歐洲杯、正能量、三沙市”等。
參與報告調查的北京語言大學教授楊爾弘介紹,字詞使用頻率的變化反映出媒體的關注點,比如“微”字頻率增加,是源於媒體對政務微博、小微企業的報導, “釣魚島”反映出人們對於“釣魚島事件”的關注,“嬛”字使用頻率升高是由於《甄嬛傳》熱播。
新詞針砭時弊
2012年,國民生活中出現585條新詞,仍以二、三、四字詞為主,完全由漢字構成的新詞語有574條,比例超過98%,還有11條新詞則是“中西合璧”,比如有漢字加字母式樣的“H族”、“航母style”,也有漢字加阿拉伯數字的新詞,如“1314結婚潮”、“90歲體”、“最美90後”等。
2012年度新詞特點明顯,針砭時弊。例如“最美”式新詞——“最美教師”、“最美司機”等,記錄了張麗莉、吳斌這樣的見義勇為、捨己救人的先進人物,傳遞正能量;“中國式”新詞——“中國式過馬路”、“中國式逼婚”等,調侃生活陋習現象,折射出公眾對社會、對國民性的體察和反思;“房”系列新詞——“房哥”、“房叔”、 “房爺”等,則展現了網絡反腐曝光的一起起事件。
去年出現的新詞還有“末日商品”、“末日危機”等“末日”系列,還有“白富美”、“黑富帥”、“矮窮搓”、“土肥圓”等。
熱詞記錄社會熱點
伴隨著年度重大事件和熱點話題的發酵,一批詞語熱度躥升,記錄了2012年的世態民情。
十八大召開後,“中國夢”、“美麗中國”等迅速成為年度熱詞,據統計,在國家語言資源監測語料庫中,年使用頻次都超過2400次。同時,“生態文明”、“三個自信”、“五位一體”、“海洋強國”、“文化強國”等迅速進入社會語言生活,傳遞出社會正能量。
此外,“你幸福嗎”、“莫言熱”、“中國好聲音”、“最炫民族風”等熱詞則記錄了公眾的關注焦點,成為熱詞,而“釣魚島”、“選舉年”、 “倫敦奧運”、“敘利亞危機”等熱詞則記錄了2012年的國際局勢。
前幾年躥紅的“××族”、“××哥”、“××門”、“被××”等詞語群使用量開始減少,體現了人們關注焦點的轉變。中文博客發帖率降7成
對博客用戶所做的調查顯示,知名博主的年均發帖量由2011年的116.6篇下降為2012年的34.5篇,下降率超過70%。
楊爾弘分析,這主要是由於微博等社交網絡衝擊,博主轉戰其他媒體。調查還發現,知名博主獨用標籤包括“房地產、蘋果、互聯網、奧運、股市、法國、電子商務、投資、樓市、改革”,而普通博主獨用標籤包括“生日、原創、生命、心情、陽光、快樂、成長、影評、感悟、新年”。由此可以看出,名博們關心的話題多與經濟、政治等相關,而普通博主更關心生活、情感等。
語言能力影響務工人員收入
報告還發現,現今社會對國民語言能力的要求越來越高。全國許多招聘廣告對應聘者口頭、書面語及外語能力提出明確要求,語言表達能力好、善於溝通以及文案文字、公文寫作能力出眾的人更容易受到用人單位歡迎。
教育部語言文字信息管理司副司長田立新透露,有研究表明,普通話水平在一定程度上影響進城務工人員的收入和社會交往能力,普通話熟練的人員有更大的人際交往和社會生活空間。
超十人字庫研發企業僅剩5家
在信息化社會,古老的漢字借助IT技術以數字化形式被傳承發展,字體字庫產業成為文化創意產業的組成部分。但由於相關法律規定不夠完善,社會上知識產權意識淡薄,字體字庫企業面臨生存危機。
據統計,上世紀90年代,我國字體字庫設計研發的企業有幾十家,而如今10人以上規模的研發企業僅剩5家,並且處於勉強維持狀態。這一問題已引起業界人士的關注,專家學者、法律界人士呼籲法律保護這一產業。
此外,方言問題也受到有關部門的重視。教育部和國家語委有關負責人表示,對方言、特別是一些瀕危方言,應利用現代技術手段等進行調查、整理、研究和開發應用。目前,我國東南沿海地區一些城市已開始在幼兒園及中小學等試點方言課程,以保護方言。記者任敏
《猴:西遊記》:給你一個驅妖降魔能舞會唱的前衛版孫悟空--posted on June 8, 2013
現代搖滾歌劇跨界融合動畫、特效、武術、雜技、流行等元素,全面席捲紐約林肯中心2013年7月,現代搖滾歌劇《猴:西遊記》將作為林肯中心藝術節開幕大戲亮相大衛・寇克劇院。《猴:西遊記》由著名華裔導演陳士爭先生執導,英國搖滾音樂鬼才戴蒙•阿爾伯恩( Damon Albarn )作曲,英國獲獎藝術家傑米•何立特(Jamie Hewlett)擔任舞台和形象設計。《猴:西遊記》時長100分鐘,講述了唐僧師徒西天取經的神話故事。該劇於2007年在曼徹斯特國際藝術 節首演,演出引起巨大轟動,為當地觀眾津津樂道。隨後該劇又在法國巴黎的查特萊劇院,2008美國斯波萊托藝術節及倫敦皇家劇院上演,並在巴黎查特萊劇院創造了連演16場並加演3場的歷史紀錄。China Express Agency 有幸與林肯中心再次合作,負責《猴:西遊記》在紐約地區的中國市場推廣與票務受理。林肯中心藝術節是該劇在紐約的首次及唯一一次亮相,票量有限,售完即止。來電請洽:212-618-6383 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 212-618-6383 end_of_the_skype_highlighting ,團體購票請洽:212-618-6336 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 212-618-6336 end_of_the_skype_highlighting 。
更多詳情,請下載附件(無病毒)或點擊http://www.chinaexpress.us/en/MonkeyJourneyToTheWest 演出場次、時間及票價:週二-週六晚八點&週日下午兩點$175, $100 , $85, $55, $25 週六下午兩點&週日晚八點$150, $95, $70, $55, $25 劇院交通:位於哥倫布大道和63街地鐵1號線至66街/林肯中心公共汽車M5 、M7 、 M10 、M66 、M104線
Monkey: Journey to the West - Rock Your World with a Mighty Fancy Monkey King Combining Elements from East and West, New Rock'n'Roll Opera Makes its Debut in New York In July 2013 , Opening the Lincoln Center Festival is Monkey: Journey to the West , extraordinary music theater collaboration based on the classic Chinese folktale “Journey to the West.” Conceived and directed by internationally renowned opera and film director Chen Shi-Zheng , with music by Damon Albarn , lead singer of Blur, and design and animation by award-winning artist Jamie Hewlett , who, with Albarn, created the virtual band, Gorillaz. The 100-minute theatrical spectacle, Monkey: Journey to the West follows the fantastical trek undertaken by a monk who travels from China to India seeking the Buddhist sacred scriptures. On his journey through an enchanted world, led by the irrepressible Monkey King, the monk and his magical animal companions have many adventures, both comical and challenging. China Express Agency is in charge of tickets promotion to Chinese living in Greater New York Area.
Monkey: Journey to the West will make its New York debut at Lincoln Center Festival. Tickets are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis . For more information or to buy tickets please call 212-618-6383 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 212- 618-6383 end_of_the_skype_highlighting , 212-618-6336 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 212-618-6336 end_of_the_skype_highlighting (Group tickets). More information, please download the attachment (Virus-free) or visit http://www. chinaexpress.us/ en/MonkeyJourneyToTheWest . Performance schedule: Tuesday- Saturday at 8:00pm and Sunday at 2:00pm : $175, $100, $85, $55, $25; Saturday at 2:00pm and Sunday at 8:00pm : $150, $95 , $70, $55, $25; Location : 20 Lincoln Center Plaza New York, NY 10023 Directions: Take subway to 66 St - Lincoln Center Take bus M5, M7, M10, M66, M104
更多詳情,請下載附件(無病毒)或點擊http://www.chinaexpress.us/en/MonkeyJourneyToTheWest 演出場次、時間及票價:週二-週六晚八點&週日下午兩點$175, $100 , $85, $55, $25 週六下午兩點&週日晚八點$150, $95, $70, $55, $25 劇院交通:位於哥倫布大道和63街地鐵1號線至66街/林肯中心公共汽車M5 、M7 、 M10 、M66 、M104線
Monkey: Journey to the West - Rock Your World with a Mighty Fancy Monkey King Combining Elements from East and West, New Rock'n'Roll Opera Makes its Debut in New York In July 2013 , Opening the Lincoln Center Festival is Monkey: Journey to the West , extraordinary music theater collaboration based on the classic Chinese folktale “Journey to the West.” Conceived and directed by internationally renowned opera and film director Chen Shi-Zheng , with music by Damon Albarn , lead singer of Blur, and design and animation by award-winning artist Jamie Hewlett , who, with Albarn, created the virtual band, Gorillaz. The 100-minute theatrical spectacle, Monkey: Journey to the West follows the fantastical trek undertaken by a monk who travels from China to India seeking the Buddhist sacred scriptures. On his journey through an enchanted world, led by the irrepressible Monkey King, the monk and his magical animal companions have many adventures, both comical and challenging. China Express Agency is in charge of tickets promotion to Chinese living in Greater New York Area.
Monkey: Journey to the West will make its New York debut at Lincoln Center Festival. Tickets are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis . For more information or to buy tickets please call 212-618-6383 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 212- 618-6383 end_of_the_skype_highlighting , 212-618-6336 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 212-618-6336 end_of_the_skype_highlighting (Group tickets). More information, please download the attachment (Virus-free) or visit http://www. chinaexpress.us/ en/MonkeyJourneyToTheWest . Performance schedule: Tuesday- Saturday at 8:00pm and Sunday at 2:00pm : $175, $100, $85, $55, $25; Saturday at 2:00pm and Sunday at 8:00pm : $150, $95 , $70, $55, $25; Location : 20 Lincoln Center Plaza New York, NY 10023 Directions: Take subway to 66 St - Lincoln Center Take bus M5, M7, M10, M66, M104
《同義詞近義詞反義詞組詞造句詞典》-- posted on June 5, 2013
書名:《同義詞近義詞反義詞組詞造句詞典》(單色版)
書號:978-7-5135-3036-1
作者:王欣
定價:29元
開本:64 開
出版日期:2013-04-01
讀者對象:中小學生
內容簡介:《同義詞近義詞反義詞組詞造句詞典》是一本漢語多功能詞典,供小學生及中學低年級學生語文學習和復習考試使用。《同義詞近義詞反義詞組詞造句詞典》收常用並且具有較強構詞能力的單字2,300餘個,提供組詞約40,000個;選擇其中9,600餘個常用詞給出釋義和造句,並提供近義詞(含同義詞)20,000餘個、反義詞12,000餘個,旨在滿足義務教育階段的學生完成課堂作業、課外作業、備考應考的需要。本詞典提供的各項內容緊扣中小學語文學習和考試的要求,重點解決同學們學習和考試中的疑難問題和難點,是一本為同學們語文學習和復習考試“ 量身定做” 的實用型多功能詞典。
書號:978-7-5135-3036-1
作者:王欣
定價:29元
開本:64 開
出版日期:2013-04-01
讀者對象:中小學生
內容簡介:《同義詞近義詞反義詞組詞造句詞典》是一本漢語多功能詞典,供小學生及中學低年級學生語文學習和復習考試使用。《同義詞近義詞反義詞組詞造句詞典》收常用並且具有較強構詞能力的單字2,300餘個,提供組詞約40,000個;選擇其中9,600餘個常用詞給出釋義和造句,並提供近義詞(含同義詞)20,000餘個、反義詞12,000餘個,旨在滿足義務教育階段的學生完成課堂作業、課外作業、備考應考的需要。本詞典提供的各項內容緊扣中小學語文學習和考試的要求,重點解決同學們學習和考試中的疑難問題和難點,是一本為同學們語文學習和復習考試“ 量身定做” 的實用型多功能詞典。
張長春先生诗歌朗诵--posted on June 2, 2013
華夏總校副校長張長春先生在我們的國際會議上做過朗誦表演,給大家留下了深刻的印象。
一位與會者給我們來信寫道:
“很高興又在會議上與一些熟識的同行相見。我在南卡的這個小城,除了幾個開餐館的便很難找到幾個中國人。因而能在會議上見到大家我覺得格外高興。特別是聽張虹老師唱歌和另一位老師朗誦,更覺得是很大的享受。我和那位老師說聽了他的朗誦幾乎落淚,是真的。朱自清的《匆匆》以前不知看過多少次。但這次聽朗誦,卻感覺很特別。我想不僅是那位老師朗誦得很出色,更由於暗和了內心深處對於歲月流逝的悵惘。連我們的年會都已經辦了十一年了。十一年的時光就這樣在手中溜去了,”像針尖上一滴水滴在大海裡“了。” 張老師剛剛給我們傳來他的三段朗誦(徐志摩詩一首、《匆匆》和《海燕》)的音頻跟大家分享,希望您喜歡。
http://clta-gny.org/audios/xuzhimo.mp3
http://clta-gny.org/audios/congcong.mp3
http://clta-gny.org/audios/haiyan.mp3
文豪自古出花間-- 紀念張恨水先生--posted on May 28, 2013
( English Summary : Unmatched in the entire history of Chinese literature as the most prolific novelist, Zhang Henshui wrote an astounding number of over 110 novels, mostly from the 1920s to the 1940s. His romantic and intriguing novels have held generations of Chinese spell-bound . At this interview with Ben Wang, Co-Chair of the Renwen Society, Ms. Zhang Mingming, daughter of Zhang Henshui, will shed more light on her father's life and works. )
中國二十世紀文學巨擘小說大家張恨水安徽潛山人,少年時代即以"少年才子"聞名鄉裡。除閱讀古今哲學、歷史和文學書籍之外,亦自修英語。
1919 年發表第一篇小說《南國相思譜》。1924 年開始連載《春明外史》,風靡北方城市,一舉成名。1927 年2 月,《金粉世家》問世,更長其聲名。1929 年,開始創作長篇小說《啼笑因緣》, 1930 年在上海《新聞報》副刊《快活林》上連載後,家傳戶誦,洛陽紙貴,與《玉梨魂》、《廣陵潮》、《江湖奇俠傳》被稱作"四大說部"。
1931 年創辦北華美術專科學校,畫家齊白石、徐悲鴻、李苦禪曾任該校教員。是年,日軍入侵東三省。為表示內心激憤,在長篇小說《太平花》中增加抗戰內容。為其第一部鼓動抗戰的作品。此後,發表《熱血之花》、《東北四連長》、《潛山血》、《前線的安徽安徽的前線》、《衝鋒》、《遊擊隊》等一系列抗戰作品。1932 年出版短篇小說集《彎弓集》。1934 年,張恨水遊歷西北,目睹陝甘人民非人生活後,以西北人民為素材創作《燕歸來》、《小西天》兩部長篇小說。抗戰爆發,他全力寫作抗戰小說,其中最受後人重視為《八十一夢》和《魍魎世界》(原名《牛馬走》)。
抗戰勝利,從1946 到1947 年,創作《巴山夜雨》、《紙醉金迷》、《五子登科》等多部中、長篇小說。張恨水於1967 年農曆正月初七晨,因病逝世於北京。
人文學會於六月八日星期六下午二時至四時主辦一場訪談,特別邀請張恨水先生嫡女張明明女士(華盛頓作家協會前任會長),接受人文共同主席汪班專訪,介紹張恨水先生的生平與其作品。
講座對人文學會會員免費﹐對非會員收費5美元。
因座位有限,請預先訂位。網上訂位請點擊此處。
華美人文學會的地址是曼哈頓東六十五街一百二十五號(公園大道和勒辛頓大道間) 。四﹐五號地鐵五十九街下﹐六號地鐵六十八街(亨特學院站)下﹐ F地鐵六十三街(勒辛頓大道)下。人文學會電話﹕ (646) 912-8861 。
Saturday, June, 8th, 2013 2 pm-4 pm Free for members and $5 for non-members, advance registration required.
To register and learn more about this lecture,
please visit http://chineselectures.org/upcoming.html
For a series of events and performances by the Kunqu Society of New York in June, please visit http://www.kunqusociety.org/
For a free public event at the United Nations on May 30 commemorating Tagore (泰戈爾) , please click here .
中國二十世紀文學巨擘小說大家張恨水安徽潛山人,少年時代即以"少年才子"聞名鄉裡。除閱讀古今哲學、歷史和文學書籍之外,亦自修英語。
1919 年發表第一篇小說《南國相思譜》。1924 年開始連載《春明外史》,風靡北方城市,一舉成名。1927 年2 月,《金粉世家》問世,更長其聲名。1929 年,開始創作長篇小說《啼笑因緣》, 1930 年在上海《新聞報》副刊《快活林》上連載後,家傳戶誦,洛陽紙貴,與《玉梨魂》、《廣陵潮》、《江湖奇俠傳》被稱作"四大說部"。
1931 年創辦北華美術專科學校,畫家齊白石、徐悲鴻、李苦禪曾任該校教員。是年,日軍入侵東三省。為表示內心激憤,在長篇小說《太平花》中增加抗戰內容。為其第一部鼓動抗戰的作品。此後,發表《熱血之花》、《東北四連長》、《潛山血》、《前線的安徽安徽的前線》、《衝鋒》、《遊擊隊》等一系列抗戰作品。1932 年出版短篇小說集《彎弓集》。1934 年,張恨水遊歷西北,目睹陝甘人民非人生活後,以西北人民為素材創作《燕歸來》、《小西天》兩部長篇小說。抗戰爆發,他全力寫作抗戰小說,其中最受後人重視為《八十一夢》和《魍魎世界》(原名《牛馬走》)。
抗戰勝利,從1946 到1947 年,創作《巴山夜雨》、《紙醉金迷》、《五子登科》等多部中、長篇小說。張恨水於1967 年農曆正月初七晨,因病逝世於北京。
人文學會於六月八日星期六下午二時至四時主辦一場訪談,特別邀請張恨水先生嫡女張明明女士(華盛頓作家協會前任會長),接受人文共同主席汪班專訪,介紹張恨水先生的生平與其作品。
講座對人文學會會員免費﹐對非會員收費5美元。
因座位有限,請預先訂位。網上訂位請點擊此處。
華美人文學會的地址是曼哈頓東六十五街一百二十五號(公園大道和勒辛頓大道間) 。四﹐五號地鐵五十九街下﹐六號地鐵六十八街(亨特學院站)下﹐ F地鐵六十三街(勒辛頓大道)下。人文學會電話﹕ (646) 912-8861 。
Saturday, June, 8th, 2013 2 pm-4 pm Free for members and $5 for non-members, advance registration required.
To register and learn more about this lecture,
please visit http://chineselectures.org/upcoming.html
For a series of events and performances by the Kunqu Society of New York in June, please visit http://www.kunqusociety.org/
For a free public event at the United Nations on May 30 commemorating Tagore (泰戈爾) , please click here .
联合国诚邀参加紀念泰戈爾獲泰戈爾獲諾貝爾文學獎100週年特別活動--posted on May 26, 2013
聯合國學術影響(United Nations Academic Impact)團隊下週四舉辦公眾參與活動,紀念泰戈爾獲泰戈爾獲諾貝爾文學獎100週年特別活動。歡迎對東亞文學詩歌感興趣的朋友,一起來參加!只需提前郵件註冊即可。===================================
各位朋友們,聯合國學術影響將於5月30日在聯合國紐約總部舉辦紀念泰戈爾獲諾貝爾文學獎100週年特別活動(1913年《吉檀枷利》),誠邀各位參與!屆時會有孟加拉國大使,印度大使,詩人賽思教授(原印度大使),音樂家博雅副教授等與大家一起交流,還有詩歌吟唱哦!此活動對公眾免費開放,請於5月29日前郵件註冊[email protected] 詳情請見聯合國學術影響網站和海報 http://outreach.un.org/unai/2013/05/23/unlearning-intolerance -presents-rabindranath-tagore-the-universal-man-in-celebration-of-the-centenary-of-nobel-prize-in-literature-for-gitanjali/
歡迎轉發!5月30日3點到5點聯合國紐約總部新會議樓三號廳,期待各位予席!周廷華代表聯合國學術影響團隊謹上在那裡——泰戈爾《吉檀迦利》在那裡,心是無畏的,頭也抬得高昂;在那裡,知識是自由的;在那裡,世界還沒有被狹小的家國的牆隔成片段;在那裡,話是從真理的深處說出;在那裡,不懈的努力向著“完美”伸臂;在那裡,理智的清泉沒有沉沒在積習的荒漠之中;在那裡,心靈是受你的指引,走向那不斷放寬的思想與行為——進入那自由的天國,我的父呵,讓我的國家覺醒起來罷” ============ = ============================================ [聯合國學術影響特別活動
各位朋友們,聯合國學術影響將於5月30日在聯合國紐約總部舉辦紀念泰戈爾獲諾貝爾文學獎100週年特別活動(1913年《吉檀枷利》),誠邀各位參與!屆時會有孟加拉國大使,印度大使,詩人賽思教授(原印度大使),音樂家博雅副教授等與大家一起交流,還有詩歌吟唱哦!此活動對公眾免費開放,請於5月29日前郵件註冊[email protected] 詳情請見聯合國學術影響網站和海報 http://outreach.un.org/unai/2013/05/23/unlearning-intolerance -presents-rabindranath-tagore-the-universal-man-in-celebration-of-the-centenary-of-nobel-prize-in-literature-for-gitanjali/
歡迎轉發!5月30日3點到5點聯合國紐約總部新會議樓三號廳,期待各位予席!周廷華代表聯合國學術影響團隊謹上在那裡——泰戈爾《吉檀迦利》在那裡,心是無畏的,頭也抬得高昂;在那裡,知識是自由的;在那裡,世界還沒有被狹小的家國的牆隔成片段;在那裡,話是從真理的深處說出;在那裡,不懈的努力向著“完美”伸臂;在那裡,理智的清泉沒有沉沒在積習的荒漠之中;在那裡,心靈是受你的指引,走向那不斷放寬的思想與行為——進入那自由的天國,我的父呵,讓我的國家覺醒起來罷” ============ = ============================================ [聯合國學術影響特別活動
Job Hunting in Asia: Language Skills Count--posted on May 23, 2013
From: http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/job-hunting-in-asia-language-skills-count/
MAY 23, 2013, 5:55 AMJob Hunting in Asia: Language Skills CountBy BETTINA WASSENERHONG KONG — Asia has long exerted a magnetism for mobile Westerners in search of jobs and adventures. Tens of thousands of Europeans and Americans live in cities like Singapore and Hong Kong, which are financial and trading hubs with a long history of ties to the West.
The global financial crisis only intensified the trend, prompting more and more Western expatriates to try their luck in Asia. The French seem particularly attracted by the possibilities that Asia has to offer — with the result that Hong Kong’s French populationhas soared.
More recently, however, I was starting to hear more and more anecdotes about Westerners who wanted to find a job in Hong Kong or Singapore, but struggled to do so. Headhunters and recruiters told me that things have indeed become harder.
The main hurdle is that language skills — good Mandarin, in particular — have become more and more of a “must” for white-collar jobs here.
Of course, the exact requirements depend on the job. A computer programmer in a back-office function may not need to speak anything other than English. But if the job is client-facing (in wealth management or retailing, for example) or involves dealing with local suppliers or partners, chances are that the employer will prefer someone who can speak the local language.
“Language skills have become more and more important since the global financial crisis,” George McFerran, managing director for Asia-Pacific at eFinancialCareers, an online jobs portal, said at a recent news conference.
At the same time, as I write in this article, more local employees have the skills and experience to fill white-collar positions than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Employers, in other words, have more people to choose from — and Westerners who don’t tick the box on the language front are finding it harder to compete.
What are your experiences of the job market in Asian hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong? Have you struggled to land a job there — and what, in your eyes, have been the biggest obstacles?
MAY 23, 2013, 5:55 AMJob Hunting in Asia: Language Skills CountBy BETTINA WASSENERHONG KONG — Asia has long exerted a magnetism for mobile Westerners in search of jobs and adventures. Tens of thousands of Europeans and Americans live in cities like Singapore and Hong Kong, which are financial and trading hubs with a long history of ties to the West.
The global financial crisis only intensified the trend, prompting more and more Western expatriates to try their luck in Asia. The French seem particularly attracted by the possibilities that Asia has to offer — with the result that Hong Kong’s French populationhas soared.
More recently, however, I was starting to hear more and more anecdotes about Westerners who wanted to find a job in Hong Kong or Singapore, but struggled to do so. Headhunters and recruiters told me that things have indeed become harder.
The main hurdle is that language skills — good Mandarin, in particular — have become more and more of a “must” for white-collar jobs here.
Of course, the exact requirements depend on the job. A computer programmer in a back-office function may not need to speak anything other than English. But if the job is client-facing (in wealth management or retailing, for example) or involves dealing with local suppliers or partners, chances are that the employer will prefer someone who can speak the local language.
“Language skills have become more and more important since the global financial crisis,” George McFerran, managing director for Asia-Pacific at eFinancialCareers, an online jobs portal, said at a recent news conference.
At the same time, as I write in this article, more local employees have the skills and experience to fill white-collar positions than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Employers, in other words, have more people to choose from — and Westerners who don’t tick the box on the language front are finding it harder to compete.
What are your experiences of the job market in Asian hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong? Have you struggled to land a job there — and what, in your eyes, have been the biggest obstacles?
Overseas Chinese: A Foreigner at Home--posted on May 23, 2013
From: http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/overseas-chinese-a-foreigner-at-home/
MAY 22, 2013, 9:58 AMOverseas Chinese: A Foreigner at HomeBy SUE-LIN WONGBEIJING — “Your Chinese is terrible! Aren’t you ashamed as a Chinese?’’
‘‘Oh, you’ve come home! That’s wonderful! You can see how the motherland is developing.’’
‘‘I’ve always wanted to know — how do Australians view us Chinese?’’
As a second-generation Chinese-Australian now living in Beijing, I’ve become used to such questions — from taxi drivers to distant Chinese relatives and tourists asking me for directions.
Cities like Beijing and Shanghai are increasingly home to overseas Chinese, as those of us of Chinese descent who are not citizens of China are known. By some estimates, more than 30 percent of the American citizens living in China are of Chinese ethnicity.
For hyphenated Chinese like me, living here presents challenges as well as attractions. The chance to explore our’s roots and discover a country radically different from the one left behind by our parents or grandparents can be as powerful a lure as the job opportunities offered by a rising China.
Yet expectations of some Chinese toward ethnically Chinese foreigners can be disconcerting. There are assumptions that someone who looks Chinese must speak fluent Mandarin and instinctively understand cultural norms that may be peculiar to the contemporary mainland. Both locals and foreigners can be unsure how to categorize us.
Last summer, a Chinese-American friend, Holly Zhao, was squished in a sweltering Beijing subway car and talking distractedly on her cellphone in English when she accidentally stepped on another passenger’s foot. Her apology did little to quell his anger. ‘‘This is China,’’ the man snarled. ‘‘Learn Chinese and then apologize.’’
Li Jinzhao, a specialist in diaspora studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University, says overseas Chinese are often ‘‘blamed directly or indirectly if they look the Chinese language but don’t speak the language. They are seen as a failure of Chinese culture.’’
Overseas Chinese also find they are a part of the complicated racial landscape of China where ‘‘you get five stars if you are a white foreigner, three stars if you’re an overseas Chinese and two stars if you are local Chinese,’’ said Jason Zheng, a Chinese-American who has lived in China for eight years, first as an English teacher, and who now runs several bars and restaurants in Beijing.
‘‘Even though I had two years’ experience teaching English in China,’’ Mr. Zheng said, ‘‘I was told I wasn’t white enough when I went for an interview at Crazy English,’’ referring to a popular language program.
Classified ads in expatriate magazines are filled with advertisements for ‘‘foreign-looking’’ foreigners who can pose as chief executives to enhance the aura of Chinese companies in crucial negotiations, ‘‘white’’ English teachers, and men marketing themselves as a ‘‘Caucasian boyfriend-slash-husband-to-be.’’
Last year, Ross Tan was refused entry to a Beijing club because he could not produce a Chinese identity card, he said. He explained he didn’t have a Chinese identity card because he was born and raised in Australia. But he did have an Australian passport he could present as proof of identity. The bouncer refused him entry but let his five Caucasian friends in without even a glance at their papers.
Two weeks later, during a police crackdown on foreigners without valid paperwork, Mr. Tan was asked to produce his passport, his visa and his residence permit at the very same club. ‘‘So basically, I’m too Chinese to be foreign and too foreign to be Chinese,’’ he said with a sigh.
But this confusion over identity might also be one of China’s attractions to many overseas Chinese. Steven Tao, another Chinese-Australian, sees the advantages of playing to stereotypes.
‘‘You have to know how to use it in different situations depending on who you are interacting with,’’ he said. ‘‘Sometimes, I’ll exaggerate my foreign accent when I speak Chinese. Sometimes, when I’m asked where I’m from, I’ll say ‘I’m Australian, with a Chinese heart.’ ’’
Mr. Zheng, who has investments in several of Beijing’s trendiest restaurants and bars, agrees with the importance of embracing the contradictions. ‘‘In China, I found the American Dream. But I wouldn’t have come or stayed if I wasn’t ethnically Chinese.’’
Sometimes Beijing’s air pollution and food safety scares make me want to pack up and go home. But the dynamism of a rapidly changing China, coupled with curiosity over what my life might have been if my grandparents hadn’t left, searching for better opportunities, keeps me here.
Chinese friends often confess that if I were white, we probably wouldn’t be so close. Foreigners who are not ethnically Chinese frequently complain about the difficulty of making Chinese friends who aren’t simply interested in practicing English.
The divide between locals and foreigners can be stark. While there are a lucky few who comfortably navigate the two worlds, the chasm is evident in the passport-based lunch circles at multinational companies in Beijing and in the awkwardness of foreigners at karaoke evenings or of Chinese at house parties hosted by foreigners. The segregation extends to the different apartment complexes, supermarkets and bars that cater to Chinese versus foreign tastes.
Growing up, I used to ask my parents why I didn’t have blond hair like my classmates. At my university, I took a class on diasporas in which the professor said everyone should spend some time living in a society where they look different from the mainstream. In China, although I look like that mainstream, I’ve discovered just how Australian I am.
I often find I have much in common with overseas Chinese from countries as diverse as Panama, Mauritius, Denmark, Germany, France, Switzerland, Myanmar, Japan, Singapore and Canada. We get together and laugh about our encounters with Beijing taxi drivers. We argue about what it means to be Chinese and the connection between language and identity. We speculate about why it probably is different for a second-generation Irish-American in Ireland than it is for us in China.
But we seem to agree on one thing: There needs to be an evolution of Chinese identity to include overseas Chinese.
Holly Zhao summed it up when she reflected on her encounter in the Beijing subway, ‘‘You don’t have to be Chinese the way they want you to be.’’
Are you, like the author of this post, “Overseas Chinese” or “hyphenated Chinese”? Share your experiences in the comment space here.
MAY 22, 2013, 9:58 AMOverseas Chinese: A Foreigner at HomeBy SUE-LIN WONGBEIJING — “Your Chinese is terrible! Aren’t you ashamed as a Chinese?’’
‘‘Oh, you’ve come home! That’s wonderful! You can see how the motherland is developing.’’
‘‘I’ve always wanted to know — how do Australians view us Chinese?’’
As a second-generation Chinese-Australian now living in Beijing, I’ve become used to such questions — from taxi drivers to distant Chinese relatives and tourists asking me for directions.
Cities like Beijing and Shanghai are increasingly home to overseas Chinese, as those of us of Chinese descent who are not citizens of China are known. By some estimates, more than 30 percent of the American citizens living in China are of Chinese ethnicity.
For hyphenated Chinese like me, living here presents challenges as well as attractions. The chance to explore our’s roots and discover a country radically different from the one left behind by our parents or grandparents can be as powerful a lure as the job opportunities offered by a rising China.
Yet expectations of some Chinese toward ethnically Chinese foreigners can be disconcerting. There are assumptions that someone who looks Chinese must speak fluent Mandarin and instinctively understand cultural norms that may be peculiar to the contemporary mainland. Both locals and foreigners can be unsure how to categorize us.
Last summer, a Chinese-American friend, Holly Zhao, was squished in a sweltering Beijing subway car and talking distractedly on her cellphone in English when she accidentally stepped on another passenger’s foot. Her apology did little to quell his anger. ‘‘This is China,’’ the man snarled. ‘‘Learn Chinese and then apologize.’’
Li Jinzhao, a specialist in diaspora studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University, says overseas Chinese are often ‘‘blamed directly or indirectly if they look the Chinese language but don’t speak the language. They are seen as a failure of Chinese culture.’’
Overseas Chinese also find they are a part of the complicated racial landscape of China where ‘‘you get five stars if you are a white foreigner, three stars if you’re an overseas Chinese and two stars if you are local Chinese,’’ said Jason Zheng, a Chinese-American who has lived in China for eight years, first as an English teacher, and who now runs several bars and restaurants in Beijing.
‘‘Even though I had two years’ experience teaching English in China,’’ Mr. Zheng said, ‘‘I was told I wasn’t white enough when I went for an interview at Crazy English,’’ referring to a popular language program.
Classified ads in expatriate magazines are filled with advertisements for ‘‘foreign-looking’’ foreigners who can pose as chief executives to enhance the aura of Chinese companies in crucial negotiations, ‘‘white’’ English teachers, and men marketing themselves as a ‘‘Caucasian boyfriend-slash-husband-to-be.’’
Last year, Ross Tan was refused entry to a Beijing club because he could not produce a Chinese identity card, he said. He explained he didn’t have a Chinese identity card because he was born and raised in Australia. But he did have an Australian passport he could present as proof of identity. The bouncer refused him entry but let his five Caucasian friends in without even a glance at their papers.
Two weeks later, during a police crackdown on foreigners without valid paperwork, Mr. Tan was asked to produce his passport, his visa and his residence permit at the very same club. ‘‘So basically, I’m too Chinese to be foreign and too foreign to be Chinese,’’ he said with a sigh.
But this confusion over identity might also be one of China’s attractions to many overseas Chinese. Steven Tao, another Chinese-Australian, sees the advantages of playing to stereotypes.
‘‘You have to know how to use it in different situations depending on who you are interacting with,’’ he said. ‘‘Sometimes, I’ll exaggerate my foreign accent when I speak Chinese. Sometimes, when I’m asked where I’m from, I’ll say ‘I’m Australian, with a Chinese heart.’ ’’
Mr. Zheng, who has investments in several of Beijing’s trendiest restaurants and bars, agrees with the importance of embracing the contradictions. ‘‘In China, I found the American Dream. But I wouldn’t have come or stayed if I wasn’t ethnically Chinese.’’
Sometimes Beijing’s air pollution and food safety scares make me want to pack up and go home. But the dynamism of a rapidly changing China, coupled with curiosity over what my life might have been if my grandparents hadn’t left, searching for better opportunities, keeps me here.
Chinese friends often confess that if I were white, we probably wouldn’t be so close. Foreigners who are not ethnically Chinese frequently complain about the difficulty of making Chinese friends who aren’t simply interested in practicing English.
The divide between locals and foreigners can be stark. While there are a lucky few who comfortably navigate the two worlds, the chasm is evident in the passport-based lunch circles at multinational companies in Beijing and in the awkwardness of foreigners at karaoke evenings or of Chinese at house parties hosted by foreigners. The segregation extends to the different apartment complexes, supermarkets and bars that cater to Chinese versus foreign tastes.
Growing up, I used to ask my parents why I didn’t have blond hair like my classmates. At my university, I took a class on diasporas in which the professor said everyone should spend some time living in a society where they look different from the mainstream. In China, although I look like that mainstream, I’ve discovered just how Australian I am.
I often find I have much in common with overseas Chinese from countries as diverse as Panama, Mauritius, Denmark, Germany, France, Switzerland, Myanmar, Japan, Singapore and Canada. We get together and laugh about our encounters with Beijing taxi drivers. We argue about what it means to be Chinese and the connection between language and identity. We speculate about why it probably is different for a second-generation Irish-American in Ireland than it is for us in China.
But we seem to agree on one thing: There needs to be an evolution of Chinese identity to include overseas Chinese.
Holly Zhao summed it up when she reflected on her encounter in the Beijing subway, ‘‘You don’t have to be Chinese the way they want you to be.’’
Are you, like the author of this post, “Overseas Chinese” or “hyphenated Chinese”? Share your experiences in the comment space here.
Phonemica documents dialects--posted on May 6, 2013
Source: China Digital Times (5/6/13):
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/05/phonemica-documenting-chinas-disappear
ing-dialects/
Up to 40% of China¹s minority languages may be at risk of extinction
< http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/12/extinction-threatens-40-of-chinas-min
ority-languages/ >. Phonemica, a project aiming to document China¹s
threatened languages and dialects through stories told by native speakers,
is currently raising funds through indiegogo
< http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/phonemica >: We¹re a small group of linguists (and a growing group of volunteers) that believe that there is tremendous value in documenting China¹s rapidly disappearing languages and dialects . Phonemica is a project to do exactly that. We are building an open archive of stories from people all over China and the Chinese diaspora, told in the everyday speech of their home towns. [Š] To date we have about 50 recordings. Our goal is to have over 500 recordings up by this time next year. This is an astonishingly large undertaking, and we are working with crowd-sourced, volunteer-generated content. [Š] Language is a window into the human mind. Studying diversity in language helps us understand diversity in culture and how we exist as societies. Sadly, much of China¹s linguistic diversity is being threatened by ever-growing pressure from Standard Mandarin. As a result, fewer people are teaching their mother tongues to their children. One consequence of this is that we¹re quickly approaching a point where children cannot communicate with their grandparents, whose stories will then be lost. The academic side is that, with this loss of linguistic diversity, we are losing opportunities to understand how these languages work, giving us that much less to help us understand how language as a whole works. May 6, 2013 1:09 PM Posted By: Samuel Wade < http://chinadigitaltimes.net/author/samuelwade/ > China Digital Time
http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2013/05/phonemica-documenting-chinas-disappear
ing-dialects/
Up to 40% of China¹s minority languages may be at risk of extinction
< http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2012/12/extinction-threatens-40-of-chinas-min
ority-languages/ >. Phonemica, a project aiming to document China¹s
threatened languages and dialects through stories told by native speakers,
is currently raising funds through indiegogo
< http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/phonemica >: We¹re a small group of linguists (and a growing group of volunteers) that believe that there is tremendous value in documenting China¹s rapidly disappearing languages and dialects . Phonemica is a project to do exactly that. We are building an open archive of stories from people all over China and the Chinese diaspora, told in the everyday speech of their home towns. [Š] To date we have about 50 recordings. Our goal is to have over 500 recordings up by this time next year. This is an astonishingly large undertaking, and we are working with crowd-sourced, volunteer-generated content. [Š] Language is a window into the human mind. Studying diversity in language helps us understand diversity in culture and how we exist as societies. Sadly, much of China¹s linguistic diversity is being threatened by ever-growing pressure from Standard Mandarin. As a result, fewer people are teaching their mother tongues to their children. One consequence of this is that we¹re quickly approaching a point where children cannot communicate with their grandparents, whose stories will then be lost. The academic side is that, with this loss of linguistic diversity, we are losing opportunities to understand how these languages work, giving us that much less to help us understand how language as a whole works. May 6, 2013 1:09 PM Posted By: Samuel Wade < http://chinadigitaltimes.net/author/samuelwade/ > China Digital Time
Carjack victim in Boston bombing event recounts his harrowing night--posted on April 25,2013
http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/04/25/carjack-victim-recounts-his-harrowing-night/BhQWGzarWee8MZ6KtMHJNN/story.html
Carjack victim recounts his harrowing night
By Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff
The 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur had just pulled his new Mercedes to the curb on Brighton Avenue to answer a text when an old sedan swerved behind him, slamming on the brakes. A man in dark clothes got out and approached the passenger window. It was nearly 11 pm last Thursday.
The man rapped on the glass, speaking quickly. Danny, unable to hear him, lowered the window -- and the man reached an arm through, unlocked the door, and climbed in, brandishing a silver handgun.
“Don't be stupid,” he told Danny. He asked if he had followed the news about Monday's Boston Marathon bombings. Danny had, down to the release of the grainy suspect photos less than six hours earlier.
“I did that,” said the man, who would later be identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev. “And I just killed a policeman in Cambridge.”
He ordered Danny to drive -- right on Fordham Road, right again on Commonwealth Avenue -- the beginning of an achingly slow odyssey last Thursday night and Friday morning in which Danny felt the possibility of death pressing on him like a vise.
In an exclusive interview with the Globe on Thursday, Danny -- the victim of the Tsarnaev brothers' much-discussed but previously little-understood carjacking -- filled in some of the last missing pieces in the timeline between the murder of MIT police officer Sean Collier, just before 10:30 pm on April 18, and the Watertown shootout that ended just before 1 am Danny asked that he be identified only by his American nickname.
The story of that night unfolds like a Tarantino movie, bursts of harrowing action laced with dark humor and dialogue absurd for its ordinariness, reminders of just how young the men in the car were. Girls, credit limits for students, the marvels of the Mercedes ML 350 and the iPhone 5, whether anyone still listens to CDs -- all were discussed by the two 26-year-olds and the 19-year-old driving around on a Thursday night.
Danny described 90 harrowing minutes, first with the younger brother following in a second car, then with both brothers in the Mercedes, where they openly discussed driving to New York, though Danny could not make out if they were planning another attack. Throughout the ordeal , he did as they asked while silently analyzing every threatened command, every overheard snatch of dialogue for clues about where and when they might kill him.
“Death is so close to me,” Danny recalled thinking. His life had until that moment seemed ascendant, from a province in central China to graduate school at Northeastern University to a Kendall Square start-up.
“I don't want to die,” he thought. “I have a lot of dreams that haven't come true yet.”
After a zigzagging trek through Brighton, Watertown, and back to Cambridge, Danny would seize his chance for escape at the Shell Station on Memorial Drive, his break turning on two words -- “cash only” -- that had rarely seemed so welcome.
When the younger brother, Dzhokhar, was forced to go inside the Shell Food Mart to pay, older brother Tamerlan put his gun in the door pocket to fiddle with a navigation device -- letting his guard down briefly after a night on the run. Danny then did what he had been rehearsing in his head. In a flash, he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, stepped through, slammed it behind, and sprinted off at an angle that would be a hard shot for any marksman.
“F---!” he heard Tamerlan say, feeling the rush of a near-miss grab at his back, but the man did not follow. Danny reached the haven of a Mobil station across the street, seeking cover in the supply room , shouting for the clerk to call 911.
His quick-thinking escape, authorities say, allowed police to swiftly track down the Mercedes, abating a possible attack by the brothers on New York City and precipitating a wild shootout in Watertown that would seriously wound one officer, kill Tamerlan, and leave a severely injured Dzhokhar hiding in the neighborhood. He was caught the following night, ending a harrowing week across Greater Boston.
Danny spoke softly but steadily in a 2 1/2 hour interview at his Cambridge apartment with a Globe reporter and a Northeastern criminology professor, James Alan Fox, who had counseled Danny after the former graduate student approached his engineering adviser at Northeastern.
Danny, who offered his account only on the condition that the Globe not reveal his Chinese name, said he does not want attention. But he suspects his full name may come out if and when he testifies against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“I don't want to be a famous person talking on the TV,” Danny said, kneading his hands, uncomfortable with the praise he has received from the few friends he has shared the story with, some of whom encouraged him to go public . “I don't feel like a hero. ... I was trying to save myself.”
Danny, trained as an engineer, made scrupulous mental notes of street signs and passing details, even as he abided the older Tsarnaev's command not to study his face.
“Don't look at me!” Tamerlan shouted at one point. “Do you remember my face?”
“No, no, I don't remember anything,” he said.
Tamerlan laughed. “It's like white guys, they look at black guys and think all black guys look the same,” he said. “And maybe you think all white guys look the same.”
“Exactly,” Danny said, though he thought nothing of the sort. It was one of many moments in their mental chess match, Danny playing up his outsider status in America and playing down his wealth -- he claimed the car was older than it was, and he understated his lease payments -- in a desperate hope of extending his life.
Danny had come to the US in 2009 for a master's degree, graduated in January 2012, and returned to China to await a work visa. He came back two months ago, leasing a Mercedes and moving into a high-rise with two Chinese friends while diving into a startup. But he told Tamerlan he was still a student, and that he had been here barely a year. It seemed to help that Tamerlan had trouble understanding even Danny's pronunciation of the word “China.”
“Oh, that's why your English is not very good,” the brother replied, finally figuring it out. “OK, you're Chinese ... I'm a Muslim.”
“Chinese are very friendly to Muslims!” Danny said. “We are so friendly to Muslims.”
When the ordeal had started, Danny prayed it would be a quick robbery. Tamerlan demanded money, but Danny had just $45 in cash -- kept in the armrest -- and a wallet full of plastic. Evidently disappointed to get so little out of holding up a $50,000 car, he told Danny to drive. The old sedan followed.
“Relax,” Tamerlan said, when Danny's nerves made it hard for him to stay in the lane. Danny, recalling the moment, said “my heart is pounding so fast.”
They lapped Brighton and crossed the Charles River into Watertown, following Arsenal Street. Looking through Danny's wallet, Tamerlan asked for his ATM code -- a friend's birthdate.
Directed to a quiet neighborhood in East Watertown, Danny pulled up as told on an unfamiliar side street. The sedan stopped behind him. A man approached -- the skinnier, floppy-haired “Suspect No. 2” in the photos and videos released by investigators earlier that evening -- and Tamerlan got out, ordering Danny into the passenger seat, making it clear if he tried anything he would shoot him. For several minutes, the brothers transferred heavy objects from the smaller car into Danny's SUV. “Luggage, ” Danny thought.
With Tamerlan driving now, Danny in the passenger seat, and Dzhokhar behind Danny, they stopped in Watertown Center so Dzhokhar could withdraw money from the Bank of America ATM using Danny's card. Danny, shivering from fear but claiming to be cold, asked for his jacket. Guarded by just one brother, Danny wondered if this was his chance, but he saw around him only locked storefronts. A police car drove by, lights off.
Tamerlan agreed to retrieve Danny's jacket from the back seat. Danny unbuckled, put on the jacket, then tried to buckle the seatbelt behind him to make an escape easier.
“Don't do that,” Tamerlan said, studying him. “Don't be stupid.”
Danny thought about his burgeoning startup and about a girl he secretly liked in New York. “I think, 'Oh my god, I have no chance to meet you again,' ” he recalled.
Dzhokhar was back now. “We both have guns,” Tamerlan said, though Danny had not seen a second weapon.
He overheard them speak in a foreign language -- “Manhattan” the only intelligible word to him -- and then ask in English if Danny's car could be driven out of state. “What do you mean?” Danny said, confused. “Like New York,” one of the brothers said.
They continued west on Route 20, in the direction of Waltham and Interstate 95, passing a police station. Danny tried to send telepathic messages to the officers inside, imagined dropping and rolling from the moving car.
Tamerlan asked him to turn on and demonstrate the radio. The older brother then quickly flipped through stations, seemingly avoiding the news. He asked if Danny had any CDs. No, he replied, he listens to music on his phone. The tank nearly empty , they stopped at a gas station, but the pumps were closed.
Doubling back, they returned to the Watertown neighborhood -- “Fairfield Street,” Danny saw on the sign this time -- and grabbed a few more things from the parked car, but nothing from the trunk. They put on an instrumental CD that sounded to Danny like a call to prayer.
Suddenly, Danny's iPhone buzzed. A text from his roommate, wondering in Chinese where he was. Barking at Danny for instructions, Tamerlan used an English-to-Chinese app to text a clunky reply. “I am sick. I am sleeping in a friend's place tonight.” In a moment, another text, then a call. No one answered. Seconds later, the phone rang again.
“If you say a single word in Chinese, I will kill you right now,” Tamerlan said. Danny understood. His roommate's boyfriend was on the other end, speaking Mandarin. “I'm sleeping in my friend's home tonight,” Danny replied in English. “I have to go.”
“Good boy,” Tamerlan said. “Good job.”
The SUV headed for the lights of Soldiers Field Road, banking across River Street to the two open gas stations. Dzhokhar went to fill up using Danny's credit card, but quickly knocked on the window. “Cash only,” he said, at least at that hour. Tamerlan peeled off $50.
Danny watched Dzhokhar head to the store, struggling to decide if this was his moment -- until he stopped thinking about it, and let reflexes kick in.
“I was thinking I must do two things: unfasten my seatbelt and open the door and jump out as quick as I can. If I didn't make it, he would kill me right out, he would kill me right away,” Danny said. “I just did it. I did it very fast, using my left hand and right hand simultaneously to open the door, unfasten my seatbelt, jump out...and go.”
The car faced west, upriver. Danny sprinted between the passenger side of the Mercedes and the pumps and darted into the street, not looking back, drawn to the lights of the Mobil.
“I didn't know if it was open or not,” he said. “In that moment, I prayed.”
The brothers took off. The clerk, after brief confusion, dialed 911 on a portable phone, bringing it to Danny in the storeroom. The dispatcher told him to take a deep breath. The officers, arriving in minutes, took his story -- with Danny noting that the car could be tracked by his iPhone and by a two-way Mercedes satellite system known as mbrace. The clerk gave him a bottled water.
After an hour or more talking to authorities -- as the shootout and manhunt erupted in Watertown -- police brought Danny out to East Watertown for a “drive-by lineup,” studying faces of detained suspects in the street from the safety of a cruiser . He recognized none of them. He spent the night talking to local and state police and the FBI, appreciating the kindness of a state trooper who gave him a bagel and coffee. At 3 the next afternoon, they dropped Danny back in Cambridge.
“I think, Tamerlan is dead, I feel good, obviously safer. But the younger brother -- I don't know,” Danny recalled thinking, wondering if Dzhokhar had discovered his address and would come looking for him. But the police knew the wallet and registration were still in the bullet-riddled Mercedes, and that a wounded Dzhokhar had likely not gotten very far. That night, they found him in a boat.
When news of the capture broke last Friday, Danny's roommate called out to him from in front of the living room television. Danny was on the phone at the time, talking to the girl in New York.
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at [email protected] .
China Mourns the Death of a Student in Boston Blast--posted on April 17, 2013
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/world/asia/china-mourns-the-death-of-student-in-boston-blast.html?_r=0
China Mourns the Death of a Student in Boston BlastBy CHRIS BUCKLEYHONG KONG — Mourning for a Chinese student who was the third victim killed in the Boston Marathon bombing rippled across her home country on Wednesday, when Internet sites and news reports described and celebrated a young woman whose ambitions for a career in finance were cut harshly short.
Boston University and the Chinese Consulate General in New York have said the victim was a graduate student at the school, but the consulate said her family asked that no personal details be disclosed. But a classmate, a Chinese university official and a state-run newspaper in her home city have said she was Lu Lingzi, who accompanied a friend to watch the marathon from near where the blasts shook the streets.
Even without government confirmation that Ms. Lu was killed in the bomb blast on Monday, Chinese Internet sites filled with mournful messages about a woman in her mid-20s whose ambitions took her from a rust-belt hometown of Shenyang to Beijing and then the United States. Her account on Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging service used by tens of millions of people in China, attracted more than 10,000 messages, mostly of condolence, in the hours after Chinese media reported her death.
“You are in heaven now, where there are no bombs,” said one typical message.
Ms. Lu’s own final message on Weibo was posted on Monday. Itshowed a picture of a bowl of Chinese fried bread and said, “My wonderful breakfast.” Ms. Lu, shown on her Weibo page as a petite woman with thick, shoulder-length hair, said there that she enjoyed food, music and finance. Other Facebook photos showed her in poses at Toah Nipi, a Christian retreat center in southern New Hampshire.
Although mutual perceptions of China and the United States are often overshadowed by political rancor, Ms. Lu’s death gave a melancholy face to the attraction that America and its colleges exert over many young Chinese. More than 194,000 Chinese students were enrolled in American colleges and universities in the 2011-12 academic year, far exceeding any other country outside the United States, according to the Institute of International Education. And Boston, with its many colleges and the cachet of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has long been a magnet for them.
Ms. Lu, whose résumé lists of a succession of academic achievements and internships with financial firms, appeared to be among the many hoping that an American degree would pave the way to a prestigious job in finance or business. She went to high school in Shenyang in northeast China, a cradle of state-driven industrialization that fell on hard times in the 1990s, and then studied international trade at the Beijing Institute of Technology, and statistics at Boston University, according to her résumé on LinkedIn, a social networking Web site, where she also gave her score on the Graduate Record Examinations.
The American Embassy in Beijing said it had been in contact with the dead woman’s family in China, as well as the family of a graduate student from Chengdu, in southwestern China, who was “gravely wounded” in the blast.
“We stand ready to provide any assistance to the family members to ensure they are able to personally deal with this tragedy as quickly and easily as possible,” an embassy statement said. “Our hearts go out to the families of all victims of this senseless act of violence.”
In China, the Shenyang Evening News, a state-run newspaper that announced Ms. Lu’s death on its Weibo account, darkened its Web page in honor of “A Shenyanger who passed away in a far away place.” An editor at the newspaper said Ms. Lu’s father confirmed his daughter’s death.
At the heart of the public mourning, however, there was a very private grief. Ms. Lu’s classmates, and students at her former college in Beijing, were reluctant to talk publicly about her death, other than to say that they respected her family’s wishes for privacy
A Ph.D. student in the School of Management and Economics, where Ms. Lu once studied, said she was surprised that the Chinese media had disclosed her name.
“Terrorist attacks always seem far away, yet suddenly it was so close,” said the student, who declined to give her name. “Some friends were thinking about applying for further studies in Boston. They’re quite worried.”
Wang Yao, a graduate student, who said she was Ms. Lu’s former classmate, begged reporters to leave the grieving family alone. “They asked to be left alone,” said Ms. Wang. “And that’s also the general understanding among our peer classmates,” she said.
At a daily news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, discussed the Chinese victims, while not releasing the dead student’s name.
“Chinese leaders and the government are very concerned about the tragic death of a Chinese student and the severe injury of another in the Boston Marathon bombing case on April 15th,” Ms. Hua told reporters. She said the surviving student suffered serious injuries, but her “condition is quite stable.”
Additional research by Mia Li and Patrick Zuo in Beijing, and Mary Hui in Hong Kong.
China Mourns the Death of a Student in Boston BlastBy CHRIS BUCKLEYHONG KONG — Mourning for a Chinese student who was the third victim killed in the Boston Marathon bombing rippled across her home country on Wednesday, when Internet sites and news reports described and celebrated a young woman whose ambitions for a career in finance were cut harshly short.
Boston University and the Chinese Consulate General in New York have said the victim was a graduate student at the school, but the consulate said her family asked that no personal details be disclosed. But a classmate, a Chinese university official and a state-run newspaper in her home city have said she was Lu Lingzi, who accompanied a friend to watch the marathon from near where the blasts shook the streets.
Even without government confirmation that Ms. Lu was killed in the bomb blast on Monday, Chinese Internet sites filled with mournful messages about a woman in her mid-20s whose ambitions took her from a rust-belt hometown of Shenyang to Beijing and then the United States. Her account on Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging service used by tens of millions of people in China, attracted more than 10,000 messages, mostly of condolence, in the hours after Chinese media reported her death.
“You are in heaven now, where there are no bombs,” said one typical message.
Ms. Lu’s own final message on Weibo was posted on Monday. Itshowed a picture of a bowl of Chinese fried bread and said, “My wonderful breakfast.” Ms. Lu, shown on her Weibo page as a petite woman with thick, shoulder-length hair, said there that she enjoyed food, music and finance. Other Facebook photos showed her in poses at Toah Nipi, a Christian retreat center in southern New Hampshire.
Although mutual perceptions of China and the United States are often overshadowed by political rancor, Ms. Lu’s death gave a melancholy face to the attraction that America and its colleges exert over many young Chinese. More than 194,000 Chinese students were enrolled in American colleges and universities in the 2011-12 academic year, far exceeding any other country outside the United States, according to the Institute of International Education. And Boston, with its many colleges and the cachet of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has long been a magnet for them.
Ms. Lu, whose résumé lists of a succession of academic achievements and internships with financial firms, appeared to be among the many hoping that an American degree would pave the way to a prestigious job in finance or business. She went to high school in Shenyang in northeast China, a cradle of state-driven industrialization that fell on hard times in the 1990s, and then studied international trade at the Beijing Institute of Technology, and statistics at Boston University, according to her résumé on LinkedIn, a social networking Web site, where she also gave her score on the Graduate Record Examinations.
The American Embassy in Beijing said it had been in contact with the dead woman’s family in China, as well as the family of a graduate student from Chengdu, in southwestern China, who was “gravely wounded” in the blast.
“We stand ready to provide any assistance to the family members to ensure they are able to personally deal with this tragedy as quickly and easily as possible,” an embassy statement said. “Our hearts go out to the families of all victims of this senseless act of violence.”
In China, the Shenyang Evening News, a state-run newspaper that announced Ms. Lu’s death on its Weibo account, darkened its Web page in honor of “A Shenyanger who passed away in a far away place.” An editor at the newspaper said Ms. Lu’s father confirmed his daughter’s death.
At the heart of the public mourning, however, there was a very private grief. Ms. Lu’s classmates, and students at her former college in Beijing, were reluctant to talk publicly about her death, other than to say that they respected her family’s wishes for privacy
A Ph.D. student in the School of Management and Economics, where Ms. Lu once studied, said she was surprised that the Chinese media had disclosed her name.
“Terrorist attacks always seem far away, yet suddenly it was so close,” said the student, who declined to give her name. “Some friends were thinking about applying for further studies in Boston. They’re quite worried.”
Wang Yao, a graduate student, who said she was Ms. Lu’s former classmate, begged reporters to leave the grieving family alone. “They asked to be left alone,” said Ms. Wang. “And that’s also the general understanding among our peer classmates,” she said.
At a daily news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, discussed the Chinese victims, while not releasing the dead student’s name.
“Chinese leaders and the government are very concerned about the tragic death of a Chinese student and the severe injury of another in the Boston Marathon bombing case on April 15th,” Ms. Hua told reporters. She said the surviving student suffered serious injuries, but her “condition is quite stable.”
Additional research by Mia Li and Patrick Zuo in Beijing, and Mary Hui in Hong Kong.
$300 Million Scholarship for Study in China Signals a New Focus--posted on April 20, 2013
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/world/asia/us-financier-backs-china-scholarship-program.html?_r=0
April 20, 2013
$300 Million Scholarship for Study in China Signals a New FocusBy KEITH BRADSHERHONG KONG — The private-equity tycoon Stephen A. Schwarzman, backed by an array of mostly Western blue-chip companies with interests in China, is creating a $300 million scholarship for study in China that he hopes will rival the Rhodes scholarshipin prestige and influence.
The program, whose endowment represents one of the largest single gifts to education in the world and one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever in China, was announced by Mr. Schwarzman in Beijing on Sunday.
The Schwarzman Scholars program will pay all expenses for 200 students each year from around the world for a one-year master’s program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The program’s creation underlines the tremendous importance of China and its market to Wall Street financiers and corporate leaders, who have become increasingly anxious as security and economic frictions grow between China and the West.
Mr. Schwarzman said his goal was to reduce such tensions by educating the world’s future leaders, but his role in the project will also raise his political profile in China, potentially giving him and his private equity firm, the Blackstone Group, increased access to Chinese leaders. Many of them, including Xi Jinping, who became president of China last month, attended Tsinghua, one of the country’s top universities.
Mr. Schwarzman said he was donating $100 million from his personal fortune, which Forbes estimated last month at $6.5 billion. He said he had raised $100 million from donors, and expected to raise the remaining $100 million by the end of this year.
Many of the donors have sprawling business interests in China and frequently deal with government regulators and state-owned enterprises that have wide discretion over the activities of foreign companies.
The donors include Boeing, which is aggressively marketing jets in China, the world’s second-largest aircraft market, and Caterpillar, which sells earth-moving equipment in what has become the world’s largest construction market. They also include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Credit Suisse, which provide financial services to the Chinese government and state-owned banks.
The biggest donor after Mr. Schwarzman is BP, which produces and imports natural gas in China and also has joint venture chemical plants and other operations in the country.
The personal foundation of MayorMichael R. Bloombergof New York is also a donor. Mr. Bloomberg’s media company is trying to lease more news and data terminals to state-owned banks, but it has been stymied by the government since the company’s publication last year of an investigation into the financial dealings of Mr. Xi’s family.
The scholarship’s advisory board is a who’s who of investors, diplomats and other influential figures, some of whom also have political or financial ties to China. It includes three former secretaries of state, Condoleezza Rice, Colin L. Powelland Henry A. Kissinger; two former treasury secretaries, Robert E. Rubinand Henry M. Paulson Jr.; a number of university presidents and cultural figures, including the cellist Yo-Yo Ma; former President Nicolas Sarkozyof France; and the former prime ministers of three countries, Tony Blair of Britain, Kevin Rudd of Australia and Brian Mulroney of Canada.
Many large Western companies have been pressing for closer ties with China even as security experts warn about China’s military expansion and territorial claims, and many smaller businesses and labor groups warn that China seeks to dominate a wide range of industries.
Mr. Schwarzman said his concern was that as long as the Chinese economy grows two to three times as quickly as the American economy, and with European economies barely growing at all, tensions are likely only to rise.
“The idea was to deal with this problem in a generational manner,” he said in a video interview from New York, adding later in an e-mail, “I feel grateful to be able to have the resources to help change future leaders to impact their countries’ and China’s destinies.”
The program plans to take in 10,000 students over the next 50 years, forming an international network that can bridge differences between China and the West, he said. Forty-five percent will come from the United States, 20 percent from China, and 35 percent from Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and the rest of Asia. Africa may be added later.
The scholarship program will not be Mr. Schwarzman’s first major foray into China, where private equity firms like his have been trying to gain entry. In 2007, as he was preparing to take Blackstone public, he sold a $3 billion stake in the company to theChina Investment Corporation, the country’s giant sovereign wealth fund. The deal stirred controversy in China when the value of the stake plunged, along with most stocks, during the global financial crisis, drawing vehement criticism among some Chinese. Chinese leaders brushed off the concerns, and the stock has since nearly recovered when dividends are included.
Mr. Schwarzman said his scholarship program had nothing to do with Blackstone or the China Investment Corporation. “This is a private thing by me, it’s not a Blackstone initiative,” he said.
Mr. Schwarzman, 66, got his start at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, an investment bank later purchased by Credit Suisse. Except for a brief stint in the Army Reserve, he has spent most of his career at two Wall Street giants: Lehman Brothers, whose sale he led in 1984, and then Blackstone, where he is chairman and chief executive. On taking Blackstone public in 2007, he received $4.77 billion when his stake was converted to stock.
His name is also attached to the main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, which was renamed for him afterhe pledged $100 million in 2008, which he has since donated.
When it begins in 2016, the Schwarzman scholarship program will match the 111-year-old Rhodes in the number of students and the size of its endowment.
The Rhodes endowment is worth about $203 million, according to its trustees. It awards grants to 83 scholars a year, who typically study at Oxford for at least two years though some stay on to complete a doctorate, said Dr. John Hood, a former vice chancellor of Oxford who is the chairman of the Rhodes trustees. About 200 scholars are on stipend at any one time.
Cecil John Rhodes, a British colonialist who made a fortune in South African diamond mines, established the program in 1902 to bring scholars to his home country, the leading imperial power of the day. Mr. Schwarzman will be sending scholars largely from the industrialized world to study in a less-developed country that is seen as a rising world power.
The program will be housed in a new facility at Tsinghua, Schwarzman College. Ground breaking is scheduled for late this year, with a design by Robert A. M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture.
Students will live in pods of eight bedrooms with a common living room, a design taken from the executive education program at Harvard Business School. The building will also include 12 residential suites for the dean, director and visiting faculty; a two-story forum resembling the one at the Harvard Kennedy School; an auditorium; and four classrooms.
The program will offer master’s degrees in public policy, international relations, economics, business and, later, engineering. It will start each June with a summer-long immersion program in Chinese culture and issues, and an introduction to Mandarin, followed by a full academic year of courses at Tsinghua.
David Daokui Li, a prominent economist at Tsinghua who is the dean of the new scholars program, said the university already offers a third of its courses in English, and more than half in subjects like business and economics. Coincidentally, the ivy-garlanded Tsinghua University was founded in 1911 with foreign money: the United States chose not to accept part of the indemnities promised by China after the Boxer Rebellion, a nationalist uprising against foreigners that ended in 1901, and instead channeled the money to education.
While Mr. Schwarzman said that his main goal was to promote understanding between China and the rest of the world, he acknowledged another, more personal, motive.
When he was a senior at Yale in 1969, he was turned down for a Rhodes scholarship and advanced to finalist but did not win a two-year fellowship at Cambridge. He ended up going to Harvard Business School and Wall Street instead.
“I didn’t get any of those, and wanted one,” he said.
Now that he has created his own international scholarship program, he said, “Maybe even I might have been selected if I were back at Yale in 1969.”
April 20, 2013
$300 Million Scholarship for Study in China Signals a New FocusBy KEITH BRADSHERHONG KONG — The private-equity tycoon Stephen A. Schwarzman, backed by an array of mostly Western blue-chip companies with interests in China, is creating a $300 million scholarship for study in China that he hopes will rival the Rhodes scholarshipin prestige and influence.
The program, whose endowment represents one of the largest single gifts to education in the world and one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever in China, was announced by Mr. Schwarzman in Beijing on Sunday.
The Schwarzman Scholars program will pay all expenses for 200 students each year from around the world for a one-year master’s program at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The program’s creation underlines the tremendous importance of China and its market to Wall Street financiers and corporate leaders, who have become increasingly anxious as security and economic frictions grow between China and the West.
Mr. Schwarzman said his goal was to reduce such tensions by educating the world’s future leaders, but his role in the project will also raise his political profile in China, potentially giving him and his private equity firm, the Blackstone Group, increased access to Chinese leaders. Many of them, including Xi Jinping, who became president of China last month, attended Tsinghua, one of the country’s top universities.
Mr. Schwarzman said he was donating $100 million from his personal fortune, which Forbes estimated last month at $6.5 billion. He said he had raised $100 million from donors, and expected to raise the remaining $100 million by the end of this year.
Many of the donors have sprawling business interests in China and frequently deal with government regulators and state-owned enterprises that have wide discretion over the activities of foreign companies.
The donors include Boeing, which is aggressively marketing jets in China, the world’s second-largest aircraft market, and Caterpillar, which sells earth-moving equipment in what has become the world’s largest construction market. They also include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Credit Suisse, which provide financial services to the Chinese government and state-owned banks.
The biggest donor after Mr. Schwarzman is BP, which produces and imports natural gas in China and also has joint venture chemical plants and other operations in the country.
The personal foundation of MayorMichael R. Bloombergof New York is also a donor. Mr. Bloomberg’s media company is trying to lease more news and data terminals to state-owned banks, but it has been stymied by the government since the company’s publication last year of an investigation into the financial dealings of Mr. Xi’s family.
The scholarship’s advisory board is a who’s who of investors, diplomats and other influential figures, some of whom also have political or financial ties to China. It includes three former secretaries of state, Condoleezza Rice, Colin L. Powelland Henry A. Kissinger; two former treasury secretaries, Robert E. Rubinand Henry M. Paulson Jr.; a number of university presidents and cultural figures, including the cellist Yo-Yo Ma; former President Nicolas Sarkozyof France; and the former prime ministers of three countries, Tony Blair of Britain, Kevin Rudd of Australia and Brian Mulroney of Canada.
Many large Western companies have been pressing for closer ties with China even as security experts warn about China’s military expansion and territorial claims, and many smaller businesses and labor groups warn that China seeks to dominate a wide range of industries.
Mr. Schwarzman said his concern was that as long as the Chinese economy grows two to three times as quickly as the American economy, and with European economies barely growing at all, tensions are likely only to rise.
“The idea was to deal with this problem in a generational manner,” he said in a video interview from New York, adding later in an e-mail, “I feel grateful to be able to have the resources to help change future leaders to impact their countries’ and China’s destinies.”
The program plans to take in 10,000 students over the next 50 years, forming an international network that can bridge differences between China and the West, he said. Forty-five percent will come from the United States, 20 percent from China, and 35 percent from Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and the rest of Asia. Africa may be added later.
The scholarship program will not be Mr. Schwarzman’s first major foray into China, where private equity firms like his have been trying to gain entry. In 2007, as he was preparing to take Blackstone public, he sold a $3 billion stake in the company to theChina Investment Corporation, the country’s giant sovereign wealth fund. The deal stirred controversy in China when the value of the stake plunged, along with most stocks, during the global financial crisis, drawing vehement criticism among some Chinese. Chinese leaders brushed off the concerns, and the stock has since nearly recovered when dividends are included.
Mr. Schwarzman said his scholarship program had nothing to do with Blackstone or the China Investment Corporation. “This is a private thing by me, it’s not a Blackstone initiative,” he said.
Mr. Schwarzman, 66, got his start at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, an investment bank later purchased by Credit Suisse. Except for a brief stint in the Army Reserve, he has spent most of his career at two Wall Street giants: Lehman Brothers, whose sale he led in 1984, and then Blackstone, where he is chairman and chief executive. On taking Blackstone public in 2007, he received $4.77 billion when his stake was converted to stock.
His name is also attached to the main branch of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue, which was renamed for him afterhe pledged $100 million in 2008, which he has since donated.
When it begins in 2016, the Schwarzman scholarship program will match the 111-year-old Rhodes in the number of students and the size of its endowment.
The Rhodes endowment is worth about $203 million, according to its trustees. It awards grants to 83 scholars a year, who typically study at Oxford for at least two years though some stay on to complete a doctorate, said Dr. John Hood, a former vice chancellor of Oxford who is the chairman of the Rhodes trustees. About 200 scholars are on stipend at any one time.
Cecil John Rhodes, a British colonialist who made a fortune in South African diamond mines, established the program in 1902 to bring scholars to his home country, the leading imperial power of the day. Mr. Schwarzman will be sending scholars largely from the industrialized world to study in a less-developed country that is seen as a rising world power.
The program will be housed in a new facility at Tsinghua, Schwarzman College. Ground breaking is scheduled for late this year, with a design by Robert A. M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture.
Students will live in pods of eight bedrooms with a common living room, a design taken from the executive education program at Harvard Business School. The building will also include 12 residential suites for the dean, director and visiting faculty; a two-story forum resembling the one at the Harvard Kennedy School; an auditorium; and four classrooms.
The program will offer master’s degrees in public policy, international relations, economics, business and, later, engineering. It will start each June with a summer-long immersion program in Chinese culture and issues, and an introduction to Mandarin, followed by a full academic year of courses at Tsinghua.
David Daokui Li, a prominent economist at Tsinghua who is the dean of the new scholars program, said the university already offers a third of its courses in English, and more than half in subjects like business and economics. Coincidentally, the ivy-garlanded Tsinghua University was founded in 1911 with foreign money: the United States chose not to accept part of the indemnities promised by China after the Boxer Rebellion, a nationalist uprising against foreigners that ended in 1901, and instead channeled the money to education.
While Mr. Schwarzman said that his main goal was to promote understanding between China and the rest of the world, he acknowledged another, more personal, motive.
When he was a senior at Yale in 1969, he was turned down for a Rhodes scholarship and advanced to finalist but did not win a two-year fellowship at Cambridge. He ended up going to Harvard Business School and Wall Street instead.
“I didn’t get any of those, and wanted one,” he said.
Now that he has created his own international scholarship program, he said, “Maybe even I might have been selected if I were back at Yale in 1969.”
2013 YANGTZE CONCERT in NYC--posted on March 25, 2013
YANGTZE REPERTORY THEATRE
presents 2013 YANGTZE CONCERT Opera Highlights with XiaoQing He baritone Yong Li bass Hong Dai tenor ChunSheng Zhao tenor Alan Zhou tenor Authur Lai tenor XuFeng Liu soprano Mary HongYu Chen soprano XueZhen Feng soprano Lauren Nicole Haber soprano YiXuan Pang mezzo soprano Piano accompanists: DiHua Lin & Gioacchino Longobardi March 30, 2013 at 7:30 pm Herald Mission Center 156-03 Horace Harding Expressway, Flushing, N.Y. 11367 ADMISSION: $20.00 ($15 each for groups of 10 and above) Tickets available at Chung Hwa Book Co., 135-29 Roosevelt Ave., Flushing, New York 11354 Reservation: [email protected] Telephone: 347-399-2496 |
Chinese 'must swap chopsticks for knife and fork'--posted on March 13, 2013
With 1.4 billion people ploughing through 80 billion pairs of throwaway chopsticks each year, China has admitted its forests can no longer provide enough cutlery for its dinner tables.
"We must change our consumption habits and encourage people to carry their own tableware," said Bo Guangxin, the chairman of Jilin Forestry Industry Group, to his fellow delegates at the National People's Congress.
Pointing out that only 4,000 chopsticks can be carved from a 20-year-old tree, he even went so far as to suggest that restaurants offered metal knives and forks instead.
"We must change our consumption habits and encourage people to carry their own tableware," said Bo Guangxin, the chairman of Jilin Forestry Industry Group, to his fellow delegates at the National People's Congress.
Pointing out that only 4,000 chopsticks can be carved from a 20-year-old tree, he even went so far as to suggest that restaurants offered metal knives and forks instead.
If Mr Bo's suggestion is widely adopted, it would be a dark moment in the chopstick's 4,000-year history.
It was Da Yu, the founder of the Xia dynasty, who is said to have first used two sticks to eat his food in roughly 2100 BC.
It was an invention born of urgency. In his rush to reach a flood zone, Da Yu did not want to wait for his meat in his wok to cool, instead seizing a pair of twigs and wolfing down his meal.
Chopsticks quickly became popular around Asia. However Chinese chopsticks are longer than their Korean and Japanese counterparts in order to reach the communal dishes in the centre of the table. Koreans also often use metal chopsticks because of their love of barbecue.
The fork, meanwhile, is said to have been invented by the Romans, but did not become common in northern Europe until the 18th century.
Catherine de Medici is said to have taken the fork with her from Florence to France in the 16th century, when she married Henri II, along with many of her chefs, a moment that many Italians claim as the genesis of French cuisine.
Today, however, China is chopping down 20 million mature trees a year to feed its disposable chopstick habit, according to Mr Bo.
Nor can China find enough wood in its own forests. China is now the world's largest importer of wood and even imports chopsticks from America, where a company in Georgia realised that the state's native gum wood would be perfectly suited to make the utensil.
A previous estimate from China's state forestry administration, based on statistics from 2004 to 2009, put the yearly total at 57 billion disposable chopsticks, a much lower sum.
It was Da Yu, the founder of the Xia dynasty, who is said to have first used two sticks to eat his food in roughly 2100 BC.
It was an invention born of urgency. In his rush to reach a flood zone, Da Yu did not want to wait for his meat in his wok to cool, instead seizing a pair of twigs and wolfing down his meal.
Chopsticks quickly became popular around Asia. However Chinese chopsticks are longer than their Korean and Japanese counterparts in order to reach the communal dishes in the centre of the table. Koreans also often use metal chopsticks because of their love of barbecue.
The fork, meanwhile, is said to have been invented by the Romans, but did not become common in northern Europe until the 18th century.
Catherine de Medici is said to have taken the fork with her from Florence to France in the 16th century, when she married Henri II, along with many of her chefs, a moment that many Italians claim as the genesis of French cuisine.
Today, however, China is chopping down 20 million mature trees a year to feed its disposable chopstick habit, according to Mr Bo.
Nor can China find enough wood in its own forests. China is now the world's largest importer of wood and even imports chopsticks from America, where a company in Georgia realised that the state's native gum wood would be perfectly suited to make the utensil.
A previous estimate from China's state forestry administration, based on statistics from 2004 to 2009, put the yearly total at 57 billion disposable chopsticks, a much lower sum.