Comments on: When you eat grapes, don't spit the grape skins out.

When you eat grapes, don't spit the grape skins out.

frykitty — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 22:30:15 -0800

The Ting Chinese English Center is a database of tools to learn Mandarin or English, and it's fun to boot. Don't miss the tongue twisters, and try to guess how to pronounce the color before clicking on the sound file.

By: hairyeyeball

hairyeyeball — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 23:03:39 -0800

Cool! Thanks! [Real intelligent comment, huh?].

By: shepd

shepd — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 23:28:16 -0800

ecru... New colour to bug people with! Sweet!

By: eddydamascene

eddydamascene — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 23:48:17 -0800

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?!

By: eddydamascene

eddydamascene — Wed, 30 Apr 2003 23:54:16 -0800

um, that should be: Ni3 cuo4 le. Wo3 bu2 xin4, Ni3 cuo4 le!

By: Poagao

Poagao — Thu, 01 May 2003 01:11:27 -0800

The link in the sidebar says the Mandarin word for fish is "Yue". "Fish is Yue. Yue. Yue. Yue. Yue." Good lord. Maybe it should be "abominable Chinese in three hours".

By: syzygy

syzygy — Thu, 01 May 2003 04:58:24 -0800

Ni hao. Wo yao xue pudonghua. Xieh xieh (for the link). Mandarin is a fascinating language. It is said that one must master only 500 words in Mandarin in order to be 80% fluent. In Mandarin, verb conjugations are extremely simple - there are no separate forms for past tense, future tense, etc. Conjugation is achieved by adding a temporal modifier to the present tense version of verbs. Then you have the tones... and the characters... coming in to make life difficult again... A few more links from my collection (put it together after my trip to China and Mongolia last year): http://www.chineselanguage.org/ http://zhongwen.com/ http://www.mandarintools.com/

By: iconomy

iconomy — Thu, 01 May 2003 05:07:25 -0800

My state is pronounced "busy funya". I totally agree. Great link, thanks frykitty - I'm going to memorize all of the colors.

By: Kevs

Kevs — Thu, 01 May 2003 10:33:32 -0800

syzygy...I agree that Mandarin grammar is not too difficult, but I know far more than 500 words and I'm nowhere near 80% fluent. The problem with Mandarin, too, is that many Chinese outside of a few areas (NE Coast, Beijing) don't speak standard putonghua, so they're very difficult to understand. Thanks for the links, I'll check them out.

By: Poagao

Poagao — Thu, 01 May 2003 18:50:11 -0800

When you have a Taiwanese accent like I do, though, some of the tongue twisters become quite easy to say because all the sh's become s's in "Taiwan Guoyu".

By: casarkos

casarkos — Thu, 01 May 2003 20:34:48 -0800

My mother teaches at a Chinese school in South Florida, where tongue twisters are the bane of every fifth-level student's existence. Nice links, syzygy.

By: linux

linux — Fri, 02 May 2003 16:09:43 -0800

Fish is yu. yu2 (rising tone) Rain is yu. yu3 (down-up) Jade is yu. yu4 (down!) Zhongwen.com is much more useful once you understand the Pinyin system.