全新版进阶英语translation

1、MandarinMadness:TheBy 1 Ive been in China for long enough nowMandarinMadness:TheBy 1 Ive been in China for long enough now to be embarrassed by my lack of mandarin skills (and I havent even mentioned my non-existent character reading comprehension!). going to blame thefact that all my lessons Iwas p

2、romised by companies I worked for always through, then Im going to blame language schools for not teaching Chinese like I teach whichisfunand involves dancing.Im definitely not going to point out that Ive been hopeless sticking to aself-motivated independent mandarinstudyprogram. SoI have manygood b

3、ut Ithinkthebest excusebyfaristhat mandarinhas tonesandtones. Andtones, well,theydontmakesenseto2 Now, my hearing of tones is, quite frankly, appalling. Tell me one word in 4 different which then makes 4 different words and I just dont get it at all, they all sound the same to On the other hand, wri

4、te it down in pinyin so I can see the tones and I aint ever going to Unfortunately, the tones are generally not taught in this manner; tones are just said at me andoveragainandIstillcanthearthe3 Even when I listen to my audio of the initials, finals and tones on the metro every morning, me it just s

5、ounds like strange animal noises, I cant even comprehend you use these to differentwords. Imevenmore baffled bythefactthat ifyou pronouncesomethingeven differentthemeaningiscompletelydifferent,causingstupidforeignerslikemyselftoorder candy (tng 糖) instead of soup (tng 汤). Now, I love candy as much a

6、s the next butIdontfancyeatingitfor4 I once had a 15-year-old student share his thoughts on why most foreigners dont speak mandarin.“Itsthetones,”hesaid.“Youjustdontgetthem.Youhavetohaveayellowtonguebe able to pronounce the tones right, thats why other Asians pick up Chinese better westerners.”WOOT!

7、Hegavemeareasontosuckattones,mytongueisntyellow5 Now, that being said, despite us foreigners obvious physical disadvantage with5 Now, that being said, despite us foreigners obvious physical disadvantage with the tones still vitalthat wework ongetting them right so we cancommunicate, even though inmo

8、st even if you royally screw up atone the Chinesecan generally understandby context. But do really want to run the risk of completely confusing someone to such an extent they end refusing to speak to all foreigners because of you and your terrible mispronunciation Shanghaitaxidriverthatrefusedtospea

9、ktoIdiscoveredthesecrettotonespeaking6Tonesaredifficult to grasp,but what I discovered isthey dont have tobe,as longas youin the mind of a child like I do (which I blame on the fact I spend most of my day talking 6-year-olds).So,howdochildrenlearn?HowdoIteachchildrenEnglish?Throughallthefunrhyme,son

10、gandaction,of7I figured ifthat worksforkids, why wouldntthatwork foradults?So, what did I do?Iboughtchildrenspoetry book.Now,howischildrenspoetry going to teachme about mandarin andtones? Well, not only will I learn to speakcutesy mandarin and get agrasp on Chinese but its also fantastic for practic

11、ing tones, because rhyming and singing tones is so much memorablethanjustdullyrepeating8 So without further ado, the childrens poem of the week is as follows. I suggest you readingitoutloudandgetthatperfectbeforetranslatingitintoEnglish,becauseitsoundsjustfunnytranslatedthatyouwillbelaughingsohardyo

12、uwontevengetonetoneChineseSong9 A fantastic way to9 A fantastic way to not only learn pronunciation and vocabulary is to learn Chinese pop AlsoyouwillgetalotofcredifyoucanbustoutaChineseballadat10 The first Chinese song I memorised was Sh nin by Chn Yxn 陈奕迅, because onlyisiteasy,butitjustmakesyourheartswellwhenyousing11 So, now Ive decided Im going to take this whole learning mandarin business more look forward to more rants about