中文

sssooo...... it's like 2am on Saturday the 22nd of December in the year 2007 A.D. and I'm dead tired, but can't sleep. *shocker* ( O.O ) So yeah... I was all like totally conked out on the floor around 12:30... then got up in search of warmer/comfier/more traditional sleeping accommodations.... and then found I was in the exhausted but can't sleep mode..... for the third month in a row. It really is annoying now that I am on break ~ for an entirely too-short 3 week break that is already 1/3 over :( *bad thoughts disappear* ~ because very very very soon I'll be back to overload stress levels with approximately 20 to 21 credit hours this semester. I will be attempting to avoid most of the Int'l students on campus come Spring '08 semester. Since I have no idea how to say, "No, I'm about to self-combust, I'm up to my hair follicles in my own work, I simply cannot help you." I have to try the duck and cover method.... (加油 - 芙蓉!!) ;) lol
Anyways.... and so... here I am. At 2:30am completely unable to sleep. ~ And when one can't sleep, what would any sane person do, but write on their blog!? (Duh!)



Yay - Learning Chinese is Fun - No - Seriously!!

I'm not kidding. I'm really starting to enjoy learning Chinese again. This semester has been great if for nothing else than I'm excited about it again.

During the course of this semester, I helped an Master's in Education student complete a project she had to conduct for one of her grad classes. She had to teach me some things that would be helpful for me in Taiwan. And then gather data and a whole bunch of information then do a final presentation in front of the class. It was a lot of fun.

The first thing on our list was Taiwanese phonics, because she cannot use the Chinese pinyin that I learned in a 1 semester, slightly lackluster culture/language class that was offered at the university. So - I memorized all 32 different sounds that are presented in the Taiwanese phonics... they start off something like this... these sounds are presented more in the pinyin style than in English phonetics.... But it'll give you a small idea of what you start with.

ba - pa - ma - fa - da - ta - na - la - ga - ka - ha - gi - qi - xi - jr - qr - xr - ri ......


Okay - Well I'm glad the image worked out... this is what the actual characters of the Taiwanese phonics look like.

Frankly, you just have to memorize them - just like the Chinese characters. This is not a language for people with bad memories. I was blessed with a pretty good memory, and I still have trouble remembering everything. I sure hope this gets easier when I move to Taiwan.... If it doesn't, I'm moving to Korea, permanently instead of just temporarily.

Okay-a ~ This has been a short introduction to what I learned at the beginning of this semester. I'm still trying to figure out how to type in Traditional characters which are the ones I'm learning to write since Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong and some other Chinese speaking communities persist in using versus the much easier Simplified that is used in mainland China. *cry* Anyways. Once I have mustered up a little bit of knowledge, I will continue to show you what I have been learning. :D I really am very excited about it. Especially now that it's break and I no longer feel guilty or that I'm procrastinating by working on Chinese rather than doing my other boring homework. :(

Okay - I finally begin to feel sleepy, so I will try and take advantage of this fact and go in search of "The Sandman".

~ Happy Sleeping to All - And to All a Good Sleeping ~

- Cheers