Books on Mandarin language

There's obviously tons of books out there to teach Mandarin Chinese (普通話), but finding books that have the Traditional Characters (繁體字) is rare.  In searching for text books to get cozy with, the best book I came across is one from Taiwan called Practical Audio-Visual Chinese, 2nd Edition.  There's a whole series.

Many will undoubtedly argue against this, but I prefer Traditional Chinese characters (繁體字)  over Simplified Chinese characters (正體字) for three reasons:

1. first, the traditional characters are more artistic and culturally significant; 
2. secondly, it is easier to go from Traditional to Simplified; and 
3. thirdly, there's greater utility for traditional characters.

For latter reason, many will argue that this is not true because of the sheer number of Mandarin speakers (1st or 2nd language) in mainland China.  But given that it is easier to move to simplified characters from Traditional,  I can more easily maneuver to Simplified characters used in mainland China, and also into Japanese Kanji (日本漢字), which has different simplified characters of their own.  Additionally, I can build vocabulary in Korean, as many borrowed words can be referenced in Korean Hanja (韓國漢字), which uses traditional characters.  Naturally, in either Taiwan (台灣) and Hong Kong (香港), I can understand traditional characters.  Thus with traditional characters, my utility extends to all of East Asia, where Simplified extends to parts of mainland China.

Books for Learning Cantonese

There aren't too many books on Cantonese, and the ones out there have too many short-comings to count.  Any book that does not include Chinese characters (漢字) is simply less than worthless.  There's no common script to communicate with native speakers, needed to help coach one into speaking the sounds correctly, or to leverage off of existing Mandarin knowledge.  Many books have bizarre schemes for romanization (roman letters used to represent Cantonese) rather than the commonly used Yale, or the newer promulgated Jyutping.  Out of the limited set of books out there, there are two I found to be the most valuable: Cantonese Phrasebook by Lonely Planet, and A Cantonese Book.

The lonely planet book is comprehensive and detailed, and goes through the basic grammar, and shows the actual Chinese characters used.  I highly recommend this book.

The downside though, is that they invent their own romanization scheme, which is problematic, especially when using other material, or trying to use some input tool, like John Burket's CantoInput java application.

The A Cantonese Book is really awesome, but also uses some homegrown romanization scheme as well, and I think they do not document the initials and finals properly.  What I like is that they have drills to help distinguish unique Cantonese sound properly, which is an invaluable tool.


For a comprehensive list of published resources, check out:
http://lc.ust.hk/HASALD/newsletter/96newsletter/96geoff.htm.

I'm an American Student in Hong Kong

I'm just dabbling in Cantonese.  Here's a sample sentence of "I'm an American student":

Cantonese:

• 我係美國學生喺香港。
• ngó hai méi-gwok hok-sàang hái hèung-góng

Mandarin:

• 我是美國學生在香港。
• wǒ shì měi-guó xué-shēng zài xiāng-gǎng.

What do I do when tired

Now if you are tired in Japan, what do you do?  You can rest or sleep to fix being tired.  Resting as understood by a native speaker would mean sitting down, while sleeping is really just that, sleeping.


I need to rest.
休まなくちゃいけない。

I need to sleep.

ねなくちゃいけない。
寝なくちゃいけない。
寝るしなければいけない。

Feeling Tired In Japanese

One of my cognitive stumbling blocks when going from English is to express being tired, which is quoted from Mac OS X Dictionary:

tired |tīrd|
adjective
in need of sleep or rest; wear

In Spanish we have SEUÑO and CONSADO, and in Japanese we have NEMUI and TSUKARETA.

Here's different usages in Japanese:

(1)
運動したから、疲つかれた。
After doing exercise, I am tired.

(2)
薬を飲んだので、眠ねむい。
I took medicine, so I feel tired now.

(3)
花粉のせいで眠い。
The pollens cause me to feel tired.

(4)
昨日、暑くて眠れなかったので、疲れた。
Because last night was so hot, I couldn't sleep, so now I am tired 

Seogang University's Program

In all my studies in C-J-K (Chinese-Japanese-Korean) and Romance Languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish), Seogang University has by far the best language program I have come across for any language.  They focus on quality rather than quantity, and their reputation proceeds them.  Undoubtedly, if you ask around, you'll find accolades and high recommendations for the program.

In the class, you'll find students constantly pushed to the edge through competition and the use of games.  Each lesson is exhausting, with memorization of 80+ vocabulary words for even beginner courses.  After the 3rd week though, I was able to start understanding people in the street and ask them basic questions.  Now in USA, when I speak with Koreans, they think I am fluent, as I am conversent and my pronunciation is accurate.  I shock them when I tell them I'm in 일급 (Level 1).

Now the books are something really special.  They are very well organized with related grammar and vocabulary organized through miniature dialogs that can be directly applied in the streets after practicing them.  This is sharp contrast to other Korean language programs, or even Japanese texts for Japanese, where one studies disjointed grammar rules with sparse vocabulary, and only polite formal speech patterns useful in speaking only to the teacher, or other esteemed persons.

The topics and patterns I think are a good model to follow for not only Korean, but Japanese as well.  So, if you have any Japanese background, the organization in these books are great for organizing Japanese studies as well.

Japanese Text Books = 悪い

I don't want to say Japanese books are bad, but they perhaps are not as mature as let's say textbooks for Spanish or French.  Often they follow the rigid philosophy that one must memorize tombs of grammar before speaking, enforce extreme formal polite pattern of speech useful to speaking only to sensei (teacher), and have topics used in perhaps 1% of situations one will encounter in Japan.  Sure, I'm sure going to the post office or hospital are important, but I don't see this as a common conversation topic useful in practicing grammar, especially for beginners.

An even greater problem is the introduction of grammar rules.  For one, they are not aligned to what you would take in JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Exams).  Secondly their introduction is both disjointed and incomplete, which limits their usefulness.  The grammar rules become little islets in these texts.  I think many might find it difficult to connect the scattered grammar rules.  (I'll show specific examples in future posts).

These texts like Genki and SFJ (Situational Functional Japanese) make learning Japanese difficult and inefficient.  Unfortunately though, these texts are probably some of the best text books out there.