老師的建意

好久我沒開我的電腦。一邊我覺得每天看Email 很麻煩， 一邊我的生活不是貼我的臉螢幕上。 不過現代的社會要每一個人知道怎麼用電腦，否則不一定可以找工作。

最近我看“痞子英雄”，那偶像節目非常糟糕可是我不得不看， 臺灣人都看完了。

雖然我有作業很多， 我沒有動因寫。
一方面我覺得太無聊，一方面我的舌很痛。舌上有小小的點似乎一個小小的包包。我不能過癮我吃的菜。

我鼻子塞， 所以這周我一定不會發音的對。 這沒關係，反正我說的話大部份不好。如果我想好的事情的話我一定閉嘴。否則有風險被我的身份展示。

Getting the tones right

Today in class, I was rather embarrassed. True that I did not get formal training for the most basic stuff, nor do I think it is necessary, but when it comes to tones, I can hear them from time to time, but really am unable to reproduce them.
As we were practicing 繞口令 or tongue twisters, the teacher made me start over and over on lines like 四十四 and so on。 later 44zhishishizi of the like. ( i will find the characters some time - hey my taking notes this semester is rather off...) In a nutshell, all i want to say there are few times that the tones are really crucial, but the number of combinations, with more less proper pronunciation makes one understandable. Context is important. if you have a map and you ask for a place named 衡芬（not that there is any to my knowledge) 在哪裡？ People will not think that you are looking for a pink object 粉紅。。。

Other tools for learning Chinese

This entry does not have much to it, but I realised that the only way that one can really learning something is by enjoying. OK, that may be a false presumption, but the torturing nature of the Practical Audio Visual Chinese- its poor translations, dialogue, vocab, grammar structure, makes it unbearable at times.
(there really should be no English and let the students figure out the meaning of the vocabulary or grammar for themselves)

Anyway, here is my latest computer transformation :　蘋果日報 = 國語日報 !!!

Having the pronunciation of every character, rather than constantly using Chinese Pera Kun, may force me to think of the meaning of a character by a pronunciation that I already know.

Going to bars is not really my thing lately, so I am trying to take more time to read. Children`s books are sometimes too difficult, due to the vocabulary of specific historical elements, but sometimes really boring as well. I just discovered that the passion of millions of kids and adults around the world can be used (efficiently - i hope so) for learning a language. This mostly due to motivation. Read comics.
Given my level is still quite low, it is more cost effective for me to buy second hand ones and read them at home. Going to a manga café may be a plan in the near future.
Comic books give an impression of natural language. Common grammar use in normal frequency makes it a lot easier to get how it is used and what it can mean.

Chinese fonts with Pinyin

For those of you looking for a way to improve your electronic Chinese reading experience, I came across a set of fonts that include phonetics.
I am making entry of this for two reasons :

1. To see if there are actually any benefits to using the software ( fonts ).
2. When providing information, avoid using spaces!

The latter may need some explanations.

Looking for pinyin 拼音 zhuyin注音 fonts 字型 or 字體 i came across this

文鼎 注音小博士 2

my searches for Pinyin on top, or font with Pinyin did not provide much until.... I am not quite sure. Ｉwill probably get this package in a proper manner, but it is better than the alternative. or here http://www.china-guide.com/software/characte.html


This may also interest you, but i do not have enough disk space to download it!
華康字型百科全書—SWF黃金版


So why am I making an entry on downloading Chinese fonts?　good question, but feel I wasted so much time looking for them that hope you do not do the same as me!

If you take the time to get this 文鼎 注音小博士 2 package, which includes setting up a GoGobox Account etc! (ｒｅｑｕｉｒｅｓ　ＩＥ－　ｂｌｅｈ　）

the full password is (without quotes) "☆請尊重智慧財產權☆【kib56056】"
yest you need the space at the end. I not have the file open and hope to look around to see it it's worth my while. A lot of posters complained, so would have I if had not read other's comments!

My next challenge is to convert these fonts such that the whole can be used throughout my operating system. Ｉthink it will take less resources than the ＭＤＢＧ reader (about 250 MB ＲＡＭ　！）