April 24, 2008

Sixth Assignment

I'm not posting the 5th assignment here, but jumping right on to the 6th.

For this one, my teacher asked me to retell a legend, myth, or story from my own country in Chinese.  I went for the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.  It's a fair bit shorter than the previous assignments I did.  That's partly because the story itself isn't that long (I followed the format it appears in most children's books), and partly because I had to write 3 wen zhang that week.

我不能说谎话

今天我讲一个关于诚实的故事。

乔洁•华盛顿小时候收到过一件礼物，是一把小斧头。他喜欢它。有一天，他在玩的时候，不小心用那把小斧头砍倒了一棵樱桃树。可是那棵树是他爸爸很爱惜的一棵。

乔洁•华盛顿的爸爸回来的时候，看到那棵树被砍倒了，他又伤心又生气。他就问儿子：“那棵樱桃树被砍倒了。你可以告诉我发生了什么事吗？”

乔洁•华盛顿回答说：“我不能说谎。就是我不小心砍倒的。”

他爸爸为了那棵树有点伤心，可是他的儿子说了真话却让他感到非常骄傲。

这个故事告诉我们：诚实是最好的品质。
Posted by poetically challenged at 13:00:16 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

April 22, 2008

EXHAUSTED

It's been a tiring week on the language learning front.  I wrote two essays last week that are longer than what I've been writing, with more complex ideas.  The first was about 500-600 characters (comparable to 800-1000 words in English, roughly).  It was a comparison between the attitudes of Chinese, Singaporeans, and Americans toward privacy.  It was tough to write, and even tougher to correct after feedback from my teacher.  Basically, the teacher I wrote it for is not really a writing teacher, and her feedback was not as helpful as I needed.  I asked my other teacher (a real writer), and she was obviously upset with the feedback I had gotten.  I ended up feeling quite confused and frustrated with it all.  I asked a friend for help last night, and I think we got it into quite a nice workable form.  After help from 3 different people, and spending at least 10 hours on it, I am finally satisfied with it.  Sigh.  

The other essay was slightly shorter — probably about 400 characters +/- a bit.  It was about the Olympics.  After having spent so much time revising the "privacy" essay, my teacher and I did not finish going through corrections on this one, but only covered about half of it.  She pointed out some areas that need work, and my assignment for this week is to rework it on my own (the last half, the first half we did together) and take it back to her next Monday.  It will be fun to see if I can figure out a way to improve it on my own.

I am tired right now, though.  It has been an exhausting week of language studies.
Posted by poetically challenged at 14:57:49 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

April 14, 2008

The Fourth Passage

This is the fourth "wenzhang" I wrote for the class I am taking now.  I've almost lost count of how many I've written altogether at this point, but it seems like it should be right about a dozen now.

In this one, I was required to describe the school where I teach in Singapore. It didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted, but I think it was an important one for me to write.  After I finished it, I recognized what I wanted to do differently in my subsequent writing for my class, and I think my work has generally improved since then.  I still have a long way to go, of course, but it is better now than before, and I think this particular "wenzhang" helped me turn a bit of a corner in my Chinese writing.


新加坡工商管理大学

工商管理大学是在新加坡排名第四个大学；是第一个完全私利的学校。现在大约有8000个学生。自从2005年以来，已经有6000左右学生从那里毕业。

新加坡工商管理大学有大概40个学位课程；有四个系：理工系，工商系，人文社科系和心理教育系。工商系是最大的，几乎百分之四十的学生是读工商的。

工商管理大学跟新加坡其它的大学有一点不同。别的大学的学生都20岁左右；可是我们的学生都是已经工作了很多年的。我的每个学生几乎都比我大几年；有的甚至和我父母亲差不多大。他们可能以前没有机会读书，因为在他们学龄时，新加坡只有两所大学。那时侯，有机会在国内读大学很难得；只有百分之五的新加坡人能进自己国家的大学。现在，因为有了新加坡工商管理大学，能够继续读书的机会就比较多了。

虽然新加坡工商管理大学不是新加坡最大的，最著名的学校，可是我依然很喜欢在那里教书。我也为越来越多的新加坡人能够有机会去大学读书而感到高兴！



What I don't quite like about this "wenzhang" is the more personal tone that it takes.  While I had to continue with this tone/voice for the subsequent assignment (which I won't be posting here), I did learn from this one that it is something I wanted to work on.  I've managed to approach most of the other assignments since then from a slightly more distant perspective — including one that I actually needed to "revert back" to the personal tone.  I'm still working on being able to make the switch more smoothly, as and when it is needed, but I think this has helped me get some practice on an area that I've been weak in in the past.  Since it is an area that shows up more in formal situations (like writing), I think the exercises have helped me sort of stretch the boundaries on my use of the language.
Posted by poetically challenged at 22:51:39 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

April 10, 2008

A Child's Way of Learning Language, and an Adult's Way

When children begin learning to write Chinese, it is not uncommon that they will start memorizing phrases and inserting them into their "wen zhang" to make their writing more "beautiful."   It is part of how they learn to use the language.

An adult can't approach language learning in the same way.  An adult already has his/her thinking more developed than a child does, and so works in the opposite direction, so to speak.  For a child, the thinking and the language grow together.  For an adult, his or her ideas are already somewhat developed, and s/he needs only learn how to best express those.  

Adult language learners should not take a childish approach to language learning.  As a friend of mine who teaches English to adult learners says all the time, to do so is to waste the benefits of being an adult.  And, even worse, it puts the adult working in an area of weakness for the adult brain.

It makes more sense, then, to capitalize on the strengths of the adult mind, and work at language learning with a whole different approach from that which children need.
Posted by poetically challenged at 00:38:03 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

April 08, 2008

Travel

The third essay I had to write for my class was sort of a strange assignment.  My textbook had two separate questions.  One was "when you travel, do you like to take a lot of things, or fewer things?," and the other was "tell about a travel experience you've had."  My teacher asked me to combine the two questions into one short passage.  I found it odd to combine the two into one, but here is what I came up with:

去旅行

我现在去旅行的时候，从不喜欢带很多东西。以前我带的东西不少，可是最近几年有所改变。可能是因为我要常常出国，觉得带很多东西太麻烦了。行李很难装又很沉。而且现在不管去哪儿，日用品都买得着，除此之外其它的东西都不那么重要了。

可是两三年前，我去湖南的时候，发生了一件很好笑的事情。我和两个朋友一起去。一个像我一样，不喜欢带太多东西；一个什么都带。我们两个怕麻烦的就笑话那位带很多东西的朋友。我们觉得最好笑的是她竟然带了一个电吹风。我们问她：“你带电吹风来干什么？你知道吗？我们去爬山，哪里有时间打扮？这个电吹风是用不着的。”

但是我们第一天去爬山就遇到了大雨。到山上的时候，我们三个人的鞋子都湿透了。吃了晚饭以后，我们去房间用那位朋友的电吹风把鞋子吹干了。虽然我们两个一整天都在笑话她，但是她还愿意给我们用她的电吹风。辛好她不是那种很小器的人！

经过了这件事情，可能我应该再考虑一下。。。或许那位不怕麻烦的朋友的做法比较好。去旅行的时候，带足东西其实也是很好的习惯。
Posted by poetically challenged at 20:11:42 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

April 04, 2008

My favourite sports activity

I am behind schedule on posting the passages I've been writing for Chinese class.  This is only the second I'm posting, but I've already written 7-8!  

The topic I was assigned here is to write about my favourite sports activity.  I wrote about cycling.  

For this piece, my teacher assigned 12 words, and I had to use at least 6 of them in the body of the passage I wrote.  I think I managed to use all but one or two.  



我最喜欢的运动

我什么运动都喜欢参加，也喜欢看球赛。我爸爸的专业是体育学，我能不喜欢看球赛吗？只要有球赛，我爸爸就看，所以小时候我老是和他一起去看球赛，也参加过很多种运动。直到现在，如果朋友们让我去看球赛或参加体育活动，我都很难拒绝。

我最喜欢的运动是骑自行车。骑车既对身体好又很方便。骑车跟其它的运动有一点不同。别的运动要参加的话，要有专门的时间或地方去做才行， 但是骑车是随时随地都可以做的。因此，我觉得骑车很随意，而且有时候你要去的地方公车和地铁都到不了。这种情况下骑车比坐公车还要方便。

以前我老是骑自行车。不管天气晴朗或下雨，我都骑车。朋友们都说我是“自行车迷。“ 可是我最近买了一辆汽车，不那么经常去骑车了。其实我还是比较喜欢骑车的，但我也没办法。我的两个外甥每年来跟我住三个月。他们还小，不能在大路上骑车，所以我一定要开车带他们去玩。我当然很愿意为了他们暂时搁置我的爱好，不过他们在我这儿的时候，我们也偶尔一起去骑自行车。虽然开车比骑车方便一点，可是骑车对身体好。开车呢。。。说实话，自从我开始开车，我就觉得我变得懒惰了。

其实，常常运动是好习惯。不方便骑车的时候，我应该跟孩子们一起去参加其它的体育活动。
Posted by poetically challenged at 21:50:59 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |