Mandarin Learner: Best of the Web for March 13th through April 29th

My collection of Mandarin Chinese links for March 13th through April 29th:

  • Leiden Weibo Corpus – The Leiden Weibo Corpus, which consists of 5,103,566 messages posted on Sina Weibo in January 2012.
  • AllSet Learning Pinyin for the iPad – The AllSet Learning Pinyin chart for the iPad makes pinyin study easy and enjoyable. The interface is simple, clean, and ad-free. Every pinyin syllable has audio (just tap on a syllable to hear a native speaker recording), and toggling between the four different tones of Mandarin Chinese is easy.
  • Introducing HanziJS – Chinese characters consist of radicals, which are the fundamental building blocks of each character. However, until now there was no way to automatically dissect them without consulting dictionaries, random websites and other untrustworthy sources.
  • ‘Beijing Beijing’ by Wang Feng – Music video with lyrics in Chinese, Pinyin and English
  • Chinese Learner Interview Series: Kellen Parker – Kellen is a published linguist with a background in linguistics and philosophy. He spent time wrestling with languages like Albanian and Arabic before coming to China and re-focusing his efforts on Mandarin.

Mandarin Learner: Best of the Web for February 12th through March 10th

My collection of Mandarin Chinese links for February 12th through March 10th:

Mandarin Lesson: Playing Mahjong

ChinesePod Video Lesson – Playing Mahjong (Upper Intermediate) from ChinesePod on Vimeo.

I’ve never played Mahjong, but at least now I’ll be able to understand what is going on should I ever get the oportunity. This lesson marks the start of ChinesePod’s latest foray into video lessons and, for now at least, the lesson is free for all to enjoy.

Have you ever played Mahjong? If so, would you recommend I learn? I’ve yet to meet someone who speaks positively of the game.

China-friendly link for this lesson: Tudou

给我讲一个笑话

重视中文音调

小姐,睡觉一晚多少钱?
小姐,水饺一碗多少钱?


source: SumoCat on Weibo

大象在车里

问题一:如何把一只大象放进冰箱?
答案:一,把冰箱门打开,二,把大象放进去,三,把门关上。

问题二:如何把一只老虎放进冰箱?
答案:一,把冰箱门打开,二,把大象拿出来,三把老虎放进去,四,把门关上。


source: 圣骑士晓云 on Weibo

你是谁

小王考生物试。他上次考不过了。这次他真要考过好了。但是有一道题特别难。最难的问题是看鸟的脚,回答鸟的名字。小王对一个鸟看一会儿,但是他真不知道那个名字是什么。小王快站起来说:“真麻烦”。他准备离开教室,但是他的老师问:“你是谁?叫什么名字?”。小王吧裤子脱掉了,说:“你猜啊,你猜啊!”


re-told from A Leggy Joke, courtesy of ChinesePod

Naming Twitter (in Mandarin Chinese)

I learned a new phrase this morning, if you can call it a phrase; 叽叽喳喳 (jī jī zhā zhā). Before I tell you the meaning, read it out loud a couple of times, I’ll wait.

jī jī zhā zhā, jī jī zhā zhā

It is the sound of birds.

When asked how you’d translate 叽叽喳喳 (jī jī zhā zhā) into English I went with, “tweeting”. The response was instant, “Oh so that’s where tweeting comes from.”

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