337 days to go (my secret weapon)
Ta shuo - "ni shi hen congming"
Wo shuo - "bu shi. wo you hen haode laoshi"
She said - "You are very clever"
I said - "Not am. I have very good teacher"
Having spawned the Espanola, Arabic and Dutch challenges, I feel it is only fair that all contestants should have access to my secret weapon.
It's a book called "The Third Ear" by Chris Lonsdale (unpublished, but due out in 2005) and if you want to learn a new language, you can not do better than to buy this book. One of the ideas it discusses is that there are about 60 basic words (the book refers to them as "glue" words) around which sentences are constructed. I, you, he, she. What, how, when, why. If, so, but, because. Big, small, tall, short. Hot, cold etc.
Get these into your head, and you can start to construct basic conversations, even with a very limited vocabulary. That thing is hot. Where is that place? Who is that? He is tall and round so his clothes are big but she is short and not round so her clothes are small.
So I'm sitting there at Sasuks Cafe today (Qingdao does not have Starbucks, we only get Sasuks - but that's okay because in a world of rampant intellectual property theft it looks, feels, smells and tastes just like Starbucks!) working on my "glue" words. Trying to create a "memory hook" (another great concept from the book) for each word.
Round = Yuan (with a rising tone). Hmm.
Well, the logo for Sasbucks is round (looking remarkably like the Starbucks' logo to be honest) and the Yuan is the chinese currency. And the coffee at Sasbuck's is pretty expensive, so it's like lots of Yuan. Bingo.
Round = circle = logo like Sasbucks = expensive coffee = money = yuan.
Each memory hook takes between 15 seconds and five minutes to create (depending on how quickly the idea pops into your head), so you'll need about two hours to learn 60 words which will allow you to have just about any (very basic) conversation you want. Brilliant!
I'll let interested parties know how you can get a copy of the book over the internet just as soon as it is published.
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Vega & Saki ... "xiexie nimen. nimen shi hen haode pengyoumen"
Non-Chinese Speakers ... xiexie is thanks, "men" just makes a pronoun (he, she, you etc) plural, pengyou is friend. That's all you need (plus the bit at the top) to translate the above sentence.
7 Comments:
paulie, do you still check your email? :)
have you moved-moved to qingdao? what about your job?
anyway, drop me a line - you know my email address. but kudos to you, that's a great thing you're doing, can't wait to see how it turns out! -zay!-
p.s. where'd you get this "unoffical" copy of the book?
Hey, paulie, where can i get that book? I am starting german now and really really wanna do it well in a way that I can study in Germany the year after....
xiexie!
Yeah, I may have to grab a copy of the book. My Turkish is going nowhere fast...
Hey there... Read this post after reading about it on Mazzy's blog. Like her, my French is going nowhere that fast! Am definitely interested also, but how did you come across it if it hasn't been published yet?
I'm interested! My New Years resolution to apply myself to Slovak isn't coming along as much as I'd like, and I'm taking on the Spanish challenge in the 2nd half of the year.
Good luck with Mandarin Paulie!
The author of the book, Chris, is a good friend of mine who is based in Hong Kong, although originally from New Zealand (he is your typical westerner, but speaks Mandarin and Cantonese just like a native). He was kind enough to show me a draft of the book, for which I am very appreciative.
I have checked with him and the book will be available over the internet later this year ... will keep you all posted.
Thanks paulie. If you don't mind, I might also add you blog as a link on mine. Will definitely be interesting following your quest :)
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