Search found 9 matches

by ken tao
Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:20 pm
Forum: Chinese language
Topic: I want to learn Chinese and visit China.
Replies: 9
Views: 64506

Re: I want to learn Chinese and visit China.

Get a good road based travel book.They have basic expressions for everyday situations, and use them when the situation comes up. Body language, hand signals, and a sketch pad help bridge the communication divide. Everyone will want to talk English with you so you often can pick up a fast friend to g...
by ken tao
Tue Feb 22, 2011 11:04 pm
Forum: Mandarin language forum
Topic: Chinese Shorthand Method
Replies: 1
Views: 31589

Re: Chinese Shorthand Method

---Chinese Shorthand/中文速記---I have been developing a model for an interactive Chinese digital input and hand scripting shorthand method for a few years now. My name is Ken Tao and I love to play with language! Using my knowledge of Chinese inputting methods, I feel I have succeeded in finding a form...
by ken tao
Tue Feb 15, 2011 4:29 am
Forum: Mandarin language forum
Topic: Chinese Shorthand Method
Replies: 1
Views: 31589

Chinese Shorthand Method

Ideas for Chinese Shorthand: I am developing a shorthand method for Chinese based on positioning phonetic symbols on a simple format grid. Want to know if anyone else can share some ideas for inscribing and inputting Chinese using a standardized shorthand reduction system.
by ken tao
Sun Feb 13, 2011 5:03 am
Forum: Mandarin language forum
Topic: An interesting Chinese radical
Replies: 2
Views: 39955

Re: An interesting Chinese radical

:| If you put a hill山 across a hill山 you get the character go there出. The ideogram indicates find a way into the valley between?!
by ken tao
Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:39 am
Forum: Language exchange
Topic: 0
Replies: 1
Views: 28464

Re: Cultural exchange——

Have a great Chinese New Year. Hop to it in the year of the Rabbit 2011. The 100th year of the Chinese Republic. Gong Xi Fa Cai. 8)
by ken tao
Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:12 pm
Forum: Mandarin language forum
Topic: what do you think of china
Replies: 5
Views: 55765

Re: what do you think of china

I've been living in Taiwan for over twenty years, and have traveled in Mainland China, and other places in the Greater China community. The Chinese collective way of doing things is intense, and seems to be the preferred lifestyle for the 21st Century! :idea:
by ken tao
Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:03 pm
Forum: Mandarin language forum
Topic: Is it really impossible to be fluent in chinese for laowais?
Replies: 3
Views: 48176

Chinese is "in the box"

-The big problem of learning Chinese is the immense amount of idiom and multigrams required to understand meaning. There are few diction correlatives with indo-european languages, so unless you have immense memory like Rain Man, you have to spend all your time learning the multitude of ways to say e...
by ken tao
Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:15 am
Forum: Chinese language
Topic: Difference between Mandarin & Chinese
Replies: 5
Views: 27414

Re: Difference between Mandarin & Chinese

My take on the more general topic of Chinese as Mandarin spoken in the Beijing pronunciation and sound. There are actually many dialects, and variations within dialects in Chinese, both within Mainland China, and in all of Greater China. The movement to regionalism has always been a theme in Chinese...
by ken tao
Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:26 am
Forum: Cantonese language forum
Topic: Cantonese or Mandarin
Replies: 10
Views: 71117

Re: Cantonese or Mandarin/Tang or Han

As a native white New Yorker, in my childhood I only heard Cantonese spoken. The Tang Tongue was therefore the sound of Chinese Language to me. Later on there was an influx of Mandarin speakers where I lived in Flushing, NY, so I began to learn Han Chinese from my 'Hua Qiao" friends in preparat...