More Mandarin Resources!

I always get so excited when I find additional resources for learning Mandarin and I would like to share them with you.

The best one I found recently is: Mandarin Weekly
You can subscribe to http://mandarinweekly.com/ and they will send you an e-mail every Monday with a whole bunch of resources, videos, links, and much more. Each resource also indicates the level of Mandarin it would be appropriate for (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced).

Add caption

Even though I am at the intermediate/advanced level, I sometimes still check out the beginner links to see how certain grammatical things are taught or additional uses for words and phrases.

I like that the site also posts relevant links to current events, such as the Olympics, World Cup Soccer, the Olympics, or even voting!

Mandarin Weekly is also FREE! Once you sign up, it will arrive in your inbox every Monday. =)

One link I found recently was from my Mandarin Weekly was: "10 different ways to say "Good-Bye" in Chinese. Most of them I know, but it's still nice to see some other ones that I might not use but could use.

https://ninchanese.com/blog/2016/09/27/10-ways-to-say-goodbye-in-mandarin/

Maybe it's because I'm a teacher... but once I open a link, then I find another related link, and before you know it, I have 10 different links open on different things!

I really like reading up on a lot of different things, but my time is limited and I have to be mindful with my time too. But it's nice that I can easily find an old post in my e-mail and read it when I have the time.

This summer was a really good summer in where I really pushed myself to the next level. I'll share in another post on how I think I moved past intermediate and into advanced Mandarin (maybe... early advanced!)

Thanks for reading!

4 Years Later! CSET in Mandarin Passed! Full-time job found! Credential is Cleared!

Hello again! It has been so long that I had almost forgotten that I had started my blog 4 years ago as I was in the process of obtaining my Bilingual Authorization for Mandarin. Thank you Facebook the ability to "share my memories".

Well, fast forward 4 years later... I passed the CSET exams in Mandarin and received my bilingual authorization in 2012 and found a position teaching Mandarin Immersion on San Diego the following year!

Who knew that I would be where I am today, I for one didn't think so. Even after graduating with my Masters degree did not help finding a job. I am very glad I finished while I still had tuition reimbursement at my other job. Sadly, tuition continues to rise even as I type this...

Sometimes you just have to take a chance... and that's what I did in 2013 when I attending a workshop at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. I was still working part time for the Orange County Department of Education (reviewing Mandarin Curriculum) when I came across a workshop specifically for Mandarin-Immersion teachers! That's a rarity in itself! I decided, what do I have to lose? I will fork over the $125.00 and see what I get.

On that day of the workshop I met teachers, principals, and administrators from far and wide. Some who had a Mandarin program while others were interested in starting one. It was a great chance to network as I was still looking for that "full-time teaching job" in order to "clear" my credential. I will write another post on clearing your credential for those of you who are curious. =) Here's the post for it. Clearing your Credential in California

The keynote speaker that day was Dr. Lilly Cheng of SDSU's Confucius Institute. You can read more about her here. She is a tiny woman with a lot of "fire and spunk".  I was immediately drawn to her knowledge and enthusiasm for teaching Mandarin. Back in 2013 I was still in my early days of learning more about Mandarin and all the components of it. One of her examples was the word: 合 which means cooperation and this word comes from 3 smaller words: 人，一，口.  The word means people 人，one 一 ， and mouth 口 essentially translating to cooperation and unity of working together. Chinese can be a very literal language with its meaning that I find ways to remember it easier.

At the end of that workshop, I was pooped out... and I had thought about going home right at 3pm. But at the moment, I thought I would ask her if she knew of any job opportunities. I had already asked around with some of the other principals that day but most were only considering the program or none had any teaching positions available. Finally, I got the nerve to ask the keynote speaker Dr. Cheng if she knew of any job opportunities. I told her I had my preliminary teaching credential, my masters, and my Mandarin authorization, plus I spoke both Cantonese and Mandarin. After chatting for a few minutes about my background and asked if I would be willing to move to San Diego. I said, "Sure, why not." (I had already thought about moving overseas to teach English at the time). Then she immediately called a principal and gave a nice little spiel about me being, "a young lady here who would be a great candidate for your school." She passed the phone to me and continued with networking.

From there, I interviewed and met with the principal and Dr. Cheng again at another workshop. I was hired to teach a self-contained 1st grade class, teaching both Mandarin and English.

The rest is history... Here I am now entering my 4th year as a Mandarin teacher. I have been teaching Kindergarten Mandarin for the last 2 years and it will be my 3rd year.

I am thankful for all the opportunities along the way and all the people I have met who have continued to support me in this quest to teach Mandarin.

A later post to come on visiting China, studying abroad, and finding a Mandarin class locally as well.

Thanks for reading! =)

"Clearing" you credential in California

Most people don't understand how it works... even I didn't really understand it at the time.

Anyhow, when you complete your credential program in California, it is only PRELIMINARY. That means you have 5 years from the time your receive your preliminary credential to "CLEAR" it.
By clearing it, you have one of two options.

1. Find a full-time teaching job in a public school and complete the district's induction program. It is usually two years and is free. This means that you will have to go to class once a week I believe. I don't really know because I did not choose this route.

**Some districts like San Diego Unified have another option within this option that cuts the induction program time to one year if you have been teaching full-time at least a year I believe.

2. This option costs money. But for me, the money was worth the time I saved by not have to drive to campus and allowed me to complete the classes completely online during the semester I chose. I picked summer because I don't see how anyone in their right might would want to do during the school year! But it is doable as I had 3 of my co-workers do it during the school year! Kudos to them.

For me, I chose this because I was already under so much stress with teaching Mandarin and having a lot of health issues at the time.

I have gotten used to online classes and like that I can do my assignments at my convenience.

The program at SDSU cost roughly $2000ish, all of which was paid incrementally during the program.

**Other universities also offer this option usually when you can't find that full-time teaching position or your district is so small that it does not have an Induction Program. Concordia University is one option. However, they require proof that your district does not offer an induction program.

For more information you can visit the California Teacher Credentialing (CTC) website here.

So as of Jan 2016, my credential is cleared! It is now good for 5 years... then you have to renew and pay money... that's all they really want... money.

If you have not cleared your preliminary and your expiration date is coming up soon, just go to the CTC website and file for an extension. For $75.00 you can file for a 3-year extension. I found it better to file for the extension before it expires, otherwise things can get a little complicated.
 

我每天都需要練習我的中文 or 我需要每天練習我的中文

Okay, here we go! Onto my 4th posting. The title in Chinese basically states that "I need to practice my Chinese everyday" or "Every day I need to practice my Chinese".

If you are serious about learning Chinese, then you REALLY NEED to take this to heart!

I'm finding that if I don't practice my writing everyday, I forget it quite easily. Part of the reason is that my whole day is surrounded with English, except at night when I want the Chinese News or any of the Chinese dramas.

I bought the Rosetta Stone in Mandarin, but have only used it once since I need to physically sit down with in on my netbook. If it was available on the iPad, it would be a little more convenient. I hope to get back on track with that soon.

But I truly believe with Chinese or any language is that, "If you don't use it, you lose it!". You don't lose all of it, but certain components of it. Every time I stop and resume my Chinese studies, it's a little rusty at first, but it seems to improve as well. But I think if I were to continue studying a little bit each day, it would progressively get better and better without having to relapse. Chinese is one of those languages where sometimes you just have to memorize it for what it is. Just because. And that's all I can say.

I've recently started to learn more about parts of words and their meanings and how they create words and their meanings. Sometimes I feel like it's similar to learning Greek and Latin roots. Prefixes and Suffixes. Once you learn those, you can usually decipher a word. (But there are some words that don't follow that, it is what it is.  Have you ever watched the National Spelling Bee Competition? Some if not most of those words are really hard! But usually you will see each contestant ask for the word origin. By doing so, they can figure out a spelling pattern).

Okay, back to practicing every day. Over time, I have noticed that some of my friends can understand their native language, but can no longer speak it. This was always puzzling to me. But I came to realize that if you didn't continue to speak a language, your body forgets. It's like, "How do I make that sound?" of "How do I say that word?". I was lucky enough that my grandma had no choice but to speak her native language since she didn't speak much English. Even though it's been less that a year since she's passed away, I wonder if I will lose some of my Taishanese because I am not speaking it everyday. I know when I went up to San Francisco Chinatown back in February, I could still understand and speak it.

So writing in Chinese everyday seems to help things stick better. Why? Well when you are writing, you are in a sense reading it silently/subconsciously to make sure it make sense or sounds right. By writing, you are remembering how the word looks, how to write it correctly, and how the word is used.

My ultimate goal would to be able to read a Chinese Newspaper one day. At the current moment, I can read the date and parts of headlines...

Since my last post was about PinYin, here are two links that are from a Children's Chinese Newspaper that has Traditional Chinese text and Pinyin right above it. So if you can read the Pinyin and have a general understanding of Chinese words and vocabulary, then you can figure out the meaning. It took a little adjustment, but I got the gist of it. Then I decided to re-read it for more practice. I think writing it out would be even more beneficial.

If you want, you can always print it up and take with you to practice your reading.

http://blog.huayuworld.org/gallery/8542/pdf1.pdf

*The title in Chinese translates to: Why do I want to learn Chinese now? Referring to a young adult like me who learned some when they were younger, but not enough to really get anywhere with it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/MLN002-520.pdf

*This is an 8 page pdf that was created by the Mandarin Learning Newspaper. Too bad they are no longer in print. Otherwise I would have subscribed! But this is a great resource to learn more vocabulary instead of just the basic repetition exercises of "How are you?" (你好嗎?) and what not. It's still good practice as kids learn through repetition and patterns as well. Just think how preschoolers and young children learn through songs and stories with a pattern. =)
(P.S. If you want to print this up, make sure you have it "fit to page", otherwise the borders will be cut off!).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://blog.huayuworld.org/MLNUSA

*This is the main website of the publications above. Feel free to search the site for other things to read in Chinese. I tried e-mailing them for more information, but it seems like it doesn't work. If anyone has any updated information about that site, please let me know!

Chinese Pronunciation: PinYin (Romanization) or ZhuYin (BoPoMoFo)

I went to Chinese school and was taught the Taiwan system of ZhuYin or BoPoMoFo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ). This is basically the way where you learn how to pronounce and read words in Chinese. It was good in that there was a way to learn how to pronounce it. But for me, it made become dependent on it (which means I can't read a lot of words without it). But once again that was due to the lack of reinforcement and studying at home and the variations between Cantonese and Mandarin (often times they don't even coincide), but I didn't learn the differences until an adult). Part of my quest in learning more Mandarin now is the remember words with out the PinYin.

The PinYin (Romanization) system is the method used in China where there is an English equivalent pronunciation in a sense. But you must first learn the sounds first before you put them together to form a word. As you study and learn more Chinese, you will start to understand the similarities and differences in sounds. It's complicated at first and takes time to master some of these sounds. But that's only because you weren't used to making those sounds. If you already had some background in Chinese, this should be easier for you to pick up.

If you think about it, English is similar in some ways. There is the 26 alphabet that we learn to form words and to eventually read them. After a while, we get used to spelling patterns and are able to read. But we also learn to expand our vocabulary which is an essential component of reading comprehension.
In both methods, there are consonants, vowels, and of course, always exceptions to the rules.
Check out this link that explains the correspondence between the two.
http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~nsw/chinese/pinyin.htm

So learning the way to pronounce and say words is one thing, but now you have to learn what it means. So in Chinese, we have many (and I mean MANY) different words with similar sounds! That makes it challenging at times. But once again, practicing is essential. Easier said than done...

This past weekend, I started learning about the PinYin system and how it works. For me, it's an easy adjustment with all the books I purchased this year to learn Chinese. It comes a little bit quicker than using the ZhuYin method simply because I am so used to reading in English! But if you were to ask me to "spell" something in either method, I wouldn't be able to do much.

Over time, you just get used to reading it in that language.

Another way that I have found to improve my Chinese reading comprehension and speaking pronunciation is to translate or find PinYin translations of my favorite Chinese pop songs. Not only will you learn to sing it, you will start making sense of more Chinese words and phrases! There are so many Chinese songs where I like the melody and what not, but only have a vague idea of what they were singing. After I translate it, the songs makes much more sense! It's like an, "Ah-ha!" moment. =)

What does the HSK Level Mean?

It never occurred to me what HSK actually meant. I saw it all the time and eventually figured out that it just meant the level of difficulty. But today I decided to find what the acronym stood for as many of the words I am finding online to study are often HSK Level 1 or 2, which translates to the most basic levels. However, I am ready to move beyond Level 1 and 2.

HSK stands for: Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi 漢語水平考試.  Its literal translation means: Chinese Proficiency Test. According to Wikipedia, it is the equivalent to the English TOEFL test. This is China's standardized test for non-native speakers (foreign students, overseas Chinese, and ethnic minority Chinese).
You can read more about it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi

Here's a website with test information, vocabulary, and practice tests for each level as well. There is also an audio portion in the test. The materials on this site include the pdf practice test and mp3 audio files. This is definitely good test prep!
http://www.chinaeducenter.com/en/exams.php

In the US, if you want to become authorized to teach Mandarin or any other foreign language, you will need to pass the CSET. It's probably not as intense as the HSK, but it is still difficult. Trust me! You basically need to show that you can read, write, speak, and understand (listening) Chinese... But I'll cover the CSET stuff in another post.

On my quest to find more ways to study a few Chinese vocabulary words a day, I found a Chinese vocabulary web feeder that puts up 10 Chinese vocabulary words a day with the definition. If you have gmail (which most people do I think), you can add it to your Google Reader and just check it daily. It also has the previous days vocabulary words. I'm not sure how far it goes back, but so far it seems to go back to the first day I subscribed. **What's also great is that you can pick the HSK Level words that you want. If you only want level 3, you can get that. If you want ALL 6 levels, you can get that too. I chose all 6 levels and every day I get words from various levels.

This is the site with instructions the explanation of the web feed and how to use it.:
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=feedhowto

This is the site if you would like to receive the "10 Chinese words per day web feed". I think I already have 100+ words on my Google Reader! A lot of the words are actually new to me since I have been studying the easier words. But lately I've been getting a lot of HSK Level 5 & 6 words. Hmmm. I wonder if I should just do one or two levels at a time. What do you think?
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=feeds

Learning Chinese is not the easiest thing in the world...

Here begins my new quest for learning Mandarin!

Yes, Chinese is not the easiest language in the world to learn... but it can be done! Chinese (Taishanese, Cantonese, and Mandarin) are all tonal languages with a logographic writing system. What does that mean? Before the English Romanization system came about, you either knew the word or you didn't. Not only that, you also had to say it right!
There are 4 tones in Chinese (sometimes there is a 5th neutral tone). Anyway, the most common example is the "ma" sound. Depending on how you say it, it could mean: mom (媽), hemp (麻), horse (馬), scold (罵), or a question particle (嗎).
So this is not the language where, "You say potato, I say "potato".

I grew up in a bilingual family where English was not my first or second language.It was actually my third. My grandparents are from Taishan 台山, from the Guangdong Province in China. So my first language was Taishanese, followed by Cantonese which my parents spoke. Then I went to preschool and began learning some English. I also remember watching Sesame Street on PBS.

I know I was delayed in speaking, but that was only because I was trying to process and understand 3 languages at an early age. However, this would not be an issue later on as my early exposure led to me be more aware of sounds that were similar yet different.

Once I began elementary school, my parents signed me up for Chinese school. It was on Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning (later I switched to a different school that was only on Saturday mornings). It wasn't initially too bad. I started to dread it when I could no longer sleep in on Saturday mornings and had to miss my Saturday morning cartoons. I guess the only perk was stopping off at the donut to get ANY donut of my choice before going to Chinese school.

Believe it or not, I attended Chinese school up until my sophomore year in high school. I came to the realization that my learning had reached a plateau and that my reading was still heavily dependent on the pinyin method. AKA: the Zhuying or Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) system.


Even though Chinese school seemed like a drag, I'm thankful that I stuck with it. My dad also reminded me of the importance of knowing more than one language. I only wish (and most others would agree if they went to some sort Chinese school) that I studied harder. 
But studying is only half the battle! For me, I think it was my lack of reinforcement at home, plus the fact that there are many similarities in Cantonese and Mandarin, but so MANY differences as well.


Ok, enough of that.

Onto my purpose for this blog. I am now a graduate student and wanting to obtain my Bilingual Authorization so that I can teach in Mandarin as well. After traveling 4 times to Asia in the last decade has also sparked a desire to get my Mandarin better than just the basic conversational level.

So basically this blog is to share my progress in Mandarin as I use the Rosetta Stone program, online resources (that I have found helpful and insightful), books I have bought and used, and a tutor. My main focus is to improve my reading comprehension.However speaking, writing, and listening is just as important! Time to boost my Chinese vocabulary! 我要學中文了!

Enjoy!


P.S. I'll probably post some things about Chinese culture as well...things like holidays, traditions, and food!